My Friend the Chauffeur
believe if I were to go blind, and somebody should lead me into the
garden of the Villa Serbelloni without telling me where I was, I should
know by that wonderful perfume. I can't imagine its being the same
anywhere else.
At the sound of our motor several people came out to the door of the
long, white, crescent-shaped building, and among them, to my great
pleasure, was the Prince.
"How late you are!" he exclaimed, coming to help me out before Sir
Ralph, or a very handsome young man who was the manager of the hotel,
had time to do it. "I've been expecting you for the last two hours. Do
you know that it's nearly nine o'clock? I began to be afraid something
had happened."
"What a pity you didn't think of that in Milan!" snapped Beechy. "Did
you get Mamma to make a will in your favour last night?"
"My dear young lady, what do you mean?" implored the poor Prince.
"I guess you'd know that without asking, if you'd come the way we have,
instead of taking boats and things all over the place," giggled the
impossible child, and then complained out aloud that I was pinching her.
Naturally, the Prince was too dignified to bandy words with a naughty
little girl, so he didn't pursue the subject further, but began
inquiring particulars of our adventures as we went into the house
together.
"Do you know why I was especially anxious to arrive ahead of you?" he
asked me, in a low voice.
"I think I remember your explaining last night," said I.
"Ah, but I didn't give my most important reasons. I kept them for your
ears alone; and I hope you won't be displeased. Do you remember telling
me something about to-morrow?"
I thought for a moment. "Do you mean that it will be my birthday?" I
asked.
"I mean nothing else. Did you imagine that I would forget?"
To tell the truth, I hoped he had, for I'd only mentioned it on an
impulse, to regret the words as soon as they were out. A woman who
is--well, I'll say over twenty-eight--had, perhaps, better let "sleeping
dogs lie" when it comes to talking about birthdays, especially if she
has a daughter who doesn't sleep, and never lies when she's wanted to.
However, out the news had popped about the 30th of April being my
birthday, and the Prince would hardly believe that I was as much as
twenty-nine, though, of course, there is Beechy, and I couldn't well
have married younger than fifteen. I murmured something now about a
birthday being of no consequence (I wish it weren't), but the Prince
said that mine was of a great deal to him, and he had made exertions to
arrive early and arrange a little surprise for me.
"I will say no more," he went on. "You will know the rest to-morrow; but
the best, not until evening."
I could think of nothing during dinner except what he had said, though
it was so late, and I'd been so hungry. And afterwards, standing on the
balcony outside my bedroom window looking down on a scene of fairy-like
beauty, the wonderful white moonlight and thoughts of the Prince seemed
to mingle together in my head, like some intoxicating draught. "Countess
Dalmar, Princess Dalmar-Kalm," I kept saying over to myself, until the
words wove themselves into a song in my brain, with the scent of the
flowers for accompaniment.
The whole house seems to have absorbed the perfumes of the garden, as if
they had soaked into the wood. The corridors, the bedrooms, the
wardrobes, even the chests of drawers, have the same delicate fragrance.
It scented my dreams and told me where we were when I waked in the
morning, confused with sleep.
XVI
A CHAPTER OF ENCHANTMENT
A birthday _must_ be happy spent in such an exquisite place, I told
myself, when I'd got up and peeped out of the window upon a land of
enchantment--even a birthday more advanced than one would choose. By
morning light the lake was no longer sapphire, but had taken on a
brilliant, opaque blue, like _lapis lazuli_. Umbrella pines were
stretched in dark, jagged lines on an azure background. Black cypresses
pointed warning fingers heavenward, rising tall and slim and solemn, out
of a pink cloud of almond blossoms. The mountains towering round the
lake, as if to protect its beauty with a kind of loving selfishness, had
their green or rugged brown sides softened with a purplish glow like the
bloom on a grape. And in the garden that flowed in waves of radiant
colour from terrace to terrace, as water flows over a weir, roses and
starry clematis, amethyst wistaria, rosy azalea, and a thousand lovely
things I'd never seen before, mingled tints as in a mosaic of jewels.
I had lain awake in the night listening to a bird which I could almost
have believed a fairy, and, though I'd never heard a nightingale, I
wondered if he could be one. He said over and over again, through the
white hours perfumed with roses and flooded with moonlight: "Do look, do
look! Spirit, spirit, spirit!" And so, just in case he might have been
calling me, I got up early to see what he had wanted me to see. Then I
was gladder than ever that we had decided to spend at least that day and
another night at Serbelloni, for one might journey to all four corners
of the globe and not find another place so magically beautiful.
Although I was up so early, perhaps I spent a longer time over my toilet
than the two girls do over theirs; and when I was ready neither Maida
nor Beechy were in their rooms. I had opened my door to go down and look
for them when I came face to face with a waiter carrying an enormous
bouquet. It was for me, with a perfectly lovely poem written by the
Prince. At least, it was in his handwriting, so I suppose it was by him,
and it was full of pretty allusions to an "adorable woman," with praises
for the gracious day that gave her to the world. I _was_ pleased! It was
like going back and being a young girl again, and I could have sung for
joy, as the bird did last night.
The rest of the party were on an entrancing terrace, looking down over
other flowery terraces upon the town of Bellagio, with its charming old
campanile, and its grey roofs like a flock of doves clustering together
on the border of the lake. The water was so clear and still that the big
hotels and villas on the opposite shore seemed to have fallen in head
down, and each little red-and-white canopied boat waiting for passengers
at the quay had its double in the bright blue mirror. Clouds and
mountains were all reflected too, and it seemed as if one might take
one's choice between the real world and the dream world.
Maida and Beechy had already been for a walk with Sir Ralph and Mr.
Barrymore, who had taken them up by a labyrinth of wooded paths to an
old ruined castle which they described as crowning the head of the
promontory. It had been built by the Romans, and in the Middle Ages was
the stronghold of brigands, who captured beautiful ladies and terrorized
the whole country. The girls were excited about some secret passages
which they had found, leading down from the ruin to wonderful nooks
screened on one side by trees and hanging over sheer abysses on the
other. They wanted to show also an old chapel and a monks' burying
ground which you had to reach by scrambling down a narrow stairway
attached to the precipitous rocks, like a spider web. But I had on my
white _suede_ shoes with the Louis Quinze heels, which look so well with
a white dress and dark blue silk stockings; besides, I began to want my
breakfast, and it would have been impolite to disappear before I thanked
the Prince, who might come out at any moment.
We had our coffee and rolls in a kind of bower close to the terrace; and
afterwards I did walk along the level path, fenced in with a tangle of
roses--pink, and white, and gold, and crimson--as far as a high shelf,
cut into the face of the sheer cliff which plunges vertically down, down
into the blue-green water. The Prince was my companion, and he (who has
distinguished friends in the neighbourhood, which he has visited before)
told me a strange story of the place. Once, he said, the Princes of
Stanga were lords of the land here, and a certain daughter of the house
was famous as the handsomest and cruellest Princess of her time. Despite
her dreadful disposition, she had crowds of lovers, whom she used to
invite to walk with her by moonlight, after a _tete-a-tete_ supper. She
would lead them to this very spot on which we stood, and just as she had
lured them on to make a burning declaration of love she would give a
laugh, and a sudden push, which hurled them to death in the lake far
below. How different, judging from what I have read in the ladies'
magazines, from the home-life of our dear Princesses of to-day! And how
different from _my_ habits, if I am asked to become, and do become, a
Princess. I should have liked to throw out some delicate little
suggestion of this sort, and perhaps would have found the right words,
had not Beechy appeared at that moment with Sir Ralph. Then my whole
attention was taken up, as it had been during breakfast, by tactfully
staving off any allusion on the Prince's part to my birthday. All was in
vain, however; he said something gallant, and I was quite as giddy for a
few seconds as one of the wicked Princess's lovers, lest Beechy should
be in an impish mood and throw out allusions to my age. But she was as
good as a kitten, though she looked at me in a naughty way, and only
said, "Would any one believe Mamma was twenty-nine to-day--if it weren't
for Me?"
When we went indoors afterwards I gave her that ruby heart ring of mine
that she likes.
All day long we were busy doing agreeable things. We lunched down by the
lake shore, in the garden of a big hotel there, and afterwards were
rowed across to Cadenabbia, in one of the canopied boats, to visit the
Villa Carlotta in its wonderful terraced garden. I was delighted with
the boat and the man who rowed us, in his white clothes and scarlet
sash, but the Prince half-whispered in my ear that he was going to show
me something better in the evening, when the time came for the "birthday
surprise" about which I must please say nothing--not even to Beechy.
We had coffee at the most idyllic spot imaginable, which we reached by
leaving the boat and mounting rather a steep path that went up beside a
baby cascade. At the top was a shady terrace, with arbours of grape
vines and roses, and a peasant's house, where the people live who waited
upon us. We had thick cream for our coffee, and delicious stuff with
raisins in it and sugar on top, which was neither bread nor cake. I
wanted the recipe for it, but I didn't like to get any one to ask; and
perhaps it wouldn't taste the same in Denver. Oh dear me, I begin to
think there are lots of things that won't taste the same in Denver! But
I _should_ love better than anything to go back with a high title, and
see what some of those society women, who turned up their noses at me
when I was only Mrs. Simon Kidder, would do then. There isn't one who
has a right to put crowns on her baggage or anywhere else, and I've got
that already, whatever happens by and by.
We were rowed back to Bellagio again, and climbed up by a short cut to
the Villa Serbelloni just in time to escape a storm on the lake. In a
flower-draped cave above our favourite terrace, we sat in garden chairs
and watched the effect, while Mr. Barrymore and Sir Ralph talked about
Pliny, whose statue was nearby, and some strange old general of
Napoleon's who lived for awhile at the Villa Serbolloni, and terrorized
people who wanted him to pay his debts, by keeping fierce, hungry
bloodhounds to patrol the place night and day.
When you are nicely sheltered, to watch rain falling in the distance,
and marching like troops of grey ghosts along the sky, is something like
watching other people's troubles comfortably, while you are happy