My Friend the Chauffeur
tongue of hero and author, all of which I've diligently studied every
evening. Mr. Barrymore, on the contrary, speaks perfectly. I believe he
could even think in Italian if he liked; nevertheless _I_ could
understand a great deal that the thin giant said, while _he_ apparently
was hopelessly puzzled.
Even without an accompaniment of words, the policeman's pantomime was so
expressive, I fancy I should have guessed his meaning. With the grieved
dignity of a father taking to task an erring child, he taxed us with
having damaged a cart and injured a horse, causing it to run away. He
pointed to the distance. With an arching gesture he illustrated a mound
of hay (or clover?) rising from the vehicle; with a quick outward thrust
of hands and widespread fingers he pictured the alarm and frantic rush
of the horse; he showed us the creature running, then falling, then
limping as if hurt; he touched his knees to indicate the place of the
wound. What could the most elementary intelligence need more to
comprehend? Certainly it was enough for the crowd collected about us;
but it was not enough for Mr. Barrymore, who is an Irishman, and
cleverer about everything than any man I ever met. He sat still, with an
absolutely vacant though conscientious look on his face, as if he were
trying hard to snatch at an idea, but hadn't succeeded. When the
policeman finished, Mr. Barrymore sadly shook his head. "I wonder what
you mean?" he murmured mildly in English.
The Italian retold the story, his companion throwing a word into a pause
now and then. Both patient men articulated with such careful nicety that
the syllables fell from their mouths like clear-cut crystals. But Mr.
Barrymore shook his head again; then, suddenly, with a joyous smile he
seized a pocket-book from inside his coat. From this he tore out an
important-looking document stamped with a red seal, and pointed from it
to a lithographed signature at the foot.
"Foreign Secretary; Lansdowne--Lord Lansdowne," he repeated. "Inglese.
Inglese and Italiani sempre amici. Yes?" His smile embraced not only the
long-suffering policemen but the crowd, who nodded their heads and
laughed. Having made this effect, Mr. Barrymore whipped out another
impressive paper, which I could see was his _permis de Conduire_ from
the Department of Mines in Nice.
He pointed to the official stamp on this document, and with the
childlike pride of one who stammers a few words of a foreign tongue, he
exclaimed, "Nizza. Nizza la bella." With this, he looked the giants so
full and kindly in the face, and seemed to be so greatly enjoying
himself, that every one laughed again, and two young men cheered,
appearing to be rather ashamed of themselves afterwards. Then, as if
every requirement must at last be satisfied, he made as if to go on. But
the conscientious comrades, though evidently faint and discouraged,
hadn't yet given up hope or played their last card, despite the yards of
English red tape with which those two stamped papers had fed their
appetite for officialism.
The taller of the pair laid his black glove on our mud-guard, cracked by
the flapping tyre days ago, and to be mended (I'd heard Mr. Barrymore
say) at the garage in Mestre. With such dramatic gestures as only the
Latin races command, he attempted to prove that the mud-guard must have
been broken in the collision near Bergamo, of which his mind was full.
At last our Chauffeulier comprehended something. He jumped out of the
throbbing car, and in his turn went through a pantomime. From a drawer
under the seat he produced the rubber skin that had come off our tyre,
showed how it fitted on, how it had become detached, and how it had
lashed the mud-guard as we moved. Everybody, including the policemen,
displayed the liveliest interest in this performance. The instant it was
over, Mr. Barrymore took his place again, coiled up the rubber snake,
and this time without asking leave, but with a low bow to the
representatives of local law, drove the car smartly back into the town.
What could the thwarted giants do after such an experience but stand
looking after us and make the best of things?
"It was our salvation that we'd lost our way and were driving towards
Bergamo instead of out," said the conqueror triumphantly. "You see, they
thought probably they'd got hold of the wrong car, as the accused one
had been coming from Lecco. What with that impression, and their despair
at my idiocy, they were ready to give us the benefit of the doubt and
save their faces. Otherwise, though we were innocent and the driver of
the cart merely 'trying it on,' we might have been hung up here for ten
days."
"Oh, could they have hung us?" gasped Aunt Kathryn. "What a dreadful
thing Italian law must be."
Then we all laughed so much that she was vexed, and when Beechy called
her a "stupid little Mamma," snapped back that anyhow she wasn't stupid
enough to forget her Italian--if she knew any--just when it was needed.
She is too sweet-tempered to be cross for long, however, and the way
towards Brescia was so charming that she forgot her annoyance. Though
the surface was not so good as it had been, it was not too bad; and our
noble tyres, which had borne so much, seemed to spurn the slight
irregularities. With every twenty yards we had a new view, as if the
landscape slowly turned, to assume different patterns like the pieces in
a kaleidoscope. On our left the mountains appeared to march on with us
always, white and majestic, with strange, violet shadows floating
mysteriously.
Set back from the roadside, behind rich meadows rippling with gold and
silver grain, were huge farmhouses, with an air of dignity born of
self-respect and venerable age. We had pretty garden glimpses, too, and
once in a while passed a fine mansion, good enough to call itself a
chateau so long as there were no real ones in the neighbourhood. Often
chestnut-trees in full glory of white blossom, as if blazing with fairy
candles, lined our way for miles. There was snow of hawthorne
too--"May," our two men called it--and ranks of little feathery white
trees, such as I knew no name for, looking like a procession of brides,
or young girls going to their first communion. Then, to brighten the
white land with colour, there were clumps of lilac, clouds of rose-pink
apple blossoms, blue streaks that meant beds of violets, and a yellow
fire of iris rising straight and bright as flame along the edges of
green, roadside streams.
Just as we came into a splendid old Italian town, thunder began to growl
like a lion hiding in the mountains. A few drops of rain splashed on our
motor-hoods, and a sudden chill wind gathered up the sweet country
scents into one bouquet to fling at us.
"Here we are at Brescia. Shall we stop for the storm and have tea?"
asked Mr. Barrymore.
Aunt Kathryn said "yes" at once, for she doesn't like getting wet, and
can't bear to have the rain spray on her face, though I love it. So we
drove quickly through streets, each one of which made a picture with its
old brown palaces, its stone steps with pretty women chatting in groups
under red umbrellas, its quaint bridge flung across the river, or its
pergola of vines. Past a magnificent cathedral we went as the bells rang
for vespers, and children, young girls, old black-shawled women, smart
soldiers, and gallant-looking, tall officers answered their call. Thus
we arrived at a quaint hotel, with a garden on the river's edge; and
under a thick arbour of chestnut-trees (impervious to floods) we drank
coffee and ate heart-shaped cakes, while the thunder played wild music
for us on a vast cathedral organ in the sky.
"No wonder the soldiers are smart and the officers fine," said the
Chauffeulier, in answer to a remark of mine which Beechy echoed.
"Brescia deserves them more than most towns of Italy, for you know she
has always been famous for the military genius and courage of her men,
and once she was second only to Milan in importance. Venice--whose
vassal she was--had a right to be proud of her. The history of the great
siege, wherein Bayard got the wound which he thought would be mortal, is
as interesting as a novel. 'The Escape of Tartaglia' and 'The Generosity
of Bayard' are bits that make you want to shout aloud."
"And yet we'll pass on, and see nothing, except those panorama-like
glimpses," I sighed. "Oh motoring, motoring, and motor maniacs!"
"How often one has that half-pleasant, half-regretful feeling about
things or people one flashes by on the road," soliloquized Sir Ralph,
pleasantly resigned to the pain of parting. I have it continually,
especially about some of the beautiful, dark-eyed girls I see, and leave
behind before I've fairly catalogued their features. I say to myself,
"Lovely flower of beauty, wasted in the dust of the roadside. Alas! I
leave you for ever. What is to be your fate? Will you grow old soon,
under your peasant-burdens and cares? How sad it is that I shall never
know your history."
"It wouldn't be a bit interesting," said Beechy. "But I suppose that
theory won't comfort you any more than it did Maida the other day, when
she tried too late to save a fly from dying in some honey, and I
consoled her by saying it probably wasn't at all a nice fly, if one had
known it."
"No, it doesn't console me," Sir Ralph complained. "Still, there's a
certain thrill in the thought of bursting like a thunder-bolt into the
midst of other people's tragedies, comedies, or romances, just catching
a fleeting glimpse of their possibilities and tearing on again. But
there are some creatures we meet that I'm glad to lose sight of. Not
those who glare anarchically, unconsciously betraying their outlook on
life; not the poor slow old people who blunder in the way, and stare
vacantly up at our fiery chariot--so strange a development of the world
for them; not the dogs that yelp, and are furious if we don't realize
that they're frightening us. No, but the horrid little jeering boys, who
run beside the car at their best speed when we're forging up
perpendicular hills on _our_ lowest. These are the creatures I would
wipe out of existence with one fierce wish, if I had it in me. To think
that they--_they_--should have the power to humiliate us. I don't get
back my self-respect till we're on a level, or my _joie de vivre_ until
we're shooting downhill, and can hold our own with a forty horse-power
motor, to say nothing of a one-horse, Italian village boy."
"What a revelation of vindictiveness, where one would least expect it!"
exclaimed Mr. Barrymore. "But the rain's over. Shall we go on?" And we
all agreed eagerly, as we probably should in Paradise, if it were a
question of motoring.
XVIII
A CHAPTER ACCORDING TO SHAKSPERE
"Another Cuneo!" groaned Aunt Kathryn, at sight of the hotel in the
steep little town of Desenzano, on Lake Garda; but later she apologized
to the quaint courtyard for her misunderstanding, and was more than
tolerant of her vast bedroom draped with yellow satin, and opening on an
arboured terrace worthy even of a Countess Dalmar.
For miles our way towards Verona next morning was pink and white with
chestnut bloom. Even the shadows seemed warmly pink under the long
unbroken arch of flowering trees. Far away, behind the green netting of
their branches, we caught blue flashes of lake and mountain peaks of
amethyst, while Beechy wished for a dozen noses dotted about here and
there at convenient intervals on her body, so that she might make the
most of the perfumed air. "But you would want them all cut off when you
got to the nearest town," remarked Aunt Kathryn.
Ever since Brescia, the road had been so smooth and well kept that it
was as if we had come into a different country; but Mr. Barrymore said
it was because we were now under the jurisdiction of Venice--Venice, as