My Friend the Chauffeur
rich and practical as romantic. And I had to repeat the name over and
over in my mind--Verona and Padua too--to make myself believe that we
were actually so near.
Horses were better trained in this district, and "knew a motor when they
saw it." Even a drove of sheep (near the wonderful fortress of Peschiera
with its coiled python of a river) seemed comparatively indifferent as
they surged round us in a foaming wave of wool. But then, sheep have no
facial expression. All other four-footed things show emotion by a change
of countenance, just as human beings do--more, because they don't
conceal their feelings--but sheep look as if they wore foolishly smiling
masks. Even when, as their ranks closed in around the automobile, we
broke a chain with a pretty little tinkling noise, and some of the sheep
tripped up on it, they did nothing but smile and merely mention "ba-a"
in an indifferent, absent-minded way.
"If you only _knew_ how much nicer you are with mint sauce!" Beechy
taunted them, as we swept round a corner and were in the labyrinth of
the fortress, which was, our men told us, part of the once famous
quadrilateral that made trouble for Italy in '48.
"There's something pathetic about old, obsolete forts as grand as
Peschiera," Mr. Barrymore said to me. "So much thought and money spent,
the best military science of the day employed to make a stronghold as
feeble against modern arms as a fort of cards. Such a fortress seems
like an aged warrior, past his fighting days, or an old hunting dog, as
keen on the chase as ever, poor fellow, but too old to move from before
the fire, where he can only lie and dream of past triumphs."
"I was thinking almost exactly the same!" I exclaimed, and I liked Mr.
Barrymore all the better; for it draws you nearer to a person when you
find that your thoughts resemble each other in shape and colour. Oddly
enough, it's often so with Mr. Barrymore and me; which is the reason
it's so agreeable to have the place beside him when he drives.
No more than half a dozen miles from Peschiera we saw the Tower of San
Martino, raised on the great battlefield of Solferino. By this time we
had left the lake behind; but we had exchanged the low, amethyst
mountains for tall white ones, glorious pinnacles of snow which were the
higher Austrian Alps. Everything was impressive on this road to Verona,
even the farmhouses, of an entirely different character from those of
the "yesterday country;" and then, at last, we came in sight of Verona
herself, lying low within a charmed circle of protecting hills, on which
castles and white villas looked down from among cypresses and rose-pink
almond trees.
I was glad that the gateway by which we entered Verona was the finest
through which we had passed, for though Mr. Barrymore called the town
"an inn for the great travellers of history," it was more for me. It was
the home of romance; for was it not Juliet's home and Romeo's?
That gateway, and the splendid old crenellated bridge of dark red brick
(toning deliciously with the clear, beryl-green of the swift-rushing
Adda) made a noble, preface for the city. And then, each old, old street
into which we turned was a new joy. What lessons for modern architects
in those time-softened brick facades, with the moulded arches of
terra-cotta framing the green open-work of the shutters!
I began to feel a sense of exaltation, as if I had listened to an anthem
played by a master hand on a cathedral organ. I couldn't have told any
one, but I happened to glance at Mr. Barrymore, and he at me, just as he
had driven into the _piazza_ where Dante's house looks down over the
tombs of the Scaligers. Then he smiled, and said, "Yes, I know. I always
feel like that, too, when I come here--but even more in Venice."
"How _am_ I feeling?" I asked, smiling with him.
"Oh, a little bit as if your soul had got out of your body and taken a
bath in a mountain spring, after you'd been staggering up some of the
steep paths of life in the dust and sun. Isn't that it?"
"Yes. Thank you," I answered. And we seemed to understand each other so
well that I was almost frightened.
"I want all these streets for mine," said Beechy, in a chattering mood.
"Oh, and especially the market-place, with that strange old fountain,
and the booths under the red umbrellas like scarlet mushrooms. Mamma,
have you got money enough to buy them for me, and have them packed up in
a big box with dried moss, like the toy villages, and expressed to
Denver?"
"Speaking of dried moss, all these lovely old churches and palaces and
monuments look as if history had covered them with a kind of delicate
lichen," I said, more to Mr. Barrymore than to Beechy. "And it enhances
their beauty, as the lace of a bride's veil enhances the beauty of her
face."
"Or a nun's veil," cut in Beechy. I wonder why she says things like that
so often lately? Well, perhaps it's best that I should be reminded of my
vocation, but it gives me a cold, desolate feeling for a minute, and
seems to throw a constraint upon us all.
We had made the Chauffeulier stop three or four times in every street to
look at some beautiful bit; a gate of flexible iron-work that even
Ruskin must have admired, the doorway of a church, the wonderful windows
of a faded palace; but suddenly I felt ready to go to the hotel, where
we were to stop for the night, that we might do our sight-seeing slowly.
It was a delightful hotel, itself once a palace, and to be there was to
be "in the picture," in such a place as Verona. The Prince had arrived
before us, as his motor is retrieving its reputation, and we all lunched
together, making plans for the afternoon.
As usual, he was _blase_--so different from Mr. Barrymore, who has seen
the best things in Italy as often as Prince Dalmar-Kalm has, yet never
tires; indeed, finds something new each time.
The Prince began by announcing that Verona bored him. But one could
always go to sleep.
"That's what I mean to do," said Aunt Kathryn, who generally takes her
cue from him. "I consider that I've seen Verona now, and I shall lie
down this afternoon. Perhaps later I shall write a few letters in the
hall."
I was unkind enough to fancy this a hint for the Prince, but perhaps I
wronged her. And anyway, why should she not give him hints if she likes?
He has been very attentive to her, although for the last few days I
don't think they have been quite so much in "each others' pockets" (as
Beechy calls it) as before.
A little attention was needed by the automobile, it appeared--such as a
tightening up of chains, and a couple of lost grease-cups to replace;
therefore Mr. Barrymore's time would be filled up without any
sight-seeing. But Sir Ralph offered to take Beechy and me anywhere we
liked to go. I was very glad that the Prince said nothing about
accompanying us, for somehow I'd been afraid he would.
We consulted guide-books until we were bewildered, but in the midst of
confusion I held fast to two things. We had seen Romeo's house, towering
picturesquely behind the Scaligers' tombs; but I wanted to see where
Juliet had lived, and where she had been buried.
"The Prince says it's all nonsense," exclaimed Aunt Kathryn. "If there
was a slight foundation for the story in a great family scandal here
about Shakspere's time, anyhow there's none for the houses or the
tomb--"
Beechy stopped her ears. "You're _real mean_," she said, "you and the
Prince both. It's just as bad as when you thought it your duty to tell
me there was no Santa Claus. But I don't care; there _is_. I shall
believe it when I'm _seventeen_; and I believe in the Romeo and Juliet
houses too."
But when we were in the street of Juliet's house--she and Sir Ralph and
I--Beechy pouted. Standing with her hands behind her, her long braids of
hair dangling half-way down her short skirt as she threw back her head
to gaze up, she looked incredibly modern and American. "There were no
tourists' agencies in those days," she remarked, regretfully, "so I
suppose Shakspere _had_ to trust to hearsay, and somebody must have told
him a big tarradiddle. I guess Juliet was really on a visit to an aunt
in the country when she first met Romeo, for fancy a girl in her senses
yelling down from that balcony up at the top of a tall house to _any_
lover, let alone a secret one? Besides, there wouldn't have been enough
rope in Verona to make the ladder for Romeo to climb up."
After this speech, I decided that, fond as I really am of her, I could
_not_ visit Juliet's tomb in Beechy's society. I gave no hint of my
intentions, but after an exquisite hour (which nobody could spoil) in
that most adorable of churches, San Zenone, and another in Sant'
Anastasia, I slipped away while Beechy and Sir Ralph were picking out
the details of St. Peter's life on the panels of a marvellous pilaster.
We had had a cab by the hour; and when they should discover my absence,
they would take it for granted that I had got tired and gone home. They
would then proceed to carry out their programme of sight-seeing very
happily without me, for Beechy amuses Sir Ralph immensely, child as she
is, and she makes no secret of taking pleasure in his society. She
teases him, and he likes it; he draws her out, and her wit brightens in
the process.
I hurried off when their backs were turned. Not far away I found a
prowling cab, and told the man to drive me to Juliet's tomb. He stared,
as if in surprise, for I suppose girls of our class don't go about much
alone in Italian towns; but he condescended to accept me as a fare.
However, to show his disapproval maybe, he rattled me through streets
old and beautiful, ugly and modern (why should most modern things be
ugly, even in Italy?) at a tremendous pace. At last he stopped before a
high, blank wall, in a most dismal region, apparently the outskirts of
the town. I would hardly believe that he had brought me to the right
place, but he reassured me. In the distance another cab was approaching,
probably on the same errand. I rang a bell, and a gate was opened by a
nice-looking woman, who knew well what I wanted without my telling, and
she spoke so clearly that I was able to understand much of what she
said. Instead of feeling that the romance of visiting Juliet's
burial-place was destroyed by traversing the great open square of the
communal stables, where an annual horse show is held, I was conscious of
a strange charm in the unsuitable surroundings. It was like coming upon
a beautiful white pearl in a battered old oyster-shell, to pass through
this narrow gateway at the far end of a dusty square, and find myself
face to face with a glimmering tomb in a quiet cloister.
The strong contrast between the sordid exterior and this dainty, hidden
interior was nothing less than dramatic. The lights and shadows played
softly at hide-and-seek, like dumb children, over the grass, among the
pillars of the little cloister, over the tomb itself. I was thankful to
be alone, troubled by no fellow-tourists, safe from little Beechy's too
comical fancies, free to be as sentimental as I liked. And I liked to be
very sentimental indeed.
I stood by the tomb, feeling almost like a mourner, when a voice made me
start. "Is it Juliet's spirit?" asked Prince Dalmar-Kalm.
I would rather it had been any one else. "How odd that you should come
here!" I exclaimed, while my face must have shown that the surprise was
not too pleasant.
"It is not at all odd. You are here," answered the Prince. "You said at
_dejeuner_ that you were coming, if you had to come alone. _Eh bien?_ I
saw Miss Beechy and Sir Ralph Moray driving together, deep in Baedeker.
My heart told me where you were; and I arrive to find you looking like
Juliet come to life again. Perhaps it is so indeed. Perhaps you were