My Friend the Chauffeur
let's talk of something else quickly. How gracefully the vines are
trained here, draped along those rows of trees in the meadows. It's much
prettier than ordinary vineyards. You might imagine fairies playing tag
under these arbours."
"Or fauns chasing nymphs," said Sir Ralph. "No doubt they did a few
years ago and caught them too."
"I'm glad they don't now," replied Aunt Kathryn, "or this would be no
fit place for ladies to motor."
But I wasn't glad, for the whole country was one wide background for a
pre-Raphaelite picture, and the mountains to which Aunt Kathryn had
applied so insulting a simile were even grander in size and nobler in
shape than before. We had seen many old chateaux (though never a
surfeit), but the best of all had been reserved for to-day. Far away on
our left, as we drove towards Padua, it rose above the little town that
crawled to the foot of the castle's hill to beg protection; and it was
exactly like a city painted by Mantegna or Carpaccio, Mr. Barrymore
said. Up the hill ran the noblest and biggest wall that an Old Master's
imagination could have conceived. Many men might walk on it abreast; and
at every few yards it bristled with sturdy watch-towers, not ruined, but
looking as ready to defy the enemy to-day as they were six hundred years
ago. The culmination was the castle itself, so magnificently
proportioned, so worthily proud of its place, that it seemed as if the
spirit of the Middle Ages were there embodied, gazing down in haughty
resignation upon a new world it did not even wish to understand.
The name of the castle was Soave; but when I heard that nothing
startling enough to please me had happened there, I wouldn't know its
history, for my fancy was equal to inventing one more thrilling. There
was plentiful sensation, though, in the stories the Chauffeulier could
tell of Napoleon's battles and adventures in this neighbourhood. I
listened to them eagerly, especially to that which covered his falling
into a marsh while fighting the Austrians, and standing there, unable to
get out, while the battle of Arcole raged around him. We were at the
point of the rescue and the victory of the French, when we arrived at
another gateway, another octroi, another city, to enter which was like
driving straight into an old, old picture.
In a long street of palaces, all with an elusive family resemblance to
one another, we paused for consultation. This was Vicenza, the
birthplace and beloved town of Palladio; these palaces with fronts
crusted with bas relief; these Corinthian pillars, these Arabesque
balconies, these porticoes that might have been stolen from Greek
temples, all had been designed by Palladio the Great. And the beautiful
buildings seemed to say pensively, like lovely court ladies whose day is
past, "We are not what we were. Time has changed and broken us, it is
true; but even so we are worth seeing."
It was that view which our Chauffeulier urged, but Aunt Kathryn was for
going on without a stop, until Sir Ralph said, "It's not patriotic of
you to pass by. Palladio built your Capitol at Washington, and all the
fine old colonial houses you admire so much in the East."
"Dear me, did he?" exclaimed Aunt Kathryn. "Why, I never heard of him."
"Moray doesn't mean his words to be taken undiluted," said Mr.
Barrymore. "If it hadn't been for Palladio, there would have been no
Inigo Jones and no Christopher Wren, therefore if you'd had a Capitol at
all, it wouldn't be what it is now. And to understand the colonial
architecture of America, you have to go back to Palladio."
"Well, here we are at him," sighed Aunt Kathryn. "But I hope we won't
have to get _out_?"
Mr. Barrymore laughed. "The Middle Ages revisited, _en automobile_!
However, I'll do my best as showman in the circumstances."
So he drove us into a splendid square, where Palladio was at his
grandest with characteristic facades, galleries, and stately colonnades.
Then, slowly, through the street of palaces and out into the open
country once more--a rich country of grain-fields (looking always as if
an unseen hand softly stroked their silver hair) and of hills swelling
into a mountainous horizon. There was a bright little flower-bordered
canal too, and I've grown fond of canals since the neighbourhood of
Milan, finding them as companionable as rivers, if more tame. Indeed,
they seem like rivers that have gone to live in town, where they've
learned to be a bit stilted and mechanical in manner.
The farmhouses, standing but a short distance back from the level of the
road, were manorial in a queer way; two or three of them, exquisite old
things, their great roofed balconies covered with ivy and blossoming
creepers. The women we met were pretty, too--so pretty often that, as
Sir Ralph said, it wouldn't have been safe for them to walk out in the
feudal ages, as they would promptly have been kidnapped by the nearest
seignior. We might have guessed that we were not far out from Venice by
the gorgeous Titian hair of the peasant children playing by the wayside,
or a copper coil twisted above a girl's dark eyes.
"How long a time shall we spend in Padua, Countess?" asked the
Chauffeulier as we came within sight of a gateway, some domes and
campanili.
"Oh, don't let's make up our mind till we get there," replied Aunt
Kathryn comfortably.
"But we are there," said he. "In another minute the little men of the
_dazio_ will be tapping our bags as a doctor taps his patient's lungs."
Padua! Each time that we actually arrived in one of these wonderful old
places, it was an electric shock for me. I had to shake myself,
mentally, to make it seem true. But if it was like a dream to enter the
place of Petruchio's love story, what would it be by-and-by--oh, a very
quick-coming by-and-by--to see Venice? I hardly dared let my thoughts go
on to that moment for fear they should get lost in it, and refuse to
come back. Sufficient for the day was the Padua thereof.
Not so beautiful as Verona, still the learned and dignified old city had
a curiously individual charm of its own, which I felt instantly. I loved
the painted palaces, especially those where most of the paint had worn
off, leaving but a lovely face, or some folds of a velvet robe, or a
cardinal's hat to hint its story to the imagination. The old arcaded
streets were asleep, and grass sprouted among the cobbles. Where they
followed the river we had glimpses of gardens and arbours backed with
roses, or an almond tree--like a rosy bride leaning on a
soldier-lover's neck--peeped at us, side by side with a dark ilex, over
a high brick wall.
"How long _ought_ we to stay in Padua?" Aunt Kathryn deigned to ask, as
if in delayed answer to the Chauffeulier's question, when he helped her
out of the car at the Stella d'Oro, where we were to lunch.
"A week," said Mr. Barrymore, his eyes twinkling.
Her face fell, and he took pity.
"If we weren't motor maniacs," he went on. "In that case we would have
come here on a solemn pilgrimage to do full justice to the adorable
Giotto, to the two best churches--not to be surpassed anywhere--and the
dozen and one other things worth seeing. But as we are mad we shall be
able to 'do' Padua, and satisfy our consciences though not our hearts,
in three hours. My one consolation in this deplorable course, lies in
the thought that it will make it possible to give you your first sight
of Venice between sunset and moonrise."
Beechy clapped her hands, and my heart gave a throb. Somehow, my eyes
happened to meet Mr. Barrymore's. But I must not get into the habit of
letting them do that, when I'm feeling anything deeply. I can't think
why it seems so natural to turn to him, as if I'd known him always; but
then we have _all_ got to be great friends on this trip, and know each
other better than if we'd been meeting in an ordinary way for a year.
All except the Prince. I leave him out of that statement, as I would
leave him out of everything concerning me nearly, if I could. I believe
that _none_ of us know him, or what is in his mind. But sometimes
there's a look in his eyes if one glances up suddenly, which would
almost frighten one, if it were not silly and melodramatic. That is the
only way in which he has troubled me since the horrid little incident at
Juliet's tomb--with these occasional, strange looks; and as he wrote me
a note of apology for his bad conduct then, I ought to forgive and
forget.
The hotel where we lunched was not in a quaint riverside street, but in
a square so modern it was hard to realize for the moment that we were
in the oldest city of Northern Italy, dating from before Roman days.
However, the Stella d'Oro was old enough to satisfy us, and I should
have been delighted with the nice Italian dishes Mr. Barrymore knew so
well how to order, if I hadn't been longing to rush off with a bit of
bread in my hand, not to waste a Paduan moment on so dull a deed as
eating.
It was only twelve when we arrived, and before one we were out of the
huge, cool dining-room, and in the May sunlight again. The Prince was
with us; had been just ahead of us, or just behind us, all through the
journey from Verona. But I thought by keeping close to Aunt Kathryn and
Beechy there would be no danger that he would trouble me. Unfortunately,
the pattern of our progress arranged itself a little differently from my
plan.
All was simple enough in the churches, which we visited first, not to
give them time to close up for their afternoon siesta. Mr. Barrymore was
of the party, and we all listened to him--the Prince because he must, we
others because we wished--while he ransacked his memory for bits of
Paduan history, legend or romance. He showed us the Giottos (which he
had done well to call adorable) at the Madonna of the Arena; he took us
to pay our respects to St. Anthony of Padua (that dear, obliging Saint
who gives himself so much trouble over the lost property of perfect
strangers) in his extraordinary and well-deserved Basilica of bubbly
domes and lovely cloisters. He guided us to Santa Giustina, where I
would stop at the top of the steps, to pet two glorious old red marble
beasts which had crouched there for four centuries. One of them--the
redder of the two--had been all that time wrestling with an
infinitesimal St. George whom he ought to have polished off in a few
hours; while the other--the one with an unspeakable beard under his chin
and teeth like the gearing of our automobile--had been engaged for the
same period in eating a poor little curly lion.
The inside of the church--too strongly recommended by Baedeker to
commend itself to me--made me feel as if I had eaten a lemon water-ice
before dinner, on a freezing cold day; and it was there that the
Chauffeulier departed to get ready the motor-car. There it was, too,
that the pattern disarranged itself.
When we had finished looking at a splendid Paolo Veronese, we hurried
out into the Prato della Valle (which has changed its name to something
else not half so pretty, though more patriotic), and Sir Ralph took
Beechy away, so that Aunt Kathryn and I were left to the Prince. He
hardly talked to her at all, which hurt her feelings so much that she
turned suddenly round, and said she must speak to Beechy.
I could have cried, for the piazza was so beautiful that I wanted some
one congenial with me, to whom I could exclaim about it. It was girdled
by a belt of clear water, with four stone bridges and a double wall on
which stood a goodly company of noble gentlemen. There was the history
of Padua's greatness perpetuated in marble--charming personages, one and
all, if you could believe their statues, and it would have seemed
treacherous not to. Each stood to be admired or revered in the attitude
most expressive of his profession: Galileo pointing up, graceful,