My Friend the Chauffeur
knew it; but--what would happen when the rose-and-golden glory had
swallowed us up?
The sparkle of the water and air got into my blood, and I felt that it
must be sparkling too, like champagne. I was more alive than I had ever
been when I was on earth; for of course this was not earth--this Venice
to which I was going.
No other road but this water-road could have consoled me for the thought
that there would be no more motoring for a week. And clearly it was a
road of which it was necessary for the gondoliers to know every
oar-length; for it was defined by stakes, standing up out of the lagoon
singly, or gathered into clusters like giant bunches of asparagus.
Turning my back to the arched railway bridge, which accompanied us too
far, I looked only at sky and water, and at Venice rising from the sea.
The tide was running out, the Prince said (among other chatterings,
while I wished everybody woven in a magic spell of silence) and the
gondola made swift progress, rocking lightly like a shell, over the
bright ripples of the lagoon.
The nearer we drew to Venice the more like a vision of enchantment did
the city seem. Not a sound came to us, for the music of the bells had
died. All was still as in a dream--for in dreams, does one ever hear a
sound? I think I never have. And now the gold had faded from the clouds,
leaving them pink and violet, transparent as gauze, through which the
rising moon sifted silver dust. How could the others talk? I did not
understand.
Aunt Kathryn was saying, "If I hire a gondolier, I want to get a
singer." As if he were a sewing-machine, or a canary-bird! And Beechy
was complaining that she felt "very funny;" she believed the motion of
the gondola was making her seasick, just as she used to be in her
cradle, when she was too young to protest except by a howl.
It was a relief to my feelings when we turned out of the wide lagoon
into a canal, for then they did at least speak of the scene around them,
asking questions about the tall palaces that walled us in; who lived
here; who lived there; what was the name or history of that?
The odour of seaweed was more pungent, and there was a smell of water
mingling with it too; something like fresh cucumbers, and the roots of
flowers when they have just been pulled out of the earth. I could not
have believed that water could have such clearness and at the same time
hold so many colours, as the water in this, my first canal of Venice. It
was like a greenish mirror, full of lights, and wavering reflected tints
from the crumbling palaces whose old bricks, mellow pink, gold, and
purple, showed like veins through the skin of peeling stucco. Down
underneath the shining mirror, one could see the old marble steps,
leading up to the shut mystery of water gates. There were shimmering
gleams of pearly white and ivory yellow, under beardy trails of moss old
as the marble out of which it grew. And over high walls, delicate
branches of acacia and tamarisk beckoned us, above low-hung drapery of
wistaria, that dropped purple tassels to the lapping water's edge.
So we wound through one narrow, palace-walled Rio after another, until
Venice began to seem like a jewelled net, with its carved precious
stones intricately strung on threads of silver; and then suddenly, to my
surprise, we burst into a great canal.
I saw a bridge, which I knew from many pictures must be the Rialto, but
there was no disappointment, no flatness in the impression of having
seen this all before, for not the greatest genius who ever lived could
paint Venice at her every day best. Palace after palace; and by-and-by a
church with a front carved in ivory by the growing moonlight, thrown up
against a background of rose.
"Palladio, it must be!" I cried.
"Yes; it's San Georgio Maggiore, Terry Barrymore's favourite church in
Venice," said Sir Ralph, who had been almost as silent as I. "And here
we are at the Hotel Britannia."
"Why, it has a garden!" exclaimed Aunt Kathryn. "I never thought of a
garden in Venice."
"There are several of the loveliest in Italy," replied Sir Ralph. "But
the Britannia's the only hotel that has one."
"My friend's palazzo has a courtyard garden with a wonderful old marble
well-head, and beautiful statues," said the Prince. "He and his wife are
coming to call on you to-morrow, and you will have the opportunity of
thanking them for their gondola. Also, they will probably invite you to
leave the hotel, and visit them during the rest of your stay, as they
are very hospitable."
"I'll wager you won't want to leave the Britannia, once you are settled
there," said Sir Ralph quickly. "It's the most comfortable hotel in
Venice, and Terry and I have wired for rooms with balconies overlooking
the Grand Canal, and the garden. There isn't a palace going that I
would forsake the Britannia for."
By this time the gondola had slipped between some tall red posts, and
brought us to the steps of the hotel. I was glad that they were marble
steps and that the house had once been a palace, otherwise I should not
have felt I was making the most of Venice.
If I live to be a hundred (one of the Sisters is close on eighty) I
shall never forget that first night in the City of the Sea.
It was good to see Mr. Barrymore back again for dinner in the big red
and gold, brightly frescoed dining-room; and it was he who suggested
that we should have coffee in the garden, at a table on a balcony built
over the water, and then go out in gondolas.
We hired three; and as there are only two absolutely delightful seats in
a gondola, I was trembling lest the Prince should fall to my unlucky
lot, when Aunt Kathryn called to him, "Oh, do sit with me, please. I
want to ask about your friends who are coming to see us." So of course
he went to her, and Sir Ralph jumped in with Beechy; therefore the
Chauffeulier was obliged to be nice to me, whether he liked or not. We
all kept close together, and soon the three gondolas, following many
others, grouped round a lighted music-barge like a pyramid of
illuminated fruit floating on the canal.
Either the voices were sweet, or they had the effect of being sweet in
the moonlight on the water; but the airs they sang got strangely tangled
with the songs in other barges, so that I longed to unwind one skein of
tunes from another, and wasn't sorry to steal away into the silence at
last.
We were not the only ones who flitted. The black forms of gondolas moved
soundlessly hither and thither on the surface of the dark lagoon, their
single lights like stars in the blue darkness.
Far away twinkled the lamps of the Lido, where Byron and Shelley used to
ride on the lonely sands. Near-by, on the Piazzetta where the twin
columns towered against the silver sky, white bunches of lights
glimmered like magic night-blooming flowers, with bright roots trailing
deep down into the river.
We talked of the countless great ones of the world who had lived and
died in Venice, and loved it well; of Byron, who slept in Marino
Faliero's dreadful cell before he wrote his tragedy; of Browning, whose
funeral had passed in solemn state of gondolas down the Grand Canal; of
Wagner, who found inspiration in this sea and sky, and died looking upon
them from his window in the Palazzo Vendramin. But through our talk I
could hear Aunt Kathryn in her gondola close by, saying how like the
Doge's palace was to a big bird-cage she once had; and the Prince was
continually turning his head to see if we were near, which was
disturbing. We had nothing to say that all the world might not have
heard, yet instinctively we spoke almost in whispers, the Chauffeulier
and I, not to miss a gurgle of the water nor the dip of an oar, which in
the soft darkness made the light flutter of a bird bathing.
I remembered suddenly how Sir Ralph had said one day, "You'll like Terry
in Venice." I did like Terry in Venice; and I liked him better than ever
at the moment of our return to the hotel, for there began a little
adventure of which he became the hero.
As I stepped out of the gondola there was a flash and a splash. "Oh my
gold bag!" I exclaimed. "Your present, Aunt Kathryn. It's in the canal;
I shall never see it again."
"Yes, you will," said Mr. Barrymore. "I--"
"If there was much money in it, you had better have a professional diver
come early to-morrow morning from the Arsenal," the Prince broke in.
"I know an amateur diver who will get back the bag to-night--now, within
the next half-hour I hope," went on the Chauffeulier.
"Indeed? Where do you propose to find him at this time?" asked the
Prince.
"I shall find him inside the hotel, and have him out here, ready for
work in ten minutes," said Mr. Barrymore.
"What fun!" exclaimed Beechy. "We'll wait here in the moonlight and see
him dive. It will be lovely."
Mr. Barrymore was gone before she finished.
It was nearly eleven o'clock. The music-barges had gone; the hotel
garden was deserted, and scarcely a moving star of light glided over the
canal. Our three gondolas, drawn up like carriages at the marble steps
of the Britannia, where the water lapped and gurgled, awaited the great
event. The Prince pooh-poohed the idea that Mr. Barrymore could find a
diver, or that, if he did, the bag could be retrieved in such an
amateurish way. But I had learned that when our Chauffeulier said a
thing could be done, it _would_ be done, and I confidently expected to
see him returning accompanied by some obviously aquatic creature.
What I did see however, was a great surprise. Something moved in the
garden, under the curtain of creepers that draped the nearest
overhanging balcony. Then a tall, marble statue, "come alive," vaulted
over the iron railing and dropped into the lagoon.
It didn't seem at all strange that a marble statue should "come alive"
in Venice; but what did seem odd was that it should exactly resemble Mr.
Barrymore, feature for feature, inch for inch.
"Hullo, Terry, I didn't know you meant to do that!" exclaimed Sir Ralph.
"You _are_ a lightning change artist."
For it was the Chauffeulier, in a bathing suit which he must have
hurriedly borrowed from one of the landlord's tall young sons, and he
was swimming by the side of my gondola.
"I meant nothing else," laughed the statue in the water, the moon
shining into his eyes and on his noble white throat as he swam. "Now,
Miss Destrey, show me exactly how you stood when you dropped your bag,
and I think I can promise that you shall have it again in a few
minutes."
"If I'd dreamed of this I wouldn't have let you do it," I said.
"Why not? I'm awfully happy, and the water feels like warm silk. Is
this where you dropped it? Look out for a little splash, please. I'm
going down."
With that he disappeared under the canal, and stayed down so long that I
began to be frightened. It seemed impossible that any human being could
hold his breath for so many minutes; but just as my anxiety reached
boiling point, up he came, dripping, laughing, his short hair in wet
rings on his forehead, and in his hand, triumphantly held up, the gold
bag.
"I knew where to grope for it, and I felt it almost the first thing," he
said. "Please forgive my wet fingers."
"Why, there's something red on the gold. It's blood!" I stammered,
forgetting to thank him.
"Is there? What a bore! But it's nothing. I grazed the skin of my hands
a little, grubbing about among the stones down there, that's all."
"It's a great deal," I said. "I can't bear to think you've been hurt for
me."
"Why, I don't even feel it," said the Chauffeulier. "It's the bag that
suffers. But you can have it washed."
Yes, I could have it washed. Yet, somehow, it would seem almost
sacrilegious. I made up my mind without saying a word, that I would not