My Friend the Chauffeur Part 36

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 s.h.i.+ning into his eyes and on his n.o.ble 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 ca.n.a.l, 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 have the bag washed. I would keep it exactly as it was, put sacredly away in some box, in memory of this night.

XXI

A CHAPTER OF STRANGE SPELLS

"Never since Anne Boleyn has a woman so lost her head over a man with a t.i.tle as Mamma over Prince Dalmar-Kalm," said Beechy, after our week at Venice was half spent. And I wished that, in fair exchange, he would lose his over Aunt Kathryn instead of wasting time on me, and casting his shadow on beautiful days.

Roses and lilies appeared on my writing-desk; they were from him.

Specimens of Venetian sweets (crystallized fruits stuck on sticks, like fat martyrs) adorned large platters on the table by the window--gifts from the Prince. If I admired the little gargoylish sea-horses, or the foolish sh.e.l.l ornaments at the Lido, I was sure to find some when I came home. And the man hinted in whispers that the attentions of the Comte and Contessa were for me.

All this was annoying though he put it on the grounds of friends.h.i.+p; and I didn't like the Corraminis, although their influence opened doors that would otherwise have been closed. Through them we saw the Comte de Bardi's wonderful j.a.panese collection of the Palazzo Vendramin, the finest in the world; through them we had glimpses of the treasures in more than one old palace; they gave us a picnic dinner in their lighted gondola, on the lagoon, with many elaborate courses cooked in chafing-dishes, which the gondoliers served. They took us to Chioggia on their steam yacht which--it seemed--they must let half the year to afford the use of it the other half.

The "County" (as Aunt Kathryn p.r.o.nounces him) must have been handsome before his good looks were ravaged by small-pox. As it is, Beechy compares his dark face to a "plum cake, from which somebody has picked out all the plums;" and the black eyes, deep set in this scarred mask, gaze out of it with sinister effect. Yet his manner is perfect, witty, and gracious. He speaks English fluently, and might be of any age between thirty-five and fifty. As for the Contessa, she has the profile of a Boadicea (with which I could never feel thoroughly at home if it were mine) and the walk of a bewitched table, so stout she is, and so square. Her princ.i.p.al efforts at conversation with me were in praise of Prince Dalmar-Kalm, so I scarcely appreciated them. Indeed, the Corraminis repelled me, and I was glad to spare all their distinguished society to Aunt Kathryn.

Each day in Venice (not counting the hours spent with them and the Prince) was more wonderful, it seemed, than the day before.

First among my pictures was San Marco, which I went out to see alone early in the morning, but met Mr. Barrymore as I inquired my way. I could have wished for that, though I wouldn't have dreamed of asking him to take me. As we went through the narrow streets of charming shops, we played at not thinking of what was to come. Then, Mr. Barrymore said suddenly, "Now you may look." So I did look, and there it was, the wonder of wonders, more like a stupendous crown of jewels than a church.

Like a queen's diadem, it gleamed in the grey-white Piazza, under the burning azure dome of the sky.

"Oh, we've found the key of the rainbow, and come close to it!" I cried.

"What a marvel! Can human beings really have made it, or did it make itself as gems form in the rocks, and coral under the sea?"

"The cornice does look as if it were the spray of the sea, tossing up precious stones from buried treasures beneath the waves," he answered.

"But you're right. We've got the key of the rainbow, and we can go in."

I walked beside him, awe-struck, as if I were pa.s.sing under a spell.

There could be no other building so beautiful in the world, and it was harder than ever to realize that man had created it. The golden mosaic of the domed roof, arching above the purple-brown of the alabaster walls, was like sunrise boiling over the ma.s.sed clouds of a dark horizon. Light seemed generated by the glitter of that mosaic; and the small white windows of the dome gained such luminous blues and pale gold glints, from sky without and opal gleams within, that they were changed to stars. The pavement was opaline, too, with a thousand elusive tints and jewelled colours, waving like the sea. It was all I could do not to touch Mr. Barrymore's arm or hand for sympathy.

We didn't speak as we pa.s.sed out. I was almost glad when the spell was broken by the striking of the great, blue clock opposite San Marco, and the slow procession of the life-size mechanical figures which only open their secret door on fete days, such as this chanced to be.

Watching the stiff saints go through their genuflexions put me in a good mood for an introduction to the pigeons, which I longed to have for friends--strange little stately ruffling things, almost as mechanical in their strut as the figures of the clock; so metallic, too, in their l.u.s.tre, that I could have believed them made of painted iron.

Some wore short grey Eton jackets, with white blouses showing behind; these were the ladies, and their faces were as different as possible from those of their lovers. So were the dainty little coral feet, for alas! the masculine shoes were the pinker and prettier; and the males, even the baby ones, were absurdly like English judges in wigs and gowns.

It was charming to watch the developments of pigeon love-stories on that blue-and-gold day, which was my first in the Grand Piazza of San Marco.

How the lady would patter away, and pretend she didn't know that a rising young judge had his eye upon her! But she would pause and feign to examine a grain of corn, which I or some one else had thrown, just long enough to give him a chance of preening his feathers before her, spreading out his tail, and generally cataloguing his perfections. She would pretend that this demonstration had no effect upon her heart, that she'd seen a dozen pigeons within an hour handsomer than he; but the instant a rival belle chanced (only it wasn't chance really) to hop that way and offer outrageous inducements to flirtation, she decided that, after all, he was worth having--and, alas! sometimes decided too late.

That same afternoon Mr. Barrymore took me to the little church of San Giorgio degli Schiavoni to see the exquisite Carpaccios, because he was of opinion that Aunt Kathryn and Beechy would prefer to go shopping.

Yet, after all, who should appear there but Beechy and Sir Ralph!

Beechy thought the dragon a delightful beast, with a remarkable eye for the picturesque, judging from the way in which he had arranged the remains of his victims; and she was sorry for him, dragged into the market-place, so pitifully shrunken, beaten, and mortified was he. She wanted to live in all the mediaeval castles of the picture-backgrounds, and was of opinion that the basilisk's real intentions had been misunderstood by the general public of his day. "I should love to have such a comic, trotty beast to lead about in Central Park," said she.

"Why the octopi that the people cook and sell in the streets here now, are ever so much horrider. One might run away from them, if you like.

Loathsome creatures! I do draw the line at an animal whose face you can't tell from its--er--waist. And only think of _eating_ them! I'd a good deal rather eat a basilisk."

Beechy was also convinced--before she crossed the Bridge of Sighs--that many people, especially Americans, would pay large sums or even commit crimes, in order to be put in prison at Venice. "Such a lovely situation," she argued, "and lots of historical a.s.sociations too." But afterwards, when she had seen where Marino Faliero lay, and the young Foscari, she was inclined to change her mind. "Still," she said, "it would be an experience; and if you couldn't afford to stop at a hotel, it might be worth trying, if you didn't have to do anything very bad, and were sure of getting a cell on the ca.n.a.l."

Neither Beechy nor Aunt Kathryn cared much for the churches or the pictures, so they and Sir Ralph bargained for Venetian point or the lace of Burano, or went to the gla.s.s makers', or had tea at the Lido with the Corraminis, while Mr. Barrymore took me to the Frari, the Miracoli, and other churches that he loved best, or wandered with me among the glorious company of artists at the Accademia, and in the Doges' Palace.

But Beechy did join in my admiration and respect (mingled with a kind of wondering pity) for the n.o.ble army of marble lions in Venice.

Oh, those poor, splendid lions! How sad they look, how bitter is the expression of their ponderous faces. Especially am I haunted by the left-hand lion in the Piazza degli Lioni, hard by San Marco. What can have happened to him, that he should be so despairing? Whatever it was, he has never got over it, but has concentrated his whole being in one, eight-century-long howl ever since. He is the most impressive of the tribe; but there are many others, big and little, all gloomy, sitting about in Piazzas, or exposed for sale in shops, or squatting on the railings of balconies. When I think of that fair city in the sea, I shall often want to run back and try to comfort some of those lions.

Beechy was with me in this; and as for Aunt Kathryn, even the flattering attentions of the Corraminis did not please her more than our experience at the antiquaries', which we owed to Mr. Barrymore.

We hadn't been in Venice for twenty-four hours before we saw that the Chauffeulier knew the place almost as if he had been born there. He was even well up in the queer, soft Venetian _patois_, with hardly a consonant left in it, so well up that he announced himself capable of bandying words and measuring swords with the curiosity-shop keepers, if we liked to "collect anything."

At first Aunt Kathryn thought that she wouldn't bother; there would be too much trouble with the custom house at home; but, when Beechy happened to say what a rare thing a marble well-head or a garden statue five hundred years old would be considered in Denver, she weakened, and fell.

The idea popped into Beechy's head just as our gondola (it was towards the end of our week in Venice) was gliding by a beautiful, shabby old palace in a side ca.n.a.l.

A canopy of grape-vines, heavy with hanging cl.u.s.ters of emeralds and here and there an amethyst, shadowed a carved water-gate. Under the jade-green water gleamed the yellow marble of the steps, waving with seaweed like mermaids' hair; and in the dim interior behind the open doors there were vague gleams of gilded chairs, pale glints of statuary, and rich streaks of colour made by priests' vestments or old altar hangings.

"I don't believe even Mrs. Potter Adriance has got anything like this in her house, though they call it so elegant," remarked Beechy.

That speech was to Aunt Kathryn what valerian is to a p.u.s.s.y cat; for Mrs. Potter Adriance (as I've often heard since I made acquaintance with my relations) is the leader of Denver society, and is supposed once to have said with a certain emphasis: "_Who_ are the Kidders?"

"Perhaps I'll just step in and see what they've got here," said Aunt Kathryn.

"It isn't a cheap place," replied Mr. Barrymore. "This man knows how to charge. If you want any marbles, he has some fine ones; but for other things I'll take you somewhere else, where I promise you shall be amused and not cheated."