Complete works of a e w.., p.744
Complete Works of a E W Mason, page 744
Julian looked at his host in consternation.
“Yes, I wish to spend a few days in that famous town. In fact, my dear Williams, I sent for you to ask you to come with me as my guest and cicerone.”
“That is most kind of you,” exclaimed Charles Williams. The time of the year was suitable. “I could certainly get leave from my duties.” Ferrara in the spring! What could be more charming? “But Marelli? You can’t leave him here to be waited on by your two maids. Even Bettina couldn’t keep them from talking.”
“Oh, Marelli?” said Elliot, sitting back easily in his chair. “He will think of another hiding-place and get away to it during the night;” and he dismissed Marelli with a wave of his hand.
Julian, for his part, was wondering what Charles Williams could have said to set Elliot suddenly against him. He was to find another refuge! With a sinking heart he began to search his memory for names. The Count Onocuto Vigano? There was no hope in that quarter — and Elliot was speaking again.
“We shall not go by Mestre, Williams, a long, dusty, uneven road. No, but up the River Brenta by water.”
Charles Williams was delighted with the prospect.
“And we shall travel in comfort — as indeed the English milords are expected to travel,” Elliot announced with a deprecatory smirk. “For instance, there will be a separate gondola for our baggage of which Thomas will be in charge.”
“Thomas?” Julian interrupted aghast.
“Yes.”
“Thomas Biggin?”
“Who else?” Sir James Elliot asked smoothly. “Oh, I would do anything for your safety within reason, Giovanni. But I could not leave Thomas Biggin behind. He is an attribute, a personal adjective. I should not be half myself without him.”
Julian looked down upon the floor, his wits all dazed. Had Sir James been nursing some subtle idea of punishing him for his reply to the letter sent round to him at the Benedetto theatre? Was he too drawing into his nostrils the pungent savour of musk and amber? His chin dropped forward on his breast in despair.
“Thomas will be in one boat with the baggage. A second will carry musicians. Yes, it will be pleasant to have water-music as we ascend the Brenta. We shall have, of course, to travel in my present gondola — you, my dear Williams, myself, and, since I may as well profit by the reputation which you and Bettina and my maids have given me, I shall bring a lady with me to cheer our way.”
“A lady?” cried Charles Williams.
“You will not be inconvenienced, I hope,” replied Elliot politely. “She will not come from the fruit market, I promise you.”
“My dear fellow!” Williams expostulated. Then he fell again into his roguish mood. Marelli was quite forgotten. He must make what he could of his hapless destiny. Julian sat with his eyes upon the floor. He felt the handcuffs once more cold upon his wrists.
“Do I know her?” Williams asked.
“You do.”
“Ah, foxy, foxy,” and Mr. Williams laid a forefinger against the side of his nose. “Her name, or I die here on your floor?”
“You’ll keep it secret?”
“As the grave.”
“Pyrrha,” said Sir James Elliot.
Mr. Williams frowned. His face was lined and furrowed by perplexity. “Pyrrha!” he repeated. He ran over the names of such ladies — and they were not few — as might fall victims to the charms and the pocket-book of my Lord, the Baronet — Lucrezia, Giannina, Camilla, Caterina — but there wasn’t a Pyrrha amongst them. And then he lifted his head to see Marelli upon his feet, blushing, laughing and blushing again.
Mr. Williams was more puzzled than before.
“I don’t understand,” he stammered.
“My dear fellow!” cried Sir James with the very accent of Mr. Williams, “Pyrrha is the name which in the very excellent libretto of Signor Metastasio, the young Achilles bore amongst the maidens of Scyros.”
A moment of stupefaction for Charles Williams, and the same moment of uneasiness for Julian. Then Williams broke into a loud guffaw, and never had humiliation so poignant, in all these eight years of humiliation, so wounded Julian Linchcombe.
“To be sure,” cried Williams, thumping with the palms of his hands upon the arms of his chair. “Signor Marelli, I make you my compliments,” and he swept a bow towards the floor.
To his impish humour the plan was most amusing. The great English Baronet in a stately procession up the Brenta with a lady at his side, and Mr. Williams of the English Embassy on the seat in front of him. Music to waft him on his lordly way. His baggage on a third gondola behind him. Who would venture to ask the name of the lady he took with him on this adventure? No one. And Giovanni Ferrer, known as Marelli, would slip between the claws of Cavaletti and Maria Baretti and Messer-Grande and his satellites as easily — nay, more easily than he had slipped from the window of the porter’s lodge in the Palace Rezzonico.
“Maria Baretti — that gentle one — will take to her bed in a rage and Cavaletti will bruise his knuckles as he knocks upon her bedroom door. He hasn’t caged the shining singing-bird for her, the unforgivable fellow!” and checking his laughter, Charles Williams went into a conference on ways and means with Elliot. Julian was not consulted. He was left to stand much as he had stood years before in the music-room of Sir Edward Place at Naples whilst the ladies decided how he must be dressed and furbelowed for his début. All that Julian had to do was to hold his tongue now and do as he was told afterwards. People with a knowledge of the world and the habit of affairs would arrange what was best for him.
Barges, not gondolas, would be wanted, said Mr.
Williams. Sir James had his friends amongst the musicians. It would be wise that he should collect the little orchestra. It would be thought just the seemly proper way of travel for a rich English milord.
“We will have Handel’s water-music to waft us up the Brenta,” cried Sir James. It was that lovely work which had reconciled George I and Handel on the Thames years ago. The villas and orangeries on the banks of the Brenta should hear it now.
“We will give out that we are going to Padua,” said Mr. Williams. “We must leave that charming town until we return.”
Julian was not so submissive as he had been in the presence of the ladies at Naples.
“But I would like to stop for an hour or so at Padua,” he interrupted.
Both Sir James and Mr. Williams looked at him with an air of surprise as if, whilst they were deep in their provisions for his safety, they had forgotten his presence in the room.
“That’s quite out of the question,” said Charles Williams brusquely.
“I have a special reason,” Julian returned sullenly, changing from one foot to the other.
After all, during the last eighteen months he had managed his life with some success. Why should he not have a place in the discussion?
Sir James smiled at him in amusement.
“But, child, Padua is in the State of Venice. Stop at Padua, and Messer-Grande will have his handcuffs on your wrists again.”
He turned back to Williams.
“Perhaps Columba Tadino could provide a woman’s dress?”
Mr. Williams shook his head.
“Columba Tadino may be watched. I have little doubt that she is. No! But I have friends. I can borrow what is wanted and no questions asked. He’ll wear a mask, of course, as any woman would on such a journey.” He measured Julian with his eye. “And with his hair piled high on a comb he’ll pass very well.”
They would want beds for the cabin, since they would certainly pass one night and perhaps two in the barge. Mr. Williams charged himself with that duty. Sir James was to order provisions and wine and dainties for his lady, and he made out a list whilst they talked. Both he and Mr. Williams were getting a vast deal of enjoyment out of their conspiracy against the State of Venice.
“I shall not be home again before supper-time,” said Sir James. “But this will be your last day of imprisonment, Giovanni,” and Sir James went upon his various errands with Charles Williams, leaving Julian thoroughly ashamed of his fractiousness. Here were very good friends putting themselves to a great inconvenience for his safety, and he must needs reply to it with the behaviour of a fractious child.
XXI. A WATER-PARTY ON THE BRENTA
AT HALF PAST eight on the following morning the luggage of Sir James Elliot, Bart., who was setting out on a discreet tour through the waterways of the Terra Firma of Venice, was piled into the smallest of the barges. At nine, the second barge, with its little company of musicians, took its place opposite to the steps of the Palazzo San Polo. Some five minutes later a third barge arrived; it was decorated with flowers, the boards of the deck were hidden under rich carpets; baskets of fruit were sheltered from the sun; chairs were placed under a canopy in front of the cabin. The barge was bright with ornaments of silver and polished brass. The third barge slipped in between the barge of the musicians and the steps. It had hardly stopped when Mr. Charles Williams ran down and stepped on board. He was or seemed to be busy satisfying himself that all the appurtenances of the barge were worthy of the high dignity reserved for it. He also satisfied himself that no inquisitive black gondola manned by sbirri was lurking near at hand in the Grand Canal. Having taken these precautions, he clapped his hands and after just that interval of time which it took to descend the stairs, Sir James led out his lady with a sedate and protective grace. Elliot’s chief gondolier stepped forward in his orange livery and held his arm so that she could rest her hand upon it as she stepped on to the barge.
“Pyrrha, my charmer, you can trust all your weight to that ruffian’s muscles.”
Gaiety never sat easy upon Sir James Elliot. He was better as the stalwart oak than as the lively sapling, and Pyrrha knew too well the quick and curious eyes of the race of gondoliers to stay chattering on the steps.
“Nay, I want no help, Sir James.”
Pyrrha was on board and in her chair at the back of the awning.
“Let us go, my friend. I am in a fever for green trees and the scent of flowers in the gardens of the Brenta,” and with a little imperious touch upon his sleeve, she drew Elliot down beside her. Williams at once gave the order to proceed and the barge with the musicians behind and the baggage behind the musicians, set off upon its journey.
There was no fear that the sharpest of the gondoliers could find anything strange in the aspect of Pyrrha. Julian’s brown hair was not dressed high over a comb, but lay flat upon his head and streamed down his back in curls after the Venetian style. On the top of it he wore a three-cornered hat trimmed with white lace and his face was hidden by a mask. A full black silk skirt, flounced with black gauze, touched the deck, and the upper part of the dress was covered by a black silk cloak which showed no more of him than the whiteness of his throat.
The barges were poled along the small canal and into the open water of the Giudecca. There a light wind was blowing out of the east and sails were hoisted. There, too, the musicians broke into Handel’s water-music. Charles Williams sat in the front, turning this way and that with a wave of the hand for any other party on the Giudecca that morning, the great Lord, sedate, almost disdainful, certainly aloof in the cabin porch, his lady lost in his shadow.
They were just emerging into the lagoon, when a gondola patrolling the shore darted out at them. It seemed to Williams that he could hear the hearts of his companions beating. But he kept his head and as the gondola turned at their side to keep pace with them, such a stream of jests and gossip passed between the gondoliers that he, too, sank back in his chair with a gasp of relief.
“He is hoping that more seigneurs like you will visit Venice,” Mr. Williams explained, translating the gondolier’s dialect to Elliot.
Shortly after noon, the barges reached the Brenta, and with the gentle wind still filling the red sails and the oars assisting, they slowly ascended the narrow stream. On each side country houses, set amongst the fresh green of gardens and trees and gay with flowers, comforted their eyes. Greetings and cheers waved them on. The violins and the hautbois sweetened the air with melody. No one challenged them. To the house-owners and the wayfarers on the banks of the river, the expedition was all lunacy and extravagance and princeliness — in a word it was English. Let it go forward then, in God’s name, whither it would.
Thomas Biggin cooked them a dinner which they ate in the cabin and when they had eaten it they were at the village of Doglio and the bridge across the river. But they did not pass beneath the bridge.
Beyond it lay Padua. They entered the canal which ran southwards for twenty-two miles to the Po. Here horses were awaiting them upon the towing-path, and a very short time after they had started on this new stage of their journey, twilight came and the swift night. They were moored against the bank, but they covered the windows of the cabin with black cloth so that no lights should show.
These hours of darkness were the most onerous that the fugitives had to endure. Throughout the day there had been movement and a tingle of excitement. Now there was merely the slow passage of the minutes and a rush of fears and a sense of helplessness. They were still within the State of Venice. If a branch cracked by the canal side, one of them would whisper “Listen!” and they would sit holding their breath until they choked. If a flaw of wind set the water tinkling against the planks, they imagined Messer-Grande’s black prison boat sliding noiselessly to their side. Elliot smoked his tobacco pipe and let it go out and lit it again. Even Charles Williams, who at the very worst had nothing to dread but a short banishment from the chosen city, slept only by fitful snatches; whilst Julian sat with his hands idle on a table in front of him and still as a dead man.
Williams flung on his clothes and went out from the cabin. After ages had passed, he returned and flung back the heavy curtains and put wide the doors. The colourless light of the morning was welling out under the lid of the sky. Above a mist the mulberry trees stood out upon the plain. In a little while a jingle of harness was heard and the cries of men upon the towing-path. The barge moved forward, and as though a word of command had been given, all three dropped upon their beds and slept. When they waked the sun was high and they were breaking the shining current of the Po. The State of Venice was behind them; they were within the borders of the Pope’s domains.
Elliot and Williams shaved, dressed and set their wigs upon their heads.
“We will take our coffee on the porch as soon as you are ready, Giovanni,” said Elliot, and Julian, who was sitting up in his bed with his eyes shining, flung out his arms and cried:
“Surely no one had ever two such good friends as you.”
“Nonsense!” said Sir James gruffly, and “Fiddlesticks!” Mr. Williams exclaimed.
He was annoyed. He stumped out of the cabin and sat himself down with a thump in one of the chairs; and when Elliot joined him, he turned on him in an odd exasperation.
“Why should I care whether a little, impudent, Italian musico is shut up under the Leads for a few years?” he asked. “Explain that to me! But when he thanked me so prettily, damn it, I was moved! Elliot, I was moved! I am getting old, you know. An Italian musico! Why should I care? Only — only—” and Mr. Williams looked perplexed—” an insolent, vanity-ridden tribe! Why should I care? Only he didn’t seem to belong to the tribe!”
Sir James was anxious to divert his companion from these speculations. What Williams was stumbling over was the fact that this boy had the manners of his race and his breeding and his education; and it was just as well that Williams should get no nearer at the present moment to the truth.
“I am told,” said Elliot, “that Farinelli has the modesty of a great gentleman.”
“May be,” grunted Williams. “No doubt! You know more about these singing people than I do.”
But he was not satisfied and he looked at Julian with a keen curiosity when he joined them in the porch of the cabin. He was not the only one, however, to be curious. The orange-liveried gondoliers saw, instead of the lady Pyrrha, a trim youth with his brown hair tied back with a ribbon and a muslin cravat knotted with a careless grace about his throat. He was dressed in a green suit laced with silver, white silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes. All that remained of Pyrrha was her three-cornered hat.
“The Marelli,” whispered one of the gondoliers to the other. Here was gossip, to be sure, to satisfy every gondolier from Santa Maria della Salute to the Burchi Canal. But there was perhaps danger in it. A closed mouth would be wise, even with so marvellous a tale clamouring to be told.
The barges arrived towards nightfall at Ferrara, that once-ducal town with the great empty palaces and the grass growing in the streets.
XXII. THE INCORRIGIBLE PAST
“YOU HAVE MADE your arrangements?” Sir James asked.
“Yes, Sir,” Julian answered. “The roads between here and Bologna according to the landlord are deep and heavy. So I am travelling with six horses to my chaise, just as if I were an English milord;” and a smile without a trace of bitterness in it danced in the lad’s eyes.
They were taking their supper in the public room at the inn by the light of candles. It was a big room of a decayed magnificence, with painted walls and gilded pediments and, but for the three travellers, it was quite empty. Both Sir James and Julian used the Italian tongue since Charles Williams was at the table. Williams lifted his hands.
“Six horses! And you are not yet twenty! What it is to be a singer!”
Julian laughed.
“An extravagant, foolish person,” he agreed. “But perhaps I am to be forgiven. I am anxious to put as wide a distance as possible between myself and the State of Venice.”
“And yet,” replied Mr. Williams, looking over the rim of his glass of red Chianti, “... and yet — if I am impertinent, put it down to the inquisitiveness of an old gossip, Signor Giovanni — it seemed to me that in spite of the danger you ran in the State of Venice, you were still anxious to waste some valuable hours at Padua.”
