A Voyage of Consolation by Sara Jeannette Duncan (top 10 most read books in the world .txt) 📖

to me I'll slap you." In that frame of mind it was always best to let momma lie down. The Senator had letters to write; I think he wanted to communicate his Venetian steamship idea to a man in Minneapolis. Dicky had already been round to the Hotel di Londres--we were at the Colomba--and had found nothing, so when he asked me to come out for a walk I prepared to be steeped in despondency. An unsuccessful love affair is a severe test of friendship; but I went.

It was as I expected. Having secured a spectator to wreak his gloom upon, Mr. Dod proceeded to make the most of the opportunity. He put his hat on recklessly, and thrust his hands into his pa--his trouser pockets. We were in a strange town, but he fastened his eyes moodily upon the pavement, as if nothing else were worth considering. As we strolled into the Piazza Bra, I saw him gradually and furtively turn up his coat-collar, at which I felt obliged to protest.

"Look here, Dicky," I said, "unrequited affection is, doubtless, very trying, but you're too much of an advertisement. The Veronese are beginning to stare at you; their sorcerers will presently follow you about with their patent philters. Reform your personal appearance, or here, at the foot of this statue of Victor Emmanuel, I leave you to your fate."

Dicky reformed it, but with an air of patience under persecution which I found hard to bear. "I don't know your authority for calling it unrequited," he said, with dignity.

"All right--undelivered," I replied. "That is a noble statue--you can't contradict the guide-book. By Borghi."

"Victor Emmanuel, is it? Then it isn't Garibaldi. You don't have to travel much in Italy to know it's got to be either one or the other. What they _like_ is to have both," said Mr. Dod, with unnecessary bitterness. "I'd enjoy something fresh in statues myself." Then, with an imperfectly-concealed alertness, "There seems to be something going on over there," he added.

We could see nothing but an arched door in a high, curving wall, and a stream of people trickling in. "Probably only one of their eternal Latin church services," continued Dicky. "It's about the only form of public entertainment you can depend on in this country. But we might as well have a look in." He went on to say, as we crossed the dusty road, that my unsympathetic attitude was enough to drive anybody to the Church of Rome, even in the middle of the afternoon.

But we perceived at once that it was not the Church of Rome, or any other church. There was more than one arched entrance, and a man in each, to whom people paid a lira apiece for admission, and when we followed them in we found our feet still upon the ground, and ourselves among a forest of solid buttresses and props. The number XV. was cut deep over the door we came in by, and the props had the air of centuries of patience. A wave of sound seemed to sweep round in a circle inside and spend itself about us, of faint multitudinous clappings. Conviction descended upon us suddenly, and as we stumbled after the others we shared one classic moment of anticipation, hurrying and curious in 1895 as the Romans hurried and were curious in 110, a little late for the show in the Arena. They were all there before us, they had taken the best places, and sat, as we emerged in our astonishment, tier above tier to the row where the wall stopped and the sky began, intent, enthusiastic. The wall threw a new moon of shadow on the west, and there the sun struck down sharply and made splendid the dyes in the women's clothes, and turned the Italian soldiers' buttons into flaming jewels. And again, as we stared, the applause went round and up, from the yellow sand below to the blue sky above, and when we looked bewildered down into the Arena for the victorious gladiator, and saw a tumbling clown with a painted face instead, the illusion was only half destroyed. We climbed and struggled for better places, treading, I fear, in our absorption on a great many Veronese toes. Dicky said when we got them that you had to remember that the seats were Roman in order to appreciate them, they were such very cold stone, and they sloped from back to front, for the purpose, as we found out afterward from the guide-book, of letting off the rain water. We were glad to understand it, but Dicky declared that no explanation would induce him to take a season ticket for the Arena, it was too destitute of modern improvements. It was something, though, to sit there watching, with the ranged multitude, a show in a Roman Amphitheatre--one could imagine things, lictors and aediles, senators and centurions. It only required the substitution of togas and girdled robes for trousers and petticoats, and a purple awning for the emperor, and a brass-plated body-guard with long spears and hairy arms and legs, and a few details like that. If one half closed one's eyes it was hardly necessary to imagine. I was half closing my eyes, and wondering whether they had Vestal Virgins at this particular amphitheatre, and trying to remember whether they would turn their thumbs up or down when they wished the clown to be destroyed, when Dicky grew suddenly pale and sprang to his feet.

"I was afraid it might give one a chill," I said, "but it is very picturesque. I suppose the ancient Romans brought cushions."

Mr. Dod did not appear to hear me.

"In the third row below," he exclaimed, blushing joyfully, "the sixth from this end--do you see? Yellow bun under a floral hat--Isabel!"

"A yellow bun under a floral hat," I repeated, "that would be Isabel, if you add a good complexion and a look of deportment. Yes, now I see her. Mrs. Portheris on one side, Mr. Mafferton on the other. What do you want to do?"

"Assassinate Mafferton," said Dicky. "Does it look to you as if he had been getting there at all."

"So far as one can see from behind, I should say he has made some progress, but I don't think, Dicky, that he has arrived. He is constitutionally slow," I added, "about arriving."

At that moment the party rose. Without a word we, too, got on our feet and automatically followed, Dicky treading the reserved seats of the court of Berengarius as if they had been the back rows of a Bowery theatre. The classics were wholly obscured for him by a floral hat and a yellow bun. I, too, abandoned my speculations cheerfully, for I expected Mrs. Portheris, confronted with Dicky, to be more entertaining than any gladiator.

We came up with them at the exit, and that august lady, as we approached, to our astonishment, greeted us with effusion.

"We thought," she declared, "that we had lost you altogether. This is quite delightful. Now we _must_ reunite!" Dicky was certainly included. It was extraordinary. "And your dear father and mother," went on Mrs. Portheris, "I am longing to hear their experiences since we parted. Where are you? The Colomba? Why what a coincidence! We are there, too! How small the world is!"

"Then you have only just arrived," said Mr. Dod to Miss Portheris, who had turned away her head, and was regarding the distant mountains.

"Yes."

"By the 11.30 p.m.?"

"No. By the 2.30 p.m."

"Had you a pleasant journey up from Naples?"

"It was rather dusty."

I saw that something quite awful was going on and conversed volubly with Mrs. Portheris and Mr. Mafferton to give Dicky a chance, but in a moment I, too, felt a refrigerating influence proceeding from the floral hat and the bun for which I could not account.

"Where have you been?" inquired Dicky, "if I may ask."

"At Vallombrosa."

There was also a parasol and it twisted indifferently.

"Ah--among the leaves! And were they as thick as William says they are?"

"I don't understand you." And, indeed, this levity assorted incomprehensively with the black despair that sat on Dicky's countenance. It was really very painful in spite of Mrs. Portheris's unusual humanity and Mr. Mafferton's obvious though embarrassed joy, and as Mrs. Portheris's cab drove up at the moment I made a tentative attempt to bring the interview to a close. "Mr. Dod and I are walking," I said.

"Ah, these little strolls!" exclaimed Mrs. Portheris, with benignant humour. "I suppose we must condone them now!" and she waved her hand, rolling away, as if she gave us a British matron's blessing.

"Oh, don't!" I cried. "Don't condone them--you mustn't!" But my words fell short in a cloud of dust, and even Dicky, wrapped in his tragedy, failed to receive an impression from them.

"How," he demanded passionately, "do you account for it?"

"Account for what?" I shuffled.

"The size of her head--the frost--the whole bally conversation!" propounded Dicky, with tears in his eyes.

I have really a great deal of feeling, and I did not rebuke these terms. Besides, I could see only one way out of it, and I was occupied with the best terms in which to present it to Dicky. So I said I didn't know, and reflected.

"She isn't the same girl!" he groaned.

"Men are always talking in the funny columns of the newspapers," I remarked absently, "about how much better they can throw a stone and sharpen a pencil than we can."

Mr. Dod looked injured. "Oh, well," he said, "if you prefer to talk about something else----"

"But they can't see into a sentimental situation any further than into a board fence," I continued serenely. "My dear Dick, Isabel thinks you're engaged. So does her mamma. So does Mr. Mafferton."

"Who to?" exclaimed Mr. Dod, in ungrammatical amazement.

"I looked at him reproachfully. Don't be such an owl!" I said.

Light streamed in upon Dicky's mind. "To you!" he exclaimed. "Great Scott!"

"Preposterous, isn't it?" I said.

"I should ejaculate! Well, no, I mean--I shouldn't ejaculate, but--oh, you know what I mean----"

"I do," I said. "Don't apologise."

"What in my aunt's wardrobe do they think that for?"

"You left their party and joined ours rather abruptly at Pompeii," I said.

"Had to!"

"Isabel didn't know you had to. If she tried to find out, I fancy she was told little girls shouldn't ask questions. It was Lot's wife who really came between you, but Isabel wouldn't have been jealous of Lot's wife."

"I suppose not," said Dicky doubtfully.

"Do you remember meeting the Misses Bingham in the Ufizzi? and telling them you were going to be----"

"That's so."

"You didn't give them enough details. And they told me they were going to Vallombrosa. And when Miss Cora said good-bye to me she told me you were a dear or something."

"Why didn't you say I wasn't?"

"Dicky, if you are going to assume that it was my fault----"

"Only one decent hotel--hardly anybody in it--foregathered with old lady Portheris--told every mortal thing they knew! Oh," groaned Dicky. "Why was an old maid ever born!"

"She never was," I couldn't help saying, but I might as well not have said it. Dicky was rapidly formulating his plan of action.

"I'll tell her straight out, after dinner," he concluded, "and her mother, too, if I get a chance."

"Do you know what will happen?" I asked.

"You never know what will happen," replied Dicky, blushing.