CHAPTER XXI.
Wearing Rue with a Difference.
Scene—The Steps of the Hotel Dandolo, about 11 A.M. Podbury is looking expectantly down the Grand Canal, Culchard is leaning upon the Balustrade.
Podb. Yes, met Bob just now. They've gone to the Europa, but we've arranged to take a gondola together, and go about. They're to pick me up here. Ah, that looks rather like them. (A gondola approaches, with Miss Prendergast and Bob; Podbury goes down the steps to meet them.) How are you, Miss Prendergast? Here I am, you see.
Miss P. (ignoring C.'s salute). How do you do, Mr. Podbury? Surely you don't propose to go out in a gondola in that hat!
Podb. (taking off a brown "pot-hat," and inspecting it). It—it's quite decent. It was new when I came away!
Bob (who is surly this morning). Hang it all, Patia! Do you want him to come out in a chimney-pot? Jump in, old fellow, never mind your tile?
Podb. (apologetically). I had a straw once—but I sat on it. I'm awfully sorry, Miss Prendergast. Look here, shall I go and see if I can buy one?
Miss P. Not now—it doesn't signify, for once. But a round hat and a gondola are really too incongruous!
Podb. Are they? A lot of the Venetians seem to wear 'em. (He steps in.) Now what are we going to do—just potter about?
Miss P. One hardly comes to Venice to potter! I thought we'd go and study the Carpaccios at the Church of the Schiavoni first—they won't take us more than an hour or so; then cross to San Giorgio Maggiore, and see the Tintorets, come back and get a general idea of the exterior of St. Mark's, and spend the afternoon at the Accademia.
Podb. (with a slight absence of heartiness). Capital! And—er—lunch at the Academy, I suppose?
Miss P. There does not happen to be a restaurant there—we shall see what time we have. I must say I regard every minute of daylight spent on food here as a sinful waste.
Bob. Now just look here, Patia, if you are bossing this show, you needn't go cutting us off our grub! What do you say, Jem?
Podb. (desperately anxious to please). Oh, I don't know that I care about lunch myself—much. [Their voices die away on the water.
Culch. (musing). She might have bowed to me!... She has escaped the mosquitoes.... Ah, well, I doubt if she'll find those two particularly sympathetic companions! Now I should enjoy a day spent in that way. Why shouldn't I, as it is? I dare say Maud will——
[Turns and sees Mr. Trotter.
Mr. T. My darter will be along presently. She's Cologning her cheeks—they've swelled up again some. I guess you want to Cologne your cheeks—they're dreadful lumpy. I've just been on the Pi-azza again, Sir. It's curious now the want of enterprise in these Vernetians. Any one would have expected they'd have thrown a couple or so of girder bridges across the canal between this and the Ri-alto, and run an elevator up the Campanile—but this ain't what you might call a business city, Sir, and that's a fact. (To Miss T. as she appears.) Hello, Maud, the ice-water cool down your face any?
Miss T. Not much. My face just made that ice-water boil over. I don't believe I'll ever have a complexion again—it's divided up among several dozen mosquitoes, who've no use for one. But it's vurry consoling to look at you, Mr. Culchard, and feel there's a pair of us. Now what way do you propose we should endeavour to forget our sufferings?
Culch. Well, we might spend the morning in St. Mark's——?
Miss T. The morning! Why, Poppa and I saw the entire show inside of ten minutes, before breakfast!
Culch. Ah! (Discouraged.) What do you say to studying the Vine and Fig-tree angles and the capitals of the arcades in the Ducal Palaces? I will go and fetch the Stones of Venice.
"I GUESS YOU WANT TO COLOGNEyour CHEEKS—THEY'RE DREADFUL LUMPY."
Miss T. I guess you can leave those old stones in peace. I don't feel like studying up anything this morning—it's as much as ever I can do not to scream aloud!
Culch. Then shall we just drift about in a gondola all the morning, and—er—perhaps do the Academy later?
Miss T. Not any canals in this hot sun for me! I'd be just as sick! That gondola will keep till it's cooler.
Culch. (losing patience). Then I must really leave it to you to make a suggestion!
Miss T. Well, I believe I'll have a good look round the curiosity stores. There's ever such a cunning little shop back of the Clock Tower on the Pi-azza, where I saw some brocades that were just too sweet! So I'll take Poppa along bargain-hunting. Don't you come if you'd rather poke around your old churches and things!
Culch. I don't feel disposed to—er—"poke around" alone, so, if you will allow me to accompany you,——
Miss T. Oh, I'll allow you to escort me. It's handy having some one around to carry parcels. And Poppa's bound to drop the balance every time!
Culch. (to himself). That's all I am to her. A beast of burden! And a whole precious morning squandered on this confounded shopping—when I might have been—ah, well!
[Follows, under protest.
On the Grand Canal. 9 P.M. A brilliant moonlight night; a music-barge, hung with coloured lanterns, is moving slowly up towards the Rialto, surrounded and followed by a fleet of gondolas, amongst which is one containing the Trotters and Culchard. Culchard has just discovered—with an embarrassment not wholly devoid of a certain excitement—that they are drawing up to a gondola occupied by the Prendergasts and Podbury.
Mr. Trotter (meditatively). It's real romantic. That's the third deceased kitten I've seen to-night. They haven't only a two-foot tide in the Adriatic, and it stands to reason all the sewage——
Miss P. How absolutely magical those palaces look in the moonlight! Bob, how can you yawn like that?
Bob. I beg your pardon, Patia, really, but we've had rather a long day of it, you know!
Mr. T. Well, now, I declare I sort of recognised those voices! (Heartily.) Why, how are you getting along in Vernis? We're gettin' along fust-rate. Say, Maud, here's your friend alongside!
[Miss P. presents a stony silence.
Miss T. (in an undertone). I don't see how you can act so, Poppa,—when you know she's just as mad with me!
Mr. T. There! Dumned if I didn't clean forget you were out! But, see here, now—why cann't we let bygones be bygones?
Bob. (impulsively). Just what I think, Mr. Trotter, and I'm sure my sister will——
Miss P. Bob, will you kindly not make the situation more awkward than it is? If I desired a reconciliation, I think I am quite capable of saying so!
Miss T. (in confidence to the Moon). This Ark isn't proposing to send out any old dove, either—we've no use for an olive-branch. (To Mr. T.) That's "Santa Lucia" they're singing now, Poppa.
Mr. T. They don't appear to me to get the twist on it they did at Bellagio!
Miss T. You mean that night Charley took us out on the Lake? Poor Charley! he'd just love to be here—he's ever so much artistic feeling!
Mr. T. Well, I don't see why he couldn't have come along if he'd wanted.
Miss T. (with a glance at her neighbour). I presume he'd reasons enough. He's a vurry cautious man. Likely he was afraid he'd get bitten.
Miss P. (after a swift scrutiny of Miss T.'s features). Oh, Bob, remind me to get some more of that mosquito stuff. I should so hate to be bitten—such a dreadful disfigurement!
Miss T. (to the Moon). I declare if I don't believe I can feel some creature trying to sting me now!
Miss P. Some people are hardly recognisable, Bob, and they say the marks never quite disappear!
Miss T. Poppa, don't you wonder what Charley's doing just now? I'd like to know if he's found any one yet to feel an interest in the great Amurrcan Novel. It's curious how interested people do get in that novel, considering it's none of it written, and never will be. I guess sometimes he makes them believe he means something by it. They don't understand it's only Charley's way!
Miss P. The crush isn't quite so bad now. Mr. Podbury, if you will kindly ask your friend not to hold on to our gondola, we should probably be better able to turn. (Culchard, who had fondly imagined himself undetected, takes his hand away as if it were scorched.) Now we can get away. (To Gondolier.) Voltiamo, se vi piace, prestissimo!
[The gondola turns and departs.
Miss T. Well, I do just enjoy making that Prendergast girl perfectly wild, and that's a fact. (Reflectively.) And it's queer, but I like her ever so much all the time. Don't you think that's too fonny of me, Mr. Culchard, now? [Culchard feigns a poetic abstraction.