Italian Days and Ways

by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

"It is Mr. Leonard," I said, as we drew nearer, and thus we recognized him first, although he was waiting there for us. He naturally did not expect to see a gondola full of women bearing tall lily-stalks in their hands, looking for all the world like part of a Venetian pageant. The smile that irradiated Walter Leonard's face, when he finally recognized the three Botticelli ladies as those he had come to seek, was beautiful to behold. The mingling of surprise and delight on Zelphine's face entirely exonerated her from any complicity in this sudden appearance, although Angela and I chaff her unmercifully about her determination to return to see Mrs. B., and ask her if she does not believe more strongly than ever in telepathy. It was a rather curious coincidence, was it not? Yet, to quote a very trite saying, "truth is stranger than fiction."

Villa d'Este, Lake Como, June 15th.

Since my letter of June 7th, telling you of Mr. Leonard's sudden arrival in Venice, I have not sent you a line, not even an announcement of the engagement which of course soon followed. How or when the important affair was settled I know not. I can only tell you that the happy pair came to me with shining faces and asked for my blessing, which I freely gave. Angela has so far withheld her approval of the match, and is evidently very jealous of the "suitor," as she is pleased to call Mr. Leonard. She had begun to look upon Zelphine as her particular property, and Mr. Leonard's attempts to propitiate this unrelenting goddess are really quite pathetic. He offers her flowers every time that he brings them to Zelphine, and then, as he is far too polite to overlook my claims as chaperon-in-chief, I come in for my share of votive offerings.

Zelphine is so pleased with her own estate that she wishes to see all her friends equally happy. When Angela is pale or tired, she looks at her compassionately, and whispers to me that she is evidently regretting the Count de B. If Angela regrets any one, it is not the Count. She has long and frequent letters from Ludovico, from which she reads me choice bits, and there is always a message for me. Angela and I are naturally thrown very much upon our own resources, and the last days in Venice would have been rather dull for her had they not been enlivened by a number of entertainments given by our friends there in honor of the fidanzati. At one particularly charming afternoon tea, at the Lido, Angela was so much admired by a young Italian that I should have had another Count de B. affair on my hands had we not left Venice soon after. Zelphine and Walter Leonard would have been satisfied to stay on indefinitely, spending their afternoons and evenings floating about in gondolas and their mornings in the shops buying presents for the children at home, whom the mamma elect has already adopted with enthusiasm. We were, however, fairly driven away from Venice last week by the heat and the mosquitoes, which are said to be unusually venomous this year. We have noticed that in whatever place we happen to be stopping, the disagreeables are always unusual.

Having spent most of the beautiful springtime in cities, we concluded to come directly to this pretty place on Lake Como, from whence we can make day-trips to Milan, which is only a little over an hour from here. The Villa d'Este, once a royal villa, now a delightfully comfortable hotel, was for some years the home of the discarded wife of "the most elegant gentleman in Europe." The entrance-hall and stairways are handsome and imposing, and the rooms spacious and airy. We breakfast in the salle de conversation and dine in a great banqueting-hall. The grounds of the villa are quite extensive, and during her residence here Queen Caroline interested herself in improving them in every way, so Dr. A. tells me, for, to add to our pleasure, my "Doctor Antonio" from San Remo is spending the month of June here. He knows every inch of this beautiful region and promises us many excursions in his motor car.

Picturesque as is the view of the lake and mountains from the front piazza and terrace, the part of the grounds that we most enjoy is the hillside behind the house, which abounds in mountain streams and cascades over which rustic bridges have been thrown, and where many wildwood paths lead to vine-covered pavilions, temples of love and temples of fame, these latter adorned with busts of distinguished men—all so odd and foreign, and so different from our idea of pleasure-grounds!

Adjoining the grounds of the Villa d'Este are those of the Villa Maximilian, which was the home of the unfortunate Archduke Maximilian and his wife during the early and happy years of their married life. The estate now belongs to a wealthy Milanese gentleman, who has had the good taste to make few changes in the house and gardens. This afternoon we all rowed across the lake to the Villa Pliniana on the opposite shore. This really classic spot owes its name to a remarkable spring of water near by, which Pliny speaks of in his letters. To-morrow we expect to make an all-day excursion to Bellagio and Cadenabbia. There are so many attractive resorts on the shores of this lake that we have not yet planned for a day in Milan at the Brera, whose wonders we hope to enjoy in the good company of Miss Morris.

June 17th.

I have a most humiliating confession to make: yesterday, in getting off the boat at this landing, I made a misstep and sprained my ankle. It is not a serious affair, I fancy, "pas grand chose," as Dr. A. says, but it is most vexatious, as we may be obliged to stay here for a fortnight, and we really need a couple of weeks in Paris to get Zelphine's trousseau and make other preparations for the wedding, which is to be in London the second week in July. I think the groom elect is secretly rejoiced over this delay, although openly most sympathetic and considerate, as it gives him a longer time here with Zelphine, and really, if I had looked all over Europe for a fitting scene for an accident, and with a view to lovers, I could not have found a more suitable place than this. Mr. Leonard says that I apologize so abjectly for what is not my fault, but my misfortune, that I remind him of a story that Dr. William H. Furness used to tell of a saintly old lady who frequently and formally apologized to her assembled family for being so long a-dying.

It is inglorious, as Zelphine says, to have had an accident here that I might much more conveniently have had stepping off a ferry-boat in New York or Brooklyn, to which Angela adds, "Yes, it would have been so much more up-to-date to have been thrown from an auto car, and it would certainly have been more dangerous."