Across the Lagoon (12 page)

Carpi stared at the bridge with renewed interest. So
that
was how it got its name I Her eyes danced. The things she was going to be able to tell the family when she got back!

So taken up was she with her surroundings that she didn't realise that the little guide was marching on and his flock of tourists following meekly behind. Stephanie, listening mechanically to Aniello's resonant tones, was straggling to one side.

It was Gray Barrett who brought all this to Carol's notice. Falling back, he scooped her along with him impatiently. He said to her coldly, though she noticed that
he
was looking at everything and constantly referring to his guide book, 'Please remember, Miss Lindley, your first consideration is Stephanie. Venice is full of tourists. She could easily miss us.'

Carol nodded mutely and stumbled hurriedly alongside him. But nothing could douse the smiling eagerness in her as she gazed around. Gray Barrett was all prepared to return to his printed description of the city, but somehow he didn't seem to be able to remove his critical gaze from Carol's sparkling awareness as quickly as he would have liked. He forgot his list of churches and famous places and pointing ahead said brusquely, 'We're coming up to St Mark's Square. You'll be able to see the Piazzetta and the Basilica San Marco.'

'Oh!' Carol gave a gasp of delight. She had no idea what these places were, but they sounded wonderful. And for some reason, because Gray Barrett had put himself out to mention them to her, she felt strangely light-hearted, and her eyes held a new sunny glow.

Past two monolithic columns on the waterfront, one with a winged lion on top and one with a robed figure holding a stick, Aniello led them into the square. Here Carol struggled to keep up with his fast-flowing spiel on the Doge's Palace, St Mark's Cathedral, the Campanile and goodness knows what else. She caught snatches of description... Byzantine mosaic... Greek horses beaten from copper ... and heard all about the Zodiac clock and its two bronze giants who for five hundred years had struck every hour.

They saw the golden staircase in the Doge's Palace, a „ breathtaking sight, and the old library with its beautiful interior decoration. There were groups of tourists being led by guides everywhere. Carol, remembering what she had been told, stuck close to Stephanie. Stephanie, thoroughly bored by this time, stuck close to her uncle, who in turn stuck close to his guide book plus the learned words of Aniello.

The little guide's chat was humorous and entertaining, and Carol was far too dazzled at what she was looking at to give the other two in her party more than a thread of her attention. She was only vaguely aware that Gray Barrett, seemingly in tune with her lively, receptive mood, would occasionally bring himself down to her level and gruffly point out an extra item of interest.

When they went up the campanile towering over St Mark's Square and looked out on the fabulously clear day over unforgettable views of Venice, he said suddenly, bending close, 'Look, you can see the Alps.'

Carol, gazing to where his firm brown hand pointed away in the distance to pearl-misted peaks, felt that if she saw any more she would burst.

For lunch Aniello led them proudly through a labyrinth of narrow streets off the square to a restaurant with an eighteenth-century setting. Carol had langouste; Stephanie chose a
pasta
dish, the same as her uncle.

Aniello disappeared, presumably to re-charge himself for the afternoon session, when they were to see the riverside palaces, the Rialto bridge and the street markets. He reappeared at three o'clock and for the next three hours valiantly maintained his pace and his humorous flow of conversation.

Oitf of all that she saw in the afternoon, Carol was overwhelmed by the Venetian glassware in the market.

It was the loveliest coloured and most exquisitely shaped glass she had seen in her life. For long enough she hung about a stall of elegant figurines, and Stephanie, for once enchanted herself at the dazzling array, clung to her side sharing her pleasure and watching her expectantly.

At one time, answering the younger girl's questioning look, Carol admitted timidly, 'Oh, I'd love to buy a gift here for my mother. Would your uncle have enough money on him, do you think?'

Knowing that he had forbidden them to bring their handbags for fear of pickpockets, Stephanie gave her a push and said, eager to see a sale, 'Well, go and ask him.'

Carol was seized with shyness. Though she had spent the best part of the day in Gray Barrett's company, it hadn't melted her awe of him. She shuffled up to where he was giving a beaten copper plaque his critical attention, and croaked out her request.

From his height, Gray Barrett lowered an ear to her faint words in the clamour and commotion around them. Then, training his glance over the glassware stalls, he shook his head and told her briskly, 'All this is sub-standard stock. For the genuine article you want the shops around St Mark's Square.'

Carol looked back in disappointment at the stall.
She
couldn't see any flaws in the elegant figurines and she doubted whether her mother would have done, and she knew the shops in St Mark's Square were fantastically expensive. But she daren't argue with that piercing gaze fixed on her.

Dusk was settling over the Rialto district. She forgot all about the glassware a few minutes later when Aniello came bustling in to inform his flock that they were going for refreshments and then a gondola ride to round off the day.

Stephanie's face dropped when she heard the guide's words. She looked up at her uncle while the group were shuffling together and pleaded, 'Oh, Gray, do we have to? Couldn't we just go wandering off on our own for the last hour?'

Hemmed in close to Stephanie's uncle and looking up at him too, Carol held her breath. To come to Venice and not go in a gondola! The idea was unthinkable. With her eager blue gaze watching him intently Gray Barrett paused for several moments. Then he flicked his glance over Stephanie. 'It's paid for,' he said drily, and with his usual acerbity. 'Also you'll learn more from a gondola trip than you will wandering af a loose end in the streets.'

It was almost dark when everyone lined up alongside a tiny landing stage where a tongue of water at the end of a narrow canal licked over a stretch of earthy sand. The gondolas, long slim shapes with curled up ends like the toe of a mandarin's slipper, held about half a dozen people.

There was much commotion amongst the tourist group because friends and families didn't want to be split up. Often Aniello had to go touting up and down the line looking for a single person to fill an odd seat. Carol considered that her party were lucky, for when their turn came she and Stephanie and Gray Barrett were grouped off with a family threesome, so there were no problems.

Getting into the gondola was tricky. With the rising tide it bobbed about like a cork and one had to step up over the high curled prow and scramble down into sort of padded makeshift armchairs that were scattered about.

Chuckling delightedly, the family threesome went in first. Gray Barrett stood aside and gave them a hand up. Then he swung Stephanie in. Carol was taller and not so nimble on her feet, and the wild rocking of the boat with all the others scrambling drunkenly for seats didn't help. She didn't see how she could possibly set foot on the bouncing craft without tipping head first into the water.

She took so long that by this time Gray Barrett had climbed aboard himself. He looked back at her stranded and reached out, gingering her up with his impatient look to tell her, 'Take my hand. You're perfectly safe.'

Carol did as she was ordered, but she knew her limitations better than he. Though he held her hand like a vice as she jumped she knew she couldn't possibly keep her balance on the sloping ramp where they were both perched. To save herself from taking a ducking she clung to him as though he was a long-lost friend. Fleetingly she felt the brush of his stern jaw against her cheek.

Fortunately all this time the gondolier, a swarthy figure in black and white striped tee-shirt and flapping trousers, had been holding the craft as steady as he could with his long pole. Beside her on the ramp he also gave her a hand to keep her balance so she was able to laugh the whole thing off and stumble down into the boat to find a place.

Stephanie was hanging about waiting to see where she was going to sit. Together they took the two seats looking out over the side of the gondola. Carol was too flustered to notice where Gray Barrett was sitting. Vaguely she was aware that he was somewhere at the stern of the boat.

It was now quite dark and once they had pushed off away from the lights of the boarding platform there was nothing to be seen but the little lanterns at the bow and stern of the gondola and the black glittering strip of canal ahead of them.

The route, as they slid along, was hardly wider than a pavement walk. The only noise was the water lapping against the houses. Aniello had told them all about the old days when the nobles were rowed out on the sultry summer evenings and to break the monotony the gondoliers sang over the silent waters of the lagoon. So it was no surprise when their own boatman began to sing softly.

There was nothing embarrassing about the sound. He had a mellow tenor voice which washed over the
moss
-draped time-worn buildings as naturally as the lapping waves and the warm night breezes.

In this way they slid noiselessly through the blackness, meetings at corners with other gondoliers singing other songs, and eventually joining a caravan of gondolas illuminated with Japanese lanterns.

The highlight of the trip, as far as Carol was concerned, was when they were gliding along a narrow lane
and
came upon the sound of music. It was a fairytale scene. Great arched windows of a sixteenth-century palace were opened to the night and in a red and gilded ballroom lit with hundreds of glowing candles, they could see elegantly dressed men and women dancing
and
drinking champagne.

Outside the palace, the small square at the side was alive with people listening to the music. The young were dancing to the strains of a waltz.

Carol's enraptured gaze was still lit by the glow of
all
she had seen long after, when they had left the gondolas and were lined up on the Riva degli Schiavoni ready for the return journey to the Lido. Beside the reflected lights glistening on the black waters of the lagoon Aniello, not in any way jaded by his long day,
was
striding round checking his flock.

At the landing stage Gray Barrett ushered the girls towards the launch in with the rest of the group, making it clear that he wouldn't be returning to the
hotel
with them.

Looking back now on the excitement of the day,
Carol was only
too aware that once again she had
flopped
badly in the role of cool composed chaperone.
No doubt
these were Gray Barrett's thoughts too. She
hadn't missed
his hawk eye on her laughing exhilara-
t'on
throughout the day.
And
she could feel his brown
eves, now,
raking her starry-eyed look. Obviously he
didn't think she was
capable of getting herself and Stephanie back to the hotel without help, for she saw him having one of his stern words with Aniello, and she saw the little guide smile reassuringly and nod in their direction.

He waited until the launch was underway, then, his big dark shape silhouetted on the quay, Gray Barrett turned and moved off.

Over the next few days Carol set herself about the task of keeping Stephanie occupied, with renewed vigour. Though she herself had returned glowing-eyed from the Venice trip she knew that the outing had been no more than a series of disappointments for the younger girl.

Often during that day, when they had been in the midst of the guided tour, Carol had noticed Stephanie trying to catch her uncle's eye, reaching out to take his arm, or chattering across the print in his guide book in an attempt to share his interest. But he had been as aware of her as he was the other thirty or forty-odd tourists around him.

Almost ashamed now of the wonderful day she had had herself, Carol was seized with a desire to give her attention wholeheartedly to her young charge. They romped on the beach, threw themselves around the tennis courts, sampled the pool, and tried every swing seat in the caf£s around the hotel.

The one gay adventure they couldn't indulge in any more was taking wine with their evening meal. They didn't know what orders Stephanie's uncle had given the staff, but no matter whether they sat on the dining terrace or in the indoor resturant, whenever they asked for the wine list the waiter always turned a smiling deaf ear and brought mineral water.

Carol didn't only make herself pleasant during the day. In the evenings too, upstairs in their rooms, she set herself out to be as entertaining as possible.

Lying on her bed, her chin on her elbows, Stephanie listened spellbound to Carol's stories describing the escapades of the various members of her family.

When that subject had been exhausted she went on, to describe the rest of the odd residents in their house. 'You ought to see Mrs Ritz,' she grimaced humorously one evening, rubbing the towel over her damp hair. 'She's an Austrian countess really, but she's been in England for years. She lives in the room next to the phone alcove and she hates being disturbed.'

'What does she do?' Stephanie asked, her brown eyes misty with interest.

'She paints,' Carol smiled, and hastened to add, 'Oh, her pictures are quite good, but she's terribly eccentric I She's fat and grey-haired and sometimes she goes about for days in a soiled old dressing gown, her hair standing on end like an old witch. We've seen her because her room has a door opening on to the garden at the back and she goes out and slings her tea-leaves across the lawn.'

They both laughed at this, then Carol went on, taking up the brush to her hair, 'But when she decides to go out you wouldn't believe she was the same person. She comes out of her room dressed very smartly— she wears a lot of deep purples and dark maroons—a little hat perched on her head, tripping out to the taxi she's ordered. The awful thing is she's got a fat old face and a big mouth and she will slash bright red lipstick right across it.'