LUCIA’S CONFIDENCES
There was room for the two girls on the cushions of the silken couch
that was rather broader than the ordinary _chaise longue_. Golden
hair and dark hair mingled, after Lucia arranged the cushions and
settled down herself with her head in the curve of Betty’s shoulder
and neck. She possessed herself of Betty’s hand and said, “I hope
you don’t mind these close quarters.”
“I’m as comfy as can be,” returned Betty, giving a squeeze to the
slender hand.
“You are such a comfortable person, Betty Lee, and I don’t feel that
you are ready to take up everything a girl says or does to criticize
it. I’ve been envying Carolyn and Kathryn for seeing so much of
you.”
“Why, Lucia!” cried Betty, very much surprised. “I have time for
more than one or two friends!”
“I know it and that is why I want to talk to you about things. By
the way, Grandmother called you Mary, I noticed. There was a young
friend of Aunt Laura’s, when she was a girl, by that name—Uncle
said. If Grandmother could go to sleep by ‘Willie’ and never wake
up, except in heaven, it would be a blessing. I’m glad I thought of
taking the dolls to her, though it might have started a good deal of
trouble, too. But she usually takes everything sweetly. That’s the
advantage of having a good disposition, I suppose, if you lose your
mind.”
“I’m afraid it might not make any difference; but its worth
cultivating anyhow,” suggested sensible Betty.
“‘Like sweet bells jangled and out of tune’ Uncle says her mind is,
but not ‘harsh,’ as Ophelia says of Hamlet. I thought of it when we
were reading Hamlet in English the other day. But that isn’t what I
want to talk to you about. It is what I am going to do about staying
in America—and that brings in other things. I hardly know how to
begin.”
Betty said nothing, but laid her cheek over against Lucia’s soft
hair.
“If you only understood Italian, Betty! _Che peccato!_ That means
‘What a pity’—for I’ll forget myself and want to drop into my
natural tongue when I’m telling about home and my father and mother.
If I forget and say anything that you do not understand, just remind
me, please.”
“I wish I did know Italian. Maybe I could learn to speak it some
time.”
“It’s easy, especially when you know Latin and French.”
This was the introduction to Lucia’s story. She did drop into
Italian at times, but caught herself. Betty missed nothing
important.
“You can imagine, Betty, how I dreaded coming to America to stay
when I tell you that it was at the end of a terrible quarrel between
my father and mother. I do not mean a loud, awful time, but one of
those still, quiet stiletto exchanges of opinions and decisions. My
father accused my mother of not caring for him. Mother set her teeth
and said that the matter was of no consequence one way or another
because it was quite clear that he had never cared for her. And,
Betty, both of them love each other dearly, though I suppose it has
gone too far for anything but one of those dreadful divorces. This
last talk was before me, and I tried to say something; but both of
them told me to keep quiet. It had to be talked through.
“The point was this. My uncle had begged her to come for a while,
writing her about Aunt Laura’s death and Grandmother’s condition and
business worries, and some of her money is in the business, you
know. Then she wanted to have me in American schools for a while.
Also she was homesick. School was an excuse.
“That would have been an interesting thing for me if it had not been
for the trouble between my father and my mother. He was tired of
trips to America, he said. Oh, one thing led to another and they
were so far apart it makes me sick to think about it all. Finally I
think my father told her that if she went to America to stay any
length of time, that is, to stay with me while I was having what she
wanted in school for me, she need not come back, so far as he was
concerned. And she said she never would. Betty, my mother packed up
and so did my father; and after the next day—I’ve never seen my
father since.”
Lucia choked a little, stopped and used the little handkerchief
again.
“Before he married my mother he was interested in travel and hunting
and all that. So he started right away, for an eastern trip first,
over into India and other countries, and now he is on an African
_safari_; he wrote me just before he left Cairo for some other
point. I’ve heard from him as often as it was possible for him to
write. He does not intend to let _me_ go, you know. He said she
might have her way for a while with the schools, but that he would
come for me. He never asks how my mother is, or mentions her at all.
But when I write, I tell him; for I know he wants to know. I tell
him about how well she is and a little bit about what she is doing.
In the last letter I said, ‘to keep from being too unhappy and
missing you.’
“I _casually mention_ hearing from my father to my mother and I
leave the letter where she can read it, pretending to take it for
granted that she will read it, of course. But Mother wouldn’t ask
for the letters and for a long time I think she didn’t read them,
till one day I wanted to look up something my father said about what
he was doing and I found several old letters to me lying on Mother’s
desk. Of course she had been called somewhere and had forgotten to
take them back to my room. It did not matter, to be sure, except to
keep from me that she wanted to read them. Do you think I am very
dreadful to tell anybody all this, Betty? You see I want you to tell
me what else you think I could do.”
But Lucia did not wait for Betty’s comment. She went on with the
account.
“I’m not going to put up with it, Betty! I’m going back to my father
this summer if he wants me! I’m putting by enough money for my fare
and passage across, though I think I could cash a draft from him
without their finding it out. Perhaps that would bring Mother! I
don’t know! I’ve thought and thought about it until I’m most sick
over it now.” Lucia checked a sob.
“You saw that horrid man at the table tonight and heard the silly
compliments he makes to my mother. She doesn’t care a _centime_ for
him; but she’s getting so reckless with all this social stuff that
I’m most scared for fear she _will_ start divorce proceedings.”
“Couldn’t you talk to your uncle about it?” asked Betty, who thought
it a terrible situation indeed. “It doesn’t seem to me that it would
do for you to just go off, even if your father does want you.”
“I will if my mother is going to leave him. I almost ran away to
keep from coming.” Lucia’s voice was defiant.
“Well, then, why don’t you write to your father, tell him that you
know your mother loves him and tell him just to come over and _get_
her!”
Lucia laughed then. “The girls would say that you are old-fashioned,
Betty. Men don’t carry their wives off nowadays.”
Betty laughed but asserted that they “ought to sometimes.” “It’s
their business to take care of their wives and if their wives
are—mistaken—to prove it to them. My father would say, ‘Now, dear,
this is all a mistake. You come right along home with me and I’ll
explain it to you!’”
“What if she wouldn’t go?”
“Then he’d tell her that they must think of the children first and
that two people who wanted to do the right thing ought to get along
somehow, even if they didn’t love each other. I’ve heard them both
say that, about other people.”
“You asked me if I couldn’t talk to my uncle. I would only that
Mother did when we first came and told him all the cutting things my
father had said. Uncle just raved and was for a legal separation
right away, but my mother saw she had gone too far and told him that
they would wait. My uncle called him a fortune hunter; and he
thought that about him anyway, before they were married. They talked
about it that time in Milan.”
Betty could imagine what sharp things must have been said. She was
quiet, thinking over what Lucia had told her and Lucia stopped to
wipe her eyes again.
“Well,” she said with a sigh, “it’s helped clear things up, some
way, to talk with you, Betty. I believe I _will_ write and tell my
father to come and ‘get her!’ I could ask him if neither of them
cared enough about me to try to make up, and if he wanted to see
some other man fall in love with my mother and try to win her, all
for the want of his making love the way he can. Oh, you ought to see
my father, Betty. Giovanna says that they fell in love at first
sight because of their looks. And my father is _not_ a fortune
hunter! He hasn’t as much money as my mother has and I suppose that
is one reason why he was so proud about the whole thing; but he has
a good home in Milan. You’d love it, Betty, and I hope you’ll be in
it some day. Oh!”
Now, indeed, Lucia cried in earnest and Betty, holding her
affectionately, let her cry it out.