A ROMAN HOLIDAY.
"Oh dear!" said Mrs. Ashe, as she folded her letters and laid them
aside, "I wish those Pages would go away from Nice, or else that the
frigates were not there."
"Why! what's the matter?" asked Katy, looking up from the many-leaved
journal from Clover over which she was poring.
"Nothing is the matter except that those everlasting people haven't gone
to Spain yet, as they said they would, and Ned seems to keep on seeing
them," replied Mrs. Ashe, petulantly.
"But, dear Polly, what difference does it make? And they never did
promise you to go on any particular time, did they?"
"N-o, they didn't; but I wish they would, all the same. Not that Ned is
such a goose as really to care anything for that foolish Lilly!" Then
she gave a little laugh at her own inconsistency, and added, "But I
oughtn't to abuse her when she is your cousin."
"Don't mention it," said Katy, cheerfully. "But, really, I don't see why
poor Lilly need worry you so, Polly dear."
The room in which this conversation took place was on the very topmost
floor of the Hotel del Hondo in Rome. It was large and many-windowed;
and though there was a little bed in one corner half hidden behind a
calico screen, with a bureau and washing-stand, and a sort of stout
mahogany hat-tree on which Katy's dresses and jackets were hanging, the
remaining space, with a sofa and easy-chairs grouped round a fire, and a
round table furnished with books and a lamp, was ample enough to make a
good substitute for the private sitting-room which Mrs. Ashe had not
been able to procure on account of the near approach of the Carnival and
the consequent crowding of strangers to Rome. In fact, she was assured
that under the circumstances she was lucky in finding rooms as good as
these; and she made the most of the assurance as a consolation for the
somewhat unsatisfactory food and service of the hotel, and the four long
flights of stairs which must be passed every time they needed to reach
the dining-room or the street door.
The party had been in Rome only four days, but already they had seen a
host of interesting things. They had stood in the strange sunken space
with its marble floor and broken columns, which is all that is left of
the great Roman Forum. They had visited the Coliseum, at that period
still overhung with ivy garlands and trailing greeneries, and not, as
now, scraped clean and bare and "tidied" out of much of its
picturesqueness. They had seen the Baths of Caracalla and the Temple of
Janus and St. Peter's and the Vatican marbles, and had driven out on the
Campagna and to the Pamphili-Doria Villa to gather purple and red
anemones, and to the English cemetery to see the grave of Keats. They
had also peeped into certain shops, and attended a reception at the
American Minister's,--in short, like most unwarned travellers, they had
done about twice as much as prudence and experience would have
permitted, had those worthies been consulted.
All the romance of Katy's nature responded to the fascination of the
ancient city,--the capital of the world, as it may truly be called. The
shortest drive or walk brought them face to face with innumerable and
unexpected delights. Now it was a wonderful fountain, with plunging
horses and colossal nymphs and Tritons, holding cups and horns from
which showers of white foam rose high in air to fall like rushing rain
into an immense marble basin. Now it was an arched doorway with
traceries as fine as lace,--sole-remaining fragment of a heathen temple,
flung and stranded as it were by the waves of time on the squalid shore
of the present. Now it was a shrine at the meeting of three streets,
where a dim lamp burned beneath the effigy of the Madonna, with always a
fresh rose beside it in a vase, and at its foot a peasant woman kneeling
in red bodice and blue petticoat, with a lace-trimmed towel folded over
her hair. Or again it would be a sunlit terrace lifted high on a
hillside, and crowded with carriages full of beautifully dressed people,
while below all Rome seemed spread out like a panorama, dim, mighty,
majestic, and bounded by the blue wavy line of the Campagna and the
Alban hills. Or perhaps it might be a wonderful double flight of steps
with massive balustrades and pillars with urns, on which sat a crowd of
figures in strange costumes and attitudes, who all looked as though they
had stepped out of pictures, but who were in reality models waiting for
artists to come by and engage them. No matter what it was,--a bit of
oddly tinted masonry with a tuft of brown and orange wallflowers hanging
upon it, or a vegetable stall where endive and chiccory and curly
lettuces were arranged in wreaths with tiny orange gourds and scarlet
peppers for points of color,--it was all Rome, and, by virtue of that
word, different from any other place,--more suggestive, more
interesting, ten times more mysterious than any other could possibly be,
so Katy thought.
This fact consoled her for everything and anything,--for the fleas, the
dirt, for the queer things they had to eat and the still queerer odors
they were forced to smell! Nothing seemed of any particular consequence
except the deep sense of enjoyment, and the newly discovered world of
thought and sensation of which she had become suddenly conscious.
The only drawback to her happiness, as the days went on, was that
little Amy did not seem quite well or like herself. She had taken a
cold on the journey from Naples, and though it did not seem serious,
that, or something, made her look pale and thin. Her mother said she
was growing fast, but the explanation did not quite account for the
wistful look in the child's eyes and the tired feeling of which she
continually complained. Mrs. Ashe, with vague uneasiness, began to talk
of cutting short their Roman stay and getting Amy off to the more
bracing air of Florence. But meanwhile there was the Carnival close at
hand, which they must by no means lose; and the feeling that their
opportunity might be a brief one made her and Katy all the more anxious
to make the very most of their time. So they filled the days full with
sights to see and things to do, and came and went; sometimes taking Amy
with them, but more often leaving her at the hotel under the care of a
kind German chambermaid, who spoke pretty good English and to whom Amy
had taken a fancy.
"The marble things are so cold, and the old broken things make me so
sorry," she explained; "and I hate beggars because they are dirty, and
the stairs make my back ache; and I'd a great deal rather stay with
Maria and go up on the roof, if you don't mind, mamma."
This roof, which Amy had chosen as a playplace, covered the whole of the
great hotel, and had been turned into a sort of upper-air garden by the
simple process of gravelling it all over, placing trellises of ivy here
and there, and setting tubs of oranges and oleanders and boxes of gay
geraniums and stock-gillyflowers on the balustrades. A tame fawn was
tethered there. Amy adopted him as a playmate; and what with his company
and that of the flowers, the times when her mother and Katy were absent
from her passed not unhappily.
Katy always repaired to the roof as soon as they came in from their long
mornings and afternoons of sight-seeing. Years afterward, she would
remember with contrition how pathetically glad Amy always was to see
her. She would put her little head on Katy's breast and hold her tight
for many minutes without saying a word. When she did speak it was always
about the house and the garden that she talked. She never asked any
questions as to where Katy had been, or what she had done; it seemed to
tire her to think about it.
"I should be very lonely sometimes if it were not for my dear little
fawn," she told Katy once. "He is so sweet that I don't miss you and
mamma very much while I have him to play with. I call him Florio,--don't
you think that is a pretty name? I like to stay with him a great deal
better than to go about with you to those nasty-smelling old churches,
with fleas hopping all over them!"
So Amy was left in peace with her fawn, and the others made haste to see
all they could before the time came to go to Florence.
[Illustration: Amy was left in peace with her fawn.]
Katy realized one of the "moments" for which she had come to Europe when
she stood for the first time on the balcony overhanging the Corso, which
Mrs. Ashe had hired in company with some acquaintances made at the
hotel, and looked down at the ebb and surge of the just-begun Carnival.
The narrow street seemed humming with people of all sorts and
conditions. Some were masked; some were not. There were ladies and
gentlemen in fashionable clothes, peasants in the gayest costumes,
surprised-looking tourists in tall hats and linen dusters, harlequins,
clowns, devils, nuns, dominoes of every color,--red, white, blue, black;
while above, the balconies bloomed like a rose-garden with pretty faces
framed in lace veils or picturesque hats. Flowers were everywhere,
wreathed along the house-fronts, tied to the horses' ears, in ladies'
hands and gentlemen's button-holes, while venders went up and down the
street bearing great trays of violets and carnations and camellias for
sale. The air was full of cries and laughter, and the shrill calls of
merchants advertising their wares,--candy, fruit, birds, lanterns, and
_confetti_, the latter being merely lumps of lime, large or small, with
a pea or a bean embedded in each lump to give it weight. Boxes full of
this unpleasant confection were suspended in front of each balcony, with
tin scoops to use in ladling it out and flinging it about. Everybody
wore or carried a wire mask as protection against this white, incessant
shower; and before long the air became full of a fine dust which hung
above the Corso like a mist, and filled the eyes and noses and clothes
of all present with irritating particles.
Pasquino's Car was passing underneath just as Katy and Mrs. Ashe
arrived,--a gorgeous affair, hung with silken draperies, and bearing as
symbol an enormous egg, in which the Carnival was supposed to be in act
of incubation. A huge wagon followed in its wake, on which was a house
some sixteen feet square, whose sole occupant was a gentleman attended
by five servants, who kept him supplied with _confetti_, which he
showered liberally on the heads of the crowd. Then came a car in the
shape of a steamboat, with a smoke-pipe and sails, over which flew the
Union Jack, and which was manned with a party wearing the dress of
British tars. The next wagon bore a company of jolly maskers equipped
with many-colored bladders, which they banged and rattled as they went
along. Following this was a troupe of beautiful circus horses,
cream-colored with scarlet trappings, or sorrel with blue, ridden by
ladies in pale green velvet laced with silver, or blue velvet and gold.
Another car bore a bird-cage which was an exact imitation of St.
Peter's, within which perched a lonely old parrot. This device evidently
had a political signification, for it was alternately hissed and
applauded as it went along. The whole scene was like a brilliant,
rapidly shifting dream; and Katy, as she stood with lips apart and eyes
wide open with wonderment and pleasure, forgot whether she was in the
body or not,--forgot everything except what was passing before her gaze.
She was roused by a stinging shower of lime-dust. An Englishman in the
next balcony had take courteous advantage of her preoccupation, and had
flung a scoopful of _confetti_ in her undefended face! It is generally
Anglo-Saxons of the less refined class, English or Americans, who do
these things at Carnival times. The national love of a rough joke comes
to the surface, encouraged by the license of the moment, and all the
grace and prettiness of the festival vanish. Katy laughed, and dusted
herself as well as she could, and took refuge behind her mask; while a
nimble American boy of the party changed places with her, and
thenceforward made that particular Englishman his special target, plying
such a lively and adroit shovel as to make Katy's assailant rue the hour
when he evoked this national reprisal. His powdered head and rather
clumsy efforts to retaliate excited shouts of laughter from the
adjoining balconies. The young American, fresh from tennis and college
athletics, darted about and dodged with an agility impossible to his
heavily built foe; and each effective shot and parry on his side was
greeted with little cries of applause and the clapping of hands on the
part of those who were watching the contest.
Exactly opposite them was a balcony hung with white silk, in which sat a
lady who seemed to be of some distinction; for every now and then an
officer in brilliant uniform, or some official covered with orders and
stars, would be shown in by her servants, bow before her with the utmost
deference, and after a little conversation retire, kissing her gloved
hand as he went. The lady was a beautiful person, with lustrous black
eyes and dark hair, over which a lace mantilla was fastened with diamond
stars. She wore pale blue with white flowers, and altogether, as Katy
afterward wrote to Clover, reminded her exactly of one of those
beautiful princesses whom they used to play about in their childhood and
quarrel over, because every one of them wanted to be the Princess and
nobody else.
"I wonder who she is," said Mrs. Ashe in a low tone. "She might be
almost anybody from her looks. She keeps glancing across to us, Katy. Do
you know, I think she has taken a fancy to you."
Perhaps the lady had; for just then she turned her head and said a word
to one of her footmen, who immediately placed something in her hand. It
was a little shining bonbonniere, and rising she threw it straight at
Katy. Alas! it struck the edge of the balcony and fell into the street
below, where it was picked up by a ragged little peasant girl in a red
jacket, who raised a pair of astonished eyes to the heavens, as if sure
that the gift must have fallen straight from thence. Katy bent forward
to watch its fate, and went through a little pantomime of regret and
despair for the benefit of the opposite lady, who only laughed, and
taking another from her servant flung with better aim, so that it fell
exactly at Katy's feet. This was a gilded box in the shape of a
mandolin, with sugar-plums tucked cunningly away inside. Katy kissed
both her hands in acknowledgment for the pretty toy, and tossed back a
bunch of roses which she happened to be wearing in her dress. After that
it seemed the chief amusement of the fair unknown to throw bonbons at
Katy. Some went straight and some did not; but before the afternoon
ended, Katy had quite a lapful of confections and trifles,--roses,
sugared almonds, a satin casket, a silvered box in the shape of a
horseshoe, a tiny cage with orange blossoms for birds on the perches, a
minute gondola with a _marron glacée_ by way of passenger, and,
prettiest of all, a little ivory harp strung with enamelled violets
instead of wires. For all these favors she had nothing better to offer,
in return, than a few long-tailed bonbons with gay streamers of ribbon.
These the lady opposite caught very cleverly, rarely missing one, and
kissing her hand in thanks each time.
"Isn't she exquisite?" demanded Katy, her eyes shining with
excitement. "Did you ever see any one so lovely in your life, Polly
dear? I never did. There, now! she is buying those birds to set them
free, I do believe."
It was indeed so. A vender of larks had, by the aid of a long staff,
thrust a cage full of wretched little prisoners up into the balcony; and
"Katy's lady," as Mrs. Ashe called her, was paying for the whole. As
they watched she opened the cage door, and with the sweetest look on her
face encouraged the birds to fly away. The poor little creatures cowered
and hesitated, not knowing at first what use to make of their new
liberty; but at last one, the boldest of the company, hopped to the door
and with a glad, exultant chirp flew straight upward. Then the others,
taking courage from his example, followed, and all were lost to view in
the twinkling of an eye.
"Oh, you angel!" cried Katy, leaning over the edge of the balcony and
kissing both hands impulsively, "I never saw any one so sweet as you are
in my life. Polly dear, I think carnivals are the most perfectly
bewitching things in the world. How glad I am that this lasts a week,
and that we can come every day. Won't Amy be delighted with these
bonbons! I do hope my lady will be here tomorrow."
How little she dreamed that she was never to enter that balcony again!
How little can any of us see what lies before us till it comes so near
that we cannot help seeing it, or shut our eyes, or turn away!
The next morning, almost as soon as it was light, Mrs. Ashe tapped at
Katy's door. She was in her dressing-gown, and her eyes looked large and
frightened.
"Amy is ill," she cried. "She has been hot and feverish all night, and
she says that her head aches dreadfully. What shall I do, Katy? We
ought to have a doctor at once, and I don't know the name even of any
doctor here."
Katy sat up in bed, and for one bewildered moment did not speak. Her
brain felt in a whirl of confusion; but presently it cleared, and she
saw what to do.
"I will write a note to Mrs. Sands," she said. Mrs. Sands was the wife
of the American Minister, and one of the few acquaintances they had
made since they came to Rome. "You remember how nice she was the other
day, and how we liked her; and she has lived here so long that of
course she must know all about the doctors. Don't you think that is the
best thing to do!"
"The very best," said Mrs. Ashe, looking relieved. "I wonder I did not
think of it myself, but I am so confused that I can't think. Write the
note at once, please, dear Katy. I will ring your bell for you, and then
I must hurry back to Amy."
Katy made haste with the note. The answer came promptly in half an hour,
and by ten o'clock the physician recommended appeared. Dr. Hilary was a
dark little Italian to all appearance; but his mother had been a
Scotch-woman, and he spoke English very well,--a great comfort to poor
Mrs. Ashe, who knew not a word of Italian and not a great deal of
French. He felt Amy's pulse for a long time, and tested her temperature;
but he gave no positive opinion, only left a prescription, and said that
he would call later in the day and should then be able to judge more
clearly what the attack was likely to prove.
Katy augured ill from this reserve. There was no talk of going to the
Carnival that afternoon; no one had any heart for it. Instead, Katy
spent the time in trying to recollect all she had ever heard about the
care of sick people,--what was to be done first and what next,--and in
searching the shops for a feather pillow, which luxury Amy was
imperiously demanding. The pillows of Roman hotels are, as a general
thing, stuffed with wool, and very hard.
"I won't have this horrid pillow any longer," poor Amy was screaming.
"It's got bricks in it. It hurts the back of my neck. Take it away,
mamma, and give me a nice soft American pillow. I won't have this a
minute longer. Don't you hear me, mamma! Take it away!"
So, while Mrs. Ashe pacified Amy to the best of her ability, Katy
hurried out in quest of the desired pillow. It proved almost an
unattainable luxury; but at last, after a long search, she secured an
air-cushion, a down cushion about twelve inches square, and one old
feather pillow which had come from some auction, and had apparently lain
for years in the corner of the shop. When this was encased in a fresh
cover of Canton flannel, it did very well, and stilled Amy's complaints
a little; but all night she grew worse, and when Dr. Hilary came next
day, he was forced to utter plainly the dreaded words "Roman fever." Amy
was in for an attack,--a light one he hoped it might be,--but they had
better know the truth and make ready for it.
Mrs. Ashe was utterly overwhelmed by this verdict, and for the first
bewildered moments did not know which way to turn. Katy, happily, kept
a steadier head. She had the advantage of a little preparation of
thought, and had decided beforehand what it would be necessary to do
"in case." Oh, that fateful "in case"! The doctor and she consulted
together, and the result was that Katy sought out the padrona of the
establishment, and without hinting at the nature of Amy's attack,
secured some rooms just vacated, which were at the end of a corridor,
and a little removed from the rooms of other people. There was a large
room with corner windows, a smaller one opening from it, and another,
still smaller, close by, which would serve as a storeroom or might do
for the use of a nurse.
These rooms, without much consultation with Mrs. Ashe,--who seemed
stunned and sat with her eyes fixed on Amy, just answering, "Certainly,
dear, anything you say," when applied to,--Katy had arranged according
to her own ideas of comfort and hygienic necessity, as learned from Miss
Nightingale's excellent little book on nursing. From the larger room she
had the carpet, curtains, and nearly all the furniture taken away, the
floor scrubbed with hot soapsuds, and the bed pulled out from the wall
to allow of a free circulation of air all round it. The smaller one she
made as comfortable as possible for the use of Mrs. Ashe, choosing for
it the softest sofa and the best mattresses that were obtainable; for
she knew that her friend's strength was likely to be severely tried if
Amy's illness proved serious. When all was ready, Amy, well wrapped in
her coverings, was carried down the entry and laid in the fresh bed with
the soft pillows about her; and Katy, as she went to and fro, conveying
clothes and books and filling drawers, felt that they were perhaps
making arrangements for a long, hard trial of faith and spirits.
By the next day the necessity of a nurse became apparent, and in the
afternoon Katy started out in a little hired carriage in search of one.
She had a list of names, and went first to the English nurses; but
finding them all engaged, she ordered the coachman to drive to a convent
where there was hope that a nursing sister might be procured.
Their route lay across the Corso. So utterly had the Carnival with all
its gay follies vanished from her mind, that she was for a moment
astonished at finding herself entangled in a motley crowd, so dense
that the coachman was obliged to rein in his horses and stand still for
some time.
There were the same masks and dominos, the same picturesque peasant
costumes which had struck her as so gay and pretty only three days
before. The same jests and merry laughter filled the air, but somehow
it all seemed out of tune. The sense of cold, lonely fear that had
taken possession of her killed all capacity for merriment; the
apprehension and solicitude of which her heart was full made the gay
chattering and squeaking of the crowd sound harsh and unfeeling. The
bright colors affronted her dejection; she did not want to see them.
She lay back in the carriage, trying to be patient under the detention,
and half shut her eyes.
A shower of lime dust aroused her. It came from a party of burly figures
in white cotton dominos, whose carriage had been stayed by the crowd
close to her own. She signified by gestures that she had no _confetti_
and no protection, that she "was not playing," in fact; but her appeal
made no difference. The maskers kept on shovelling lime all over her
hair and person and the carriage, and never tired of the sport till an
opportune break in the procession enabled their vehicle to move on.
Katy was shaking their largesse from her dress and parasol as well as
she could, when an odd gibbering sound close to her ear, and the
laughter of the crowd attracted her attention to the back of the
carriage. A masker attired as a scarlet devil had climbed into the hood,
and was now perched close behind her. She shook her head at him; but he
only shook his in return, and chattered and grimaced, and bent over till
his fiery mask almost grazed her shoulder. There was no hope but in good
humor, as she speedily realized; and recollecting that in her
shopping-bag one or two of the Carnival bonbons still remained, she took
these out and offered them in the hope of propitiating him. The fiend
bit one to insure that it was made of sugar and not lime, while the
crowd laughed more than ever; then, seeming satisfied, he made Katy a
little speech in rapid Italian, of which she did not comprehend a word,
kissed her hand, jumped down from the carriage and disappeared in the
crowd to her great relief.
Presently after that the driver spied an opening, of which he took
advantage. They were across the Corso now, the roar and rush of the
Carnival dying into silence as they drove rapidly on; and Katy, as she
finished wiping away the last of the lime dust, wiped some tears from
her cheeks as well.
"How hateful it all was!" she said to herself. Then she remembered a
sentence read somewhere, "How heavily roll the wheels of other people's
joys when your heart is sorrowful!" and she realized that it is true.
The convent was propitious, and promised to send a sister next morning,
with the proviso that every second day she was to come back to sleep and
rest. Katy was too thankful for any aid to make objections, and drove
home with visions of saintly nuns with pure pale faces full of peace and
resignation, such as she had read of in books, floating before her eyes.
Sister Ambrogia, when she appeared next day, did not exactly realize
these imaginations. She was a plump little person, with rosy cheeks, a
pair of demure black eyes, and a very obstinate mouth and chin. It soon
appeared that natural inclination combined with the rules of her convent
made her theory of a nurse's duties a very limited one.
If Mrs. Ashe wished her to go down to the office with an order, she was
told: "We sisters care for the sick; we are not allowed to converse with
porters and hotel people."
If Katy suggested that on the way home she should leave a prescription
at the chemist's, it was: "We sisters are for nursing only; we do not
visit shops." And when she was asked if she could make beef tea, she
replied calmly but decisively, "We sisters are not cooks."
In fact, all that Sister Ambrogia seemed able or willing to do, beyond
the bathing of Amy's face and brushing her hair, which she accomplished
handily, was to sit by the bedside telling her rosary, or plying a
little ebony shuttle in the manufacture of a long strip of tatting. Even
this amount of usefulness was interfered with by the fact that Amy, who
by this time was in a semi-delirious condition, had taken an aversion to
her at the first glance, and was not willing to be left with her for a
single moment.
"I won't stay here alone with Sister Embroidery," she would cry, if her
mother and Katy went into the next room for a moment's rest or a private
consultation; "I hate Sister Embroidery! Come back, mamma, come back
this moment! She's making faces at me, and chattering just like an old
parrot, and I don't understand a word she says. Take Sister Embroidery
away, mamma, I tell you! Don't you hear me? Come back, I say!"
The little voice would be raised to a shrill scream; and Mrs. Ashe and
Katy, hurrying back, would find Amy sitting up on her pillow with wet,
scarlet-flushed cheeks and eyes bright with fever, ready to throw
herself out of bed; while, calm as Mabel, whose curly head lay on the
pillow beside her little mistress, Sister Ambrogia, unaware of the
intricacies of the English language, was placidly telling her beads and
muttering prayers to herself. Some of these prayers, I do not doubt,
related to Amy's recovery if not to her conversion, and were well meant;
but they were rather irritating under the circumstances!