A PLEASURE TRIP OFFERED
“Kitty, I’ve had a jounce,” said Patty, next day, as she sought her
friend and found her in the pleasant morning room that overlooked the
rose-garden.
Lady Hamilton treated her young guest to a haughty, disdainful stare.
“If you will talk in barbaric jargon,” she said, “you can’t expected
civilised people to understand you.”
Patty had an open letter in her hand, and as she fell sideways into a
big easy-chair, she gave her hostess a dear little smile of apology.
“It is horrid, I know,” she said, contritely. “I don’t know why the
excessively correct and well-bred atmosphere of Markleham Grange should
bring out my worst American slang, but it does. I beg your pardon,
Kitty, and I’ll try to mend my ways.”
“Oh, don’t take it too seriously,” laughed Lady Kitty, “and now, what
_jounced_ you?”
“Well, you may remember I had a telegram yesterday, from my adored
parent, telling me I was to start for home the first of September.”
“I remember it with startling distinctness.”
“Well, forget it, then, for it isn’t true. One of the clever operators
of your clever British telegraph company must have misread or
miswritten a word, for I have a letter here from my father, and it
seems he wrote _Rome_ instead of _home_.”
“Oh, Patty Fairfield! And aren’t you really going home at all? And are
you going to Rome? To Italy?”
“Yes, just that! Father and Nan have suddenly decided to spend the
autumn in Italy, a pleasure trip, you know, and go straight to Rome
first, and then go home later, about Christmas, they think.”
“Well, I don’t wonder you were,--what did you call it? Bumped?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I merely announced that I
was,--ahem,--surprised a bit.”
“And pleased?”
“Yes, very much pleased. I didn’t care a lot about Switzerland, but I’m
crazy to go to Rome and Venice and some few other Italian show-places.
Indeed it will be a pleasure trip for me.”
“Well, it’s lovely. I can’t leave now, of course, but father and I will
run down to see you later, wherever you are. I need a little southern
sun on my complexion.”
“Nothing could improve your complexion,” said Patty, kissing it, “but
it will be great to have you join us. I feel like a whirlpool. It’s
awful to have my outlook whipped about so often and so suddenly.”
“And to-morrow you may get a letter saying this is a mistake, and your
father is taking you to Kamschatka.”
“Indeed, it isn’t father who’s changeable! It’s that bright telegraph
operator, who can’t read a gentleman’s handwriting. Well, there’s no
harm done, and now I’ll run away and adjust my mind to my changed
fortunes.”
Patty went out to her favourite seat under the awning, and gave herself
up to day dreams of the delightful trip in store for her.
She had always longed to go to Italy, but had not expected to do so
for many years yet. For some reason Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield had changed
their plans, but though the letter told of this, it told little else.
“No hanging back now,” her father had written; “no excuses of week-ends
or house-parties. Cancel all your engagements, if you’ve made any, and
be ready to leave Markleham Grange when we come for you next week.”
“He needn’t have been so explicit,” thought Patty, “for I’ve no desire
to put house-parties ahead of a trip to Italy. Why, I wouldn’t miss it
for anything! I wonder if we will go to Venice. I suppose I ought to
study up art and things,--I’m fearfully ignorant. But I couldn’t learn
much in a week. I guess I’ll wait, and learn it on its native heath.
Perhaps I won’t care much for the old statues and things, anyway. I
suppose they’re awfully ruined. Must look like a railroad accident.
Oh, that’s horrid of me! I ought to have more respect for such things.
Well, I’m going anyhow, and I’ll have the time of my life, I know I
shall.”
Patty lived through that day absent-mindedly. Somehow, going to Italy
seemed a responsibility, and one not to be undertaken thoughtlessly.
She hinted this to Lady Hamilton, and Kitty laughed outright.
“My word!” she said; “don’t you think you’re going to do the Yankee
Tourist effect! Don’t you go pottering about the galleries with your
nose in a catalogue, and a Baedeker under your arm! A nice pleasure
trip that would be! You’re too ignorant to be an intelligent art lover,
and not ignorant enough to pose as one; just stumble around among the
pictures, and much of what is good will stick to your memory, and the
rest will brush off of itself.”
“You’re a comfort, Kitty,” said Patty; “I thought I ought to study up
Ruskin on the Tuscans and Etruscans, or whatever those art books are
about.”
“You’re too much of a goose, Patty, to study anything. But I expect
you’ll get a lot of fun out of Italy.”
“I rayther think I shall,” said Patty, with twinkling eyes; for, as she
well knew, she found fun wherever she looked for it.
That night they went to the dance at Three Towers. This was a
neighbouring country place, whose three noble towers ranked among the
oldest in England. Patty was enchanted with the grand old house, for
her delvings into architectural books through the summer had taught her
to appreciate historic mansions.
Patty almost held her breath as she entered the stately ballroom, with
its crystal chandeliers, like suspended frozen fountains, sparkling
with hundreds of wax candles. The floral decorations were elaborate,
but to Patty’s mind they almost detracted from the grandeur of the
massive beams and studded ceilings of the fine old hall. After greeting
the hostess, the Markleham party found themselves surrounded by friends
and acquaintances, and Patty learned that the dancing had already begun.
Sir Otho made his escape to some other room, where he might chat
undisturbed with some of his cronies, and Lady Kitty and Patty were
soon provided with programmes, and besieged for dances.
“Now you _have_ done it!” was Floyd Austin’s comment, as he presented
himself, and gazed in frank admiration at Patty’s pretty evening gown
of fluffy white tulle, decorated with silver tracery. “Is that the
frock of a hundred frills?”
“Aptly named, Floyd,” said Lady Kitty; “and a becoming costume for my
little girl, isn’t it?”
“Oh, fair,--madame, fair,” said Austin, teasingly.
“I’d rather be asked to dance than to have ambiguous compliments,”
said Patty, tapping her foot in time to the Viennese music of the
orchestra.
“Come, then,” said Austin, in a tone of patient resignation. “Shall I
humour her, Lady Kitty?”
Smiling assent was given, and the two joined the dancers on the
polished floor.
“How different from dancing in America,” said Patty, as they wound
slowly in and out among the circling throng.
“It’s different from anything, anywhere, any time,” said he.
“You’re too vague,” she sighed. “I never know whether you’re making fun
of me or not. Don’t I dance right?”
“Right? You dance like--like----”
“Now I know you’re trying to think of a pretty allusion. Do get a good
one.”
“Yes, I will. You dance like,--why, very much like I do! We’re both
ripping good dancers.”
Patty laughed out at this. “It _is_ a compliment,” she said, “though
not just the sort I expected.”
“Girls expect so much now-a-days. There, the music’s stopped! Must I
take you back to Lady Kitty, or will you give me the next dance?”
“Take me back, please. But later on, if you care for another dance, you
may come back,--if you like.”
“I _do_ like. I think you were made for men to come back to. Ah, Lady
Hamilton, here is your fair charge. Not a frill missing of the original
hundred, which speaks well for my guardianship, as many of the ladies
are ruefully regarding tattered _chiffons_, so crowded is the dancing
floor.”
“Will you trust yourself to me, then?” said another voice, and Patty
turned to see Peter Homer smiling at her.
“Yes, Mr. Homer,” she said, “as soon as I get my programme again. Mr.
Austin has it. Oh, here it is. Yes, you may have this one.”
And rosy with the fun of it all, Patty put her hand on Mr. Homer’s arm
and walked away.
But he led her away from the dancers to an adjoining room, where there
were fewer people, less light, and no music.
“Sit down here and talk to me,” he said, arranging a chair for her. “I
don’t care for dancing at all.”
“Well, upon my word!” said Patty. “But I do care for dancing.”
“Yes, I know you do. But just now you’re going to stay right here with
me; so you may as well accept it gracefully.”
“Why should I want to do that?” said Patty, who always rebelled at
coercion. “Everybody else is smiling and gay, while you look like
‘cloudy, with showers’!”
“Oh, no, I don’t,” said Mr. Homer, smiling; “and now what shall I talk
to you about?”
“Italy,” said Patty, promptly. “I’m going there soon. I don’t know a
thing about it, and I want to know it all. What’s it like?”
“Well, Italy is like a lovely Monday in the spring; when they’ve washed
the sky, and blued it, and hung it up in the sunshine to dry.”
“That’s pretty,” said Patty, approvingly. “And are there trees?”
“Yes; trees tied together with long ropes of grapevines. They look like
Alpine travellers roped together for safety.”
“What are they really tied for?”
“They’re not tied. The grapevines are festooned from one tree to
another in the orchards. Thus it is a vineyard and an orchard both.”
“It sounds lovely. Tell me more.”
“No; I would rather hear you talk. Tell me what you want most to find
in Italy.”
“Beauty.”
“There’s plenty of that. Italy is a saturated solution of beauty. Which
kind do you want, art or Nature?”
“I know so little about art. A lady at luncheon to-day was surprised
because I don’t even know the names of the twelve ‘world-pictures.’”
“World-pictures! What are they? The scenes of Creation?”
“Why, a list of twelve of the greatest pictures in the world.”
“My word! there’s no fool like an art fool. But you’re too chameleonic
to go to Italy, anyway. It has some several hundred sides, and you’ll
absorb a bit of every one of them, and come back a mosaic, yourself. I
wish you could concentrate, but I suppose you’re too young.”
“I’m not so dreadfully young, and--I am not bred so dull but I can
learn.”
“Well, learn right, then. Don’t let them teach you to rave over
Botticelli’s ‘Spring,’--go and look at ‘David’ instead.”
“Mightn’t that be merely a difference of individual taste?”
Mr. Homer frowned. “Yes, it might be,” he said; “have you an individual
taste?”
About to be offended, Patty thought better of it, and smiled.
“What a dear disposition you have,” said Homer, in a tone full of
contrition. “I have a brutal way of speaking, I know, and I am so
sorry. But I wish I could show you Italy as you should see it.”
“Everybody seems to want to show me Italy as I should see it,” observed
Patty, placidly.
“Yes, and you’ll get a fine jumble of it! Italy is half glory and half
glamour, and you’ll be so rolled up in the mists of glamour that you
can’t see the glory clearly.”
“I hope I shall,” exclaimed Patty. “I want the glamour. I want to see
the Coliseum by moonlight. I don’t care how hackneyed it is!”
“You oughtn’t to see it by moonlight. You ought to see it at midday,
in the strong, clear sunlight; and all alone, listen to its vibrant
silence that tells you of itself.”
“Oh,” said Patty, thrilled by the intense note in his voice. “I didn’t
know you had so much imagination.”
“That isn’t imagination, it’s reality. The real past speaks to you; not
a foolish emotional reproduction that you have conjured up yourself.”
“The curfew tolls the knell of our next dance,” chanted Floyd Austin,
coming toward them. “I thought I never should find you, Miss Fairfield.
May I have you, please?”
“Mr. Homer is telling me about the Coliseum,” said Patty, making no
move to go.
“Quite right, quite right. If any one has anything to say, he may as
well say it about the Coliseum. But that is liable to stand for some
time yet, and this witching hour is fleeting. So, cub, oh, cub with
be,--the bood is beabig.”
Patty rose, laughing.
“I suppose I must go,” she said, as Mr. Homer bowed courteously, and
murmured a few words of regret at her departure.
“Another victim?” said Austin, quizzically. “Now, how can a will o’ the
wisp like you attract a wise and solemn old owl like Homer?”
“He attracted me,” said Patty, simply.
“Oh, that explains it. But then, you also attract people who do not
attract you; myself, for instance.”
“Why, I think you’re quite pleasant,” said saucy Patty, looking at him
with an air of patronising indifference.
“You’d better think so, or I won’t be pleasant!”
“Oh, yes, you will; you’re always pleasant.”
“As Rollo’s uncle said to him, ‘It’s a pleasure to go about with such a
pleasant and sensible boy as you.’”
“But I didn’t say sensible.”
“Thank Heaven for that! Now never mind remembering what Homer told you
about the Coliseum, but remember what I tell you. Be sure to see it by
moonlight first. The night I first saw it, the moon was gibbous----”
“What does gibbous mean?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. But, anyway, the moon was awful gibbous,
and the moonlight was misty, like spray, you know,--and it flooded the
Coliseum, and ran over onto the dome of St. Peter’s----”
“What nonsense are you talking? You can’t see St. Peter’s from the
Coliseum, can you? Have you ever been to Rome?”
“Now that you mention it, I don’t believe I have! But what’s the use of
imagination, if you can’t see things you’ve never seen?”
“You are too ridiculous!” declared Patty, laughing, and then nodding
him a dismissal, as Cadwalader Oram claimed her for a dance.
“How she is made for happiness,” said Austin, as he dropped into a
chair beside Lady Kitty, and together they watched Patty dance away.
“She is,” agreed Kitty, who was a life-long friend of Floyd Austin,
and greatly liked the young man; “yet she’s not nearly so much of a
butterfly as she seems.”
“I’m sure of that,--though I’ve only seen her butterflyish side. If
Meredith hadn’t already used the phrase, ‘a dainty rogue in porcelain,’
I should coin it to describe Miss Fairfield. Don’t tell me she has an
aim in life.”
“Not quite that; but I think sometimes she wishes she had one.”
“You mean, she thinks she ought to wish she had one.”
“Yes, that is a truer statement of the case,” agreed Kitty.