[Illustration: “Didn’t exaggerate, did I?” he went on (page 227)]
A MODERN TRIO IN AN
OLD TOWN
BY
KATHARINE HAVILAND TAYLOR
Author of “Real Stuff,” “Natalie Page,”
“Barbara of Baltimore,” etc.
ILLUSTRATED
BY
MORGAN DENNIS
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. BY
THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY, N. J.
TO
BONNIE BELL GUERNSEY
AND
JESSIE ELIZABETH GUERNSEY
WITH A VERY GREAT DEAL OF MY LOVE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I APPREHENSIONS 1
II THE END OF ONE JOURNEY AND THE START OF ANOTHER 8
III LUNCH AND SOME MODERN HISTORY 17
IV FLORENCE AND THE NEW HOME 27
V NEW FRIENDS, A NEW DAY AND NEW PLANS 38
VI MISS PARRISH AND MISS HARRIS-CLARKE 46
VII GETTING ACQUAINTED 56
VIII SIGNOR PAGGI’S COMPLIMENTS 68
IX A STROLLING PICNIC 77
X CREAM PUFFS, THE TWILIGHT AND-- 94
XI ENTER--SAM DEANE! 103
XII DARK CLOUDS 117
XIII A PATCH OF BLUE SKY 129
XIV STORIES, MUSIC AND TEA 139
XV FLORENTINE WINTER 149
XVI PLANS FOR A PARTY 159
XVII CUPID AND A LADY SANTA CLAUS 167
XVIII THE EFFECT OF A SECRET 182
XIX CHANGES 197
XX A COUNTRY WEDDING AND THE COMING OF SPRING 208
XXI FIESOLE, A CLEAR HOT DAY, AND A COOL GARDEN 220
XXII A WALK ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 238
XXIII MISCHIEVOUS CUPID 253
XXIV HOMEWARD BOUND 261
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
“Didn’t exaggerate, did I?” he went on (page 227) _Frontispiece_
“Isn’t this simply ghastly?” 60
“My name is Sam Deane,” he announced 110
Mr. Hemmingway got so gay that he kissed Miss Meek 180
A MODERN TRIO IN AN OLD TOWN
CHAPTER ONE
APPREHENSIONS
As I look back through my experience of eighteen years, I realize
that many of my apprehensions have been foolish, because so many of
the things that I dreaded turned out all right. Almost every one of
the parties I thought would be stiff--and I am not very happy at the
sort!--proved to be the kind where every one grew lively. I remember
one that Elaine McDonald had, particularly, because I had said to
mother, “I don’t want to go. They’ll all wear gloves and it will be
_miserable_!” But I did go, and they had a Paul Jones that was so rough
that they broke a chair and knocked over a table, and it was _fine_!
While, on the other hand, there have been parties that I thought would
be nice and informal, and we just went and sat in one place and talked,
and at that sort I smile until my face feels as if it were covered
with shellac, because I don’t _feel_ like smiling at all. And this
all shows--or it should, because I am trying to make it--that I never
should take my apprehensions seriously. But--I seem to have to, and I
always do, and so I felt as if I had real reason for misery, when Mrs.
Hamilton, who had looked after me as I crossed the Atlantic upon the
_Steamship Carpatia_, called me back into the stateroom and said, “By
the way, child, I am not going to Florence, after all--”
Well, I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, which is what I
often do while waiting.
“But,” she went on, as she fussed with the little jars that contribute
quite a lot toward her beauty, “I shall hunt up some one who is, and
see that you are looked after.”
“Thank you,” I said, and then I went back to the foot I had originally
been standing on.
“My friends, the Wiltons, want me to go to Mentone with them,” she
stated as she picked up a little brush she has for her eyebrows and
began to use it, “and their plans sound rather jolly, and so I’ve taken
them up. . . . I’m really sorry not to see you entirely settled, but
there’ll be some one on board who is going up, no doubt.”
“I suppose so,” I answered in a flat tone that I use while miserable.
Then I wondered what in the world would happen if there was no one on
board who was headed for Florence, because the only Italian I knew was,
“La luna bella,” which is “The beautiful moon,” and I didn’t see what
that would do on a railroad train, and especially since I was going to
travel by day.
“How do you say Florence in Italian?” I asked, after I changed feet
again.
“Firenze,” Mrs. Hamilton responded, as she powdered the back of her
hands, “and don’t worry, we’ll surely locate some one who will care for
you--”
But that only half cheered me, because I had been but a day out of
Boston when I realized that Mrs. Hamilton is like a lot of people who
talk a good deal. She is a good _promiser_, and she promises so much
that she can’t do a third of all she intends to. Really the only thing
she did do that she had forecast doing, was getting seasick, and she,
herself, didn’t entirely cause that. A couple of days of rough weather
helped her.
However, to go back, I blamed her unjustly this time, for while I was
idling around the deck after dinner, wishing that I had nothing on my
mind to keep me from enjoying the salt tang in the air, and the pretty
phosphorescent, silver lights that gleam in the water where the prow of
the boat cuts it, she came toward me, and said she had found some one
who would help me reach Florence safely.
“A Mr. Terrance Wake,” she said, “probably you’ve never heard of him,
but he is rather noted. . . . Writes on art, all that sort of thing,
and has a perfect love of a villa near Florence. . . . He says he’ll he
delighted to be of any service to you--”
“Well, if he’ll just let me follow him, it’ll be all right,” I
answered, and Mrs. Hamilton laughed.
“Funny child,” she said, and then, “I must go in; I was dummy. . . .
I’ll present Mr. Wake in the morning--”
After that she vanished in one of the bright-lit doorways from which
came the energetic voices of people who were fondly telling each other
that they had played the wrong card, and again I was alone. I felt
better and I could breathe with more ease. Before she came I had felt
as if my lungs were a size too small for my breath. Being anxious
always makes me feel that way. And I walked--around the deck I had
learned so well--speaking to people as I passed them, exchanging plans,
and promising to send postcards.
I was awake when Mrs. Hamilton came down to go to bed, which was
unusual for me, for insomnia is not one of my troubles, and I sat up in
the berth to talk.
“What’s Mr. Wake like?” I asked, as I leaned out and looked down.
“_Fascinating_ man,” she responded, “but fearfully indifferent!”
“Does he smoke?” I asked, for I had begun to get anxious again, and
I had actually supposed up a bad awake-dream that had to do with his
going off to smoke, and the train being broken up, and my being left in
a strange country with nothing to help me but a remark about the moon.
“I don’t know, Jane,” Mrs. Hamilton answered, with an easy little
laugh. Then she added the “Funny child!” she says at me so often, and I
lay back and stared up at the ceiling again.
“You won’t forget to introduce us, will you?” I asked, as she switched
off the lights.
“Yo hum,” she yawned, deeply. “No, dear, certainly _not_! Now go to
sleep, for you’ll have lots that’s new to see to-morrow. . . . ’Night.”
“Good-night,” I answered. . . . But I couldn’t take her advice about
sleep, and in the dark I lay wide eyed, and half unhappy, which is, I
suppose, silly to confess. . . . But I had never met a strange country
before; in fact, I had never been anywhere much before, and the whole
experience was almost overpowering. And it was only after quite an hour
of wakefulness that my eyes grew heavy and I began to dream.
When I woke up it was morning, a bright, sunny, warm morning, and there
were voices outside which called in a way that was new to me; there
were songs in the calls, even when they were angry. And the ship was
still, so I knew that we must be in the harbor at Genoa.
Because I was green--and still am and always will be!--I went down to
the bathroom, and ran a tub full of water, and then decided not to
bathe, for no one but a mud turtle could have bathed in that sort of
water! It came right out of the harbor! And so I contented myself with
the wash-bowl instead--the water from that was all right--and then went
back to my stateroom; dressed, closed my steamer trunk and my bag, and
hurried in to breakfast.
I found Mrs. Hamilton finishing hers, and she pointed out Mr. Wake to
me. He sat at the Captain’s table, and there was a beautiful woman
devoting herself in the most unselfish way to talking to him, and he
ate all the time she did it, and only nodded! I felt certain then that
my day would be a silent one! However, that didn’t worry me.
“_Marvelous_ man,” Mrs. Hamilton sort of breathed out in a way she does.
“He certainly can eat oat meal,” I answered, because that was the only
thing I noticed about him. Mrs. Hamilton laughed--she does a great
deal--and turned to tell a young man with a funny little mustache what
I had said, and he laughed. Then Mrs. Hamilton got up, and hurried off,
and I finished my breakfast.
As I left the dining saloon, I heard her hail me, and I found that she
had actually come back to see that I met Mr. Wake.
“Mr. Wake!” she called, as he came toward us, “here is my little
charge--” Then she laughed, but he didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile,
he just bowed from the waistline in a manner that was very impressive,
and yet chilling.
“And it is Miss Jones, whom I am to look out for?” he asked, in a sort
of bored way.
“Jane,” I answered. “I should think you could call me Jane, because you
are so _much_ older than I am--”
And then he did laugh.
“Bully,” he said, “I will! And look here, Jane, I say, you won’t talk
Art to me, will you? Or quote my books?”
“I didn’t know you wrote any until last night,” I answered, seriously,
and again he laughed. I laughed too, but just to be sociable, because I
didn’t see the joke.
“We’ll have a fine day!” he said in the kindest and most enthusiastic
manner, and I felt that we would too, but neither of us had any idea of
how fine it would be, nor of all the many, many happy happenings it was
to preface!
CHAPTER TWO
THE END OF ONE JOURNEY AND THE START OF ANOTHER
After I had said good-by to a great many people, and walked down the
shaking steps with canvas banisters that the sailors hang on the side
of a ship, and stepped into a little tug as three Italians who wore
blue uniforms screamed, “_Attento! Attento!_” I felt as if I were
getting close to the end of my journey, and that the surprise pile must
be getting low, for I couldn’t imagine that things on land could keep
on being so different. But they were, and after I landed, I felt as if
the ship life, which had been a real change for me, had been only a
mild preface.
The harbor was rough, and getting in was quite hard, which I liked,
and a great many of the women in the tug screamed and held on to the
nearest man, and the Italian sailors called shrilly, and it was all
very nice.
“Afraid?” Mr. Wake asked of me. It was the first time he had spoken
since he had thanked heaven that I had only one bag.
“No,” I answered, “I like it. I kind of wish it would go over--of
course I wouldn’t want any one hurt, but I would like to write home
about it--”
“_Stars!_” said Mr. Wake.
“Which one would you rescue?” I asked as I looked around.
“None,” he answered shortly.
Then I let conversation die, which is what I almost always have to do
when I can’t think of anything to say. I am not at all like my older
sister Roberta, who is socially versed and can go right on talking,
whether she has anything to talk about or not. Roberta is wonderfully
clever, and talented and polished, and strangers can hardly believe we
are sisters. But to get on, I didn’t mind the silence because I had so
much to see.
The town that cuddled against the hills on the shore was getting closer
and closer, and it was so interesting to see palm trees and such stuff
that one associates with greenhouses, around the Statue of Columbus in
a public square down in front of the town.
“Like it?” Mr. Wake asked of me, after quite a long interval of silence.
I nodded.
“The Italian sun makes the shadows black, doesn’t it?” I questioned,
lazily, for the day and the new sights made me feel half sleepy, “and
the houses so white that you squint when you look at them,” I went on.
“Just the look of the sun makes you feel _warm_--”
Mr. Wake said I was right. “Personally,” he said, “I think that that
warm look makes a good many people think Italy a warm country. It
isn’t. Florence is penetrating during some of the winter months. Hope
you have heavy enough clothes--”
“Oh, yes,” I answered, “I have long underwear and everything--” and
then I realized how Roberta would have felt about my confiding that,
and grew silent. And after Mr. Wake said, “That’s good,” in a rather
restrained way, he grew silent too.
Then suddenly we were bumping against a wharf, and the sailors were
squawking as if the landing were the first one they had ever made, and
ragged small boys with piercing brown eyes and dusky cheeks and black
hair were crying, “Lady, postcard! Buy the _postcard_!” and beggars
held out their hands and whined. And it seemed a pity to me that so
gentle a climate and pretty a country had to welcome people that way.
However, before I was on land two or three minutes I had forgotten all
about it and was completely absorbed by what Roberta would have termed
“The country’s entire charm.”
There were occasional palm trees that rose in piercing spikes between
the roofs of dull red tile, and a blue sky so clear that it seemed
thousands of miles from the earth and as if the blue overlaid silver;
and little streets so narrow one felt sure the sun could never creep
into them. But I can’t do justice to these things, I can only tell, and
roughly, of what sank into my mind and stayed there. And the things
that dented my memory enough to stick in it, made their dents by sharp,
_new_ edges.
For instance: in Pennsylvania I never saw a little curly haired,
brown-skinned baby who looked as if she ought to have wings, sitting
on a curb--without as much as a safety pin on her--and laughing at
the bright pomegranate which she tossed in the air or rolled in the
dirt-filled gutter.
And I had never seen half clothed little boys turn handsprings in the
street, and then sing out their begging song, which was, “Uno soldo,
Signor! _Uno_ soldo!” nor had I seen a town that lives in the street,
and eats, quarrels, talks and sometimes even sleeps there.
We had to hurry through Genoa to the station, because we hadn’t any
too much time in which to catch the train for Florence, but we went on
foot and followed our facchino (which is Italian for porter) who had
our bags piled high in a wheelbarrow, and I was glad we walked and that
we were in a hurry, for we took the short cuts through the tiny back
streets, and I think back streets are just like people’s kitchens. You
learn more of the people after you have looked at the dish cloth, and
found out whether they use a nice, hemmed square, or use any old piece
of worn material that happens to be around, than you can from studying
their parlors where everything is all spick and span and stuck up.
I said so to Mr. Wake as we hurried along, but he didn’t answer. He
couldn’t. Our going was uphill, and it seemed to tire him; he puffed
dreadfully. I decided when I knew him better that I would teach him the
Billy Taft stationary run, and a few of Mr. Camp’s “Daily Dozen,” but
I didn’t speak of it then, because I felt that the thought of further
exercise might not be entirely welcome.
“Have to run for it,” he panted, as we gained the platform, and we
did, and we got in the train none too soon. I love getting trains that
way, but Mr. Wake didn’t seem to care for it so much, because after he
had tossed the facchino some coins, and put our bags up on the shelf
that is over the seats, he dropped down opposite me, took off his hat,
fanned himself with it, and then wiped the perspiration from his brow.
“Getting old,” he said, but I shook my head, because my father is a
doctor and I knew why he was out of breath.
“You’re just a little overweight,” I said, and I couldn’t help looking
at his stomach which stuck out. He saw me do it and he laughed and I
liked the little wrinkles that stood out boldly for that moment, around
his eyes.
“You know,” he confided, “I’ve been trying to gain the courage to do
something about it, but every one--up to this moment--has discouraged
me! I’d get my mouth set for long walks and short rations, and then
some one would say, ‘Oh, stuff, you’re just right--’”
“Did they _really_?” I questioned, because I could hardly believe it,
and again he laughed.
“_Really, Jane!_” he answered.
“Well,” I commented, “although you are not really fat, you’re too fat
for your height. And you puffed like the dickens after that run, and
it wasn’t _anything_.” And then I broke off with, “What’s that?” for a
horn of the prettiest, clear tone had tooted, and it made me wonder.
“Horn,” said Mr. Wake, “they do that in the stations before the trains
pull out; haven’t any bells over here, you know. . . . Now watch this
start--smooth as glass; no jolts! Government over _here_ seems to know
how to run railroads.”
I smiled, because I thought that any government should be able to run
the funny little trains that looked as if they ought to be running
around a Christmas tree, and as if they would fall off at every curve,
to lie, feet up, buzzing until some one started them on again.
Mr. Wake saw my smile, and I was glad he did, because what it led him
to say helped me lots later.
“Think they’re funny?” he asked.
“They look as if they ought to be full of pine needles,” I answered.
“You know how the needles begin to drop all over the Christmas tree
yard about the second of January?”
“Of course they look like that,” he answered, “we got our patterns for
toys, with many another thing, from this side of the pond. . . . My
child, a great many Americans come over here, and derive real benefit;
they see things that are beautiful and rare, but their gratitude is of
a strange variety, for they evidence it only with bragging.”
I felt flat. I said so.
“Pshaw, don’t!” Mr. Wake begged. “I didn’t mean you and I don’t mean
to be a preachy old codger, but I do think one sees more if one
appreciates and doesn’t _de_preciate. You know, as a matter of fact you
wouldn’t go into a neighbor’s house and say, ‘My house is better than
your house, my bath tub is shinier; my doorbell is louder, my front
porch is wider--’ and lots of us--in various ways--do just that, for
this is a neighbor’s house.”
I said a really humble “Thank you--” and Mr. Wake moved over to sit by
me. He looked down and smiled in a very gentle way, and I began to love
him.
“You are a very nice, sensible little girl,” he said; “how old are you!”
I told him.
“And why are you off here alone at eighteen?” he asked.
“I am going to Florence to study piano with Mr. Michele Paggi,” I
responded.
“Well, _well_!” said Mr. Wake. And then he laughed. “I know him,” he
said after the laugh. “And my, my, what a fire-eater he is! Well--you
seem to like adventure. . . . But whatever started you this way?”
“It really is a fairy story,” I said, “and it is so romantic that I
sometimes can’t quite believe it, and I know I never shall be sure it
isn’t all a dream--”
“That _is_ nice,” Mr. Wake broke in, “and it’s hard to believe that I
sit by a young lady who instead of asking questions will weave me a
tale. Good fairies in it?”
“Yes,” I answered, “and a fairy godmother, who wears Paris hats, and
always tilted just a little over one eye, and soft silk dresses, and
gray furs that match her fluffy, wavy, light gray hair--”
“Ah,” said Mr. Wake, “then she is the sort that I, myself, might fancy!”
“Oh, you _would_!” I asserted surely; and it seems very, very funny to
recall that now!
CHAPTER THREE
LUNCH AND SOME MODERN HISTORY
I went into reverse for Mr. Wake, because he seemed interested in my
own fairy story, but I didn’t begin to tell it until after lunch.
Buying our lunches was the most interesting kind of a business
transaction, and unpacking them was interesting too.
“At the next station,” Mr. Wake said, “I am going to get two mighty
good lunches that come packed in little baskets, and there will be a
little wicker-covered bottle, full of wine, that you can use for hair
tonic or scent after it’s empty--”
And then the train slowed and he leaned far out of the opened window
that was in the door of our compartment.
The station where we found ourselves after we had come to a gentle
stop was much smaller than the one at Genoa, but it had the same
foreign flavor, and a highly charged feeling of imperfectly suppressed
excitement and happiness. I can’t quite explain about this; it rises,
perhaps, from the clear, dazzling sunlight, the masquerade-ball look
that is lent by gay uniforms, and the women who carry trays that are
piled high with small bouquets. But anyway it is there. And this
gaiety was strange to me. Of course at our stations there are always
some people who scream such things as, “_Let us know when you get
to Aggie’s!_” or, “_Don’t forget to write!_” at each other, through
two panes of thick glass, but they don’t seem entirely happy and I
feel that the majority are entirely sober about traveling, and when I
mentioned my feeling to Mr. Wake, he said they had a right to be.
Mr. Wake called out something in Italian, and his cry mingled with the
shrilly voiced wants of the many Italians who leaned from the other
windows of the train, and a white-aproned man who trundled a truck that
was piled high with little baskets caught the coins that were flung to
him, and handed lunches into the train, and said his “Grazies” and made
his bows.
And then he reached us, and Mr. Wake bought two baskets for two lire
each, and we sat down and unpacked them. There were bologna sandwiches
and ripe olives--which I then didn’t care for--and a slab of Italian
cheese which I couldn’t name, a very good hard roll, figs and grapes,
very fresh and delicious, and then there was the little gourd-shaped
bottle with wicker around its feet, and a paper napkin. It seemed very
reasonable to me for a few cents, because it was all I needed, and I
always need quite a bit.
“I don’t know whether I’d better drink this--” I said, about the wine.
“It might make me light-headed--”
“Nonsense,” said Mr. Wake, “it’s about as likely to as lemonade. . . .
The Italians drink it like water, and you never see one drunk--probably
won’t unless some fool starts a prohibition movement.”
Then the train made its slippery, oiled start, and I spoke only once
again, and then I was silent for some time. “Do they sell cushions,
too?” I asked. I had seen a whole truck piled high with them, and had
seen some of them being passed into the windows of the train, and I was
naturally curious about everything.
“Rent them,” Mr. Wake answered. “The people leave them in the train,
and they are rented again on the trip back.” That seemed very strange
to me, too, coming, as I do, from a race that takes everything that
isn’t nailed down, while traveling.
Then I really ate, and I was glad to have the quiet lull in which to
look at the things we passed. Everything fascinated me, but nothing
seemed real. I expected all the time to hear the click of the nickel
as it drops into one of those boxes holding candy that are clamped to
the back of the seats in our opera house. The country looked like a
drop curtain, or the kind of a scene that brings on a Tyrolean chorus.
There was a lot of pink and white and bright, bright green and salmon
colored houses, with blue shutters; and little shrines set high upon
their walls, under the wide-hanging, gleaming roofs of tiles. . . . And
there were oxen on the smooth white roads we passed, drawing queer,
lumbering looking carts with huge wheels that creaked each time they
completed their uneven circles. . . . I had so many things to interest
me that I was too busy. It made me think of the time that Daddy took
the twins (my youngest sisters) to the circus, and they cried because
they couldn’t look at all the rings at once. I felt that way, and so
surprised over everything. I enjoyed my lunch, but I chewed dully and
without my usual enthusiasm. That was because I was looking so hard at
the same time. Mr. Wake watched me, and his eyes twinkled. I think he
liked the way I felt. Anyway, as I brushed the crumbs from my lap and
put the little basket in which the lunch had come up by my bag, Mr.
Wake said, “You know, I have a firm conviction that you are going to
enjoy Florence.”
“I’d be an idiot not to, wouldn’t I?” I asked.
“Surely, but the world is full of idiots. Mr. Carlyle once said,
‘London has a population of three million people, most of whom are
fools’--but tell me your story. You come from Pennsylvania?”
“Yes,” I answered, “from a little town that has the smell of oil in
the air, and that is surrounded by hills that have oil wells on them.
It’s a fine town. You’d _like_ it.”
“No doubt,” agreed Mr. Wake, and again he smiled at me.
“And,” I confided, “I’d never even been to Buffalo, which is our
closest city, so you can imagine what all this does to me--”
“And who waved the wand?” he asked.
“Miss Sheila Parrish,” I answered.
“Miss--” he stopped, then began again, “Miss--_who_?” he asked.
“Miss Sheila Parrish,” I repeated. “It’s a pretty name, isn’t it?”
Mr. Wake didn’t answer immediately, and then he said, “It _is_ a pretty
name; I’m thinking it holds a touch of old Ireland and a deal of
romance.”
“She hasn’t many friends,” I said, “she says she is fond of solitude--”
Mr. Wake, who was looking down at a strange ring he wore--which I soon
learned was a scarab,--twisted it as he said, “Well, now you have
introduced the fairy who holds the wand, tell me, please, how did she
wave it?” And I told him.
* * * * *
It had begun early in May on a rainy day when I had spilled fudge
right in the middle of the front breadth of my one good dress. I felt
dreadfully about it, because Mother is always asking me to wear an
apron, and she works so hard to keep us looking nice that the idea
of making her more work made _me_ miserable. But there the fudge
was, spreading over the floor, with the treacherous pan handle, that
had made me knock it off, looking as mild and blameless as the twins
after they have been eating pink and yellow candy bananas (these are
forbidden) and there I stood looking down miserably at the front of my
skirt and wondering what to do.
Well, I remember I murmured, “I might as well scrape it up, and get
out of this--” and so I got a palette knife and scraped the top layer
of fudge off the floor for the twins--who don’t care at all what has
happened to any fudge as long as it happens to come to them--and then
I scraped my dress, and sponged it a little, and then--miserable and
feeling weighted--went up to the third floor where I sleep in the same
room with Roberta, and got into my old, faded pink lawn.
I hated that lawn dress, and it helped me to wear it while I waited for
Mother who was down town buying Ferris waists and garter elastic and
bone buttons and dish towel material and all those things mothers buy
at least once a month, and of course I needed to see mother--as every
one of us always needs her when we have been into mischief!
I knew she would say, “Never mind, honey, we’ll fix it in no time! I
have more goods and I’ll slip in a new front breadth before you can say
‘Jack Robinson!’” And I knew that I would feel humble and mean because
of her being so nice, but cleared up too, and that I would slide up to
her, and lay my face against her shoulder, and say, “Oh, _Mother_,” in
a tight way, because thinking of how wonderful she is, and how much too
good for us, always makes me want to cry, and I would rather die than
cry.
The only time when I ever did cry without shame was when my favorite
pitcher was expelled, and most unjustly, from _The Oil City League_.
However, to get on, I went down stairs, and watered the plants and
dusted and did all those things I never do while feeling well mentally,
and then I sat down and played the piano.
I didn’t play anything that echoed my mood but I played a dancing, gay,
bright thing. I believe most people save the sad ones for those moments
when they _want_ to feel sentimental, or are not _afraid_ of being sad.
Anyway I played this thing which sounded as if gipsies might dance to
it in the heart of a summer day, and I played it, I believe, fairly
well.
After I finished it I sat idle, my hands on the piano keys, feeling
even more depressed than before, and it was into this moment of
dreariness that the fairy godmother stepped.
Perhaps I heard a little noise, and perhaps I only felt eyes on me, but
in any event, I turned--something made me turn--and then I said, “Why,
Miss Sheila!” for although I had never seen the pretty woman who stood
in the doorway, I had often--very often--seen the picture of the girl
she had been, and the years had not changed her much.
She came toward me as I got up, and she held out both hands, and I saw
that she had felt tears, for her long lashes were wet, and made into
little points.
“Bless you, darling child!” she said, as she kissed me, “how did you
know?” and I said, “Mother has a picture of you, and of course we’ve
always talked of you, for Mother loved you so much; she said you were
so _kind_ to her!”
“Kind to her?” she echoed, “dear soul, think of all that she did for
me--”
And then her eyes brimmed again, and Mother spoke quickly of how they
had met, because I think she felt that it was too hard for Miss Sheila
to remember the time when Mother, then a trained nurse, had cared for
Miss Sheila’s younger brother who died.
“Right by the First National,” Mother said, “and there I was, coming
out of Mr. Duffy’s with a pound of liver, and I looked up and saw dear
Miss Sheila!”
“And I’ve tried to find you everywhere, Margaret,” said Miss Sheila to
Mother, “but that trip--I traveled, you know, after we parted, and I
lost hold of threads for a time, and then when I came back I couldn’t
locate you. I suppose you married the young interne in the Pennsylvania
Hospital, during that interval?”
Mother laughed, flushed and nodded.
“He used to write her letters that weighed seven to eight pounds,
_every day_,” said Miss Sheila to me, as she shook her pretty head
disapprovingly, “I assure you the poor postman grew quite stooped; I
hope, Jane, that no young interne writes to _you_?”
And I told her that none did, and that I wouldn’t let any, because
I wanted a husband whom I would know by sight, anyway, and one that
didn’t smell of ether.
And then I put my hand on the piano--“It’s this with me,” I said shyly,
because I do feel shy about my playing. It makes me feel lumpy in my
throat from the way I love it, and that embarrasses me.
“I don’t wonder,” said Miss Sheila as she looked at me searchingly, “I
heard you . . . Jane--”
And she didn’t wave her wand, but I saw the flicker of its silver magic
in the air--
“Jane,” she continued, “I have a hobby, and it is helping girls to
find work that they like, and after finding it, helping them to go
on with it. . . . This, because I, myself, have been without work,
and suffered from it. . . . You can play, my child, and your mother
is going to give me the great pleasure of letting me help you play
better. . . . You are, Margaret? _My dear, remember the old days, and
all that you did for me!_ . . . Jane,” (she turned back to me) “in
Florence there is rather a marvelous teacher named Michele Paggi, and
in October you shall go to him!”
* * * * *
That was the story.
I told it to Mr. Terrance Wake as if he could see our house, and knew
the people in it, including Miss Sheila, who abandoned the party with
whom she was motoring and came to stay with us for a time.
And as I ended it, on that Italian train that was taking me nearer and
nearer to Florence, I looked up to see that Mr. Wake was still twisting
a scarab ring and looking down at it.
“So you see,” I said, “why I am here, and why I love Miss Sheila--”
“Yes,” he said, and he raised his head to smile at me in a strange way.
“Yes--I see--” and then he looked away from me and down again at his
scarab ring.
CHAPTER FOUR
FLORENCE AND THE NEW HOME
When we reached Florence, which was well along in the afternoon,
Mr. Wake went with me to the Pension Dante, which is on the Piazza
Indipendenza, not far from the station, and is the place where Miss
Sheila had arranged to have me stay.
Again a facchino took our baggage and piled it all up, trunks and bags
together, in a wheelbarrow, and then started ahead of us, singing.
“Don’t you live in the country?” I asked of Mr. Wake, for I had
understood from Mrs. Hamilton that he did.
“Yes, out the Fiesole way,” he answered; “my goods go to the Piazza del
Duomo where I take a tram.”
“What’s a duomo?” I asked, because I imagined it was some kind of an
officer in a high, bear-skin cap. It seemed to me that it sounded like
that. But it wasn’t, it was something quite different.
“It’s the greatest church in an Italian city,” Mr. Wake answered, “and
I think you will probably be able to see the dome of this one from
your window. It is one of the largest domes in Italy; it was the
model for St. Peter’s in Rome, and it was alike the despair of Michael
Angelo, and the pride of its maker, Brunelleschi.”
I said, “Oh,” because at that time such facts seemed dry to me, and
dulled by dust. I had not learned how much romance may be unearthed by
a puff of breath from some one who knows, as does Mr. Wake, how to blow
aside the years.
“About a month,” he said, “and you’ll like it, and you’ll be hunting
for old facts.” And then he smiled at me in a way that told me he had
understood my feeling.
After that our facchino paused and dumped my baggage out of his
wheelbarrow and rang a bell.
“You’ve evidently reached home,” Mr. Wake hazarded, “and a mighty nice
place it is too, isn’t it, with this square before you? Probably puff
up a million stairs now, and then you’ll tell me I have too much tummy,
won’t you?”
“No,” I answered, “I did tell you that.”
He laughed, and we followed the facchino who had put my trunk on his
shoulders, and started before us, up three flights to the Pension Dante.
“Look here,” said Mr. Wake as we paused on the first landing, “suppose
you take me in training? You walk?”
“I have to,” I answered. “Father made me promise to walk at least five
miles every day--”
“Well, that ought to help me,” Mr. Wake commented; “suppose I go, too,
and show you the town?”
I said I’d like it.
“I can take you to some spots most tourists miss,” he promised, as we
again started on and up.
“That’ll be nice,” I said, but I never dreamed then how very nice it
would be, nor of how much I was to enjoy those trips he planned, in
spite of the fact that I learned a good deal in the process. “And I
thank you,” I ended, and he said I was most welcome.
Then the door at the head of the third flight opened, and I saw
a pretty, plump little Italian woman whose hair rippled like the
waves that follow in the immediate wake of a steamboat, and when she
held out both of her hands to me, and said, “Buona sera, Signorina,
well-_come_!” I felt very much at home, and I loved her right away.
“Are you Miss Rotelli?” I asked.
“Yes, Mees Rotelli,” she answered as she nodded like everything, and I
introduced Mr. Wake, and he left me after a promise of looking around
to see how I was in a day or so, and then I followed Miss Rotelli--I
soon called her Miss Julianna--in,
And _in_--
Well, I think that everybody _should_ travel. As Mr. Hemmingway,
whom I met at dinner, says, it is _educational_. One has an idea, or
at least I did, that houses all over the world are about the same.
I expected little differences, but I didn’t expect stone floors, or
Cupids painted on walls, or ceilings that took a field glass to see, or
to see a plaster-of-Paris Madonna on the wall with a tall wrought-iron
candlestick on the floor before it. . . . And I hadn’t expected to see
a box full of sawdust with a broom in it, or that they had to clean
house differently in Florence. . . . I didn’t know that there was
so little water that they had to dampen sawdust and brush it around
the rooms instead of mopping them up as we do. There are many, many
differences, but those things, and Beata, struck into me at first.
Beata, who had a rose in her hair, and whom I soon found was the cook
and waitress, was sitting in the long corridor into which I had stepped.
She rose as I came in and bobbed from the knees, as Elaine McDonald,
who is the only girl in our town who ever went to boarding school, did
the first year after she came home.
“She ees Beata,” said Miss Rotelli, and Beata spoke. “She say
_well-come_,” explained Miss Rotelli.
“Tell her thank you, if you please,” I said. And then I heard, “Niente,
Signorina Americana!” from Beata, who again sat down and went on
knitting a bright red tie.
“She make for her sweetheart,” said Miss Rotelli, and I didn’t feel
very far from home at _that_ moment. . . . Roberta makes dozens of ties
and always falters over presenting them, and says that _perhaps_, after
she’s made a _few_ more, she can do better--which mother doesn’t think
very nice, because it makes every poor silly she gives them to think
he’s the first one to have a tie knit for him by Roberta. But Roberta
is like that! It’s all unfair that she should be popular, but--she is!
However, to get on, I followed Miss Julianna well down a corridor,
which ran straight ahead as one entered the door from the outside hall,
and was so long that it narrowed in the distance almost like a railroad
track, and toward the end of this Miss Julianna opened a door on the
left, and said, “Your room.” She said everything in a clipped way that
was most interesting and, to me, attractive.
And I went in.
I felt lots of interest about that room, of course, because I imagined
that I would spend a great deal of time in it for the next six months
at least. I looked around carefully, and then I said, “It’s very
pretty,” although I really didn’t think it was but I wouldn’t for the
world have disappointed Miss Julianna, who looked on and waited, I
thought, a little anxiously.
“Grazie, Signorina,” she said, which means, “Thank you, Miss,”
and after that she said, all in a level, and very fast,
“Down-the-hall-bath-room-with-water-which-runs-and-real-tub-dinner-at-seven-good-by--”
and after that she nodded her head and backed out.
Then I took an inventory which resulted in the discovery that I was in
a room that was as big as our Elks’ ball-room at home; a room which was
punctuated at long intervals by one bed, covered with a mustard colored
bed-spread, a bureau which had a mirror that belonged in the funny
mirror place in the County Fair, two chairs that were built for people
with stiff corsets, one chair that was designed for an aviator, (it
went over backward if you weren’t familiar with its management) a wash
stand with some stuff on it that Leslie--about Leslie later--called
“Medieval hardware,” a table with a bright red cover, a black marble
mantel and a footstool which I soon learned it was wise to use if you
didn’t want your feet to grow numb from cold.
In the exact center of the room was a little rug that looked about as
big as a postage stamp on a cabinet photograph case; and across from
the door was the room’s real attraction which I was yet to explore, and
that was the window.
I walked over to it slowly; and there, I leaned out, and after I
had leaned out--I don’t know how long--I came back and hunted in my
suitcase for the writing case that Elaine McDonald had got in New York
and given me for a going-away present. And, after I had addressed an
envelope to Mother, and put on “Jackson Ridge, Pennsylvania, Stati
Uniti d’America,” which Miss Sheila had told me to do; and after I had
told about my health and asked about theirs, and said I was safe, and
told of Mr. Wake who had helped me, when Mrs. Hamilton, Miss Sheila’s
acquaintance, had changed her plan, I described _the back yard_.
“I have just looked out of my window,” I wrote, “and down into a little
court that looks as if it belongs to another age and were sleeping in
this. It is a court upon which all the houses that box this square,
back. It has a fountain in it that has a stone cupid in its center;
there must be a mile and a half of tiny winding paths; and there is
heavy leaved foliage like none I have ever seen. Some of the trees
quite cover the paths, and others of a more lacy variety give one a
glimpse of the red tiles that divide the winding yellow ways from the
green.
“Across the way is a tan stucco house with green shutters; its next
door neighbor is salmon pink and has flower boxes on its window sills.
The windows are--most of them--set in at different heights. It does
not look neat, but it is pretty; I think even prettier than the way we
do it at home.
“The sun is so bright that when it rests on anything white, it blinds
you. And all the shadows are black. The roofs are of red tile, and
slope gently. There are some poplar trees” (I found later they were
cypress trees; the shape misled me) “swaying over the top of a low roof
down the block. When I was last at the window a little shopkeeper who
wore a big apron sat in his back door singing, while he polished brass,
and his voice is nearly as good as Mr. Kinsolving’s--”
(Mr. Kinsolving is our church tenor, and he gets two dollars for
singing at each service, which shows how _fine_ he is; but I honestly
thought that the shopkeeper sung better, but of course I wasn’t
going to write that home for one of the twins to blurt out when they
shouldn’t!)
“Across the court,” I went on, “is a studio--”
(It seems strange to me now--my writing about that studio in my first
letter home!)
“And I can see the artist painting,” my pen scratched on. “He has on a
long white aprony-looking thing, and I can see his arm move before his
canvas which is dark. I think I shall like watching him and thinking
that there is some one else in this block who is trying hard to get on,
as I shall soon!
“I wish you could see everything I can, dear people, and especially the
court. Marguerite Clarke, as she was in _Prunella_, ought to be dancing
in the court with her Pierrot following; the court looks like that,
and as if it would be full of ghosts who dance the minuet on moonlight
nights--”
I stopped, reread what I had written, and wondered whether I should
send it, because Roberta, who is much more practical, sometimes thinks
the things I fancy, silly. But then I caught the Mrs. Frank Jones on
the envelope and I knew that it could go.
For Mother always understood my funny, half hidden, soft moods as well
as my love of baseball and outdoor things, and I knew that she would
like what I had written, even though it would seem foolish to all the
rest. So I kissed the page, and put a little cross where I had kissed
it, and I wrote, “That’s for you, Mother dear--” and then I got up and
brushed my hair really hard, and hurried around at dressing, the way
you do when you have felt almost homesick and are just a little afraid
that the whole feeling may creep over you.
An hour or so later I heard a tinkling bell, and a soft, musically
rising voice which sung out, “È pronto!” which I found later means “Is
ready,” in Italian, and that “Is ready” in Italian means dinner. But
I understood that night not from “È pronto,” but from the fact that,
after I opened my door and looked into the hall, I saw three other
doors open and very queer looking people come out of them, and go
toddling down the hall.
The first one was fat, and wore the kind of basque mother was
photographed in when she was very young. Her skirt was a purplish serge
that had once been blue.
“Well, Miss Bannister!” she called to a thin old lady who came out of
the door almost opposite mine. Miss Bannister’s hair was not applied
quite as it should have been; it seems mean to mention it, but she
never gave you a chance to forget it! Leslie thought she tied it on the
gas jet, then ran under it, and clipped the cord as she ran, and let it
stay just where it dropped, and it did look that way!
“Hello,” answered this old lady, in a high squeaky voice. “Has she
come?”
“My eye, yes!” answered the one in the basque, whose name was Miss
Meek, “and a jolly number of boxes too. I say we’ll have a beastly lot
of brag!”
That made me mad, and I decided that they wouldn’t have any from _me_.
Then they saw me and grew silent, and at the moment another door
opened, and a tall, thin man who walked as if he had casters under him,
came sliding out.
“Ahem,” he said, “_ahem_! And how is every one to-night? A charming
day,” he went on without waiting for answer, “a charming day! How well
I remember a day such as this in the fall of 1902--” (he paused, and
when he continued, spoke very slowly) “now _was_ it in 1902, _or_ 1903?
How can I fasten it?” (He snapped his fingers and I’m sure he frowned,
although I was walking back of him and couldn’t see.) “But just a
moment, I _can_ locate the year if I reason the thing _through_, and
I make this bold assertion because, if I recall correctly, it was in
the fall of 1902 that I was in England, while the day to which I refer
was beneath Italy’s azure skies, which clearly reveals, and without
possible doubt, that it was in 1903, since--”
“Oh, lud!” broke in the fat one who wore the purplish blue skirt and
the basque, and was Miss Meek. “Oh, lud!” which I found later was her
way of saying, “Oh, Lord!”
And then we turned into the dining room--I had followed the crowd at
a respectful distance--and Miss Julianna stepped forward, to say, “La
Signorina Jones, Americana!” and then she turned and said, “Mees Meek,
Mees Banneester, Meester Hemmingway; you must be _friend_!”
And I said that I hoped they would let me be. And then, a little
flushed because I was not used to meeting so many people at once, I
wiggled into my chair, and Beata came in with the soup.
CHAPTER FIVE
NEW FRIENDS, A NEW DAY, AND NEW PLANS
I looked at the bunch of paper roses that stood in the center of the
table as I ate my soup, because I felt all the rest looking at me and
it made me uncomfortable; and I suppose I would have looked at them, or
down at my plate, all through the meal, if Miss Bannister hadn’t barked
a question out at me.
“Where do you come from?” she asked, with an emphasis and a rise in her
sentence that was as new to me as the Italian I was hearing.
“Pennsylvania,” I answered.
“Quite a village, I suppose?” she questioned.
I tried to explain, but right in the middle of my explanation she said:
“One of my deaf days, but no matter, I don’t care in the least. I only
asked to be polite, don’t you know--”
Which left me feeling as you do when you run for a car, but do nothing
more than reach the spot where it _was_. I ate soup quite hard for
several minutes.
Then Mr. Hemmingway, who had traveled quite a lot--I learned it
soon!--helped me out by screaming information about the States across
the table to Miss Bannister, who clattered her spoon and kept saying,
“No matter, no matter!” all the time he talked. I felt just exactly
as if I were in the middle of a funny dream, and one that wasn’t
especially nice, and I honestly even half wondered whether I wouldn’t
wake up to tell Mother about it, and have her say, “Now _what_ did you
eat before you went to bed?”
But I didn’t wake up and the dinner went on; Beata took away our soup
plates, and then brought in big plates of spaghetti, cheese was passed
and sprinkled over this, and I found it good, but difficult to eat,
because it was in long pieces. Several on my plate I know would have
gone around our hose reel _dozens_ of times! Anyway, as I struggled
with this and tried to cut it, Mr. Hemmingway began, and I began to
understand _him_.
“I am familiar with the States,” he asserted, “although my travels in
the States have not been extensive. I spent a winter in Canada while a
comparatively young man; it was, if I recall correctly, the winter of
1882. _Or was it_ ’83? Now I _should_ know. Ah, I have it! It was ’83,
and my certainty of this pertinent fact comes from the recollection
that in ’82 I was in England, and I know this, because the year prior
to that, which, if you will reckon, was ’81, I was detained in a
village in South Wales, by a sharp attack of fever which was thought
to have been introduced by the importation of French labor upon the
occasion of--”
And so on. He never got there, but I did feel sorry for him, so I
listened just as hard as I could, which is less trying where you can
eat than at other places. He was having a splendid time, when Miss Meek
cut in to question me.
“Student?” she boomed out, and she pronounced it, “Stew-dant.”
I felt pleased, and I wanted to answer nicely, but I had at least six
inches of spaghetti in my mouth--I hadn’t meant to take so much but
it kept trailing up, and I had to lap it in--and so I had to nod. I
should have waited a minute before I let that pleased feeling get on
top, because she shoved it right over a cliff by her next remark, which
was, “_Oh, my eye!_” and she followed that with a prodigious groan. It
wasn’t very flattering.
“But in a student pension,” began Mr. Hemmingway, “where the rates are
lowered for others by the fact that practising makes the house--in some
ways--less attractive, one must accept the handicap with grace. How
well I remember in Vienna, when I, then quite a boy--let me see, _what
was the year?_”
“No matter!” barked Miss Bannister, and then Miss Meek added something,
after another groan, that interested me considerably.
“And two more coming!” she stated.
“_Are_ there?” I asked quickly.