(She was talking about the rubber strap that was jacking up her chin.)
“Mother--has a double--chin and--_the blood just drains from my heart
when I look_--every time _I look at her_!”
“I wouldn’t worry about it to-day,” I advised. Then I asked her whether
I could get her anything. She shook her head, and then she spoke.
“Viola told Miss Meek everything _I’d ever told her_,” she said, “all
about Ben Forbes saying I was idle, and a p-parisite. Don’t you think
that was mean?”
I did. And I said so.
She sniffed, and then suddenly, she hid her face in her arm and began
to cry hard.
“I wish--” she whimpered, “I were--_dead_--”
And then I got _her_ story.
* * * * *
This Benjamin Forbes had lived next door to the Parrishes in New York,
and he did until Leslie was eighteen, which was the year before she
“came out,” (whatever that is) anyway, he used to help Leslie with
her lessons, and take her to the Zoo and riding in the park, and he
bought her candy, (the hard, healthy variety that comes in jars and
is no good, but the only sort she was permitted to eat, and she said
she appreciated the fact that his _intentions_ were kind) and he even
used to go to the dentist’s with her while she was having her teeth
straightened.
Well, she said that he never thought of her except as a little girl,
but that she _adored_ him, and that one night when she was at a fudge
party at boarding school--and she was only sixteen at the time--when
the other girls were discussing and planning their husbands, she,
Leslie, suddenly knew what sort she wanted, and that the sort was _Ben_.
And she placed him on an altar then, (I quote; for Leslie’s style is
_not_ mine) and she never wavered once although she had much attention
paid to her, and had had two and a half proposals--the half coming
from the fact that her father plunked right in the center of the third
one, and evicted the suitor, who left in such agitation that he went
without his hat. (Leslie kept it for a souvenir) However, to get on,
Mr. Forbes’ younger brother wasn’t strong, and so Mr. Forbes bought a
ranch and went out there, and he liked it and they stayed.
He came back after four years, and offered to take Leslie to the
_Hippodrome_, which showed he didn’t know she had grown up, but she
suggested a Russian play instead, and he took her there, but she said
she could see he didn’t enjoy it, and that he was not pleased with her
having matured and that he rather resented it, and he didn’t seem to
know how to talk to her, and he acted baffled, and she said that, as he
groped, and unconsciously showed his disappointment, _every dream and
hope of hers was scattered in the dust_. (I am quoting Leslie again)
Well, he left after he had been in New York a week, but the night
before he left Leslie asked him frankly why he didn’t like her, (she
told him that she could _see_ he didn’t) and then he admitted that he
was a little disappointed.
“I like girls,” he said, “who can work, and who don’t make playing
their only work. All you can do is go to teas and poppycock parties,
now isn’t it?” (She said he was gentle, but that he told her all he
felt)
“You can’t,” he went on, “even play the piano as well as you did at
fourteen; you can’t keep house, can you?” (And Leslie couldn’t) “And
it seems to me,” he ended, “that you are content to be a pretty little
parasite, and that disappoints me.”
And his saying that sent her to Florence, and it started, she said,
a ceaseless ache in her heart. And the ache grew too large to keep
hidden, and Leslie confided in Viola; and Viola, in an effort to make
Miss Meek realize that Leslie was away out of her natural placing, told
Miss Meek that Leslie’s broken heart had led her to seek the solace of
work in these humble surroundings. And Viola’s talking to Miss Meek was
made by the fact that Viola hated sickness, couldn’t bear being with
people who were sick, and--had to talk to some one.
In that way the confidence became a triangle, and it ended as such
triangles usually do--where it started--for Miss Meek came in to
Leslie’s room and boomed out, “Oho, Miss Smarty! The Queen didn’t rule
every one now, did she? And I’ll say jolly lucky for the Forbes man at
that!” (Miss Meek dislikes Leslie)
And when Viola appeared later, and said, from the doorway, “Darling, is
there _anything_ I can do for you?” Leslie answered, “You can _try_ to
keep your mouth shut!” and then I think they had a row, although Leslie
says that people of her station _never_ row. It seemed like one to my
simple nature, though, and during the course of it Leslie told Viola
that her people were “nobodies” and that Mrs. Parrish hadn’t been “at
all pleased” when she heard of Viola’s going, and that she, Leslie,
now knew it was a “climber’s scheme”; and then Viola said that Leslie
considered herself more important than she was, and that money wasn’t
_anything_, and that now she knew that society was a “hollow sham,”
since people like Leslie could masquerade as paragons or paramounts, or
something like that--I sort of forget--in it.
And then they both cried, and Viola slammed the door as she left, and
that started _it_--which was a feud that lasted until Viola had a
trouble that was big enough to make even Leslie forgive her the things
that she had said, on that rainy day that backed so many unpleasant
happenings.
After I left Leslie, I went to my own room and stood by the window
looking across the court. . . . There was no light in my artist’s
window and there had been no sign of any life in the big room since the
evening that followed my taking him home.
Mr. Wake had sent me a little note that read: “Sam Deane is all right
now. Will report on Saturday.” But that didn’t tell me whether long Sam
Deane had gone on to another part of the country or to another land or
was still in Florence, and, somehow, it didn’t seem to satisfy me.
I wondered a lot as I stood there, and I realized that I had
hoped--really without knowing it--that I’d see that tall Deane man
again. But his rooms were empty and dark, and it was raining, and a
swinging sign somewhere in the neighborhood protested in high shrill
squeaks as the wind pushed it back and forth, and the twins had
diphtheria, and I had been so cross to them sometimes, and they were
_so_ dear, and poor Beata had lost her sweetheart, and Leslie was
crying, and Viola angry and miserable--and--I _did_ want to wander out
into our big, yellow-walled kitchen and say “What are you going to have
for supper, Mother?”--and to know that they were _all_--every one of
them--all right.
The court was growing very dark, and the shadows were gloomy. The rain
was caught by a swooping wind and swished against the windows and
ran down the panes in rivulets. And just after that the Pension bell
jangled loudly, and I thought of the twins and of cablegrams, and when,
after a long, long tightly stretched moment or two, some one tapped on
my door, I had to moisten my lips before I could even half whisper,
“_Come_--”
And then--
Oh, well--there is always, _always_, blue back of the gray! But
somehow, when one is far from home and it rains hard, you sort of
forget it!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A PATCH OF BLUE SKY
It was Beata who had tapped on my door, and after my weak-kneed
“Come--” she opened it and came in, and as she crossed the floor to
reach me she held out a lavender striped box that was tied with silver
cord. I took it, and it did seem to me that the silver cord would never
come untied--I suppose because I was so excited--but at last I got the
knot out and the cover off, and I saw a bunch of big purple violets
that smelled of earth and of their own soft, sweet perfume. I couldn’t
believe they were for _me_! I had never had violets sent to _me_ before.
But they were for me, and after Beata, who had lingered from interest
and frankly looked on, said, “Signorina, _la carte_!” I picked up the
envelope that was in the bottom of the box, and read on it,
“For
“Miss ‘Plain Jane Jones’”
and then I tore that open and read the letter. It was from Sam Deane
and it said:
“DEAR LITTLE GOOD SAMARITAN:
“Lots of luck has come to me--and may I say, bless you? _I
think I must!_ I can’t return the cream puffs, for somehow or
other I mislaid the ones you loaned me, and I’m afraid I can’t
match them.
“I would like to say lots, but your Mr. Wake is looking over my
shoulder and telling me that you are a dear little girl--and
don’t I know it?--but, dragons or not, I am going to be your
friend, if you will let me.
“Mr. Wake wonders whether you will go walking with him,
Saturday. He says he will call for you at three and return you
when his waist line is sufficiently reduced.
“I can’t say thank you for all you have done for me; some day I
will try to tell you how I feel, and I will show you always, by
being
“Your sincere and devoted friend,
“SAM DEANE.”
I liked that letter.
“Beata,” I said, “aren’t they _lovely_?”
“Si, _si_, Signorina!” said Beata, and she nodded and nodded, and her
eyes shone just as if the violets were hers. And then I went to stand
before the glass, and place them the way girls do, and I was so excited
that I stuck the violet pin right through my corset into my stomach,
_but nothing mattered_! I was just _awfully_ happy! I didn’t know that
violets would make you feel that way, but these did. And Mr. Hemmingway
thought they were beautiful, and tried very hard to recall the first
year he ever “sent a lady a posy” (but he couldn’t remember because he
couldn’t remember which year he had bought a tan and white striped
waistcoat in the Strand or Ludgate Circus, of course he couldn’t
remember where, and the waistcoat buying prefaced the posy giving) and
Miss Meek said that _some_ man had more sense than most of the jolly
idiots, and Miss Bannister asked me who sent them, and let me answer
without telling me it was one of her deaf days, which showed that every
one felt kind and interested.
And so dinner passed, and after dinner I sat with Leslie a little while
and helped her get in bed; and then brushed my hair while Viola sat in
my room and told about how Leslie’s grandfather had started to make his
fortune in pickles--and she seemed to be glad of it, I couldn’t see
why--and then she squeezed my hand, and said that she was sorry that
she had been so fearfully busy during the first two weeks, and that we
must see lots of each other now--I suppose because she had fought with
Leslie, I know I hadn’t changed any in that short time--and then she
left and so ended that day.
Saturday was clear and everything was washed and clean by the rain that
had fallen so steadily and long. All the roofs were a brighter red and
the gray and tan houses lightened and the sunlight was dazzling, and
even the song of Florence--which is made by the many, many church and
monastery bells that mix, and tangle, and float across the city to
make pretty, skippy tunes--even this song seemed freshened by all the
scrubbing that the city had undergone.
I got up quite early and went to my window to look out. Gino was
whistling as he swept around his back door, and talking to his parrot
that he had brought out with the stand to which it was chained. . . .
And I looked above him at the big window through which I had so often
watched my artist, and I realized that Mr. Wake would tell me about
him that day. . . . And then Beata came to call out her gentle, “Buon
giorno, Signorina! Acqua calda!”
And I answered, and took in the tall, steaming, brass pitcher and began
to bathe and dress.
I practised a lot in the morning, and brushed my best suit, which I
thought _ought_ to back my violets, and then came lunch, and then
getting into outdoor duds; and at last the Pension bell jangled as it
swung to and fro in answer to a touch from downstairs, and I knew that
Mr. Wake had come. I went out to the head of the stairs, as soon as I
heard the bell ring, and called, “Is it you, Mr. Wake?” And, when I was
answered as I wanted to be, I hurried down.
It was _very_ good to see him, and I stood in the doorway with him
for several minutes as I told him about the twins, (he was sure they
weren’t very sick) and of Miss Sheila’s promising to write me regularly
about how things went on, and of Leslie’s bad cold. And then I asked
about my friend, Sam Deane.
“Able to take a _little_ nourishment,” Mr. Wake answered, which I found
later was a joke. “I have quite a story for you,” he went on, “suppose
we start out and talk on the road. Shall we?”
I nodded, and then blinked as I always did when I stepped from the
dark, gray-walled hall out into the brilliant middle hours of an
Italian day. It was cheerful outside. The cats--and there are millions
of them in Florence; every one sets out food for them, and no one
ever harms them; I think they were blessed, and so protected, by some
Saint beloved of the Florentines--the cats sat sunning themselves and
washing their ears and whiskers, or they strolled without hesitation,
and planted their feet surely, which shows how quickly the sun had
worked at drying things. The old ladies who always sit in doorways and
call to each other, huddled less over their scaldinoes, and little boys
with bare knees ran through the paths in the Piazza Indipendenza or
spun their tops on the pavement on our side of the street. Of course
officers walked slowly, and little knots of soldiers from the ranks
collected on corners to talk, and pretty Italian girls fluttered past.
Every one seemed glad to be out, and happy. It was pleasant.
“Well?” I prompted after we had turned a corner, and into a street
that was, from the white walls, simply ablaze with sun. “Where _is_ Mr.
Deane?”
“At the Villa Rossa, now, I think,” Mr. Wake answered.
“_Your_ house?” I said in surprise.
“Yes, my dear. . . . And very glad I am to have him. . . . A nice
boy, a very _fine_ boy, and I needed some one to play the banjo in my
garden. . . . I have fountains that look very well in the moonlight,
and a climbing rose tree that has covered one side of my house, and I
have marble benches, and everything that goes with romance, and--not a
hint of the real thing. All wrong it was! And so I am glad to have this
troubadour from Texas--”
“I called him that too,” I confessed, “I used to like to hear him
play--”
“And so do I,” Mr. Wake responded, “and I imagine he plays remarkably
badly. There must be ears of love as well as eyes of love. . . . You
like him?”
“Oh, very _much_!” I stated. Mr. Wake smiled down at me then--I didn’t
know quite why--but I liked it; it gave me something of the same warm
feeling that came from the almost piercing sunlight, and then Mr. Wake
took my hand and drew my arm through his as he had done before.
“The devil take Signora Grundy,” he said, “I have no use for her at
all, and never had! And how--” (he stopped and coughed and finished
with a jerk) “is the fairy godmother?”
“Very well,” I answered.
“Some day,” he said, “you’ll describe her to me? Faith, and I never
will get enough of some fairy tales!”
“I will,” I promised. And then Mr. Wake went on to tell me of Sam
Deane, and I was glad to hear his story.
Sam Deane, who was twenty-eight, Mr. Wake said, had won a traveling
scholarship from a well-known art school in the middle west. This had
meant a year in Paris and a thousand dollars allowance beside, and it
was given as a reward for exceptionally good work.
Well, Sam Deane had come to Paris and worked his year, and then he
decided that he wanted what Mr. Wake said Sam termed “A go at Rome and
Florence,” so he packed his suitcase, tucked his banjo under his arm
and walked most of the way to Rome. And Mr. Wake put in the statement
that Sam was the sort who could get what he really wanted, and I said
I thought so too, and then Mr. Wake smiled down at me again in his
very pleasant, twinkling, warming way which led me to believe that the
weather made him feel well, too.
Sam Deane did well in Rome where he looked up some of his fellow
workers, and shared a beautiful studio that was set high in a bit of
the old Roman City wall. He got some orders and saw the place, and he
stayed there quite a while and began to feel that Fortune was really
fond of him.
But in Florence! Oh, that was a different story!
The haughty city turned her back on him, and she closed her long, slim
fingers round her gold. And Mr. Wake said that Sam had been duped by
the worst scoundrel of an agent that ever lived, and that there was
nothing wrong with the picture Sam was copying, not in the _manner_,
Mr. Wake stated. (He said the subject was ghastly, I don’t know why, I
thought the little boy would have made a pretty picture, but when you
are educated in Art I don’t believe you want them to be pretty) Anyway,
the agent kept putting Sam off, and making him redo his work, for he
had a clause in his contract order that let him do this. And Mr. Wake
said that in this way Signor Bianco usually reduced his slaves to such
despair that they finally let their work go to him for half its real
worth.
“Now--” Mr. Wake ended, as we drew near a long building that had
medallions all along the front of it, made of the same sort of ware
that I had seen in the fountain up on the Via Nazionale, “Now I’m
going to take a hand. . . . And I know that with a little boosting
and a little advice the young man will _get along_! He has the real
stuff in him. Some of his sketches made me think of the early work of
Davies. Going to keep him with me until he gets a hold, and longer if
he’ll stay. Nice boy, _fine_ boy. . . . Look ahead of you, Jane, my
child. . . . You see the round, blue and white plaques up there? Copied
all over the world, those little white babies with their legs wrapped
in swaddling clothes. They were made by della Robbia back in the
fourteenth century.”
I thought that was wonderful, and so different from our modern art,
because if you were to hang up a Henry Hutt picture, even indoors, I
don’t believe it would last fifty years.
I said this to Mr. Wake, who entirely agreed with me. Then he told me
that one of the reasons that the Italians made such beautiful things
was that they took a long time to doing it. A man named Orcagna who is
dead--it is discouraging to think that every one who is great seems to
_have_ to be dead a long, long time--this man worked thirty years on a
shrine that is in a church called Or San Michele. (It is a _beautiful_
shrine of marble and silver and precious stones and lovely little
carved figures) And Giotto died before his tower was finished--it looks
like a slim lily where it stands by the side of the big fat Duomo--and
Raphael was killed by working too hard over his pictures, and wasn’t
allowed to marry because the Pope thought he should give all of his
time to his work, which seems so sad to me. . . . I kept thinking for
a long time, after Mr. Wake told me that, of how Raphael’s sweetheart
must have felt when Raphael was buried at thirty-seven, for that isn’t
so very old, after all.
As we stood there talking I saw Viola coming toward us, and after I had
spoken quickly to Mr. Wake, I called to her, because I knew she was
lonely.
“This is Viola,” I said to Mr. Wake, “her last name is Harris-Clarke,
you say them both,” and then I added, to Viola, “We’re going to see
this church. Do you want to go with us?”
“But how charming!” she murmured, “and this is Mr. Wake, of whom I have
heard most _pleasant_ things?”
Mr. Wake bowed from the waistline, but he didn’t seem especially
pleased, or at all excited over the things she had heard of him and
that did surprise me a lot!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
STORIES, MUSIC AND TEA
That afternoon was pleasant, but I don’t think that’s the reason
I remember it so clearly. A good many pleasant sight-seeing walks
followed that have grown a little dim, even now. I think it fastened
itself by my beginning to see Viola, and a side of her through which
she was soon to hurt herself so cruelly. I discovered the side through
a little comment of hers on a painting made by Andrea del Sarto, an
artist who painted in Florence a good deal in the fourteen hundreds.
They didn’t have any electric signs then, and so they used paint
instead, and they spread this over the churches--both inside and
out--because they were old fashioned and religious.
After Viola joined us Mr. Wake said, “The building we face, the one
that has the della Robbia babies smiling down on you from the front
of it, is a hospital for foundlings--little children whose parents
die, or for some reason or other don’t want them--and it is called the
‘Innocenti,’ which means The Innocents, and there, years ago--probably
some time in 1452--a little baby who was later called Leonardo da
Vinci, found a home. It was rather well that he did, wasn’t it? And now
shall we go into the church?”
“Let’s,” I answered, after I had taken a long look at the stern looking
building that holds inside so much that is lovable. And then we went
into Santissima Annunziata and after we had looked at the glittering
Chapel of the “Annunciation Virgin” and some paintings Mr. Wake told us
were wonderful, we went on into the cloisters.
As we got about half way in, Mr. Wake put his hand on my arm, drew me
to a standstill, and Viola followed suit.
“Look above the door,” said Mr. Wake, and we did, to see a pretty
picture of Joseph, and Mary, and a little boy, who was the small
Christ. . . . I liked it very much because it was simple, and it made
you feel _near_ it. Joseph was leaning on a sack of grain, and Mr.
Wake said, when he spoke, that it was called “The Madonna of the Sack”
because of that.
“But,” he said, “the great story lies behind the pretty face of the
model; for Mary, up there, was Andrea’s ambitious, money-loving
wife. . . . She crept into all his pictures, for she was his model, and
she made him work like mad to paint them, for she was always wanting
the things that do not count, and the things that do not live; and the
money for his pictures could buy these things for her. . . . And while
he worked, she played and wore the fine garments that the silk-makers
guild wove for her. . . . There are millions of her, aren’t there? Poor
blind, foolish women!” he ended.
“But,” said Viola, “don’t men like to have women interested in their
work? I’m sure that my own dear Father is _stimulated_ by _my_ need for
pretty things.”
“Surely,” agreed Mr. Wake, “but to be pushed beyond strength and to be
whined at continually is quite a different thing. . . . In this case
it proved to be the killing of the golden goose, for Andrea del Sarto
did not live to a great age--he died at forty-five--and his wife lived
on alone without her beauty and the love of Andrea, and lived long
beyond him. . . . It is said that one day, many years after Andrea
died, an artist who was copying that moon shaped picture up there was
startled by a touch on his shoulder, and he looked up to see an old,
browned, shriveled hag, who smiled down at him a little bitterly. ‘I
see,’ she said, ‘that you are copying the picture of me that my husband
painted?--’ Then perhaps,” Mr. Wake added, “she went in and sent a
little prayer up through the dim ceiling for all of her sisters--gone
and to come--who think more of money and things than they do of love or
the comfort of their beloved.”
We went in again after that, but I wasn’t much interested in the rest
of the church, and it was so cold inside and out of the sun that I was
glad when we stepped outside again and made our way toward the Piazza
Vittorio Emanuele where there was to be a concert given by one of the
military bands. There was a cluster of gaily uniformed band men in
its center, and hundreds and hundreds of people around them, and at
the edges of the square people sitting at the tables of the open air,
outdoor cafés, drinking and eating whatever they had ordered. It was
very _different_ from anything I’d ever seen, and so full of brightness
and color and a deep, thick sense of enjoyment that I don’t know how to
describe it. But people seemed keyed up by the music, and when the band
master would stand up before his men and wave his baton, every one grew
tense, and when the music started they listened _hard_.
“Suppose,” said Mr. Wake, after we had pushed by two of the
Bersaglieri, (who are the sharp-shooter soldiers that have cock
feathers drooping from one side of their always tilted, theatrical
looking hats) “we go sit down, and see whether--if we look very
wistful--some waiter won’t come along, and take an order--”
“_Delightful_,” said Viola, who had been getting more and more airy as
she was more and more impressed with Mr. Wake.
“I’d like it,” I said, “I’m always hungry, but how about your stomach?”