about planning the refreshments and how they should be brought on.
“And she’d like it,” I commented, “probably it’ll help her out.”
“What’s the matter with her, any way?” Leslie asked, and I’d told
Leslie about forty times, but I told her once again.
“How much does she need?” she asked, as she lay back and again looked
up at the ceiling.
“I think about seventy-five dollars,” I answered. Leslie laughed in a
queer, unhappy way.
“Fancy it’s being as simple as that!” she murmured in an undertone.
“Not particularly simple, if she can’t get it,” I disagreed. “And poor
Beata doesn’t believe she’ll ever be able to save it, and she loved him
so. His name is Pietro La Nasa, and he _is_ good looking. . . . I’ve
seen him standing in the court--he knows Gino, who owns the brass shop
down there--and he looks up so _longingly_--and you know how much Beata
cries--”
“Yes, I know--”
Suddenly Leslie turned and clasped my hand between both of hers. “Look
here, Jane,” she said, and with the prettiest look I had ever seen on
her pretty face, “we’ll try to make this a real party. . . . My father
sent me a little extra money--I had a dividend from something or other
that has done well--and I’d _love_ to spend it this way. . . . As you
say, the crowd here probably haven’t had a good time for years--”
“And may not again for years--if ever--” I put in. Leslie nodded.
“We’ll _do_ it,” she said, with lots of energy in her voice. “And you
can ask Viola to help with the decorating and so on. . . . Understand,
_I want nothing to do with her after it is over_. . . . I shall never
forget the things she said to me about my Grandfather who had a
_little_ interest in a factory where they put up chow chow (he made his
_fortune in railroads_) and about my having an inflated idea of my own
importance. I have _not_, but I assure you, Jane, the Harris-Clarkes
are _nobodies_--”
Well, I’d heard that all about a thousand times before, and I had
got so that I was honestly bored--and for the first time in my
life--whenever Viola started on the Parrishes, or Leslie about the
Harris-Clarkes.
“I can’t give any presents,” I broke in.
“I’ll loan you any amount, dear,” said Leslie, quickly.
“No, you won’t!” I answered. “I won’t give presents because I
_shouldn’t_, but we can have an awfully good time, presents or not!”
“And will!” she promised, quickly, and then she crawled out and put
a kettle of water over her spirit lamp and began to make tea, and I
had three cups and four crackers and two slices of nut cake and some
kisses. Then, feeling a little refreshed, I went back to my own room,
on the way stopping at Viola’s. “It’s all right,” I said, from the
doorway, “she’ll pretend, if you will--”
“I’m honestly _glad_,” said Viola.
Before I started on, I saw her lick the flap of the envelope that was
to take her complaining letter across the sea to her father--I had a
queer, sad feeling as she did it, and then I said a short “By,” and
went on to my own room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CUPID AND A LADY SANTA CLAUS
Two days later at about five in the afternoon, Leslie looked around the
living room which was growing dark, as she said, “I think we’ve done
wonderfully!”
Viola was tying some red tissue paper around the funny little tree that
Leslie, with great effort, had got from a florist, and after she stood
erect and stretched, she responded to Leslie with a murmured, “Simply
_sweet_!”
“Don’t _you_ think so, Jane?” asked Leslie coolly. She had ignored
Viola all that afternoon by addressing me, and after she did this
pointedly, Viola always huffed up, and appealed to me, too. It made me
feel as if I were interpreter in the tower of Babel, and it left me far
from comfortable! And it was all _so_ silly!
“I certainly do,” I answered as I looked around, and it was fine!
Mr. Wake, who had accepted our invitation with great pleasure, had sent
in flowers and big branches of foliage from his place, and these were
in vases, and massed in corners; and Sam, who had just left, had helped
us make twisted red streamers that he had wound around the funny
chandelier, and we had put red paper around all the lumpy vases that
Miss Julianna seemed to like so much; and the bare little tree was on
the center table, with a ring of candles, set up in their own grease
around it. It doesn’t sound especially pretty, but it was, as well as
very cheering.
Over the back of a chair hung a long red gown that Leslie was going
to wear as she gave out a few little presents. Her giving them was
entirely correct, because the Italian Santa Claus is a lady called
“Befana,” and the only way we changed things was by having the Befana
come on Christmas Eve instead of on Epiphany.
On the mantel were some pink tarletan stockings filled with
candy--there was no fastening them up, the mantel was made of
marble--and Leslie had got a little piece of mistletoe which Sam had
hung in the doorway.
“Really, it has the feeling of Christmas,” said Leslie, as she picked
up the gown, which I had made on her with safety pins.
“_Hasn’t_ it?” murmured Viola, who, in spite of saying the most bitter
things, did want to make up.
“When it’s lit by candles it will be pretty,” I prophesied, and it was.
Then we picked up the hammers and the nails that always lie around on
the edges of things after you’ve put up Christmas decorations, and went
to dress, closing the door very carefully after us, and locking it.
Beata, who was tremendously interested in the new version of their
Befana, and who had asked a great deal--through Miss Julianna--about
the person she called “Meester Sant’ Claus,” smiled at us as we passed
the kitchen, and I saw that she hadn’t cried that day, and that she
wore her best dress, and a shabby, yet gay artificial flower in one
side of her dark hair.
“Sant’ Claus come!” she managed, while we were yet within hearing;
Leslie called “Not yet--” and then we went on, and parted.
In my room, before I lit the light, I will confess that I had a little
moment of sadness, during which home seemed far away and I wished I
had as much money to spend as Leslie had. . . . I had wanted to give
Miss Meek and Miss Bannister and Mr. Hemmingway very nice presents,
because they needed them, but of course I couldn’t give them much. I
had found for Miss Bannister a leather picture frame in a shop that was
opposite the Pitti Palace--she had said she meant to get a frame for a
picture she had of her old home, but that she always forgot it while
out, (she is really very poor) and I had got for Miss Meek, who is very
gay, a gray comb that had brilliants in it--it was only fifty cents;
I got it in a stall outside of a church called Santa Croce--and I had
got Mr. Hemmingway a book from a little shop back of the Duomo that
had “My memories” written on it in gilt--I mean on the book, not the
Duomo, of course--for I thought he would enjoy writing down some of the
happenings that occurred at the times he never could remember.
Then I had two lovely colored linen handkerchiefs which had been given
me before I sailed, and fortunately, I had only carried them and
never put them into active use, and I did these up for Beata and Miss
Julianna.
I didn’t give anything to the others, and I wished I could. I had that
feeling that leads even restrained people to rush out on Christmas
Eve and buy a great deal that they can’t afford, but after I reasoned
it through I knew that I shouldn’t, because I wanted to pay back Miss
Sheila--I had decided that I preferred to do this--and I wanted to
return what I could, as soon as I could, to my own family, who had
sacrificed a great deal for me. Then my allowance wasn’t large--Leslie
told me she considered it about adequate for a week’s allowance of
French pastries and digestion tablets--and so I wrote the rest of my
friends notes. I used my best stationery that hasn’t any blue lines on
it, but instead a silver “J” in the corner, and after I had written:
“DEAR MR. WAKE:
“I do hope that you will be very happy this Christmas and
always!
“Your friend,
“JANE JONES.”
I snipped a paragraph from Miss Sheila’s last letter, for he seemed to
like hearing about her, and talking of her, and the paragraph was about
him.
“I am sure,” she had written, “that the Mr. Wake of whom you
write so often, must be a real addition to your Florentine
life. I did, very much, like his story of the wedding of
Lorenzo, The Magnificent.”
(He was one of the Medici)
“I saw it, dear, as you said he made you see it. . . . And
wouldn’t Florence be a nice city to be married in? I think if I
had all my life to do over, I would go to a Padre in Florence,
with some unlucky man, and pay a lot of scheming little
wretches to throw roses before me as I left the church. . . .
You see what a romantic mood has attacked your old friend? I
think I _must_ need a tonic! Please write me the titles of your
Mr. Wake’s books; I am ashamed to say that I haven’t read them,
but I want to, and I shall--”
It did please him, I saw him read it three times that very evening;
twice while Mr. Hemmingway was trying to remember the first time that
he had ever seen a plum pudding brought in, on the center of a blazing
platter; and the third time, while Viola was describing the last
Christmas and dragging in through it a long description of a lodge in
the Adirondacks.
But to get on, or rather go back and start where I should, Miss
Julianna had a very fine dinner because of our party, and she sat
down with us, which wasn’t always her custom--she often helped in the
kitchen--and Mr. Hemmingway had raked up some greenish black dress
clothes from somewhere, and Miss Bannister had her hair on as nearly
straight as I had ever seen it, and Miss Meek wore a purple velvet
dress with green buttons and a piece of old lace on it, which I had
never before seen, but which she had spoken of in a way that made me
know that she thought it very fine.
Of course Leslie was beautiful--she had on a new dress made of several
shades of light blue chiffon, and this fluttered and changed as she
walked--and there was a silver ribbon girdle on it, and silver ribbons
knotted here and there over the shining white satin lining, and she
wore silver slippers, and blue stockings with silver lace inserts, and
she had a silver bandeau on her hair. I told her she was lovely.
Viola had pulled out all her extra eyebrows and looked sort of skinned,
but she felt fixed up, so it was all right. She wore a red velvet dress
that was pretty too. I wore a brown silk dress that had plaid trimming,
and it put me in Miss Meek’s class, but I didn’t mind.
After we sat down, and made conversation in that stiff way that people
do when they are all wearing their best clothes and aren’t quite used
to them, Mr. Hemmingway stood up and picked up the smaller wine glass
that stood by his plate--we had two sorts of wine--and he looked at me,
bowed, and said, “To the United States and her lovely daughters--”
I thought it was _very_ kind.
Then Miss Bannister blinked, and nodded, and squeaked out, “To the
people we love who aren’t here--”
And I wasn’t a bit ashamed of the fact that my eyes filled with tears
and that I had to blink and swallow like the dickens, because every one
else was doing the same thing.
After we drank that Mr. Hemmingway said, “It was, if I recall
correctly, the Christmas of ’76 that I first met the customs of Italy
at Christmas and Epiphany; I can, I _think_, without undue assumption
of certainty state _flatly_ that it _was_ in ’76, and I assert
this, because in the fall of ’76 I was experiencing my first attack
of _bronchitis_; and I recall this, because the June of that same
year, ’76, as I have heretofore mentioned, I had taken a trip up the
Severn--or was that, now that I probe, ’74? _Let me see, let me see_--”
And then Miss Meek boomed out her “Ho hum!” and every one felt more
natural and lots better. After that the stiffness slid away--all
in a second--and Miss Meek tossed her head and told about the fine
Christmases she had seen, and Miss Bannister told of how the children
in the village where she had lived sung carols, and Mr. Hemmingway
searched after dates that wouldn’t come to him; and Viola and Leslie
listened with more kindness than usual.
After we had had the lumpy, heavy sort of pudding that people always
serve around Christmas, we sat back and talked some more while we
waited for Mr. Wake and Sam to come. And at last the bell in the
hall swung to and fro, and then there _was_ excitement. Beata, who
courtesied very low, let them in, and they called out their greetings
and wishes to every one, even before I had presented them.
Mr. Wake had a big bag under his arm that was pleasantly lumpy, and he
said that Santa Claus had dropped it on the hillside near Fiesole and
told him to deliver it. Then we all stood up, and after Leslie had lit
the many candles in the drawing room, she rung a bell, and we filed in.
She summoned Mr. Wake first, and I was glad she did, because going
up to the table where she stood might have been hard for some of the
others. And after Mr. Wake took his present, he gave a little boarding
school bow--that dip at the knees that makes girls shorter than they
are for the second in which they do it--and every one followed his
lead. We did have the best time! But, and I suppose it sounds strange,
it got in your throat and made it feel cramped. I can’t explain why,
but when Miss Bannister and Miss Meek couldn’t, at first, open their
packages because their hands shook so, it did make you feel _queer_.
Miss Bannister didn’t say anything--she only looked at her presents
while her lips moved--but Miss Meek kept up an incessant string of,
“Oh, I say!” or “How _too_ ripping, don’t you know!” in a voice that
was not entirely steady. And both of them had very bright, little,
round spots of color on their usually faded cheeks, and their eyes were
very, very bright.
Mr. Hemmingway was so absorbed in a Dunhill pipe that Mr. Wake insisted
Santa had sent, that he didn’t mention a date for fully a half hour. He
only looked at that pipe, and murmured, “My, _my_! Never did think I’d
_own_ one. My, my, _my_!”
And there were papers and cords all over the floor, and it looked and
felt _quite_ Christmasy.
It was after Mr. Hemmingway got his pipe that I went over to stand
by Sam at a window; he had been watching me a little, and I thought
perhaps he was lonely for home, or something, because he looked that
way.
“I think it’s a fine party,” I said, “Don’t you?”
“Best ever,” he answered. Then he coughed, and fumbled around in his
pocket, and slipped a small box in my hand. “I’d like to say something
darned nice,” he murmured, “but all my parlor conversation seems to
have gone on a vacation--”
“Is it for _me_?” I asked. I was _surprised_, for I thought that the
violets he had given me only a little time before, were enough!
“Who the dickens _would_ I give it to?” he answered, in a half
irritated way. “Think I want to give anything to the other two? I
don’t! When I come to think of it, I never did want to buy any truck
for _any_ other girl before--”
I enjoyed that; every woman does enjoy that sort of thing. And when I
opened the box I almost went over backward; it held the most beautiful
bead bag I’d ever seen; it was really _prettier than any of Leslie’s_!
It had a brown and gold background, and soft pink roses on it, and it
swung from a gold cord, and had sliding gold rings on that. I knew he
shouldn’t have done it for, even to my simple soul, it spelled a lot of
money.
I couldn’t say much, but I did say, “You shouldn’t have given it to me,
Sam--”
“Don’t you like it, dear?” he asked. I didn’t mind that “Dear” at all.
In fact I liked it. I had come to think of Sam as the best friend I’d
ever had.
“I _love_ it,” I answered, “but it must have cost a _great deal_--”
He laughed down at me. “Look here, young woman,” he said, in his
drawling slow way, “Some day I’m going to _ask_ you to take over the
management of my finances, but until I do, I want the privilege of
buying you a little thing like that once and again--”
What he said about finances worried me terribly, because I can’t add at
all, and my cash account gives me real pain, and I have almost nothing
to account for or to enter. But even at that, each month there is too
much or too little, which makes me have to add a cream puff, or take
one out.
“Sam,” I said, “I’d do _anything_ for you, because I like you _so_
much, but I can’t add. Why don’t you get Mr. Wake to help you! He’s
there anyway, you see, and in a year I’ll be over in America--”
He slipped his arm through mine, and squeezed it against his side.
“Mr. Wake is right about you,” he said, as he smiled down at me, in a
sort of a funny way.
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, he thinks you a dear little girl. . . . And you are--just that.”
“Don’t you like it?” I questioned, because it didn’t seem exactly as if
he did.
“Yes--surely--but, I don’t want you to get over liking me when you grow
up.”
“Why, Sam, I _couldn’t_!” I protested, and then I slipped my hand in
his, “Don’t you _know_ how much I like you?” I ended very earnestly
because I _did_ want him to understand, and I believe he did, although
Leslie called my name before he answered and I had to go up to get my
presents.
And after I did, I was absolutely unable to say anything, for every
one had been so _kind_ to me! Miss Bannister had given me one of the
pictures of her old home that she loved so much, and Miss Meek, a
collar that her own mother had embroidered, and Mr. Hemmingway, a pen
holder that he had gotten in Brazil either in ’64 or ’65--he _couldn’t_
remember which, although he tried very hard to fasten the exact date
in various ways--and Viola gave me a beautiful blue bottle with scent
in it, and Leslie gave me a blouse that I had seen in a shop on the
Lungarno and admired--it was tan pongee with heavy coral stitching, and
about the color of my hair--the tan, I mean, not the coral--and Miss
Julianna had given me a tomato can, that she had painted, with a flower
in it, and I liked it _very_ much; and Beata, a handkerchief that she
had made herself. Mr. Wake gave me a scarab ring, that swung around in
its setting, and had the name of the Princess who had first worn it in
hieroglyphs on the back, and when I went to thank him, he slipped it
on my finger, and made a wish. Then he said to Sam, who had come over
to stand with us, “Want to have a shot, old boy? You can twist it, and
perhaps the gods will listen--”
So Sam did, and he said it was a _fine_ wish! Then Beata brought in the
refreshments, which were pastries, wine, ices and candies and little
nut-filled cakes, (Leslie lost a filling while eating one) and we
pulled crackers and put on the caps and things that came out of them,
and read the mottoes and Mr. Hemmingway got so gay that he kissed Miss
Meek who had wandered over under the mistletoe. And it all made a great
deal of excitement and fun.
[Illustration: Mr. Hemmingway got so gay that he kissed Miss Meek.]
And after that--just when every one was beginning to have a cold
feeling around the edges, from thinking that it was all almost
over--the very nicest thing happened. Leslie, who had taken off her
long Befana gown, and again looked like a corn flower with silver frost
on it, called out, “One more gift; Befana has brought it to Beata, but
she was only the messenger of Cupid!”
And then she handed Beata an envelope in which was all the money that
Beata needed for her dowry!
I never shall forget that moment, and the way Beata looked when she
understood what her gift was. She covered her face with her arm and
sobbed deeply and so hard that it shook her; and Leslie, whose eyes had
grown wet, called Pietro--whom she had got Miss Julianna to ask in for
that hour--and he came from the hall, and Beata explained, and Pietro
kissed her hands, and then Leslie’s, and then raised both of his hands
high and his face to the ceiling, and _exploded_!
I never heard anything like it, and of course no one except Mr. Wake,
who speaks and understands Italian very well, could understand, but he
did, and he said that Pietro was thanking God for rich Americans, and
for the fact that the hope of his life had come true.
It made every one feel shaky and upset to look on at Beata and Pietro.
Even Miss Meek had to cough and say, “Oh, my eye! How jolly!” It was
very damp and very sweet, and it was a positive relief to be diverted
by Mr. Hemmingway, who broke the strain by saying: “How well I recall
my first experience with the Latin emotion. It was, if I recall
correctly, in the spring of ’60, and I attest this because of my youth,
and the fact that in ’59 I had my first pearl gray trousers. Those are
fastened in my memory by a tailor who, if I recall, had his place of
business in Ludgate Circus, and I remember him keenly, because--”
And on and on in his characteristic way.
Not long after that Sam and Mr. Wake left, and Miss Bannister and Miss
Meek and Mr. Hemmingway gathered up their things and the cords and
papers that had wrapped them, and I saw Mr. Hemmingway enter something
about the evening in the book I gave him, which pleased me, and we all
went to bed.
I lay awake quite awhile in the dark, the way you do after you’ve been
to a party and had a good time, and I think it was fully an hour before
I slept. Then, after what seemed ten minutes, I woke to see Leslie
standing by my bed, and to feel her hand on my shoulder, shaking me.
“Heavens, you sleep soundly,” she complained. “I have a toothache,
and _I can’t stand pain_. We’ll have to find some dentist who is in
his office, and I want you to go with me and stay right by me and say
‘Molto sensitivo’ every time I kick you. Oh, _do_ hurry! And _don’t_
forget to tell him that it’s sensitive.”
She clamped her hands against her jaw, as she finished speaking, and I
sat up to lean over the edge of my bed and fumble for my slippers.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE EFFECT OF A SECRET
It was hard to get down to real work after Christmas, for there was a
spirit of gaiety in the air that was too strong to be ignored. In the
streets was always the shrill noise that came from little tin horns;
children were always playing on the pavements with their new toys, and
you could hardly go a block without seeing a crowd around a vender
of something or other that was built to please small people. . . .
Monkeys that climb up frail, yellow sticks will always make me think of
Florence in holiday dress--I know it! And through them I’ll see again
the thick, taupe fogs that spread over the city so much of the time, to
muffle its bells, leave slime upon its pavements and a dull creeping
cold in all the shadows.
Or, I’ll see Florence at night and Harlequins and Juliets and Romeos,
or wide sombreroed Spaniards walking beside Egyptian Princesses, or
some girl in the costume of Normandy with a sweetheart in clanking
armor; for in Florence there are many masked balls after Christmas, and
at night one may see the people who go to these strolling along in
the best of good humors, and daring all sorts of things because of the
protection given them by their disguise.
Paper rose leaves were tossed in the air, every pretty girl was spoken
to, and there was lots of laughter, and the nicest sort of fun. . . .
I, myself, felt that grim Florence must be pleased, for the city of
Florence is built to back brilliant costumes, and not the tweeds and
serges that she sees most. I wondered, as I looked one night when I
was out with Mr. Wake and Sam, whether ghosts in satins and brocades,
the ghosts of brides who had ridden all over Florence on snow white
chargers before their weddings, whether these ghosts weren’t, perhaps,
mingling in the throng. . . . Mr. Wake thought they were, and after
I spoke of my feelings, he pointed out to me, a ghost named Vanna
Tornabuoni, who, because she had been wicked, saw in her mirror
instead of her fair face that of the horned devil! And she therefore
went to confession immediately--in Santa Maria Novella, if I’m not
mistaken--and began a new and a better life.
And all this was pleasing and most fascinating, but as I said, it
made work difficult even for me, and for Viola--who swayed with any
wind--work stopped. Even Signor Paggi’s most bitter scorn didn’t do
anything but make her weep.
“I’m sick of it anyway,” she confided to me just before New Year’s
day. “I wish now I’d listened to Father and never come--”
“Didn’t he want you to?” I asked.
“No--the old objection, money. But I was wild over being with Leslie
then, and I persuaded him. Now--” (She drew rings on her blotters;
I had dropped into her room to find her writing) “now, I wish I had
listened to him.”
I didn’t say anything; there wasn’t very much to say.