It has long been the canny custom of writers on travel bent to defray
the expense of their journeyings by dashing off tales filled with
foreign flavour. Dickens did it, and Dante. It has been tried all the
way from Tasso to Twain; from Raskin to Roosevelt. A pleasing custom it
is and thrifty withal, and one that has saved many a one but poorly
prepared for the European robber in uniform the moist and unpleasant
task of swimming home.
Your writer spends seven days, say, in Paris. Result? The Latin Quarter
story. _Oh, mes enfants!_ That Parisian student-life story! There is the
beautiful young American girl--beautiful, but as earnest and good as she
is beautiful, and as talented as she is earnest and good. And wedded, be
it understood, to her art--preferably painting or singing. From New
York! Her name must be something prim, yet winsome. Lois will do--Lois,
_la belle Américaine_. Then the hero--American too. Madly in love with
Lois. Tall he is and always clean-limbed--not handsome, but with one of
those strong, rugged faces. His name, too, must be strong and plain, yet
snappy. David is always good. The villain is French, fascinating, and
wears a tiny black moustache to hide his mouth, which is cruel.
The rest is simple. A little French restaurant--Henri's. Know you not
Henri's? _Tiens!_ But Henri's is not for the tourist. A dim little shop
and shabby, modestly tucked away in the shadows of the Rue Brie. But the
food! Ah, the--whadd'you-call'ems--in the savoury sauce, that is Henri's
secret! The tender, broiled _poularde_, done to a turn! The bottle of
red wine! _Mais oui_; there one can dine under the watchful glare of
Rosa, the plump, black-eyed wife of the _concierge_. With a snowy apron
about her buxom waist, and a pot of red geraniums somewhere, and a
sleek, lazy cat contentedly purring in the sunny window!
Then Lois starving in a garret. Temptation! _Sacré bleu! Zut!_ Also _nom
d'un nom!_ Enter David. _Bon!_ Oh, David, take me away! Take me back to
dear old Schenectady. Love is more than all else, especially when no one
will buy your pictures.
The Italian story recipe is even simpler. A pearl necklace; a low, clear
whistle. Was it the call of a bird or a signal? His-s-s-st! Again! A
black cape; the flash of steel in the moonlight; the sound of a splash
in the water; a sickening gurgle; a stifled cry! Silence! His-st!
_Vendetta!_
There is the story made in Germany, filled with students and steins and
scars; with beer and blonde, blue-eyed _Mädchen_ garbed--the _Mädchen_,
that is--in black velvet bodice, white chemisette, scarlet skirt with
two rows of black ribbon at the bottom, and one yellow braid over the
shoulder. Especially is this easily accomplished if actually written in
the _Vaterland_, German typewriting machines being equipped with
_umlauts_.
And yet not one of these formulas would seem to fit the story of Mary
Gowd. Mary Gowd, with her frumpy English hat and her dreadful English
fringe, and her brick-red English cheeks, which not even the enervating
Italian sun, the years of bad Italian food or the damp and dim little
Roman room had been able to sallow. Mary Gowd, with her shabby blue suit
and her mangy bit of fur, and the glint of humour in her pale blue eyes.
Many, many times that same glint of humour had saved English Mary Gowd
from seeking peace in the muddy old Tiber.
Her card read imposingly thus: Mary M. Gowd, Cicerone. Certificated and
Licensed Lecturer on Art and Archaeology. Via del Babbuino, Roma.
In plain language Mary Gowd was a guide. Now, Rome is swarming with
guides; but they are men guides. They besiege you in front of Cook's.
They perch at the top of the Capitoline Hill, ready to pounce on you
when you arrive panting from your climb up the shallow steps. They lie
in wait in the doorway of St. Peter's. Bland, suave, smiling, quiet, but
insistent, they dog you from the Vatican to the Catacombs.
Hundreds there are of these little men--undersized, even in this land
of small men--dapper, agile, low-voiced, crafty. In his inner coat
pocket each carries his credentials, greasy, thumb-worn documents, but
precious. He glances at your shoes--this insinuating one--or at your
hat, or at any of those myriad signs by which he marks you for his own.
Then up he steps and speaks to you in the language of your country, be
you French, German, English, Spanish or American.
And each one of this clan--each slim, feline little man in blue serge,
white-toothed, gimlet-eyed, smooth-tongued, brisk--hated Mary Gowd. They
hated her with the hate of an Italian for an outlander--with the hate of
an Italian for a woman who works with her brain--with the hate of an
Italian who sees another taking the bread out of his mouth. All this,
coupled with the fact that your Italian is a natural-born hater, may
indicate that the life of Mary Gowd had not the lyric lilt that life is
commonly reputed to have in sunny Italy.
Oh, there is no formula for Mary Gowd's story. In the first place, the
tale of how Mary Gowd came to be the one woman guide in Rome runs like
melodrama. And Mary herself, from her white cotton gloves, darned at the
fingers, to her figure, which mysteriously remained the same in spite of
fifteen years of scant Italian fare, does not fit gracefully into the
rôle of heroine.
Perhaps that story, scraped to bedrock, shorn of all floral features,
may gain in force what it loses in artistry.
She was twenty-two when she came to Rome--twenty-two and art-mad. She
had been pretty, with that pink-cheesecloth prettiness of the provincial
English girl, who degenerates into blowsiness at thirty. Since seventeen
she had saved and scrimped and contrived for this modest Roman holiday.
She had given painting lessons--even painted on loathsome china--that
the little hoard might grow. And when at last there was enough she had
come to this Rome against the protests of the fussy English father and
the spinster English sister.
The man she met quite casually one morning in the Sistine
Chapel--perhaps he bumped her elbow as they stood staring up at the
glorious ceiling. A thousand pardons! Ah, an artist too? In five minutes
they were chattering like mad--she in bad French and exquisite English;
he in bad English and exquisite French. He knew Rome--its pictures, its
glories, its history--as only an Italian can. And he taught her art, and
he taught her Italian, and he taught her love.
And so they were married, or ostensibly married, though Mary did not
know the truth until three months later when he left her quite as
casually as he had met her, taking with him the little hoard, and Mary's
English trinkets, and Mary's English roses, and Mary's broken pride.
So! There was no going back to the fussy father or the spinster sister.
She came very near resting her head on Father Tiber's breast in those
days. She would sit in the great galleries for hours, staring at the
wonder-works. Then, one day, again in the Sistine Chapel, a fussy little
American woman had approached her, her eyes snapping. Mary was
sketching, or trying to.
"Do you speak English?"
"I am English," said Mary.
The feathers in the hat of the fussy little woman quivered.
"Then tell me, is this ceiling by Raphael?"
"Ceiling!" gasped Mary Gowd. "Raphael!"
Then, very gently, she gave the master's name.
"Of course!" snapped the excited little American. "I'm one of a party of
eight. We're all school-teachers And this guide"--she waved a hand in
the direction of a rapt little group standing in the agonising position
the ceiling demands--"just informed us that the ceiling is by Raphael.
And we're paying him ten lire!"
"Won't you sit here?" Mary Gowd made a place for her. "I'll tell you."
And she did tell her, finding a certain relief from her pain in
unfolding to this commonplace little woman the glory of the masterpiece
among masterpieces.
"Why--why," gasped her listener, who had long since beckoned the other
seven with frantic finger, "how beautifully you explain it! How much you
know! Oh, why can't they talk as you do?" she wailed, her eyes full of
contempt for the despised guide.
"I am happy to have helped you," said Mary Gowd.
"Helped! Why, there are hundreds of Americans who would give anything to
have some one like you to be with them in Rome."
Mary Gowd's whole body stiffened. She stared fixedly at the grateful
little American school-teacher.
"Some one like me--"
The little teacher blushed very red.
"I beg your pardon. I wasn't thinking. Of course you don't need to do
any such work, but I just couldn't help saying--"
"But I do need work," interrupted Mary Gowd. She stood up, her cheeks
pink again for the moment, her eyes bright. "I thank you. Oh, I thank
you!"
"You thank me!" faltered the American.
But Mary Gowd had folded her sketchbook and was off, through the
vestibule, down the splendid corridor, past the giant Swiss guard, to
the noisy, sunny Piazza di San Pietro.
That had been fifteen years ago. She had taken her guide's examinations
and passed them. She knew her Rome from the crypt of St. Peter's to the
top of the Janiculum Hill; from the Campagna to Tivoli. She read and
studied and learned. She delved into the past and brought up strange and
interesting truths. She could tell you weird stories of those white
marble men who lay so peacefully beneath St. Peter's dome, their ringed
hands crossed on their breasts. She learned to juggle dates with an ease
that brought gasps from her American clients, with their history that
went back little more than one hundred years.
She learned to designate as new anything that failed to have its origin
stamped B.C.; and the Magnificent Augustus, he who boasted of finding
Rome brick and leaving it marble, was a mere _nouveau riche_ with his
miserable A.D. 14.
She was as much at home in the Thermae of Caracalla as you in your
white-and-blue-tiled bath. She could juggle the history of emperors with
one hand and the scandals of half a dozen kings with the other. No ruin
was too unimportant for her attention--no picture too faded for her
research. She had the centuries at her tongue's end. Michelangelo and
Canova were her brothers in art, and Rome was to her as your back-garden
patch is to you.
Mary Gowd hated this Rome as only an English woman can who has spent
fifteen years in that nest of intrigue. She fought the whole race of
Roman guides day after day. She no longer turned sick and faint when
they hissed after her vile Italian epithets that her American or English
clients quite failed to understand. Quite unconcernedly she would jam
down the lever of the taximeter the wily Italian cabby had pulled only
halfway so that the meter might register double. And when that
foul-mouthed one crowned his heap of abuse by screaming "_Camorrista!
Camor-r-rista!_" at her, she would merely shrug her shoulders and say
"_Andate presto!_" to show him she was above quarrelling with a cabman.
She ate eggs and bread, and drank the red wine, never having conquered
her disgust for Italian meat since first she saw the filthy carcasses,
fly-infested, dust-covered, loathsome, being carted through the swarming
streets.
It was six o'clock of an evening early in March when Mary Gowd went home
to the murky little room in the Via Babbuino. She was too tired to
notice the sunset. She was too tired to smile at the red-eyed baby of
the cobbler's wife, who lived in the rear. She was too tired to ask Tina
for the letters that seldom came. It had been a particularly trying day,
spent with a party of twenty Germans, who had said "_Herrlich!_" when
she showed them the marvels of the Vatican and "_Kolossal!_" at the
grandeur of the Colosseum and, for the rest, had kept their noses buried
in their Baedekers.
She groped her way cautiously down the black hall. Tina had a habit of
leaving sundry brushes, pans or babies lying about. After the warmth of
the March sun outdoors the house was cold with that clammy, penetrating,
tomblike chill of the Italian home.
"Tina!" she called.
From the rear of the house came a cackle of voices. Tina was gossiping.
There was no smell of supper in the air. Mary Gowd shrugged patient
shoulders. Then, before taking off the dowdy hat, before removing the
white cotton gloves, she went to the window that overlooked the noisy
Via Babbuino, closed the massive wooden shutters, fastened the heavy
windows and drew the thick curtains. Then she stood a moment, eyes shut.
In that little room the roar of Rome was tamed to a dull humming. Mary
Gowd, born and bred amid the green of Northern England, had never become
hardened to the maddening noises of the Via Babbuino: The rattle and
clatter of cab wheels; the clack-clack of thousands of iron-shod hoofs;
the shrill, high cry of the street venders; the blasts of motor horns
that seemed to rend the narrow street; the roar and rumble of the
electric trams; the wail of fretful babies; the chatter of gossiping
women; and above and through and below it all the cracking of the
cabman's whip--that sceptre of the Roman cabby, that wand which is one
part whip and nine parts crack. Sometimes it seemed to Mary Gowd that
her brain was seared and welted by the pistol-shot reports of those
eternal whips.
She came forward now and lighted a candle that stood on the table and
another on the dresser. Their dim light seemed to make dimmer the dark
little room. She looked about with a little shiver. Then she sank into
the chintz-covered chair that was the one bit of England in the sombre
chamber. She took off the dusty black velvet hat, passed a hand over her
hair with a gesture that was more tired than tidy, and sat back, her
eyes shut, her body inert, her head sagging on her breast.
The voices in the back of the house had ceased. From the kitchen came
the slipslop of Tina's slovenly feet. Mary Gowd opened her eyes and sat
up very straight as Tina stood in the doorway. There was nothing
picturesque about Tina. Tina was not one of those olive-tinted,
melting-eyed daughters of Italy that one meets in fiction. Looking at
her yellow skin and her wrinkles and her coarse hands, one wondered
whether she was fifty, or sixty, or one hundred, as is the way with
Italian women of Tina's class at thirty-five.
Ah, the signora was tired! She smiled pityingly. Tired! Not at all, Mary
Gowd assured her briskly. She knew that Tina despised her because she
worked like a man.
"Something fine for supper?" Mary Gowd asked mockingly. Her Italian was
like that of the Romans themselves, so soft, so liquid, so perfect.
Tina nodded vigorously, her long earrings shaking.
"_Vitello_"--she began, her tongue clinging lovingly to the double _l_
sound--"_Vee-tail-loh_--"
"Ugh!" shuddered Mary Gowd. That eternal veal and mutton, pinkish,
flabby, sickening!
"What then?" demanded the outraged Tina.
Mary Gowd stood up, making gestures, hat in hand.
"Clotted cream, with strawberries," she said in English, an unknown
language, which always roused Tina to fury. "And a steak--a real steak
of real beef, three inches thick and covered with onions fried in
butter. And creamed chicken, and English hothouse tomatoes, and fresh
peaches and little hot rolls, and coffee that isn't licorice and ink,
and--and--"
Tina's dangling earrings disappeared in her shoulders. Her outspread
palms were eloquent.
"Crazy, these English!" said the shoulders and palms. "Mad!"
Mary Gowd threw her hat on the bed, pushed aside a screen and busied
herself with a little alcohol stove.
"I shall prepare an omelet," she said over her shoulder in Italian.
"Also, I have here bread and wine."
"Ugh!" granted Tina.
"Ugh, veal!" grunted Mary Gowd. Then, as Tina's flapping feet turned
away: "Oh, Tina! Letters?"
Tina fumbled at the bosom of her gown, thought deeply and drew out a
crumpled envelope. It had been opened and clumsily closed again. Fifteen
years ago Mary Gowd would have raged. Now she shrugged philosophic
shoulders. Tina stole hairpins, opened letters that she could not hope
to decipher, rummaged bureau drawers, rifled cupboards and fingered
books; but then, so did most of the other Tinas in Rome. What use to
complain?
Mary Gowd opened the thumb-marked letter, bringing it close to the
candlelight. As she read, a smile appeared.
"Huh! Gregg," she said, "Americans!" She glanced again at the hotel
letterhead on the stationery--the best hotel in Naples. "Americans--and
rich!"
The pleased little smile lingered as she beat the omelet briskly for her
supper.
The Henry D. Greggs arrived in Rome on the two o'clock train from
Naples. And all the Roman knights of the waving palm espied them from
afar and hailed them with whoops of joy. The season was still young and
the Henry D. Greggs looked like money--not Italian money, which is
reckoned in lire, but American money, which mounts grandly to dollars.
The postcard men in the Piazza delle Terme sped after their motor taxi.
The swarthy brigand, with his wooden box of tawdry souvenirs, marked
them as they rode past. The cripple who lurked behind a pillar in the
colonnade threw aside his coat with a practised hitch of his shoulder to
reveal the sickeningly maimed arm that was his stock in trade.
Mr. and Mrs. Henry D. Gregg had left their comfortable home in Batavia,
Illinois, with its sleeping porch, veranda and lawn, and seven-passenger
car; with its two glistening bathrooms, and its Oriental rugs, and its
laundry in the basement, and its Sunday fried chicken and ice cream,
because they felt that Miss Eleanora Gregg ought to have the benefit of
foreign travel. Miss Eleanora Gregg thought so too: in fact, she had
thought so first.
Her name was Eleanora, but her parents called her Tweetie, which really
did not sound so bad as it might if Tweetie had been one whit less
pretty. Tweetie was so amazingly, Americanly pretty that she could have
triumphed over a pet name twice as absurd.
The Greggs came to Rome, as has been stated, at two P.M. Wednesday. By
two P.M. Thursday Tweetie had bought a pair of long, dangling earrings,
a costume with a Roman striped collar and sash, and had learned to loll
back in her cab in imitation of the dashing, black-eyed, sallow women
she had seen driving on the Pincio. By Thursday evening she was teasing
Papa Gregg for a spray of white aigrets, such as those same languorous
ladies wore in feathery mists atop their hats.
"But, Tweet," argued Papa Gregg, "what's the use? You can't take them
back with you. Custom-house regulations forbid it."
The rather faded but smartly dressed Mrs. Gregg asserted herself:
"They're barbarous! We had moving pictures at the club showing how
they're torn from the mother birds. No daughter of mine--"
"I don't care!" retorted Tweetie. "They're perfectly stunning; and I'm
going to have them."
And she had them--not that the aigret incident is important; but it may
serve to place the Greggs in their respective niches.
At eleven o'clock Friday morning Mary Gowd called at the Gregg's hotel,
according to appointment. In far-away Batavia, Illinois, Mrs. Gregg had
heard of Mary Gowd. And Mary Gowd, with her knowledge of everything
Roman--from the Forum to the best place at which to buy pearls--was to
be the staff on which the Greggs were to lean.
"My husband," said Mrs. Gregg; "my daughter Twee--er--Eleanora. We've
heard such wonderful things of you from my dear friend Mrs. Melville
Peters, of Batavia."
"Ah, yes!" exclaimed Mary Gowd. "A most charming person, Mrs. Peters."
"After she came home from Europe she read the most wonderful paper on
Rome before the Women's West End Culture Club, of Batavia. We're
affiliated with the National Federation of Women's Clubs, as you
probably know; and--"
"Now, Mother," interrupted Henry Gregg, "the lady can't be interested in
your club."
"Oh, but I am!" exclaimed Mary Gowd very vivaciously. "Enormously!"
Henry Gregg eyed her through his cigar smoke with suddenly narrowed
lids.
"M-m-m! Well, let's get to the point anyway. I know Tweetie here is
dying to see St. Peter's, and all that."
Tweetie had settled back inscrutably after one comprehensive, disdainful
look at Mary Gowd's suit, hat, gloves and shoes. Now she sat up, her
bewitching face glowing with interest.
"Tell me," she said, "what do they call those officers with the long
pale-blue capes and the silver helmets and the swords? And the ones in
dark-blue uniform with the maroon stripe at the side of the trousers?
And do they ever mingle with the--that is, there was one of the blue
capes here at tea yesterday--"
Papa Gregg laughed a great, comfortable laugh.
"Oh, so that's where you were staring yesterday, young lady! I thought
you acted kind of absent-minded." He got up to walk over and pinch
Tweetie's blushing cheek.
So it was that Mary Gowd began the process of pouring the bloody,
religious, wanton, pious, thrilling, dreadful history of Rome into the
pretty and unheeding ear of Tweetie Gregg.
On the fourth morning after that introductory meeting Mary Gowd arrived
at the hotel at ten, as usual, to take charge of her party for the day.
She encountered them in the hotel foyer, an animated little group
centred about a very tall, very dashing, very black-mustachioed figure
who wore a long pale blue cape thrown gracefully over one shoulder as
only an Italian officer can wear such a garment. He was looking down
into the brilliantly glowing face of the pretty Eleanora, and the pretty
Eleanora was looking up at him; and Pa and Ma Gregg were standing by,
placidly pleased.
A grim little line appeared about Miss Gowd's mouth. Blue Cape's black
eyes saw it, even as he bent low over Mary Gowd's hand at the words of
introduction.
"Oh, Miss Gowd," pouted Tweetie, "it's too bad you haven't a telephone.
You see, we shan't need you to-day."
"No?" said Miss Gowd, and glanced at Blue Cape.
"No; Signor Caldini says it's much too perfect a day to go poking about
among old ruins and things."
Henry D. Gregg cleared his throat and took up the explanation. "Seems
the--er--Signor thinks it would be just the thing to take a touring car
and drive to Tivoli, and have a bite of lunch there."
"And come back in time to see the Colosseum by moonlight!" put in
Tweetie ecstatically.
"Oh, yes!" said Mary Gowd.
Pa Gregg looked at his watch.
"Well, I'll be running along," he said. Then, in answer to something in
Mary Gowd's eyes: "I'm not going to Tivoli, you see. I met a man from
Chicago here at the hotel. He and I are going to chin awhile this
morning. And Mrs. Gregg and his wife are going on a shopping spree. Say,
ma, if you need any more money speak up now, because I'm--"
Mary Gowd caught his coat sleeve.
"One moment!"
Her voice was very low. "You mean--you mean Miss Eleanora will go to
Tivoli and to the Colosseum alone--with--with Signor Caldini?"
Henry Gregg smiled indulgently.
"The young folks always run round alone at home. We've got our own car
at home in Batavia, but Tweetie's beaus are always driving up for her
in--"
Mary Gowd turned her head so that only Henry Gregg could hear what she
said.
"Step aside for just one moment. I must talk to you."
"Well, what?"
"Do as I say," whispered Mary Gowd.
Something of her earnestness seemed to convey a meaning to Henry Gregg.
"Just wait a minute, folks," he said to the group of three, and joined
Mary Gowd, who had chosen a seat a dozen paces away. "What's the
trouble?" he asked jocularly. "Hope you're not offended because Tweet
said we didn't need you to-day. You know young folks--"
"They must not go alone," said Mary Gowd.
"But--"
"This is not America. This is Italy--this Caldini is an Italian."
"Why, look here; Signor Caldini was introduced to us last night. His
folks really belong to the nobility."
"I know; I know," interrupted Mary Gowd. "I tell you they cannot go
alone. Please believe me! I have been fifteen years in Rome. Noble or
not, Caldini is an Italian. I ask you"--she had clasped her hands and
was looking pleadingly up into his face--"I beg of you, let me go with
them. You need not pay me to-day. You--"
Henry Gregg looked at her very thoughtfully and a little puzzled. Then
he glanced over at the group again, with Blue Cape looking down so
eagerly into Tweetie's exquisite face and Tweetie looking up so raptly
into Blue Cape's melting eyes and Ma Gregg standing so placidly by. He
turned again to Mary Gowd's earnest face.
"Well, maybe you're right. They do seem to use chaperons in
Europe--duennas, or whatever you call 'em. Seems a nice kind of chap,
though."
He strolled back to the waiting group. From her seat Mary Gowd heard
Mrs. Gregg's surprised exclamation, saw Tweetie's pout, understood
Caldini's shrug and sneer. There followed a little burst of
conversation. Then, with a little frown which melted into a smile for
Blue Cape, Tweetie went to her room for motor coat and trifles that the
long day's outing demanded. Mrs. Gregg, still voluble, followed.
Blue Cape, with a long look at Mary Gowd, went out to confer with the
porter about the motor. Papa Gregg, hand in pockets, cigar tilted, eyes
narrowed, stood irresolutely in the centre of the great, gaudy foyer.
Then, with a decisive little hunch of his shoulders, he came back to
where Mary Gowd sat.
"Did you say you've been fifteen years in Rome?"
"Fifteen years," answered Mary Gowd.
Henry D. Gregg took his cigar from his mouth and regarded it
thoughtfully.
"Well, that's quite a spell. Must like it here." Mary Gowd said nothing.
"Can't say I'm crazy about it--that is, as a place to live. I said to
Mother last night: 'Little old Batavia's good enough for Henry D.' Of
course it's a grand education, travelling, especially for Tweetie.
Funny, I always thought the fruit in Italy was regular hothouse
stuff--thought the streets would just be lined with trees all hung with
big, luscious oranges. But, Lord! Here we are at the best hotel in Rome,
and the fruit is worse than the stuff the pushcart men at home feed to
their families--little wizened bananas and oranges. Still, it's grand
here in Rome for Tweetie. I can't stay long--just ran away from business
to bring 'em over; but I'd like Tweetie to stay in Italy until she
learns the lingo. Sings, too--Tweetie does; and she and Ma think they'll
have her voice cultivated over here. They'll stay here quite a while, I
guess."
"Then you will not be here with them?" asked Mary Gowd.
"Me? No."
They sat silent for a moment.
"I suppose you're crazy about Rome," said Henry Gregg again. "There's a
lot of culture here, and history, and all that; and--"
"I hate Rome!" said Mary Gowd.
Henry Gregg stared at her in bewilderment.
"Then why in Sam Hill don't you go back to England?"
"I'm thirty-seven years old. That's one reason why. And I look older.
Oh, yes, I do. Thanks just the same. There are too many women in England
already--too many half-starving shabby genteel. I earn enough to live on
here--that is, I call it living. You couldn't. In the bad season, when
there are no tourists, I live on a lire a day, including my rent."
Henry Gregg stood up.
"My land! Why don't you come to America?" He waved his arms. "America!"
Mary Gowd's brick-red cheeks grew redder.
"America!" she echoed. "When I see American tourists here throwing
pennies in the Fountain of Trevi, so that they'll come back to Rome, I
want to scream. By the time I save enough money to go to America I'll be
an old woman and it will be too late. And if I did contrive to scrape
together enough for my passage over I couldn't go to the United States
in these clothes. I've seen thousands of American women here. If they
look like that when they're just travelling about, what do they wear at
home!"
"Clothes?" inquired Henry Gregg, mystified. "What's wrong with your
clothes?"
"Everything! I've seen them look at my suit, which hunches in the back
and strains across the front, and is shiny at the seams. And my gloves!
And my hat! Well, even though I am English I know how frightful my hat
is."
"You're a smart woman," said Henry D. Gregg.
"Not smart enough," retorted Mary Gowd, "or I shouldn't be here."
The two stood up as Tweetie came toward them from the lift. Tweetie
pouted again at sight of Mary Gowd, but the pout cleared as Blue Cape,
his arrangements completed, stood in the doorway, splendid hat in hand.
It was ten o'clock when the three returned from Tivoli and the
Colosseum--Mary Gowd silent and shabbier than ever from the dust of the
road; Blue Cape smiling; Tweetie frankly pettish. Pa and Ma Gregg were
listening to the after-dinner concert in the foyer.
"Was it romantic--the Colosseum, I mean--by moonlight?" asked Ma Gregg,
patting Tweetie's cheek and trying not to look uncomfortable as Blue
Cape kissed her hand.
"Romantic!" snapped Tweetie. "It was as romantic as Main Street on
Circus Day. Hordes of people tramping about like buffaloes. Simply
swarming with tourists--German ones. One couldn't find a single ruin to
sit on. Romantic!" She glared at the silent Mary Gowd.
There was a strange little glint in Mary Gowd's eyes, and the grim line
was there about the mouth again, grimmer than it had been in the
morning.
"You will excuse me?" she said. "I am very tired. I will say good
night."
"And I," announced Caldini.
Mary Gowd turned swiftly to look at him.
"You!" said Tweetie Gregg.
"I trust that I may have the very great happiness to see you in the
morning," went on Caldini in his careful English. "I cannot permit
Signora Gowd to return home alone through the streets of Rome." He bowed
low and elaborately over the hands of the two women.
"Oh, well; for that matter--" began Henry Gregg gallantly.
Caldini raised a protesting, white-gloved hand.
"I cannot permit it."
He bowed again and looked hard at Mary Gowd. Mary Gowd returned the
look. The brick-red had quite faded from her cheeks. Then, with a nod,
she turned and walked toward the door. Blue Cape, sword clanking,
followed her.
In silence he handed her into the _fiacre_. In silence he seated himself
beside her. Then he leaned very close.
"I will talk in this damned English," he began, "that the pig of a
_fiaccheraio_ may not understand. This--this Gregg, he is very rich,
like all Americans. And the little Eleanora! _Bellissima!_ You must not
stand in my way. It is not good." Mary Dowd sat silent. "You will help
me. To-day you were not kind. There will be much money--money for me;
also for you."
Fifteen years before--ten years before--she would have died sooner than
listen to a plan such as he proposed; but fifteen years of Rome blunts
one's English sensibilities. Fifteen years of privation dulls one's
moral sense. And money meant America. And little Tweetie Gregg had not
lowered her voice or her laugh when she spoke that afternoon of Mary
Gowd's absurd English fringe and her red wrists above her too-short
gloves.
"How much?" asked Mary Gowd. He named a figure. She laughed.
"More--much more!"
He named another figure; then another.
"You will put it down on paper," said Mary Gowd, "and sign your
name--to-morrow."
They drove the remainder of the way in silence. At her door in the Via
Babbuino:
"You mean to marry her?" asked Mary Gowd.
Blue Cape shrugged eloquent shoulders:
"I think not," he said quite simply.
* * * * *
It was to be the Appian Way the next morning, with a stop at the
Catacombs. Mary Gowd reached the hotel very early, but not so early as
Caldini.
"Think the five of us can pile into one carriage?" boomed Henry Gregg
cheerily.
"A little crowded, I think," said Mary Gowd, "for such a long drive.
May I suggest that we three"--she smiled on Henry Gregg and his
wife--"take this larger carriage, while Miss Eleanora and Signor Caldini
follow in the single cab?"
A lightning message from Blue Cape's eyes.
"Yes; that would be nice!" cooed Tweetie.
So it was arranged. Mary Gowd rather outdid herself as a guide that
morning. She had a hundred little intimate tales at her tongue's end.
She seemed fairly to people those old ruins again with the men and women
of a thousand years ago. Even Tweetie--little frivolous, indifferent
Tweetie--was impressed and interested.
As they were returning to the carriages after inspecting the Baths of
Caracalla, Tweetie even skipped ahead and slipped her hand for a moment
into Mary Gowd's.
"You're simply wonderful!" she said almost shyly. "You make things sound
so real. And--and I'm sorry I was so nasty to you yesterday at Tivoli."
Mary Dowd looked down at the glowing little face. A foolish little face
it was, but very, very pretty, and exquisitely young and fresh and
sweet. Tweetie dropped her voice to a whisper:
"You should hear him pronounce my name. It is like music when he says
it--El-e-a-no-ra; like that. And aren't his kid gloves always
beautifully white? Why, the boys back home--"
Mary Gowd was still staring down at her. She lifted the slim, ringed
little hand which lay within her white-cotton paw and stared at that
too.
Then with a jerk she dropped the girl's hand and squared her shoulders
like a soldier, so that the dowdy blue suit strained more than ever at
its seams; and the line that had settled about her mouth the night
before faded slowly, as though a muscle too tightly drawn had relaxed.
In the carriages they were seated as before. The horses started up, with
the smaller cab but a dozen paces behind. Mary Gowd leaned forward. She
began to speak--her voice very low, her accent clearly English, her
brevity wonderfully American.
"Listen to me!" she said. "You must leave Rome to-night!"
"Leave Rome to-night!" echoed the Greggs as though rehearsing a duet.
"Be quiet! You must not shout like that. I say you must go away."
Mamma Gregg opened her lips and shut them, wordless for once. Henry
Gregg laid one big hand on his wife's shaking knees and eyed Mary Gowd
very quietly.
"I don't get you," he said.
Mary Gowd looked straight at him as she said what she had to say:
"There are things in Rome you cannot understand. You could not
understand unless you lived here many years. I lived here many months
before I learned to step meekly off into the gutter to allow a man to
pass on the narrow sidewalk. You must take your pretty daughter and go
away. To-night! No--let me finish. I will tell you what happened to me
fifteen years ago, and I will tell you what this Caldini has in his
mind. You will believe me and forgive me; and promise me that you will
go quietly away."
When she finished Mrs. Gregg was white-faced and luckily too frightened
to weep. Henry Gregg started up in the carriage, his fists
white-knuckled, his lean face turned toward the carriage crawling
behind.
"Sit down!" commanded Mary Gowd. She jerked his sleeve. "Sit down!"
Henry Gregg sat down slowly. Then he wet his lips slightly and smiled.
"Oh, bosh!" he said. "This--this is the twentieth century and we're
Americans, and it's broad daylight. Why, I'll lick the--"
"This is Rome," interrupted Mary Gowd quietly, "and you will do nothing
of the kind, because he would make you pay for that too, and it would be
in all the papers; and your pretty daughter would hang her head in shame
forever." She put one hand on Henry Gregg's sleeve. "You do not know!
You do not! Promise me you will go." The tears sprang suddenly to her
English blue eyes. "Promise me! Promise me!"
"Henry!" cried Mamma Gregg, very grey-faced. "Promise, Henry!"
"I promise," said Henry Gregg, and he turned away.
Mary Gowd sank back in her seat and shut her eyes for a moment.
"_Presto!_" she said to the half-sleeping driver. Then she waved a gay
hand at the carriage in the rear. "_Presto!_" she called, smiling.
"_Presto!_"
* * * * *
At six o'clock Mary Gowd entered the little room in the Via Babbuino.
She went first to the window, drew the heavy curtains. The roar of Rome
was hushed to a humming. She lighted a candle that stood on the table.
Its dim light emphasized the gloom. She took off the battered black
velvet hat and sank into the chintz-covered English chair. Tina stood in
the doorway. Mary Gowd sat up with a jerk.
"Letters, Tina?"
Tina thought deeply, fumbled at the bosom of her gown and drew out a
sealed envelope grudgingly.
Mary Gowd broke the seal, glanced at the letter. Then, under Tina's
startled gaze, she held it to the flaming candle and watched it burn.
"What is it that you do?" demanded Tina.
Mary Gowd smiled.
"You have heard of America?"
"America! A thousand--a million time! My brother Luigi--"
"Naturally! This, then"--Mary Gowd deliberately gathered up the ashes
into a neat pile and held them in her hand, a crumpled heap--"this then,
Tina, is my trip to America."
X