LUNCHEON AT THE LODGE
Wilderness Lodge, Cousin Jane had said, was a simple little place in the
mountains, not a hotel but rather a club house where only certain people
could go, and Maria Angelina had pictured a white stucco pension-hotel
set against some background like the bare, bright hills of Italy.
She found a green smother of forest, an ocean of greenness with emerald
crests rising higher and higher like giant waves, and at the end of the
long motor trip the Lodge at last disclosed itself as a low, dark,
rambling building, set in a clearing behind a blue bend of sudden river.
And built of logs! Did people of position live yet in logs in America?
demanded the girl's secret astonishment as the motor whirled across the
rustic bridge and stopped before the wide steps of a veranda full of
people.
Springing down the steps, two at a time, came a tall, short-skirted girl
in white.
"Dad--you came, too!" she cried. "Oh, that's bully. You must enter the
tournament--Mother, did you remember about the cup and the--you know?
What we talked of for the booby?"
She had a loud, gay voice like a boy's and as Maria was drawn into the
commotion of greetings, she opened wide, half-intimidated eyes at the
bigness and brownness of this Cousin Ruth.
She had expected Heaven knows what of incredible charm in the girl who
had detached the Signor Bobby Martin from the siren Leila. Her instant
wonder was succeeded by a sensation of gay relief. After all, these
things went by chance and favor. . . . And if Bobby Martin could prefer
this brown young girl to that vision at the restaurant why then--then
perhaps there was also a chance for--what was it the young Signor Elder
had called her? A _petite brune_ wrapped in cotton wool.
These thoughts flashed through her as one thought as she followed her
three cousins across the wide verandas, full of interested eyes, into
the Lodge and up the stairs to their rooms, where Ruth directed the men
in placing the big trunk and the bags and hospitably explained the
geography of the suite.
"My room's on that side and Dad's and Mother's is just across--and we
all have to use this one bath--stupid, isn't it, but Dad is hardly ever
here and there's running water in the rooms. You'll survive, won't you?"
Hastily Maria Angelina assured her that she would.
Glimpsing the white-tiled splendors of this bath she wondered how Ruth
would survive the tin tub, set absurdly in a red plush room of the
Palazzo. . . .
"Now you know your way about," the American girl rattled on, her tone
negligent, her eyes colored with a little warmer interest as her glance
swept her foreign little cousin. "Frightfully hot, wasn't it? I'll clear
out so you can pop into the tub. You'll just have time before luncheon,"
she assured her and was off.
The next instant, from closed doors beyond, her voice rose in unguarded
exclamation.
"Oh, you baby doll! Mother, did you ever----"
The voices sank from hearing and Maria Angelina was left with the
feeling that a baby doll was not a desirable being in America. This
Cousin Ruth intimidated her and her breezy indifference and lack of
affectionate interest shot the visitor with the troubled suspicion that
her own presence was entirely superfluous to her cousin's scheme of
things. She felt more at home with the elders.
Uncertainly she crossed to her big trunk and stood looking down on the
bold labels.
How long since she and Mamma had packed it, with dear Julietta smoothing
the folds in place! And how far away they all were. . . . It was not the
old Palazzo now that was unreal--it was this new, bright world and all
the strange faces.
The chintz-decked room with its view of alien mountains seemed suddenly
remote and lonely.
Her hands shook a little as she unpacked a tray of pretty dresses and
laid them carefully across the bed. . . . Unconsciously she had
anticipated a warmer welcome from this young cousin. . . . She winked
away the tears that threatened to stain the bright ribbons, and stole
into the splendor of the white bathroom, marveling at its luxurious
contrast to the logs without.
The water refreshed her. She felt more cheerful, and when she came to a
choice of frocks, decidedly a new current of interest was stealing
through life again.
First impressions were so terribly important! She wanted to do honor to
the Blairs--to justify the hopes of Mamma. This was not enough of an
occasion for the white mull. The silks look hot and citified. Hesitantly
she selected the apricot organdie with a deeper-shaded sash; it was
simple for all its glowing color, though the short frilled sleeves
struck her as perhaps too chic. It had been a copy of one of Lucia's
frocks, that one bought to such advantage of Madame Revenant.
With it went a golden-strawed hat--but Maria Angelina was uncertain
about the hat.
Did you wear one at a hotel--when you lived at a hotel? Mamma's
admonitions did not cover that. She put the hat on; she took the hat
off. She rather liked it on--but she dropped it on the bed at Ruth's
sudden knock and felt a sense of escape for Ruth was hatless.
And Ruth still wore the same short white skirt and white blouse, open at
the throat, in which she had greeted them. . . . Was the apricot too
much then of a toilette? Ruth's eyes were frankly on it; her expression
was odd.
But Mrs. Blair had changed. She appeared now in blue linen, very smart
and trim.
Worriedly Maria Angelina's dark eyes went from one to the other.
"Is this--is this what I should wear?" she asked timidly. "Am I not--as
you wish?"
It would have taken a hard heart to wish her otherwise.
"It's very pretty," said Cousin Jane in quick reassurance.
"Too pretty, s'all," said Cousin Ruth. "But it won't be wasted. . . .
Bobby Martin is staying to luncheon," she flung casually at her parents.
"Has a guest with him. You remember Johnny Byrd."
American freedom, indeed! thought Maria Angelina following down the
slippery stairs into the wide hall below where, in a boulder fireplace
that was surmounted by a stag's head, a small blaze was flickering
despite the warmth of the day.
Wasteful, thought Maria Angelina reprovingly. One could see that the
Americans had never suffered for fuel. . . .
Upon a huge, black fur rug before the fire two young men were waiting.
Demurely Maria thought of the letter she would write home that
night--one young man the first evening in New York, two young men the
first luncheon at the Lodge. Decidedly, America brimmed with young men!
Meanwhile, Ruth was presenting them. The big dark youth, heavy and lazy
moving, was the Signor Bob Martin.
The other, Johnny Byrd, was shorter and broad of shoulder; he had
reddish blonde hair slightly parted and brushed straight back; he had a
short nose with freckles and blue eyes with light lashes. When he
laughed--and he seemed always laughing--he showed splendid teeth.
Both young men stared--but staring was a man's prerogative in Italy and
Maria Angelina was unperturbed. At table she sat serenely, her dark
lashes shading the oval of her cheeks, while the young men's eyes--and
one pair of them, especially--took in the black, braid-bound head and
the small, Madonna-like face, faintly flushed by sun and wind, above the
golden glow of the sheer frock.
Then Johnny Byrd leaned across the table towards her.
"I say, Signorina," he began abruptly, "what's the Italian for peach?"
and as Maria Angelina looked up and started very innocently to explain,
he leaned back and burst into a shout of amusement in which the others
more moderately joined.
"Don't let him get you," was Ruth's unintelligible advice, and Bobby
Martin turned to his friend to admonish, "Now, Johnny, don't start
anything. . . . Johnny's such a good little starter!"
"And a poor finisher," added Ruth smartly and both young men laughed
again as at a very good joke.
"A starter--but not a beginner, eh?" chuckled Cousin Jim, and Mrs. Blair
smiled at both young men even as she protested, "This is the noisiest
table in the room!"
It _was_ a noisy table. Maria Angelina was astounded at the hilarity of
that meal. Already she began censoring her report to Mamma. Certainly
Mamma would never understand Ruth's elbows on the table, her shouts of
laughter--or the pellets of bread she flipped.
And the words they used! Maria could only feel that the language of
Mamma must be singularly antiquated. So much she did not understand
. . . had never heard. . . . What, indeed, was a simp, a boob, a nut?
What a poor fish? . . . She held her peace, and listened, confused by
the astounding vocabulary and the even more astounding intimacy. What
things they said to each other in jest!
And whatever Maria Angelina said they took in jest. She evoked an
appreciative peal when she ventured that the Lodge must be very old
because she had read that the first settlers made their homes of logs.
"I'll take you up and show you _our_ ancestral hut," declared Bob
Martin. "Where Granddad used to stretch the Red Skins to dry by the
back door--before tanning 'em for raincoats."
"Really?" said Maria Angelina ingenuously, then at sight of his
expression, "But how shall I know what you tell me is true or not?" she
appealed. "It all sounds so strange to me--the truth as well."
"You look at _me_," said Johnny Byrd leaning forward. "When I shut this
eye, so, you shake your head at them. When I nod--you can believe."
"But you will not always be there----"
"I'll say you're wrong," he retorted. "I'm going to be there so usually,
like the weather--did you say you wanted me to stay a month, Bob?"
Color stole into the young girl's cheeks even while she laughed with
them. She was conscious of a faint and confused half-distress beneath
her mounting confidence. They were so _very_ jocular. . . .
Of course this was but chaff, she understood, and she began to wonder if
that other, that young Signor Elder, had been but joking. It might be
the American way. . . . And yet this was all flattering chaff and so
perhaps she could trust the flattery of her secret hope.
Surely, surely, it was all going to happen. He would come--she would see
him again.
Meanwhile she shook her young braids at Johnny Byrd.
"But you are so sudden! I think he is a flirter, yes?" she said gayly to
Mr. Blair who smiled back appreciatively and a trifle protectively at
her.
But Bobby Martin drawled, "Oh, no, he's not. He's too careful," and more
laughter ensued.
After luncheon they went back into the hall where the three men drifted
out into a side room where cigars and cigarettes were sold, and began
filling their cases, while Mrs. Blair stepped out on the verandas and
joined a group there. Ruth remained by the fireplace, and Maria Angelina
waited by her.
"Your friends are very nice," she began with a certain diffidence, as
her cousin had nothing to say. "That Johnny Byrd--he is very funny----"
"Oh, Johnny's funny," said Ruth in an odd voice. She added, "Regular
spoiled baby--had everything his way. Only an old guardian to boss him."
"You mean he is an orphan?"
"Completely."
Maria Angelina did not smile. "But that is very sad," she said soberly.
"No home life----"
"Don't get it into your head that Johnny Byrd wants any _home life_,"
said her cousin dryly, and with a hint of hard warning in her negligent
voice. "He's been dodging home life ever since he wore long trousers."
"He must then," Maria Angelina deduced, very simply, "be rich."
"He's one of the Long Island Byrds."
It sounded to Maria like a flock of ducks, but she perceived that it was
given for affirmation. She followed Ruth's glance to where the backs of
the young men's heads were visible, bending over some coins they were
apparently matching. . . . Johnny Byrd's head was flaming in the
sunshine. . . .
"He's a bird from a hard-boiled egg," Ruth said with a smile of inner
amusement.
But whatever cryptic signal she flashed slipped unseen from Maria
Angelina's vision. Johnny Byrd was nice, but it was a gay, cheery,
everyday sort of niceness, she thought, with none of the quicksilver
charm of the young man at the dinner dance. . . . And she was
unimpressed by Johnny's money. She took the millionaires in America as
for granted as fish in the sea.
She merely felt cheerfully that Fate was galloping along the expected
course.
Subconsciously, perhaps, she recorded a possible second string to her
bow.
With tact, she thought, she turned the talk to Ruth's young man.
"And the Signor Bob Martin--I suppose he, too, is a millionaire," she
smiled, and was astonished at Ruth's derisive laugh.
"Not unless he murders his father," said that barbaric young woman.
She added, relenting towards her cousin's ignorance, "Oh, Bob hasn't
anything of his own, you know. . . . But his father's taking him into
business this fall."
Maria Angelina was bewildered. Distinctly she had understood, from the
Leila Grey conversation, that Bobby Martin was a very eligible young man
and yet here was her cousin flouting any financial congratulation.
Hesitantly, "Is his father--in a good business?" she offered, and won
from Ruth more merriment as inexplicable as her speech.
"He's in Steel," she murmured, which was no enlightenment to Maria.
She ventured to more familiar ground.
"He is very handsome."
To her astonishment Ruth snorted. . . . Now Lucia always bridled
consciously when one praised Paolo Tosti.
"Don't let him hear you say so," she scoffed. "He's too fat. He needs a
lot more tennis."
And then to Maria's horror she raised her voice and confided this
conviction to the approaching young men.
"You're getting fat, Bob. I just got your profile--and you need a lot of
tennis for that tummy!"
And young Martin laughed--the indolent, submissive laughter with which
he appeared to accept all things at the hands of this audacious,
brown-cheeked, gray-eyed young girl.
She must be very sure of him, thought the little Italian sagely. Then,
not so sagely, she wondered if Ruth was exhibiting her power to warn off
all newcomers. . . . Was _that_ why she refused to admit his wealth or
his good looks--she wanted to invite no competition?
Maria Angelina believed she saw the light.
She would reassure Ruth, she thought eagerly. She was a young person of
honor. Never would she attempt to divert a glance from her cousin's
admirer.
Meanwhile a debate was carried on between golf and tennis, and was
carried in favor of golf by Cousin Jim. There was unintelligible talk of
hazards and bunkers and handicaps for the tournament, of records and of
bogey, and then as Johnny turned to her with a casual, "Like the game?"
a shadow of misgiving crept into her confidence.
She could not golf. Nor could she play tennis. Nor could she follow the
golfers--as Johnny Byrd suggested--for Cousin Jane declared her frock
and slippers too delicate. She must get into something more appropriate.
And in Maria Angelina the worried suspicion woke that she had nothing
more appropriate.
A few minutes later Cousin Jane confirmed that suspicion as she paused
by the trunk the young girl was hastily unpacking.
"I'll send to town for some plain little things for you to play in," she
said cheerfully. "You must have some low-heeled white shoes and short
white skirts and a batting hat. They won't come to much," she added as
if carelessly, going down to her bridge game on the veranda.
But Maria Angelina's small hands clenched tightly at her sides in a
panic out of all proportion to the idea.
More expense, she was thinking quiveringly. More investment!
Oh, she must not fail--she dared not fail. She must find some one--the
right some one----
She dropped beside her trunk of pretty things in a passion of frightened
tears.
But the night swung her back to triumph again.
For although she could not golf, and her hands could not wield a tennis
racket, Maria Angelina could play a guitar and she could sing to it like
the angels she had been named for. And the young people at the Lodge had
a way of gathering in the dark upon the wide steps and strumming chords
and warbling strange strains about intimate emotions. And as Maria
Angelina's voice rose with the rest her gift was discovered.
"Gosh, the little Wop's a Galli-Curci," was John Byrd's aside to Bob.
So presently with Johnny Byrd's guitar in her hands Maria Angelina was
singing the songs of Italy, sometimes in English, when she knew the
words, that all might join in the choruses, but more often in their own
Italian.
A crescent moon edged over the shadowy dark of the mountains before her
. . . the same moon whose silver thread of light slipped down those far
Apennine hills of home and touched the dome of old Saint Peter's. She
felt far away and lonely . . . and deliciously sad and subtly expectant.
. . .
"'O Sole mio----"
And as she sang, with her eyes on the far hills, her ears caught the
whir of wheels on the road below, and all her nerves tightened like
wires and hummed with the charged currents.
Out of the dark she conjured a tall young figure advancing . . . a
figure topped by short-cut curly brown hair . . . a figure with eyes of
incredible brightness. . . .
If he would only come now and find her like this, singing. . . .
It was so exquisite a hope that her heart pleaded for it.
But the wheels went on.
"But he will come," she thought swiftly, to cover the pang of that
expiring hope. "He will come soon. He said so. And perhaps again it will
be like this and he will find me here----"
"'O Sole mio----"
And only Johnny Byrd, staring steadily through the dusk, discerned that
there were tears in her eyes.