Aurora the Magnificent Part 14

"And now I am asked--with laughter and mockery--whether I have seen Mrs.

Hawthorne giving an imitation of a Madonna by Simma Bewey, and heard Mrs. Hawthorne on the subject of G. Ottow and Others."

"Didn't you say--with laughter? Well, then, it's all right. Don't you care. I just got to training and did it to make them a little sport.

Didn't they tell you about my Native of Italy eating Macaroni?"

"Mrs. Hawthorne, you are just a bad big school-girl--a bad big school-girl--"

"'Hark, from the tomb!'" said Mrs. Hawthorne, in lieu of anything more scintillating.

"A bad big school-girl, and I will have nothing more to do with you. If you delight in being the talk of the town, all you have to do is allow your friend Mr. Hunt in his spare hours to take you to see such things as I have not yet had the honor of showing you."

"Blessed if I--Look here, you aren't mad in earnest? Sooner'n lose you, I won't say another word. There! I've been Tchee-mah-boo-eh's Madonna for the last time. Don't be cross with little T. T.--Talk of the Town!"

"If you had any discrimination, any reticence ..."

"No reticence? Does that mean can't keep anything to myself? You don't know me!"

"You even tell your age."

"You aren't going to find fault with me for _that_?"

"Yes. At your age one should know better. It is part of your general and too great frankness."

They upon occasions came near quarreling, but not seriously, her disposition to quarrel was so small. Yet, two could not be outspoken and one of them irritable, and those rocks never even be grazed.

She unwarily enlarged to him one day upon her disappointment in Florence. By this time, she said, she was growing used to it, she didn't notice so much the things she didn't like. But at first, with her expectation high, her imagination inflamed by the Judge's and Antonia's eloquence, the narrow streets, in some of them no sidewalks even, the gloomy bars at the windows, the muddy river with the dirty old houses huddled on the bank, the stuffy churches with the average height of the Italian populace marked on the pillars by a dubious grindy brown tint, the dreadful beggars, the black fingernails, the smells....

"Mrs. Hawthorne!" came from Gerald, who with difficulty had let her go on thus far, "those were all you noticed, were they? In the most wonderful city in the whole world, those are all you find to talk about!

The narrow streets, the beggars, the smells. Mrs. Hawthorne--" he nearly trembled with the effort to keep calm, "this is obviously not the place for you. You should have gone to ... to Switzerland! Instead of a sunburned hill-side, with sober silver olives and solemn black cypresses, and a pair of beautiful calm white oxen plowing, you would have seen a nice gra.s.s-green pasture, at the foot of blinding peaks, cut by an a.r.s.enic-green stream, on whose bank a red and white cow feeding!

Then among the habitations all would have been well-regulated, the churches swept, perhaps even ventilated, the people washed, clean ap.r.o.ns, clean caps, no beggars, no disorder, no crimes. And there would have been no disturbing manifestations of genius, either; no troublesome masterpieces or other evidences of a little fire in the blood. It would have suited you perfectly."

"I guess you mean that to be cutting, don't you?"

"Let me try to tell you how much I liked New York, when I went back there some years ago after an absence of ten or eleven years. I had some idea, you know, of perhaps returning to live in America. Well, I s.h.i.+vered. I shut my eyes. I held my ears. I fled. I remained just the time I was forced to by the affairs of my poor mother and, as I tell you, I fled!"

"Why, what's the matter with New York?"

"I will tell you what is the matter with New York, with Boston, with all the places in America that I have seen again since I was grown up--"

"No! Stop! Don't say anything against America. It's the one way to make me mad.--I didn't know you felt the same way about Florence. You aren't an Italian, are you? It's because we're both alike Americans that we sit here fighting so chummily."

CHAPTER VII

Lending her s.p.a.cious front room for the Christmas bazaar in aid of the church, and beholding it full of bustle and brightness, was the thing that brought to the acute stage Mrs. Hawthorne's longing to see her whole house the scene of some huge good time: she sent out innumerable invitations to a ball. Mrs. Foss's card was inclosed with hers. It was a farewell party given for Brenda, whose day of sailing was very near. The frequent inquiry how Brenda should be crossing the ocean so late in the year met with the answer that her traveling companions had a brother whose wedding had been timed thus awkwardly for them.

On the morning of the day before the ball Gerald came to see Mrs.

Hawthorne. He was still intrusting the servant with his message when Aurora, leaning over the railing of the hallway above, called down to him, "Come right upstairs!"

He was aware of unusual activities all around--workmen, the sound of hammering, housemaids plying brooms and brushes. Leslie Foss, with her hat on, looked from the dining-room and said, "h.e.l.lo, Gerald!" too busy for anything more. Fraulein seemed to be with her, helping at something.

The great central white-and-gold door, to-day open, permitted a glimpse, as he started up the stairs, of a man on a step-ladder fitting tall wax-candles into one of the great chandeliers. From unseen quarters floated Estelle's voice, saying, "_Ploo bah! Nong, ploo hoe!_"

Mrs. Hawthorne met him at the head of the stairs. The slight disorder of her hair, usually so tidy, pointed to unusual exertions on her part, also. Her face was flushed with excitement and, to judge by her wreathing smiles, with happiness.

"I saw you coming," she greeted him. "_Riverisco! Beata Lei! Mamma mia!_ And do you know how I saw you? Come here."

She led the way to the back, where the window-door stood open on to the roof of the portico, which formed a terrace.

"See? I've had it gla.s.sed in for to-morrow night. We couldn't say we hadn't plenty of rooms before, and plenty of room in them. That's just the trouble: there aren't any nooks in this big, square house. So I've made one. This is Flirtation Alcove. Here a loving couple can come to cool off after dancing and look up at the stars together. Oh, it's going to be so pretty! You can't tell anything about it as it looks now; I've only got these few things in it. But the gardeners are going to bring all sorts of tall plants and flowers in pots. Just wait till to-morrow night!"

"You are very busy, I am afraid, Mrs. Hawthorne. I ought not to take your time."

"Can't you sit down a minute?"

"I have come to ask a favor."

"I guess I can say it's granted even before you ask."

"I should like to retract my refusal of your very kind invitation for to-morrow evening. I have explained to you my weak avoidance of crowds.

I have determined to overcome it in this case, and I want your permission to bring a friend."

"That? How can you ask? Bring ten! Bring twenty! Bring as many as you've got! As for coming yourself, I'm tickled to death that you've reconsidered."

"It's not quite as simple as it seems, Mrs. Hawthorne. I shall have to tell you more."

At her indication, he took the other half of the little dumpling sofa which had seemed to her an appropriate piece of furniture for Flirtation Alcove, and which, with a rug on the floor, formed so far its only decoration. In the clear, bare morning light of outdoors, which bathed them, she still looked triumphantly fresh, but he looked tired.

"It is Lieutenant Giglioli for whom I have come to beg an invitation.

You perhaps know whom I mean."

"Let me see. I can't tell. Quite a few officers have been introduced, but I never can get their names."

"Hasn't Mrs. Foss or Leslie ever spoken of him?"

"Not so far as I can remember. In what way do you mean?"

"They evidently have not." He seemed to be given pause by this and need to gather force from reflection before going on, as he did after a moment, overcoming his repugnance. "He is the reason for poor Brenda being packed off to America."

"Oh, is that it?"

"He came to see me last evening and spent most of the night talking of her. We were barely acquainted before; but he knew I am a close friend of the Fosses, and in that necessity to ease their hearts with talk which Italians seem to feel he chose me. I felt sorry for him."

"She's turned him down?"

"No; she loves him."