Джин Уэбстер - The Wheat Princess

‘There are the Kirkups in Rome,’ she agreed; ‘but they are so boisterous; and they always quarrel with Gerald whenever they come to play with him.’

‘I am not sure, myself, but that Gerald quarrels with them,’ returned her husband. However fond he might be of his offspring, he cherished no motherly delusions. ‘But perhaps you are right,’ he added, with something of a sigh. ‘It may be necessary to take him back to America before long. I myself have doubts if this cosmopolitan atmosphere it the best in which to bring up a boy.’

‘I should have wished him to spend a winter in Paris for his French,’ said Mrs. Copley, plaintively; ‘but I dare say he can learn it later. Marcia didn’t begin till she was twelve, and she has a very good accent, I am sure.’

Mr. Copley twisted the handle of his glass in silence.

‘I suppose, after all,’ he said finally, to no one in particular, ‘if you manage to bring up a boy to be a decent citizen you’ve done something in the world.’

‘I don’t know,’ Marcia objected, with a half-laugh. ‘If one man, whom we will suppose is a decent citizen, brings up one boy to be a decent citizen, and does nothing else, I don’t see that much is gained to the world. Your one man has merely shifted the responsibility.’

Mr. Copley shrugged a trifle. ‘Perhaps the boy might be better able to bear it.’

‘Of course it would be easier for the man to think so,’ she agreed. ‘But if everybody passed on his responsibilities there wouldn’t be much progress. The boys might do the same, you know, when they grew up.’

Mrs. Copley rose, ‘If you two are going to talk metaphysics, I shall go into the salon and have coffee alone.’

‘It’s not metaphysics; it’s theology,’ her husband returned. ‘Marcia is developing into a terrible preacher.’

‘I know it,’ Marcia acknowledged. ‘I’m growing deplorably moral; I think it must be the Roman air.’

‘It doesn’t affect most people that way,’ her uncle laughed. ‘I don’t care for any coffee, Katherine. I will smoke a cigarette on the terrace and wait for you out there.’

He disappeared through the balcony doors, and Marcia and her aunt proceeded to the salon.

Marcia poured the coffee, and her aunt said as she received her cup, ‘I really believe your uncle is getting tired of Rome and will be ready to go back before long.’

‘I don’t believe he’s tired of Rome, Aunt Katherine. I think he’s just a little bit—well, discouraged.’

‘Nonsense, child! he has nothing to be discouraged about; he is simply getting restless again. I know the signs! I’ve never known him to stay as long as this in one place before. I only hope now that he will not think of any ridiculous new thing to do, but will be satisfied to go back to New York and settle down quietly like other people.’

‘It seems to me,’ said Marcia, slowly, ‘as if he might do more good there, because he would understand better what the people need. There are plenty of things to be done even in New York.’

‘Oh, yes; when he once got settled he would find any amount of things to take up his time. He might even try yachting, for a change; I am sure that keeps men absorbed.’

Marcia sipped her coffee in silence and glanced out of the window at her uncle, who was pacing up and down the terrace with his hands in his pockets. He looked a rather lonely figure in the half-darkness. It suddenly struck her, as she watched him, that she did not understand him; she had scarcely realized before that there was anything to understand.

Mrs. Copley set her cup down on the table, and Marcia rose. ‘Let’s go out on the terrace, Aunt Katherine.’

‘You go out, my dear, and I will join you later. I want to see if Gerald is asleep. I neglected to have a crib sent out for him, and the dear child thrashes around so—what with a bed four feet high and a stone floor–’

‘It would be disastrous!’ Marcia agreed.

She crossed the loggia to the terrace and silently fell into step beside her uncle. It was almost dark, and a crescent moon was hanging low over the top of Guadagnolo. A faint lemon light still tinged the west, throwing into misty relief the outline of the Alban hills. The ilex grove was black—gruesomely black—and the happy song of the nightingales and the splashing of the fountain sounded uncanny coming from the darkness; but the white, irregular mass of the villa formed a cheerful contrast, with its shining lights, which threw squares of brightness on the marble terrace and the trees.

Marcia looked about with a deep breath. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Uncle Howard?’ They paused a moment by the parapet and stood looking down over the plain. ‘Isn’t the Campagna lovely,’ she added, ‘half covered with mist?’

‘Yes, it’s lovely—and the mist means death to the peasants who live beneath it.’

She exclaimed half impatiently:

‘Uncle Howard, why can’t you let anything be beautiful here without spoiling it by pointing out an ugliness beneath?’

‘I’m sorry; it isn’t my fault that the ugliness exists. Look upon the mist as a blessed dew from heaven, if it makes you any happier.’

‘Of course I should rather know the truth, but it seems as if the Italians are happy in spite of things. They strike me as the happiest people I have ever seen.’

‘Ah, well, perhaps they are happier than we think.’

‘I’m sure they are,’ said Marcia, comfortably. ‘Anglo-Saxons, particularly New Englanders, and most particularly Mr. Howard Copley, worry too much.’

‘It’s at least a fault the Italians haven’t learned,’ he replied. ‘But, after all, as you say, it may be the better fortune to have less and worry less—I’d like to believe it.’

On the morning after their arrival, Marcia had risen early and set out on horseback to explore the neighbourhood. As Castel Vivalanti, accordingly, was engaged in its usual Saturday-morning sweeping, a clatter of horses’ hoofs suddenly sounded on the tiny Corso (the paving is so villainous that a single horse, however daintily it may step, sounds like a cavalcade), and running to the door, the inhabitants of the village beheld the new signorina Americana gaily riding up the narrow way and smiling to the right and left, for all the world like the queen herself. The women contented themselves with standing in the doorways and staring open-mouthed, but the children ran boldly after, until the signorina presently dismounted and bidding the groom hold her horse, sat down upon a door-step and talked to them with as much friendliness as though she had known them all her life. She ended by asking them what in the world they liked best to eat, and they declared in a single voice for ‘ Cioccolata .’

Accordingly they moved in a body to the baker’s, and, to Domenico’s astonishment, ordered all of the chocolate in the shop. And while he was excitedly counting it out the signorina kept talking to him about the weather and the scenery and the olive crop until he was so overcome by the honour that he could do nothing but bob his head and murmur, ‘ Si, si, eccelenza; si, si, eccelenza ,’ to everything she said.

And as soon as she had mounted her horse again and ridden away, with a final wave of her hand to the little black-eyed children, Domenico hurried to the Croce d’Oro to inform the landlord that he also had had the honour of entertaining the signorina Americana , who had bought chocolate to the amount of five lire—five lire! And had given it all away! The blacksmith’s wife, who had followed Domenico to hear the news, remarked that, for her part, she thought it a sin to spend so much for chocolate; the signorina might have given the money just as well, and they could have had meat for Sunday. But Domenico was more ready this time to condone the fault. ‘ Si, si ,’ he returned, with a nod of his head: ‘the signorina meant well, no doubt, but she could not understand the needs of poor people. He supposed that they lived on chocolate all the time at the villa, and naturally did not realize that persons who worked for their living found meat more nourishing.