Джин Уэбстер: Jerry

‘I think you might have waited!’ was her greeting from the doorway.

She advanced to the table, saluted in military fashion, dropped a kiss on her father’s bald spot, and possessed herself of the empty chair. She too was clad in mountain-climbing costume, in so far as blouse and skirt and leather leggings went, but above her face there fluttered the fluffy white brim of a ruffled sun hat with a bunch of pink rosebuds set over one ear.

‘I am sorry not to wear my own Alpine hat, Aunt Hazel; I look so deliciously German in it, but I simply can’t afford to burn all the skin off my nose.’

‘You can’t make us believe that,’ said her father. ‘The reason is, that Lieutenant di Ferara and Captain Coroloni are going with us to-day, and that this hat is more becoming than the other.’

‘It’s one reason,’ Constance agreed imperturbably, ‘but, as I say, I don’t wish to burn the skin off my nose, because that is unbecoming too. You are ungrateful, Dad,’ she added as she helped herself to honey with a liberal hand, ‘I invited them solely on your account because you like to hear them talk English. Have the donkeys come?’

‘The donkeys are at the back door nibbling the buds off the rose bushes.’

‘And the driver?’

‘Is sitting on the kitchen doorstep drinking coffee and smiling over the top of his cup at Elizabetta. There are two of him.’

‘Two! I only ordered one.’

‘One is the official driver and the other is a boy whom he has brought along to do the work.’

Constance eyed her father sharply. There was something at once guilty and triumphant about his expression.

‘What is it, Dad?’ she inquired sternly. ‘I suppose he has not got a sash and earrings.’

‘On the contrary, he has.’

‘Really? How clever of Gustavo! I hope,’ she added anxiously, ‘that he talks good Italian?’

‘I don’t know about his Italian, but he talks uncommonly good English.’

‘English!’ There was reproach, disgust, disillusionment, in her tone. ‘Not really, father?’

‘Yes, really and truly—almost as well as I do. He has lived in New York and he speaks English like a dream—real English—not the Gustavo—Lieutenant di Ferara kind. I can understand what he says.’

‘How simply horrible!’

‘Very convenient, I should say.’

‘If there’s anything I detest, it’s an Americanized Italian—and here in Valedolmo of all places, where you have a right to demand something unique and romantic and picturesque and real. It’s too bad of Gustavo! I shall never place any faith in his judgment again. You may talk English to the man if you like; I shall address him in nothing but Italian.’

As they rose from the table she suggested pessimistically, ‘Let’s go and look at the donkeys—I suppose they’ll be horrid, scraggly, knock-kneed little beasts.’

They turned out, however, to be unusually attractive, as donkeys go, and they were innocently engaged in nibbling, not rose leaves, but grass, under the tutelage of a barefoot boy. Constance patted their shaggy mouse-coloured noses, made the acquaintance of the boy, whose name was Beppo, and looked about for the driver proper. He rose and bowed as she approached. His appearance was even more violently spectacular than she had ordered; Gustavo had given good measure.

He wore a loose white shirt—immaculately white—with a red silk handkerchief knotted about his throat, brown corduroy knee-breeches, and a red cotton sash with the hilt of a knife conspicuously protruding. His corduroy jacket was slung carelessly across his shoulders, his hat was cocked jauntily, with a red heron feather stuck in the band; last, perfect touch of all, in his ears—at his ears rather (a close examination revealed the thread)—two golden hoops flashed in the sunlight. His skin was dark—not too dark—just a good healthy out-door tan: his brows level and heavy, his gaze candour itself. He wore a tiny suggestion of a moustache which turned up at the corners (a suspicious examination of this, might have revealed the fact that it was touched up with burnt cork); there was no doubt but that he was a handsome fellow, and his attire suggested that he knew it.

Constance clasped her hands in an ecstasy of admiration.

‘He’s perfect!’ she cried. ‘Where on earth did Gustavo find him? Did you ever see anything so beautiful?’ she appealed to the others. ‘He looks like a brigand in opera bouffe.’

The donkey-man reddened visibly and fumbled with his hat.

‘My dear,’ her father warned, ‘he understands English.’

She continued to gaze with the open admiration one would bestow upon a picture or a view or a blue-ribbon horse. The man flashed her a momentary glance from a pair of searching grey eyes, then dropped his gaze humbly to the ground.

‘ Buon giorno ,’ he said in glib Italian.

Constance studied him more intently. There was something elusively familiar about his expression; she was sure she had seen him before.

‘ Buon giorno ,’ she replied in Italian. ‘You have lived in the United States?’

‘ Si , signorina.’

‘What is your name?’

‘I spik Angleesh,’ he observed.

‘I don’t care if you do speak English; I prefer Italian—what is your name?’ She repeated the question in Italian.

‘ Si , signorina,’ he ventured again. An anxious look had crept to his face and he hastily turned away and commenced carrying parcels from the kitchen. Constance looked after him, puzzled and suspicious. The one insult which she could not brook was for an Italian to fail to understand her when she talked Italian. As he returned and knelt to tighten the strap of a hamper, she caught sight of the thread that held his earring. She looked a second longer, and a sudden smile of illumination flashed to her face. She suppressed it quickly and turned away.

‘He seems rather slow about understanding,’ she remarked to the others, ‘but I dare say he’ll do.’

‘The poor fellow is embarrassed,’ apologized her father. ‘His name is Tony,’ he added—even he had understood that much Italian.

‘Was there ever an Italian who had been in America whose name was not Tony? Why couldn’t he have been Angelico or Felice or Pasquale or something decently picturesque?’

‘My dear,’ Miss Hazel objected, ‘I think you are hypercritical. The man is scarcely to blame for his name.’

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