Katharine Haviland-Taylor

“ On the mantel were some pink tarletan stockings filled with candy—there was no fastening them up, the mantel was made of marble—and Leslie had got a little piece of mistletoe which Sam had hung in the doorway.
“Really, it has the feeling of Christmas,” said Leslie, as she picked up the gown, which I had made on her with safety pins.
“Hasn’t it?” murmured Viola, who, in spite of saying the most bitter things, did want to make up.
“When it’s lit by candles it will be pretty,” I prophesied, and it was. ”

“ Wake, said “Nonsense, I have gray hair, and wrinkles—”
“No—” Mr. Wake shook his head. “No—” he said again.
She smiled at him, and her lips quivered.
“You,” she said, “can still say pretty things, can’t you?”
“To you, Sheila,” he answered, and then I thought that Sam and I ought to move on. I said so in an aside to Sam, who was acting as if he were sitting in an aisle seat and twisting his program into funny shapes while he waited—in great suspense—for the hero to get the girl just before the drop of the last curtain. I think men are much too natural at times, and that was one of them. ”

“ THE EFFECT OF A SECRET It was hard to get down to real work after Christmas, for there was a spirit of gaiety in the air that was too strong to be ignored. In the streets was always the shrill noise that came from little tin horns; children were always playing on the pavements with their new toys, and you could hardly go a block without seeing a crowd around a vender of something or other that was built to please small people. . . . Monkeys that climb up frail, yellow sticks will always make me think of Florence in holiday dress—I know it! ”

“ DARK CLOUDS The days that followed were dark and gloomy; the cold crept inside and every one was uncomfortable and almost every one cross. Sometimes I think that the weather really makes all the history, and certainly if it hadn’t been damp Leslie wouldn’t have been sick with a cold; and if she hadn’t had a cold she wouldn’t have quarreled with Viola; and if Viola and she hadn’t quarreled, Viola wouldn’t have told Miss Meek all about Leslie’s heart affair; and if Viola hadn’t confided it to Miss Meek, then Viola and Leslie might have patched up their difference long before they did. ”

“ It is, in some way connected with Cosimo I, it is said, and the Medici coat of arms is to be found around in different spots. It is a very old building, and it is, like everything else on the hillside, perched on the slant with all its lovely gardens planted on steps. And down below spreads out the country with little blazing yellow roadways, and pink and tan villas, and groves of gentle green olive trees, and a church and monastery that often send up the soft sound of bells. ”

“ The old ladies who always sit in doorways and call to each other, huddled less over their scaldinoes, and little boys with bare knees ran through the paths in the Piazza Indipendenza or spun their tops on the pavement on our side of the street. Of course officers walked slowly, and little knots of soldiers from the ranks collected on corners to talk, and pretty Italian girls fluttered past. ”

“ Wake had been so dear to me, and was so dear, that I wanted to make him happy, and I’d supposed I could do so by having a party and asking him to meet Miss Sheila.
“You know,” he said, and I could see he was trying to get back to normal, and to make me think he felt quite as usual, “an old person like me, with a fat tummy, simply can’t meet a fairy godmother—he wouldn’t know how to act!” ”

“ Wake, “that I am too old to meet a Fairy Godmother. No doubt—” (he was trying to play, but his tone was a little stiff) “she’d suggest picnicking in the moonlight—isn’t that the hour when Fairy Rings are most popular?—and that might make my shoulders stiff. Then—seriously, dear child—I am no good as a cavalier; I falter. Children and old ladies are the age for me now, and soon it will be middle-aged women, whom I shall think of as children. ”

“ After we had walked some time we turned in a tiny street that had an archway over it, and seemed as dark as ink from contrast to the sunny street we’d left. I liked it, and, as I picked my way over the big cobblestones, I said so.
“It is a part of Florence that most tourists miss,” said Mr. Wake, “and it is too bad, for it is the most characteristic part. Ah, here we are—” he ended and we turned in a tiny doorway from which came the pleasant smell of hot sugar and warm bread. ”

“ And then we turned into the dining room—I had followed the crowd at a respectful distance—and Miss Julianna stepped forward, to say, “La Signorina Jones, Americana!” and then she turned and said, “Mees Meek, Mees Banneester, Meester Hemmingway; you must be friend!”
And I said that I hoped they would let me be. And then, a little flushed because I was not used to meeting so many people at once, I wiggled into my chair, and Beata came in with the soup. ”

“ Viola laughed, as Maria, the new maid, opened the door for us. “Oh, he’ll get you,” she prophesied, “and he’ll court you divinely. . . . It’s plain that he doesn’t like me, but I like and admire him in spite of it. . . . And you know lots of women go right along with their careers after marriage.” ”

“ You can play, my child, and your mother is going to give me the great pleasure of letting me help you play better. . . . You are, Margaret? My dear, remember the old days, and all that you did for me! . . . Jane,” (she turned back to me) “in Florence there is rather a marvelous teacher named Michele Paggi, and in October you shall go to him!”
That was the story.
I told it to Mr. Terrance Wake as if he could see our house, and knew the people in it, including Miss Sheila, who abandoned the party with whom she was motoring and came to stay with us for a time. ”

“ Hamilton, who had looked after me as I crossed the Atlantic upon the Steamship Carpatia, called me back into the stateroom and said, “By the way, child, I am not going to Florence, after all—”
Well, I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, which is what I often do while waiting.
“But,” she went on, as she fussed with the little jars that contribute quite a lot toward her beauty, “I shall hunt up some one who is, and see that you are looked after.” ”

“ For a couple of days Leslie avoided making real conversation with me, and then one morning while I was practising I looked up to see Leslie in the doorway.
She had on a French blue negligee that had pale two-toned pink ribbons on it, and her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright, and she carried a tray on which was a pot of tea, some little cakes that she knows I like, and some biscuits. She always got her own breakfast because the pension allowance was small, and she knew that I was always hungry until after lunch. ”

“ After we had eaten and talked we walked up past the Loggia dei Lanzi which has statues in it that commemorate all sorts of historic events and faces the square in which there is a replica of Michael Angelo’s David; the square is large, and very busy with quickly passing people, and the people who pause to make small groups that are always dissolving, and ever reforming; and these people always look futile. I didn’t know why, but Mr. Wake said that the Palazzo Vecchio, which is at right angles to the Loggia dei Lanzi and looks scornfully down over everything, made it. ”

“ Hemmingway stay in his villa for the summer months, which would be a great treat for any one and heaven for a man who had lived for years in a dull pension—and through his befriending Sam, who was doing so well, and promising to do much more than well.
“How kind your Mr. Wake must be,” said Miss Sheila.
“He is,” I answered.
“I’d like to meet him,” she said.
[Pg 243]
“He’s dreadfully shy,” I responded, after that kind of a hard swallow that rasps and scratches as it goes down.
“Heavens, and earth! No man ought to be afraid of an old woman like me!” Miss Sheila mused. ”

“ I found the hall very, very dark, and after I had climbed the stairs and got in the Pension corridor I found that that also was dark, and then Miss Julianna came along, switched on the lights, and through that I heard Beata’s story.
“She is ashamed,” said Miss Julianna, “to have you see the cry on her cheek.”
I said I was sorry, as Beata, who had been sitting in the half light by a table, lowered her head and looked away.
“It is sad,” Miss Julianna agreed, “the good girl, Beata! She loves very much, and also has love give to her, but has not the dowry! And you know here it is necessary.” ”

“ Leslie laughed too, but not as kindly as I had—really she didn’t—for she and Viola, in spite of being friends again, still held a scratchy feeling toward each other.
“Nothing ever turns out as I expect it to,” said Leslie, “I’m beginning to get over being surprised about anything. . . . Do you think a man would like that flower toque of mine?”
“He will unless he’s blind,” I replied, and then I told her to get out, because I had to go on with my work, but I didn’t have much time alone, for in a second Viola appeared.
“Darling,” she called from the doorway, “have you heard the news?” ”

“ Wake, “but to be pushed beyond strength and to be whined at continually is quite a different thing. . . . In this case it proved to be the killing of the golden goose, for Andrea del Sarto did not live to a great age—he died at forty-five—and his wife lived on alone without her beauty and the love of Andrea, and lived long beyond him. . . . It is said that one day, many years after Andrea died, an artist who was copying that moon shaped picture up there was startled by a touch on his shoulder, and he looked up to see an old, browned, shriveled hag, who smiled down at him a little bitterly. ”

“ Well, I think that everybody should travel. As Mr. Hemmingway, whom I met at dinner, says, it is educational. One has an idea, or at least I did, that houses all over the world are about the same. I expected little differences, but I didn’t expect stone floors, or Cupids painted on walls, or ceilings that took a field glass to see, or to see a plaster-of-Paris Madonna on the wall with a tall wrought-iron candlestick on the floor before it. . . . And I hadn’t expected to see a box full of sawdust with a broom in it, or that they had to clean house differently in Florence. ”

“ A COUNTRY WEDDING AND THE COMING OF SPRING A great deal happened in that slice of time which carried us from January into spring, although during that interval we felt as if we were going along almost entirely on the level. You never really do see the things that happen—not well—until you can look at them over your shoulder. ”

“ Wake put his hand on my arm, drew me to a standstill, and Viola followed suit.
“Look above the door,” said Mr. Wake, and we did, to see a pretty picture of Joseph, and Mary, and a little boy, who was the small Christ. . . . I liked it very much because it was simple, and it made you feel near it. Joseph was leaning on a sack of grain, and Mr. Wake said, when he spoke, that it was called “The Madonna of the Sack” because of that.
“But,” he said, “the great story lies behind the pretty face of the model; for Mary, up there, was Andrea’s ambitious, money-loving wife. . . . ”

“ I was surprised, for I thought that the violets he had given me only a little time before, were enough!
“Who the dickens would I give it to?” he answered, in a half irritated way. “Think I want to give anything to the other two? I don’t! When I come to think of it, I never did want to buy any truck for any other girl before—”
I enjoyed that; every woman does enjoy that sort of thing. And when I opened the box I almost went over backward; it held the most beautiful bead bag I’d ever seen; it was really prettier than any of Leslie’s! ”

“ We simply struggle, and pinch at every point, but even then we can’t put up half the appearance that we should, and we never have what every one around us has—and takes for granted. Did you hear Miss Meek say ‘I’ll wager it’s jolly slummish around the jail!’ yesterday when I was describing our breakfast room? Horrid old thing!”
I didn’t say so, but Viola had made Miss Meek hazard this opinion about Ossining because she, Viola, had put on so many unnecessary and silly airs about her home. ”

“ When he have headache he don’t care for devil. You can wait, you can go, it is the same.” And then she disdainfully fluttered the big leaves she had been turning slowly.
“Will you be good enough to tell him,” said Leslie in a tight controlled way, “that Miss Parrish, that Miss Leslie Parrish is here?”
The girl looked up.
“No,” she answered, “I do not wish to have the book push through the air at me—so—” (she made a hitchy, overhead girl-gesture of throwing) “and he do not care who you are. Why should he care who you are?” she ended, her eyes now on Leslie and boring into Leslie. ”

“ I think one can learn so much about people when they don’t think it is worth while to be polite, or think they are alone in the bosom of their family.
I remember one time I walked home with Elaine McDonald from the Crystal Emporium where we had had a banana split, and her father, who thought she had come in alone, barked down at her as if she were a member of a section gang and he were the boss. ”

“ Then a shopkeeper who wore a long, once white apron and who was chewing a toothpick came along and stopped, and he asked questions, and the old lady and the little boys all answered at once, and made their arms go like hard-working, energetic windmills as they answered. Then two soldiers in their olive drab came along, and they paused and wanted to know what was wrong, and the little boys and the old lady and the shopkeeper answered them, and they stood talking. ”

“ STORIES, MUSIC AND TEA That afternoon was pleasant, but I don’t think that’s the reason I remember it so clearly. A good many pleasant sight-seeing walks followed that have grown a little dim, even now. I think it fastened itself by my beginning to see Viola, and a side of her through which she was soon to hurt herself so cruelly. I discovered the side through a little comment of hers on a painting made by Andrea del Sarto, an artist who painted in Florence a good deal in the fourteen hundreds. ”

“ I said, and I said it sharply, for I was getting more and more out of temper with Leslie. “We were hunting around for atmosphere; you ought to know what it is, Miss Parrish, you talk about it enough. . . . He has a villa out the Fiesole way and I guess a person with a villa wouldn’t worry about a few cents, although I would like him just as well if he had to!”
“That’s the staunch-hearted flapper!” put in Miss Meek, as Leslie murmured, “So many of the climbing sort rent fearful little places—really no more than chicken coops, and then call them villas! ”