Part 3 (2/2)
”Have you had a tiring day?” Brenda asked her mother, somewhat as if she were tired herself at the mere thought of such a day as she supposed her mother to have had.
”No,” Mrs. Foss answered briskly; ”it's rather fun. I don't mean that one doesn't get tired after a fas.h.i.+on. Has Brenda told you, Gerald, how we have lately been occupied?”
”Some new people, I think she said.”
”Yes, some nice, funny Americans.”
”Funny, you say?”
”I say it fondly, Gerald. Let me tell you a little about them, and you will see what I mean. They are going to spend the winter here and wanted a house. What house do you think they selected?”
”You really mustn't set me riddles, Mrs. Foss.”
”For years we have seen it every time we drive to the Cascine, and seen it with a certain curiosity--always deserted, always with closed blinds, in its way the most beautiful house in Florence.”
”The most--I can't think what house you mean.”
”Of course not, with your tastes. But imagine some nice, rich Americans, without either art education or the smallest affectation of such a thing, and ask yourself what they would like. Why, a big, square, clean-looking, new-looking, wealthy-looking house, of course, set in a nice garden, with, at the end of the garden, a nice stable. I was thankful to find the place had been kept up.”
”But is there--on the Lungarno, did you say?”
”It is that house we have called the Haughty Hermitage, Gerald,” Brenda helped him.
”Oh, that! But surely one doesn't live in a house like that!”
”Your excellent reason?” inquired Leslie.
”I don't know,”--he hesitated,--”but surely one doesn't live in a house like that!”
They had to laugh at the expression brought into his face by his sense of a mysterious incongruity.
”No,” he went on with knitted brows to reject the idea; ”a house like that--one doesn't come all the way from America to live in a house which has no more atmosphere than that!”
”Ah, but that's the point, Gerald,” said Mrs. Foss. ”What you call atmosphere these people avoid as they would an unsanitary odor.
Atmosphere! What would you say if you saw the things Leslie and I have been helping them to buy and put into it! I love to buy, you know, even when not for myself. I thought with joy, 'Now I shall at least go through the form of acquiring certain objects I have l.u.s.ted after for years.' Delightful old things Jerome has discovered in antiquarians'
places, and that we shall never be able to afford. Do you think I could persuade them to take one of these? I represented that the worm-holes could be stopped up and varnished over, that the missing bits of inlay, precious crumbs of pearl and ivory, could be replaced, the tapestries renovated. In vain. They want everything new--hygienically new, fresh, and s.h.i.+ning. And, Gerald, prejudice apart, the idea is not without its good side. The result is not so bad as you may think. Why, after all, should my taste, your taste, prevail in their house, will you tell me?”
”For no reason in the world. This liberal view comes the easier to me that I do not expect ever to see the interesting treasures you may have collected from Peyron's and Janetti's.”
”If it were no worse than that!” put in Leslie, and laughed a covered laugh.
Mrs. Foss explained, after a like little laugh of her own.
”You see, things that we have seen till we have utterly ceased to see them, the things that n.o.body who really lives in Florence ever dreams of buying, are new to these people. They _love_ them. As a result, you can guess. There will be in their apartments alabaster plates with profiles of Dante and Michelangelo on a black center. There will be mosaic tables with magnolias and irises. There will be Pliny's doves.
Think of it! There will be green bronze lamps and lizards--”
”And the fruit--tell about that, Mother!” Leslie prompted.
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