Part 12 (1/2)
”Wouldn't it be a lovely house to give a party in?” she asked him.
”Isn't it exactly right to give a party in? There are two big spare chambers upstairs at the back that would do, one for gentlemen, one for ladies, to lay off their things in. No use; we shall have to give a party.”
Having returned upstairs, he was without any false delicacy shown her bedroom and her friend's bedroom and their dressing-rooms, as well as given a peep into the two spare rooms, as yet incompletely furnished, that he might get an idea how beautiful these were going to be when finally industry and good taste had been brought to bear on them.
At dinner, which Mrs. Hawthorne seemed to have a fixed preference for calling supper, it was Gerald who did most of the talking. The ladies abandoned the lead to him, and listened with flattering attention while he called into use his not too sadly rusted social gifts. He related what he knew about the Indian Prince whose monument at the far end of the Cascine had roused their interest. He explained the Misericordia. He asked if they had noticed the wonderful figures of babies over the colonnade of the Foundling Hospital, and told them how the ”infantile asylum,” as he rendered it, was managed. He tried to amuse them by the episodes from which certain streets in Florence have derived their names, Street of the Dead Woman, Street of the Dissatisfied, Burg of the Blithe.
Whenever he stopped there was silence, which he hastened again to break.
”You talk like Leslie,” suddenly remarked Mrs. Hawthorne.
But now came the hot biscuits and the syrup, borne in by the mystified butler at the same time as the more conventional dessert prepared by the cook.
Aurora smiled at the biscuits' beautiful brown and, having broken one to test its lightness, nodded in self-approval.
”They're all right. Now you want to put on lots of b.u.t.ter,” she said.
”Here, that's not near enough,” she reproved him. She reached over, took his biscuit, b.u.t.tered it as she thought it should be b.u.t.tered, and returned it to his plate; then, while eating, watched him eat with eyes that expressed her simple love of feeding up any one, man or animal, so lean as he.
There had been s.h.i.+ning in Aurora's eyes all this evening, when they rested on him, a look of great kindness, the consequence of knowing how badly life had treated him, and desiring that compensation should be made. He could not fail to feel that warm ray playing over his bleak surface. He could not but think what nice eyes Mrs. Hawthorne had.
When he asked her if she knew how to make many other such delicious things it became her turn to talk. Estelle here joined in, and they exalted the fare of home, affecting the fiction of having found nothing but frogs' legs, c.o.c.ks' combs, and snails to feed upon since they struck Italy. Blueberry-pie--did Mr. Fane remember it? Fried oysters! Buckwheat cakes!
He said he remembered, but did not confess to any great emotion.
”You wait till Thursday,” said Aurora. ”It's Thanksgiving. We're going to have chicken-pie, roast turkey, mince-pie, squash-pie, everything but cranberry sauce. We can't get the cranberries. Will you come?”
In haste and confusion he said, alas! it would be impossible, wholly impossible, intimating that he was a man of a thousand engagements and occupations.
But after an interval, and talk of other things, he inquired, with an effect of enormous discretion, whether he might without too great impertinence ask who was coming to eat that wonderful Thanksgiving dinner which her own hands, he must suppose, would largely have to prepare.
”Just the Fosses. All the Fosses.”
”Ah, Mr. Foss will feel agreeably like the great Turk.”
”You mean he'll be the only man? I guess he can stand it. We thought of asking Charlie Hunt, too, but he's English and would seem an outsider at this particular gathering. Wish you'd come. You're such a friend of theirs. Come on, come!”
”Mrs. Hawthorne, you are so very unusually kind. If you would leave it open, and then when the day arrives, if I should find I could do so without--without--”
”Oh, yes. Come if you can. And be sure, now, you come!”
They were still sitting at the table--dinner had been r.e.t.a.r.ded by the circ.u.mstantial round of the house--when music resounding through the echoing rooms stopped the talk.
It was the piano across the hall that had been briskly and powerfully attacked. The ”Royal March” of Italy was played, first baldly, then with manifold clinging and wreathing variations.
Aurora signed to the servant to open the dining-room door. All three at the table sat in silence till the end of the piece.
Gerald wondered what the evening caller could be who made the moments of waiting light to himself in this fanciful manner.
”It's Italo,” said Mrs. Hawthorne, rising. ”I call him Italo because I never can remember his other name. Come, let's go into the parlor.”
It was all rosily lighted. Candles set on the piano at each side of the music-rest enkindled glossy high lights on the nose-b.u.mp and forehead bosses of Signor Ceccherelli, who at Mrs. Hawthorne's appearance sprang up to salute. She reached him her hand, over which he deeply bowed.