Part 20 (1/2)
”Funny, when I don't know the people, or just know them by sight, and they and the life are all so foreign and apart from me, gossip about them doesn't seem the same as gossip at home. It's more like Antonia's novels, condensed and told in the queerest Englis.h.!.+ It was some time before I could make out what he meant when he said two gentlemen had fought a duel because one of them had found the other nasconding in his garden-house. The one thus found obstinated himself, says Italo, to maintain that he had come to make a copy of the architectural design over the door. But as he didn't seem to have any pencil--”
”Mrs. Hawthorne, how can you be amused by such disgusting stuff?”
She gazed at him inquiringly, with very blue eyes and a look of innocence, real or put on, then laughed.
”I am, just. I can't tell you the how of it. Do you know Italo's sister Clotilde?”
”I have not that advantage, no.”
”You soon will have, if you care for it, for she's coming to live with us.”
He stared.
”Yes, she's coming to keep house. She speaks English quite well, because she's had so much to do with English and Americans, being a teacher of Italian and French. It began with Italo wanting us to take lessons of her. But, bless you, I don't want to study! I can pick up all I need without. We said, however, 'Bring her to see us.' And he did. She's real nice.”
”Does she resemble her brother?”
”In some ways. I've an idea, though, that you'd like her better than you seem to do him. I believe we shall be very well satisfied with her, and shall save money. Since we seem to have got on to the subject of money to-day: Luigi, the butler, who has everything under him now, Estelle says is a caution to snakes, the way he robs us. Now, we're easy-going and, I dare say, fools; but not darn, darn fools. It's a mistake to think we wouldn't see a thing big's a mountain, and that you could cheat us the way that handsome, fine-mannered, dignified villain Loo-ee-gy thinks he can. So we're going to put in his place a nice woman who is, in part, our friend, and will care to see that we're dealt fairly with.
Clotilde doesn't seem to mind giving up her lessons to come and be a sort of elegant housekeeper for us.”
”I understand.”
”Charlie Hunt is disgusted about it, because when we complained of Luigi before him, he said he would find us exactly the right person to take his place. But, you see, we didn't wait. I don't see that we were bound to. What do you think?”
”It is a case, dear Mrs. Hawthorne, where I must not allow myself to say what I think.”
”Personally, I must say I was rather glad to have Clotilde step in as she did, because I don't mind telling you--you won't tell anybody else?--I find just the least little bit of a disposition in that young man Charlie to run things in this house. D'you know what I mean? I suppose it's the way he's made. He has been awfully kind, and helped a lot in all sorts of ways, and I like him ever so much; but I was glad to check him just a little, and put who I pleased over my own servants, and then go on just as good friends with him as ever.”
”Mrs. Hawthorne, why don't you make Mrs. Foss your adviser in all such matters? She is so kind always and of such good counsel. It would be so much the safest thing.”
”Of course; but it was she who found Luigi for us, you see. She can't always know. As far as Charlie Hunt is concerned, I don't want you to think that we think any less of him than before. He's good and kind as can be, and does ever so many nice things for us. We were at his apartment the other day, where he had a tea-party expressly for us, with his cousins there, and Mr. Landini and two or three others. And then when he heard me say I like dogs he promised to give me a dog, one of those lovely clown dogs,--poodles,--with their hair cut in a fancy pattern, when he can lay his hand on a real beauty.”
”Mrs. Hawthorne”--Gerald almost lifted himself off his seat with the emphasis of his cry,--”Don't let him give you a dog!”
She looked at him in amazement.
”Why, what's wrong?”
”Don't! don't! Can't you see that you must not let him give you a dog?”
”No, I can't. Why on earth?”
”After what you said a few minutes ago,” he stammered, feeling blindly for reasons, ”which shows that you have something to complain of in his conduct toward you, you ought not to allow him to give you a dog. A dog--you don't understand, and I can't make you. It will be too awful!”
”You surely are the queerest man I have ever known,” she said sincerely.
To which he did not reply.
He restrained himself from blurting out that Charlie Hunt, for such and such reasons, could never deserve the extreme privilege of giving her a dog. Leslie had once casually spoken the true word about Charlie.
”Charlie has no real inside,” she had said, and continued, nevertheless, to like him well enough. He was young, handsome, in his way attractive.