Jerry

‘There seem to be a good many people beautiful as the angels in Paradise.’

‘She is most beautiful of all.’

‘What is her name?’

‘Costantina.’ He said it softly, his eyes on her face.

‘Ah,’ Constance rose and turned away with a shrug. Her manner suggested that he had gone too far.

‘She wash clothes at ze Hotel du Lac,’ he called after her.

Constance paused and glanced over her shoulder with a laugh.

‘Tony,’ she said, ‘the quality which I admire most in a donkey-driver, besides truthfulness and picturesqueness, is imagination.’

CHAPTER VII

On the homeward journey Tony again trudged behind while the officers held their post at Constance’s side. But Tony’s spirits were still singing from the little encounter on the castle platform, and in spite of the animated Italian which floated back, he was determined to look at the sunny side of the adventure. It was Mr. Wilder who unconsciously supplied him with a second opportunity for conversation. He and the Englishman, being deep in a discussion involving statistics of the Italian army budget, called on the two officers to set them straight. Tony, at their order, took his place beside the saddle; Constance was not to be abandoned again to Fidilini’s caprice. Miss   Hazel and the Englishwoman were ambling on ahead in as matter-of-fact a fashion as if that were their usual mode of travel. Their donkeys were of a sedater turn of mind than Fidilini—a fact for which Tony offered thanks.

They were by this time well over the worst part of the mountain, and the brief Italian twilight was already fading. Tony, with a sharp eye on the path ahead and a ready hand for the bridle, was attending strictly to the duties of a well-trained donkey-man. It was Constance again who opened the conversation.

‘Ah, Tony?’

‘Si, signorina?’

‘Did you ever read any Angleesh books—or do you do most of your reading in Magyar?’

‘I haf read one, two, Angleesh books.’

‘Did you ever read—er—The Lightning Conductor, for example?’

‘No, signorina; I haf never read heem.’

‘I think it would interest you. It’s about a man who pretends he’s a chauffeur in order to—to– There are any number of books with the same motive; She Stoops to Conquer, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Lalla Rookh, Monsieur Beaucaire—Oh, dozens of them! It’s an old plot; it doesn’t require the slightest originality to think of it.’

‘Si, signorina? Sank you.’ Tony’s tone was exactly like Gustavo’s when he   has failed to get the point, but feels that a comment is necessary.

Constance laughed and allowed a silence to follow, while Tony redirected his attention to Fidilini’s movements. His ‘Yip! Yip!’ was an exact imitation, though in a deeper guttural, of Beppo’s cries before them. It would have taken a close observer to suspect that he had not been bred to the calling.

‘You have not always been a donkey-driver?’ she inquired after an interval of amused scrutiny.

‘Not always, signorina.’

‘What did you do in New York?’

‘I play hand-organ, signorina.’

Tony removed his hand from the bridle and ground ‘Yankee Doodle’ from an imaginary instrument.

‘I make musica, signorina, wif—wif—how do you say, monk, monka? His name Vittorio Emanuele. Ver’ nice monk—simpatica affezionata.’

‘You’ve never been an actor?’

‘An actor? No, signorina.’

‘You should try it; I fancy you might have some talent in that direction.’

‘Si, signorina. Sank you.’

She let the conversation drop, and Tony, after an interval of silence, fell to humming Santa Lucia in a very presentable baritone. The tune, Constance noted, was true enough, but the words were far astray.

‘That’s a very pretty song, Tony, but you don’t appear to know it.’

‘I no understand Italian, signorina. I just learn ze tune because Costantina like it.’

‘You do everything that Costantina wishes?’

‘Everysing! But if you could see her you would not wonder. She has hair brown and gold, and her eyes, signorina, are sometimes grey and sometimes black, and her laugh sounds like–’

‘Oh, yes, I know; you told me all that before.’

‘When she goes out to work in ze morning, signorina, wif the sunlight shining on her hair, and a smile on her lips, and a basket of clothes on her head– Ah, zen she is beautiful!’

‘When are you going to be married?’

‘I do not know, signorina. I have not asked her yet.’

‘Then how do you know she wishes to marry you?’

‘I do not know; I just hope.’

He rolled his eyes toward the moon which was rising above the mountains on the other side of the lake, and with a deep sigh he fell back into Santa Lucia.

Constance leaned forward and scanned his face.

‘Tony! Tell me your name.’ There was an undertone of meaning, a note of persuasion in her voice.

‘Antonio, signorina.’

She shook her head with a show of impatience.

‘Your real name—your last name.’

‘Yamhankeesh.’

‘Oh!’ she laughed. ‘Antonio Yamhankeesh doesn’t seem to me a very musical combination; I don’t think I ever heard anything like it before.’

‘It suits me, signorina.’ His tone carried a suggestion of wounded dignity. ‘Yamhankeesh has a ver’ beautiful meaning in my language—“He who dares not, wins not.”’

‘And that is your motto?’

‘Si, signorina.’

‘A very dangerous motto, Tony; it will some day get you into trouble.’

They had reached the base of the mountain, and their path now broadened into the semblance of a road which wound through the fields, between fragrant hedgerows, under towering chestnut trees. All about them was the fragrance of the dewy, flower-scented summer night, the flash of fireflies, the chirp of crickets, occasionally the note of a nightingale. Before them out of a cluster of cypresses, rose the square graceful outline of the village campanile.

Constance looked about with a pleased, contented sigh.

‘Isn’t Italy beautiful, Tony?’

‘Yes, signorina, but I like America better.’

‘We have no cypresses and ruins and nightingales in America, Tony. We have a moon sometimes, but not that moon.’

They passed from the moonlight into the shade of some overhanging chestnut trees. Fidilini stumbled suddenly over a break in the path and Tony pulled him up sharply. His hand on the bridle rested for an instant over hers.

‘Italy is beautiful—to make love in,’ he whispered.

She drew her hand away abruptly, and they passed out into the moonlight again. Ahead of them where the road branched into the highway, the others were waiting for Constance to catch up, the two officers looking back with an eager air of expectation. Tony glanced ahead and added with a quick frown—

‘But perhaps I do not need to tell you that—you may know it already?’

‘You are impertinent, Tony.’

She pulled the donkey into a trot that left him behind.

The highway was broad and they proceeded in a group, the conversation general and in English, Tony quite naturally having no part in it. But at the corners where the road to the village and the road to the villa separated, Fidilini obligingly turned stubborn again. His mind bent upon rest and supper, he insisted upon going to the village; the harder Constance   pulled on the left rein, the more fixed was his determination to turn to the right.

‘Help! I’m being run away with again,’ she called over her shoulder as the donkey’s pace quickened into a trot.

Tony, awakening to his duty, started in pursuit, while the others laughingly shouted directions. He did not run as determinedly as he might, and they had covered considerable ground before he overtook them. He turned Fidilini’s head and they started back—at a walk.

‘Signorina,’ said Tony, ‘may I ask a question, a little impertinent?’

‘No, certainly not.’

Silence.

‘Ah, Tony?’ she asked presently.

‘Si, signorina?’

‘What is it you want to ask?’

‘Are you going to marry that Italian lieutenant—or perhaps the captain?’

‘That is impertinent.’

‘Are you?’

‘You forget yourself, Tony. It is not your place to ask such a question.’

‘Si, signorina; it is my place. If it is true I cannot be your donkey-man any longer.’

‘No, it is not true, but that is no concern of yours.’

‘Are you going on another trip Friday—to Monte Maggiore?’

‘Yes.’

‘May I come with you?’

His tone implied more than his words. She hesitated a moment, then shrugged indifferently.

‘Just as you please, Tony. If you don’t wish to work for us any more I dare say we can find another man.’

‘It is as you please, signorina. If you wish it, I come, if you do not wish it, I go.’

She made no answer. They joined the others and the party proceeded to the villa gates.

Lieutenant di Ferara helped Constance dismount, while Captain Coroloni, with none too good a grace, held the donkey. A careful observer would have fancied that the lieutenant was ahead, and that both he and the captain knew it. Tony untied the bundles, dumped them on the kitchen floor, and waited respectfully, hat in hand, while Mr. Wilder searched his pockets for change. He counted out four lire and added a note. Tony pocketed the lire and returned the note, while Mr. Wilder stared his astonishment.

‘Good-bye, Tony,’ Constance smiled as he turned away.

‘Good-bye, signorina.’ There was a note of finality in his voice.

‘Well!’ Mr. Wilder ejaculated. ‘That is the first–’ ‘Italian’ he started to say, but he caught the word before it was out—‘donkey-driver I ever saw refuse money.’

Lieutenant di Ferara raised his shoulders.

‘Machè! The fellow is too honest; you do well to watch him.’ There was a world of disgust in his tone.

Constance glanced after the retreating figure and laughed.

‘Tony!’ she called.

He kept on; she raised her voice.

‘Mr. Yamhankeesh.’

He paused.

‘You call, signorina?’

‘Be sure and be here by half-past six on Friday morning; we must start early.’

‘Sank you, signorina. Good night.’

‘Good night, Tony.’

CHAPTER VIII

The Hotel du Lac may be approached in two ways. The ordinary, obvious way, which incoming tourists of necessity choose, is by the high road and the gate. But the romantic way is by water. One sees only the garden then, and the garden is the distinguished feature of the place; it was planned long before the hotel was built to adorn a marquis’s pleasure house. There are grottos, arbours, fountains, a winding stream, and, stretching the length of the water front, a deep cool grove of interlaced plane trees. At the end of the grove, half a dozen broad stone steps dip down to a tiny harbour which is carpeted on the surface with lily pads. The steps   are worn by the lapping waves of fifty years, and are grown over with slippery, slimy water weeds.

The world was just stirring from its afternoon siesta, when the Farfalla dropped her yellow sails and floated into the shady little harbour. Giuseppe prodded and pushed along the fern-grown banks until the keel jolted against the water-steps. He sprang ashore and steadied the boat while Constance alighted. She slipped on the mossy step—almost went under—and righted herself with a laugh that rang gaily through the grove.

She came up the steps still smiling, shook out her fluffy pink skirts, straightened her rose-trimmed hat, and glanced reconnoitringly about the grove. One might reasonably expect, attacking the hotel as it were from the flank, to capture unawares any stray guest. But aside from a chaffinch or so and a brown and white spotted calf tied to a tree, the grove was empty—blatantly empty. There was a shade of disappointment in Constance’s glance. One naturally does not like to waste one’s best embroidered gown on a spotted calf.

Then her eye suddenly brightened as it lighted on a vivid splash of yellow under a tree. She crossed over and picked it up—a paper-covered French novel; the title was Bijou, the author was Gyp. She turned to the first page. Any reasonably   careful person might be expected to write his name in the front of a book—particularly a French book—before abandoning it to the mercies of a foreign hotel. But the several fly-leaves were immaculately innocent of all sign of ownership.

So intent was she upon this examination, that she did not hear footsteps approaching down the long arbour that led from the house; so intent was the young man upon a frowning scrutiny of the path before him, that he did not see Constance until he had passed from the arbour into the grove. Then simultaneously they raised their heads and looked at each other. For a startled second they stared—rather guiltily—both with the air of having been caught. Constance recovered her poise first; she nodded—a nod which contained not the slightest hint of recognition—and laughed.

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I suppose this is your book? And I am afraid you have caught me red-handed. You must excuse me for looking at it, but usually at this season only German Alpine climbers stop at the Hotel du Lac, and I was surprised, you know, to find that German Alpine climbers did anything so frivolous as reading Gyp.’

The man bowed with a gesture which made her free of the book, but he continued his silence. Constance glanced at him again, and this time she allowed a flash of recognition to appear in her face.

‘Oh!’ she re-exclaimed with a note of interested politeness, ‘you are the young man who stumbled into Villa Rosa last Monday looking for the garden of the prince?’

He bowed a second time, an answering flash appearing in his face.

‘And you are the young woman who was sitting on the wall beside a row of—of–’

‘Stockings?’ She nodded. ‘I trust you found the prince’s garden without difficulty?’

‘Yes, thank you. Your directions were very explicit.’

A slight pause followed, the young man waiting deferentially for her to take the lead.

‘You find Valedolmo interesting?’ she inquired.

‘Interesting!’ His tone was enthusiastic. ‘Aside from the prince’s garden, which contains a cedar of Lebanon and an india-rubber plant from South America, there is the Luini in the chapel of San Bartolomeo, and the statue of Garibaldi in the piazza. And then–’ he waved his hand toward the lake, ‘there is always the view.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘one can always look at the view.’

Her eyes wandered to the lake, and across the lake to Monte Maggiore with clouds drifting about its peak. And while   she obligingly studied the mountain, he studied the effect of the pink gown and the rose-bud hat. She turned back suddenly and caught him; it was a disconcerting habit of Constance’s. He politely looked away, and she—with frank interest—studied him. He was bareheaded and dressed in white flannels; they were very becoming, she noted critically, and yet—they needed just a touch of colour; a red sash, for example, and earrings.

‘The guests of the Hotel du Lac,’ she remarked, ‘have a beautiful garden of their own. Just the mere pleasure of strolling about in it ought to keep them contented with Valedolmo.’

‘Not necessarily,’ he objected. ‘Think of the Garden of Eden—the most beautiful garden there has ever been, if report speaks true—and yet the mere pleasure of strolling about didn’t keep Adam contented. One gets lonely, you know.’

‘Are you the only guest?’

‘Oh, no, there are four of us, but we’re not very companionable; there’s such a discrepancy in languages.’

‘And you don’t speak Italian?’

He shook his head.

‘Only English and’—he glanced at the book in her hand—‘French indifferently well.’

‘I saw some one the other day who spoke Magyar—that is a beautiful language.’

‘Yes?’ he returned with polite indifference.   ‘I don’t remember ever to have heard it.’

She laughed and glanced about. Her eyes lighted on the arbour hung with grape-vines and wistaria, where, far at the other end, Gustavo’s figure was visible lounging in the yellow stucco doorway. The sight appeared to recall an errand to her mind. She glanced down at a pink wicker-basket which hung on her arm, and gathered up her skirts with a movement of departure.

The young man hastily picked up the conversation.

‘It is a jolly old garden,’ he affirmed. ‘And there’s something pathetic about its appearing on souvenir post cards as a mere adjunct to a blue and yellow hotel.’

She nodded sympathetically.

‘Built for romance and abandoned to tourists—German tourists at that!’

‘Oh, not entirely—we’ve a Russian countess just now.’

‘A Russian countess?’ Constance turned toward him with an air of reawakened interest. ‘Is she as young and beautiful and fascinating and wicked as they always are in novels?’

‘Oh, dear no! Seventy, if she’s a day. A nice grandmotherly old soul who smokes cigarettes.’

‘Ah!’ Constance smiled; there was even a trace of relief in her manner as she nodded to the young man and turned away.   His face reflected his disappointment; he plainly wished to detain her, but could think of no expedient. The spotted calf came to his rescue. The calf had been watching them from the first, very much interested in the visitor; and now, as she approached his tree, he stretched out his neck as far as the tether permitted and sniffed insistently. She paused and patted him on the head. The calf acknowledged the caress with a grateful moo; there was a plaintive light in his liquid eyes.

‘Poor thing—he’s lonely!’ She turned to the young man and spoke with an accent of reproach. ‘The four guests of the Hotel du Lac don’t show him enough attention.’

The young man shrugged.

‘We’re tired of calves. It’s only a matter of a day or so before he’ll be breaded and fried and served Milanese fashion with a sauce of tomato and garlic.’

Constance shook her head sympathetically; though whether her sympathy was for the calf or the partakers of table d’hôte was not quite clear.

‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve been a guest at the Hotel du Lac myself—it’s a tragedy to be born a calf in Italy!’

She nodded and turned; it was evident this time that she was really going. He took a hasty step forward.

‘Oh, I say, please don’t go! Stay and   talk to me—just a little while. That calf isn’t half so lonely as I am.’

‘I should like to, but really I mustn’t. Elizabetta is waiting for me to bring her some eggs. We are planning a trip up the Maggiore to-morrow, and we have to have a cake to take with us. Elizabetta made one this morning, but she forgot to put in the baking powder. Italian cooks are not used to making cakes; they are much better at’—her eyes fell on the calf—‘veal and such things.’

He folded his arms with an air of desperation.

‘I’m an American—one of your own countrymen; if you had a grain of charity in your nature you would let the cake go.’

She shook her head relentlessly.

‘Five days at Valedolmo! You would not believe the straits I’ve been driven to in search of amusement.’

‘Yes?’ There was a touch of curiosity in her tone. ‘What for example?’

‘I am teaching Gustavo how to play tennis.’

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘How does he do?’

‘Broken three windows and a flower-pot and lost four balls.’

She laughed and turned away; and then as an idea occurred to her, she turned back and fixed her eyes sympathetically on his face.

‘I suppose Valedolmo is stupid for a   man; but why don’t you try mountain-climbing? Everybody finds that diverting. There’s a guide here who speaks English—really comprehensible English. He’s engaged for to-morrow, but after that I dare say he’ll be free. Gustavo can tell you about him.’

She nodded and smiled and turned down the arbour.

The young man stood where she left him, with folded arms, watching her pink gown as it receded down the long sun-flecked alley hung with purple and green. He waited until it had been swallowed up in the yellow doorway; then he fetched a deep breath and strolled to the water-wall. After a few moments’ prophetic contemplation of the mountain across the lake, he threw back his head with a quick amused laugh, and got out a cigarette and lighted it.

CHAPTER IX

As Constance emerged at the other end of the arbour, Gustavo, who had been nodding on the bench beside the door, sprang to his feet, consternation in his attitude.

‘Signorina!’ he stammered. ‘You come from ze garden?’

She nodded in her usual off-hand manner and handed him the basket.

‘Eggs, Gustavo—two dozen if you can spare them. I am sorry always to be   wanting so many, but’—she sighed—‘eggs are so breakable!’

Gustavo rolled his eyes to heaven in silent thanksgiving. She had not, it was evident, run across the American, and the cat was still safely in the bag; but how much longer it could be kept there the saints alone knew. He was feeling—very properly—guilty in regard to this latest escapade; but what can a defenceless waiter do in the hands of an impetuous young American whose pockets are stuffed with silver lire and five-franc notes?

‘Two dozen? Certainly, signorina. Subitissimo!’ He took the basket and hurried to the kitchen.

Constance occupied the interval with the polyglot parrot of the courtyard. The parrot, since she had last conversed with him, had acquired several new expressions in the English tongue. As Gustavo reappeared with the eggs, she confronted him sternly.

‘Have you been teaching this bird English? I am surprised!’

‘No, signorina. It was—it was–’ Gustavo mopped his brow. ‘He jus’ pick it up.’

‘I’m sorry that the Hotel du Lac has guests that use such language; it’s very shocking.’

‘Si, signorina.’

‘By the way, Gustavo, how does it happen   that that young American man who left last week is still here?’

Gustavo nearly dropped the eggs.

‘I just saw him in the garden with a book—I am sure it was the same young man. What is he doing all this time in Valedolmo?’

Gustavo’s eyes roved wildly until they lighted on the tennis-court.

‘He—he stay, signorina, to play lawn-tennis wif me, but he go to-morrow.’

‘Oh, he is going to-morrow?—What’s his name, Gustavo?’

She put the question indifferently while she stooped to pet a tortoise-shell cat that was curled asleep on the bench.

‘His name?’ Gustavo’s face cleared. ‘I get ze raygeester; you read heem yourself.’

He darted into the bureau and returned with a black book.

‘Ecco, signorina!’ spreading it on the table before her.

His alacrity should have aroused her suspicions; but she was too intent on the matter in hand. She turned the pages and paused at the week’s entries; Rudolph Ziegelmann und Frau, Berlin; and just beneath, in bold black letters that stretched from margin to margin, Abraham Lincoln, U.S.A.

Gustavo hovered above, anxiously watching her face; he had been told that this would make everything right, that   Abraham Lincoln was an exceedingly respectable name. Constance’s expression did not change. She looked at the writing for fully three minutes, then she opened her purse and looked inside. She laid the money for the eggs in a pile on the table, and took out an extra lira which she held in her hand.

‘Gustavo,’ she asked, ‘do you think that you could tell me the truth?’

‘Signorina!’ he said reproachfully.

‘How did that name get there?’

‘He write it heemself!’

‘Yes, I dare say he did—but it doesn’t happen to be his name. Oh, I’m not blind; I can see plainly enough that he has scratched out his own name underneath.’

Gustavo leaned forward and affected to examine the page. ‘It was a li’l’ blot, signorina; he scratch heem out.’

‘Gustavo!’ Her tone was despairing. ‘Are you incapable of telling the truth? That young man’s name is no more Abraham Lincoln than Victor Emmanuel II. When did he write that, and why?’

Gustavo’s eyes were on the lira; he broke down and told the truth.

‘Yesterday night, signorina. He say, “Ze next time zat Signorina Americana who is beautiful as ze angels come to zis hotel she look in ze raygeester, an’ I haf it feex ready.”’

‘Oh, he said that, did he?’

‘Si, signorina.’

‘And his real name that comes on his letters?’

‘Jayreem Ailyar, signorina.’

‘Say it again, Gustavo.’ She cocked her head.

He gathered himself together for a supreme effort. He rolled his r’s; he shouted until the courtyard reverberated.