“All the rest have gone to Monaco for the day; I preferred to stay at home and write letters. They are done now, and I am going to Valrosajr to sketch, will you come?” said Amy, as she joined Laurie one lovely day when he lounged in as usual about noon.
“Well, yes, but isn’t it rather warm for such a long walk?” he answered slowly, for the shaded salon looked inviting after the glare without.
“I’m going to have the little carriage, and Baptiste can drive, so you’ll have nothing to do but hold your umbrella, and keep your gloves nice,” returned Amy, with a sarcastic glance at the immaculate kids, which were a weak point with Laurie.
“Then I’ll go with pleasure.” And he put out his hand for her sketchbook. But she tucked it under her arm with a sharp—
“Don’t trouble yourself. It’s no exertion to me, but you don’t look equal to it.”
Laurie lifted his eyebrows and followed at a leisurely pace as she ran downstairs, but when they got into the carriage he took the reins himself, and left little Baptiste nothing to do but fold his arms and fall asleep on his perch.
The two never quarreled—Amy was too well-bred, and just now Laurie was too lazy, so in a minute he peeped under her hatbrim with an inquiring air; she answered with a smile, and they went on together in the most amicable manner.
It was a lovely drive, along winding roads rich in the picturesque scenes that delight beauty-loving eyes. Here an ancient monastery, whence the solemn chanting of the monks came down to them. There a bare-legged shepherd, in wooden shoes, pointed hat, and rough jacket over one shoulder, sat piping on a stone while his goats skipped among the rocks or lay at his feet. Meek, mouse-colored donkeys, laden with panniers of freshly cut grass, passed by, with a pretty girl in a capalinejs sitting between the green piles, or an old woman spinning with a distaff as she went. Brown, soft-eyed children ran out from the quaint stone hovels to offer nosegays, or bunches of oranges still on the bough. Gnarled olive trees covered the hills with their dusky foliage, fruit hung golden in the orchard, and great scarlet anemones fringed the roadside; while beyond green slopes and craggy heights, the Maritime Alpsjt rose sharp and white against the blue Italian sky.
Valrosa well deserved its name, for in that climate of perpetual summer roses blossomed everywhere. They overhung the archway, thrust themselves between the bars of the great gate with a sweet welcome to passers-by, and lined the avenue, winding through lemon trees and feathery palms up to the villa on the hill. Every shadowy nook, where seats invited one to stop and rest, was a mass of bloom, every cool grotto had its marble nymph smiling from a veil of flowers, and every fountain reflected crimson, white, or pale pink roses, leaning down to smile at their own beauty. Roses covered the walls of the house, draped the cornices, climbed the pillars, and ran riot over the balustrade of the wide terrace, whence one looked down on the sunny Mediterranean, and the white-walled city on its shore.
“This is a regular honeymoon paradise, isn’t it? Did you ever see such roses?” asked Amy, pausing on the terrace to enjoy the view, and a luxurious whiff of perfume that came wandering by.
“No, nor felt such thorns,” returned Laurie, with his thumb in his mouth, after a vain attempt to capture a solitary scarlet flower that grew just beyond his reach.
“Try lower down, and pick those that have no thorns,” said Amy, gathering three of the tiny cream-colored ones that starred the wall behind her. She put them in his buttonhole as a peace offering, and he stood a minute looking down at them with a curious expression, for in the Italian part of his nature there was a touch of superstition, and he was just then in that state of half-sweet, half-bitter melancholy, when imaginative young men find significance in trifles and food for romance everywhere. He had thought of Jo in reaching after the thorny red rose, for vivid flowers became her, and she had often worn ones like that from the greenhouse at home. The pale roses Amy gave him were the sort that the Italians lay in dead hands, never in bridal wreaths, and for a moment he wondered if the omen was for Jo or for himself; but the next instant his American common sense got the better of sentimentality, and he laughed a heartier laugh than Amy had heard since he came.
“It’s good advice, you’d better take it and save your fingers,” she said, thinking her speech amused him.
“Thank you, I will,” he answered in jest, and a few months later he did it in earnest.
“Laurie, when are you going to your grandfather?” she asked presently, as she settled herself on a rustic seat.
“Very soon.”
“You have said that a dozen times within the last three weeks.”
“I dare say, short answers save trouble.”
“He expects you, and you really ought to go.”
“Hospitable creature! I know it.”
“Then why don’t you do it?”
“Natural depravity, I suppose.”
“Natural indolence, you mean. It’s really dreadful!” And Amy looked severe.
“Not so bad as it seems, for I should only plague him if I went, so I might as well stay and plague you a little longer, you can bear it better; in fact, I think it agrees with you excellently.” And Laurie composed himself for a lounge on the broad ledge of the balustrade.
Amy shook her head and opened her sketchbook with an air of resignation, but she had made up her mind to lecture “that boy,” and in a minute she began again.
“What are you doing just now?”
“Watching lizards.”
“No, no. I mean what do you intend and wish to do?”
“Smoke a cigarette, if you’ll allow me.”
“How provoking you are! I don’t approve of cigars and I will only allow it on condition that you let me put you into my sketch. I need a figure.”
“With all the pleasure in life. How will you have me—full-length or three-quarters, on my head or my heels? I should respectfully suggest a recumbent posture, then put yourself in also, and call it ‘Dolce far niente.’ ” ju
“Stay as you are, and go to sleep if you like. I intend to work hard,” said Amy in her most energetic tone.
“What delightful enthusiasm!” And he leaned against a tall urn with an air of entire satisfaction.
“What would Jo say if she saw you now?” asked Amy impatiently, hoping to stir him up by the mention of her still more energetic sister’s name.
“As usual, ‘Go away, Teddy, I’m busy!’” He laughed as he spoke, but the laugh was not natural, and a shade passed over his face, for the utterance of the familiar name touched the wound that was not healed yet. Both tone and shadow struck Amy, for she had seen and heard them before, and now she looked up in time to catch a new expression on Laurie’s face—a hard, bitter look, full of pain, dissatisfaction, and regret. It was gone before she could study it and the listless expression back again. She watched him for a moment with artistic pleasure, thinking how like an Italian he looked, as he lay basking in the sun with uncovered head and eyes full of southern dreaminess, for he seemed to have forgotten her and fallen into a reverie.
“You look like the effigy of a young knight asleep on his tomb,” she said, carefully tracing the well-cut profile defined against the dark stone.
“Wish I was!”
“That’s a foolish wish, unless you have spoiled your life. You are so changed, I sometimes think—” There Amy stopped, with a half-timid, half-wistful look, more significant than her unfinished speech.
Laurie saw and understood the affectionate anxiety which she hesitated to express, and looking straight into her eyes, said, just as he used to say it to her mother, “It’s all right, ma‘am.”
That satisfied her and set at rest the doubts that had begun to worry her lately. It also touched her, and she showed that it did, by the cordial tone in which she said—
“I’m glad of that! I didn’t think you’d been a very bad boy, but I fancied you might have wasted money at that wicked Baden-Baden, lost your heart to some charming Frenchwoman with a husband, or got into some of t
he scrapes that young men seem to consider a necessary part of a foreign tour. Don’t stay out there in the sun, come and lie on the grass here and ‘let us be friendly,’ as Jo used to say when we got in the sofa corner and told secrets.”
Laurie obediently threw himself down on the turf, and began to amuse himself by sticking daisies into the ribbons of Amy’s hat, that lay there.
“I’m all ready for the secrets.” And he glanced up with a decided expression of interest in his eyes.
“I’ve none to tell; you may begin.”
“Haven’t one to bless myself with. I thought perhaps you’d had some news from home.”
“You have heard all that has come lately. Don’t you hear often? I fancied Jo would send you volumes.”
“She’s very busy. I’m roving about so, it’s impossible to be regular, you know. When do you begin your great work of art, Raphaella?” he asked, changing the subject abruptly after another pause, in which he had been wondering if Amy knew his secret and wanted to talk about it.
“Never,” she answered, with a despondent but decided air. “Rome took all the vanity out of me, for after seeing the wonders there, I felt too insignificant to live and gave up all my foolish hopes in despair.”
“Why should you, with so much energy and talent?”
“That’s just why—because talent isn’t genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing. I won’t be a common-place dauber, so I don’t intend to try any more.”
“And what are you going to do with yourself now, if I may ask?”