Mae Madden

CHAPTER III.

Edith and Mae had a quarrel one morning. Mae’s tongue was sharp, but although she breezed quickly, she calmed again very soon. The latter fact availed her little this time, for Edith maintained a cold displeasure that would not be melted by any bright speeches or frank apologies. “Edith,” said little Miss Mae, quite humbly for her, as she put on her hat, and drew on her gloves, “Edith, aren’t you going out with me?” “What for?” asked that young person indifferently.

“Why—for fun, and to make up. Haven’t you forgiven me yet?”

Edith did not reply directly. “I am going out with mamma to buy our dominoes for the Carnival, and to see our balcony. Albert has engaged one for us, on the corner of the Corso and Santa Maria e Jesu. I suppose you can go too. There will be an extra seat. We’ll come home by the Pincian Hill.”

“Thank you,” said Mae, “but I will get Eric and go for a tramp,” and she left the room with compressed lips and flushed cheeks. In the hall were Albert, Eric and Norman, talking busily. “Where are you going Eric, mayn’t I go too, please?” “I’m sorry Mae, but this is an entirely masculine affair—five-button gloves and parasols are out of the question.”

“O, Ric, I am half lonely.” Mae laughed a little hysterically. At that moment she caught Mr. Mann’s eyes, full of sympathy. “But goodbye,” she added, and opened the door, “I’m going.”

“Alone?” asked Norman, involuntarily.

“Yes, alone,” replied Mae. “Have you any objections, boys?” Eric and Albert were talking busily and did not hear her. Norman Mann held open the door for her to pass out, and smiled as she thanked him. She smiled back. She came very near saying, “I’m sorry I was rude the other day, forgive me,” and he came very near saying, “May I go with you, Miss Mae?” But they neither of them spoke, and Norman closed the door with a sigh, and Mae walked away with a sigh. It was only a little morning’s experience, sharp words, misunderstandings; but the child was young, far from home and her mother, and it seemed hard to her. She was in a very wild mood, a very hard mood, and yet all ready to be softened by a kind, sympathetic word, so nearly do extremes of emotion meet.

“There’s no one to care a pin about me,” said she to herself, “not a pin. I have a great mind to go and take the veil or drown myself in the Tiber. Then they would be bound to search for me, and convent vows and Tiber mud hold one fast. No, I won’t, I’ll go and sit in the Pincian gardens and talk Italian with the very first person I meet and forget all about myself. I wish Mr. Mann wouldn’t pity me. Dear me, here I am remembering these forlorn people again. I wish I could see mamma and home this morning,—the dear old library. Why the house is shut up and mamma’s south. I forgot that, and here am I all alone. It is like being dead. There, I have dropped a tear on my tie and spoiled it! Besides, if one is dead, there comes Heaven. Why shouldn’t I play dead, and make my own Heaven?” Here Mae seated herself, for she was on the Pincio by this time, and looked off at the view, at that wonderful view of St. Peter’s, the Tiber, all the domes and rising ruins and afar the campagna. “I wouldn’t make my Heaven here,” thought this dreadful Mae, “not if it is beautiful. I’d not stay here a single other day. Bah no!” and she shook her irreverent little fist right down at the Eternal City.

At this moment, a small beggar, who had been pleading unnoticed at her side, was lifted from his feet by a powerful hand, and a shower of soft Italian imprecations fell on Mae’s ear. She sprang up quickly, “No, no,” she cried in Italian, “how dare you hurt a harmless boy?” She lifted her face full toward that of the man who had inspired her wrath, and her eyes met those of the Piedmontese officer. She blushed scarlet.

“Pardon, a thousand pardons,” began he. “It was for your sake, Signorina. I saw you shake your hand that he should leave you, and I fancied that the little scamp was troubling the foreign lady.”

Mae laughed frankly, although she was greatly confused. The officer and the beggar boy behind him waited expectantly. “I shook my hand at my thoughts,” she explained. “I did not see the boy. Forgive me, Signor, for my hasty words.”

The officer enjoyed her confusion quietly. He threw a handful of small coin at the beggar, and bade him go. Then he turned again to Mae. “I am sorry, Signorina, that your thoughts are sad. I should think they would all be like sweet smiles.” He said this with an indescribable delicacy and gallantry, as if he half feared to speak to her, but his sympathy must needs express itself.

Mae was, as we have seen, in a reckless, wild mood. She did not realize what she was doing. She had just broken down all barriers in her mind, was dead to her old life, and ready to plan for Heaven. And here before her stood a wonderful, sympathizing, new friend, who spoke in a strange tongue, lived in a strange land was as far removed from her old-time people and society as an inhabitant of Saturn, or an angel. She accepted him under her excitement, as she would have accepted them. No waiting for an introduction, no formal getting-acquainted talk, no reserve. She looked into the devoted, interested eyes above her, and said frankly:

“I was feeling all alone, and I hate Rome. I thought I would like to play I was dead, and plan out a Heaven for myself. It should not be in Rome. And then I suppose I shook my fist.”

“Where would your Heaven be?” asked the Piedmontese, falling quickly, with ready southern sympathy, into her mood. Mae seated herself on the bench and made room for him at her side.

“Where should it be?” she repeated. “Down among the children of the sun, all out in the rich orange fields, by the blue Bay of Naples, I think, with Vesuvius near by, and Capri; yes, it would be in Sorrento that I should find my heaven.”

The officer smiled under his long moustaches. “For three days,—at a hotel, Signorina.”

“No, no; with the peasants. I am tired and sick of books, and people, and reasons. Shall I give you a day of my Heaven?”

Bero smiled and bent slightly forward and rested his hand lightly on the stick of her parasol, which lay between them. “Go on,” he said.

“I would fill my apron with sweet flowers and golden fruit—great oranges, and those fragrant, delicious tiny mandarins—and I would get a crowd of little Italians about me, all a-babbling their pretty, pretty tongue, and I would go down to the bay and get in an anchored boat, and lie there all the morning, catching the sunlight in my eyes, trimming the brown babies and the boat with flowers, looking off at the water and the clouds, tossing the pretty fruit, and laughing, and playing, and enjoying. Later, there’d be a run on the beach, and a ride on a donkey, and a dance, with delirious music and frolic. And then the moon and quiet,—and I would steal away from the crowd, and take a little boat, and float and drift—”

“Alone?” asked Bero, softly. “Surely, you wouldn’t condemn a mountaineer’s yellow moustache, or a soldier’s spurs and sword, if at heart he was really a child of the sun also? May I share your day of Heaven? It would be paradise for me, too.” All this in the same soft, deferential manner.

“Well, well,” half laughed, half sighed Mae. “All this is a dream, unless, indeed, I go home with Lisetta.”

“Who is Lisetta?”

“Our padrona’s cousin. She is here on a visit. She lives within a mile of Sorrento, on the coast. She goes home at the end of Carnival. Oh, how I do long for Carnival,” continued Mae, frankly and confidentially. “Don’t you? I am like a child over it, I am trying already to persuade Eric—that is my brother—to take me down on the Corso the last night, for the Mocoletti. It would be much better fun than staying on our balcony.”

“Where is your balcony?” asked Bero, stroking his long moustaches.

“It is on the corner of Maria e Jesu, and if I ever see you coming by, I shall be tempted to pepper your pretty uniform. How beautiful it is!”

“Yes,” replied Bero, again gazing proudly down at his lithe figure, in its well-fitting clothes, “but I would be willing to be showered with confetti daily to see you. How shall I know you? What is to be the color of your domino?” And he bent forward, hitting his spurs against the paving stones, flashing his deep eyes, and half reaching out his hand, in that same tender, respectful way.

Mae saw the sunlight strike his hair; she half heard his deep breath; and, like a flood, there suddenly swept over her the knowledge that this new friend, this sympathizing soul, was an unknown man, and that she was a girl. What had she done? What could she do? Confusion and embarrassment suddenly overtook her. She bent her eyes away from those other eyes, that were growing bolder and more tender in their gaze. “I—I—” she began, and just at this very inauspicious moment, while she sat there, flushed, by the stranger’s side, the clatter of swiftly-approaching wheels sounded, and a carriage turned the corner, containing Mrs. Jerrold, Edith, Albert, and Norman Mann. They all saw her.

Mae laughed. It was such a dreadful situation that it was funny, and she laughed again. “Those are my friends,” she said, in a low voice. “We can walk away,” replied the officer, and turned his face in the opposite direction. “It is too late; and, besides, why should we?” And Mae looked full in his face, then turned to the carriage, which was close upon them.

“How do you all do?” she cried, gleefully and bravely. “Isn’t there room for me in there? Mrs. Jerrold, I would like to introduce Signor—your name?”—she said, quite clearly, in Italian, turning to the officer.

“Bero,” he replied.

“Signor Bero. He was very kind, and saved me from—from a little beggar boy.”

“You must have been in peril, indeed,” remarked Mrs. Jerrold, bowing distantly to Bero, and beckoning the coachman, as Mae sprang into the carriage, to drive on. “I am sorry to put you on the box, Norman,” Mrs. Jerrold added, as Mae took the seat, in silence, that Mr. Mann had vacated for her, “and I hope Miss Mae is also.” But Mae didn’t hear this. She was plucking up courage in her heart, and assuming a saucy enough expression, that sat well on her bright face. Indeed, she was a pretty picture, as she sat erect, with lips and nostrils a trifle distended, and her head a little in the air. The Italian thought so, as he walked away, smiling softly, clicking his spurs and stroking his moustache; and Norman Mann thought so too, as he tapped his cane restlessly on the dash-board and scowled at the left ear of the off horse. The party preserved an amazed and stiff silence, as they drove homeward.

“Eric,” cried Norman, very late that same night. “Do be sober, I have something to say to you about Miss Mae.”

“Norman, old boy, how can a fellow of my make be sober when he has drunk four glasses of wine, waltzed fifteen times, and torn six flounces from a Paris dress? Why, man, I am delirious, I am. Tra, la, la, tra, la, la. Oh, Norman, if you could have heard that waltz,” and Eric seized his companion in his big arms and started about the room in a mad dance. “You are Miss Hopkins, Norman, you are. Here goes—” but Norman struck out a bold stroke that nearly staggered Eric and broke loose. “For Heaven’s sake, Eric, stop this fooling; I want to speak to you earnestly.”

“Evidently,” replied Eric, with excited face, “forcibly also. Blows belong after words, not before,” and the big boy tramped indignantly off to bed.

Norman Mann was in earnest truly, forcible also, for he opened his mouth to let out a very expressive word as Eric left the room. It did him good seemingly, for he strode up and down more quietly. At last he sat down and began to talk with himself. “Norman Mann, you’ve got to do it all alone,” he said. “Albert and Edith and Aunt Martha are too vexed and shocked to do the little rebel any good. Ric, oh, dear, Ric is a silly boy, God bless him, and here I am doomed to make that child hate me, and with no possible authority over her, or power, for that matter, trying to keep her from something terribly wild. If they don’t look out, she will break loose. I know her well, and there’s strong character under this storm a-top, if only some one could get at it. Damn it.” Norman grew forcible again. “Why can’t I keep my silly eyes away from her, and go off with the fellows. You see,” continued Norman, still addressing his patient double, “she is a rebel, and—pshaw, I dare say it is half my fancy, but I hate that long moustached officer. I wish he would be summoned to the front and be shot. O, I forgot, there’s no war. Well, then, I wish he would fall in love with any body but Mae. It must be late. Ric didn’t leave that little party very early, I’m sure, but I can’t sleep. I’ll get down my Sismondi and read awhile. I wonder if that child is feeling badly now. I half believe she is—but here’s my book.”

Yes, Mae was feeling badly, heart-brokenly, all alone in her room. After a long, harrowing talk with Mrs. Jerrold, at the close of which she had received commands never to go out alone in Rome, because it wasn’t proper, she had been allowed to depart for her own room. Here she closed the door leading into Mrs. Jerrold’s and Edith’s apartment, and opened her window wide, and held her head out in the night air—the poisonous Roman air. The street was very quiet. Now and then some late wayfarer passed under the light at the corner, but Mae had, on the whole, a desolate outlook—high, dark buildings opposite, and black clouds above, with only here and there a star peeping through.

She had taken down her long hair, thrown off her dress, and half wrapped herself in a shawl, out of which her bare arms stretched as she leaned on the deep window seat. She looked like the first woman—of the Darwinian, not the Biblical, Creation. There was a wild, half-hunted expression on her face that was like the set air of an animal brought suddenly to bay. She thought in little jerks, quick sentences that were almost like the barking growls with which a beast lashes itself to greater fury.

“They treated me unfairly. They had no right. I shall choose my own friends. How dare they accuse me of flirting? I flirt, pah! I’d like to run away. This stupid, stupid life!” And so on till the sentences grew more human. “I suppose Mr. Mann thinks I am horrid, but I don’t care. I wish I could see Eric, he wouldn’t blame me so. What a goose I am to mind anyway. The Carnival is coming! Even these old tombs must give way for ten whole riotous days. I must make them madly merry days. I wonder how I will look in my domino. I suppose the pink one is mine.”

So Miss Mae dried her eyes, picked her deshabille self from the window seat, turned up the light, slipped into her pink and white carnival attire, and walked to the window again.

“This is the Corso all full of people, and I’ll pelt them merrily, so, and so, and so!” She reached forth her bare, round arm into the darkness, and looked down, where, full under the street light, gazing up at her, stood the Piedmontese officer.

It was at that very moment that Norman Mann put down his Sismondi, and looked from his window also.