Richard Richard — Reading Companion

“I?” he parried. “Not interested.”

“Not interested in Naples and Pompeii?” she inquired incredulously. “Oh, you’ve been there before, I see.”

“No; I’ve never been there. I--uh--just prefer to--uh--stay here.... I like to be alone.”

“Thank you!” cheerily.

She looked at him expectantly.

He took some time before he said serenely, “I can’t say it.”

“What?” But she knew what.

“The obvious complimentary thing. A woman does that with amazing skill,” he mused. “She directs a conversation into a position where the man must make her a pretty speech. Oh, it’s all right; but it interferes shockingly.”

“Interferes with what?” This time she did not know what.

“With any rational conversation,” he explained calmly. “I don’t mind your company. In fact, I have enjoyed it. But I do like to be alone. I’ve spent most of my life alone. On this trip abroad I’ve fought my right to be my own travelling-companion. These are just facts, like the boat’s sailing to-night at nine; but a man can’t tell them to a pretty woman (“Thank you,” she slipped in) without her pretending to take them personally. So she says ‘thank you!’--only in jest, I know--and then I must say some foolish flattery, but the conversation is--well, it cannot go on with the same directness with which a man talks to a man.... You see I’m not complaining. This is just another fact. I’m really interested in it.... Men are forced to treat women like pretty children. Why do women stand it?”

“They don’t always like it,” she wrinkled her forehead and puzzled over the matter, “but men are such ‘jolliers,’ you know.”

“Fancy a man flattering another man!” he went on. The idea interested him. He seemed to be forgetting the woman beside him; certainly he had completely forgotten the thought born of her first approach, that she was just the sort of person to have plenty of money--somebody else’s, a father’s or a husband’s--and to offer it, too. Of course he had not intended to ask for anything. He knew enough to know that she would lend. He had been in that precise predicament before. Money had always come to him. You see, if he had looked the part of poor-man, beggar-man, thief, the world would have turned coldly away; but he was built on mighty prosperous lines. One felt, at the first glance, that here was an athletic aristocrat. He was just that in reality; but he was mortgaged to the last hedge-row.

So the thought of taking her predestined offer of money slipped from him. He was not a scheming mind. The gods took care of such things. Let them! The important matter just now was the consideration of the droll picture of two males saying sweet things apropos of each other’s eyes and noses.

He chuckled. “Fancy trying to have a discussion with a man on the subject, say, of a possible life after death, and have him lean over, stare at the top of your head, and with a tremendous assumption of interest exclaim, ‘Jove, man, I do like the way you brushed your hair this morning! With the sun striking the brown edges it is absolutely stunning!’”

They discussed flattery and women. The man slowly forgot his reserve, while the woman, with subtle native flattery, listened. Four bells rang out sharply from forward, repeated far off in the engine-room below. Ten o’clock.

“Well!” the lady exclaimed. “Perhaps I should prefer to see Naples and Pompeii alone, but I haven’t the nerve. I’m willing to knock around in Paris or London, but when it comes to Italy I’m scared. The men look at me, especially the toughs, in a way that makes my flesh creep. Goodness knows _I_ wish men would forget I’m a woman, but they don’t seem to want to.... See here ... why can’t we take the trip together? Oh, I’d let you be practically alone,” she answered his quick uplook. “You’d just be there as a protection.... Will you?”

He turned his head and regarded her quizzically, like an amused elder brother. He was older. His clean-shaven face had a medley of lines in it which showed superior years.

“I should be delighted,” he remarked. His intonation carried precisely the information that his phrase was absolutely polite and absolutely non-committal.

“Oh, rot!” she laughed, but she showed impatience. “Don’t be so foolish and conventional. You do want to see the place. You said you did. And I want to go, too. It’s nothing extraordinary. It’s just the same as if I asked you to play shuffle-board. Honest, you do want to go; don’t you?”

“Yes,” he half-drawled, but made no effort to move from a convenient sprawl over the rail.

“Then let’s,” she begged. “This place is making me ill.... Oh, very well,” she took his silence for obstinacy. “I’ll stay.... No, I won’t. I’ll be hanged if I do. The heat is too much and the smells are worse. I’ll risk it. I’ll go it alone.... _Why_ won’t you go with me?”

He searched in his pockets carefully and finally presented a flat leather wallet.

“You force me to admit my very embarrassing position.” As he fumbled with the strap on the wallet she understood. The word “embarrassing” was in itself illuminating.

“Oh!” she gasped, shocked at her own stupidity. What an idiot! She had been gabbling to this man when all the while he had been warning her to keep off!

By this time he had opened the wallet and had drawn from its case a single five-dollar bill.

“_That_ is why,” he remarked. “I am down to five dollars, which I must not touch until I land in New York. That five dollars is my sole anchor to windward. Fortunately meals and sleeping-apartment are paid for on board; but my ticket says nothing about side-trips. Therefore I should not dare step on that gang-plank. I consider myself lucky--mighty lucky--to arrive on board so safe financially as this. Forgive me for the confession; but you must admit that you forced it. Awfully sorry, too; for, now that you understand, I don’t mind telling you that this is the hottest, dirtiest, ill-smellingest spot imaginable. Would I like to go to the top of that hill and look my fill and breathe!” He straightened up suddenly. “_Lord!_”

“Then let’s go!” she cried. “Let’s! I’ve got money; heaps of it.” She dived into a bag she carried with her. “Look here!” she flashed a packet of various coloured bank-notes. In an inner compartment she showed him a mixture of sovereigns and gold louis. “The purser will give me Italian money. He said he would this morning. Wait! I’ll get a hat.”

She sped across the deck and around the corner before he could protest. To her stateroom she went first and added a veil about her hat, selected a parasol and donned long thin gloves. Then to the purser’s.

“What time do we sail to-night?” she asked as the official made the change of money.

“To-night?” he echoed. “We stay here until to-morrow morning. We sail at six to-morrow. There is a notice posted.”

“Thank you,” she said, and sped to the bulletin-board. In three languages the purser was verified. In a moment more she was back on the promenade-deck.

“Here!” she gave him a small purse. “You’ll have to do the spending. Come on! It’ll be a great lark. We still have time. There’s a _voiture_ or whatever they call it. He’s looking up. He’ll take us somewhere. Come on! Oh, it’s all right! It’s on me. My treat. Come on! Don’t be foolish.... Now, what’s the matter?”

He had accepted the purse; but otherwise he had not moved.

“Wait a bit,” he spoke with quiet authority. “I can’t do this as your treat.”

“Let me hire you as a guide, then,” she ventured.

“No,” he laughed; “I----”

“Well, let’s Dutch it, then. We’ll divide expenses--you pay me in New York.”

“I won’t have anything in New York but five dollars.”

“Pay it back whenever you get it.”

“All right,” he agreed quietly. “But----”

“That may be a long while.”

“I don’t care. I want to see Naples.”

“I’m not over-careful about paying debts. I’m likely to repudiate,” he warned. “My memory is almost useless.”

“Well, leave it to me in your will and--hurry!”

Five bells tolled off smartly. The lady strode forward and tugged at his arm. He laughed quietly and followed.

“Really,” he told her as they slid down the steep plank, “I’m awfully keen for this trip.”

“Oh, yes, you are--not,” she looked him over with a meaning glance. “But I don’t care. I couldn’t stay on that boat all day. There’s that _cocher_. Quick, get him before he drives away. I love those old dinky carriages, don’t you? Hey!” she called and waved a parasol. “_Ici!_ Come over here! We want to get in!”

The Italian understood perfectly. And where would madame and m’sieu wish to go? To the Italian all well-dressed foreigners are French.

“To the top of that hill first,” the madame commanded. M’sieu remarked, “We must not get too far away. We sail at nine to-night; and clocks are not very dependable in these parts.”

“Yes, we must be careful about the time,” she agreed, but offered no word of the more recent information she had received from the purser. “We can have one good glorious dinner somewhere and be back easily by half-past eight,” she told him.

They had turned a corner of the creaking winding road which gave suddenly a little glimpse of the Bay.

“Look!” she exclaimed. They turned their heads. “It is beginning to be blue already! U-m!” she sniffed. “Did you get that delicious scent? What is it? Lilac?... And look over there! Still bluer.”

“Cerulean blue, every yard of it guaranteed,” he remarked lazily; but there was no doubt he was taking it in as eagerly as she. To the lady this was one of many possible trips abroad. To the man it was a sight of Italy, almost withheld like the Promised Land from Moses of old, now made a reality; the promise fulfilled of seven years’ mean living.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed on one rise of ground; the assumption of indifference was hard to keep up. “By Jove!” he stared and breathed in the perfumed air. “This is paradise! And Italians come to America to clean the streets and sell fruit! How can they leave it? How ever can they leave it?”

The “dinky” carriage plodded slowly up the hill. The grey tile-topped roofs began to huddle together below them. Old Vesuvius grew to look less like a flat ash-heap. Far off in the background ranges of higher hills began to push solemnly skyward. And the Bay of Naples slowly expanded, and softened, and yielded up its velvet blue.

“Isn’t it great?” the lady said, gazing afar.

“Great!” the man replied. “Wonderful!”

So absorbed were they in their personal sensations of delight that it was not until they had arrived at the top and were moving on the level towards a “hotel with a view,” that the thoughts of luncheon coupled themselves somehow with the thought of names.

From a dangling bag the lady had produced a “steamer-list.”

“Don’t tell me yet,” she warned. “This is tremendously exciting. I am wondering if you could be, let me see--‘Abbott’--no,” she looked him over carefully--“you never would be an ‘Abbott.’ ‘Bacon,’ ‘Baker,’ ‘Boileau,’ ‘Crespi’--you might be that, especially when you spoke Italian to the driver. ‘Dr.’--you’re not a doctor, are you?” She showed some dismay.

“Guess on!” he played the game firmly.

“Well, there’s one thing you’re not,” she pointed to the “list.”

He leaned forward to read the name. The wagonette was stopping with a lurch at the spacious beflowered front of a hotel.

“‘Sir Richard Helvyn,’” she laughed.

“Why not?” he inquired mildly.

“Don’t scare me,” she laughed inquiringly. “Are you?”

The happy driver was waiting at the open door, whip in hand, smiling knowingly. A bride and groom, perhaps. The tip would betray them. Beside him a flunkey or two were ready to escort the pair into the hotel. A wizened beggar-woman raised silent-speaking eyes and extended a hand. The m’sieu opened a thin deep purse, obviously a lady’s--and extracted therefrom a gold coin and a smaller one of silver.

“That will be exactly right,” he nodded to the driver, who, after one glance, was now certain--they were veritable bride and groom.

Deftly, almost without looking, he dropped the silver coin into the palm of the beggar. It was done with skill; and it said, “Begone, my good woman; the sight of you arouses my pity, but do not, pray, take it to mean a soft heart; and whatever you do, breathe not my generosity to your pestilential fellows.”

The woman understood, smiled gratefully, and slipped away.

The smoothness of the two transactions was not lost on the “bride.” There had been no noisy, staccato expostulations from the driver, nor any sickening whines from the beggar; the business was handled with the dispatch of accustomed skill. Could he be Sir What’s-his-name, after all? What a lark!

THE antiquated horse had taken all the time until noon to reach the summit, so the inn-keeper had rushed instantly to provide the lady and gentleman with a private dining-room. It had a trellised portico overlooking the Bay. Here they sat and gazed. They forgot, for the moment, the interrupted conversation over “names”; even the broad suggestion of “bride and groom” that beamed from the faces of the driver, the hotel porters, mine host himself in the doorway and, afar off, mine hostess. The panorama of Naples took rank above everything else.

“No wonder the poets tried so hard to tell us about this,” she spoke finally.

“But I do wonder,” he returned. “How could they be such egotists? No writing can do justice to that,” he pointed towards the deeper blue; “one might as well try to score it for kettle-drums. It can’t be translated. All landscape poetry is a failure, a failure from the start. It can’t be conveyed to others.”

“Perhaps,” she mused, “the poet was not interested in others. Perhaps he wished merely to celebrate himself.”

He turned towards her suddenly.

“You touch me hard there,” he said. “Do you know whom you’re quoting?”

“Do you know Whitman--really know him?”

“How blunt you are,” but she showed no resentment. “Yes, I really know Whitman. Also, I hereby give notice that I am much less frivolous than I look.”

“I’m a little daft on Whitman,” he apologized.

“You don’t think he is immoral?” he asked incredulously.

“I think he is super-moral.”

“You do know him, then,” he admitted, half-aloud.

“Any more cross-examination?”

“How did you come to take to Whitman?” This was the first time he had seemed to suggest any interest in her personally. She noted the change in him, but gave no sign.

“The Woman’s Club,” she answered.

“No, Penn Yan, a town of 4,000 inhabitants in New York. I live there.”

“Ah!” he exclaimed mysteriously.

“Dear me! Haven’t you heard of Penn Yan?”

“Not heard of the Walker Bin Company?”

“Nor the Birkett Mills?”

“Nor the ‘Benham House’?”

“Nor Quackenbush’s chain of two drug stores?”

“Oh, dear!” she affected delightful concern.

“Surely you have heard of Lake Keuka, and the Keuka grape vineyards?” She leaned forward with mischief in her eyes.

“Have you ever eaten a grape, my dear Sir Knight?”

“A good, great, luscious blue grape?”

“Well,” he hesitated, “y-es. Yes; I am sure to have eaten one. Now that I put my mind to it, I recall that it was especially large and sweet and----”

She leaned back, contented.

“Well, _that_ was a Keuka Lake grape.”

He was studying her, as one would a specimen of the thing you collect.

“Is Penn--Penn Ying----”

“Is Penn Yan your summer home or----”

“It is my all-the-year home. I was born there. This is my first adventure from the family hearth.”

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm might have made that speech.

“Ah!” he remarked. “Ah! That explains much.”

“Go on,” she smiled. “Spring it. What’s the answer? What is the ‘much’ my living in Penn Yan explains?”

“You are charmingly of the village; for which I am grateful. Otherwise, we should not have been on this delightfully unconventional trip.”

“Oh, you must see Penn Yan,” she chirped, “especially on Saturday night. Our Main Street is paved,” she added archly, “and we have an electric line and sweetly subdued arc-lights. But of course I don’t live in the throbbing town--that would be too exciting. We live far off down the Lake, in Jerusalem township. You see, Sir--Sir----” she hesitated, plucked out her steamer-list and went on, “--Sir Richard, we are really not even villagers; we are, I fear, hopelessly rural.”

Her satiric tone was not lost on “Sir Richard.” He would have been stupid else.

“Rural? Not a doubt of it!” he admitted. “You lend me money on sight and take me for a title and no questions asked. What makes you think I am Sir Richard?”

“I don’t think so now; and I’m awfully sorry. Your enunciation is sort of English--you know--clear, broad vowels, lots of sharp ‘t’s,’ no ‘r’s’ to speak of; but you haven’t once said, ‘Quite so,’ or ‘Really!’ or ‘Silly ass!’”

“I am half English. I went to school in England.”

“Ah!” she mimicked. “That explains much--ah!--much! And was it a school in the country?”

“Yes!” he explained eagerly. “Quite in the country. It was an omnibus and two trains away from London.”

“Ah!” She “ah-ed” very significantly, and added, “Much! Ah, much--much.”

“We’re even,” he owned.

“Only even?” she opened her eyes very wide.

He was about to surrender completely when the host in the doorway announced luncheon.

It was a cosy, intimate dining-room; small table set for two; uniformed butler standing rigid off to the side; maid, also in uniform, moving swiftly in and out a door and serving deftly--exactly the suggestion of a dinner _en famille_.

“That is the head of the table, dear,” said the lady.

The man was so startled, especially when he glanced back to the placid, innocent face of the lady, that he neglected to take any place at all.

“Can’t you see that this is a domestic scene?” she explained; “regular man-and-wife stage-set. They expect it of us.... Beautiful, expensive scenery,” she murmured, “spoiled by a wretched actor.”

Then she nodded her head towards the uniformed attendant, and began again.

“That is the head of the table, I think, _dear_.”

He grinned and made for the seat.

“That is the head; is it not, _my dear_?” she persisted.

“It is--what, _my dear_?”

“It is the head of the table.”

“The head of the table, _my_----”

She cocked her head and waited to catch the completed phrase.

“_Dear!_” he finished, not without embarrassment.

“You miss your cues dreadfully,” she went on briskly. “Tell the gendarme to pass the rolls, Richard dear.”

“Madame will have the rolls,” “Richard” managed in Italian. “I don’t think the gendarme comprehends English, so your little domestic playette is wasted, my--uh--darling.”

“Thenk you, m’lud,” the gendarme remarked in good cockney as he deftly removed the rolls and started towards madame.

“You’re English?” m’lud ejaculated.

“Me, m’lud? Yes, thenk you, m’lud.”

“Yes, thenk you, m’lud. And would m’lady prefer the toasted muffins?”

M’lady preferred nothing so much as the open enjoyment of m’lud’s discomfiture. There was a certain boldness and a certain shyness about m’lud, typical of England. At present the awkward self-consciousness was to the fore. It was consuming him, although he was intelligent enough to know exactly his trouble and its remedy. Therefore he laughed, owned up to the embarrassment and summoned his will to fight it down.

“Even Half-English is still very English,” she told him, after she had explained carefully that his face had flushed and that the tips of his ears were quite red--all more or less comforting. In the give and take of raillery that followed he almost recovered.