|
Book 1Ten
The city was very sloppy on the morning after the snow-storm, and Lucy did not take her usual walk along the Lake; she was afraid of splashing her new dress. She went straight to the Arts Building. How glad she was to greet the hall porter, and to step into the elevator once more!
"I haven`t bothered you for some time, have I, George? Mr. Sebastian is home again?"
"Yes, miss. He got in early yesterday morning."
Lucy was astonished. He got back yesterday? Why, the telegram had come yesterday, saying he would arrive today--but no, the message didn`t really say that, she remembered. He must have sent it just before he got on the train at St. Paul. She hadn`t noticed the date. How strange, when he could have sent her word from this building yesterday! However, that was probably his way of doing things,--and she was already at the studio door.
Sebastian opened it, in his elkskins and short jacket as usual, but he looked younger and fresher than when he went away. He laughed as she came in, and dropped both hands lightly on her shoulders.
"And here she is! Let me have a look at you, and tell me whether you have been a good girl all this while. A new dress, too; such a pretty one!"
While he detained her in the entry hall, she vaguely noticed a heavy fragrance of fresh flowers in the air. Going into the music room, she saw that the tea table had been moved from its usual place beside the coal grate, and on it stood a large primrose- tinted vase, full of cream-coloured roses and heavy, drooping sprays of acacia. She exclaimed and stopped to look at them on her way to the piano. They were rich and opulent beyond anything she had ever seen.
"Yes, a kind lady, an old friend, stopped over in Chicago yesterday and called on me. This morning, on her way to the train, she brought me those, just as they are."
Lucy had never seen mimosa except in florists` windows, and she lingered over it; it seemed like a whole garden from the South. "I think that lady must have been a sweetheart," she murmured.
Sebastian smiled. "Perhaps. And perhaps she remembers things as sweeter than they were. That often happens. And it`s a mercy, too!" He was arranging the music for her. "We will begin Die schone Mullerin and go straight along until we are tired. I feel like work this morning."
She thought she had never heard him sing so beautifully, but she was much too timid to say so. He went through the cycle before he stopped. Then he brought out his bottle of port and they sat down before the fire. He began to tell her about his concerts in the North, and said he liked engagements with singing societies.
"Many singers don`t, you know. But I always feel such a friendliness in the people of the chorus; and I like them, especially when they sing well. In Minneapolis the sopranos were very good. The basses, too; most of them Germans and Swedes. The people in choral societies really get something out of music, something to help them through their lives, not something to talk about. Plumbers and brewers and bank clerks and dressmakers, they wouldn`t be there unless it meant something; it cuts one night out of their week all winter."
Just then he was called to the telephone to speak with his agent. When he came back, Lucy was again bending over the flowers. He picked up the vase and stood holding it between himself and the light.
"Yes, they`re nice, aren`t they? Very suggestive: youth, love, hope--all the things that pass." He turned around to the fire and took up the cigarette he had left on the mantel.
In that moment while he seemed absent-minded Lucy slipped into the hall and put on her coat and hat. She came back to say good-bye. He was still standing by the grate, smoking, more approachable than usual; but when he took her hand he was clearly thinking about something else.
"Mr. Sebastian," she asked him, her face breaking into a smile, "didn`t you ever get any pleasure out of being in love?"
He shook his head slowly, frowned with his brows and smiled with his lips. "N-n-no, not much." Then turning to find an ash-tray, he said mischievously: "Why?--Do you?"
Lucy found herself at the door with her hand on the knob. She wanted nothing so much as to be outside, but for some reason she stopped and turned to face him, without seeing him at all.
"Yes, I do. And nobody can spoil it."
She could hear her own voice, small and cracked because there was no breath behind it. Once outside the door she did not ring for the elevator, but ran down the five flights of stairs as fast as she could.
When she was a little girl she used to run away after she had been scolded, along the country road that led toward the Platte, faster and faster, as if she could leave hurt feelings behind. Now in the same way she went hurrying across the city, splashing the new dress she had meant to take care of. She was crying, and she did not care who saw her. She would never go back to the studio. If she couldn`t keep her feelings to herself, she must stay away. All the same, it was heartless of him to make fun of her; it was just the kind of thing she would never have expected of him. He had been seeing a woman who was rich and beautiful and cultivated, who had everything that she had not. His spirits were high, and his vanity had been flattered; he found Lucy Gayheart amusing. The moment she saw those flowers she had felt a sudden uneasiness, and a vague envy of the unknown person who had a right to send him roses worth their weight in gold. Until today she could not have imagined that he would ever be unkind to her; indifferent, perhaps, but not unkind. Moreover, he was mistaken. She didn`t care for him in that way. She didn`t want anything from him; she didn`t even want him to be too much aware of her. Why had he said that?
When Lucy was almost home she suddenly stopped and stood still, looked down into the mud with intense amazement on her face. It was quite possible that he had not meant at all what she thought! What did he know about her life, after all? He might easily take it for granted that she had a sweetheart among the students. She was pretty, at an age when it is quite natural to be in love. Older men often teased young girls in that way as a compliment. Her shoulders relaxed, and she walked on slowly.
Then perhaps everything was all right, or would be but for that stupid speech she had made at the door. Oh, why had she exposed her wound and her anger! How often Pauline had told her that one day she would come to grief from blurting out everything she felt.
She had not been in her own room half an hour when a messenger boy came with a telegram. He said the answer was prepaid, and he must wait for it. She tore open the envelope with a feeling of dread. It was from Sebastian, asking whether she could meet him for tea at the Auditorium at five o`clock. He added the word "important."
She couldn`t, just then, bear the thought of seeing him. Fortunately, she had a sound reason for refusing. She wrote a truthful answer.
"I am sorry, but I have to give a lesson for Professor Auerbach at five."
She did not want to sign her name, but the messenger boy insisted that it was necessary. After he was gone, she looked from the yellow sheet in her hand to the other telegram on her dresser, which had come only yesterday. What had happened in the meantime? She gave it up; she was too tired to think. Let chance take its way. She lay down and slept for nearly two hours. When she got up at four o`clock to go to Auerbach`s studio she was quite herself again.
Lucy kept her pupil longer than usual that afternoon. Mr. Auerbach came to the door and asked her to stop at his study before she left the building. When she went there, she found Clement Sebastian seated by Auerbach`s desk, talking to him. He rose as she entered and held out his hand. He said he wanted to see her about tomorrow`s work, and as she had no telephone he had thought he might reach her through Auerbach. "I have a cab waiting outside, so I may as well take you home, we can talk on the way. And now I shall find where this young lady lives, Paul. To me her number indicates the middle of the Chicago River."
When they were seated in the cab he came to the point at once.
"Now, my dear, whatever did you mean by flying off like that this morning? One is always saying things of that sort to young people. It`s not in very good taste, perhaps, but it`s customary, and we`ve grown used to it--surely YOU must be used to it! Why were you so annoyed?"
Lucy looked out of the carriage window. She found it rather difficult to explain.
"I don`t know, Mr. Sebastian. I felt ashamed afterwards. I think it must have been something in the way you said it. I was startled. Please never think of it again. I know you didn`t mean anything unkind."
"Unkind? Lucy, my dear! Come, we must trust each other more than that. We mustn`t have little clouds creeping over our mornings. We can`t afford it. Sailing dates come soon enough, and then we`ll be sorry."
As they turned a corner the green lights of the bakery windows came into view. In a moment the cab stopped.
"So this is where you live! If you won`t come over to me for tea, I shall come here and have coffee with you. A very substantial place it looks." He accompanied her to the foot of the linoleum- covered wooden stairs and stood for a moment, holding his hat in his hand and smiling down into her face. His eyes still had that livelier look she had noticed in the morning. "Till tomorrow, then? And I`ll be as solemn as an owl. No joking with Lucy!"
The next morning it was Giuseppe who opened the door for her, beaming and rapidly exploding into speech. By this time she could understand him pretty well. Sebastian had given her an Italian grammar one day, and told her she might as well pick up what she could. Giuseppe explained that Sebastian had been called upstairs to see Signor Cunningham, who was ill, but would return in a moment. Meanwhile she must sit down and get warm. He dropped on his knees and began blowing the fire. Then he went on with his dusting, telling her all the while what good fortune it was for her, so young, to work with a great artist like Sebastian. Education was everything in this world; if his father had been able to send him to school, he would not now fare il cameriere. For the first time it occurred to Lucy that even this smiling little man might have his regrets. And had he, in his uncanny way, sensed that something went wrong yesterday?
|
