I
The first time that I saw her was in Rome. I was governess to the children at the British Embassy, and every morning before breakfast I took them out into the Borghese Gardens.
They were very good, insignificant little children, and never gave me any trouble. Whilst they played tame little games between the grey-green olive trees, I used to watch the more amusing Italian children in the Gardens, the biggest groups consisting of pupils from the great white Convento dell’ Assunzione, on the corner of the Pincio.
But the little girl in whom I took the greatest interest was always by herself. An enormous grey limousine would leave her at the entrance to the Gardens, and fetch her away again at the end of an hour. Sometimes the limousine, which was always empty except for a liveried chauffeur, appeared to have forgotten her, and then I was obliged to take my children away, leaving her serious and solitary, and quite undisconcerted, sitting on her bench. I judged her to be about eight years old, and the child of rich people. Her white embroidered dresses, far too elaborate, were expensive, and she always wore white shoes and stockings.
At first, her nationality puzzled me. Her quite straight hair was black, cropped short round her beautifully shaped little head in a fashion that was then very unusual, and her lashes were as long and as black as those of any Roman-born child. But her grave eyes were of a deep grey, and her skin, fine and colourless. Perhaps she was scarcely pretty, but her poise, her erect gracefulness, above all, her unmistakable air of breeding, made her remarkable. It was that air of aristocracy that made me feel sure that, in spite of her independence, she was not American. One gets to know, after seven years spent in the best families. The American children are well-drilled, well-dressed, well-behaved—sometimes—but they never achieve that look of distinction. Some of the French ones have it, but then those are the children of the old Catholic families, and so they are poor, and generally badly dressed. On the whole, it is to be seen amongst the English as often as anywhere—and then, it is almost always accompanied by the expression that denotes, to an experienced governess, either stupidity or adenoids—and sometimes, indeed, both.
My little aristocrat of the Borghese Gardens spoke Italian perfectly. I heard her greet the chauffeur when he came for her, and those were the times when she was most childlike. The man very often let her take the wheel, after he had started the car, and I used to watch, not without misgivings, the great car sliding away, with the small erect figure in the driving-seat, her straight black fringe blowing back from her forehead, her tiny hands gripping the big wheel.
My charges, it need hardly be said, might never speak to strange children, but one day the unknown little girl restored to me a toy that one of them had dropped the day before.
“I found it, after you’d gone,” she said very politely and distinctly.
I knew then that she must be English, at least in part.
My children were playing at a distance, and after thanking her for returning the plaything, I sat down on the stone bench that she had made her own.
After an instant’s hesitation, she sat down there, too.
We entered into conversation.
I asked whether she lived in Rome.
“No. My papa is here on business for a little while, and then we are going to Paris again.”
“Your home is in Paris, then?”
She looked rather puzzled. “I don’t know Paris well,” she observed apologetically. “We were only there once before, when mama was with us. It was a nice hotel, I thought, but noisy. This one—the Grand—is better. Have you been much in Paris?”
“Not since I was at school there. My French was acquired in Paris,” I added, automatically.
One says that kind of thing so often, to please the parents.
“Mademoiselle aime parler francais, hein?” she enquired, with a little smile.
Her French was as perfect as her Italian, or her English; and it was evidently natural to her to speak either language.
“Are you English?” I could not refrain from asking her.
“My papa is Italian—mama was half English, and half French.”
Was? Then her mother must be dead. That would account for the empty limousine, and the strange independence of the child.
“Mama is in New York, now, we think,” she remarked. “I am to join her when I am ten; that was arranged for, in the deed of separation.”
“Separation?” said I.
“There is no divorce in Italy,” said the little creature, shrugging her shoulders. “Papa is a Catholic, though not, of course pratiquant. They have been separated since I was seven.”
“Then who—who——” I wanted to ask who looked after her, but such a form of words seemed singularly inappropriate. “Who looks after your papa’s house?” I found at last.
“We are in hotels, most of the time, papa and I, and my maid, Carlotta, but in the holidays—les grandes vacances—we go to the country somewhere—villegiatura—and there is a lady then, always.”
Her grave eyes looked at me. “A different one,” she explained, “each time.”
Her very complete understanding of the status held by the “ladies” was implicit in her manner, but that struck me less poignantly than did her philosophical acceptance of all that they stood for.
The grey limousine came into sight, and she made an amiable little sign to the chauffeur.
“I must go now. It doesn’t do to keep the auto waiting.”
In her grave little voice, was all the circumspection of the child that has learnt to fend for itself, that knows by experience that it will only be tolerated so long as it gives no trouble, runs counter to no prejudices, is guilty of no indiscretions.
“It has been so pleasant to talk to someone English. Good-bye Miss——?”
Her little pause was exactly that of a grown-up person, before an unknown or unremembered name. And what precocity of discernment had told her that “Miss” was the suitable prefix?
“Miss Arbell,” said I. “Tell me your name before you go.”
“Laura di san Marzano.”
She pronounced Laura in the Italian way—Lah-o-ra.
When I held out my hand, she kissed it, as Italian children do, and after she had climbed to the driving-seat, she waved to me, before turning the grey car down the hill.
I looked for her every morning after that, but she never came to the Borghese Gardens again.