Betty said nothing, but laid her cheek over against Lucia’s soft hair.
“If you only understood Italian, Betty! Che peccato! That means ‘What a pity’—for I’ll forget myself and want to drop into my natural tongue when I’m telling about home and my father and mother. If I forget and say anything that you do not understand, just remind me, please.”
“I wish I did know Italian. Maybe I could learn to speak it some time.”
“It’s easy, especially when you know Latin and French.”
This was the introduction to Lucia’s story. She did drop into Italian at times, but caught herself. Betty missed nothing important.
“You can imagine, Betty, how I dreaded coming to America to stay when I tell you that it was at the end of a terrible quarrel between my father and mother. I do not mean a loud, awful time, but one of those still, quiet stiletto exchanges of opinions and decisions. My father accused my mother of not caring for him. Mother set her teeth and said that the matter was of no consequence one way or another because it was quite clear that he had never cared for her. And, Betty, both of them love each other dearly, though I suppose it has gone too far for anything but one of those dreadful divorces. This last talk was before me, and I tried to say something; but both of them told me to keep quiet. It had to be talked through.
“The point was this. My uncle had begged her to come for a while, writing her about Aunt Laura’s death and Grandmother’s condition and business worries, and some of her money is in the business, you know. Then she wanted to have me in American schools for a while. Also she was homesick. School was an excuse.
“That would have been an interesting thing for me if it had not been for the trouble between my father and my mother. He was tired of trips to America, he said. Oh, one thing led to another and they were so far apart it makes me sick to think about it all. Finally I think my father told her that if she went to America to stay any length of time, that is, to stay with me while I was having what she wanted in school for me, she need not come back, so far as he was concerned. And she said she never would. Betty, my mother packed up and so did my father; and after the next day—I’ve never seen my father since.”
Lucia choked a little, stopped and used the little handkerchief again.
“Before he married my mother he was interested in travel and hunting and all that. So he started right away, for an eastern trip first, over into India and other countries, and now he is on an African safari; he wrote me just before he left Cairo for some other point. I’ve heard from him as often as it was possible for him to write. He does not intend to let me go, you know. He said she might have her way for a while with the schools, but that he would come for me. He never asks how my mother is, or mentions her at all. But when I write, I tell him; for I know he wants to know. I tell him about how well she is and a little bit about what she is doing. In the last letter I said, ‘to keep from being too unhappy and missing you.’