Betty Lee, Junior Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  LUCIA'S CONFIDENCES

  There was room for the two girls on the cushions of the silken couchthat was rather broader than the ordinary _chaise longue_. Goldenhair and dark hair mingled, after Lucia arranged the cushions andsettled down herself with her head in the curve of Betty's shoulderand neck. She possessed herself of Betty's hand and said, "I hopeyou don't mind these close quarters."

  "I'm as comfy as can be," returned Betty, giving a squeeze to theslender hand.

  "You are such a comfortable person, Betty Lee, and I don't feel thatyou are ready to take up everything a girl says or does to criticizeit. I've been envying Carolyn and Kathryn for seeing so much ofyou."

  "Why, Lucia!" cried Betty, very much surprised. "I have time formore than one or two friends!"

  "I know it and that is why I want to talk to you about things. Bythe way, Grandmother called you Mary, I noticed. There was a youngfriend of Aunt Laura's, when she was a girl, by that name--Unclesaid. If Grandmother could go to sleep by 'Willie' and never wakeup, except in heaven, it would be a blessing. I'm glad I thought oftaking the dolls to her, though it might have started a good deal oftrouble, too. But she usually takes everything sweetly. That's theadvantage of having a good disposition, I suppose, if you lose yourmind."

  "I'm afraid it might not make any difference; but its worthcultivating anyhow," suggested sensible Betty.

  "'Like sweet bells jangled and out of tune' Uncle says her mind is,but not 'harsh,' as Ophelia says of Hamlet. I thought of it when wewere reading Hamlet in English the other day. But that isn't what Iwant to talk to you about. It is what I am going to do about stayingin America--and that brings in other things. I hardly know how tobegin."

  Betty said nothing, but laid her cheek over against Lucia's softhair.

  "If you only understood Italian, Betty! _Che peccato!_ That means'What a pity'--for I'll forget myself and want to drop into mynatural tongue when I'm telling about home and my father and mother.If I forget and say anything that you do not understand, just remindme, please."

  "I wish I did know Italian. Maybe I could learn to speak it sometime."

  "It's easy, especially when you know Latin and French."

  This was the introduction to Lucia's story. She did drop intoItalian at times, but caught herself. Betty missed nothingimportant.

  "You can imagine, Betty, how I dreaded coming to America to staywhen I tell you that it was at the end of a terrible quarrel betweenmy father and mother. I do not mean a loud, awful time, but one ofthose still, quiet stiletto exchanges of opinions and decisions. Myfather accused my mother of not caring for him. Mother set her teethand said that the matter was of no consequence one way or anotherbecause it was quite clear that he had never cared for her. And,Betty, both of them love each other dearly, though I suppose it hasgone too far for anything but one of those dreadful divorces. Thislast talk was before me, and I tried to say something; but both ofthem 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 andbusiness worries, and some of her money is in the business, youknow. 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 beenfor the trouble between my father and my mother. He was tired oftrips to America, he said. Oh, one thing led to another and theywere so far apart it makes me sick to think about it all. Finally Ithink my father told her that if she went to America to stay anylength of time, that is, to stay with me while I was having what shewanted in school for me, she need not come back, so far as he wasconcerned. And she said she never would. Betty, my mother packed upand so did my father; and after the next day--I've never seen myfather since."

  Lucia choked a little, stopped and used the little handkerchiefagain.

  "Before he married my mother he was interested in travel and huntingand 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 otherpoint. I've heard from him as often as it was possible for him towrite. He does not intend to let _me_ go, you know. He said shemight have her way for a while with the schools, but that he wouldcome 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 tellhim 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 andmissing you.'

  "I _casually mention_ hearing from my father to my mother and Ileave the letter where she can read it, pretending to take it forgranted that she will read it, of course. But Mother wouldn't askfor the letters and for a long time I think she didn't read them,till one day I wanted to look up something my father said about whathe was doing and I found several old letters to me lying on Mother'sdesk. Of course she had been called somewhere and had forgotten totake them back to my room. It did not matter, to be sure, except tokeep from me that she wanted to read them. Do you think I am verydreadful to tell anybody all this, Betty? You see I want you to tellme what else you think I could do."

  But Lucia did not wait for Betty's comment. She went on with theaccount.

  "I'm not going to put up with it, Betty! I'm going back to my fatherthis summer if he wants me! I'm putting by enough money for my fareand passage across, though I think I could cash a draft from himwithout their finding it out. Perhaps that would bring Mother! Idon't know! I've thought and thought about it until I'm most sickover it now." Lucia checked a sob.

  "You saw that horrid man at the table tonight and heard the sillycompliments he makes to my mother. She doesn't care a _centime_ forhim; but she's getting so reckless with all this social stuff thatI'm most scared for fear she _will_ start divorce proceedings."

  "Couldn't you talk to your uncle about it?" asked Betty, who thoughtit a terrible situation indeed. "It doesn't seem to me that it woulddo for you to just go off, even if your father does want you."

  "I will if my mother is going to leave him. I almost ran away tokeep from coming." Lucia's voice was defiant.

  "Well, then, why don't you write to your father, tell him that youknow your mother loves him and tell him just to come over and _get_her!"

  Lucia laughed then. "The girls would say that you are old-fashioned,Betty. Men don't carry their wives off nowadays."

  Betty laughed but asserted that they "ought to sometimes." "It'stheir business to take care of their wives and if their wivesare--mistaken--to prove it to them. My father would say, 'Now, dear,this is all a mistake. You come right along home with me and I'llexplain it to you!'"

  "What if she wouldn't go?"

  "Then he'd tell her that they must think of the children first andthat two people who wanted to do the right thing ought to get alongsomehow, even if they didn't love each other. I've heard them bothsay that, about other people."

  "You asked me if I couldn't talk to my uncle. I would only thatMother did when we first came and told him all the cutting things myfather had said. Uncle just raved and was for a legal separationright away, but my mother saw she had gone too far and told him thatthey would wait. My uncle called him a fortune hunter; and hethought that about him anyway, before they were married. They talkedabout it that time in Milan."

  Betty could imagine what sharp things must have been said. She wasquiet, thinking over what Lucia had told her and Lucia stopped towipe her eyes again.

  "Well," she said with a sigh, "it's helped clear things up, someway, to talk with you, Betty. I believe I _will_ write and tell myfather to come and 'get her!' I could ask him if neither of themcared enough about me to try to make up, and if he wanted to seesome other man fall in love with my mother and try to win her, allfor the want of his making love the way he can. Oh, you ought to seemy father, Betty. Giovanna says that they fell in love at f
irstsight because of their looks. And my father is _not_ a fortunehunter! He hasn't as much money as my mother has and I suppose thatis one reason why he was so proud about the whole thing; but he hasa good home in Milan. You'd love it, Betty, and I hope you'll be init some day. Oh!"

  Now, indeed, Lucia cried in earnest and Betty, holding heraffectionately, let her cry it out.