Jerry | Page 4

led to the lake. Gustavo looked after him and shook his head. Then he
took out the two-lire piece and rang it on the table. The metal rang true.
He shrugged his shoulders and turned back indoors to order the veal.
CHAPTER II
The terrace of Villa Rosa juts out into the lake, bordered on three sides
by a stone parapet, and shaded above by a yellow-ochre awning.
Masses of oleanders hang over the wall and drop pink petals into the
blue waters below. As a study in colour the terrace is perfect, but, like
the courtyard of the Hotel du Lac, decidedly too hot for mid-afternoon.
To the right of the terrace, however, is a shady garden set in alleys of
cypress trees, and separated from the lake by a strip of beach and a low
balustrade. There could be no better resting-place for a warm afternoon.
It was close upon four--five minutes past to be accurate--and the usual
afternoon quiet that enveloped the garden had fled before the garrulous
advent of four girls. Three of them, with black eyes and blacker hair,
were kneeling on the beach thumping and scrubbing a pile of linen. In
spite of their chatter they were working busily, and the grass beyond
the water-wall was already white with bleaching sheets, while a
lace-trimmed petticoat fluttered from a near-by oleander, and rows of
silk stockings stretched the length of the parapet. The most undeductive
observer would have guessed by this time that the pink villa, visible
through the trees, contained no such modern conveniences as stationary
tubs.
The fourth girl, with grey eyes and yellow-brown hair, was sitting at
ease on the balustrade, fanning herself with a wide-brimmed hat and
dangling her feet, clad in white tennis shoes, over the edge. She wore a
suit of white linen cut sailor fashion, low at the throat and with sleeves
rolled to the elbows. She looked very cool and comfortable and free as
she talked, with the utmost friendliness, to the three girls below. Her

Italian, to an unaccustomed ear, was exactly as glib as theirs.
The washer-girls were dressed in the gayest of peasant clothes--green
and scarlet petticoats, flowered kerchiefs, coral beads and flashing
earrings; you would have to go far into the hills in these degenerate
days before meeting their match on an Italian highway. But the girl on
the wall, who was actual if not titular ruler of the domain of Villa Rosa,
possessed a keen eye for effect; and--she plausibly argued--since one
must have washer-women about, why not, in the name of all that is
beautiful, have them in harmony with tradition and the landscape?
Accordingly, she designed and purchased their costumes herself.
There drifted presently into sight from around the little promontory that
hid the village a blue and white boat with yellow lateen sails. She was
propelled gondolier fashion, for the wind was a mere breath, by a
picturesque youth in a suit of dark blue with white sash and flaring
collar--the hand of the girl on the wall was here visible also.
The boat fluttering in toward shore, looked like a giant butterfly; and
her name, emblazoned in gold on her prow, was, appropriately, the
Farfalla. Earlier in the season, with a green hull and a dingy brown sail,
she had been, prosaically enough, the Maria. But since the advent of
the girl all this had been changed. The Farfalla dropped her yellow
wings with the air of a salute, and lighted at the foot of the water-steps
under the terrace. The girl on the parapet leaned forward eagerly.
'Did you get any mail, Giuseppe?' she called.
'Si, signorina.' He scrambled up the steps and presented a copy of the
London Times.
She received it with a shrug. Clearly, she felt little interest in the
London Times. Giuseppe took himself back to his boat and commenced
fussing about its fittings, dusting the seats, plumping up the cushions,
with an air of absorption which deceived nobody. The signorina
watched him a moment with amused comprehension, then she called
peremptorily--

'Giuseppe, you know you must spade the garden border.'
Poor Giuseppe, in spite of his nautical costume, was man of all work.
He glanced dismally toward the garden border which lay basking in the
sunshine under the wall that divided Villa Rosa from the rest of the
world. It contained every known flower which blossoms in July in the
kingdom of Italy, from camellias and hydrangeas to heliotrope and
wall-flowers. Its spading was a complicated business and it lay too far
off to permit of conversation. Giuseppe was not only a lazy, but also a
social soul.
'Signorina,' he suggested, 'would you not like a sail?'
She shook her head. 'There is not wind enough and it is too hot and too
sunny.'