Pansy’s Fancy

Chapter XIV

Pansy Osmond came from the kitchen where she was making an intricate orange marmalade torte on invitation from her stepmother to join her and a guest in the courtyard. Pansy’s cheeks were flush with animation on an August morning and it was not just the intense heat of late summer in Rome. She rushed to her room, always cool whatever the temperatures outside, and began rearranging her hair, wondering if her new dress was too decorative for morning tea.

No, it wasn’t the heat that had our young lady flushed. The day before she had met a young man, and was in anticipation of seeing him again. Yesterday when her stepmother called her into the parlor, she had no idea who might be calling. Rome was deserted this time of year. The heat settled over the city leaving the streets free from the throngs who visit in the early summer months, they having returned to England or America while the residents hibernate until autumn calls them out of their torpor to once again court strangers - turisti they were now referred to as.

For the first time in her life of twenty years, Miss Osmond talked to a young man without uncertainty. The young man in question did not refrain from ebullience - he had not regarded Pansy as a hothouse flower waiting to be plucked, on display as a delicate porcelain doll whose thoughts need never enter into the equation. She was spoken to and listened to for herself. She had not enough worldly knowledge to be able to describe her feelings when Mr. Harold Ludlow directed an inquiry in her direction with eyes that looked unswervingly into hers, except to say that she, for her part, answered without hesitation or barriers. In short, the young woman spoke freely as if given a voice she scarcely knew she had.

“What do you do, Miss Osmond?” he asked her.
“Do?”
“Yes, Miss Osmond. You must spend your days doing something? Do you study, are you a student? Do you have hobbies? Do you go out? See friends? Do you have charity work? I’m told many young women in Europe do good works. That is, in England where I am to be living.”
Miss Osmond had, she felt, never been addressed so pointedly about her own life. Whenever she had been introduced to young men previously, it was they who “do” and she who listened to the details of their doings. No one, it seems, even expected she herself had any doings. Of course, in the presence of her father, they turned their inquiries toward him, afraid to go straight to the object of their interest, having heard the father brooked no advances toward his daughter without his consent. Prince Viticonti whose company was becoming a regular feature in her home had never, to her recollection, addressed a single question to her directly. He spoke of her obliquely, in a round-about fashion, either through Osmond or Mrs. Osmond. Who is your daughter’s favorite artist, Mr. Osmond? Where does your daughter like to walk, Mrs. Osmond? Even though Pansy was in the room, the prince tended to regard her in the third person. As such, he never struck Pansy as anything but an apparition of no real concern to herself, he did not speak to her except when departing. Then he would take her hand, kiss it and say, I bid you farewell, Miss Osmond, I shall hope, indeed promise, to see you soon. The look he displayed was one of simpering compliance with a mode of behavior prescribed in a book that she had never read. He thoroughly looked at her - she was a pretty girl - but never took in her person. His gaze floated around her like a vaporous innuendo.

Pansy knew she was awkward in the company of the prince. She did not try to be charming despite her good manners and her father’s subtle allusions to please the prince and his aunt. Pansy could not imagine what she could do besides offer excellent tea and cakes; she knew not what she was supposed to tender other than her presence at the tea table. Her father talked of a good many subjects, none of which Pansy knew anything of and even her stepmother did not join in may conversations on topics she was unfamiliar with. At times they spoke of the Pope and his recent decrees but Pansy only knew of his eminence as a reverential figure, next to God, and would never dare offer an opinion on him. Even to talk of him as a mortal had her fidgeting, visualizing the reproach of Mother Catherine. The only things she could offer as conversation would be how to make eggs rise for a souffle or how to keep the crust of a croissant crispy light. She doubted whether anyone would want to know this although she herself found it fascinating. She once talked of a particular English pudding she made with a special lemon brought by the brother of their cook from Naples that received many compliments in the kitchen but her father cut her off and returned to news of the day. Pansy ever after, answered with no more than the perfunctory reply that reminded her, on more than one occasion, that she was easily bored in the royal company. They looked upon her as an empty vessel, she thought. Devoid of content and she soon grew impatient with their frequent visits though would never express anything of the sort. She had to paste on a superficial smile when greeting her father’s guests and though Prince Viticonti pretended to be delighted by her company, she sensed he was much more interested in her father’s Madeira and his American cigarettes sent especially to Osmond by a member of the Archer family in New York.

With Mr. Ludlow, what Pansy experienced was of a different nature altogether. When he spoke, it was to her. His voice was soothing. He talked of any number of activities he himself was involved with and regaled them with stories of his fellow-students, the youth hostel where they were staying with a rummy old couple who managed it but could not seem to keep track of the guest or the keys required for the rooms. He talked of the places he’d seen in Rome and the food he’d eaten. He had stories to tell of hansom drivers, children begging in the streets (he found this a morality problem) and talked of the hospital he’d visited for the tubercular. He had no end of opinions on it all and wanted his aunt to fill him in on the details, things he could not quite understand, such as matters involving hygiene. Often he directed his questions to Pansy, unable to comprehend that as a lifelong resident of the city she did not seem to know much about its workings. When she expressed interest in an orphanage he’d been to, he promised to take her there himself the next day. No one in her lifetime, ever offered to take her anywhere without first consulting her father or her stepmother and in fact, she would never be without a chaperone, something he thought rather old-fashioned but said that he would have to respect as a visitor to her country. Her country. Never had she dreamed of a country described as hers. She was much too paltry to own a country. It had never occurred to her to think of it in that way.

“Miss Osmond, why do you not walk about and see other parts of your city?”
“Mr. Ludlow, I walk with my stepmother almost every day. Sometimes I go out with my father when he is not busy with his collection. I do not go on my own, it is not the way it is done here.”
“Of course, I didn’t mean alone. But why can’t you walk with me or join our group? Have you no friends of your own?”
“I have a friend who is recently married. She calls on me here. We used to walk with her mother but now my friend is busy with her home and her husband.”
“But what do you do with your days?”
“I sometimes work in the kitchen but I am not supposed to tell anyone. I like to make cakes but it is not something for me to do. But I do it because I have nothing else to do and I enjoy cooking. Father prefers me to paint or practice the piano and I do try to please him but I am not so very proficient at either one.”
“And your charity work?”
“Oh yes, we distribute food and clothing to the poor. Father does not like for me to get too involved with the sick; he says he does not want me to get sick. I’ve never been sick but he says I must stay away from sickness. In the convent I would help with the children when they were ill.”
“Convent?”
“Yes, I was raised in a convent. I have no mother. Well, I had no mother - now I have a stepmother. But before that, I lived and studied in a convent.”
“Will you marry, Miss Osmond?”
Pansy blushed and for the first time in Mr. Ludlow’s company declined to answer the question. She hoped she would not have to. She would not care to tell of Mr. Rosier, in fact she had forgotten Mr. Rosier. She was fortunate that her stepmother, sensing her awkwardness, introduced another topic and she could safely pour the tea and serve the sandwiches. It was good to be spoken to but some subjects she would not know how to respond to properly and the many questions that fell forth from Mr. Ludlow, while intriguing, could only be left unanswered. She could not mention in her stepmother’s presence, her visits to her brother’s grave.

In the end, he spent the rest of the luncheon looking at her but discontinued the probing. Upon departure, he shook her hand and apologized for his rudeness. “I am quite a blundering fool, Miss Osmond. Do not take it as an offense. I am unaware of the customs here but would like it if you would see me as a friend. I’m at your service.” With that, he took his leave, and Pansy without meaning to, followed him to the door and if she had not been trained to withdraw, would have continued following him to the street. Never had she felt so imprisoned; without free will. In fact, never had she realized freedom was something to be sought. Harold Ludlow on that afternoon gave her a idea of it; and his voice, his steady gaze and his kindness, remained solemnly in her mind for the rest of the day as she attempted a Bach fugue before deciding she was hopeless at the piano.

When Prince Viticonti was once again with them for dinner that evening, she never felt more isolated or apathetic. The prince spoke of his horses, the selection of wines he was importing from France and his visit to the home of a Russian nobleman who was richer than all of Italy. He spent some time on the opulence of the Russian’s drawing rooms while Pansy wondered what Mr. Ludlow was doing that night; he’d said something about a concert of opera duets performed by music students. Would he come again tomorrow? The possibility preoccupied her for the entire evening as she graciously though somewhat absently made small-talk with the Marchesa Viticonti. She longed to ask her stepmother but did not get the chance.

Harold Ludlow, listening to ballads of exalted love by Verdi, Bellini and Donizetti, in a language he was not familiar with, found himself returning to the parlor in the Palazzo Roccanera. More specifically to Miss Osmond’s fixed stare. How poised and still she was. Not at all like American girls. She was not like the English girls he’d met either. Despite her vulnerability, and Harold could see how that might be the case - where others may see fragility, he saw strength of purpose. He planned to see his aunt on the morrow and if at all possible, see this girl who was not a cousin at all, but to Harold Ludlow, an all-encompassing artifact of a type he had yet to come across in his life of nineteen years. Unlike Mr. Rosier whose elevated feelings had once been parallel, he had no notion of the drawbacks to possible courtship. He was new to Europe, fresh from an egalitarian upbringing, his mind unclouded by class, status or outmoded concepts of marriage.

As he listened to the music that was at once, to his sensibility, ridiculous and sublime, he sat with a feeling of intention. Yes, Miss Osmond must be allowed walk with him. He wanted to show her things, to know them from her perspective. He wondered how early he could arrive at his aunt’s and whether he should present the young lady with flowers. He wished his mother were on hand to advise him. He would have to depend on his Aunt Isabel? Mr. Osmond, he had yet to meet. His heart felt light as he joined his friends in a café after the performance. He heard not a word of what they were saying and wished the night were over and he could be back at the Palazzo Roccanera where he’d discovered a buried treasure. He sensed she was buried. In what way, he might not be able to articulate. He planned to unearth her heretofore unexamined significance.

He arrived at his aunt’s portal by ten o’ clock the next morning, unable to explain what brought him at such an early hour carrying a small bouquet of violets. His Aunt Isabel knew precisely the reason though she did not know precisely how she would approach the young man’s ardore. She then reminded herself of her purpose: to learn of Pansy’s desire and help her attain it.

Just at that moment, Pansy entered the courtyard with a luminosity that threatened to dispel the gray cast of the turgid morning sky, heavy with the promise of rain, and Isabel at once knew what her course was to be.