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There was something poignantly pathetic in the clinging together of these two small wayfarers in a strange country, so far from all they had known and shared in their short experience. Meg's "nasty hat" was rakishly askew upon her red curls, for Fay had frequently grabbed at it in her rage, and the beautiful green linen gown was sopping wet. "Engliss Ayah clying!" Fay remarked surprisedly.
The little tin bath they had brought from India for the voyage stood in a corner. It was filled, while Fay, wrapped in a Turkish towel, sobbed more quietly, ejaculating between the gurgles: "Nasty hat, nasty Engliss Ayah. I want my own deah Ayah!" When the bath was ready poor Meg again approached little Fay, but Fay would have none of her. "No," she wailed, "Engliss Ayah in nasty hat not wass me.
Real affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only fitful passion; that was balked; he would want me no more. I should fear even to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him. Oh, how blind had been my eyes! how weak my conduct! "You ayre Engliss?" said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so unexpected was the sound; so certain had I been of solitude.
He was practising his songs for use at the hotels, where he sang and played the banjo in the evenings, to add to his income. He told Peter that he was, at the moment, ruined. "In Engliss," he translated, "stony-broke." A shop he had kept in Genoa had failed, so he was thrown upon the roads. "You too are travelling, without a home, for gain?" he inferred.
Livio burst into a studied and insulting shout of laughter, stopped abruptly without remembering to bring it to a proper finish, and began to be pleasant to the embroidery-seller, speaking broken American English with a strong nasal twang. "My name is Livio Ceresole. Bin in America; the States. All over the place. Chicago, 'Frisco, Pullman cars, dollars you know. Learnt Engliss there.
Meg had succeeded in lifting the terrified baby out of the bath, and she stood on the square of cork defying the "Engliss Ayah," wet from her topmost curl to her pink toes, but wholly unwashed. Tony ran to Jan and under all the din contrived to say: "It's the big bath; she's frightened. Ayah never put her in the big bath." Meg had forgotten this.
"M'sieu'," began the quadroon, but ceased and stood with an expression of annoyance every moment deepening on his face, until he finally shook his head slowly, and said with a baffled smile: "Ah can nod spig Engliss." "Write it," said Frowenfeld, lifting forward a chair.
She bore this with comparative meekness, but when all her garments had been removed she slipped from Meg's knees and, standing squarely on the floor, announced: "I want my own Ayah. Engliss Ayah not wass me. Own Ayah muss come bat." "She can't, my darling; she's gone to other little girls, you know we told you many days ago."
I go no more to the breeds. I spik only Engliss now; we will sit in chairs and eat pretty with knives and forks; and always say good morning and good night, lak white people. 'Erbe't, you will teach me all the ways of white people, lak they do outside? I want so bad to be ver' nice, jus' lak white woman!" "Sure!" said Mabyn vaguely. Rina was silent for a while.
"You ayre Engliss?" said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so unexpected was the sound; so certain had I been of solitude. No ghost stood beside me, nor anything of spectral aspect; merely a motherly, dumpy little woman, in a large shawl, a wrapping-gown, and a clean, trim nightcap. I said I was English, and immediately, without further prelude, we fell to a most remarkable conversation.
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