The American Lady(38)
Wanda shook her head as she leaned forward.
“If this man really is who he claims to be, then I’m not sorry at all that Marie met him. I’ve never seen her so . . . relaxed or so happy in all her life! The look in her eyes when she talks about Franco, the way they shine—I don’t think my dear sister has ever felt this way before! Is it any wonder, though? An Italian count . . .”
“He really is very handsome,” Wanda had to admit. She had seen Franco once, briefly, when he had come to pick up Marie. If she were honest with herself, he had been so handsome that she had been quite startled for a moment and only just managed to stutter “Good evening.” Granted, her aunt was not unattractive—she had fine, rather sharp features and long legs, which looked especially good in men’s pants—but she was old! Wanda would never have thought that a man like that would be interested in someone like her.
“Franco de Lucca makes poor old Harold look like a wet blanket,” she sighed.
“Wanda! One simply doesn’t say such things,” Ruth scolded her. “Let Marie have her handsome Italian! I always thought that Magnus wasn’t the man for her. And Johanna did rather suggest something of the sort in her last few letters before Marie set off to join us.” Ruth glanced hastily over her shoulder, as if to make quite sure that Marie hadn’t suddenly appeared in the doorway.
“What did she say?” Wanda was intrigued. Her mother didn’t often share such confidences.
Ruth sighed meaningfully. “She wrote that Marie was depressed but didn’t know it. So of course the first question that popped into my mind was how dear Johanna managed to diagnose it. She thinks that anyone who doesn’t work a twelve-hour day with a smile can’t be right in the head. But now that I’ve seen Marie here with us, I have to admit that Johanna seemed to be right: my little sister didn’t seem terribly happy when she arrived.”
Wanda shrugged. “But she seemed happier even before she met Franco, don’t you think?” She didn’t want to say so, but she was quite sure that it had done Marie good to get out and about with Pandora and herself. What Marie had really needed was to meet other artists and talk to them about their ideas.
“Well I should think so! If she hadn’t flourished under our tender loving care, there would have to have been something really wrong with her!” Ruth declared in mock outrage.
Wanda grinned. It was fun talking to her mother like this. She felt sorry now for having teased her earlier.
“A little love affair never hurt anyone. Although I’m surprised at how quickly she forgot Magnus. That’s not like her,” Ruth went on thoughtfully. “Marie was never much interested in the opposite sex. I remember the first May dance after our dear father died . . . how the boys all tried to get her onto the dance floor! But Marie brushed them all off. First I thought that she was just waiting for the right one to come along, but then I realized that she simply found the lot of them boring. Blowing glass was more exciting to her than spending time with boys. She never cared for clothes or jewelry, or how her hair looked, because she was never interested in looking good for the boys.” Ruth was silent for a moment, lost in memory. “When I think about it . . . when she was a young girl, Marie was very much like you are today. After all, you don’t take much trouble to make yourself look pretty for Harold. It’s no wonder he hasn’t proposed yet! When I think how things happened with your father all those years ago . . .” She sighed. “The way we flirted and gazed into one another’s eyes and held hands under the table . . . Oh, and then I followed him halfway around the world, all for love!”
At first Wanda wanted to protest that what Ruth had said about Harold was unfair, but instead she asked, “Will you tell me again what it was like to set off from Lauscha in the dead of night, in secret and all on your own?” Wanda loved the story, and Ruth loved to tell it. She always worked herself up into such a pitch of enthusiasm that she could be talked around to anything afterward. But today she wouldn’t let Wanda distract her.
“No, that’s enough talk! I have to come up with the wine list. And I have an idea for you as well. Can you get a pen and paper, please?”
Wanda looked up, ready to take orders. “What would you like me to do?”
“You could write a letter to Aunt Johanna. It’s weeks overdue now. Your cousin Anna writes me every six weeks, you know, even if it’s just a few lines,” Ruth added.
Wanda made a face. She was ready for any little task except writing to her country cousins in Thuringia. Why couldn’t they get themselves a telephone?