Francie Again

by Emily Hahn

“It’s a Portuguese custom,” Aunt Lolly said when Francie complained. “They think the room is cooler if you never open the shutters. And really, dear, they might possibly be right. They’ve lived here, you know, all their lives.”

  Francie sighed with impatience, but complained no more. She went back to her room and opened the window for the tenth time.

  It wasn’t fair to bother Aunt Lolly, especially as the change of scene and air seemed to be doing her a lot of good. They had been in Estoril, the seaside suburb of Lisbon, for little more than a fortnight, but already Mrs. Barclay was getting about, now and then, without her cane. It was the sun, she said gratefully. She could feel it sinking into her bones and comforting them.

  One afternoon Francie squeezed out on the balcony and peered down at the sandy ribbon that curled around the hotel’s feet and stretched down the coast. On one side stood an ancient fort. On the other, the beach disappeared beyond an immense white turreted palace with its own private pier. Francie knew what it was like beyond. She knew all this stretch of coast. She had walked up and down as far as she had time to go between meals, or on decorous outings with Aunt Lolly. She knew the electric train line and the well-barbered gardens with their palm trees, and the dignified little villas, and the tame little hills. It was all very Los Angeles, she told herself. Not that she disliked California, when she was there! But one hadn’t come to Europe just for this.

  “Anyway, what do I want?” she demanded, bored with her own discontent. “I’m having a very good time. All these friends of Aunt Lolly’s are very nice. It would have been just the same in Paris, really.”

  But would it? Of course, even in Paris she wouldn’t have been allowed to lead the deliciously adventurous life she had vaguely imagined back in New York. In Paris, as here, her companions would have been friends of the Barclays, sober, quiet-living gentlefolk and their quiet, well-behaved young daughters and sons. But still it would have been Paris, a magic name, whereas Francie had never even heard of Estoril until a month ago.

  “And in Paris I’d have been hard at work by this time,” she added. “Here I’m just playing around. Tennis and golf and cards, and not really a terrific rush even so. That’s another thing; it seems to me people are awfully slow-moving in Portugal. They seem too peaceful.”

  Again she peered at the sand, disapprovingly, for it was hushed and deserted at three in the afternoon. In Estoril, most people liked to rest after a long, late lunch. At four, she knew, there would be a change when Portugal woke up. Then the beach would suddenly be thronged.

  “I think I’ll go swimming right now,” she resolved, “before I’m crowded out and stared at.” She put on her bathing suit and robe and hurried down to the beach door. It had been the subject of some argument with Mrs. Barclay as to whether a young girl ought to go out alone in this manner. Aunt Lolly said Francie should behave like the Portuguese girls they had heard of in Paris, who were carefully chaperoned everywhere they went.

  “But you can’t go around with me,” Francie pointed out, “because it’s bad for you. And I’m not Portuguese, and they’re used to foreigners behaving in their own way. Phyllis Wilkinson goes around on her own.”

  It was a telling argument. Phyllis was the daughter of one of Aunt Lolly’s English acquaintances who were resident in Portugal.

  “If you’re sure,” said Aunt Lolly uncertainly.

  “Positive.”

  So now, with a clear conscience, Francie stepped out to the beach, where the sand was hot enough to feel glowing even through the rope soles of her sandals. She dropped her towel and robe, and waded in for the first long swim of the afternoon. The water was cool for such a warm day, and as she went in deeper, moving slowly along the shallows, she felt her querulousness ebbing away. She swam straight out from the tall, civilized façade of the hotel, until at last she was satisfied and rolled over to paddle idly along with a backstroke, eyes closed against the sun.

  Over there beyond the shoreline, she mused, was a foreign country that held all kinds of possibilities. She was eager to know more than the countryside she had seen during the little motor tours she and Mrs. Barclay had taken, though that was fascinating. She wanted to know what the people were like. It was not enough to see them, moving against the hills or harbors in their opera-chorus clothes, though all that was thrilling. What were they really like?

  It seemed hopeless that she should ever find out. Portugal, for an American girl living in a luxury hotel in Estoril, might as well be Florida. Those peasant girls in their black or red skirts and gold necklaces, those fishermen had their own lives and cared nothing for hers. As for the middle-class Portuguese, nobody ever got to know them—the English had told her so. It was no use trying; Francie was typed. She was merely one more of the foreigners who invaded the city and made it look like every city in the world.

  Francie began to swim back slowly to shore. Beyond the hotel, up a steep, stone-built bank, she saw the main highway to Lisbon. A few cars like shiny monsters whizzed past, high above her head. Farther back were the electric train tracks, and then came little villas, pink or green or cream, scattered among the hills. It was pretty and it was dull. Francie turned again to the sea, and for reassurance looked at the old fort that had stood there in the water for centuries.

  “I’d like to paint that,” she thought, “only I bet every single visitor does it.”

  The only thing to do, she decided as she left the water, was to make the best of it, enjoy her stay as much as possible in the ordinary, conventional way, and look forward to the future when Aunt Lolly would be well enough to go back to Paris. Release was bound to come sooner or later, she reflected. In the meantime, there were plenty of girls in Jefferson and New York who wouldn’t mind changing places with her. And that was putting it mildly.

  Thinking deeply, she walked as if in a dream across the hard-packed wet sand and then on the dry, looser stuff toward the place where she had left her towel and bathrobe. At least she assumed it was the same place; she wasn’t really thinking. At the back of her mind was a happy confidence that her clothes were the only ones on the beach. She picked up the white robe.

  “Excuse me,” said a gentle voice.

  Francie was realizing with embarrassment at the same moment that it wasn’t her robe at all. The towel and slippers lying underneath it were unfamiliar.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  She looked up and saw a girl standing there smiling—a dark-haired girl, wearing a dark bathing suit and carrying her rubber cap in her hand, all wet and fresh from the sea. Beyond, Francie’s own clothes lay where she had left them.

  “It doesn’t matter at all,” said the other girl. There was a touch of accent in her speech.

  “I thought they were mine, you see,” said Francie.

  “Naturally. Our wraps are the same,” said the girl. “And as we are the only people on the beach—”

  “But I was stupid. I mean, I wasn’t really looking,” said Francie. It seemed to her that she had pretty well exhausted the subject, though she didn’t want to stop talking. Francie liked talking to people she encountered by herself, but in a foreign country like this she felt shy of pushing such a chance acquaintance. She was just moving on when the girl said quickly, as if to detain her,

  “The water is good today, isn’t it? Not too warm.”

  So Francie sat down on the sand with her, and they talked.

  “I’ve made a friend,” Francie announced to Aunt Lolly. Her voice was full of triumphant excitement.

  “My goodness. By yourself?” asked Mrs. Barclay. They were drinking lemonade instead of tea, in the dim coolness of the patient’s bedroom. Aunt Lolly usually spent most of the day quietly in bed.

  “By myself, in the most unexpected way. She was swimming alone, the way I was. You see, Aunt Lolly, you and I were all wrong. She’s actually a young Portuguese girl, but she was all alone, just the same.”

  “I think it must be unusual,” said Aunt Lolly.

  Francie confessed, “I
t was, as a matter of fact. I guess her mother let her do it because it was the quiet, unfashionable time of day, and she was right inside the hotel lounge all the time—her mother, I mean, sitting there with some aunts or something. This girl Maria is more independent than most of them. She’s been to America for a visit. Isn’t that queer?”

  “Not particularly, dear. Lots of people go to America.”

  “Yes, I know, but I mean it’s queer we should have started to talk. Her name’s Maria da Souza. She has other names too, but she said that will do to go on with. Portuguese names are terribly hard to remember at first.” Francie drank the last sugary drops of her lemonade. “If you don’t mind, I’m going back to join them now,” she said. “They’re staying at this hotel for a week or two—Maria and her mother and a brother named Ruy, and she wants me to meet them. It really is luck, isn’t it?—running into the one Portuguese girl in the whole place who knows about America. Maria’s crazy about New York.”

  Francie had taken care when she dressed, but when she saw Maria’s family sitting straight-backed and neat in a row, waiting in the lounge, she felt unkempt, nevertheless. It was a feeling she was not used to, but there it was. There was something impeccable about Portuguese women; she had noticed it before, from a distance. On the hottest days they always looked crisp and cool. And their hair! However did they manage to keep it so neat?

  Three da Souzas were there: Maria, her mother Dona Gracia (a lovely name, Francie thought) and her brother Ruy. Dona Gracia and Maria were in white linen, and the young man was in white, too. They looked alike, all three of them, with their smooth shining hair and wide green eyes. It was difficult at first to think of anything to converse about. In the presence of her mother Maria wasn’t as chatty as she had been on the beach.

  “We are sorry to hear that your aunt is unwell,” said Dona Gracia.

  “Yes, poor Aunt Lolly,” said Francie.

  “You must find it lonely,” said Maria.

  “Thank you, it’s not so bad. You see, she gets up in the evening, and she knows a few people.”

  “Estoril is very good for the health,” said Dona Gracia. “I always try to spend a few weeks here with my children, after a season in town.”

  “That must be very nice,” said Francie.

  So it went on, each female contributing her remark in turn. Through it all, Ruy said nothing. He must be bored to death, Francie thought, though he gave no sign of boredom.

  But at last Maria, after an apology, broke off and spoke rapidly in Portuguese to her mother, then turned back to Francie with an explanation. “We can take a walk, if you like,” she said. “It’s pleasant now in the cool. Maman wishes to see a cousin here, and you and Ruy and I will go out for a little. Or don’t you care to walk? We might drive instead.”

  “I’d love to walk,” said Francie.

  “Good,” said Ruy, opening his mouth for the first time that evening.

  Out of the hotel, the young people relaxed a little and the talk between the girls became animated again. Maria wanted to tell Francie about New York and the plays she had seen, and the shops and museums. She admired America, she said, passionately. American buildings were modern and beautiful, American boys were so polite in their way, American girls were so chic—“Like you, you know,” she said earnestly. “You have a special style. It is a little outré, not too much, but something quite remarkable.”

  “Oh, you’re too nice!” Francie blushed, and turned to Ruy. “And what about you in the States?” she asked. He was walking along silently, with a withdrawn expression on his face; she didn’t know if he had been listening or not. “Do you like America as much as your sister does?” she asked.

  “Oh, not as much,” he said in cool tones. “Unlike Maria, I prefer my own country. But there are admirable things about New York, certainly. Yes.”

  Francie felt somewhat piqued. It wasn’t that she wanted him to rave, she told herself, but he needn’t act quite so kindly about liking New York—as if he were a dear old uncle patting her on the head. “Thank you very much,” she said dryly.

  Ruy laughed, and she decided to like him after all.

  They strolled slowly along. At Francie’s suggestion they turned off the main road in order to investigate shop windows along a side street.

  “I like window-shopping,” she said, “but I don’t know where to go to see really nice things. Are there any interesting shops in Estoril?”

  “If you mean dresses and hats, we haven’t any places like yours,” said Maria. “But one day we might go into Lisbon and look around, if you would care to do it.”

  “I’d like that,” said Francie. “Tell me, Maria, what do you do all day? Have you a job, or do you just poke around the way everyone does I’ve met so far, playing games?”

  She saw Ruy look at her in surprise, as Maria said, “Oh no, I haven’t a job. Maman wouldn’t allow it. That is the trouble here, you know; there isn’t much for a girl to do.”

  “What about the boys?”

  “Well, of course Ruy works. He helps my father,” said Maria. “Ruy works very hard, don’t you, Ruy?”

  “Very,” he said solemnly.

  “No, I am not laughing. Please, Ruy, be serious,” said Maria. “He really does, Francesca; I’m afraid he will make himself ill in this hot weather.”

  “My dear sister! For the past week I have done nothing but carry Maman’s knitting bag from one place on the beach to another.”

  Maria said, “But this is your holiday. Wait until Papa gets back! Then Francesca will be surprised at your energy.”

  “Ah, that!” said Ruy.

  Really, thought Francie, they were both very attractive young people. She felt much better already about Portugal.

  It seemed that their father, Dom Rodrigo, was in the cork business (though Francie felt that with a name like that he ought to have been something more thrilling—a buccaneer, perhaps) and once every few years he went to the Western Hemisphere to discuss and arrange for the export of his cork. Ruy had been twice to Brazil, and he and Maria had both spent several months with their mother in the United States.

  Dona Gracia had not enjoyed the adventure as much as her daughter had, said Maria. “Unless my Maman is with her sisters and cousins she is bored,” she said, “but I loved it. I could find my way with my eyes covered, I think, from our apartment on Lexington Avenue to Carnegie Hall. It makes my heart jump when I hear people talking American.”

  Ruy looked scornful. Clearly it would take lots more than that to make his heart jump. “The Metropolitan Museum is good,” he said in the tone of one making an admission.

  This started Francie on the subject of her New York school, which was within easy distance of the museums. Ruy listened with more attention than he had hitherto shown. “You are an art student, then?” he asked.

  “I was. I hope I shall be again.” Francie’s face fell as she remembered her current troubles. Maria’s sympathetic questions drew her out; she talked until the whole story was disclosed.

  “It is unfortunate,” said Ruy at the end, “but I cannot understand why you feel everything is at an end.”

  “I don’t,” protested Francie. “I’ve been very careful not to get all tragic about it. Only I’m in a hurry, naturally, and I hate putting everything off.”

  “You could work by yourself.”

  “Oh, I know that,” said Francie. “Of course I do sketch. At least I’ve been thinking about it lately. But I like help. I don’t like going ahead on my own without advice.”

  Maria broke in, “Ruy, you are naughty. Don’t listen to him, Francesca, until he stops teasing you. He knows how to help you. He’s holding off and teasing.”

  “I am not sure,” said Ruy to his sister, seriously. “There is no telling if she would suit Fontoura, or if Fontoura would suit her. We must go slowly. And at this moment there is no possible vacancy, of that I am sure.”

  “Do please tell me what you both mean,” said Francie.

  “Ruy
is a painter,” said Maria.

  Ruy shook his head. “I play with paints.”

  “He is very clever, truly, and he attends a class in painting, in Lisbon, which might be just what you want, Francesca,” said Maria.

  “You do, Ruy? How wonderful! Then you mean to be an artist, too?”

  Ruy shrugged, and Maria replied for him. “My father didn’t want him to be only a painter, nothing else. You see Ruy is his only son, and someone must go into the business from the family. And so he has given up his painting, except as a pastime.” She hesitated, glancing shyly at her brother’s frowning face. “He does not like me to talk about it, but he felt very bad.”

  Francie cried, “It was wrong! I do think it was wrong.”

  Ruy shrugged again. “It was not wrong. Had I been a true artist I would have thought it wrong, yes. Had I been a true artist I would have defied my father. But I was not good enough and I did not defy him, and he was not wrong.” He smiled at Francie. “You are romantic, and so this shocks you.”

  Francie did not like being called romantic, but she could think of nothing to say.

  “But Ruy, you will take Francesca to the class, will you not?” asked Maria.

  “If she wishes,” said Ruy, “and if Fontoura wishes. We can take our time, and think it over. There is no room as yet.” He paused as another thought occurred to him.

  “The fees are very high,” he said. “I don’t know if …”

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter,” said Francie airily. “That’s the least of my worries.”

  The da Souzas looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

  CHAPTER 3

  Laughter rang out from the group gathered around a gay canvas swing on the veranda. “You’d never have the cheek!” cried a girl. “You know you wouldn’t, Derek!”

  “Oh, but I have,” said a boy. “I warned you—”

  They looked pretty, reflected Francie. They looked like somebody’s romantic dream of life in a holiday place such as the Riviera or the Caribbean, one of those places she had never visited. The sun-tanned girls in their light clothes, the boys so clean and nice-looking, even the pretty French girl, spoke English with English accents. Nor was this odd, considering that most of them were English. Some of them belonged to families in the wine trade, families that had lived for two or three generations in Portugal, going back and forth between Oporto and “home.”