VIII
I
In the days that followed after Fabio’s death, the members of the clan showed their metal; and their metal, at bottom, was pure gold it seemed, for one and all they rallied to Teresa, rallied to the Casa Boselli. Nerone sent Rosa to help in the shop, preparing his own midday meal. Every morning at nine she arrived with the twins, who were shut up to play in Olga’s old bedroom. The afternoon frequently brought kind Mario who was anxious to do odd jobs; he might be seen dusting, or polishing brass, or even cleaning a window. Rocca discovered a clubfooted boy who happened to be an Italian, and Teresa engaged him to sweep and run errands—only he could not run. Rocca would sometimes send round a small present, the tongue of an ox, the feet of a pig, or even a couple of kidneys; and these, considering the shortage of meat, were tokens of very real friendship. The Signora Rocca put on her old clothes and over them a large apron, then she went to Teresa and said abruptly:
“I am here to wash down and tidy those shelves. ‘Gold begets gold, but dust begets dust,’ as my mother would say when I was a child.”
And Teresa replied with another true proverb: “ ‘To find a staunch friend you must dig deep in trouble.’ ” Then she added: “I thank you, signora.”
Sometimes Nerone would come in the evenings to drink a glass of Amarena, and he and Maddalena would talk to Teresa while she sat silently knitting. Maddalena would tell her the little she knew of Gian-Luca’s life out in France, hoping that now Teresa might soften, might even express some interest.
“So he is still working in the mess, the Gian-Luca—”
Teresa would say. “Oh well, and why not? All our lives we have studied the art of feeding; no doubt he is better suited for that job than for firing off guns at the Germans.” And then she would appear to forget Gian-Luca, frowning a little at her knitting, murmuring softly over her stitches: “Knit one, purl two, knit one.” Even Aunt Ottavia, who was not of the clan, felt called upon to assist; she it was who could teach Teresa new patterns, she it was who discovered a fine book on knitting, which she promptly bought for Teresa. Berta turned up, a little through kindness, and a great deal through wishing to talk about Albert. Albert had received the Military Cross, and just after that—which was more to the point—a “blighty,” which was likely to keep him in London for many a day to come. Berta would soon have to take the twins home in order to pacify Albert.
There was someone, however, as high above them all as the Lord is above little fleas, and this person was Millo, who sat in his office and considered the Casa Boselli. Millo was omnipotent and so he knew all things, at least he knew all things connected with food, and one fine day he put on his hat and went forth to call on Teresa.
He said: “I would like to have a few words, suppose we go into the parlor.” And after a minute when they were alone: “Suppose you show me your ledgers.”
Teresa stood tall and defiant before him, but Millo divined the anguish in her heart. He smiled very kindly at the gallant old woman—she was well worth saving because of her business, but above all because of her courage.
She said: “My ledgers are private, signore; I do not show my accounts.”
“And yet you will show them to me,” he told her, “for the Casa Boselli is about to go bankrupt—and that would be a great pity, signora; we need the Casa Boselli.”
“I will save it yet,” Teresa answered without a tremor in her voice. “You may have heard rumors, and perhaps they are true, but the Casa Boselli will be saved.”
“Sicuro!” said Millo; “I have come here to save it. Now suppose you bring me those ledgers.”
For one awful moment she stared at him speechless, while the great tears welled in her eyes. For one awful moment she thought that she must weep, standing there before Millo. But the moment passed, and once more Teresa could look him squarely in the face.
II
“Why should you trouble about me, signore—about the Casa Boselli?”
“That,” he said gently, “is quite beside the point—I am rich enough, say, to pay for my fancies, and I have a fancy to offer you a partner—one Francesco Millo, signora.”
Then Teresa turned without another word and brought him those miserable ledgers; brought him the accounts that she could not balance, and the copies of the deeds that she had signed for the bank, pledging her two long leases. He spread them out on the parlor table and made her sit down at his side; and presently he and Teresa were scheming, putting their business heads together, forgetful of all save the Casa Boselli and of how it might best be served. When at last he got up to go he was courteous, but a number of papers were reposing in his pocket, papers that Teresa had wished to keep secret for the prestige of the Casa Boselli.
“Our solicitors shall meet not later than next week, and meanwhile I must send you some help,” he said gravely; then he added: “I thank you for accepting this partner,” and stooping he kissed her hand.
Alone, Teresa sat very still, she was staring down at the table. Millo had saved the Casa Boselli, its debts would be paid, its credit restored, its future secured and cared for. Never again need she lie awake at night tormented by fears for her factory, never again need she worry about money, pacing up and down in her office. True, but never again would the Casa Boselli be all hers, all her own; never again would she unsheath her sword to do battle in its dear defense. She saw herself surrendering that sword. All battered and bent it was—for love of the Casa Boselli she surrendered; so now in the moment of great salvation, she laid down her head and wept bitterly. She who had faced life with hard, dry eyes, she who had shed no tears over Fabio, now wept for love of the Casa Boselli as she had not wept since the death of Olga, thirty long years ago.
The great news spread quickly. Such wonderful news! Everyone congratulated Teresa.
“If only Fabio could know!” sighed Nerone. “He would surely have been so proud.”
An engineer arrived from the Doric, to grease and lay up the factory machines, for Millo advised no more making of pasta until the war came to an end. He had managed to find three Italian women, whom he sent with orders to help in the shop; and many other things he did for Teresa, setting the Casa Boselli in order to withstand the siege of the war.
Maddalena stayed on at Teresa’s side, as head of the new assistants; but Rosa went home again to Nerone, and Mario could rest in the afternoons, for now there were others to polish the brass, to dust, and to clean the windows. Teresa purchased a new black dress; grimmer than ever she stood in her cash-desk—a tall old woman with the face of an eagle, and hair that refused to turn grey.
Now that the storm had been safely weathered, Maddalena wrote of these things to Gian-Luca. She wrote guardedly, however, to spare his feelings; that was how she had written of Fabio’s death, careful to omit the details.
And Gian-Luca sighed as he read her long letters, because he had taken to sighing lately; and his sighs would come from a weariness of spirit, from a sense of futility born of his boredom; for a transfer had not yet been granted Gian-Luca who was such an efficient mess-sergeant.
III
Death, that was striking at heart after heart, now struck at the hearts of Mario and Rosa; for that December Geppe was killed in the twelfth great battle of the Isonzo. Geppe had gone through those weeks of hell without so much as a scratch, and then, zipp! a large splinter of shrapnel in the stomach, and presently no more Geppe!
Mario was unexpectedly quiet, saying little, not weeping at all. He just gathered Rosa into his arms: “Povera, povera donna,” he murmured, rhythmically patting her shoulder.
Rosa’s tears came gushing up from her heart in a great, irresistible flood; she was all dissolving with love and pity, weeping less for the death of her only son than for what she knew must have been his fear in those last few agonizing hours.
Nerone sat silently staring at his birds and rubbing his wooden leg. When at last he did speak his voice was solemn. “A hero has died,” said Nerone slowly; “my daughter Rosa is the mother of a hero. Let it be always remembered among us how nobly our Geppe died.”
There had been nothing noble in poor Geppe’s death, unless death itself be noble—he had died as hundreds of others had done, because there was no escape. Scourged and tormented by vile engines of war, by terrible, nerve-breaking, soul-sickening noise, by the smell and the sight and the slime of blood—crowding, thrusting, yelling, retreating, in a welter of maimed, half-demented men—that was how Geppe had died. But now he must needs be a hero to Nerone, and Rosa must mourn him as a hero, and Mario must speak of “My brave son Geppe,” as though Geppe had been willing and glad to die in that awful retreat of Caporetto.
Nerone went out with his snapshot the next day, and two weeks later there arrived an enlargement—an enormous affair in a wide gilt frame—showing Geppe’s weak face beneath a steel helmet, and a little blurred at that. Nerone hung the picture in the shop, above a low shelf just opposite the door, where all who came in must see it; he draped an Italian flag round the frame, a silk one, befitting a hero. Mario wrote out a little inscription which he stuck at the bottom of the picture: “Of your charity pray for the soul of Giuseppe Varese, who died that Italy might live.” Then he made the sign of the Cross on himself and muttered: “God grant that he rest in peace.” After which he hurried away to the Capo, for the living would be wanting their dinners. But Rosa came later and cleared from that shelf all the tins of tobacco and cigarettes, and in their place she set flowers before Geppe, so that now he looked more like a warrior-saint than the poor, frightened soldier he had been—Geppe, who had always liked cigarettes infinitely better than flowers!
Whenever a customer glanced at the picture, Nerone would tell him about it. “Ecco! My grandson, Geppe!” he would say; “as gallant a lad as ever went to war. Ma che! The boy was a veritable tiger, but what will you, he was young, and the young are too reckless—” And then he would spin out those long romances that his mind had woven around Geppe.
Rosa would hear him and shake her head sadly, thinking that her father had aged a great deal, thinking that the customer looked a little bored, a little anxious for his change. But not for the world would she have told old Nerone that he grew too voluble these days, that his yarns about Geppe were quite without foundation.
“After all, I believe he was fond of the boy,” she would think, and the thought would bring comfort with it; for nothing is so sweet a consolation in grief as the affection of others for our dead.
IV
Meanwhile there was no one who was quite without their troubles; the Padrone, for instance, had troubles and to spare, for not only must he cope with inadequate service, but he could not afford a band at the Capo, in addition to which there was no room for dancing. Yet never before in the history of England had there been such a craze for movement; such a gliding and hopping, such a swaying and clinging; such a stamping and clapping and grabbing of food. Two mouthfuls and then: “Come on, let’s have a turn!” After which more grabbing of food.
Millo, wise man, had foreseen what was coming, and now there was dancing every night at the Doric. The supper-tables had been carefully arranged to leave a large space in the restaurant.
The New Year brought with it a couple of air raids, for six hours on end the bombs banged about London. “Play louder,” Millo murmured to his band; and pale but determined the band played its loudest: “Honey bee, give us a kiss!”
Sometimes Millo would linger to watch his dancers, and the smile on his lips would grow rather grim, then after a little he would shrug his broad shoulders. In Berlin they were cursing, in Paris they were praying, and in London they were dancing—oh, well, such was war …
But Death was in nowise daunted, it seemed, for the spring came in on a great tide of blood. Yet this was not nearly enough for the glutton, who must needs go seeking out peaceable people who neither danced nor made war. Humble civilians just lay down and died from this cause or that, or from no cause at all except that they felt very weary. It was strange how many such people were dying; strange too, that as often as not they were those who had no one to lose in battle, and among them was talkative, small Aunt Ottavia, who caught cold in May and died early in June, leaving all that she possessed to Maddalena.
Who could have thought that the small Aunt Ottavia would have had so much money to leave? Four thousand pounds, securely invested in first-class American railroads. She had flatly refused to sell her good shares to the English Government or to anyone else; she had lent them to the Government for the time being only, receiving a tip in the process. But in spite of all her astuteness she had died, and her shares had remained behind her, to say nothing of the house in Coldbath Square, its contents, and one or two boarders.
Maddalena felt suddenly rather helpless, missing the tactless Aunt Ottavia. She longed intensely for her husband’s return, almost frightened by so much money. Gian-Luca wrote advising that the house should be sold, as he did not wish to live in Coldbath Square, and fortunately a purchaser turned up, who bought the house, boarders and all. Maddalena added the proceeds of the sale to Gian-Luca’s deposit at the bank; and now all her letters to him were full of new plans regarding the future.
“We can sell out the stocks,” she wrote happily, “and then you can buy your restaurant; only think of all that this means to us, caro! I am grateful to Aunt Ottavia.”
His answers were kind but curiously vague; it was almost as though he had scarcely grasped the extent of his own good fortune. And why did he never come home on leave? Surely he might have got home once on leave? But his answers were vague upon this point also.
He wrote: “I have not yet obtained my transfer.” As thought that could explain his not getting leave to a woman who loved as she did.
Maddalena was praying more earnestly than ever that the transfer might not be granted. How could she well do otherwise, when Fabio was dead and Geppe was dead, and now the poor Aunt Ottavia? The thought of so much death had struck terror to her heart, terror because of one life.
“Give me his life, dear Mother of God!” she entreated; and surely her prayers were being answered, for was he not working in comparative safety at the Officers’ Mess at the Base?
V
Yes, and that was where the Armistice found him, at the Officers’ Mess at the Base. All of a sudden the guns stopped firing; a stillness so intense that men clasped their heads, bewildered, came down on the blood-drenched pastures of France. Gian-Luca stared round him at the Officers’ Mess, and knew that the war was over.
He thought: “It is gallant, this record of mine, it is something that a man can be proud of! All my battles have been fought with the peasants over chickens. A fine victory the capture of a couple of fowls, a splendid victory! And what a defeat to return to the Mess empty-handed!”
From the Doric to the Officers’ Mess at the Base, there had only been a difference in degree. Food, always food, the thing they had lived by, Fabio and Teresa, Rocca and Millo, and he himself who had planned to grow rich via the media of people’s stomachs—oh, well, it had followed him out to the war, certain, no doubt of his allegiance: and now that the war was ended, more food—for Gian-Luca must prepare a very fine dinner in honor of victory and peace.
VI
Three months later his train steamed into Victoria, and there on the platform stood Maddalena, scanning the passing windows. The train stopped and she had him safe in her arms, all the bigness and the manhood of him. Her cheek was pressed tightly against his shoulder; and because she could feel the roughness of his coat, and the strong, even beat of his living heart, her gratitude leapt to her lips in words.
“Blessed be God!” said Maddalena.
He kissed her, then pushed her gently from him, as though in some way he rebuked her; but her joy was too great to feel his rebuke.
“Amore, amore, you are safe—” she whispered.
“Yes, I am quite safe,” he answered.
That evening she urged him to talk about himself, to tell her about his life out in France: “Your letters told nothing at all, caro mio, why did you tell me so little?”
“Because there was so little to tell—” said Gian-Luca; “they never gave me my transfer.”
“Oh, I am glad, I am glad!” she murmured. “Day and night I have prayed to the Virgin.”
But at that he smiled, and seeing the smile she must get up and kiss his mouth.
Then he took her in his arms, for was she not a woman made more lovely through her love of him? And he kissed her again and again on the lips, until she must needs believe that he loved her—that at last he had come to love her.
“Amore mio—amore,” she whispered, filled with the joy of his nearness.
And he answered: “Amore mio, amore,” while he strove to find peace and contentment of spirit, even as she had found it.
All night they lay in each other’s arms, and her cup of happiness was full, for she thought that all night he came nearer and nearer—yet all night he was slipping farther away from the arms that she fancied held him.
The next day he was gentle but strangely silent, and she studied his face more closely. Then it was that she knew that her husband had aged.
“Can it be that he has fretted himself, my Gian-Luca, because they would not transfer him?” she mused. “But why should he fret?—he was doing his duty, he was doing all that they asked.”
But now she discovered yet another thing about him; he preferred not to talk of the war.
He said: “It is over, let us try to forget it; the English did not wish me to fight—va bene, and now I must think of Millo and the Doric, I must go and see Millo tomorrow.”
As the weeks went on Maddalena was puzzled by a curious change in Gian-Luca. “They worked him too hard out in France,” she would think; but this explanation was unsatisfactory, for he did not seem physically tired.
To interest him she talked of Aunt Ottavia, and of all the money she had left them: “You will soon be the head of your own restaurant,” she told him, smiling proudly.
“Yes, I know, but not just yet,” he answered; “I cannot leave Millo in the lurch—I shall stay at the Doric for a few years longer—at least, I think I shall stay.” And then he quite suddenly changed the subject, as though it actually bored him.
His place had been waiting for him at the Doric, he was Millo’s chief headwaiter, and far more important than Riccardo had been, who had only had charge of the restaurant. Everything was just as he had wished it to be; he had four very excellent aides-de-camp, to say nothing of a large, well-trained staff of waiters, now that the war was over. Yet he seldom discussed his work with Maddalena, and this made her anxious and unhappy. He had grown very careful these nights not to wake her, he would steal through the hall and into their bedroom, having first taken off his shoes. And suspecting this, she would keep herself awake, feeling lonely at sleeping without him.
“Is that you, Gian-Luca?” she would say, sitting up.
And then he would frown: “Go to sleep, Maddalena, it is past two o’clock in the morning.”
Then Maddalena would talk to the Madonna: “Blessed Mary, help me with Gian-Luca,” she would whisper; “you who so mercifully kept him out of danger, show me what I must do. He is changed, he no longer wants to tell me about things—he is not like a child any more—how can I make him grow younger again—I who have no other child?”
And perhaps she might pause as though expecting an answer, an answer that did not come—for not in poor, faltering human speech could the Mother of God reply to Maddalena.