VI
I
There was someone who always wanted Gian-Luca, and that was Mario Varese; he had a good-hearted, pitiful affection for Rosa’s foster-child. Mario no longer slapped his thighs, he no longer roared in play; indeed, it might be said that he was now quite grown up—he had broadened out somewhat in the process. Mario was nearly thirty-three, and his hair was receding a little. At one time his dress-suit had hung loosely on him, but now it was rather tight. His cheeks, always red, were redder than ever, and his eyes, that had bulged only slightly in the past, now resembled two brown balls of toffee. But for all this, Mario was still good-looking—and when he could afford it, flashy; on the plump little finger of his large left hand he wore a gold ring with a rhinestone.
Mario was very much the man of affairs when reposing in the bosom of his family; to hear him talk of his prowess as a waiter was to know that the Capo di Monte without Mario would merely have ceased to exist. Mario explained at considerable length the art of dealing with clients, the methods of tempting a poor appetite, or soothing an irritable temper.
“You assert yourself—but with grace,” said Mario. “You expatiate on the food. You say: ‘I will stroke the lettuce with garlic—no more than that, a caress of garlic—’ Then you say: ‘I observe that the signore is not hungry, that he feels no great wish to eat—in that case, I suggest Fegato alia Veneziana, fried with onions and plenty of butter—but fried, oh, so very gently!’ You watch him, and if he swallows the lot, you step forward and remark with a smile: ‘Good, very good; is it not so, signore?’ If he agrees, then you whip out the menu and tempt with another dish. It is all very easy, and you make them drink too; you observe—as though you were thinking aloud—‘The cellar contains some marvelous wine!’ then you smile: ‘But, alas! the Padrone has his whims; it is only the few who are permitted to taste it. He is like a hen with her chicks,’ you say: ‘He is like a great artist who will not sell his pictures; he rejoices but to look at the outside of the bottles—the insides he reserves for those who have a palate—however, I will do my best for you, signore; I myself will speak with the Padrone’!”
Mario said that the Padrone was sly, but that Mario Varese was slyer. “It is wonderful,” laughed Mario, “how the little round tins contain only that which is fresh! They say: ‘Listen, Mario! I want something light—what about a plate of that good consommé? I am rather afraid of tomato soup; it usually lives in a tin!’ ‘Signore!’ I exclaim, as one who is wounded, ‘here we make all things fresh!’ The chef, he it is who opens the tin in which that excellent consommé lives; they drink it up quickly, perhaps they ask for more—Ma che! They do not know the difference!”
Mario said that the Padrone had sworn to bring all London to the Capo di Monte. “We have red cotton curtains at the window now, but soon they will be silk!” bragged Mario. The Padrone, he said, was one who would rise; he had a beautiful wife—her hair was golden and she took in the dishes from the little door just behind the bar. She was not quite a barmaid, but she stood among the bottles and bowed to the clients as they passed. Her manner was aloof and she smiled very seldom, therefore when she did smile it made an impression, and those upon whom she smiled were pleased. The Padrone was like that, he also was aloof: he had the bump of selection. “You’ll see! You’ll see!” chuckled Mario delightedly. “One of these days we become the fashion, then we put up our prices, we make them pay high for the fat green snails at the Capo di Monte; and we grow like the snails, fat and rich!”
Rosa never listened, but Gian-Luca did, and he came to the conclusion that all men were foolish, except of course the Padrone and Mario, who must be unusually wise. The matter of the tinned soup troubled him a little, but not, it must be said, for very long. If, as Mario had explained, they did not know the difference, then what difference could it make to them? However, he consulted Fabio about it.
“I myself do not take it, but I sell it,” Fabio told him. And although this left the ethical question rather vague, it appeared to satisfy Fabio.
Mario was so indispensable, it seemed, that holidays were few and far between; when he got one, however, the occasion was momentous—it called for a gathering of the clan. A holiday was not a real holiday to Mario unless it was accompanied by toil; that was the way the good Mario took his pleasures; he planned, he worked, he wore himself out—but after it was over and he lay abed with Rosa, he could count up on his fingers all the things they had done in the course of a brief nine hours.
Mario declared that a little glimpse of green was better than a bottle of Asti; but when he found the green there was never time to see it. He sat under it, he walked on it, he lay on it perhaps, but only until he got his breath. On those very rare occasions when Mario found a meadow he would scamper over to the next. He had the sort of mind that goes with large adventure, preferring always that which lies beyond.
This mind of his, imprisoned for the best part of the year within the narrow confines of his business, broke loose the very moment it could sniff the country air; off it went and Mario with it, always seeking the beyond, always trying to go just a little farther.
Mario was eloquent regarding country air; he said that it took at least ten years off his age. But at times the spirit led him so far afield to find it, that the day would be spent in a third-class railway carriage—then it would be time to go back. He adored his children, so they too must be considered; he was never quite happy without them. He was not quite happy with them, but Mario shrugged his shoulders and supposed that that was often the way in this world.
II
It was spring, and even in Old Compton Street the spring is apt to be exciting. Nerone’s new skylark sang and jumped and sang. Nerone had made a felt top for its cage, the better to shut out the sky.
“Ma guarda! Is he not joyous?” said Nerone. “It appears that he too feels the spring.”
The skylark felt the spring, Gian-Luca felt the spring, and Mario felt the spring and grew restless. Gian-Luca looked at his motto every morning: “I have got myself,” and the words, lit up by sunshine, seemed to glow with a new and exciting meaning, until, what with youth and the spring in his bones, he almost forgot his troubles.
Mario, perspiring at the Capo di Monte, broke a dish, for which he had to pay. He grew less subtle in dealing with the clients; when he cleared their tables now he would whisk with his napkin until the crumbs flew into their laps.
“Sapristi!”—the Padrone was proud of his French—“Sapristi! You imbecile, what are you doing?”
And Mario would laugh—yes, actually laugh, right in the teeth of the Padrone!
In the mornings, when he shaved, he did so with vigor, cutting his chin in the process. The blood might drip on to the rim of his collar, but Mario did not care; he would go to the washstand and rub off the stain with an old flannel washrag—after which his collar would look limp.
“I will not have a clean one, it costs so much, the washing,” he would say. “We must save, we must put by the pennies for when we can go into the country.”
Berta got nettle-rash and cried a good deal; she got it every spring and autumn.
“Geppe has given me pidocchi!” she insisted, whenever Rosa would listen.
Geppe pretended to grope in his head and to throw the results at Berta.
“Oh! Oh!” shrieked Berta in a panic of fear. “Oh! Oh! He is throwing me pidocchi!”
Rosa scrubbed up the house, and forgetting it was London, she put the bedding out in the sun. When she brought it in it was covered with smuts.
“Accursed country!” said Nerone, and he swore: “We live in an accursed country!”
Teresa was constantly busy in the cash-desk, the money went jingling through her fingers. Whenever a sunbeam touched a golden coin she smiled and stroked it gently with her thumb. For the habit of thrift had persisted in Teresa; now she saved for the pleasure of saving. Every Saturday morning she went off to the bank with a little bag hidden in her cloak.
As for Fabio, his halo looked wilder than ever, but the pains in his back had disappeared. He served in the shop without coat, or even waistcoat, his shirt bulging out between his braces.
“God be praised,” smiled Fabio, well content with the gastronomical effects of the fine weather. “God be praised; we are selling more this spring than we have done for many years past.”
Even Rocca grew poetical, a mood which found expression in his garnishing and laying out of meat. Rocca bought a calf’s head to which he pinned rosettes, then he thrust a spring of parsley in its mouth.
The Signora Rocca said very many prayers; it was May, the month of Our Lady.
“Oh loving, oh clement, oh sweet Virgin Mary,” she murmured, and then, bethinking her of Michael the Archangel, and, via him, of Satan: “May God rebuke him—and do thou, Prince of all the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust down into hell Satan and all wicked spirits.”
III
Late one afternoon came Mario and Rosa, accompanied by Nerone and the children. They walked solemnly into Teresa’s back parlor; their faces were preoccupied and grave.
Mario said: “Two weeks from tomorrow the Padrone had made me the present of a day. It is very important that we all discuss the matter; the question is, where do we go?”
“Yes, that is the question,” murmured Rosa dutifully; “as Mario has said, we go, where?”
They sat down, staring at Fabio and Teresa: “Where do we go?” they demanded.
“There are many nice places,” suggested Fabio.
“It is beautiful weather,” said Teresa.
“Now first,” began Mario, “we must have the Gian-Luca. You consent to his coming, I hope, Teresa? The day will of course be a Sunday.”
Teresa nodded and went on with her knitting.
“That is good,” Mario smiled. “You hear that, Gian-Luca? You accompany us once again.”
Gian-Luca trod slyly on Geppe’s toe, and Geppe screamed like a siren. Mario waited for the hubbub to subside, after which he went on speaking slowly:
“I have long wished to visit a certain place which I know is of very great interest; to begin with its name is full of romance—it suggests the sea and the sky.” He paused and made a wide gesture with his arms. “The sea and the sky—” he repeated.
“And where is this place you speak of?” inquired Rosa.
“It is called Land’s End,” said Mario.
No one laughed, no one seemed very much surprised; they had all known quite well what sort or thing was coming, for when Mario thought of a holiday he invariably longed for those faraway places that his mind had yearned over for years. Perhaps he had less imagination than the skylark, for he seemed to enjoy discussing every detail. “I have heard—” he would say—and then he would be off! As he talked his eyes would grow rounder and rounder, and his face would shine with enthusiastic sweat until even Rosa would hush Geppe into silence the better to fancy herself there. A harmless diversion, a game of make-believe in which Rosa joined to please Mario.
Mario looked from one to the other.
“There are rocks at Land’s End!” he announced.
“And the sea!” chimed in Rosa.
“And a beach,” said Gian-Luca.
“I have heard that the beach is stony,” mused Mario; “however, no doubt there are seagulls—”
“Is it not in Cornwall?” Fabio inquired.
“Precisely,” said Mario complacently, “and Cornwall is a place of historical interest because of that king they call Arthur. Though I do not think Arthur lived at Land’s End, but of that I am not quite sure.”
“You shall tell me about him some day,” said Rosa; “you have always been clever at history. But is it not rather far for the children—have you considered that, Mario?”
Mario frowned. “Could we not start early. Can it matter how early we start?”
“It will cost—” murmured Rosa. “It will cost a great deal, and we should not have much time there, I am afraid, even if we did start early.”
“That is so,” sighed Mario, suddenly depressed, because Rosa was not quite playing the game … But after a moment he grew more hopeful. “There are castles,” he told them, “wonderful castles; I have seen the picture of one they call Corfe. What if we all go and visit the Corfe?”
“There is also Folkestone,” suggested Rosa, tactfully edging a little nearer home. “At Folkestone one watches the boats coming in—there are sometimes Italians on board!”
“Mi stufano!” Mario burst out rudely. “Why should I wish to see Italians?”
“It has come to me!” suddenly shouted Nerone, waving a triumphant hand. “As you cannot go to Land’s End, then why not go to Southend? To me it sounds all the same thing.” But Mario shook his head. “No, I think not, Babbo; I do not much like the winkles. Moreover, there is mud and many, many, children, and some of them—” He finished the sentence in English, because Berta, who was said to be frightened of illness, might not understand medical terms in that language. “And some of them cough with the whoop.”
Teresa glanced up at him from her knitting: “Epping Forest—” she murmured. “There are too many trees,” said Mario discontentedly; “it is difficult to get beyond trees; they come in so close; they confine, they molest you—and besides, they shut out the view.” His mouth drooped a little—he was gentler than Geppe, but he looked rather like him at that moment—“I desire to go somewhere wide,” he muttered, “somewhere enormously wide!”
Then Rosa spoke gently, stroking his hand the better to soften her words: “Let us go to Kew Gardens and have lunch on the grass; we will take the big hamper with us. In the afternoon we can find the cake shop we went to once before—they had nice little tarts with raspberry jam—I remember because Geppe ate so many. We can travel on top of the omnibus, and you always like that, don’t you Mario?”
For a moment Mario’s face grew darker, his expression was somber and resentful. Then all of a sudden he cheered up completely: “Ecco!” he exclaimed, “my Rosa has solved the problem! It is not quite Land’s End, but there is much to see—we will study the plants and the Chinese Pagoda; after all, there is very much to see. And now we must consider what we take with us to eat—Fabio shall give us a sausage!”