XIII
I
It was just after Christmas when Signor Millo marched into Fabio’s shop one day and handed his card across the counter.
“This way, signore, this way!” exclaimed Fabio, pink to the brow with pleasure and excitement. And he took him into Teresa’s back parlor and pushed up the most propitious chair.
Signor Millo was a man of forty-five, of medium height and broad-shouldered. His brown hair curled close to his round, shapely head; there was something about him that suggested the antique—perhaps the Roman arena. But his brow was intellectual, and his mouth rather grave. His eyes, dark and set very wide apart, had a wonderfully wise and benign expression as though they neither questioned nor condemned. Seeing him thus, as he sat in the armchair with his hat held loosely between his knees, was to wonder what manner of man this was. An athlete? An author? A philosopher, perhaps? As a matter of fact he was none of these things; he was Francesco Millo, the director of the Doric, which, thanks to his skill, to his excellent judgment and elegant epicurean palate, had risen in the last few years to great fame among the restaurants of London.
That he should have come in person to the Casa Boselli was quite on a par with the rest of the man. He might have sent several intelligent people, all well up in their professional duties, but instead he had preferred to call on Fabio himself—such little excursions amused him. It is said that in each man there lurks the hunter; the hunter of money, the hunter of lions, the hunter of fame, the hunter of women; and Francesco Millo was also a hunter, as keen on the trail and as steadfast as any, indeed he was tireless, hence the fame of his restaurant, for Millo was a hunter of food.
He had said to himself at the beginning of his career: “There are three very vital things; quality, variety and originality, and the last is perhaps the most vital of the three. A dinner should have, like a book or a picture, good workmanship, plenty of light and shade, and above all that individual touch, that original central idea.”
And so, whenever the spirit moved him—which was often, for he was a restless man—Millo went forth in search of strange viands. Just now he was after some special funghi that grew in the woods not far from Turin. As luck would have it he had heard from a confrère that the Casa Boselli had but lately imported a case of those special funghi.
“Ma sicuro,” said Fabio, “we certainly keep them; they are fat, good funghi, you may see for yourself, you may smell them.” And he fetched a terrific looking toadstool for the great man’s careful inspection.
Millo sniffed it. “It is prime, as you say,” he remarked, and he promptly bought the whole case. “And now I will look at your stock, if you please; I would also like to see your price-list.”
Fabio was trembling with excitement by now—the Casa Boselli and Millo. What a happening to make Nerone more jealous! What a snub for the Signora Rocca! He pottered about showing first this, then that, his paste, his hams, his tomatoes; then those elegant, more highly-specialized foods, caviar in jars, carciofini in oil, tunnyfish, fillets of anchovies with capers, and large, green, globular snails.
“All excellent, fresh, and quite inexpensive!” he kept chanting in a kind of litany. “All excellent, fresh, and quite inexpensive—and we keep a great variety of foodstuffs.”
Signor Millo stood still, and surveyed him gravely. “I would speak,” he said, holding up his hand.
“Prego!” bowed Fabio, trembling more than ever in case he had talked too much.
“I am rather disposed to give you some orders, your shop is so excellently kept; I think also that there must be someone here who has an enterprising mind. If you get my custom, of course you are made, for I never stint recommendations; but, and this is important, so I beg that you listen, the first time you fail me I break you, signore. If ever you should send me a thing that is not fresh, a thing that could injure the stomach of a client, that day I write round to my confrères and tell them—I cancel my recommendations, signore; and such is my system of management.”
Fabio bowed low; he was longing intensely for the reassuring presence of Teresa, but Teresa had unfortunately gone to the Capo to call on the Padrona that afternoon.
“It shall be as you say, I am honored,” babbled Fabio. “You shall have no cause for complaint.”
At that moment, Gian-Luca strolled in at the door, and seeing the stranger, paused. He looked very tall in the little shop as he towered over Fabio and Millo. His neat blue serge suit became him well—it had not been bought secondhand, for Gian-Luca was particular about his clothes, and when in mufti he dressed with great care, he was even a little foppish. Standing there young, fair-haired and alert, there was something incongruous about him, something that seemed to set him apart from the salumeria in Old Compton Street, from Fabio, from Millo even.
“This is my grandson,” Fabio explained; “he is a waiter at the Capo di Monte.” Millo bowed slightly. “Piacere,” he murmured, as though he were thinking of something quite different; as a matter of fact he was all attention and his mind was working very quickly.
If Francesco Millo had a palate for good food, he had also an eye for a waiter; those who served were as carefully chosen by him as the dishes they were privileged to handle. Moreover, he prided himself on his flair. “I know in a moment,” he was wont to say proudly; “I know the moment my eye rests upon them. It amounts to a psychic faculty with me: I can pick the good waiter out of a thousand; the waiter is born and not made.” His eyes took in every line of Gian-Luca, without appearing to do so. “He is mine!” he was thinking, with that thrill of satisfaction that belongs to the ardent collector. “As it happens,” he said casually, turning to Fabio, “I am wanting a waiter next month; now if your grandson is free I might try him—I suppose he has had some experience?”
“He has had three years at the Capo,” Fabio told him.
“That says nothing to me,” smiled Millo.
“The Capo di Monte in Dean Street, signore.”
“I have never heard of the place.” Then after a minute:
“But that need not matter, no doubt it serves some sort of meals. Perhaps you will give me the name of the Padrone so that I may take up your grandson’s reference; he will get a good reference, I think.”
All this time Gian-Luca had not opened his mouth, nor had he once been consulted; now, however, Millo turned and addressed him directly.
“If your reference is good, as I think it will be, you may come on the morning of the twentieth, side-door, 9:30. I will let you know when I hear from your Padrone, so that you may order yourself a dress-suit.” He scribbled an address on a leaf from his notebook: “This is the tailor who makes for the Doric, he will know how I wish your dress-suit to be made, he will also tell you what else is required. As for terms—they depend entirely on yourself; I pay high, but only for good service. You will not be dependent upon your tips, everyone at the Doric receives a salary—I cannot stop to go into that now, I will speak to you when you come on the twentieth. If you prove satisfactory you will not complain of my terms; if you prove unsatisfactory there will not be any terms, for you go—we will try you and see. I think that is all—oh, do you speak English?”
“I do, Signore,” said Gian-Luca promptly, but before he could get in another word, the great one was leaving the shop.
“Dio mio!” breathed Fabio. “Our Lady is good; she is patient in spite of Teresa.”
But Gian-Luca said nothing, he was thinking deeply—he was thinking about the Padrona.
II
A new idea came to Gian-Luca that night, and he sat up suddenly in bed. “When I go she will miss me,” he thought triumphantly. “She shall find out for herself what it means to be without me, how lonely it will feel not to have the Gian-Luca who was always so ready to serve her.”
He pictured the Padrona sitting behind the bar, with her face in her hands—weeping. “Gian-Luca, Gian-Luca, I want you!” she wailed. “I cannot get on without you!”
He would go there and see her, in a suit of fine clothes, they paid high for good service at the Doric. He would say: “I have come!” And she would reply: “Oh, but I am glad, Gian-Luca! I will meet you tomorrow between luncheon and dinner. Where can we go to be alone?”
“Gia,” thought Gian-Luca, nodding very wisely, “that is the way with women; when they have you they despise you, but when they have you not, then it is they find out that they want you.” He was very near tears in this moment of triumph, but his fighting instinct held. “I will go to the Doric,” he told himself bravely. “I am glad that I have come to a decision.”
This of course was the purest make-believe, for he knew that he had no choice in the matter; Fabio might be weak, but he would not consent to the loss of a fine job like this. Moreover, there was Millo’s custom to consider—that might mean fame for the Casa Boselli. And then there was Teresa, the ambitious, the strong-minded, the dominating woman of affairs.
Nevertheless, he went on repeating: “I will certainly go to the Doric.” And he added: “Tomorrow I tell the Padrone, then we shall see what we shall see.”
III
The next morning he arrived at the Capo very early in order to tell the Padrone. By the greatest good fortune the Padrona was present, which was what Gian-Luca had hoped for. He did not look at the Padrone when he spoke, his eyes were on the Padrona.
The Padrone said wrathfully: “So this is gratitude!” and his facial expression was appalling. Then he went out, banging the door behind him, and his voice could be heard coming up from the kitchen with a dash of Moscatone thrown in.
The Padrona said: “This is very fine, Gian-Luca, I congratulate you, my child.” She was checking the accounts of the bar at the moment, and she went on checking her accounts.
Gian-Luca said uncertainly: “I am going in four weeks—this means that I am going away—”
“It does,” said the Padrona; “we must find another waiter, and that is always a bother. I shall not take a Swiss, I dislike them on the whole, though Schmidt is a very good fellow. By the way, we can give you an excellent reference, you have always been capable and quick.”
Gian-Luca left her without another word. His lip shot out, his eyes were very bright. He said to Mario later:
“I am lucky, my good Mario, I shall make my fortune now, you will see!”
IV
The last four weeks at the Capo di Monte passed like an evil dream. For one thing there was Mario, very sorrowful and servile; he was going to miss Gian-Luca, and he said so. His manner to the boy had now completely changed, it was that of failure towards success. He bragged less about the Capo and not at all about himself.
“I am just an old lame mule,” he would say humbly, remembering that taunt of the Padrone’s.
“He is not so lame as all that!” Gian-Luca would try to think; “he puts it on in order to get pitied.” But he knew that this was not so; Mario’s lameness was quite real, and moreover, it was often very painful.
Mario said: “Since you were little and Rosa gave you milk, I have always been so fond of you, Gian-Luca—now you go out into the world with no old Mario near. You be careful; do not listen to people like this Schmidt, who are always thinking about women.”
“Women!” frowned Gian-Luca, “I want no more of women!”
And at that Mario’s mouth twitched a little; but he went on very gravely: “You are angry with our Padrona, you have great unkindness in your heart towards her. Now that is what I fear, piccino, anger in the heart—I know, for I too have felt such anger. It is dangerous, it is stupid, it makes a man a beast; it makes him forget how strong he is. The Padrona is a woman and therefore you should pity, and moreover she is really very right. For one thing she is nearly old enough to be your mother, for another she considers her business, for another she remembers the Padrone no doubt—a terrible man when in anger.” He paused, for Gian-Luca had turned his back, but presently he went on still more gravely: “Forget her when you leave here, it would be better so—but if you must remember, do so kindly.”
“Is it I, then, who must show all the kindness?” exclaimed Gian-Luca.
“Precisely—that is so,” Mario told him. “You have nothing to forgive, and if you had, remember the Padrona is only a woman.”
They were standing in the pantry. Gian-Luca glared at Mario; then he noticed that his hair had greyed a little. He looked old and sad and tired; the coarse texture of his sock was showing through the slits across his shoe. Nor was he very clean; his white shirtfront was spotted and the buttons of his coat were stained and frayed. He fidgeted self-consciously under Gian-Luca’s eyes, and his hand went up to straighten his white necktie. They began collecting things; Mario could not find the napkins, he swore because the table-drawer had stuck; and presently he grumbled:
“It is hard, this life of ours, always standing, always running, always serving someone else. I feel at times as though I must go out and climb a mountain so as to look over something wide.”
Gian-Luca only grunted, and picking up a tray, he hurried off to set his luncheon tables.
Mario watched his youthful back disappearing through the door. “He is very young,” thought Mario, “he is very innocent—yet I think he grows a little proud.”
But Gian-Luca at that moment felt anything but proud; all he wanted was to get away from Mario. He did not want to pity, to see any cause for pity—and Mario was very pitiful.
V
Gian-Luca’s worst times were in the afternoons, for he never quite knew whether to go home. If he sat beside the bar the Padrona did not come, but if he left the Capo he always thought that she might have come if he had remained. At home would be Teresa who detested the Padrona and said so between her rows of knitting. She would say it from the cash-desk, from the shop or from the parlor, whenever she could do so with discretion. In the shop there would be Fabio very jubilant and proud, relating for the hundredth time his interview with Millo. Rocca might look in a moment, slap Gian-Luca on the back and say; “Ecco, you are grand now, Generale!” Then Nerone, who was genuinely pleased about Gian-Luca, was forever stumping round to see his favorite. He loved the boy, and consequently only saw his virtues—by contrast he detested Rosa’s children.
“You are lucky, you old brigand!” he said one day to Fabio. “Now my Rosa’s children are disgusting. That Geppe will not work and he steals my cigarettes, and when I leave he does not guard the shop. As for Berta, she is awful, she speaks only Cockney English and what she would have us think is French; our language is no longer good enough for her, it seems, and also she is very vain and ugly.”
He would ramble on and on, always cross, always complaining, and finally would try to pick a quarrel with his friend. “Your prices are too high—you no longer sell good food—that is why you grow so proud and rich, no doubt.” Sometimes Rosa appeared too, just to pass the time of day, and if it were a weekend she brought her Berta with her. Berta worked for Madame Germaine—née Smith and wedded Bulgin—who sold exclusive models in her shop near Wardour Street. Berta ran all the errands and took models home to clients—one in every dozen costumes might, with any luck, be French. Berta was temperamental and thought she loved Gian-Luca; she was always making eyes—enormous eyes. Her hair had grown more frizzy and, if possible, more black, and she wore it in a heavy pompadour. She refused to speak Italian, but had learnt a little French from the sisters at her convent school; this she tried hard to remember so that she could plague Nerone who loathed the French because about a hundred years before they had stolen those bronze stallions from St. Mark’s. For the rest she spoke in English; not the rather stilted English of Gian-Luca who had never really learnt to clip his words, but in the English of the workrooms; and she spoke it without accent, that is, of course without a foreign accent.
Gian-Luca loathed and feared her; she was always edging close, and he lived in mortal terror that one day she would kiss him. Her hand was always waiting to be squeezed or stroked or cuddled; he felt sure of this whenever he observed it. And so, when Berta came, which was as often as she could, Gian-Luca would rush back to the Capo. The bar would be deserted until the dinner-hour, still, it was at least a sanctuary from Berta.
VI
Gian-Luca dressed one morning with almost painful care; he was going to say goodbye to the Padrona. In two days’ time he would take up his new work, but this morning he was going to say goodbye. It had all seemed so queer and unreal the night before—the pantry, the kitchen with its giant Moscatone, the long low restaurant, the chattering diners, the clanking of the glasses and bottles in the bar; and above all, he himself, in his shabby old dress-suit, writing orders, serving dishes, fetching drinks, striking matches. It had seemed as though his body did these duties out of habit, while he stood aside and thought of the Padrona.
The suit he wore this morning had been a present from Fabio, and very smart it was, an immaculate grey tweed.
Fabio had said: “I would not have you shabby before Millo. We wish him to observe that our little business prospers. Is that not so, Teresa?”
And she had nodded: “That is so.”
Gian-Luca stared at his reflection in the glass, and in spite of his heartache he approved of what he saw. He gave a final touch to his necktie and his hair, then, picking up his hat, he went downstairs.
“Do not be long,” called Fabio from the shop. “I must consult you—I have certain business matters to discuss regarding Millo.”
Old Compton Street was foggy, there was mud on the pavement: Gian-Luca stooped and turned up his new trousers, for one part of him remembered that he wore expensive clothes. At Nerone’s door stood Rosa with her hair still done in curlers; she was shaking out a very dusty mat. She smiled broadly at Gian-Luca:
“How smart you look, piccino! What would Berta say, I wonder!” And she laughed.
Geppe peered across her shoulder, he looked spotty and unwashen. “He is lucky, not like me who have to stop at home,” he grumbled.
“Continue with your sweeping!” said Rosa, turning quickly. “You cannot have swept out half the shop.”
There were lights in Rocca’s window because it was so foggy. Rocca himself was moving in and out among his corpses. As Gian-Luca passed he saw him neatly slicing off a shoulder with a quick, experienced sweep of his knife. The whole street was very busy preparing for its business, which consisted of supplying other people’s daily needs.
“They need so much, so very much—how funny!” thought Gian-Luca, who himself was only conscious of needing the Padrona.
The Padrone was waiting for him when he reached the Capo; he was in a great hurry to go out.
“Here you are!” he said impatiently, glancing at his watch. “Be good enough to sign the wages book.” Then he held out his hand, turning affable, it seemed: “Well, I wish you good fortune. I am sorry to lose you, but when one is young one must think of oneself.” The Padrone did not wish to quarrel with Fabio, it was much too convenient to deal at his shop.
“May I see the Padrona?” faltered Gian-Luca.
“Sicuro, she will want to wish you luck. Gemma!” he called. “Gian-Luca is here.”
“Let him come up,” came a voice.
“Go up,” said the Padrone, “you know the way. I have to go to the City.” He shook hands once again and turned to the door. Gian-Luca went slowly up the stairs.
The Padrona was sitting on a low settee. The firelight fell on her thick coils of hair and slanted across her averted face, which was partially shielded by her hand. She did not look round, and Gian-Luca in the doorway stood watching her in silence for a moment, then he closed the door quietly and stepped into the room.
“It is I,” he said softly. “Gian-Luca.”
She nodded; and now she was looking at him, smiling very kindly, he thought. “I hope you will be happy, Gian-Luca,” she said, and then fell silent again.
A coal crashed into the grate and lay there smoking; the Padrona pushed it with her foot. Outside in the passage a cuckoo clock struck nine; the small, childish sound of it seemed to fill the room. Gian-Luca’s strange eyes were very wide open, his breath came a little fast. As he stood there he could hear the beating of his heart, he could hear the Padrona’s breathing. Then he drew himself up, he felt suddenly strong, he was filled with a knowledge of his manhood. He called her—standing there motionless, he called her. “Gemma!” And then again, “Gemma!”
She got up and stared blankly at him for a moment as though bewildered—uncertain. There was something very like appeal in her face—he saw it and his heart thumped with triumph.
“Gemma!” His voice was loud and compelling, and after he had called her he smiled. Then all of a sudden she was lying in his arms, giving him back his kisses.
As they stood there the years came down on the boy and dropped away from the woman; they were just two creatures welded into one by an impulse of mutual passion.
He began to speak hotly: “My beautiful! My joy! I will never let you go any more. All my life I have waited, and now I have got you—I am all burning up with this loving.” Then his mood changed, his eyes filled with sudden tears. “You are holy,” he whispered softly. “I must treat you very gently—you are little and weak, and you need Gian-Luca because you are so little.”
But something, perhaps it was the sound of his whispering, made her stiffen as she lay in his arms. With a cry of anger she pushed him away.
“Stop!” she said shrilly. “Stop!”
And then the Padrona sinned in her fear as she had not sinned in her passion. In her fear she struck out wildly like an animal at bay; she accused, she insulted, she degraded. She might have made an appeal to his goodness, to the chivalry that was in him, to that great, shy, virginal spirit of youth that was wrestling with him even now. But instead she confronted him, flushed and disheveled, with the crude, ugly words on her lips.
“Go!” she said finally, pointing to the door. “Go—or I tell my husband!”
And he went, without one more look at the Padrona. He was utterly bewildered, incredulous and outraged. Alone in her room the Padrona wept bitterly, but Gian-Luca’s eyes were quite dry.
VII
That night Gian-Luca returned to the Capo, but this time he did not go in. He hid like a thief in the opposite doorway, watching for the waiters to leave. Mario came first; that was good. He was glad. He shrank farther into the shadow, but Mario passed him with never a glance and went limping away down the street. Then came the new waiter accompanied by the boy; they said goodnight and the waiter caught a bus. The boy looked round him then lit a cigarette—obviously one that he had stolen—after which he too walked away down the street, whistling softly between puffs.
In an upper window of the Capo a light showed—that was the Padrona’s sitting-room. Gian-Luca watched it, and as he did so he was filled with a queer, ugly sense of pleasure. He was glad that the light should stream out between the curtains; it meant that the Padrona was near; and he thought of what he was about to do and felt glad that she should be near him. A door opened and shut, Schmidt came across the road—he was now all but touching Gian-Luca.
“Schmidt!”
“Nun was!” Schmidt jumped as though frightened. “Oh, hallo! Is that you, Gian-Luca?”
Gian-Luca jingled the money in his pockets, then he slipped his arm into Schmidt’s. “Will you take me to see those girls?” said Gian-Luca, and he turned his face up to the lighted window.
“Ach so!” murmured Schmidt. “You make up your mind—come along then, I understand.”