Regularly once a week, as regularly as Mass and the lifted golden Cup with the white face of Father Francesco behind it, there came a letter from Maria. At first Fabrio had not taken much notice of it, except to feel flattered and to wave it gaily in front of Emilio (whose letters from home were more and more concerned with the alarmingly successful prowess of the gangster-
bambino
) but as his reading improved, and he became able to master the contents without asking his friend’s help, he began to enjoy the letters; then to look forward to them; and at last, when April came and the woods below were filled with bluebells and the blue sky above them went on for ever, Maria’s letter had come to be the one happy thing; the only thing he looked forward to, in his week. It became his comfort, his link with home, giving him the warmth and peace which he had once dimly felt at Mass, and now felt no longer.
The letters were not long but they were filled with news. (There was never anything about thoughts or feelings in them;
Maria
would have regarded such a use of the difficult art of writing as a waste of skill and time and so would her corresdent.) She told him that his brother Giulio had cut his hand while planing posts for a gate; that there had been a fall of rocks on the path leading up to Santa Maria and one had to climb round them with one’s basket of three eggs for sale or one’s letter for the post because there was no one to clear the rocks away, as most of the men of the village had not yet returned from the war; Luigina had had a bambino by an Americano; Emma Tommasi was to marry her Americano; Giuseppina Cappa was to be married at Easter. Maria’s mother’s new white chickens, saved for during four months and bought at last, were laying well. Andrea and Paolo Montanari now had six children.
His letters to her were in a similar style, telling her of his work at the farm and doings at the camp; what he ate, where he went, but never what he felt. He boasted a little about the pleasures to be found in that fine large town Horsham, where there were many cafés and cinemas; he gave her the impression that life was not at all bad in England, and never once did he write “I am longing to come home.” Now that he could write, he shaped his letters with the natural grace and ease that he put into any small job, and Maria admired the bold regular lines and full curves of the “a”s and “o”s; it was quite a picture, Fabrio’s handwriting, and she looked up to him more than ever.
She was now living at home, she wrote, and doing most of the work on their smallholding. She did not tell him, poor Maria, that after months and months of blunders and excuses and tears and exasperated forgiveness in the shop at Portofino, her employer had at last rapturously welcomed a young man home from the wars who had offered his services as assistant. Maria had been sent home the same afternoon. I am very stupid, she thought humbly, and if I tell him that I was dismissed it will only make Fabrio despise me. At first she missed the sweet smells and the pretty combs and other trifles in the hairdresser’s shop, but soon she became used to weeding their small plot of ground
in
the hot dust of summer and hoeing it in the bitter mountain spring, with her head muffled in her old shawl and bowed before the wind, and she was content. There was almost enough for herself and her old mother to eat, and one day her brothers would come home from the camps in Austria and that other place, far away, down almost as far as Russia, and once a week the postman brought his old mule up the narrow path, round the fallen rocks, past the stream that dwindled every day as summer advanced, with Fabrio’s letter.
Very rarely, Fabrio received a letter from his eldest brother, but he only told him the family news which Maria had already heard from his sisters in her weekly visit, and Maria wrote a clearer hand that Giuseppe and at greater length. Fabrio’s father was ill. He was now too ill to sail the boat; he sat all day in the shade, in the stone yard where the olive-press stood and the doves rustled and cooed among the broad leaves of the chestnut tree, and Fabrio knew, though Giuseppe did not say so, that presently his father would die. Then Giuseppe would have the house and the land.
After he had read the letter giving him this news, Fabrio thought for a long time; and when the hour for dinner came, he bolted his lump of hard bread and his little cube of cheese and went to look for Mr. Hoadley. The farmer often took his dinner out into the fields nowadays and ate it while he worked, for Molly was no company at the dinner-table, picking at her food and sulking, and that great mare of a girl never stopped talking.
“What is it?” he asked shortly, looking up as Fabrio hesitatingly approached him. He was in one of the open sheds, removing rust from the mould-board of the plough.
“I want to save my money,” said Fabrio, and he took sevenpence from his pocket and held it out to the farmer. “Please keep it for me, signor.”
Mr. Hoadley straightened himself from his stooping posture and dusted his hands on his trousers. This seemed to him the first sensible remark he had heard from either of the Italians.
“Why, are you going home?” he asked, not ill-naturedly.
Fabrio shrugged his shoulders and smiled broadly.
“Some day perhaps,” he said.
“All right, I’ll keep it for you,” and he pocketed the sevenpence. “It’ll soon mount up, you’ll be surprised. But why pick on me?”
“I will not give it to Father Francesco, because he will tell me to put it in the church box,” Fabrio answered candidly, “and Emilio will want me to buy the cigarette and beer.”
“I see.
Capisco
. All right. And now how about you two learning to use a double handsaw on that oak down by the rue” (he meant a narrow ditch below a bank, bordering a coppice) “instead of wasting my time using an axe?”
This time Fabrio’s face sparkled with conscious mischief.
“Cannot,” and he shrugged.
“Cannot my foot. Will not, you mean. All right, get on with your work now. Your money’s safe.”
“Thank you, signor,” Fabrio answered, and went off.
His mind was more at ease. His eldest brother would have the land and the house and all the other brothers in between would have privileges before himself, who was only the youngest son, but he would return with some money saved, and what with that, and his knowledge of the English tongue and English ways he would not be a person who could be completely ignored and overruled in the family councils.
Mr. Hoadley presently started to whistle. It was a pity that Molly was so sulky nowadays and of course he was sorry for what she would have to go through later on, but it was the natural thing, after all; and it was the best piece of news
he
had had for years, and in spite of her resigned looks he had to express his satisfaction.
Alda had been prepared to give Mrs. Hoadley advice if it were asked for, but she had no intention of offering it if it were not, and when she perceived with surprise and some contempt that it was Sylvia who was to be the confidante, if anybody were,
she
lost her small patience with Mrs. Hoadley and referred to her as “that ass,” not realising that the farmer’s wife, still a girl in outlook and temperament, preferred to make her few confidences and complaints to another girl, rather than to a matron, however youthful.
Alda herself was not very content, for Ronald’s latest spell of leave had been delayed by more than five weeks and there was still no definite date for his arrival, and Father’s-Only-Sister-Marion had suddenly opened a sharp pincer-movement on the young Lucie-Brownes’ education, combined with an interrogation as to their political views. Were they being trained to take their place in the New Democratic World? Marion herself had a surprise for Alda: she hoped one day to stand for Parliament as Labour candidate in the very Ironborough constituency for which Ronald had planned to stand as a Liberal. It was at present held by a Conservative who was old and in feeble health. Should there be a by-election, Marion would stand.
“Beast!” cried Jenny, on hearing this news. “Why, that’s father’s constituency! Her own brother! She ought to be ashamed!”
“Sneaking it away from him while he’s abroad doing his duty!” Louise joined in hotly. “She
is
a beast!”
“Poor father,” mourned Louise. “Mother, he’ll be fearfully disappointed, won’t he?”
“I’m afraid he will, but not very surprised,” answered Alda, who had gathered from Ronald’s recent letters that something of this sort was brewing, “and as she’s got the money and the ambition and the brains, she’d better do it.”
“Father’s got brains!” cried Louise, shocked.
“Much better brains than Marion, lovey, but a different kind. Oh well, it can’t be helped. You must all be extra loving and good when he comes home next time, that’s all. And he might find another constituency later on,” she ended.
Although she honestly regretted Ronald’s disappointment, her own disappointment was not deep but she did resent the
tone
of Marion’s letter, which was so exultant and dictatorial as to seem insulting. There was a reference to Jean, whose orphaned, idle and prosperous condition now rendered her peculiarly fitted to take up some public work. She might Speak or Write (political writing, of course, not useless writing) or take a course of instruction in Socialist political theory. In any case, she certainly would not want to waste much more time down in the country doing nothing, and Alda was to let Marion know if she could help with introductions or advice. And how was Jenny’s riding getting on?
Alda was hurrying up the cottage stairs, waving this letter and muttering and intending to show it to Jean, when the latter came out of her bedroom. She wore her coat, and on seeing Alda she looked conscious.
“Jean, you must hear Marion’s latest. Your future is all arranged. Do listen! Really, she
is
——”
“I’m so sorry, darling, but I’ve got to beetle off. Terrific hurry,” and she was smilingly slipping past when Alda caught her waist.
“Where to? No, but do listen——”
“I will when I come back; I’m only going to the station.”
“Why? Are you meeting someone? Jean! It isn’t Ronald?” and Alda suddenly sat down on the stairs and gazed up at her with a face full of hope.
“Of course not, idiot. It’s just something I’ve got to collect.”
“At the station? I’ll come too.”
“No, Alda. I’d rather you didn’t. You’ll see what it is—them, I mean—all in good time,” and she began to laugh, “only I don’t know how on earth I’m going to bring them home!” and still laughing she hurried down the stairs and out into the sunny morning.
“Meg will go for a walk,” observed a determined voice. Alda glanced down and saw that Meg had crept up unobserved and was now standing just below her in the steep shadowy well of the stairs, bending forward with plump hands supporting her
weight
upon the tread, her plain, cheerful little face lifted to her mother’s.
“All right, Megsie, we’ll go down and meet Jean. She’s gone to fetch a surprise.”
There was nothing to do in the cottage, so they went.
When we say “there was nothing to do,” of course we know that there is always some necessary and pithering work to do in a house, but Alda bothered herself little with such details in Pine Cottage, because it was such a dark, cross, dusty cottage, always managing to look, even in the midst of a Sussex meadow, as though it lived in Pimlico. We must confess that neither she nor Jean did much; but there was always the mending, and it is a fact that days in the country do glide past with a mysterious ease and calm; there always seems plenty of work to be done yet there is never a feeling of haste; something of the endlessness of childhood’s days returns to the grown woman and she can delight in it without a sensation of guilt. And as every woman in England nowadays is overworked, we thought it would do no harm to present a picture of two who were not.
When Alda and Meg had strolled perhaps half-way to the station, they heard voices and laughter approaching and then, round a curve in the road came—first, Jean, wheeling a new bicycle that spun and glittered in the sunlight; next, Mr. Waite, also wheeling a new bicycle that flashed in silver and scarlet; after him, Emilio and Fabrio in that order, each guiding a smaller bicycle of the same shiny newness and, last of all, came one-of-the-little-Dodders, belonging to an enormous family, reputed to be half-witted, which lived in extreme poverty, dirt and smiliness in a capacious cottage at the lonelier end of the Froggatt road.
The sex of this particular little Dodder was at first not clear, as it was very pretty but wore tattered knickerbockers, and it was wheeling a charming little tricycle.
Upon seeing Alda, everybody except Mr. Waite broke into exclamations and laughter, and they all stopped short and waited
for
her to come up. She herself had coloured deeply; with excitement and pleasure and resentment. What a present! They must have cost a small fortune! No one but Jean would have done such a thing; so lavish, so kind, so certain to be welcomed, such a store of pleasure for months—years—ahead! Nevertheless, Alda preferred to give presents rather than to receive them. It is the commonest human failing and the one by which Man fell.
Emilio was smiling, the little Dodder was smiling (without one trace of envy, for when your toys are pebbles and sticks you cannot imagine owning a top, much less a tricycle), even Fabrio’s pale face was alight with admiration for these beautiful shining new machines. Only Mr. Waite was not smiling, for Mr. Waite saw in this action of Miss Hardcastle’s yet another example of how casual she was with her money, and he was thinking how very much she needed a man to look after her and prevent her from spending her late father’s hard-earned fortune so lavishly. And now Mrs. Lucie-Browne would go flying down the lanes, attracting attention and perhaps falling off.