Their laughter irritated Sylvia beyond endurance, the more because the sight of Fabrio’s pale pleading face touched her. She was so embarrassed and confused that for a moment she did not know what to say; then she turned furiously on them, exclaiming, “Shut up, can’t you?” But her tone and expression did not subdue Jenny and Louise, who came of a family which had no experience of violence and regarded bad temper as a joke, and they went on giggling. Fabrio neither saw nor heard them. He only saw his love’s face.
“I must ask you something,” he said again, in a quieter tone. “Please-a, come, Sylvia?”
“I want some cake, that’s all I know,” she retorted. “And so do you, I suppose. Here’s a plate,” snatching one and holding it out to him. “S’sh, now, Mr. Hoadley’s going to speak.”
Mr. Hoadley had assumed a patient attitude as he waited for that chattering and giggling down at the far end to cease. When it did—for Fabrio held the
padrone
in too much respect not to keep silent, though it needed an effort of which he was scarcely capable to keep silent at that moment—Mr. Hoadley looked round upon the company, nodded once, and said:
“Well, harvest is over once again and we’ve had grand weather for it. I should like to thank all those who’ve helped to get it in, especially the young ones” (here he smiled in the direction of Jenny and Louise and everyone gazed benevolently at them, while Louise felt what she afterwards described as “awful” at this undeserved tribute to one who had spent most of the day staring at moorhens) “because it’s hard work, as I’m
sure
some of you have found out by now” (hearty murmurs of assent from the amateurs). “Well, now let’s drink to a good harvest in good weather all over the country. Then Mrs. Hoadley’ll cut the cake and if the young people don’t find the weather too warm for dancing, we’ll have a dance.”
He straightened himself and raised his glass, and everyone followed his example, and amidst mutters of “The harvest—the harvest—” and clinking of mug against glass, the toast was drunk.
Then Mrs. Hoadley daintily inserted the tip of the knife into the icing and, having professed herself unable to find strength enough to sever a slice, relinquished the task to Mary Parkes. No one would have credited such a finnick as Mrs. Hoadley with being a first-class cook, but she was, and she was also capable of going to any lengths to procure the currants and sultanas, the icing sugar and lemon juice and butter, which must go into a first-class cake. It was loudly praised, and then tea was served and cigarettes handed round. Emilio was arranging the portable wireless (the property of Mr. Waite, loaned for the occasion) which stood in a corner, and suddenly there came a burst of gay music, and he sat back on his heels with a satisfied smile, nodding his head in time to the tune.
All this time Fabrio had been sitting in a dejected attitude staring down at the floor, his tea untasted, even his cigarette unsmoked, but at the first notes he started up and hurried across the room to Sylvia, who was chatting with Mary Parkes.
“Sylvia! Dance with me!” he said; so imperiously, so fiercely, that her own anger, which had been subsiding, sprang up again to meet his tone.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” she demanded, crushing out her cigarette with some satisfaction in the stagy action. “I’m damned if I will,” and she turned her back on him.
He caught her by the waist and swung her round.
“Yes, you will, yes, you will, Sylvia,” and suddenly his sullen young face broke into gaiety; and he made a few gliding
steps
that were graceful, despite his clumsy boots and rough clothes, and bent towards her in a bow.
“It is a good tune, this one,” he said simply. “Now come along,
Sylvia mia
.”
Mary Parkes was thinking that if Sylvia were silly enough to refuse she would dance with him herself; but Sylvia too was laughing, and as he swayed eagerly towards her, she held out her hands and he caught them, and they moved away together.
“Mees. You dance-a weeth me,” said a sharp voice at Mary’s elbow and there of course stood Emilio, with beady eyes fixed greedily upon her face.
“Oh—I was just wondering if I would—the floor’s so rough—and it’s so hot——”
“No-a, no-a, the floor is good, Fabrio and me we roll it this-a day weeth a roller, and now the sun is go down it is nice-a cool. Come on, mees,” and poor Mary found herself pinioned by a wiry arm and whirled away.
At first Sylvia was glad to be dancing with Fabrio, because she thought that he was going to be sensible and then everything would be pleasanter, but in a minute she began to feel uneasy. He had stopped laughing and his eyes, their beautiful colour slightly dimmed, gazed sternly, yearningly into her own. She had an impulse to shut her own eyes against that look, but she resisted it, and glanced over her shoulder round the room. Three couples were dancing, for Mr. Waite had now stepped out with Jenny, and the rest of the party was seated round the walls, smoking and watching. Clouds of dust were rising from the floor under the dancers’ feet and everyone was exclaiming and shaking their heads; it was indeed very disagreeable in the intense heat, and a general feeling seemed to be developing that the dancing had been a mistake.
Suddenly she felt, rather than heard, a low sound from the lips near her own. She quickly turned her head, and met a look of such love that for an instant she did actually shut her eyes, exactly as if they had come too near a naked flame. But she
opened
them again at once, and then she felt how his arm was trembling against her waist. She looked at him questioningly; she could not think of anything to say; she was becoming terrified and longed to escape from the circle of that hard, trembling arm. She had a confused impression that he had said something in Italian, but she could not even force herself to ask him if he had; for the first time in her life she was silenced by the presence of passionate love.
Yes, he was speaking:
“Will you be my wife? I love you,” he said softly, “
Sylvia mia
, I love you. I love you.” It seemed that he could not say the words often enough; he repeated them as if their sound was a comfort to him. “Will you marry me?” he said, and then, as if overcome by the dearness of the childish face close to his own, he smiled.
Sylvia’s store of memories in later life was the usual human store, quite unillumined by any imaginative glow, but it is true to say that she never completely forgot that smile—which held the tenderness of a father and brother as well as a lover’s passion—upon a young man’s mouth.
She heard what he said, but her feelings were so confused that she could not answer. She was indignant and frightened, but she was also flattered, and she had a strong hysterical impulse to laugh. In her distress, she glanced away again towards a group close at hand which included Alda. Mrs. Lucie-Browne’s eyes were at that moment fixed with a mischievous expression upon herself and Fabrio, and as Sylvia met their bright stare, Alda gave her an approving nod.
Sylvia jerked her head away with a furious gesture. Shame overcame all her other feelings. She hated Alda to see Fabrio looking at her like that. What business was it of hers, poking her nose in—giving advice that wasn’t wanted, pushing people around? She would show her—and Fabrio too.
He was murmuring in Italian. Her silence had encouraged him, and the clasp of his arm tightened as he gazed eagerly into
her
face. But she suddenly shook his arm from her waist and flung off his clasping hand. She looked straight at him.
“You’ve got a hope, haven’t you?” she said, deliberately. “Catch me marrying a Wop. I’m thirsty, I’m going to get some tea,” and she turned her back on him and walked away.
Alda did not see this, for, immediately after she had encountered Sylvia’s eyes and given her that encouraging nod, she had thought that perhaps the young lovers would prefer not to be stared at, and had turned her attention elsewhere. When she next noticed them, the length of the room was between them. Sylvia was drinking tea and laughing noisily with Mrs. Hoadley and Mary Parkes, and Fabrio was standing in the doorway looking out at the moonlit yard. Even at that distance she could detect an extraordinary change in him. An exaggerated comparison drifted through Mrs. Lucie-Browne’s usually sensible mind; it occurred to her that he looked as if he had been kicked.
“Now that’s enough, all this dust is making everybody cough, it’s enough to choke us,” announced Mrs. Hoadley, coughing herself to give point to her words. “Emilio’s got Mr. Hoadley’s accordion, and he’s going to give us all a tune. Gather round, everybody,” clapping her hands to attract attention, “and we’ll have a sing-song.”
This announcement was not received by the company with unmixed pleasure; the children were delighted, and Emilio was all smiles as he bent over the accordion and experimentally squeezed it in and out between his dirty yellow fingers, but Mr. Waite was looking sober, and the two elderly men exchanged glances of despair, for they had hoped to get away to their usual haunt, the Wheatsheaf on the outskirts of Horsham, as soon as the supper was over. But Sylvia at once seized Mary Parkes by the arm and drew Louise to her other side to form a circle, and Mr. Hoadley looked relieved; he had not liked all that dust and the Italians hopping about with their arms round the girls. Soon there was an animated circle seated about Emilio, who
played
a few cautious notes, then dashed with immense
brio
into
Teresa
.
In a moment Louise whispered under cover of the singing:
“Mother, what’s the matter with Fabrio?”
Alda glanced at the door. He was still standing there, with arms folded and his back to the lighted, crowded, noisy room.
“I don’t know, lovey, perhaps he doesn’t feel well or he’s tired,” she answered.
But she thought impatiently that that idiot of a girl must have upset him again, and badly this time, to give him
that
look. Surely she had not been fool enough to turn him down finally? I certainly will speak to her the minute all this is over, Alda thought.
Louise turned, and studied Fabrio with one long, curious gaze before joining again in the singing. She was not deceived: she knew that he was miserable because Sylvia had been unkind to him. It made her feel uncomfortable. Grown-up people ought not to be miserable; it was frightening. They were there to comfort children, and how could they do that if they too got miserable when people were beastly to them? She suddenly pushed herself closer to her mother and took her hand.
The voices rose and fell in pleasing harmony. They sang rounds;
Great Tom is Cast
and
Joan Glover
and
White Sand and Grey Sand
, but
Three Blind Mice
was the most popular and successful. Emilio proved an expert player, hearing a tune and trying it over only once before mastering it well enough to satisfy an uncritical audience, and they went on from one old favourite to another, each member of the party eagerly making suggestions. Mr. Hoadley called for
Roll Out the Barrel
and Mrs. Hoadley for
The Temple Bells are Ringing
(this was not among the more successful attempts, and the spectacle of Mr. Waite doggedly proclaiming that he lay hidden in the grass was nearly too much for Alda and Jenny). Mr. Waite himself, when his turn came to choose, surprised everybody by coming out with
Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes
in a severe throaty
baritone
. They had
Lily of Laguna
(bashfully put forward by the man Spray, who had abandoned all hope of reaching the Wheatsheaf and was now enjoying the occasion) and
The More We Are Together
and
John Peel
, a suggestion from Alda, who knew that Jenny and Louise enjoyed making alleged hunting noises in the chorus.
Presently everyone paused for a rest and a drink, and Sylvia took the opportunity to suggest that they should sing some solos. She was not at all nervous, she said with an angry laugh (she was very conscious of the silent figure now seated on the moonlit threshold, still with its back to the room and tactfully ignored by the company) and she would begin with
Night and Day
. She was not trained, she explained to her dismayed audience; hers was a natural voice, more like a crooner’s.
So Emilio, with an expression that proved his kinship with the race that bred Juvenal, cocked his eye upon her and kept it there throughout his playing of
Night and Day
, which she duly crooned.
After the polite applause, Mary Parkes was persuaded with some difficulty to sing
I
’
ll Walk beside You
, which she did very prettily, and then Mr. Hoadley thundered his way through two verses of
Drake
’
s Drum
in an enormous mellow bass which shook the lamp glasses but ceased abruptly in the first line or the third verse, because he had forgotten the rest. He was unperturbed, and smilingly refused the entreaties of the children to “sing some more,” but took a very large drink of cider and wiped his forehead, for singing was warm work.
During the last song, Emilio had been glancing from time to time at the figure of his friend in the doorway. He now squeezed a note or two from the accordion, and suddenly called in Italian:
“What’s the matter, my brother? Has
La Scimmia
turned you down?”
“Shut up, you, and go to Hell,” answered Fabrio, without turning round.
A musical language does not confine its music to educated
voices
. The unfamiliar sounds lilted down the room, and everyone felt a little stir of curiosity and pleasure in their ring. What were they saying, these foreigners, one of whom had no self-control? No one knew enough Italian to make a guess, but everyone assumed that Emilio was attempting rough comfort on his friend, and everyone (except Louise, who frankly stared) tactfully busied themselves with their cigarettes and drinks and chatter.