CHAPTER VI
Among the Olive Groves
Quite by accident as it seemed, the Sorority of the Camellia Buds hadturned itself from a society instituted for mutual protection and funinto a Crusaders' Union, pledged, like Spenser's Red Cross Knight, toavenge the wrongs of distressed damsels in the junior forms. The ring ofbattle certainly added a spice of excitement to their secret. It wasmuch more interesting to interfere personally on behalf of theirprotegees than to place debatable matters before the prefects. If warwere involved with another sorority it could not be helped. And warthere undoubtedly was. Bertha and Mabel, too clever to court openignominy, desisted for the present from biscuit-snatching, but soughtother means of retaliation. It was unfortunate for Irene and Lorna thatMabel had been apportioned to them as a roommate. Both she and Elsiewere members of the rival sorority, so there was division in No. 3dormitory. Sometimes the opposing factions would not speak to oneanother at all. Elsie was more stand-off than actively disagreeable andkept herself to her own cubicle, but Mabel was openly annoying. Shetransgressed every rule of dormitory etiquette, dashed for the bathroominstead of waiting her due turn, dumped her belongings on to otherpeople's chairs, spread the center table with her papers, fidgetedduring study hours, and in various ways made herself objectionable.
Irene and Lorna, as sworn buddies, cemented yet more firmly the bondbetween them, and supported one another on every possible occasion.Irene was really growing fond of Lorna. Though the latter might bereserved it was something to find a ready listener and sympathizer. As arule we can't deliberately choose our soul-friends. Fate just seems tosend them along and we must accept them with all their faults or gowithout. It certainly does not do to be too particular, or we may soonfind ourselves chumless in the world. Irene was rather lovelorn forPeachy, but that bright little American, besides being in an upperdormitory, was before-appropriated by other "heart-to-hearties," and,though she held out the palm of good fellowship, was too staunch acharacter to desert old friends for new.
"She's just sweet to me, but I don't count first," decided Irene. "Well,it's no use being jealous. If you can't have the moon you must becontent with a star, that's all. It's a vast amount better thannothing."
Lorna might more aptly be described as a planet than a star, for herthoughts had started to revolve round Irene in a fixed orbit. As regardsher half of the bargain she was absolutely content. She adored herbuddy, and blessed the lot that had coupled their names together. Shehad not before made a real friend, and Irene's happy-go-lucky,affectionate, confiding disposition appealed to her. She began to try toprotect her and look after her. It was really something of the motherinstinct cropping out. She had never possessed a sister or anythinglittle of her own to love, and it was a new experience to find a girl,rather small and younger than herself, who clung to her and seemedactually fond of her. Life, which had hitherto been chilly andself-centered, suddenly grew warm. She had been used to pose as one whodisliked school, but with this fresh interest her views on the subjectunderwent a change.
Any girl must indeed have been hard to please who was not satisfiedwith the Villa Camellia and its beautiful Italian garden. All throughthe month of February flowers were in bloom there which in England onlypeep out timidly in April or May, and often will not brave a northernclimate at all. The front of the house was covered with a gloriouspurple bougainvillea, violets bloomed under the orange and lemon trees,and the camellias, from which the villa took its name, flourished inprofusion, growing as great trees ten or twelve feet high and coveredwith rose-colored, white, or scarlet blossoms. Iris, freesias,narcissus, red salvias, marguerites, pansies, pink peonies, wallflowers,polyanthus, petunias, stocks, genistas, arbutula, cinerarias, begonias,and belladonna-lilies kept up a brave display in the border, and, thoughthey would be more beautiful and luxuriant later on in the season, theynevertheless dispelled the idea of winter. The general temperature atFossato resembled an English April, the sunshine was warm, but the windwas apt to be chilly, and at night-time it was quite cold, though neverfrosty. The central heating apparatus was kept going in the school, andthe girls, though they might run about without coats in the sunshine,were always required to have a warm jersey at hand, for the wind at thisseason could be treacherous, and those unused to the climate, deceivedby its brightness and wealth of flowers, were very liable to catchchills and to be laid up with feverish colds as the result of their ownimprudence. Sometimes indeed a bitter sirocco wind would blow, and bringtorrents of rain to turn the blue sea and sky to a leaden gray and toblot out the view of Naples and Vesuvius, but it seldom lasted more thana few days, and in a land of drought was welcomed to refresh the gardensand to fill the cisterns and water-tanks.
It has been mentioned in a previous chapter that the Villa Camellia wasof necessity run somewhat on convent lines. In Italy young girls do notwalk about unchaperoned as in England and America, but are always veryclosely escorted by older people, and it was advisable to keep to thecustoms of the country. The pupils obtained most of their exerciseinside their own garden. On Sundays they paraded to the British church,but otherwise they did not very often go into Fossato. Once a week, ifthe weather were fine, a limited number were taken for an expedition,but Irene had been at school for some weeks before this good fortunefell to her lot. One lucky Wednesday, however, she found her name andLorna's written on the list of "exeats" on the notice-board, and flew toannounce the glad tidings to her chum.
"Twelve of us, with Miss Bickford and Miss Parr as leaders. Won't it beripping? It says Monte Pellegrino. Where's that? The big hill overthere? Oh, great! I love a climb! I'm just dancing to go! I feel as if Ihad been boxed up inside these big walls for years and years. I onlywish Peachy and Delia had been on the list too."
"But we are!" exclaimed Delia's excited voice behind her. "Stella andMarjorie both have colds, so we've swapped places with them, and they'llgo next time instead. Isn't it fine!"
"I'm tingling right down to my toes," agreed Peachy, her jolly littlefreckled face one wide grin. "It's going to be an afternoon ofafternoons."
"If it doesn't rain," said Lorna, eyeing the sky suspiciously.
"Oh, don't be a wet blanket! It's no use courting trouble, honey, asWilly Shakespeare says somewhere. Oh, well, if it wasn't WillyShakespeare it was somebody else who said it, and it's just as trueanyway. Take your umbrella and wait till the rain comes down before yougrumble. I've got an exeat and I didn't expect it, and I'm going off myhead a little. That's all! Don't worry yourselves about me. I'm sane atthe bottom."
With Peachy and Delia prancing about and hardly able to regulate theirsatisfaction the expedition promised to be a lively one, though theharum-scarum pair calmed down in the presence of Miss Bickford, andassumed a deportment of due decorum. The favored twelve were halfseniors and half Transition, the remaining pair of the latter consistingof Bertha Ford and Mabel Hughes. The Camellia Buds exchanged eloquentglances at the sight of their arch-enemies, but wisely forbore to makeany provocative remarks; Delia indeed even murmured something pleasantabout the excursion to which Bertha grunted a reply, so the partystarted off in apparent harmony.
Antonio, with his big key, unlocked the great gate, they filed throughinto the eucalyptus-shaded road, and in ten minutes they had left thequiet school behind them, and were down in the gay little town ofFossato. It was new and wonderful to Irene. The wide main street withits intense brilliant sunshine contrasting with the deep shade of thenarrow side streets, the open shop-fronts with their displays ofpicturesque wares, the stalls of fruit and vegetables sold by quaintcountry vendors, the balconies full of flowers, the kindly, dark-eyed,smiling people, the pretty peasant children clattering about in heellesswooden shoes, the brightly painted carts and the horses decorated withflowers and feathers as if for a perpetual May Day, all made up a scenethat was more like a portion of a play than a piece of real life, andmade her almost able to imagine herself upon the stage of a theater.They had reached a great square, where leafless trees were covered witha beautif
ul purple blossom, something like mezereon. From a marblefountain bareheaded women, with exquisitely arranged dark tresses andbright handkerchiefs folded shawl-wise round their shoulders, weredrawing water in brass pitchers, and chattering the soft southerndialect with the pretty tuneful Neapolitan voices that speak likesinging and sing like opera. An equestrian statue of Garibaldi stood ona pedestal in the midst of a flowerbed of gay geraniums, and below, inthe shadow, a military officer, with a gorgeous pale blue cloak drapedover one shoulder, was talking to two Italian soldiers whose plumed hatswere adorned with shining cocks' feathers.
Miss Bickford, in the van of the Villa Camellia queue, strode on,taking no notice, beyond a firm shake of the head, of the variousinterruptions that met her path--the drivers who offered their carriagesfor hire, the smiling women who thrust forward baskets of oranges forsale, the beguiling children who held out little brown hands and beggedfor _soldi_ (halfpennies), and the post-card vendors who spread out setsof colored views of the neighborhood. It was a good thing that Miss Parrwas at the rear of the procession to keep order, or the girls would havesuccumbed to some of these temptations and have broken rank, anunpardonable offense in the eyes of the school authorities, who wishedto keep up the prestige of their establishment in the estimation of thetown, and to emulate the convent school on the hill, whose pupilsmarched along the high street as demurely as young nuns.
Turning out of the piazza they walked alongside a deep natural gorgewhich divided Fossato from the open country. This immense ravine was afearsome place, with a sheer descent of many hundreds of feet; itsjagged rocks were clothed with bushes and creepers, and clefts and theopenings of caves could be seen amongst the greenery. The girls leanedon the low wall and shuddered as they gazed down the precipice.
"Antonio and Dominica say that dwarfs live in the caves down there,"remarked Peachy. "Half the people in the town believe in them, butthey're too afraid to go and see because the dwarfs have 'the evil eye,'and would bring them bad luck."
"What superstitious nonsense!" laughed Rachel. "How _can_ they make upsuch stuff?"
"Not altogether such nonsense as you think," corrected Miss Bickford,who was a student of archaeology; "indeed _I_ find it intenselyinteresting. It's a case of survival of tradition. A few thousand yearsago no doubt a race of little short dark Stone Age men actually lived inthose caves, and took good care to avenge themselves on any of thetaller, stronger tribes who interfered with them and tried to push themout of their territory. The remembrance of them would be handed downlong after they had become extinct, and, of course their doings wereexaggerated, and their cunning tricks were set down to magic. Just asthe prehistoric monsters lingered as dragons and firedrakes, so thesmall early inhabitants of Europe have passed into dwarfs and browniesand pixies. If anybody cared to dig in those caves I dare say flintweapons might be found. It's a chance for the local antiquarian societyif they'd only take it."
Leaving the gorge the party turned up a steep and very narrow alleybetween walls nine or ten feet high. At the tops of these walls wereraised gardens planted with orange and lemon trees, whose fruit, in allstages of green, gold, and yellow, overshadowed the path. Across some ofthem were erected shelters of reeds or plaited grass, to prevent tooquick ripening, but in some of the orchards the crop was ready, andworkers were busy with ladders and baskets gathering their earlyharvests. It was a picturesque route, for the sides of the deep wallswere covered with beautiful maidenhair ferns, and over the tops hunggeraniums or clumps of white iris or purple stocks or clusters of littlered roses. Here and there, at a corner, was a wayside shrine with afaded picture of the Madonna, and a quaint brass lamp in front, andperhaps some flowers laid there by loving hands; dark-eyed smilinglittle children were playing about and giving each other rides inhome-made hand-carts, and at one point the girls stood aside to let passa donkey so loaded with tiny bamboo trees that it looked a mere movingmass of green.
At length the deep alley between the orange orchards gave way to adifferent scene. They had been climbing steadily uphill, and now foundthemselves above the fruit zone and among the olive groves. The highwalls had disappeared, and the path ascended by a series of steps. Grayolive trees were on either side, and on the bordering banks grew lovelywild flowers, starry purple anemones, jack-in-the-pulpit lilies, yellowoxalis, moon-daisies, and the beautiful genista which we treasure as aconservatory plant in England. As it was country the girls were allowedto break rank, and keenly enjoyed gathering bouquets; they scrambled upthe banks, vying with one another in getting the best specimens. Theview from the heights was glorious: below them stretched the gray-greenof the olive groves, broken here and there by the bright pink blossomsof a peach tree; the white houses of Fossato gleamed among the darkglossy foliage of its orange orchards, and beyond stretched thebeautiful bay of Naples, with its sea a blaze of blue, and old Vesuviussmoking in the distance like a warning of trouble to come.
It was at this point of the walk that Irene, foolish, luckless Irene,made a fatal mistake, and, as Miss Bickford afterwards told her,"wrecked the whole excursion and spoiled everybody's pleasure." Shebeckoned Lorna and ran up a hill to obtain a higher vantage ground,then, instead of descending by the route she had come, she insisted upontaking a short cut to rejoin the path and catch up with the rest of theparty. Now neither Lorna nor Irene was aware that the mountain was anetwork of many paths leading to little vineyards and gardens, and thatwhen they ran down the opposite side of the slope they were striking afresh alley, altogether different from the one along which Miss Bickfordwas leading her flock. For quite a long way the two girls walked on,thinking they were in advance of the others and had stolen a march uponthem. Then they sat down and waited, but nobody came. It was aconsiderable time before it dawned upon them that they were separatedfrom the rest of the party.
"We've come wrong somehow," said Lorna, in much consternation.
"What had we better do?"
"I don't know."
"Perhaps they're not far off. I'll try if I can make them hear."
"I wouldn't shout," objected Lorna, but she was too late, for Irenewas already letting off her full lung power in a gigantic coo-e-e. Ithad a totally different effect from what she anticipated. No schoolgirlswith Villa Camellia hats made their appearance, but some rough lookingItalian youths scrambled over a fence and came sniggering towards them.Their manner was so objectionable and offensive that the girls turnedand ran. They pelted down the path anywhere, quite oblivious of thedirection they were taking, and, as a matter of fact, branching yetfarther away from their original route. They could hear footsteps andgiggling laughter behind, and they were growing extremely terrified whento their immense relief they saw in front of them an elderly peasantwoman coming from the town. She had a bright yellow handkerchief roundher neck and carried on her head a big basket containing flasks of oil,loaves of bread, and some vegetables. She stopped in some astonishmentas Lorna and Irene rushed panting up to her, then glimpsing the lads sheseemed to grasp the situation, and called out angrily to them inItalian, whereupon they promptly and rapidly disappeared. As she hadreached the gateway of her own garden she motioned the girls to enter,and they gladly availed themselves of the opportunity to seek sanctuary.A large archway led into a paved courtyard, on one side of which was alittle brown house, and on the other a small chapel, quite a picturewith its quaint half-Moorish tower and two large bells. Their new friendseemed to be the caretaker, for she escorted them inside to show them,with much pride, an altar-piece attributed to Perugino and some ancientfaded frescoes of haloed saints. She gave them a peep into her housetoo, and they were deeply interested to see the unfamiliar foreign home,not comfortable according to British or American ideas of comfort, butwith a certain charm of its own. There was a big dark room on the groundfloor with an orange press, various agricultural implements, andnumberless baskets for gathering fruit; there was a bare kitchen with awood fire and a table spread with cups and dishes; then up a windingstair was a bedroom with walls colored sky blue, and a ve
randa thatlooked down over a glorious orange orchard.
"Oh, I'd adore to go out there!" said Irene, pointing to the path thatled between the fruit-laden trees, and their hostess evidently divinedher meaning, for she not only led her guests into the garden, butfetched a ladder, climbed a tree, and plucked each of them a wholecluster of oranges surrounded by a bunch of leaves.
The girls were so delighted with their entertainment in this Italiancottage that they hardly wished to tear themselves away, yet a vision ofMiss Bickford's reproachful face began to hover before their eyes, andLorna at last suggested that they must be moving.
"I hope those abominable boys aren't waiting about anywhere outside,"shivered Irene.
The same thought seemed to have struck their hostess, for she called anelderly man, evidently her husband, who was pruning vines, and began acatechism as to where her visitors lived. Lorna replied as well as herknowledge of Italian allowed, and at the mention of the Villa Camelliathe pair nodded in comprehension. After a brief conversation with hiswife in an undertone the old man offered himself as guide, and undertookto escort the truants safely back to school again, a proposal which theythankfully accepted. It would indeed have been difficult for them tofind their own way among the various interlacing paths, and they wereparticularly glad to have his protection against possible _ragazzi_.There was tremendous trouble waiting for them at the Villa Camellia.Poor Miss Parr had collapsed almost into hysterics, and Miss Bickfordwith two other teachers had returned to the hillside on a furthersearch, while Miss Rodgers was communicating by telephone with theFossato police station, and offering a reward for any news of theirwhereabouts. Irene had thought the principal could be stern, but shenever knew how her eyes could flash before that interview in the study.Both girls came out quaking like jellies and weeping for all to hear.
"Did you catch it hot?" inquired Peachy, sympathetically linking armswith the truants.
"Rather! It isn't the punishments so much, it's that she made us so_ashamed_."
"Our parole won't be trusted till after half-term."
"We didn't _mean_ to run away."
"It was really quite an accident."
"Cheer up!" consoled Peachy. "Miss Rodgers cuts like a steel knife, butshe doesn't bear grudges. I will say that for her. With some teachersyou'd never hear the last of it, but once you've worked off yourimpositions you'll be quite in favor again. Whatever possessed you to goand do it though?"
"Just our wretched bad luck, I suppose," said Irene, rubbing her eyesas she turned up the passage and deposited her confiscated cluster oforanges, as directed, in the pantry.