“Take off dat rag,” Mrs. Hoadley commanded, stepping down from the chair with a scornful look, “and we’ull put a bit o’ dis on de place.”
“Put blue mould on my finger? Not if I know it, you won’t!”
“Yess, yess,” the old woman insisted, “dat’s good for it, dat ’ull heal it up an’ make it sweet, won’t it?” appealing to Fabrio, but with an increasing contempt in her black eyes. Fabrio shrugged his shoulders and politely smiled. He had the peasant’s respect for a Wise Woman, and although the little cake did not look like a medicine, its recommender did look very like a white witch.
“It’ll poison it,” said Sylvia resignedly, beginning to unroll the bandage. She thought it best to give way, for further objections would delay the serving of dinner.
“No, it won’t,” Mrs. Hoadley snapped. “I don’t go for to poison girls. Dis is a cheese bun, like my granny used to use for us liddle children. Hold it out.”
Sylvia held it out, and watched in disgusted silence while a piece of mouldy bun was put upon the cut and bound in place.
“Dere!” said Mrs. Hoadley, when the operation was completed. “Now you leave dat alone for three days, and den take it off. De cut’ull be just-about healed up so’s you won’t know dere’s been a cut.”
Sylvia earnestly promised that she would do so, resolving to fling off the dressing as soon as they should be out of sight on their way home.
Dinner passed off gaily. True, the tablecloth was two sheets of the Sunday Pictorial and Sylvia’s plate rested upon a photograph of a large pair of naked female thighs while Fabrio was interested to see the words God and Murder glaring up at him from between the cups (for they drank strong tea with their meat), but the pork was rich and sweet and the potatoes eaten with big dabs of butter. The talk was anecdotal, reminiscent, teasing, and they all began to like one another. Old Mr. Hoadley came in, wearing his best suit, and devoted himself to Sylvia, passing her the bread, the pickles, with slow politeness. He was a silent old man, seemingly much older than his wife, and she sometimes became impatient with his halting movements and spoke roughly to him, but he did not seem to mind. They had spent all their lives together (Mrs. Hoadley told Sylvia that they had married from the same village when she was fifteen and he nineteen) and had grown so close together in body and habit that words between them had ceased to mean much to either.
They all enjoyed the strong tasty food, the sunlight pouring into the room and gleaming on Mrs. Hoadley’s grand collection of china pieces and busts that was ranged all round the walls, the sweet fitful cries of birds ringing in through the open door. Summer is coming, thought Fabrio, leaning back with a little black cigar, produced by Mr. Hoadley, between his teeth and stirring the treacle in his tea, and this summer she will be here too; I shall see her every day, my Sylvia, my girl. He smiled at her gently, across the untidy table. Every shade of coldness, of sullenness and suspicion, had vanished from his face, leaving it frank and happy. His mother and sisters would have seen him, at this moment, as if the war and his captivity had never been. The two pairs of blue eyes met, and Sylvia smiled at him in return: for the first time she saw him as a comely, friendly young man, with a sweet, lazy ardour in his eyes that she did not resent.
Then three o’clock struck hastily from an ancient grandfather clock wedged amidst the mugs and the pottery busts of Victorian statesmen. It seemed in a hurry, which is never a good state for a clock to be in. Mrs. Hoadley glanced at it, and briskly got up.
“Can’t sit here all afternoon, dere’s the pigs to be fed,” pronounced Mrs. Hoadley, “Sylvia, you come along with me and have a tidy-up and Mr. Hoadley’ll take Albert” (early in the proceedings Mrs. Hoadley had said that she could not bother with Fabrio’s name, and as he minded her of a Belgium who had worked with Mr. Hoadley in the last war-but-one whose name was Albert, she would call him Albert). Fabrio’s eyes followed Sylvia as the two women went out of the room and her last glance as she passed through the door (like that exchanged between two children who share a secret) was for him.
“The pigg-as!” exclaimed Fabrio eagerly, as soon as the door had shut, “I will like much, much to see them, please.”
“Dey won’t run away,” said Mr. Hoadley placidly, blowing out smoke. “We’ll put these scraps,” indicating their plates, “into the bucket and take ’em along in a minute or two. Haven’t you ever” glancing at him in mild surprise “seen pigses afore?”
“Only when I was far off. I would like much, much to see pigg-as close to me.”
Mr. Hoadley nodded as if this were a perfectly understandable wish, and presently—he having silently indicated to his guest on their way out to the sties a little black shed with a door lolling off its hinges—Fabrio joined him at the sties, having found the way there through a tangle of blackberry bushes and hazel wands by the sound of grunts.
The sties were large and unexpectedly clean in such surroundings and there was an enormous sow with fifteen piglets. Fabrio’s respect for the old Hoadleys, which had been shaken by the poverty of their home, was partly restored. He remembered Giulio Ferraro at home in San Angelo, whose miserable existence in the hovel where he had starved himself to death had not prevented the legend of his wealth persisting, and when Father Mario had entered the den after Giulio was dead, holding his nose and gathering up his cassock from the floor, had he not found bundle upon bundle of lire hidden in the walls? No, a poor house did not always mean that its owners were poor; they might be clever and he, Fabrio, would be courteous to these old people.
It was easy for him to be, for he was happy here. He liked the grunting, and the birds’ cries, and the faint scents from flowers and woods, and the strong odour of pigs; he liked the huts, with the warmth from the oil-stoves, and those beautiful plates, and the cushions made from thousands of tiny gay rags; he liked the tales (but half-understood by him) about her young days and the scandals about her neighbours of to-day that Mrs. Hoadley had related at lunch, and he was full of rich pork and strong tea. And over all his bodily happiness, like a sweet scent, floated the thought of Sylvia.
He leant his arms companionably upon the wall of the sty beside Mr. Hoadley, and complimented him upon the fatness and strength of the porcelli, and began haltingly to ask questions about them to which Mr. Hoadley slowly but willingly replied, for he had taken a fancy to him.
The air in the bedroom was warm and close. Sylvia wandered over to an old dim mirror that stood on the dressing-table and saw her young face looking greenish and twisted, as if reflected in a pool. The tiny window was shut, and dead flies lay along its sealed frame. The beds were unmade; a rank odour came from the stiff, ancient clothes that stuffed the cupboards; from worn slippers and huge muddy boots lying amidst the grey fluff on the bare boards. She saw an overflowing hair tidy, a china tree laden with brass rings and the cornucopia earrings, a tray scattered with rosebuds and filled with huge iron hairpins worn shiny with age, curlers, burnt-out matches. She turned quickly round; she did not like it here; she wanted to get outside into the air. In the dim light Mrs. Hoadley was pottering about, opening a drawer, pushing a dirty garment under a pillow. Now she turned round too, and as she saw Sylvia’s disturbed face, a smile stole over her own. She sat down upon one bed and leant forward and patted the quilt upon the other in invitation.
“He’s a very nice young man,” she began soothingly. “And so Molly’s in de family way at last? About time, too.”
Half an hour later Fabrio heard Sylvia’s voice calling, “Hullo, you there! Where on earth are you?” and in a moment she blundered out through the hazel thickets into the glade. She was followed by Mrs. Hoadley carrying the pig bucket, with eyes brighter, fuller, younger than they had been at lunch; bright and black as a snake’s in the shade of her chip hat.
“Thought you’d gone home,” she said roughly, and shook back her curls, which, unaccustomed to lying low upon her neck, were beginning to come loose. “I hate my hair this corny way, I’m going to put it up,” and she gathere
d the whole mass in her hand and with a pocket comb scraped it back from her brow and up into a knot upon her skull, revealing the pompadour once more. The two men stared at her, the old one placidly, Fabrio in bewilderment. Her face was flushed, her mouth sullen, her very voice was harsher. She was La Scimmia again; her graceful clothes did not seem to belong to her.
“Hideous things, aren’t they, really,” she said, turning from the spectacle of the sow and her sucklings, “I shan’t fancy pork again for some time,” and she gave an angry laugh.
Mr. Hoadley continued to draw at his pipe and to show no surprise. Mrs. Hoadley was emptying the bucket into the trough and laughing at the squeaking and scurrying and gobbling.
“Come along, you give us a hand,” she called to Fabrio. “They’s just-about starving, you’d think,” and he took the bucket from her, still in bewilderment, and emptied it, then emptied another smaller one which she handed to him. Sylvia took no notice; she had wandered off towards the edge of the coppice and was staring away into its clustering green stems. A sheet of the unfamiliar yellow flowers spread itself at her feet but she did not see them, for she was so angry, so disgusted, so ashamed—she could have smashed something.
“Dey’s a pretty flower,” said the old man’s voice behind her. “Musk, dat is.” He slowly stooped, and with his trembling brown hand covered with swollen purple veins pulled up with some difficulty one of the full yellow blossoms with scarlet-spotted lip. “But dey don’t smell sweet no more, like dey did when I was a boy. I heerd on de wireless dat’s de same all over de world; de musk-flower’s given up smellin’ sweet. I lay it’s because of all de muck dey puts into de ground nowadays, all de chemists’ muck. But my son over at Hayward’s Heath, he says dat’s as good as de old stuff. Here, put it in your coat, missy,” and he held out to her the posy he had laboriously gathered.
She accepted it with sulky thanks, but she would not accept the invitation to have a cup of tea which Mrs. Hoadley casually extended to them both a little later. She insisted that they must go home, that they were expected at the farm before evening and that it was half-past four now. Fabrio did make one attempt to make her change her mind, but she turned on him so roughly that he was silenced.
So in a little while they set off, Fabrio carrying a bag of home-made soap, and Sylvia striding ahead of him, with a sullen look and the sun shining full upon her brazen hair.
“What’s de matter with her?” asked Mr. Hoadley, when their visitors had passed out of sight between the dazzling sunrays and the budding bushes.
Mrs. Hoadley gave her soft old laugh, and turned away, jingling the oddments in her apron pocket.
“Girls—dey’s always worryin’ about something,” was all she would answer.
The other two hurried on in silence. Fabrio kept his anxious eyes fixed upon her back as she walked ahead of him through the copse and over the plank bridge, hoping that when they came to the marshy meadows she would turn to him for help. But she did not; she made her way across the patches of drier ground swiftly and in sulky silence. What was the matter? A week ago he would have dismissed such conduct with a shrug; she was La Scimmia, and that explained any peculiar behaviour, but to-day—until an hour ago—she had been Sylvia, a friendly laughing girl with lovely eyes that met his own loving look without mockery; he could not feel angry with her, even now, although the terrible hair-style had returned and her very walk was different. Poor little one, he thought, something has upset her. I will ask her what is the matter. And with a few easy strides he caught up with her.
“Why are you angry, Sylvia?” he asked, trying to take her hand, and his voice sounded deeper, more musical than usual, just as a bird’s is sweeter in the mating season. “Are you angry with me?” But he did not believe that he was the cause of the trouble, for what had he done? Nothing.
“No, of course not,” she retorted, snatching her hand away with a cross smile. They had paused on a little expanse of firmer ground; the glory of the declining sun flooded the wide sky, the ancient willows in their sweeping bud veils, the pools of golden water where dark reeds were mirrored, and the distant hills, now a wise golden-green and filled with tender shadows in their mighty hollows. The air was growing cooler but as yet there was no feeling of approaching night. He stood in silence, with his hands in his pockets, gazing gravely at her.
“I’m hungry, I want my tea, and it’s that disgusting place—the pigs and everything,” she went on petulantly, smoothing her hair. “I expect I look a sight, too. I loathe that sort of thing—meals off of newspaper, and outside sanitation, and those old-fashioned ideas——” here she tore the dressing off her finger and tossed it into a pool. “Well, they’re disgusting, really. Of course, Fabrio,” condescendingly, beginning to move on, “you wouldn’t realise how bad it was because——”
(She checked herself; she had been going to say You come from that sort of home.)
“—because you haven’t seen really nice working-class homes where the people are progressive and have some self-respect,” she went on, her loud angry voice ringing across the hushed, wide, radiant meadows. “When you see that sort of place you can understand why people are Communists.”
He listened attentively, straining to understand the long, unfamiliar words and why she was so angry, with his anxious eves fixed upon her face.
“My God, it burns me up, those poor old people living in shacks without any proper amenities and the big industrialists like B.I.C. and Rank and all those other bosses, and Lord Nuffield (I’d give him Lord; what’s he done to be a Lord, except have a lot of money that other people have earned for him?), the workers ought to control the means of production and the raw materials, same as they do in Russia, my God, this country makes me sick!” she ended, and began to climb the gate leading out on to the road, irritably waving aside his eager offer of help. All the time she was clambering over the rails she was talking; such words as “democracy,” “industrialisation,” “nationalisation,” “freedom,” “community,” “socialism,” “fascism,” “communism” poured from her rosy mouth and utterly bewildered him; he began to feel cowed, beaten, ignorant, under this hail of words.
He glanced back once across the meadows. They were all one glory of gold, and the willows sat among them like wise long-fingered old Chinese men, gazing down into the water. I can’t understand, I wish she would tell me what’s really the matter, he thought; and then his unhappy eyes wandered unseeingly to some half-dismantled haystacks of last summer near at hand, their grey straw weeping down over their shapelessness, and vaguely they reminded him of something, some figure. Yes, it was the straw images that the ignorant people set in the fields at harvest time far down in the South, near Naples; the Straw God that blessed the harvest, and died and came again next year. He felt a strong need for comfort at that moment, from something older, wiser, bigger than himself, and the towering shapes of the budding elms, the willows by their pools, the shapeless harvest-figures crouching in haystack shape, all vaguely consoled him. Then his thoughts turned to Our Lady, and he uttered a silent prayer to Her. She was so beautiful, so kind, she must know what was the matter with Sylvia because She too was a woman, and perhaps She would help him.
All the way along the road through the village, across the short cut through the fields, and down the hill to the station, Sylvia went on talking, brushing aside his timid questions, turning upon him angrily when he tried to tease her out of her ill-temper, striking her clenched fist upon her palm as she told some tale of injustice to the poor or privilege of the rich, and quoting figures to prove what she was shouting.
His English was still so imperfect that he knew only one way to interrupt her—by some sharp army blasphemy or foulness: but that he could not do: for only this morning they had been so happy! the Sylvia he had loved only a few hours ago was no longer there, but she must be hidden inside this angry, violent girl who seemed to hate the whole world, she could not have gone for ever. This other girl wore her clothes, the modest black coat,
the dress coloured like a colomba, she still wore the beautiful little brooch he had bought for her, clasping some fading flowers.
No, he could not shout bad words at La Scimmia, because she was still dressed like Sylvia, but he began to feel very wretched: her loud voice beat upon his ears and soon he heard references to God, to the Holy Catholic Faith, which horrified him, and he began to feel angry. By the time the station was reached and they stood waiting for the train, he had been silent for some time and his face was as sullen as her own. Our Lady had not heard his prayer; and in a little while he would be back in the campo.
The train came in, and they entered a carriage. It was empty; Fabrio had moved towards it with some vague instinct not to expose their mutual unhappiness to other people’s eyes, and Sylvia was absorbed in what she was saying about the Bevin Boys. He slammed the door on them, and the train moved off.
They were journeying into the sunset and the carriage was filled with blinding brilliance; they could see nothing clearly. She exclaimed pettishly, interrupting herself, “What a glare! it’s sickening, can’t you pull the blinds down or something?” He glanced at her, then obediently fumbled with the blinds and under her impatient instructions pulled them both down on the sunward side. Sylvia leant back and was silent at last; she frowned at the celandines going by, already shut against the evening chill and the dew on the shadowed banks. Presently she burst out again, turning towards him where he sat beside her with his arms folded and a heavy frown on his face:
“You can say what you like, and I daresay having been brought up in it you can’t even understand properly how other people feel about all that superstitious rubbish, it’s holding back progress, that’s what I hate about it, the Church always has, and you Roman Catholics are the worst of the lot, why, they won’t even let you read the Bible properly, of course, I don’t believe in the Bible but it is great literature, everybody’s got to admit that, and I don’t see why the working classes shouldn’t have the privilege of reading it, well, it’s only justice, isn’t it, the Bible is only myths from a scientific point of view but——”