She dined somewhere else; and afterwards went on to the last act of a play.
The next day Mr. Potter launched the Awful Silence tactic.
Jean allowed it to remain unbroken.
The following day he sent her roses, and she remembered to return his ring, which had been lying forgotten in the drawer where she had thrown it.
The rest is silence—unless the reader cares to hear the verdict of Mr. Potter’s lady friends upon Jean’s behaviour. They all said they had always suspected that she was borderline, and now they knew it.
30
FABRIO CAST IMPLORING glances towards Sylvia but in vain; she would not look at him, and giggled and whispered with Jenny and Louise. Emilio, who had an alarmingly weak head, was seated near the cider barrel and stealthily refilled his mug every time Mr. Hoadley’s attention was distracted from his end of the table; soon he became smiley and knowing and inclined to put his arm round Mary Parkes, who did not like this at all, though she met his efforts with an uneasily good-humoured smile. The low-ceiled shed became very hot in the brilliance and warmth of the lamps, and the motionless air beyond the open door gave no relief. Faces began to shine and flowers to wilt as the generous helpings upon the plates diminished, and conversation became more general and cheerful and was presently interrupted by bursts of laughter. Even Mr. Waite made some dry jokes (usually at other people’s expense), for his private good news put him in an indulgent mood.
It all seemed most comfortable to Fabrio: the brilliant light and savoury food, and the flow of stinging golden drink from that little barrel; and how he would have enjoyed it all—if only she had been kind! But there was a miserable load where his heart was, and a dreadful anticipation of worse unhappiness to come. He had lived on hope for months and grown used to that intoxicating but unsatisfying diet, and now that it seemed about to be taken away and replaced by starvation or bitter dregs, he could hardly bear it. He had planned such tender words: he knew exactly what he would say to her; night after night as he lay awake in the camp he had whispered those words to himself and imagined the scene—and now, she would not let him speak. His heart was breaking.
Alda observed his pale face and his silence, and pitied him so warmly that she resolved, in spite of the discouraging results of her former attempt, to speak to Sylvia again when supper was over. Every now and then she encountered the ironical gaze of Mr. Waite and once he raised his glass to her as if in a toast—a gesture so out of keeping with his usual behaviour that she could only stare, but then she laughed and nodded, showing her pretty teeth and gaily raising her glass in return.
Mr. Waite for his part felt triumphant and rather spiteful and years younger. Memories of parties in his youth returned to him, and that love of pleasure which he had ignored for twenty years suddenly, delightfully awoke in him, in spite of the uncouth surroundings and the shabby table appointments. (The poor man did not realise that he was surrounded by the true luxury—beautiful light, flowers, fragrant scents, simple but delicious food—which appeals instantly to the senses and does not rely upon such secondary comforts as stainless steel or draught-proof walls. How far from understanding human beings are those advertisers who promise us electric irons when we crave for fresh grapes!)
Sylvia’s anger abated as the supper went on, for she was too devoted to pleasure and too light-hearted to resist the enjoyments spread about her, and she amused herself by twisting flower crowns for the children and piling their plates with food, giggling across the table at Emilio and exchanging jokes with Mr. Hoadley and Mary Parkes. So long as she could avoid catching Fabrio’s eye she now wished him no harm, but woe betide him—she vowed to herself—if he came up to her and tried getting fresh after supper. Then he would have had it.
Mrs. Hoadley ate a small meal while keeping an eye upon everybody’s plate. She wanted everyone to enjoy the Harvest Supper. No doubt ill-effects would result; those children would have bad dreams from all that meat at night, and it was high time baby Meg was in bed; Emilio must have had a good third of that barrel to himself already, and she noticed that the man Spray, whose diet at home was mainly sausages and bread, was struggling to conceal hiccups, while cider never did agree with Neil. As for Fabrio, he looked as if he had lost sixpence, and that great camel Sylvia was making enough noise for six. Mrs. Hoadley would have preferred a cup of tea and a small slice of the cake alone in the kitchen with Mary Parkes, who seemed a nice refined girl; she used to work in a high-class perfume and cosmetics shop in Brighton, about which Mrs. Hoadley would have enjoyed hearing. However, she was glad that everything was going well. Even this old shed did not look too bad, though of course you could not really enjoy yourself in a shed with chipped crockery and bent cutlery and such mixed company.
At this moment Joyanna gave her mother a strong kick, as if telling her not to be such a bore, and Mrs. Hoadley’s thoughts took another turn.
Mr. Hoadley glanced affectionately at his wife’s pretty, peaked face. He admired her blue smock and those gallant bows in her hair, which seemed as if they were trying to ignore her clumsy form. Good old Molly, she’s the sort that would spread tablecloth on a desert island, he thought, and for a moment his thoughts left the harvest, with which they had been concerned all the evening, and he hoped that Joyanna (but Mr. Hoadley was not sure that it was going to be named Joyanna) would reconcile her mother to life in the country. The country’s the place to bring up children, thought Mr. Hoadley, and if there’s two or three more to come, now Molly’s started, there’ll be no excuses for moving into town.
At length the last piece of rabbit had been conveyed to the last mouth, and he leant back in the Windsor chair and pushed aside his plate crowded with delicate bones.
“And how about you?” he inquired of Meg, who was seated next to him. “Ready for plum fool?”
Meg opened her eyes with a start and smiled drunkenly. The thick pale pink cream was already being ladled out, and she did make an attempt on it but so slowly, nodding the while, that Alda hurried her through the last spoonfuls and gathered her up.
“I’ll pop her into bed,” she said to Mrs. Hoadley. “It won’t take me twenty minutes and she’ll never hold up to the end.”
“Mother! You said she could see the cake cut!” cried Jenny sternly.
“It’s only once in her lifetime,” pleaded Louise, with enormous eyes peering out under a straggling wreath of willowherb. “Do let her.”
“Meg will see the cakie!” at once announced Meg, opening her eyes and lifting her head from Alda’s shoulder.
“Meg shall see the cakie,” soothed the cunning Alda, “look, there it is, in the middle of the table.”
Meg leant forward and peered earnestly, while everybody smilingly watched.
She had on a white dress powdered with blue buds which was long for her because it had belonged to an elder cousin; and her thin silky hair, scarcely confined by a white band, fell about her flushed cheeks. Beneath the frilled hem of the dress hung down her little naked brown feet.
“There! Isn’t that a lovely cakie. Now Meg has seen it, she can come to bed.”
“Mother. That isn’t fair!” in a disgusted voice from Jenny. “You said she could see it cut.”
But Alda was already half-way to the door.
She had told Mrs. Hoadley not to wait for her return to cut the cake, and now everyone caught up a plate and crowded towards the head of the table. Sylvia was going with the rest when Fabrio, taking advantage of the general movement and acting with the recklessness of misery, hurried down the table and slipped into the seat at her side.
“Sylvia! Love!” he muttered, scarcely knowing what he was saying. “Why are you angry with me? What have I done?” And he tried to take her hand.
Instantly Louise whirled round and stared at him with wide eyes blazing with surprise. He took no notice of her and she stood there, the plate which had been held out so eagerly beginning to droop in her hand as she gazed wonderingly first at him and then at Sylvia, who had als
o turned quickly round, shaking off his imploring hand.
“Sylvia!” he repeated, and then was silent, staring up at her.
“What on earth’s the matter?” she said, laughing angrily, with an embarrassed glance at Louise.
“Will you—will you come away with me a little while? To go for a walk?” he said. “Please, Sylvia mia, come,” and he caught at her arm.
Louise kept her eyes, now grave and wondering, fixed upon his face. She was not yet of an age to understand the scene even dimly, and she vaguely thought that Fabrio must be ill. He looked ill. She felt sorry for him.
“What, in the middle of supper? So likely I’m going off for a walk with you, isn’t it?” Sylvia answered roughly.
“But I want to say something—to speak to you, Sylvia——”
The touch of her round golden arm, glowing from the sun’s heat, inflamed him. He frowned and turned pale beneath the deep brown of his skin. His lip trembled.
“Sylvia—it is important—you must come,” he said loudly.
Here Jenny became aware that something unusual was going on behind her, and turned round. Her brilliant eyes, which no longer looked on the world so innocently since her friendship with June Wilson, took in the situation at once and she exploded into the gushing, uncontrollable, maddening giggles of early girlhood. Louise instantly caught the infection without knowing why and they both bent over the table, letting their plates slide from their hands while they rocked and rippled, their bright eyes stealing sidelong glances first at Fabrio and then at Sylvia and then at one another.
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 he
r 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.