by Rumer Godden
‘Leave her to herself,’ suggested Rob.
‘Poor little soul,’ said Fanny. ‘It’s fearfully dull for her.’ There was nothing to amuse any child in the villa and Pia had brought nothing to do. ‘Well, none of us did,’ said Caddie.
She had discovered plenty of things of interest. The water-snakes for instance. They were pale small snakes, chequered over with a pattern of light brown, and had pointed heads in which their eyes glittered like specks of jewels. Rob said they were not poisonous and Caddie liked to catch them as they lay coiled on a rock, half drugged by the sun; they were quick to disappear, but sometimes she could catch one, tickle it into drowsiness, let it slide over her hand. ‘Sweet little snakes,’ she crooned, but Pia, when Caddie tried to show them to her, shuddered. Caddie watched the lizards, especially a pair of large ones, entrancingly emerald green, that at first she had thought were salamanders. Celestina’s birds, hopping, endlessly hopping from perch to bar to perch in those tiny cages, were always a pain, but there was a pair of hoopoes nesting in the garden; the swallows had nests high under the eaves and there were wagtails, dipping and running. Down at the boathouse a tabby cat was almost ready to have kittens – ‘You can feel them,’ said Caddie – and Mario had a dog, Césare, the dog of ‘Attenti al cane’ on the gate, but though he was kept almost always on the chain he could never have hurt anyone, and Caddie had made friends with him and took him for runs. She was too shy to try to talk to the trattoria children, Gianna and Beppino, but she liked to watch them play. None of these things interested Pia at all. There were no games to play, ‘Not even ping-pong,’ said Pia. The wind was still too cold for them to bathe; only a few intrepid German tourists went in from the hotel jetty for a hasty splash. Pia went out with Fanny; she liked the Mercedes and Fanny’s driving and even paid Fanny a staid little compliment, ‘You drive very well, better than my aunts.’
She was completely biddable. With Hugh and Caddie she submitted to Fanny’s morning and goodnight kiss, though submitted is the right word, thought Fanny. She went where she was told, but she would not answer when Fanny tried to draw her out. When Fanny said, ‘You must teach us about Italy,’ Pia looked back at her without answering.
Pia’s least beauty was her eyes. They were small, black, almond-shaped and as hard as almond shells, with a kernel of light Fanny shrank from exploring. When Pia wished to, she could make them as blank and opaque – as lozenges, thought Fanny, exasperated, as when, for instance, Fanny asked her help in a fruit shop or restaurant. ‘What is lasagne, Pia?’
‘Pasta,’ said Pia.
‘I know that. What kind of pasta?’
Shrug and blankness.
‘I never know what she is thinking,’ Fanny complained.
‘You won’t know,’ said Rob.
Compared to Pia, my children are open books, thought Fanny, perhaps a shade virtuously, and, ‘I have always thought that the fault of nuns as teachers is that they train the children in duplicity,’ she told Rob.
‘If that’s what you call self-control,’ said Rob. ‘If you live in a community, or even with other people, it’s as well to keep your feelings to yourself. At least Pia is never a bother.’
‘Meaning that Hugh and Caddie are?’
‘Hugh is. You have to admit that, Fanny. Isn’t he bothering you a good deal just now? And I resent that,’ said Rob.
He was oddly disturbed himself. The villa was perfectly quiet but he could not work. He would leave his cell and go out on the loggia and stand, moodily looking down. Fanny was often on the terrace below, as she used to be, thought Rob; still within reach, but not lying peacefully in the long chair but sitting, mending perhaps, her head bent over Hugh’s green shirt, his pyjamas. Quite often, Rob had to admit, it was his own shirt, his socks, but he did not want her to be busy, just quiescent, thought Rob. Not doing; being.
Sometimes the children’s voices came up to him as they came to Fanny. If Mario turned Hugh out of the boathouse, and Mario could grow surly, Hugh sat for preference on the kitchen terrace wall with Giacomino. Caddie liked that back terrace too. ‘I can understand. It’s comfortable there,’ said Rob. He himself often went in and drank a glass of wine with Giacomino and Celestina, or would sit there an hour, teasing Giulietta.
Everything round the kitchen was shabby, well used, unpretentious; washing hung on a line, there was a block for splitting wood, a heap of empty bottles lay in a corner, there was a tank with fish swimming in it; they were trout from the lake caught by Mario and keeping fresh until Celestina came with her net; Caddie always tried not to look at them. Hugh, oddly enough, did not disdain big sweaty Celestina with her loud voice and smell of garlic. Like most Italians she was good-natured with children, and to her Hugh, Caddie and Pia were just children, complicated or uncomplicated. Hugh liked Giacomino, who, without stirring his indolent finger, so obviously had his women in full control, but he avoided looking at or being near Giulietta. She was too noisily gay and friendly for Hugh just now – and too physical. Her black skirt was short; when she ran upstairs they could see her strong brown knees; her hips seemed almost to speak as she walked or swept, bent, dusted; she wore a brassière that made her breasts stand out in points under her black jersey. Hugh’s eyes seemed to stray of themselves to those points and his ears thrummed, which was strange. Caddie noticed that even in this friendly homely part of the house he was bitingly bad-tempered.
She and Giulietta exchanged English-Italian. ‘Pollo arrosto.’ ‘Roast cheeken.’ ‘Patate.’ ‘Po-tay-to.’ ‘Pane.’ ‘Brread.’ ‘Pesce di lago.’ ‘Feesh from ze lake.’
‘Do you ever think of anything but food?’ Hugh said.
‘It’s such lovely food.’
‘Lovely! Italian food is ghastly. All pasta and cheese and tomato.’
‘It isn’t,’ said Caddie and her indignant tones carried right up to the loggia. ‘Think of the pork we had at lunch. Think of those little spring chickens fried with parsley and chips. Think of all the asparagus.’ It was the asparagus season. Celestina gave it to them almost every day. ‘With melted butter and parmesan cheese,’ said Caddie. ‘Lovely, heavenly asparagus.’
Hugh’s sneer came up to the loggia too, and out to the terrace. ‘Asparagus. That’s highly suitable.’ Erotic foods were one of Raymond’s specialities. Curry, asparagus.
‘Why is it suitable?’
‘It’s an aphrodisiac.’
‘What’s a …’ But Fanny had not waited to hear any more. Rob saw her get up and go indoors. He met her at the top of the stairs. ‘I heard him,’ said Rob, laughing, but she was biting her lip to stop tears. ‘A boy of fourteen ought not to say things like that.’ There was a sharper edge to it. ‘Ought not to have to say things like that.’
Pia would not hobnob with the servants. Now and again she would walk down through the garden and on to the jetty to watch Hugh fish; she seemed to like him the best of the Claverings – or disliked him least. Hugh immediately knew she was there and, contrary to the effect of most females upon him, he fished a little better, but if he came up to the kitchen terrace or went into Mario’s little room in the boathouse she would retreat to the drawing-room where she would sit, her skirt carefully smoothed under her, reading one of the detective novels that Fanny did not think the right reading for ten-year-olds.
Caddie, Pia dismissed. Caddie knew this but could not help finding Pia intriguing; her life in Rome, the school nuns, the grandmother who was a beauty – and loved, thought Caddie – the clan of uncles, aunts, cousins, the religion. She pestered Pia with questions. As Fanny had changed with the villa, so Caddie was changed too: widened, altered, though she had a feeling that often she could not interpret what Pia said. For instance, Pia told her of guardian angels. ‘We each have an angel of our own, at least I have.’
‘If you have, I have,’ said Caddie.
‘I’m not sure about Protestants,’ said Pia.
‘Protestant angels are just as good as Catholic ones,’ said Caddie stoutly, but she did no
t tell Pia that she had already allotted her own and Hugh’s; they would each have one of the golden winged ones over the drawing-room fireplace.
Only once did Pia come alive, when Fanny took her with Hugh and Caddie to Riva to buy new clothes. They had only the suit and dress they had come in, with a pair of pyjamas each, some socks, and handkerchiefs. Hugh, having been in bed, had had his shirt washed, his suit pressed. ‘But he can’t wear that good suit fishing or sailing,’ said Fanny, and Caddie’s state was pitiable. ‘Even for ten days they must have something,’ she told Rob.
In the dress shop, Pia’s eyes, the whole of her face, lit up and she took charge of Caddie. For half an hour they were even friendly. Though Riva was a small town, its clothes had elegance, as all Italian clothes have, Fanny was beginning to think, though the village girls seemed to have a depressing uniform, thin dark nylon raincoats, flat pointed shoes, and headscarves. In this shop, Pia willingly spoke for Fanny, changed Caddie in and out of clothes in a way Fanny would hardly have had the face to do; she discarded, studied, her face so earnest that Fanny wanted to smile.
Hugh looked at this odd small girl with even more respect and the very feminine Pia sensed that; just as Hugh had fished a little better for her presence on the jetty, so she became more charming, a little more decisive, in the shop. ‘Not red, of course,’ Pia told Caddie. ‘Not even red-brown. It will bring out your freckles, and you should never, never wear bright blue. It takes all the colour from your face. That green is too lime-coloured. You will get tired of it.’ She waved it away. ‘That amber colour is nice, very fashionable, but not for you. Now this,’ and her voice grew caressing, as she picked up a jerkin in fine suede, caramel-coloured with jersey sleeves – ‘this will last you for ever.’
‘Until she grows out of it,’ said Fanny.
‘There are turnings,’ said Pia, in reproof. ‘And feel the quality.’
‘Yes, but that’s too expensive. Caddie only needs it until she gets back.’
‘She can wear it in the holidays.’
‘It’s too warm for now.’
‘It’s only spring. The wind is still cold and, look, this matches it,’ a pleated skirt like Pia’s own, caramel too and barred with pale blue.
‘The pleats will come out.’
‘Oh no,’ Pia assured her. ‘Not if she hangs it up properly, and I will show her how to pack it, rolled in a silk stocking. See how it suits her.’ Pia was right. The colour brought out the gleams in Caddie’s hair, a pink that had not been suspected in her cheeks. ‘Please let her have it. Please.’ Pia’s eyes were so pleading that Fanny had to give in. ‘You look nice, really nice,’ Pia said to Caddie, with what would have been unflattering surprise if she had not been so disarming. She looked as pleased and proud as if the skirt and jerkin had been for her, a flushed and eager little girl.
Then, looking at him from under her lashes, she found a shirt for Hugh, dark blue woven like Rob’s that he secretly admired; two shirts, a jersey, two pairs of shorts. She found vests and briefs. ‘You must be careful with Italian cotton,’ she told Fanny. ‘It shrinks,’ and, ‘Don’t you want anything for yourself?’ she asked, and her eyes surveyed Fanny, palpably longing to re-dress her. They were suddenly united, a happy family group, ‘Until the money,’ Fanny might have said.
As she put down the notes, Hugh wheeled round. ‘Who is paying for these clothes?’
All that Hugh threatened to say hung in the air: ‘That man is not to pay for our clothes. I won’t wear them if he is. I won’t have him paying for us.’ There were white patches round Hugh’s nostrils, Caddie was looking distressed, while Pia had instantly walked away and stood in the doorway, her back turned to them, humming a little tune. ‘Who is paying for them?’
‘I am,’ said Fanny.
‘Whose money is it?’
‘Mine.’ But Hugh was not to be put off.
‘Where did you get it from?’
‘From – Father,’ said Fanny reluctantly.
‘Father?’ It was such a surprising answer that it took Hugh’s whole argument away – and the money was, in a way, from Darrell, thought Fanny miserably.
‘Your husband has been magnanimous, to say the least of it,’ Mr McCrae had said, and he told Fanny that Darrell could have legitimately and reasonably sued Rob for enticement. ‘In Mr Quillet’s position the enticement was very real,’ said Mr McCrae, looking away from Fanny.
‘That had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all,’ Fanny had wanted to cry, but it was no use saying such things to Mr McCrae, who had gone on to point out that Darrell had lost the services and enjoyment of his wife; all the same, he would not sue, nor ask for damages, on condition that Rob settled an appropriate ‘and equivalent’ said Mr McCrae, sum on her, Fanny. ‘In your own right, absolutely.’
‘But I couldn’t. I could not,’ Fanny had cried, almost choked with shame and misery, but not only Darrell, Rob had insisted. ‘It’s right,’ said Rob. ‘Anything may happen at any time in the film world. Besides being magnanimous, it’s sound.’
It was like Darrell, honourable and protective, and it stabbed Fanny as nothing else had done.
Aunt Isabel’s annuity had died with her but there would be something when the house and furniture were sold and there had been a few hundred pounds of her savings for Fanny. She had spent much of this on keeping herself since she left Stebbings, on paying Mr McCrae, on those days in London and her air passage to Milan and on clothes, that dressing-gown for instance; but now, besides Aunt Isabel’s, who would so much have disapproved, Fanny, who had never had a penny of her own, had this settlement money, a private bank account, stocks and shares, dividends, business letters and, ‘Really, Hugh,’ she was able to say haughtily as she paid, ‘will you please not interfere so continually in grown people’s affairs.’
Riva looked sunny and peaceful when they went outside. All along the harbours, under the willows, the boatmen were getting ready for the season, painting the hulls of their boats, picking out the names, Delfina, Maria Cristina. On a big fishing-boat the figurehead was being painted in blue and gold. Pia and Caddie stopped to watch but Hugh walked on alone, kicking the stones, his hands in his pockets. He did not whistle; Fanny had not heard him once whistle at the villa. She was still trembling from that ugly little scene. All round them, too, were German tourists. I like Germans, thought Fanny, but these! There were massive women in heavy tweed coats and pigmy felt hats perched on their heads; their husbands were even heavier. They were in all the gift shops, and in the cafés where they ate huge quantities of chocolate cake with whipped cream, or apricot pastry or ices. The air was filled with their gutturals and Fanny longed to get home, but she hurried to catch up with Hugh. ‘Hughie.’
The eyes he turned on her were angry. He was still in his black mood. ‘I suppose he pays the villa bills.’
‘Naturally. He rents the villa,’ and she said, ‘I think you have to consent to be Rob’s guests.’ It was, she knew, sometimes ignominious to be a child and she spoke gently. ‘His guests.’
‘Guests are invited.’
‘His not-guests then. Rob doesn’t think about money. He and I are ready to have you at any time,’ she said. ‘You are my son, but you are our family now.’ Hugh snorted. ‘Even so, for the next few years I shan’t have much of you,’ said Fanny. ‘Hugh, can’t we try to …’ She could not say ‘enjoy’. ‘… try not to spoil this little time?’ but Hugh hunched his shoulders and walked away to the car.
All Fanny’s efforts seemed to fall to the ground. ‘We mustn’t waste this time in Italy,’ she would say. ‘You may never be here again.’
‘Not if I can help it,’ said Hugh.
‘But you can’t – not like Italy.’ Silence. ‘Under certain circumstances we cannot like it,’ the silence seemed to say, but Fanny still tried. ‘We must go to Verona. That’s where Romeo and Juliet lived.’
‘I thought Romeo and Juliet weren’t real people,’ said Caddie without a flicker of interest.
�
��It’s all Shakespeare country.’ Fanny was trying to sound enthusiastic. Why, wondered Rob, must mothers be so determined to improve their children? ‘Mantua, Padua, Verona. They are all in the plays.’
‘We know that,’ said Hugh.
‘You are silly if you don’t see Verona,’ said Rob. He was nettled by Hugh’s ungraciousness in the face of Fanny’s sweetness. “The old streets are beautiful. Old yellow houses, grilled windows …’ Hugh yawned.
All the same, for Fanny’s sake, Rob still tried to interest him. ‘There is an arena, like the Colosseum. If you learn Latin …’
‘I’m on the Modern side,’ said Hugh.
Fanny tried a bait for Pia. ‘They say the Verona shops are exceptional.’
‘They are provincial,’ said Pia, as if that put them outside the pale.
‘There is a famous Madonna in the market-place. Wouldn’t you like to see her?’
‘We have famous Madonnas in Rome,’ said Pia.
Even Caddie was adamant. Fanny showed her a book about Mantua, one of Madame Menghini’s. ‘Look, Caddie. In the Ducal Palace, the palace of the Gonzagas, there is a whole room of horses, lifesize horses painted on the walls. Wouldn’t you like to see it?’
‘No thank you,’ said Caddie. ‘I don’t like looking at horses.’ The unspoken ‘now’ seemed to ring in the air.
‘They say at this time of year we should drive through miles of peach blossom.’ Fanny still tried to be beguiling. ‘There is Cremona where they make the violins. You would see oxen ploughing.’
‘We saw them from the train.’
‘If they don’t want to go, let them stay at home,’ said Rob.
‘This isn’t our home, thank you,’ said Hugh.
‘Who would have believed Hugh could be so abominable,’ Fanny said to Rob. ‘He was always sweet to me.’
‘That, of course, is why.’
‘I didn’t know a child could be so bitter.’
‘You didn’t always treat him as a child and now this is hard on him.’
