by Isobel Chace
They were already picking some of the grapes at the first vineyard they went to. The women did most of the actual picking, while the men gathered the bunches of grapes into baskets and transferred them to the carts that were drawn by patient horses.
“They look quite green!” Ruth exclaimed.
“They are green,” Henry answered. “That’s the main trouble with the wines from most of southern Italy. The grapes are picked far too early because they’re always in a fright that they’ll lose the crop to thieves, storm, or plague of some sort. They’re often right too!”
“But here—?”
“Mario protects them, more or less,” Henry granted magnanimously. “But the habit has taken root by now.”
He stopped the jeep on the edge of the field and strode off down the Ines of vines, pausing every now and again to examine the crop. Ruth followed him more slowly. The leaves of the vines smelt sweet and the grapes lay heavy, bowing down the more tender branches almost to the ground. There was no doubt that the irrigation scheme had been a success, for one could follow the path of the new water with one’s eye, wherever the leaves were more verdant and the grapes bigger and juicier.
Some of the women stopped work and came across the fields towards her, excited by her unexpected visit. Their dark eyes watched her every movement, though they shied away whenever she returned their glances.
“We were there last night,” one of them, braver than the rest, told her suddenly.
Ruth responded with a wide smile. “I want to thank you all for making it so beautiful for me,” she said.
The women smiled. “Does the Signor know you are here?” they asked.
Ruth felt abashed. “Yes,” she said uneasily.
Their smiles grew. “How pleased we are to see you!” they reiterated. “Are you hungry yet? Perhaps you would honour one of us by eating in the house?”
Ruth began to feel that she would. Mario could hardly object to her visiting other women, she thought. He might even be pleased that they appeared to like her and had asked her into their houses.
“But won’t you be losing money if you stop work now?” she asked them.
They shrugged their shoulders. “The work will be here when we come back,” they said philosophically.
With piercing tones, they informed the men where they were going, calling back and forth in sing-song voices as to which house they were going to and when they would be back.
They went to the house of a middle-aged woman which was quite near the vineyard. Her family, she told Ruth, had lived on Verdecchio land for generations past, and she herself wanted no other life.
“We have no difficulties here,” she said darkly.
Everybody crowded into the small living room, in which the family cooked, ate, and some of them slept. A wooden chair was placed by the table for Ruth and the others sat where they could, the younger women standing in the doorway, pushing at one another, the better to see what was going on.
Ruth looked round the room expecting to see some signs of poverty she had been told she would find in Sicily, but there were none. The kitchen had an old-fashioned range of charcoal grates, in which fires were lit if there was any cooking to be done, with the aid of a fan, the ciuscialoru. Most of the utensils were old too and had probably been passed down from mother to daughter for generations. There were large copper cauldrons for boiling clothes, copper saucepans for boiling macaroni, a number of copper coffee pots of a Moorish design, and several other implements, all burnished and beautifully designed.
As well as the copper, there were the famous Sicilian water-jars, the quartare, which are made on the island of earthenware and are indispensable to most Sicilian households where the only water supply may be the fountain in the nearby square. These jars have the added advantage of cooling the water as well as storing it, for the water slowly permeates the coarse earthenware and the constant evaporation that results makes the water cool inside. In this kitchen there were two of these jars, as well as a number of other earthenware platters and dishes of various shapes and designs.
The woman of the house put wine and some local bread on the table.
“You will like our bread better than the bread from the continent,” she told Ruth positively. “Sicilian bread is heavier and more salty!” She considered her guest for a moment. “Have you eaten our pasta colie sarde yet?” Ruth was mystified, never having heard of such a dish.
“It is a treat!” all the women assured her. “Sophia will cook it for you! It is a dish to tell your grandchildren about!”
It was every bit as good as they said it was, Ruth decided, as Sophia heaped the mixture of macaroni, chopped sardines, pine nuts, fennel and raisins. She was a little afraid that she shouldn’t accept so much from them, for only she was invited to partake of the dish, the rest of the women made do with large chunks of bread washed down with wine. But nor could she refuse. The best thing to do, she thought, was to enjoy every succulent mouthful of it, and then ask Mario afterwards how she could repay their hospitality.
The macaroni dish was followed by a cassata siciliana, a cake of magnificent proportions. It was round in shape, heavily iced and decorated with marzipan and sugared pieces. Inside it was flavoured with pistachio, cinnamon, chocolate, and probably a good many other things besides. Ruth found it delicious, even while she trembled at the number of calories each mouthful must have contained.
The women joined her in eating the cake. Sophia brewed some strong coffee and they sat on, sipping the hot beverage and gossiping until half the afternoon had gone by.
“Is the English Signor taking you home?” Sophia asked Ruth.
Ruth jumped guiltily. "I suppose so,” she said.
“Then we had better take you back to him. He will be wanting to go on and you will be wanting to get home. Are you sure you have had enough coffee?”
“I’ve had heaps of everything!” Ruth confessed happily. “You are all very kind to me!”
“It is a pleasure to receive a visit from a Verdecchio,” the women chorused dutifully.
They escorted her back along the road and across the vineyard to where Henry was waiting for her. He was cross and sticky from the hot sun and impatient to be gone as quickly as possible.
“With any luck Mario won’t be back yet,” he said sourly as she Climbed into the jeep. “Though he’s bound to hear about it from someone!”
“I don’t see why he should mind,” Ruth said stoutly.
“You don’t want to see!” he told her flatly.
His nervousness was contagious. Ruth didn’t enjoy the drive back to the house one bit. She went over all that she had said and done again and again, and, for the life her, she couldn’t see that she had done anything that Mario would not like—except to go with Henry in the first place!
“He took Pearl to Palermo,” she said suddenly.
“What does that prove?” Henry retorted. “I wish I hadn’t—” He broke off, his face aghast. “Oh no!” he gasped.
Ruth’s eyes followed his to where Mario was standing, leaning negligently against one of the gate posts. He didn’t even look up as the jeep approached, she noticed. He looked calm and confident, even placid, as he waited.
Henry slowed to a stop as they came level to the gates. He looked so guilty and nervous that Ruth was annoyed. She gave Mario a brilliant smile to show that she at least was not in the least afraid of him.
“Get out!” he said briefly.
Ruth stared at him. “Why should I?”
“Do you mean to say you don’t know?” he mocked her. “Ask Henry!”
She clenched her fists angrily. “He didn’t want to take me. I made him—” she began.
“That I can believe!” he answered sharply.
He reached into the jeep, hooked an arm under her, and deposited her none too gently on her feet beside him.
Henry looked more anxious than ever. “She spent her time with the women,” he told Mario hastily.
“Then you needn�
��t be further concerned,” Mario answered with contempt. “If you go up to the house, Pearl is waiting for you.”
Henry’s face cleared as if by magic. “I’ll do that!” he said eagerly. He put his foot down hard on the accelerator and the jeep sped away from them up the drive to the house.
“D-did Pearl like Palermo?” Ruth asked, taking the war firmly into the enemy’s camp.
“I didn’t ask her,” Mario answered slowly. “Did Henry tell you that I told him not to take you gadding round with him in that jeep of his?” he added, almost casually.
She glanced up at him and away again. “Yes. But I couldn’t see why—”
“No?” he cut her off. He looked very dangerous, she thought, and she despaired of ever explaining just why she had gone with Henry.
“You may have married me,” she began grandly, “but that doesn’t make me a Sicilian wife with nothing better to do than to seek the approval of her husband! I enjoyed—”
“Then I’ll explain it to you,” he said slowly. “You are married to me. You are a Sicilian wife, for I am a Sicilian, and so you’ll live according to our ideas of what is permissible and what is not. And you have nothing better to do than to please me, and this is why!” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her so hard that she had no breath left with which to defy him. She made a little sound of protest, but then she could do nothing at all. For a moment, she stood stock still, shaken and more than a little frightened. She would not kiss him back! But she was a traitor to her own cause and with a little sob, she strained towards him, eager in her submission to the warmth of his lips and the unyielding strength of his arms.
When he let her go, her cheeks were scarlet and the tears started into her eyes. “I hate you! I hate you!” she stormed at him, stamping her foot.
He laughed, and pulled her back into his arms.
“So I see!” he said.
CHAPTER TEN
“THAT,” she informed him roundly, “doesn’t mean a thing!”
She took the opportunity of retreating a few paces away from him, shocked by (the urgent desire within herself to fling herself back into his arms and tell him she would be pleased, proud, to do whatever he wanted of her.
“No?” He looked at her thoughtfully.
Ruth lifted her chin defiantly. “No!”
“Then you won’t mind if I kiss you again?” he suggested smoothly.
He looked as if he would be as good as his word and Ruth backed away from him as hard as she could. He smiled at her and her heart turned right over.
“Well?” he said. “You might even kiss me?”
She gave him a quick, harassed look. “You don’t understand!” she flared at him.
He took her hands back into his. “Explain it to me,” he said, with such sympathy that she was sorely tempted to give way.
She shrugged her shoulders instead. “I can’t!” she said. “It isn’t enough!”
“It’s a good deal,” he pointed out with an amused grin.
“For you!” she stormed back. “You can come and go as you please! Do as you please! Why can’t I?”
He was very gentle. “What do you want to do?” he asked her.
She saw, too late, that she had fallen into a trap of her own making. There was only one thing she wanted to do and that was to creep back into his arms on any terms he cared to offer her. But she would not be so craven! She drew in a deep breath. “Does it matter?” she challenged him.
His eyes filled with warm laughter. “Not a bit,” he replied swiftly, “if what you want to do is the same as what I want to do!” He looked so innocent that she was suspicious. “This, for example,” he went on casually.
She felt that she knew then what any small animal felt when an eagle swooped down on it and carried it up into the sky. As his lips came down on hers, she shut her eyes. Her will-power skidded away from her and she was hazily aware that she was enjoying the fact.
When he released her, she swallowed hard, struggling to regain her equanimity.
“I suppose you kiss Pearl like that too!” she challenged him, aware that she was flirting with danger, but quite unable to resist the temptation.
His face hardened. “And what is that to you?”
She didn’t answer. If she had, he would have known that she was consumed by jealousy for his interest in anyone else, and she would sooner have died than for him to know that! She didn’t know when she had passed through such a shattering few minutes of self-revelation. If he kissed her again—! But already he had no excuse for not knowing that to her he was both ecstasy and the depths of despair. And she had thought of him as being a tiger! Why, the tiger was within herself and she had never even suspected its existence, she had been so busy being quiet and respectable and—and dull!
In a state of considerable agitation, she pulled herself free and ran away from him, as fast as she could, up the drive to the house and safety. Saro, the dog, welcomed her at the front door by barking his head off, and rushed up the stairs after her with yelps of delight at this new and unexpected game.
At the top of the stairs, Ruth crashed into Pearl without even seeing her.
“I thought you’d gone out with Henry!” she accosted her sister.
Pearl shrugged. “I didn’t want to. Whatever happened to you?” she added curiously.
“I’m going home!” Ruth announced. “Now!”
“But I thought you were going to stay here for ever, waiting for the crumbs to fall?” Pearl reminded her, her blue eyes wide and innocent.
“Well, now I’m not!” Ruth retorted. The panic that had gripped her was beginning to subside, but she was still quite determined to run as fast and as far as she could.
“Good!” said Pearl. “And how are we going to leave?”
“I don’t know,” Ruth admitted. “But it must be possible. Did you buy your ticket when you were in Palermo?”
“My ticket, not yours! You haven’t got a passport at the moment. Mario left it off at the British Consulate to have the name altered—”
“Oh no!” Ruth exclaimed wearily.
“I don’t see that it matters,” Pearl said reasonably. “If you’re really determined to go, you can wait a few days, surely?”
“No, I can’t!” Ruth snapped back. “I’ll—I’ll—” Her brow cleared dramatically. “I’ll get Roberto to help me!” she said with relief, and blinked earnestly at her sister. “You won’t breathe a word of this to Mario, will you?”
“I’m not a sneak!” Pearl denied, hurt. “I happen to think that you won’t lose Mario as easily as you think, but that’s your affair.”
The very mention of Mario gave Ruth a desperate feeling. “Pearl, you’ve got to help me! There isn’t anyone else!”
“I’ve said I will,” Pearl retorted with a touch of irritation. “Though I don’t suppose you’ll thank me when I have helped you. If you ask me, it will be a relief to everyone concerned when you and Mario sort yourselves out! He won’t so much as look at me at the moment, and you seem to have lost your head entirely!”
This complaint brought an involuntary smile to Ruth’s lips. “He took you to Palermo,” she reminded her.
“So he did!” Pearl drawled. “What a thrill for me!”
“You would have thought so a few days ago,” Ruth said bitterly.
“I might have done,” Pearl agreed, striking a dramatic attitude of what she thought a romantic heroine ought to look like. “That was a few days ago. Strictly platonic relationships aren’t in my line, though, she added.
“It doesn’t look particularly platonic from where I’m sitting,” Ruth told her grumpily. "Oh, Pearl, how can you say so! It couldn’t have been platonic when he sent you the tickets to come to Sicily!”
“Love them and leave them, that’s my motto!” Pearl answered with a touch of humour. I don’t think Mario agrees with me, somehow.” She shivered slightly. “You know, Ruth dear, I don’t envy you your Sicilian bandit! It may be my nice nature that refuses to envy any
sister of mine, but I don’t think so. I like being free and I like to enjoy myself. By the time Mario has finished with you, you won’t be able to call your soul your own!”
“I know,” Ruth said simply.
“So that isn’t why you’re rushing headlong in the opposite direction?” Pearl sighed.
“N-no,” Ruth admitted.
“Then why?”
Ruth swallowed. “I can’t explain!” she parried quickly. “It’s all so awful! I never did understand about honour and so on. I suppose I gambled on it and I lost.”
Pearl looked increasingly bewildered. “What on earth are you talking about?” she demanded. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” She barely waited for Ruth’s faint nod of the head. “Well, there you are? What more do you want?”
“For him to be in love with me!” Ruth burst out. She coloured up finely. “N-not a grand passion,” she defended herself immediately. “N-not m-much at all, but just a little bit!”
Pearl stared at her, feeling quite uncomfortable in the face of such intensity of emotion. “Goodness!” she said blankly.
“It isn’t very flattering to mean nothing more than—than an honourable gesture!” Ruth went on, pursuing her point to the bitter end.
Pearl giggled. “Have you told him so?” she asked.
“No.” Ruth looked the very picture of dejection. “You must see that I couldn’t!”
“Well, I think he’s guessed!” Pearl said coolly. “He’s no fool, and anybody can see that there’s something the matter with you! When I think about how you lectured me! And I’ve never done anything as awful as allowing any man to capture me like some—some Sabine woman!”
“Some what?” Ruth gasped.
Pearl creased up her forehead. “Perhaps they weren’t Sabines,” she said thoughtfully. “But they didn’t want to go back to their own men when they were rescued. They preferred to stay with the Romans!” she finished triumphantly, pleased to be able to produce this piece of classical history from some distant Latin class. “You must know the story, Ruth. It was about the only interesting one in the book.”
