The Painted Lady: A moving story about family loyalty, friendship and first love

by Ursula Bloom

After all, it was Isobel’s own life, and she could do what she liked with it. As Madeline turned up Dean Street she ran into Luca. Surprised to see him in this quarter of the world ‒ he did not usually venture so near to the Venezia in case of being recognised ‒ she stopped him. ‘Whatever are you doing here, Luca?’

  ‘I went to see Papa.’

  ‘Good Heavens!’

  Luca looked at her sheepishly. ‘They had a quarrel,’ he began rather vaguely, ‘and now she’s in hospital because the baby’s coming, and he wanted me.’

  ‘You mean that Mamma is ill?’

  ‘Yes. It’s nothing serious.’

  Madeline said, ‘But I must go to her. Which is the hospital?’

  ‘Queen Charlotte’s. Papa is going along now, he might take you with him.’

  ‘Come back with me, Luca.’ She felt weak-kneed, as though life had suddenly become unreal. They went up the street arm-in-arm, and she doubted if she could have managed it alone.

  ‘I hear you’re getting married?’ said Luca, not resentfully, because, in spite of all Nonna’s plans, he had never thought of her in that connection, and both of them were aware of it.

  ‘Yes, next week.’

  ‘It’s the chap you told me about, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes.’ She couldn’t talk about it now because she was worried on Mamma’s behalf. Outside the Venezia a taxi was waiting, and in it Nonna was sitting. Madeline had not expected Nonna to be there, but she was one of those little women from whom nothing can be kept. She had discarded her apron for a long black coat, not worn for some years, and now incapable of correct buttoning. Nonna was looking very anxious.

  ‘Oh, my carissima bimba,’ she exclaimed, ‘come to your old Nonna and take care of her. This is treatful.’

  ‘Mamma’ll be in good hands.’

  ‘None of us have the bambini in the hospital. It is not natural. Bambini should be born in the ’ouse, and in bed.’ She treated Queen Charlotte’s as a personal scandal. Mario Lugo got in; he wore his maître d’hôtel suit and a dark green velour hat in striking contrast. His waxed moustache bristled in his small pasty face and he was obviously extremely anxious.

  ‘Queeck, queeck,’ he commanded of the taxi-man, ‘and I will pay you verra well.’ He wedged himself in between Nonna and Madeline. Luca was pushed on to the opposite seat before he realised what was happening to him. The taxi bucked like a broncho up Greek Street, round the square, and headed for the hospital whilst gloom descended upon its occupants.

  ‘When did Mamma go to hospital?’ asked Madeline.

  ‘One o’clock.’ Mario was very solemn. ‘There was a disturbance and we had a night, oh, what a night! Difficult guests, verra, verr-a difficult guests. There was a fight at ten, and that upset your mamma, she made it more complicated. What a night!’

  Madeline gathered that the fight might easily have been between Mamma and Mario Lugo, but said nothing.

  The taxi stopped outside the hospital, and they all got out, trooping inside with gloomy faces. It was too efficient, so efficient that it horrified Madeline. The strange little group enquired of the sister, who replied calmly. Madeline felt the position keenly, too well aware of the impression that they must make on the sister. Mario, with his city suit and green velour, Luca with his waiter’s trousers, old sports coat and no collar. Nonna, dark-eyed and yellow-skinned (yet with the bearing of a Roman matron), in the coat that she couldn’t button, and a wisp of veil over her hair with its wide straggling parting. And Madeline, perhaps the only ordinary one of them all.

  Mamma, the sister said, was back in the ward; the husband could see her for a moment, but only for a moment.

  Instantly Mario stepped forward, and went off with the sister, to the indignation of Nonna, who stipulated that surely if she was the mamma of Mamma, that should count? The three of them, however, were consigned to a form together, Nonna chattering volubly, because she had never heard such nonsense ‒ why, the bambino could easily have been born in Soho like any other bambino! It was true that Mamma had had a fall, but no need for that stupid doctor to become so alarmed. All rubbish, said Nonna, the most utter rubbish, and she tapped an impatient foot on the stone floor, whilst her earrings tinkled. Luca and Madeline wished that she would keep quiet, instead of telling the hall about what was happening.

  After a long time, Mario reappeared, with rivers of tears coursing down his cheeks, and gripping his green-velour to his heart.

  ‘Poor Yolanda!’ said he. ‘My poor, poor Yolanda!’

  ‘She is dead?’ gasped Nonna.

  ‘No. No. She is well. The bambino …’ He gulped heavily. ‘There is no bambino.’

  Nonna gave a shriek, and, clapping her hands to her head, started rocking herself to and fro in agony. An unbaptised soul, she wailed; never had there been such a thing in the family before! The hospital had undoubtedly killed the bambino, she had known that something dreadful would happen, the moment she had heard that Mamma was in the hospital, and now the bambino was dead. Mother of God! howled Nonna.

  The people sitting about them seemed to take a dislike to Nonna, and the porter, coming up, suggested that the family should get her outside, whereupon she remonstrated fiercely. Now she knew that she had wanted the dead baby very much indeed. Although, in her heart, she had no doubt whatsoever but that Mario, in the last night’s row with his wife had hastened the death of his son, she vented her wrath on the husband. Outside they grouped on the pavement.

  Madeline said, ‘Mamma was not young enough to have another baby.’

  ‘Pooh!’ said Nonna. ‘My mamma had eleven; she was forty-eight when Giuseppe was born, and he a great fat elephant, too! Forty-eight was my mamma.’

  Nobody commented on Giuseppe, who had died still a great fat elephant in a home for imbeciles, where he had spent his small span of life! Luca, at his father’s instigation, was hailing a taxi, whilst Mario and Nonna wept profusely. Madeline hated feeling so conspicuous, and did not know what to do; she had never become accustomed to the embarrassing scenes that Nonna could make.

  As they drove back to Soho she said, ‘I’m very glad that I stuck out for a quiet wedding after all this.’

  Nobody said anything. After all, a festa would have been disrespectful to the dead bambino.

  Madeline saw her mother only once before her wedding. Mamma was comfortable in hospital, and finding it peaceful after Soho. She was not particularly unhappy over the loss of the baby, because she had not relished the prospect of having to tend it for years. Mamma preferred to play the role of mistress of the Venezia, in satin and a lot of false pearls; she did not want to be maternal over a cot half the night.

  On the Saturday, Madeline said goodbye to her work at Rozanne’s. Mr. Rozanne was almost convivial. He had produced a bottle of wine in which to drink the health of the bride in one of the cubicles. Even Miss Bates forgot her catarrh, and the trials of a difficult husband, and thawed at the festa.

  ‘Look out that I don’t get tiddly,’ said Miss Bates, her large plain face wreathed in smiles.

  Winnie had just a drop out of the bottom of a tea-cup, so that she could say that she had tasted it, and she fell over the new chromium stand-up ash-tray as she went out. ‘We ought never to have given it to the kid, it’s started her on the wrong path, it has, and all,’ said Miss Bates, inclined to giggle herself.

  Madeline felt weepy as she said goodbye, for they all stood in a group in the shop doorway, and she longed to make the moment last.

  Then she went up the street alone.

  She spent Sunday packing up her bits and taking them along to the flat in Chelsea, Chester helping her. They went to the cinema together that night, and she slept at Nonna’s, but it was dreadful. Nonna wanted all the bed and was indignant that the wedding should be taking place at Caxton Hall, with only a blessing after. Also, both Chester and Madeline had insisted that Nonna should not attend in person. Madeline wanted to launch out on this new venture without her relations as onlookers and she had kept the actu
al hour a secret.

  Nonna sat up late talking. She gave them all her intimate feelings when she herself was a bride in Tuscany, and she went into details of the elaborate feasting and celebrations and her own beauty.

  ‘You may not think that now, but I was like Madeline,’ and she nodded proudly. ‘So lovely! So sweet!’

  Last thing she gave the girl a gold chain that had been her grandfather’s, and the rosary with the filigree cross, and the blue beads that Madeline had always loved. Then she prepared herself for sleep. Nonna lay sprawled on the bed breathing heavily through her nose, the windows shut fast, and the room completely airless. Madeline, who could not sleep, felt that she would die, but to-morrow, she kept telling herself, she was escaping from all this for ever; for ever, thank God.

  She got up late and put on the dark-blue silk suit she had bought from Rozanne’s, and the white hat. She looked dignified, one would not have supposed that such a bride could have stepped from so dingy a room. She took coffee with the family, then said that she was going to see Mamma in hospital. Nonna thought that was a filial act, and approved.

  ‘Come back for us,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Madeline.

  She gave the taxi-man directions to drive to Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, because Uncle Luigi had lounged out into the street and could hear, but the moment they had gone up the street she tapped on the glass, and said that she wanted to go to the Caxton Hall. It was a curious change of plan.

  At the Caxton Hall she got out, paying the man from a purse already almost empty, for the whole of last week’s pay envelope had gone. Mrs. Staines had had to be finished with; Madeline incurred a lot of little expenses which had mounted up, and two shillings was all that she possessed in the world. Never mind, she would not need more! When she saw Chester standing in the doorway she felt overwhelmingly confident and happy, and went to him.

  ‘Darling, I’m so glad you’re early,’ he said; ‘there’s been a muddle, and the licence isn’t here.’

  ‘But surely that can’t be?’

  ‘It’ll come by the next post. I suggest that we go out and have lunch somewhere, and then come back.’

  A train of tumultuous thoughts suddenly filled her mind, but she dismissed them. ‘I’ve got no money, Chester,’ she said, almost guiltily.

  ‘Well, you won’t want any. I’m doing the paying from now on; had you forgotten that, you silly kid? Now let’s talk this over.’ He linked his arm pleasantly in hers, and they started towards the main street. ‘Supposing that we have to put this off for a couple of days …?’

  ‘But we can’t.’

  ‘We might have to. You’d better come along to the flat, because you cannot possibly go back to old Nonna and all the rest of the Gorrenzis. If you come back to the flat I’ll get a bed out at some local hotel; there must be crowds of them.’

  ‘Very well.’ Because she heartily agreed that she couldn’t possibly go back to Nonna.

  They went to a restaurant and had a quiet and leisurely meal. Good food. Good wine. She almost forgot the smallness of the cloud that hung so airily over her day; after all, it didn’t matter so much if they got married tomorrow, she kept telling herself. When they called back at the Caxton Hall, Chester ran inside, but he returned after some time to tell her that it still hadn’t come.

  ‘Never mind. We’ll go back to the flat.’

  They drove back.

  It was an adorable flat. Tea had been laid ready for them by unseen hands, Madeline had only to add the boiling water to the tea-pot set waiting in the kitchen. Afterwards they talked, sitting side by side on the sofa. The little cloud was larger now, and not so airy; she kept on thinking about it.

  ‘Chester, what are we going to do?’

  ‘I’ll tell you. We don’t give anyone an inkling of this hitch, not the merest idea. If they ask, we say that we were married this morning, because it’ll be true to-morrow; we shall be married in a couple of days at most.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but …’

  ‘Poor little darling, I am so sorry about it. It’s a hateful thing to have happened, and I suppose I’m to blame for it.’

  ‘No, Chester, of course you aren’t. It’s one of those things, and it can’t be helped.’

  He drew her to him. ‘What a plucky kid you are to take it that way! Kiss me, my sweet.’

  As she clung to him she thought that to-night she would be alone here, the first time she had ever slept alone anywhere, and she wasn’t sure that she could face it. She remembered his argument that he had got the rent lowered because he had pleaded her fear of burglars. The thought of burglars was suddenly quite terrifying. ‘Chester, I’m frightened to be alone; you know, you said there might be burglars the first time we ever saw the place!’

  ‘Why, you little goose, that was only to get the rent lowered for us.’

  ‘But if anybody did climb over that back wall it would be only too easy to drop down into the garden and open those French windows.’

  ‘They’d need seven-leagued boots and a jemmy!’

  ‘They might have seven-leagued boots and a jemmy!’

  ‘I don’t suppose for a moment that they would. That was only my fun, you know; but if you feel like that about it, I can sleep on the sofa here, quite easily.’

  ‘But that wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘Little Miss Prim and Proper, why shouldn’t it be right? After all, if we are going to spend the rest of our lives together, what’s wrong with my sleeping on the sofa in an adjoining room to-night?’ When he talked that way she knew that she couldn’t say no.

  In the early evening they went for a stroll round Chelsea, to St. Leonard’s Terrace, with the old leaning houses, the yellow jasmine, and the scents of summer lingering about the creeper-veiled walls. They went to Swan Walk hand in hand as confessed lovers, and behind every gate it seemed romance lingered, and the whole of London was sweetly sympathetic and kind.

  When they came back to their own flat in the starlight Madeline knew that Chester would not sleep on the sofa. For a moment she thought of Isobel Joyce, and her own feeling of antipathy; then she realised that Chester was right when he said that youth was narrow and limited and condemned too swiftly. She must grow up. After all, they would be married in a couple of days, anyway.

  Madeline was terribly in love.

  She had thought that she would be shrinking, but now she was carried forward on the crest of a wave of emotion. Chester made her feel so different, because he could change her outlook as no one else had ever been able to do. She should have hung back, of course, but she couldn’t. Chester rang up Nonna from the little telephone beside their bed.

  ‘We’re married,’ he said.

  ‘Why did you tell her that, when you know that we were not married yet?’ asked Madeline after.

  ‘How could I tell her anything else? Can you imagine the bobbery there would have been?’

  She could! Quite plainly he was right. ‘We shall be married to-day? I mean the licence will have come?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  Breakfast was intimate, a meal in an entirely new mood. Delicate napery with Chester’s initials on it, eggs, coffee, browned toast. There was a kindly buxom creature called Ethel who came in and got the meal for them. She had been married to a young soldier, but they hadn’t made a ‘do’ of it, she told Madeline during the morning, so they’d split, and she just didn’t know where he was now. Somewhere in the desert, she thought, where the women wore funny bits of stuff across their faces, and anyway, none of it mattered, because she never wanted to see him again. Ethel was what is commonly known as a ‘scream’; she would have been called that in Rozanne’s.

  Breakfast was a new world, and the morning a new morning. Madeline’s bath was a luxury, everything was clean, sweet and bright, and these were the very things she had been longing for all her life.

  Towards midday, she said that she thought they ought to go along to Caxton Hall to see what was happening.

  �
��It’s no good,’ said Chester, ‘I rang up whilst you were in the bath, and the damned thing hasn’t come yet.’

  ‘Not come?’ It was very important to her that it should come to-day; she couldn’t go on this way, even though she loved him devotedly; it would be very wrong to go on living like this and not married.

  ‘No, darling. It’s sickening, but they said it would be to-morrow at latest.’

  ‘But they thought that yesterday, Chester; there must be something wrong about it! After all, we have got to get married ‒ I mean, at once.’ She wanted to say ‘after last night’ but her shyness held her back. She hoped that he would understand.

  ‘I know, and I promise that it shall be all right. The whole thing is my fault because I gave too short notice. I ought to have known better. You do trust me, dear?’

  Trust him? Of course she trusted him.

  He had done more for her than anyone else; he had transported her from the sordid surroundings of Soho and Bloomsbury to this light and lovely little flat. He had given her himself.

  They went to lunch at the Ritz, with its view of the Green Park yellowed in the sunshine. Hot people sat about on the grass, and on stiff little chairs, but she and Chester could sit here coolly comfortable, with pleasant people all around them. That was the difference between her yesterday and to-day. Yesterday had been hard, it had meant having to fight her way, stiff little chairs, or just sitting on the grass, but to-day was cool and tranquil. No pushing. No fighting to live. She held his hand under the table-cloth, and she could not believe that anyone had ever been so radiantly happy before.

  They spent the afternoon at Kew. Nonna usually went to the Zoo, or Hyde Park, or for a rare treat to Taggs Island. Noise enchanted Nonna, and she would never have appreciated the quiet of Kew, with its exquisite trees and flowers and undulating lawns. When they got back, Ethel had made them a lobster salad, and meringues, like nice rounded little Alps, heaped high with snow.

  It lasted three days.

  In those three days Madeline knew that no woman had ever cared for a man as she cared for Chester. Now there seemed to be an enormous difference between this and her spinsterhood, although that had been only last week; but she had crossed so wide a rubicon that it almost frightened her.