Olive in Italy Part 17

CHAPTER VI

The Aquila Verde was the oldest of the tall houses in the narrow Vicolo dei Donati; the lower windows were barred with iron worn by the rains of four hundred years, and there were carved marble pillars on either side of the door. The facade had been frescoed once, and some flakes of colour, red, green and yellow, still adhered to the wall close under the deep protecting eaves.

"It was a palace of the Donati once," the host explained to Olive as he set a plate of steaming macaroni swamped in tomato sauce before her.

"I thought it might have been a convent, because of the long paved corridors and this great room that is like a refectory."

"No, the Donati lived here. Dante's wife, Gemma, perhaps. Who knows!"

Ser Giovanni took up a gla.s.s and polished it vigorously with the napkin he carried always over his arm before he filled it with red Chianti. He had never had a foreigner in his house before, but he had heard many tales about them from the waiters in the great Anglo-American hotels on the Lung'Arno, and he knew that they craved for warmth and an unlimited supply of hot water and tea. Naturally he was afraid of them, and he was also shy of stray women, but Olive was pretty, and he was a man, and moreover a Florentine, and his brother had come with her and had been earnest in his recommendations, so he was anxious to please her. "There is no _dolce_ to-night," he said apologetically. "But perhaps you will take an orange."

When Olive went up to her room presently she found a great copper jar of hot water set beside the tiny washstand. The barred window was high in the thickness of the stone wall and the uncarpeted floor was of brick. The place was bare and cold as a cell, but the bed, narrow and white as that of Mary Mother in Rossetti's picture, invited her, and she slept well. She was awakened at eight o'clock by a young waiter who brought in her coffee and rolls on a tray. She was a little startled by his unceremonious entrance, but it seemed to be so much a matter of course that she could not resent it. He took the copper jar away with him. "The _padrone_ says you will want some more water," he said smilingly.

"Yes. But--but if you bring it back you can leave it outside the door."

The coffee was not good, but it was hot, and the rolls were crisp and delicious, and Olive ate and drank happily and with an excellent appet.i.te. No more listening to mangled scales and murdered nocturnes and sonatas, no more interminable meals at which she must sit silent and yet avoid "glumness," no more walking at Mamie's heels.

She was free!

Presently she said to herself, more soberly, that nevertheless she must work somehow to gain her livelihood. Yes, she must find work soon. The Aquila Verde would shelter and feed her for six lire a day.

Her last month's salary of eighty lire had been paid her four days ago, and she had already spent more than half of it on things she needed, new boots, an umbrella, gloves, odds and ends. This month's money had been given her last night, and she had left a few lire for the servant who had always brought up her dinner to her room, and had made Gigia a little present. The cabman had bullied her into giving him two lire. She had about one hundred remaining to her. Sixes into one hundred.... Working it out carefully on the back of an old envelope she found that she might live on her means for sixteen days, and then go out into the streets with four lire in her pocket--no, three, since she could scarcely leave without giving a _mancia_ to the young man whom she now heard whistling "Lucia" in the corridor.

"The hot water, signorina."

"A thousand thanks."

Surely in a few days she would find work. It occurred to her that she might advertise. "Young English lady would give lessons. Terms moderate. Apply O. A., Aquila Verde." She wrote it out presently, and took it herself to the office of one of the local papers.

"I have saved fifteen centesimi," she thought as she walked rather wearily back by the long Via Cavour.

Three days pa.s.sed and she was the poorer by eighteen lire. On Sunday she spent the morning at the Belle Arti Gallery. Haggard saints peered out at her from dark corners. Flora smiled wistfully through her tears; she saw the three strong archangels leading boy Tobias home across the hills, and Angelico's monks and nuns meeting the Blessed Ones in the green, daisied fields of Paradise, and for a little while she was able to forget that no one seemed to want English lessons.

On Monday she decided that she must leave the Aquila Verde if she could find anyone to take her for four, or even three lire a day. She went to Cook's office in the Via Tornabuoni; it was crowded with Americans come for their mails, and she had to wait ten minutes before one of the young men behind the counter could attend to her.

"What can I do for you?"

"Can you recommend me to a very cheap _pension_?"

She noticed a faint alteration in his manner, as though he had lost interest in what she was saying, but when he had looked at her again he answered pleasantly, "There is Vinella's in the Piazza Indipendenza, six francs, and there is another in the Via dei Bardi, I think; but I will ask. Excuse me."

He went to speak to another clerk at the cashier's desk. They both stared across at her, and she fancied she heard the words, pretty, cheap enough, poor.

"There is a place in the Via Decima kept by a Frau Heylmann. I think it might suit you, and I will write the address down. It is really not bad and I can recommend it as I am staying there myself," he added ingenuously. He seemed really anxious to help now, and Olive thanked him.

As she went out she met Prince Tor di Rocca coming in. Their eyes met momentarily and he bowed. It seemed strange to her afterwards when she thought of it, but she fancied he would have spoken if she had given him an opportunity. Did he want to explain, to tell more lies? She had thought him too strong to care what women thought of him once they had served him and been cast aside. True, she was not precisely one of these.

The Via Decima proved to be one of the wide new streets near the Porta San Gallo. No. 38 was a pretentious house, a tenement building trying to look like a palace, and it was plastered over with dingy yellow stucco. Olive went through the hall into a courtyard hung with drying linen, and climbed up an outside iron staircase to the fifth floor.

There was a bra.s.s plate on the Frau's door, and Canova's Graces in terra cotta smirked in niches on either side. The large pale woman who answered the bell wore a grey flannel dressing-gown that was almost b.u.t.tonless, and her light hair was screwed into an absurdly small knot on the nape of her neck.

"You want to be taken _en pension_? Come in."

She led the way into a bare and chilly dining-room; the long table was covered with black American cloth that reminded Olive of beetles, but everything was excessively clean. There was a framed photograph of the Kaiser on the sideboard. In a room beyond someone was playing the violin.

"How many are you in family?"

"I am alone."

The Frau looked down at the gloved hands. "You are not married?"

"No."

The woman hesitated. "You would be out during the day?"

"Oh, yes," Olive said hopefully. "I shall be giving lessons."

"Ah, well, perhaps-- What would you pay?"

"I am poor, and I thought you would say as little as possible. I should be glad to help you in the house."

"There is a good deal of mending," the Frau said thoughtfully; "and you might clean your own room. Shall we say twenty-four lire weekly?"

The playing in the other room ceased, and a young man put his head in at the door. "_Mutter_," he said, and then begged her pardon, but he did not go away.

Olive tried not to look at him, but he was staring at her and his eyes were extraordinarily blue. He was pale, and his wide brows and strong cleft chin reminded her of Botticelli's steel-clad archangel. He wore his smooth fair hair rather long too, in the archangelic manner, he--

"Paid in advance," Frau Heylmann said very sharply. Then she turned upon her son. "What do you want, Wilhelm?"

"Oh, I can wait," he said easily.

She snorted. "I am sorry I cannot receive you," she said to the girl.

"I am not accustomed to have young women in my house. No."

She waddled to the door and Olive followed her meekly, but she could not keep her lips from smiling. "I do not blame you," she said as she pa.s.sed out on to the landing. "Your son is charming."

The woman looked at her more kindly now that she was going. "He is beautiful," she said, with pride. "Some day he will be great. _Ach!_ You should hear him play!"

Olive laughed. "You would not let me."

She could not take this rebuff seriously, but as she trudged the streets in the thin cold rain that had fallen persistently all that morning her sense of humour was blunted by discomfort. The long dark, stone-paved hall that was the restaurant of the Aquila Verde seemed cold and cheerless. At noon it was always full of hungry men devouring macaroni and _vitello alla Milanese_, and the steam of hot food and the sound of masticating jaws greeted Olive as she came in and took her place at a little table near the stove.

The young waiter, Angelo, brought her a cup of coffee after the cheese and celery. "It gives courage," he said. "And I see you need that to-day, signorina."

CHAPTER VII