Olive in Italy Part 4

The acquaintance soon ripened into a triangular friendship. The signora grew to love the girl because she amused Astorre and was never obviously sorry for him, or too gentle with him, as were some of the well-meaning people who came to see the boy. "An overflow of pity is like grease exuding," he said once. "I hate it."

He was very old for his years. He had read everything apparently, and he discussed problems of life and death with the air of a man of forty. He had no illusions about himself. "I shall die," he said once to Olive when his mother was not in the room. "My father gave me a spirit that burns like Greek fire and a body like--like a spent sh.e.l.l."

The easy, desultory lessons were often prolonged, and then the girl stayed to dinner and played dominoes afterwards with him or with his mother until ten o'clock, when old Carolina came to fetch her home.

The withered little serving-woman was voluble, and always cheerfully ready to lighten the way with descriptions of the last moments of her children. She had had thirteen, and two were still surviving. "One grows accustomed, _signorina mia_--"

CHAPTER VI

"You have been crying," Astorre said abruptly.

Olive leant against the bal.u.s.trade of the little terrace. She was watching the fireflies that sparkled in the dusk of the vineyards in the valley below. A breeze had risen from the sea at sunset, and it stirred the leaves of the climbing roses and brought a faint sound of convent bells far away. Some stars shone in the clear pale sky.

Dinner had been cleared away, and Signora Aurelia had gone in to finish a white dress she was making for a bride. Olive had offered to help her. "I would rather you amused yourself with Astorre. I can see you are tired," she had answered as she left them together.

"You have been crying," the boy repeated insistently.

She smiled at him then. "May I not shed tears if I choose?"

"I must know why," he answered.

"Oh, a castle in Spain."

He looked at her searchingly. "And a castellan?"

"Yes. I want a man, and I cannot have him. _Ecco!_"

She did not expect him to take her seriously, but he was often perversely inclined. "Of course," he said in a matter-of-fact tone, "all women want a man or men. Do you think I have been lying here all these years without finding that out? That need is the mainspring of life, the key to heaven, and the root of all evil. If--if I were different someone would want me--" His voice broke.

Olive looked away from him. "How still the night is," she said. "The nightingales are singing in the woods below, Astorre. Do you hear them?"

"I am not deaf," he answered in a m.u.f.fled voice, "I hear them. Will you hear me?"

Watching her closely he saw that she shrank from him. "Do not be afraid," he said gruffly. "I am not going to be a fool. No man on earth is worth your tears. That is all I wanted to say."

"Ah, child, you are young for all your wisdom. I was not sorry for him but for myself."

"Liar!" he cried petulantly, and then caught at her hand. "Forgive me!

Come now and read me a sonnet of your Keats and then translate it to me."

Obediently she stooped to pick up the book. The flame of the little lamp on the table at his side burned steadily.

He lay with closed eyes and lips that moved, repeating the words after her. "It is very good to listen to your voice while you are here with me alone under the stars," he said presently. "Tell me, does this man love you?"

She was silent.

"Does he love you?"

"I think he did, but perhaps he has forgotten me now."

"I love you," the boy said deliberately.

"I cannot come again if you talk like this, Astorre."

"I shall never say it again," he answered, "but I want you to remember that it is so, because it may comfort you. Such words never come amiss to women. They feed on the hunger of our hearts."

"Don't say that!" she cried. "It is true that I like you to be fond of me, and I love you. In the best way, Astorre--oh, do believe that it is the best way!"

"With your soul, I suppose? Do you think I am an angel because I am a cripple?" he asked bitterly.

"I am sorry--"

"Poor little girl," he said more gently, "I have hurt you instead of comforting you, as I meant to do. But how can I give what is not mine?

How can I cry 'Peace,' when there is no peace? You will suffer still when I am at rest."

The boy's mother put down her work presently and came out to them, and the three sat silently watching the moon rise beyond the hills. It was as though a veil had been withdrawn to show the glimmer of distant streams, the white walls of peasant dwellings set among their vines, the belfry tower of an old Carthusian monastery belted in by tall dark cypresses, and the twisted shadows thrown by the gnarled trunks and outstanding roots of the olive trees.

"All blue and silver," cried the girl after a while. "Thank G.o.d for Italy!"

"She has cost her children dear," the elder woman answered, sighing.

"Beyond that rampart of hills lies the Maremma, and swamps, marshes, forests are to be drained now, they say, and made profitable. You will see some peasants from over there in our streets at the time of the Palio. Poor souls! They are so lean and haggard and yellow that their bones seem to be piercing through their discoloured skins."

"The Palio! I think Signor Lucis is coming to Siena to see it," Olive said.

"Is that the man your cousin Gemma is to marry?" the dressmaker asked curiously. "I had heard that she was engaged, but one hears so many things. Do you like her?"

"Not very much, but really I see very little of her. I am out all day teaching."

The door-bell clanged as the girl rose to go. "That is Carolina come for her stray sheep," she said, smiling. "They will not believe that I can come home by myself at night."

"They are quite right. If your aunt's servant did not come for you I should take you back to the Piazza Tolomei myself."

"You forget that I am English."

Olive never attempted to explain her code; she stated her nationality and went on her way. Her first pupils had all been young girls, but as it became known that she was really English her circle widened. The prior of a Dominican convent near San Giorgio, and two privates from a regiment of Lancers stationed in the Fortezza, came to her to be taught, and some of Astorre's friends, students at the University, were very anxious for lessons, and as the Menotti refused to have them in their house Olive had to hire a room to receive them.

The aunt disapproved. "It is not right," she said, and when Olive a.s.sured her that she could not afford to lose good pupils she shook her large head.

"You will go your own way, I suppose, but do not bring your men here.

I cannot have soldiers scratching up the carpet with their spurs, or monks dropping snuff on it."

Olive's days were filled, and she, having no time for the self-tormentings of idle women, was content to be not quite unhappy.

She needed love and could not rest without it, and she was at least partially satisfied. Astorre and his mother adored her, thought her perfect, held her dear. All her pupils seemed to like her, and some of the students brought her little gifts of flowers, and packets of chocolate and almond-rock that Maria ate for her. The prior gave her a plaster statuette of St Catherine. "She was clever, and so are you,"

he said.