Whenever a customer glanced at the picture, Nerone would tell him about it. “Ecco! My grandson, Geppe!” he would say; “as gallant a lad as ever went to war. Ma che! The boy was a veritable tiger, but what will you, he was young, and the young are too reckless—” And then he would spin out those long romances that his mind had woven around Geppe.
Rosa would hear him and shake her head sadly, thinking that her father had aged a great deal, thinking that the customer looked a little bored, a little anxious for his change. But not for the world would she have told old Nerone that he grew too voluble these days, that his yarns about Geppe were quite without foundation.
“After all, I believe he was fond of the boy,” she would think, and the thought would bring comfort with it; for nothing is so sweet a consolation in grief as the affection of others for our dead.
IV
Meanwhile there was no one who was quite without their troubles; the Padrone, for instance, had troubles and to spare, for not only must he cope with inadequate service, but he could not afford a band at the Capo, in addition to which there was no room for dancing. Yet never before in the history of England had there been such a craze for movement; such a gliding and hopping, such a swaying and clinging; such a stamping and clapping and grabbing of food. Two mouthfuls and then: “Come on, let’s have a turn!” After which more grabbing of food.
Millo, wise man, had foreseen what was coming, and now there was dancing every night at the Doric. The supper-tables had been carefully arranged to leave a large space in the restaurant.
The New Year brought with it a couple of air raids, for six hours on end the bombs banged about London. “Play louder,” Millo murmured to his band; and pale but determined the band played its loudest: “Honey bee, give us a kiss!”
Sometimes Millo would linger to watch his dancers, and the smile on his lips would grow rather grim, then after a little he would shrug his broad shoulders. In Berlin they were cursing, in Paris they were praying, and in London they were dancing—oh, well, such was war …
But Death was in nowise daunted, it seemed, for the spring came in on a great tide of blood. Yet this was not nearly enough for the glutton, who must needs go seeking out peaceable people who neither danced nor made war. Humble civilians just lay down and died from this cause or that, or from no cause at all except that they felt very weary. It was strange how many such people were dying; strange too, that as often as not they were those who had no one to lose in battle, and among them was talkative, small Aunt Ottavia, who caught cold in May and died early in June, leaving all that she possessed to Maddalena.
Who could have thought that the small Aunt Ottavia would have had so much money to leave? Four thousand pounds, securely invested in first-class American railroads. She had flatly refused to sell her good shares to the English Government or to anyone else; she had lent them to the Government for the time being only, receiving a tip in the process. But in spite of all her astuteness she had died, and her shares had remained behind her, to say nothing of the house in Coldbath Square, its contents, and one or two boarders.
Maddalena felt suddenly rather helpless, missing the tactless Aunt Ottavia. She longed intensely for her husband’s return, almost frightened by so much money. Gian-Luca wrote advising that the house should be sold, as he did not wish to live in Coldbath Square, and fortunately a purchaser turned up, who bought the house, boarders and all. Maddalena added the proceeds of the sale to Gian-Luca’s deposit at the bank; and now all her letters to him were full of new plans regarding the future.
“We can sell out the stocks,” she wrote happily, “and then you can buy your restaurant; only think of all that this means to us, caro! I am grateful to Aunt Ottavia.”
His answers were kind but curiously vague; it was almost as though he had scarcely grasped the extent of his own good fortune. And why did he never come home on leave? Surely he might have got home once on leave? But his answers were vague upon this point also.
He wrote: “I have not yet obtained my transfer.” As thought that could explain his not getting leave to a woman who loved as she did.
Maddalena was praying more earnestly than ever that the transfer might not be granted. How could she well do otherwise, when Fabio was dead and Geppe was dead, and now the poor Aunt Ottavia? The thought of so much death had struck terror to her heart, terror because of one life.
“Give me his life, dear Mother of God!” she entreated; and surely her prayers were being answered, for was he not working in comparative safety at the Officers’ Mess at the Base?
V
Yes, and that was where the Armistice found him, at the Officers’ Mess at the Base. All of a sudden the guns stopped firing; a stillness so intense that men clasped their heads, bewildered, came down on the blood-drenched pastures of France. Gian-Luca stared round him at the Officers’ Mess, and knew that the war was over.
He thought: “It is gallant, this record of mine, it is something that a man can be proud of! All my battles have been fought with the peasants over chickens. A fine victory the capture of a couple of fowls, a splendid victory! And what a defeat to return to the Mess empty-handed!”
From the Doric to the Officers’ Mess at the Base, there had only been a difference
