“Oh—don’t I!” said the old lady, with an expression that suggested that old tag containing references to a grandmother and eggs.
Her daughter looked as though she were standing to receive a nasty American service on the sunny side of the court.
“But—you don’t know him.”
“But I do.”
“He’s not staying here.”
“My dear, he is, incognito. Modest—you know. Doesn’t like self-advertisement.”
She was aware—and most deliciously aware—of the fact that her daughter was annoyed.
“I can’t introduce you, my dear, because nobody is supposed to know—except me. More than two can’t keep a secret.”
She smiled round and beyond her daughter at someone who was strolling towards them.
“Good morning, Mr. Smith.”
Mr. Smith gave the mother a smile, the smile of a fellow conspirator.
“Do you mind if I smoke my pipe here?”
“Please do—makes me feel at home.”
Miss Jenkins had closed the book and tucked it under her arm. She was still wearing her tennis face.
“I’m going to look for Duncan,” she said; “we are knocking a few balls over the net at eleven.”
THE HESPERIDES
It began at the feast of St. Panceazio, when the shepherds came down from the mountains, playing upon their pipes, and a bonfire is lit in the Piazza Santa Maria.
It began with a quarrel about a woman, in a country where men still quarrel about women. A superfluous excitement. For, being an ancient and a northerner, I applaud our young men when they refuse to be set alight in a market-place that is glutted.
But in this case the woman was worth it. She—Francesca—sold lace in the shop of her father, Tadeo Albertini. They were Neapolitans. She had a head of hair such as Titian loved to paint, only there was more bronze in it and less gold, and when her great brown eyes looked at you over a piece of lace, you bought for your sisters and your nieces more than they deserved.
Cesca was a good girl and old-fashioned. Obviously, she would marry and have children and adore them and be adored. She belonged to an age that left quarrelling to the men—if quarrelling was unavoidable. She had little in common with the Eton-cropped young woman, who, when involved in a squabble with an Italian porter, resented chivalrous interference. I had been the interferer.
“Keep out. I—can chalk this dago, thank you.”
I had kept out.
But to revert to the festa of St. Panceazio, and two hot-headed men and Francesca, and the bonfire, and the piping shepherds, and the figure of the Saint carried upon a platform by eight stout young men. It was a wonderful winter night. The stars might have been the stars over Bethlehem. The Piazza Santa Maria looked like a yellow flower into the cup of which God had dropped a basket of golden light. Sparks flew upwards. Children shouted and scrambled. Monte Gandolfo was full of southern life.
Big Cesare Grandi was with Francesca and her mother. Old Grandi—Cesare’s father—kept the Ristorante Garibaldi in the Corso. He had money. He bought the Hôtel Hesperides below the castle, and was putting his son into it.
So Francesca was with Cesare and wanted to be with him. They were standing under a plane tree and close to the stone water-cistern where the mules and horses drank on their way to the upper town. I happened to be close by with two Americans from the Hôtel Palmona.
Then came the other man, one Luigi Bissolo, a little, thick-set fellow with staring eyes and a nasty mouth. His father kept an antique shop by the cathedral, and Luigi thought himself no thin wine. He was something of a dandy, a brisk, well-buttoned-up swaggering lad, much fancied by the women. He had a voice. He played the mandolin. When he sang “O—sole mio” the heavens melted.
Luigi was jealous. He walked up to Cesare and the two Albertini women and placed himself beside Francesca. He stood very close to her, looking across her at Cesare who, with all his bigness, was rather slow and stately. No one had ever seen Cesare quarrel; he was a quiet fellow who looked at you very straightly, and spoke slowly out of his black beard.
I was near enough to hear what was said, and it was not much.
“You look—a little bored, my dear.”
It appeared to me that he nudged Cesca’s arm with his.
“Has Cesare forgotten to give you something to drink?”
I saw the girl make a movement as though shrugging him off, while Cesare, perfectly mute, stared at the bonfire, but there was something in the set of his head that made me think of an angry and waiting dog.
“Leave me alone, please.”
Luigi laughed. I think he despised Cesare and doubted his courage, and his blood was hot and bad in him.
“When a girl says ‘no’——”
He pressed his arm against hers, and when she stiffened herself, he jostled her gently against Cesare.
“He—won’t mind. He never minds—anything.”
But Luigi was wrong. It happened very suddenly, for Cesare’s right arm swung round behind Cesca’s back and caught Bissolo by the collar. He twisted him round, and getting a grip of another portion of his clothes, carried him like a rolled-up carpet, and soused him into the water-trough.
There was much splashing. It is probable that Luigi tried to get at his knife, but Cesare pressed him down into the water, and held him there. Insolence should be either drowned or sobered.
It was the women who intervened. Probably they did not want to see Cesare on trial for drowning a man in a water-trough, so Luigi was lifted out, breathless and very full of water. The crowd was delighted, for it was a festive occasion.
“Take away his knife,” said Cesare, still holding Bissolo’s wrists.
It was found and taken away, but the crowd had not finished with the joke. Luigi was not loved; he had been—on occasions—too successful a lover.
“Poor fellow, he will catch his death of cold.”
“His clothes should be dried.”
“To the bonfire!”
Half a dozen uproarious lads collected Luigi from Cesare’s hands. They carried him to the bonfire and, in spite of his kickings and cursings, held him upside down in front of the blaze. An urchin, whom Luigi had cuffed a few days ago, took revenge by tickling Bissolo’s inverted face with the end of an old whip.
That, too, was the end of Luigi in Monte Gandolfo—at least, for a period. His dignity had been exposed to the crowd. The girls laughed when they met him in the streets; the children called after him: “Who was roasted like a chestnut?” He sulked. So sullen was he that he did not appear to consider it to be his duty to try and knife Cesare, or perhaps he was afraid of Cesare, the man who did not stand and jabber, but picked his man up and either smashed or drowned him.
And one day Luigi disappeared. He took with him an old valise, and caught the train to Rome. Later it was known in Monte Gandolfo that Luigi Bissolo had gone to South America to regrow a diminished self-esteem. Monte Gandolfo thought no more of him for a while, though Italians are always Italians, and it is the dream of the wanderer to return.
Meanwhile old Grandi died, and left the Hôtel Hesperides and some thousands of lire to his son. Cesare had married Francesca; they had three children in three years, two girls and a boy. The Hôtel Hesperides flourished. Cesare loved his hotel almost as he loved his wife. It had the best situation in Monte Gandolfo.
Cesare advertised the “view” on his hotel cards. It was “superb”—“magnificent”—“unrivalled.” And indeed it was so. For three consecutive seasons I had a window overlooking the sea. All was a great blueness of sea and sky, with olive groves and lemons in the valleys, and Monte Gandolfo trailing left and right under the amethyst of the mountains. Cesare had a quite famous garden in front of his hotel, with not a single building to obscure the view. Below the garden lay a steep stretch of half derelict olive groves where a few goats grazed, and the land belonged to a rather disreputable and eccentric old fellow who kept a wine shop in the town.
I believe that hi
s wife was always at Cesare to buy this piece of land. Sometimes a woman has more vision. But Cesare was at his ease. No one would ever build there; the ground was too steep; a road would have to be cut in the rock; to build there would cost an immense sum of money.
“Half a million lire, cara mia.”
He shrugged his big shoulders. He was confident that his “belle vista” was as safe as Ætna. Besides—he had money put by. His money was as good as anybody else’s. If there was any talk of old Tadeo’s land being sold, he—Cesare—would buy it.
It was the over-confidence of bigness, the optimism of a large nature that thinks too well of the world. Cesare was prosperous; he was putting on weight; his hotel had the finest view for a hundred miles along the coast. He had healthy children; a happy and handsome wife.
And then the first blow fell, suddenly and without any warning. It was the end of the season, and Cesare, taking a siesta under a vine, was roused by his eldest child—a boy, Paolo.
“Father—come and look. There are men cutting down the olive trees——”
Cesare stretched himself.
“What olive trees?”
“On old Tadeo’s ground—below the garden.”
“What!”
“And there are other men driving in posts.”
Cesare got up rather hurriedly. He went down the steps to the terrace at the bottom of the Hesperides garden, and he saw what his son had seen, men cutting down the old olive trees, and others setting out white posts. They were strange men, too; they did not belong to Monte Gandolfo.
Cesare called to one of them:
“Hallo! What’s happening?”
The workmen strolled to the bottom of the wall.
“They say they are going to build an hotel here.”
Cesare went rather white above his black beard. He hurried straight up through the garden, and out into the town to Tadeo’s wine shop. He found old Tadeo reading a greasy paper, and looking as pleased as a cat on a cushion.
“What’s this? Is it true that you have sold those olive terraces?”
Yes, it was quite true.
“And to whom?”
“A syndicate. They paid me——”
“Mother of God,” thundered Cesare, “why did you not come to me?”
Tadeo smiled down his fat nose.
“I did not think. You have all the land you need. The price was very good.”
“But—why——?”
“The syndicate is going to build an hotel there, a very big hotel.”
“Who is the syndicate?”
“I do not know,” said Tadeo; “I only know the lawyer.”
Cesare went out into the street like a man coming out of a bank that had stopped payment. I remember his wife telling me that he came back to the Hesperides, and sat down in a chair and would say nothing for quite five minutes. He appeared dumb. He was trying to realize what this thing meant to him and to his beloved hotel, and how it was that no news had leaked out, for few things could happen in Monte Gandolfo without half the town knowing it. And he had been puzzled by the old wine-seller’s smile.
“I have been a fool, Cesca, a fool. It was you who had the eyes. A hotel in front of my hotel, the view ruined, my unique situation stolen!”
He was very near to tears.
“My dear,” said she, “most probably it is a trick to make you buy at a big price. Find out. Write to this lawyer. They are trying to frighten you.”
But Cesare was not to be reassured. He had a feeling that the disaster was not to be averted, and he was right.
For the syndicate continued to be no more than a syndicate—a vague, intangible human shape that functioned through lawyer and architect, and contractor. Cesare did get into touch with old Tadeo’s lawyer, but the interview brought him no comfort. The lawyer, long and thin, and dry as a bundle of sticks, disclosed nothing save that a syndicate had bought the ground and were putting up an hotel. There was no plot to extract blackmail from the padrone of the Hesperides. This was a business proposition; Monte Gandolfo was becoming very popular; the syndicate proposed to make their hotel the most luxurious and notable establishment in Southern Italy.
Poor Cesare felt as helpless as a chained bear. The season was over, and Monte Gandolfo preparing to go to sleep; but down below there, beyond the garden of the Hesperides, men were busy blasting out the very bowels of the hill. A new road was being cut—a raw gash in the hillside. Lorries snorted; steel girders were carried clanking and clanging up the Corso; men swarmed; the air was full of dust and noise. Every now and again there would be a dull explosion and the rumble of falling stone. A platform was being prepared for the foundations.
Cesare, hanging a grim and gloomy face over the wall, watched all this pother. He wondered how close they were going to cut the rock, for if they interfered with the stability of his wall——
He, too, tried a lawyer; but nothing came of it. The syndicate’s lawyer was delighted to inform Signor Grandi’s representative that they were being very careful not to interfere in any way with Cesare’s property.
“Yes,” said the big man bitterly, “but they are blinding the eyes of my hotel. It is murder. They will kill my bella vista.”
Which was true. How true it was Cesare realized when the walls began to rise. It was to be an immense structure; it was to be called the Hôtel Splendide. His wife told me afterwards that all that summer Cesare could not sleep. He grew thin; he would not eat. She tried to get him away to their little place in the mountains, but he refused to leave Monte Gandolfo. He seemed to be fascinated in a horrid sort of way by those rising walls that began to tower like a huge barricade in front of the Hesperides.
Every morning very early he would get out of bed and go to the window and gaze.
“More sky gone. We shall not see the sea.”
Poor Cesca, she must have had a terrible time with him. Though he did not fly into rages, but moped about like a man whose heart was being eaten away out of his body, his melancholy was profound—which is not to be wondered at when he was starving himself of food and sleep. Moreover, he was suffering intense humiliation. He was for ever accusing himself for the disaster, for he would not be persuaded that it was anything but a disaster.
“I was a fool—I was blind. It need never have happened. Had I listened to you——”
She did her best to comfort him. She pointed out that the Splendide could not be of such vastness as to eat up all the sea and sky. The garden of the Hesperides would still be the most charming garden in Monte Gandolfo.
But Cesare would not be comforted.
All that summer the building went on. Masons, labourers, carpenters swarmed about the place, for it was the syndicate’s intention to complete the hotel before the end of the year, and to open it in January at the beginning of the season. Already they were advertising the new establishment.
HÔTEL SPLENDIDE—MONTE GANDOLFO
OPEN IN JANUARY
SUPERB NEW BUILDING. SUPERB VIEWS. SUPERB CUISINE
By November the roof was on. It was a huge flat expanse surrounded by a crenellated parapet, with bright, yellow cupolas at the angles. It was to be treated as a promenade and a garden. The great building towered up in front of the Hesperides, menacing it with its shadow, and destroying all the privacy of Cesare’s garden. Instead of blue sky and blue sea you looked at rows and rows of windows, and all the ugliness of the new hotel’s kitchen and service departments. Almost, the ugliness of the building as seen from the Hesperides seemed studied.
Cesare’s mood changed. Instead of being gloomy, and despairing, he began to be angry. He talked of going to law, of spending his last lira in fighting these people who had murdered his “view.”
His wife—after the way of women who are mothers—was all for peace.
“Wait—my dear. Bigness is not everything. That barrack of a place may prove a failure. Some day—you may be able to buy it up. Keep your money, and a stiff face.”
But Cesare’s anger was t
o have good cause. It happened one day that he was walking on his terrace under the shadow of the new hotel when he heard a voice hailing him.
“Good day, Signor Grandi; good day to you.”
Cesare looked up. The voice had come from above, but for a moment he could not locate its owner.
“I am rather high up, Signor Grandi, rather high up.”
Some men had been erecting a flagstaff on the roof of the Splendide, and when Cesare raised his eyes, he saw a figure up above in a line with the new flagstaff. The figure was leaning over the parapet. A hand raised a hat. The face up above had a distant grin.
“Hallo, Cesare, how do you like my hotel?”
Cesare stood very still, for the man up there was Luigi Bissolo, smirking against the blue sky, round and plump and arrogant.
“So—so it is you!” said Cesare.
Men were hammering in the rooms of the Splendide, and the two voices engaged each other like voices shouting through the rattle of musketry.
“Yes, this is my hotel. How do you like it?”
Cesare managed to keep his temper in the face of Luigi’s mocking spite.
“It is very big.”
“Makes your place look small, hey?”
“You think so?”
“And rather foolish.”
“That may depend——”
“Do you want to sell, Cesare? We might be able to use your little place as an annexe.”
Cesare’s teeth showed white in his black beard. He stared up at Luigi for some seconds, and then turned about and walked away into his garden. He felt that there was murder in him.
Cesare found his wife hemming new sheets.
“Guess—whom I have seen.”
She looked at him anxiously.
“What do you mean, Cesare?”
“The syndicate, the creature who has killed my hotel. Do you remember Luigi Bissolo?”
“Luigi!”
“He whom I ducked in the water-trough. He is up there on the roof of his tower of Babylon—mocking me. A nice revenge—what!”
“Are you dreaming?”
“No, I am not dreaming. But let him be careful. He angered me—once. Next time—this time——”
The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping Page 60