The Golden Lion

by Pamela Haines

  Eleanor said: ‘I’ve asked my brother, the one who is a Jesuit priest, to find us somewhere to stay. And he has given us an introduction to a friend, also a priest, who will choose a convent for you.’ Perhaps she saw something in Maria’s face because she went on hurriedly, ‘I of course had to confide in him, dear. But as you’ll know, a priest … Our secret will be absolutely safe.’

  Florence was to be a sightseeing tour for Eleanor. After her departure, Maria would move to a convent and stay there until the birth. When the baby was about ten weeks, Eleanor would visit Florence again. The baby would be weaned and she would bring it home, ostensibly an Italian orphan – adopted on impulse. Basil’s priest friend would help with the legal side. A few weeks later Maria would return – straight to London, and Ida.

  The days before they were to set off, back in Middlesbrough now, alone in her room she wept into Trimmer’s silky coat. He too she would be leaving for ever. Her love for him seemed to hold concentrated all her sorrow, and terror.

  All the time she wondered who knew of her shame? Aunt Dulcie, Uncle Eric, Eleanor and Ida. Who else? Looking at Dick, she would wonder, does he? and not dare to ask. That he should think ill of her, it wasn’t to be borne. Jenny, she was certain, sensed something but it was masked by her jealousy at Maria’s going to London. ‘It’s all so sudden, and she hasn’t even begged. Dad, Aunt Dulcie, why can’t I go?’

  But the worst of all, now in this waiting time, was having to live with Uncle Eric. Peter she did not have to worry about – he would not be home again until after they had left. Aunt Maimie seemed amazed only that it should all be happening so quickly. Ida, home for the weekend, told her, ‘An opportunity suddenly came up.’ To Maria, she was robust and consoling. She never referred to the child. She said only, ‘We shall have some good times together.’

  She tried never to be alone with Uncle Eric. With others there, he was pleasant enough, although even then she could sense his anger. Her last evening, taking her alone into the drawing-room, he explained that afterwards, she could never come to Thackton.

  ‘It would make an impossible situation for Eleanor. You’ll visit us at Middlesbrough. There’ll always be a welcome.’

  Would there? She could not believe it, just as she could not believe he was the same Uncle Eric she had tripped up on the Lusy, in whose stateroom she’d fooled around eating candy. His pet, and her dear friend.

  She was sick again on the train as it travelled through clean bright Switzerland, washed by morning light and spring sunshine. The rich, creamy coffee they’d drunk at the frontier lay in the pit of her stomach, then rose in fatty globules. She went and stood in the corridor. Eleanor said, ‘You look very white. Do you feel sick?’

  Concern, endless concern. She wanted to cry out, ‘I’m not sea sick, train sick, baby sick, I am heart sick.’ How could she feel anything else, with this load of shame, which she alone had to carry? They had not asked her what she wanted. (And if they had – what would she have answered?)

  The tinkling of sheep bells, a reminder of home, of Sicily, woke her early her first morning in Florence. She crossed the chill floor of her room in the pensione and threw open the shutters. A ramshackle two-wheeled cart piled high with glass jars was crossing the Ponte alle Grazie. The driver walked alongside cracking his whip at the unevenly matched pony and mule. There was a brass horn hung with bells at the front of their wooden saddles. It was this sound that had reminded her of home. Other carts followed. A whole procession. She remained a long time watching.

  She and Eleanor had separate rooms at the Pensione Cafferkey. Although she was lonely she wouldn’t like to have shared – she knew that at night she would weep. The pensione was run by two Irish maiden ladies. The elder Miss Cafferkey did all the talking. She blinked a lot as she spoke and had a hairline so low it gave the illusion of a bandeau. ‘Pet,’ she called Maria, telling Eleanor, ‘Isn’t she the dearest little thing?’ The younger Miss Cafferkey was small and round and wore a surprised expression. The cooking at the pensione depressed Maria. It was not Italian at all. ‘Good plain food,’ Miss Cafferkey explained. ‘Not to surprise the visitors’ stomachs. None of your greasy oil and only the littlest raw salading.’

  Maria wore a wedding-ring and was known as Mrs Gardner. Eleanor was a Miss Davis. Earlier she’d explained to Maria: ‘My brother thinks it better we stay here under assumed names. Many English people come to Florence in the spring … I think, dear, we may need to give little fictitious accounts of your background.’

  With some of her old spirit, Maria had said, ‘Let’s sort it out then, let’s get our story right.’ It seemed to her sometimes that Eleanor perhaps had not after all thought of quite everything. In slow anger, she thought: If I’d had to do it, I’d have done it better.

  In the small garden of the pensione the anemones were almost over, but the magnolia was in bloom. Pots of hyacinths and freesias stood on the flagstones, tight-skinned grape hyacinth grew profusely. She and Eleanor hired bicycles for three days from a shop in the Piazza Beccaria. Eleanor, hatted and gloved, her high-necked blouses fastened always with a brooch, led. They rode slowly. Eleanor was concerned for Maria, making her dismount at the first sign of a slope. Dressed in her best, she took Maria to the Via Tornabuoni to drink afternoon tea at Doney’s. She bought her chocolates in a red quilted box. She was all kindness.

  Most of the time, though, she wanted to visit galleries, churches, monasteries – wherever there were paintings. Maria couldn’t share her enthusiasm. So often what she saw seemed to her only gentler versions of the gaudy virgins, babes and angels she’d grown up with in Sicily and New York. Many, far too many, were of the Madonna and Child. Eleanor would stop before these, visibly moved.

  ‘There’s something – you see, it’s so beautiful the love of mother for child.’ She said it almost as if she were a mother, which she would be soon enough, which she wanted to be. Perhaps that was the strangest thing about those dreary outings: seeing Eleanor so full of joy, radiating a strength which seemed to come from happiness. It wasn’t the Eleanor of Thackton-le-Moors, and for some reason that frightened her.

  They went to call on Basil’s friend, Father Grierson, who had recommended the pensione and was arranging a convent for Maria. Slight and balding, he had a distracted face and manner:

  ‘Your brother, Miss Dennison … yes, yes, a dear friend.’ He addressed his remarks to Eleanor, ignoring Maria. He spoke of the convent she would be going to. Sant’Agostino. He would arrange a preliminary visit, but in the meantime, he had had an idea, a suggestion only: ‘If I may speak of it later, Miss Dennison?’

  In the room where they sat was a large statue of the Sacred Heart. Christ, showing his bleeding heart, gazed at Maria.

  Two days later they visited the Foundling Hospital. As they walked through the loggia, babies in swaddling clothes, circled as if by a deep blue sky, looked down on them. ‘Andrea della Robbia, his work,’ Eleanor explained, and as they passed into the courtyard, there was della Robbia again. The archangel Gabriel giving the good news to the Virgin Mary (yes, for some it was good news).

  Capable-looking women dressed in white walked past carrying in their arms real babies. ‘It is four hundred years we are doing this work,’ said the nun escorting them: plump, bursting from her blue habit with the alarming headdress, a bird in flight, of the Sisters of St Vincent de Paul.

  It had been Father Grierson’s idea they should visit the Holy Innocents. ‘A suggestion merely, Miss Dennison … I know you have plans made but this would have the advantage – the child would be Latin rather than Anglo-Saxon.’

  Eleanor told Maria, ‘We must of course go. Father Grierson has been to a lot of trouble. And after all, perhaps … who knows? But we mustn’t forget the little one concerns the Graingers also.’ Maria saw she was already distressed. And why not? Eleanor wanted this child, didn’t she? It wasn’t charity, her kindness.

  Iron cribs swung from hooks in the ceiling. They stopped beside one. The baby,
with flushed pointed face, mewed in half sleep. Round his neck, a small medallion. ‘This little one, he is very new.’ The baby’s tongue poked out, his mouth made a sucking movement.

  ‘How long do they stay with you?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘Eight weeks only, then so long they are healthy we find them a nice family in the country, where they shall live till they are old enough for working. They are brought up, you see, into the family.’

  Maria found her voice: ‘What is on the medallion?’

  ‘A number – and a letter. That corresponds, you see, to a name and address which only we know. All our babies when they are grown, they may come and ask who are their parents – if they wish.’

  ‘If they wish,’ Eleanor echoed.

  ‘They are all loved,’ the nun said suddenly. But Maria felt cold. Cold of the cloisters. She could hardly concentrate as they were shown around the dairy. The milk was sterilized and sealed in bottles. ‘Scrupulously clean,’ Eleanor remarked with approval and surprise.

  The morning bath. On a huge table fitted in the centre with hot and cold water, naked babies lay kicking on the padded yellow oilcloth. Maria found this worse than the little swinging cribs. Nothing was said. The nuns, surely, thought it a visit by tourists: an English lady who has an interest in these matters, Father Grierson would have told them. Eleanor made no comment as they left. Maria found herself shaking.

  ‘We can walk up here, I think,’ Eleanor said. ‘The Via della Sapienza. We shall go to San Marco – Fra Angelico’s frescoes. These you will love, Maria.’

  San Marco. Here was yet more of the Virgin hearing her joyful news. Everywhere Madonnas of such beauty and serenity. And what colours. The reds, the golds. The blues, the greens. In the carrozza going back, it was Eleanor who spoke first. She had seemed preoccupied, but now, in a calm voice, she asked, ‘Well, dear, what do you think?’ And when Maria didn’t answer, ‘I think it would be much better for you, and for the babe, if we kept to the arrangements we’ve made. That he or she will be brought up English …’ her voice tailed away. ‘Father Grierson was only suggesting an alternative. But in the end, as we’ve always said, it’s what you want, Maria. What you think for the best.’

  I don’t think, Maria wanted to say, I pray that I shan’t have to. Here today she had been forced to, a little. And to feel, a lot. Tears lay heavy and painful in her chest.

  ‘I couldn’t. It’s not what I’d want at all … No, no. Please leave the arrangements just as they were.’

  The days were passing. Everywhere now on the street corners and in the Mercato Nuovo were sheaves of irises gathered before the sun was up. At the pensione, she tried to avoid talking to the other guests. Especially she didn’t want to answer questions. But mealtimes when they sat several at one long table were difficult. The last week twin boys arrived with their father before returning to Oxford for the new term. Handsome and self-assured, they made her think of Peter. Her sad anger with him rose in gobbets so that she would sit, fork poised over her mutton cutlet, hating him.

  She longed for Eleanor’s holiday to end. The faster time went the sooner it would all be over, the whole unknown terror of it. But perversely, when the day of her departure came, she wanted to cling to her. Take me back to Thackton, she cried inside, and make it all right again. Seeing the leather trunk and the gladstone standing in the hall, she was afraid.

  ‘I shall write of course,’ Eleanor said, taking Maria awkwardly in her arms, leaving a delicate scent of flowered cologne. ‘And you know Father Grierson is always there.’ Riding to the station with Maria, she handed her a small package. ‘Open it when I have left.’

  Inside was a brooch – gold filigree and garnets. Maria had seen it several times on Eleanor, worn with her high-necked blouses. Tears filled her eyes, for herself, for the child. She laid it carefully at the back of a drawer in her room. She was at the Convent Sant’Agostino now. She had gone there the same day that Eleanor left. When they had visited it the week before, Eleanor had been lavish in her praise of everything. ‘I’m sure they will take good care of you, dear.’

  And indeed the nuns seemed kind enough, although she was not so sure about the Superior, Sister Ignazio. But it was strange, and lonely. She was to learn fine embroidery during her waiting time. Although there were thirty or so girls learning these and other skills from the nuns, they all came in by day. She was the only girl living there.

  The clean lines of the convent, the marble floors, smell of waxed furniture, laundered linen. Scrubbed wood. Piety. She was at Mass in the chapel every morning at seven. It was expected of her. Her room was a convent cell: hard, white-covered bed, small table and scrubbed wood chest of drawers. A crucifix hung above the bed and a brightly coloured, almost lipsticked portrait of Pope Benedict. She laid out on the bare wood photographs of Dick and Ida and Uncle Eric and all the family. Of Trimmer. After only two days she put them away again. She could not bear to think of her love for them. Of their love for her. All lost.

  Sorrow and anger. Some days the anger was greater than the sorrow. So dark and deep was it that she could feel it like some black tarry substance, a lava. As if it would boil up, bursting forth suddenly: scorching, burning up not only her but all around her.

  Now it was May and great white arum lilies stood around the altar, the painting of Christ risen. She stepped out of chapel most mornings to a high sun in a blue sky, the blue of Eleanor’s much-loved frescoes. She breakfasted alone in her cell. Coffee, bitter, with boiled milk, the skin fragmented. Two hard rolls.

  At eight o’clock the classes began. Until midday she embroidered with Sister Agata. Tiny, birdlike, Sister Agata’s fingers flew. So did her tongue. But her temper wasn’t distressing, for when she pulled impatiently at Maria’s drawn thread spider with its uneven legs and too loose body, it was the bad quality of the spider she deplored, not its creator.

  In the afternoons she often crept into her cell, falling at once into a heavy sleep. Sometimes she went with some of the girls either in the Cascine park where they would take out younger brothers and sisters, or to their homes. Most of the girls came from poor families. Their skills would bring in some money. Her most frequent companion was Fiorella, a thin girl, slightly stooped.

  Three afternoons a week she gave English lessons. Once a fortnight she paid a duty visit to Father Grierson. This she dreaded. If there’d been a letter from Eleanor, she would read from it, so that she didn’t have to look at him.

  Another person she tried to avoid was the Superior, Sister Ignazio. Outside the chapel one day, she had asked Maria if she found it easy to talk to the convent chaplain, Father Bevacqua? Framed by the coif, her small pretty face, lightly lined, stared at Maria. ‘You know all you have to do is to repent, don’t you, that God wants to forgive you? You must be good and grateful here, and learn this useful trade –’

  Maria said haughtily, from her pain and anger, ‘I shall be going to London, to work in an office –’

  ‘Is that so? A pity … City life … You don’t want to get into trouble again, do you?’

  ‘Seventy times seven – God keeps on forgiving,’ Maria cried. ‘He forgives, doesn’t He?’

  Sister Ignazio flushed. ‘I don’t like your way of speaking. A very different sort of Italian, aren’t you? Sicilians… Pagans, all of you –’

  Maria turned and ran away. The day after that encounter the child quickened. She thought at first it was a nervous stomach or that she had eaten too many nespoli. When later she realized it was the child, she became at once protective and frightened. Now there was no going back.

  May was almost over. Fireflies appeared in the evenings and mosquitoes threatened. In the market and at the street corners, wild gladioli were for sale. Summer matting was laid at the convent.

  One morning she woke to blackness. Deep, deep, as if she fell into a pit. At first she could not even think where she was. Then: I am in a convent cell in Florence …

  She had been dreaming, of the Lion. This time he wore his k
ind face. Her family were all there too, even Minicu. Minicu had not died but stood beside her laughing, teasing. Za Rosetta asked her why the shame, the disgrace? But when she tried to explain, the Lion interrupted.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he told Maria. ‘We shall take care of you.’ She said, ‘But you know what I’ve done, what happened to me? The disgrace … If it’s not all right in England, how can it be all right in Sicily?’ But he only repeated patiently, throwing open his arms, welcoming her into them, ‘We take care of our own. We shall take care of you, and of him –’

  ‘Him? It could be a girl,’ she said.

  ‘Of him. The monster who did this.’

  ‘Oh, but –’ she began, then suddenly turned to Rocco and Gaetano. They wore their army uniform as in the picture they had sent. She felt such warmth in the dream, such security. ‘I need you,’ she told them all. ‘I need you here. I’m not Tuscan, not settentrionale. Their ways are not my ways. I’m as strange here as ever I was in England …’

  And then she woke. Almost at once the blackness descended. She felt it like a heavy pain all through the morning class. Tomorrow was her fortnightly visit to Father Grierson. I won’t, she thought. I can’t. Fiorella asked if she was going to the Cascine this afternoon. She was taking her little brothers and sisters, and the family mending.

  ‘No, no,’ Maria said, ‘I’m not so good. I must rest. Since I got heavier. An ache –’

  ‘Yes, my mother is the same. I understand.’

  She told Sister Giuseppe to whom she had to report her comings and goings: ‘I shall walk in the Cascine with Fiorella probably. It may well be I’ll go to their house and help with the little ones. Their uncle will bring me back.’

  Waiting in the hall of Santa Maria Novella station, she had a fit of terror. She felt faint too from lack of food: she hadn’t been able to eat at midday. From a food cart she bought two rice balls coloured orange with tomato and spicy meat.