After the Divorce Part 21

"Is Brontu coming home?"

"Yes, he is, and I am going to tell him about everything to-night; yes, I shall speak to him about it this very night."

"My soul, you are? And what is it that you are going to speak to him about?"

"Why, I am going to tell him that I can't stand it any longer, and if he only wanted me so as to have a servant and nothing else, he will find that he has made a mistake, and--and----"

"You will tell him nothing of the sort!" said the old woman energetically. "Let him alone; doesn't he have to work and live like a servant himself? What is the use of bothering him? He might send you packing, and marry some one else--in church."

Giovanna began to tremble violently, her expression softened, and her eyes filled.

"He's not bad," she said. "But he gets tipsy all the time, and smells as strong of brandy as a still; it makes me sick sometimes. Then he gets so angry about nothing at all. Ugh, he's unbearable! It was better--it was far, far better----"

"Well," demanded Aunt Bachissia coldly, "what was better?"

"Nothing."

This was the kind of thing that went on all the time. Giovanna did nothing but brood over memories of Costantino; how good he had been, how handsome, and clean, and gentle. A deep melancholy possessed her, far more bitter than any sorrow one feels for the dead; while her approaching maternity, instead of bringing consolation, the rather increased her despair.

The afternoon wore on, grey and leaden; not a breath of air relieved the suffocating stillness. Giovanna established herself on the tumble-down wall, beneath the almond-tree, and her mother came and sat beside her.

For a while neither of them spoke; then Giovanna said, as though continuing a conversation that had been interrupted:

"Yes, it is just the way it used to be at first, after the sentence; I dream every night that he has come back, and it is curious, but do you know, I am never frightened,--though Giacobbe Dejas declares that if Costantino ever did come back he would kill me. I don't know, but I somehow feel in my heart that he is coming back; I never used to think so, but I do now. Oh! there is no use in looking at me like that. Am I reproaching you for anything? I should say not. You would have a better right to reproach me. What good has it all done you? None at all; you can't even come to see me any more--up there----" She thrust out her lip in the direction of the white house. "My mother-in-law is afraid you might carry some dust off on your feet! And I can't give you anything, not a thing; do you understand? Not even my work. Everything is kept locked up, and I am treated exactly like a servant."

"But I don't want anything, my heart. Don't make yourself miserable over such trifles. I am not in need of anything," said Aunt Bachissia very gently. "You must not worry about me; all I care about is that money I borrowed from Anna Dejas. I don't see how I am ever to pay her, but she will wait."

Giovanna reddened angrily, and wrung her hands, exclaiming in a high-pitched voice: "Well, anyhow, I shall certainly speak to him about that to-night, the nasty beast; I am going to tell him that at least he might pay for the rags I have on my back. Pay for them! Pay for them!

May you be shot!"

"Don't speak so loud; don't get so excited, my soul. There is no use, I tell you, in losing your temper. What good will getting angry do you?

Suppose he were to turn you out."

"Well, he may if he wants to; it would be better if he did. At least, I could work for myself then, instead of slaving for those accursed people. Ah, there she is, coming back," she added in a lower tone as the black-robed figure of Aunt Martina appeared in the open glare of the common. "Now, I'll get a scolding for leaving the house empty; she's afraid some one will steal her money. She has heaps of it, and she doesn't even know about it; she can't tell one note from another, nor the coins either. She has ten thousand lire,--yes, a thousand scudi----"

"No, my soul, two thousand."

"Well, two thousand, hidden away. And I am not allowed a drop of anything to refresh me, or to slake this burning thirst inside me!"

"It will all be yours," said Aunt Bachissia, "if you will only be patient and bide your time. When the angels come some day and carry her off to Paradise, it will all belong to you."

Giovanna cleared her throat, and rubbed it with one hand; then she resumed hotly: "They may drive me out if they want to, it makes no difference to me. Listen: the communal clerk says I am Brontu's wife, but it seems to me as though I were just living with him in mortal sin.

Do you remember what sort of a marriage it was? Done secretly, in the dark almost; without as much as a dog present; no confections--nothing.

And then Giacobbe Dejas--choke him!--laughing and yelling out: 'Here he comes, the beauty!' and then the 'beauty' came."

"Now you listen to me," said Aunt Bachissia in a low penetrating voice.

"You are simply a fool. Upon my word, you always were, and you always will be. Why do you give up so? and for such trifles too? I tell you every poor daughter-in-law has got to live just as you are living. Your harvest-time will come; only be patient and obedient, and you will see it will all come out right. Moreover, just as soon as the baby is born I believe you will find that things are very different."

"No, nothing will be different. And then--if there were no children--they will only chain me faster to that stone that is dragging me down and trampling on me. Would you like to know something? Well, my real husband is Costantino Ledda, and----"

"And I'll stop your mouth! You are beside yourself, my soul; be quiet!"

"--and if he comes back," Giovanna went on, "I'll not be able to return to him on account of having children."

"I will stop your mouth," repeated Aunt Bachissia, trembling and rising to her feet with a movement as though she were about to put her threat into execution. There was no need, however, for Giovanna saw her mother-in-law coming across the common and broke off.

Aunt Martina, spinning as she walked, slowly approached the two women.

"Taking the air?" she enquired, without raising her eyes from the whirling spindle.

"Fine air! The heat is suffocating. Ah, to-night we may get some rain,"

replied Aunt Bachissia.

"It undoubtedly is going to rain; let us hope there will be no thunder, I am so afraid of thunder. The devil empties out his bag of nuts then. I hope and trust Brontu will be in before evening. What shall we have for supper, Giovanna?"

"Whatever you like."

"Are you going to stay out here? Don't run any risks; it might be bad for you."

"What will be bad for me?"

"Why, the evening air; it is always a little damp. It is safer to stay inside; and you might be getting supper ready. There are some eggs, my daughter; eggs and tomatoes; prepare them for yourself and your husband; I am not hungry. Really, do you know," she continued, turning to Aunt Bachissia: "I have no appet.i.te at all these days. Perhaps it is the weather."

"Perhaps it is the devil perched on your croup, and your own stinginess!" thought the other. Giovanna neither spoke nor moved; she seemed completely immersed in her own dismal thoughts.

"The 'panegyric' is to be at eleven to-morrow, such an inconvenient hour! Shall you go, Giovanna? It has always been at ten o'clock in other years."

"No; I shall not go," replied Giovanna in a dull tone. She was ashamed now to be seen in church.

"Yes, at that time it is apt to be warm; it is just as well that you should not go. But it seems to be raining," she added, holding out her hand. A big drop fell and spread among the hairs on its back. Tic, tic, tic,--other great drops came splas.h.i.+ng down, on the motionless almond-tree, and on the ground, boring little holes in the sand of the common. At the same time the sky appeared to be lightening; there was a vivid gleam, and a great, yellow cloud, with markings of a darker shade, sailed slowly across the bronze background of the sky.

The women took refuge in their houses, and immediately afterwards the rain began to fall in earnest; a heavy, steady downpour, with neither wind nor thunder, but almost frightening in its violence. In ten minutes it was all over, but enough had fallen to soak the ground.

"G.o.d! Oh, G.o.d! Oh, San Costantino! Oh, Holy a.s.sumption!" moaned Aunt Martina. "If Brontu is out in this he'll be like a drowned chicken," and she studied the heavens anxiously, though never for a moment ceasing to spin, while Giovanna began to prepare the supper. Listening to the clatter of the rain, she, too, felt a vague uneasiness; not, indeed, on her husband's account, but in dread of some unknown, indefinable evil.

All at once the yellow light that had accompanied the downpour melted in the west into a clear, pale blue sky; the rain stopped suddenly, the clouds opened and parted, skurrying off,--under one another, on top of one another--like a great crowd of people dispersing after a reunion.

The light was sea-green; the air was fresh and reviving, filled with the odour of damp earth and of dried gra.s.s that has had a thorough soaking, and with the sound of shrill, foolish crowings of roosters mistaking this pale, clear twilight for the dawn. Then,--silence. Aunt Martina's black figure, eternally spinning on the portico, made a dark splotch against the green sky. Giovanna was lighting the fire, bending over the hearth, when a long, tremulous neigh broke on her ears; the tremor in the sound seemed to communicate itself to her, and she straightened herself up, trembling as well, and looked out. Brontu was arriving, and she was frightened--what about----? About everything and nothing at all.

A tiny gleam flashed out from Aunt Bachissia's cottage; by its light the old woman was endeavouring, with the aid of a rough broom, to sweep out the water that had poured over her threshold. The sky, beyond the yellow fields, looked like a stretch of still, green water; and in the foreground the almond-tree, glossy and dripping, dominated everything around it. Beneath the almond-tree, in the last gleam of daylight, Brontu appeared on horse-back; horse and rider alike black and steaming, and lagging along as though sodden and weighted by the deluge that had poured over them.

The two women came running out to meet him, uttering many expressions of horror, possibly a trifle exaggerated in tone, but he paid no attention to them.

"The devil! the devil! the devil!" he muttered, drawing his feet heavily out of the stirrups, and lifting first one and then the other. "Go to the devil who sent you!--My shoes are water-logged! Why don't you get to work?" he added crossly, marching off to the kitchen.

The two women began at once to unload the horse, and when Giovanna followed him a little later, he at once demanded something to drink, "to dry him." "Change your clothes," she told him.

But no, he did not want to change his clothes; he only wanted something to drink,--"to dry him"--he repeated, and grew angry when Giovanna would not get it for him. He ended, however, by doing precisely as she said,--changed his clothes, took nothing to drink, and, while waiting for supper, sat carefully rubbing his wet hair on a towel, and combing it out.

"What a deluge! what a deluge!" he said. "A regular sea pouring straight out of heaven. Ah, I got my crust well softened this time!" He gave a little laugh. "How are you, Giovanna? All right, eh? Giacobbe Dejas sent all kinds of messages. You act like smoke in his eyes."