Letizia

“ In Italy, then, was written the history of her youth, and in Italy the history of her love, for only remembered love could thus have transformed her for a fleeting instant to what she once was. At that moment the train entered a tunnel and went clanging on through such a din of titanic anvils that it was impossible to talk, for which Nancy was grateful because she did not want Letizia to shatter the nun’s rapture by asking questions that would show she had not understood a great deal about Italy or Italian. ”

“ Dynastic and ecclesiastical ambition die hard, and the new Republic has had to weather many a storm in her career of a third of a century. Carducci in a fine poem has imagined Letizia, mother of the Bonapartes, a wandering shade haunting the desolate house at Ajaccio and recalling the tragic fate of her children:—a Corsican Niobe standing on her threshold and fiercely stretching forth her arms to the savage Ocean, calling, calling, that from America, from Britain, from burning Africa, some one of her tragic progeny may come to find a haven in her breast. ”

“ In fact, I have dreamed more than once, ma’am, that you were washed in the blood of the Lamb. However, do not imagine that I should try to influence Letizia to become one of the Peculiar Children of God. I love her too dearly, ma’am, to attempt any persuasion. From a business point of view—and, after all, in these industrious times it is the business point of view which is really important—from a business point of view the match would not be a very bad one. ”

“ This to Letizia.
“Mrs. Porridge, Santy Claus brought me a dog and a lamb and a monkey and a rub-a-dub-dub and a wheedle-wheedle and a trumpet and a book and an orange and an apple and some sweeties and fousands of fings. And he came down the chiminy, and I wasn’t a bit frightened.”
Mrs. Pottage shook her head in delighted admiration.
“Did he come down head first or feet first?”
“Bofe,” Letizia declared, after a moment’s pause.
“You can’t catch her out, can you? Why, she’s as cunning as King Pharaoh,” Mrs. Pottage chuckled, and with this she departed to fetch the morning tea. ”

“ At work again! At work! Every week a new town. Always something to distract her from this eternal ache, some poor little futile change, but still change—change and work. Was it very selfish of her to sacrifice Letizia to her own need? Very wrong and very selfish? Yet even from a practical point of view, surely it was right to take this money when she had the chance? She could not leave Letizia with Mrs. Pottage indefinitely. To refuse an offer like this while she accepted the old landlady’s charity would put her in such a humiliating position. Bram surely would not blame her. ”

“ Quack-quack, Caleb! I’m the grand finale to-night, and if you won’t give me champagne I’ll find some one who will, and he’ll have the grandest finale of all.”
Unfortunately for Letizia when she turned round to run away she ran into her mother, who caught her by the ear and led her back into the alcove.
“Sei pazza?” she demanded.
“If I am mad, it’s his fault,” protested Letizia angrily. “Let go of my ear, mamma! You’re hurting me.”
“Vuoi far la putanella, eh?” [3] cried Madame Oriano furiously, squeezing her daughter’s ear even harder.
[3] “You want to play the little wanton, eh?” ”

“ Nancy had made up her mind that Letizia should begin her stage experience by going out on tour with some sound Shakespearian or Old Comedy company. She would not earn much in the way of salary, but that would teach her how to be careful with money. And then after a couple of years of knocking about the provinces and playing all sorts of parts she could concentrate upon getting a London engagement and setting out to be famous. Now without taking anybody’s advice Letizia had gone off and interviewed John Richards and been engaged by him for the Vanity chorus. ”

“ Kino was in the room when Letizia put forward this theory and with a dumpy hand she silently patted the black sleeve of Nancy, who had turned away to hide the tears.
Perhaps the kindest thing that fortune could have done for the young widow was to throw difficulties in the way of her obtaining an engagement. Had she found a “shop” immediately and gone out on tour alone after those happy years of joint engagements the poignancy of her solitude might have overwhelmed her. The battle for a livelihood kept her from brooding. ”

“ Nancy said. “Nobody ever told me I had, until this fairy prince arrived in Bristol.”
“Ah, but I think people are always so afraid to think anybody has a good voice until somebody else has established the fact for them,” Sister Catherine laughed. “It was just a piece of good luck that you should be heard by somebody who understood what good singing is.... I’m glad you think dear little Letizia is looking so well. She is a great treasure, and we are all very proud of her. She has so much personality, and I’m doing my best to let her keep it without spoiling her.” ”

“ Letizia would hear no French or Italian in this house except from me. And even if I could count on a few more years of existence, what could I teach that child? Nothing, but my own cynicism, and that would be worse than nothing. No, you mustn’t hand her over to young Caleb. That would be in a way as wrong as what my mother did. Your duty is to educate her. Yes, you must educate her, girl, you must be sure that she is taught well. She seems to have personality. Educate her. She must not be stifled by young Caleb and those two poor crones I brought into this world. ”

“ My husband’s grandmother was Italian. I often wish that I could speak Italian and teach my small daughter.”
“What is Italian, muvver?” Letizia asked.
175
“Italian, Letizia,” said the nun, “is the way all the people talk in the dearest and most beautiful country in the world. Such blue seas, my dear, such skies of velvet, such oranges and lemons growing on the trees, such flowers everywhere, such radiant dancing airs, such warmth and sweetness and light. I lived in Italy long ago, when I was young.” ”

“ Moreover, Sister Catherine wrote to Nancy half-way through the next term that she was so worried about Letizia’s health that she thought it would be wise if she went to Belgium early in the New Year, as London did not seem to be suiting her. Nancy wondered if she should say anything about her unfortunate passion for a middle-aged actor, but decided that it might give a wrong impression to the nuns and kept silence. She was glad she had, when soon after Letizia’s arrival in Belgium she received a letter full of excitement and good spirits. The sickness of love was evidently cured. ”

“ By the time that the Empire was firmly founded, and all her children except Lucien were seated on thrones, Letizia was able to give free rein to the passion which came only second with her to her love for her children. It is said that shipwrecked sailors who have been starved for a long time cannot help, after being rescued, hoarding fragments of food for fear of another period of famine. ”

“ But I don’t expect she will. She was always the strictest of the lot. I can’t think why they made her head-mistress of St. Joseph’s.”
Sister Rose felt that it was her duty to try and quell some of Letizia’s exuberance, and throughout the next year Nancy was getting letters from her daughter about “rows.” With all her strictness Sister Rose seemed much less capable than Sister Catherine of keeping her pupils in order; or perhaps it was that Letizia was now one of the big girls and consequently involved in much more serious escapades than those of the juniors. ”

“ Consider us engaged,” she sighed.
The actor was frankly delighted. He ordered a fresh bottle of Chambertin and talked for another half-hour enthusiastically about his play and the success that Letizia was going to make. But Nancy could not be merry. She was wondering what Bram would have said about Letizia’s acting. The people in the restaurant faded out of sight; the noise of knives and forks died away ”

“ Caleb beamed more intensely.
“Oh, please,” he protested on his side. “My aunts and I would be very much upset indeed if you didn’t have tea. And to-day’s Thursday!”
Nancy looked puzzled.
“I see I shall have to let you into a little family secret. We always have a new cake on Thursday,” he proclaimed, smiling now with a beautifully innocent archness. Turning to Letizia he added playfully, “I expect you like cakes, don’t you?”
“I like the cakes what Mrs. Porridge makes for me,” Letizia replied. ”

“ Letizia, the mother of ten, is worthy of more space than I am able here to give her. There are those who say she was the real founder of the House of Rothschild. She died aged exactly one hundred, in the Red Shield, where she was married and where all of her children were born.
She outlived the fall of Napoleon just forty years. She had a fine and pardonable pride in her kingly sons.
Politics and world problems interested her. She was sane and sensible and happy to the last.
PHILIP D. ARMOUR [Pg 165]
Anybody can cut prices, but it takes brains to make a better article. ”

“ Nancy wavered. The last thing she had intended was to allow Letizia to act. Yet, would it hurt her so much to be acting with her mother?
“What salary are you suggesting, Mr. Plimmer?”
“I had allotted five pounds a week to your part, Miss O’Finn, but if your little girl will appear with you, I am prepared to double that.”
Ten pounds a week! It was as much as she and Bram had ever earned together, and a good deal more than they had earned sometimes. It would be madness to refuse. Besides, work was necessary if she was not to break down under this anxiety. Yet Letizia was very young to be acting. ”

“ Meglio sposarti. Lasciammi sola. Vorrei dormire. Sono stanca assai ... assai.” [10]
[10] “You have already too much the air of a wanton, my daughter. Better to get married. Leave me alone. I want to sleep. I’m very tired.”
Madame Oriano closed her eyes, and Letizia humbly and miserably left her mother, as she wished to be left, alone.
43
CHAPTER IV MARRIED LIFE
So, Caleb Fuller married Letizia Oriano and tamed her body, as without doubt he would have succeeded in taming the body of any woman of whom he had lawfully gained possession. ”

“ But what a much greater chance she would stand if she were not hampered by the urgent need of a livelihood. Not that Nancy intended her daughter to be aware of her amateur status. If she chose to be an actress, she should begin under the impression that there was not a farthing between herself and starvation in the event of failure. But once she secured a London engagement, why, then the money to dress herself, the money to be able to turn up her nose at a small salary, the money to flick her fingers in the face of any manager—— But Letizia’s début was a long way off yet. ”

“ Dick Whittington is under my protection,”
declared the Fairy Queen, waving her wand to the accompaniment of a white spot-light.
“In vain you seek to make my plans miscarry,
For Dick his master’s daughter shall not marry,”
declared the Demon King Rat, waving his sceptre to the accompaniment of a red spot-light.
“That man’s bad,” Letizia announced gravely. ”

“ Appalled by the reports of the dreadful threats emanating from a population without arms, and a handful of volunteers without powder, distrustful henceforth of the courage of his soldiers, and, if the truth must be told, of the fidelity of his fleet, Lanza sent General Letizia to Garibaldi betimes, on the 31st of May, with an unconditional demand for the continuance of the armistice. ”

“ The memory of Lettie Fuller and her short swift career upon the Vanity stage, bright and light as the288 dance of a butterfly through the hours of a Summer morning, should still be so fresh in the minds of play-goers that there is a kind of embarrassment in writing about it. Anyway, Lettie Fuller was our Letizia, and in the years 1910 and 1911 she was the spirit of youth and London as no doubt to-day that elusive and lovable spirit is incarnate in some other young woman. Peace and beauty and fortune attend her and all those who do adore her! ”

“ Pottage exclaimed to Nancy:
“Hark! did you hear that? That was Mrs. Bugbird’s laugh above the lot. Oh, I’d reckonise that laugh if I293 was in my coffin. You mark my words, she’ll be whooping in a moment. That’s always the way it gets her. But pore Aggie’ll pat her back if she whoops too hard.”
In spite of the encores—and Letizia always won by far the loudest and most persistent of them—the curtain fell at last on another thundering Vanity success.
“Bravo, bravo, my beauty!” Mrs. Pottage stood up to shout when Letizia took her call. ”

“ If the traditional scene of alternate defiance of each other by the powers of Good and Evil had lasted much longer, she might have made an attempt to reach the stage and fight at her mother’s side; but the Demon King Rat vanished down a trap and the Fairy Queen hurried off Left to make way for Cheapside.
“Why has faver got a red nose?” Letizia inquired, when Bram entered made up for Idle Jack. “I don’t like him to have a red nose. My lamb what Santy Claus gave me doesn’t like him to have a red nose.” ”

“ It was obvious that she could not live on her salary in such surroundings, which meant that her mother must give her an allowance if she was to be protected against the difficulty of trying to live up to a standard beyond her means without being exposed to temptation. And Nancy did grudge her savings being drawn upon to maintain a position in the Vanity chorus. However, the harm was done, and she was too wise to offer any more opposition for fear of making Letizia decide out of contrariness that the Vanity chorus was the end of an actress’s ambition. ”