They met by chance the next day; he stretched on the grassy knoll, Giovanna on her way down from the convent above. Hoping he was asleep, she didn’t stop. “You weren’t here today and now it’s too late to talk,” he said, making her turn, ignoring Giovanni now an impossibility.
“Oh … it’s you. I didn’t see you! No, I couldn’t today. Once a week I sew for the Sisters. Mend sheets and re-hem habits for those who have rheumatism and can’t. Well?” she said, her tone impatient.
“Well, what?”
“Was there something you wanted to talk to me about—or one of the others?”
“Who said I wanted to talk?”
“You did … just now you said …”
“Oh, forget it.” He got up, turned looking across the darkening valley. He was close enough to touch and yet seemed not there at all.
She should have left, instead remained, unable to come to a decision to leave. Suspended silence stretched between them into discomfort. Purple-rose stained the evening sky. The call to Vespers sounded.
“It’s late,” he said.
“Yes,” she murmured, turning to leave.
“Don’t go.”
“Why?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you love questions?”
“No, but I suppose I do. It’s a way of learning and knowing where one stands.”
“Giovanna, sometimes you speak like a man.”
“I am a motherless child, reared by a father who never liked her.”
“It isn’t proper for a girl to speak in that way!” Surprise and censure colored his tone.
“I know. I have real trouble being what I know I am supposed to be. Most of the time, I feel I am very different from other girls.”
“Camilla is a real girl,” he mused, as though he were alone.
“Giovanni, they say you returned to find a wife to take back with you. Is that true?”
“None of your business!”
“Is it true?”
“Yes!”
“Take me!”
Shocked, he backed away from her. Now that she had started, unable to stop, Giovanna advanced towards him. “TAKE ME! Please, take me! I can cook, clean, and sew. I’ll take good care of you! I’ll never interfere in your life, never be a burden to you. I swear I’ll never ask for anything more! Just take me, TAKE ME WITH YOU TO AMERICA!”
“You’re crazy! As crazy as your mother!”
With a snarl she jumped him, steel fingers gripped his throat. “I’m NOT! Damn you! I am NOT like my mother!”
His fury matching hers, he tore her hands from his throat, slapped her across the face and strode down the hill. Giovanna, stunned—more by her shocking loss of control than his blow—watched him disappear.
The next day, the chestnut sheltered only three. The sisters, excited about their brother’s sudden decision to declare his honorable intentions to Camilla’s father, couldn’t even think of working lace, and, now that Camilla’s future was being decided, her proud mamma had forbidden her virgin daughter to venture from within the protection of her father’s house until Giovanni’s actual proposal and her papa’s certain consent.
Teresa, always brought to fever pitch by anything remotely suggestive of romance or ritual, now that the immediate future might hold the melding of both, was breathless with anticipation.
“Antonia, do you think he will marry her here? Well, he’ll have to … they can’t travel together without being man and wife. Just think—a marriage feast here! And our Camilla the lucky bride! Isn’t it exciting? I asked my mamma if I can please, please wear my hair up for such an important event and you know what she said? She said, ‘Yes!’ and that she would even allow me to borrow her ivory comb. Do you think Mamma might let me dance? I am going to wear my flowered skirt—you know the one, but maybe with a new sash and dance with Mario Rossini. He looks nice now—his hair has grown back and Mamma says it is alright if I enjoy myself just a little before I renounce all worldly pleasures and give myself to Christ.”
“You can rattle on longer than anyone I know,” Antonia snapped. “If there ever is a wedding feast and your mamma does let you dance, which I doubt, don’t do it with a Rossini twin—or you’ll find yourself twirling in the bushes. Anyway …” Antonia continued in her principessa tone, “this morning my father spoke to Father Innocente to ask his opinion of all these goings-on and our saintly Abbot didn’t know anything about it! And we all know that he of all people would be the very first to be informed if a nuptial was being planned.”
A faint breeze rustled the broad chestnut leaves, joining the jingle of their busy bobbins.
“Oh! One of my shells has split!” Teresa, lips trembling, picked at her bundle, ready to weep.
“Well—just ask the Virgin to send you down another,” retorted Antonia, which made Teresa’s lips tremble even more.
Giovanna worked in silence.
“No … I don’t think it’s split all the way through.” Teresa rolled the tiny spiral shell around in her palm, examining it, making sure the disaster she had first expected had been spared her. “Antonia, you must not take the name of our Holy Mother in vain—no matter how upset you are. It is a sin, Sister Bertine says so.”
“You and your eternal prattle about your precious Sister Bertine! Why don’t you just go into your convent right now, take the veil, lock yourself away and be done with it!”
Giovanna looked up. “Antonia, I think this time you have gone too far! You owe Teresa an apology.”
“How dare you speak to me in that superior tone—I have never been so insulted!” Looking every inch the enraged aristocrat, Antonia marched off, dragging her chair behind her.
Teresa sighed, “Poor Antonia! She is so very disappointed Giovanni didn’t choose her … but who knows … even Mamma said, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it. Nothing is ever what it seems—even if the foxes cry, Spring can be late in coming!’ I don’t know what she means by that but she always says it. My mamma’s sort of partial to fox sayings … One of her favorites is ‘Hens and boys beware of a vixen seen in the light of a new moon!’ … I don’t know what that one means either but she says that one all the time … and then there’s …”
“Teresa,” even Giovanna could take just so much of Teresa’s mamma. “Do you really believe Camilla’s father will give his consent?”
“Why not? Millionaires don’t come along every day.”
“Giovanni isn’t a millionaire!”
“Well! Don’t you think, with five daughters still left to marry off, wouldn’t Camilla’s papa be overjoyed to welcome any acceptable suitor who comes to his door?”