THE PROPOSAL
Accidents in firework factories occurred so often in those days, when
the law had not yet recognised gunpowder as a means to provide popular
diversion and taken steps in the Explosives Act to safeguard its
employment, that for six poorhouse children to lose their lives and for
two others to be permanently maimed was hardly considered as serious as
the destruction of two comparatively new houses in York Street. Madame
Oriano’s own escape was voted miraculous, especially when it was borne
in mind that both her legs had to be amputated; and while some pointed
out that if she had not been sleeping in that florid four-post bed she
need not have had her legs crushed by the canopy, others were equally
quick to argue that it was precisely that canopy which saved the rest
of her body from being crushed as completely as her legs. The bed
certainly saved Letizia.
The accident was attributed to the inhuman carelessness of a parish
apprentice known as Arthur Wellington, whereby he had placed a
composition star on the hob of a lighted fire in order to dry it more
expeditiously before being rammed into the casing of a Roman candle.
Caleb in his evidence suggested that parish apprentices were inclined
to make up for lost time in this abominable way. Everybody shook his
head at the wickedness of parish apprentices, but nobody thought of
blaming Caleb for the arrangement of a workroom that permitted such a
dangerous method of making up for lost time. As for Caleb himself, when
he had recovered from the shock of so nearly finding himself in Heaven
before he had planned to retire there from the business of existence,
he began to realise that the destruction of the factory was the best
thing that could have happened for an earthly future that he hoped long
to enjoy. He took the first opportunity of laying before Madame Oriano
his views about that future. Should his proposal rouse her to anger,
he could feel safe, inasmuch as she could certainly not get out of bed
to attack him and was unlikely to leave the hospital for many weeks to
come.
“Well, I willa always say dissa one ting, my friend, and datta is I
have never had no _esplosione_ in alla my life before dissa one. Such
_fortuna_ could never last for ever, I am secure. My legs, they makka
me a little bad, datta is all.”
Caleb regarded his mistress where she was lying in bed looking like a
sharp-eyed bird in tropical vegetation, under the gaudy satin coverlet
of her four-poster which she had insisted on having mended and brought
to the hospital.
“I’m sure we ought all of us to be very thankful to our Father Who put
His loving arms around us and kept us safe,” he oozed.
Madame Oriano, become an old lady since her accident, smiled grimly.
“_Peccato che Nostro Padre non ha pensato per mie povere gambe!_” she
muttered.
“What did you say?” Caleb asked timidly. He could never quite rid his
mind of the fancy that the Italian language had a dangerous magic, an
abracadabral potency which might land him in Hell by merely listening
to it.
“I say it issa damn pity He does not putta His arms around my legs. Dat
is what I say, Caleb.”
“He knows best what is good for us,” Caleb gurgled, turning up his eyes
to the ceiling.
“_Può essere_,” the old lady murmured. “Perraps He do.”
“But what I’ve really come to talk about,” Caleb went on, “is the
future of the business. Your presence, of course, will be sadly missed;
but you’ll be glad to hear that I have managed to fulfil all our
engagements up to date, though naturally with such a terrible loss of
material the profits will be small—dreadfully small.”
No doubt Caleb was right, and even what profit there was he probably
put in his iron box which had comfortably survived the destruction of
the factory.
“I don’ta aspect no profit,” said Madame Oriano.
“But I have been turning things over in my mind,” Caleb pressed,
“and I hope very much that you will be pleased with the result of
my—er—turnings. Yes, I’m hoping that very much indeed.” Caleb took a
deep gulp before he went on, staring away out across the chimney-stacks
to escape the old lady’s arched eyebrows.
“Madame Oriano, when I came to London six years ago and entered your
service, you were a mother to me. I can never forget your beautiful
maternal behaviour, ma’am, and, oh, ma’am, I am so anxious to be a son
to you now in the hour of your trouble—a true son.”
“You never could notta be a son for me, Caleb. _Siete troppo grasso,
caro._ You are too big. How you say? Too fat.”
“Ah, Madame Oriano, don’t say you won’t let me be a son to you till
you’ve heard all I have to tell you. I want to marry your daughter,
ma’am. I want to marry your Letizia. I loved her from the first moment
I set eyes on her, although of course I knew my position too well to
allow myself to indulge in any hopes that would have been wanting
in respect to my employer. But I have worked hard, ma’am. Indeed,
I venture to think that my love for your daughter is not near so
presumptuous at this moment as it would have been when I first entered
your service.”
“_Sicuro!_ She hassa seventeen years old now,” said Madame Oriano
sharply. “She hadda only eleven years then.”
“Sweet seventeen!” Caleb sighed.
“_Non credo che sia tanto dolce._”
“Oh, I do wish that I understood Italian a little better,” Caleb
groaned unctuously.
“I say I do notta tink she issa so very damn sweet. I tink she issa—how
you say in English—one beech.”
No doubt, Caleb profoundly agreed with this characterisation of
Letizia, held he up never so plump a protestant hand.
“Oh, do give your consent to our marriage,” he gurgled. “I know that
there is a difference of religion. But I have ventured to think once
or twice that you could overlook that difference. I have remarked
sometimes that you did not appear to attach very great importance to
your religion. I’ve even ventured to pray that you might come in time
to perceive the errors of Romanism. 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. I have a few humble savings, the fruit of my long association
with you in your enterprises.”
Caleb paused a moment and took a deep breath. He had reached the
critical point in his temptation of Madame Oriano, and he tried to
put into his tone the portentousness that his announcement seemed to
justify.
“Nor have I been idle in my spare time, ma’am. No, I have devoted much
of that spare time to study. I have been rewarded, ma’am. God has been
very good to me and blessed the humble talent with which he entrusted
me. Yes, ma’am. I have discovered a method of using chlorate of potash
in combination with various other chemicals which will undoubtedly
revolutionise the whole art of pyrotechny. Will you consider me
presumptuous, ma’am, when I tell you that I dream of the moment when
Fuller’s Fireworks shall become a byword all over Great Britain for all
that is best and brightest in the world of pyrotechny?”
Madame Oriano’s eyes flashed like Chinese fire, and Caleb, perceiving
that he had made a false move, tried to retrieve his position.
“Pray do not suppose that I was planning to set myself up as a
manufacturer of fireworks on my own. So long as you will have me,
ma’am, I shall continue to work for you, and if you consent to my
marrying your Letizia I shall put my new discovery at your service on a
business arrangement that will satisfy both parties.”
Madame Oriano pondered the proposal in silence for a minute.
“Yes, you can have Letizia,” she said at last.
Caleb picked up the hand that was hanging listlessly over the coverlet
and in the effusion of his gratitude saluted it with an oily kiss.
“And you’ll do your best to make Letizia accept me as a husband?” he
pressed.
“If I say you can have Letizia, _caro_, you willa have her,” the mother
declared.
“You have made me the happiest man in England,” Caleb oozed.
Whereupon he walked on tiptoe from the room with a sense even sharper
than usual that he was one of the Lord’s chosen vessels, a most
peculiar child even among the Peculiar Children of God.
Just when the hot August day had hung two dusky sapphire lamps in the
window of the room, Madame Oriano, who had been lying all the afternoon
staring up at the shadows of the birds that flitted across the ceiling,
rang the bell and demanded her daughter’s presence.
“_Letizia, devi sposarti_,” she said firmly.
“Get married, mamma? But I don’t want to be married for a long time.”
“_Non ci entra, cara. Devi sposarti. Sarebbe meglio—molto meglio. Sei
troppo sfrenata._”[7]
[7] “That doesn’t come into it, my dear. You must get married. It
would be better—much better. You are too harum-scarum.”
“I don’t see why it should be so much better. I’m not so harum-scarum
as all that. Besides, you never married at my age. You never married at
all if it comes to that.”
“_Lo so. Perciò dico che tu devi sposarti._”[8]
[8] “I know that. That’s why I say that you must get married.”
“Thanks, and who am I to marry?”
“Caleb.”
“Caleb? Gemini! Caleb? Marry Caleb? But he’s so ugly! And he don’t wash
himself too often, what’s more.”
“_Bello non é ... ma che importa? La bellezza passa via._”
“Yes, I daresay beauty does pass away,” said Letizia indignantly. “But
it had passed away from Caleb before ever he was born.”
“_Che importa?_”
“I daresay it don’t matter to you. But you aren’t being expected to
marry him. Besides, you’ve had all the beaux you wanted. But I haven’t,
and I won’t be fobbed off with Caleb. I just won’t be, and you may do
what you will about it.”
“_Basta!_” Madame Oriano exclaimed. “Dissa talk is enough.”
“Basta yourself and be damned, mamma,” Letizia retorted. “I won’t
marry Caleb. I’d sooner be kept by a handsome gentleman in a big clean
cravat. I’d sooner live in a pretty house he’d give me and drive a
crimson curricle on the Brighton Road like Cora Delaney.”
“It does not import two pennies what you wish, _figlia mia_. You willa
marry Caleb.”
“But I’m not in love with him, the ugly clown!”
“Love!” scoffed her mother. “_L’amore! L’amore!_ Love is mad. I have
hadda so many lovers. _Tanti tanti amanti! Adesso, sono felice? No!
Ma sono vecchia assai._ Yes, an old woman—_una vecchia miserabile
senza amanti, senza gambe—e non si fa l’amore senza gambe, cara, ti
giuro—senza danaro, senza niente_.”
Sans love, sans legs, sans money, sans everything, the old woman
dropped back on her pillows utterly exhausted. A maid came in with
candles and pulled the curtains to shut out the dim grey into which the
August twilight had by now gradually faded. When the maid was gone, she
turned her glittering, sombre eyes upon her daughter.
“You willa marry Caleb,” she repeated. “It willa be better so—_molto
meglio cosi. Gli amanti non valgono niente._ All who I have been
loving, where are dey now? _Dove sono? Sono andati via._ Alla gone
away. Alla gone. You willa marry Caleb.”
Letizia burst into loud sobs.
“But I don’t want to marry, mamma.”
“_Meglio piangere a diciasette che rimpiangere a sessanta_,”[9] said
Madame Oriano solemnly. “You willa marry Caleb.”
[9] “Better to weep at seventeen than to repine at sixty.”
Letizia felt incapable of resisting this ruthless old woman any longer.
She buried her head in the gaudy satin coverlet and wept in silence.
“_Allora dammi un bacio._”
The obedient daughter leaned over and kissed her mother’s lined
forehead.
“_Tu hai già troppo l’aria di putana, figlia mia. 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.