‘How would Phryne Street appeal to you, Isabel?’ Mr Collins asked his wife as they sat one morning at breakfast.
‘H-m, Charles! …’
‘Maxilla Gardens then?’
‘H-m! …’
‘Or Gardingore Gate?’
‘I want to live in Lisbon,’ Mrs Collins said.
Mr Collins cast aside the paper.
‘Where to bend our footsteps to is a problem and a tragedy,’ he muttered.
‘’Vieto,’ Daisy suggested in an insinuating voice.
‘What would one do dumped down in Orvieto?’ Mrs Collins asked. ‘It would be as bad as Bovon.’
‘At ’Vieto it’s all arcades, and right on top of a hill! You’ve to take a lift to get to it. It’s the funicular for all …’
‘If it’s to be Italy I’d sooner it was Rome.’
Daisy showed fervour.
‘Mab was telling me of the preserves they sell there. All speared on little sticks. At the street corners, she says, the sugar-plums sparkle in the sun just as if they were jewels … I should like to see them … And to taste them too,’ she added.
‘Papa has written to Mrs Whewell already, alas,’ Mrs Collins said, ‘to inquire whether she has a vacancy at all at York Hill.’
‘If I studied anywhere it would be abroad.’
‘Master your native tongue at any rate to begin with,’ Mr Collins advised.
‘I don’t care a jot for distinctions!’
‘At your age,’ Mrs Collins asserted, ‘I had a diploma.’
‘For what?’
‘As a nurse.’
‘Nursing’s different.’
‘I assure you it’s very disagreeable. Often it’s by no means pleasant.’
‘Why?’
‘What I never could bear about nursing,’ Mrs Collins reminiscently said, ‘was sponging the paint off the face of a corpse.’
‘I would leave it.’
‘Even a hospital nurse can go too far …’
‘Where’s Mabel?’
‘I heard her romping with Bianca as I passed her door.’
‘She doesn’t bother herself much of a morning about the time,’ Mr Collins complained.
‘It’s on account of prayers, Charles. Until they’re over she naturally doesn’t care to come down.’
Daisy sipped her tea.
‘She did her best to convert me the other day,’ she said. ‘With one of her hatpins.’
‘What?’
‘… An old bead affair. Such a common thing. Not worth sixpence.’
‘Mab did?’
‘And she has her eye on Queen!’
‘I fear the tap-room at the Mitre is as near as he’ll ever get to Rome,’ Mr Collins remarked.
‘S-s-s-h, Charles. Here he is!’
‘Is the Signora stirring yet, Queen?’ Daisy asked.
‘She has just received her letters.’
‘Is there anything for me?’
‘No, Miss Daisy. There is not.’
‘I was only wondering—’
Mrs Collins raised a hand.
‘Hark!’
‘O-o-o-o-o-o-h!’
‘It’s her ladyship’s cry.’
‘You’d think Great Pan was dead again – at least.’
‘Very likely it’s her husband’s handwriting that affects her,’ Daisy said. ‘Or it may be only a parcel! She’s expecting, on approval, I know, some fancy-work pyjamas.’
‘O-o-o-o-o-o-h!’
‘Breakfast!’ Mrs Collins carolled.
‘He’s coming. He’ll be here to-day,’ the Countess announced, elated. ‘Oio will!’
‘Positively?’
‘So he says. Oh … And in the night I was dreaming so vividly of a runaway hearse … As it galloped by me one of the mourners gave me such a look. I can see it now.’
‘Was it anybody, Mabsey?’
‘How anybody?’
‘Likely to suit me.’
‘A husband!’
‘Mabsey!’
‘It was a young woman … Poor soul!’ the Countess replied.
‘What does he say?’
‘I’ll read you out some of his letter. But it isn’t all for you.’
‘Is it in Italian, Mabel?’
‘It’s half and half.’
‘Well?’
‘ “My dear dearly,” he begins – he always calls me dearly! – “My own, own, little wife. My Mabina—” And then he simply says he’s coming. “Spero di venire Sabato verso la sera …” And he sends his filial love, with a kiss, to the English mother – à la mamma Inglese …’
‘Ah?’
‘Yes … And he intends to take her back with him to Italy, where he has prepared for her benefit a violet and rose salotto …’
‘Bless the boy!’
‘And then there’s a piece of scandal. Oh, good gracious! … He says poor Citta Zocchia isn’t to wait on the Queen any more! She’s done it this time … And Dona Formosa de Bergère is to be married in Naples – Naples! Oh! Mercy! – to a certain Signor Popi! …’
‘At what o’clock will he be here?’
‘Verso la sera!’
‘Towards night.’
‘How vague these husbands are.’
‘He’ll be here for dinner, I dare say,’ Daisy said.
‘We must try to consult his tastes.’
‘Simple, nourishing things,’ the Countess said, ‘he likes. He has a passion for curry.’
Mrs Collins concealed her anxiety.
‘In Rome, for example, Mab,’ she asked, ‘what do they have when they dine?’
‘It depends.’
‘Besides curry …’
‘Oh, well, perhaps some little round, pink, sweet potatoes they’ll have, and some plain stewed rice. Or, again, very likely it’ll be a piece of cold pickled pork. With olive oil and onions … Whatever’s seasonable they’ll have … And on Friday, of course, it’s fish.’
‘You’ll need to tell all this presently to Mrs Prixon,’ Mrs Collins said. ‘And don’t forget one thing … You’ve to replace that Mrs Occles.’
The Countess sighed.
‘If I can’t be suited with a Bovon girl or a York young thing I shall have an ayah and get the baby used to things …’
Daisy raised a finger.
‘There’s her little howl!’
‘Poor mite. She can’t bear to be left alone with a strange Scotch woman. When Bianca takes an aversion! … She’s a peculiar child in many ways.’
‘Let me dress her to-day, Mabsey, may I – just for once?’
‘What ever for?’
‘Leave her to me. I’ll turn her out what’s what!’
‘Goodness!’
‘I’ve my secrets …’
‘I dare say.’
‘I can build her quite a presence …’
‘Mercy!’
‘With a proper projection you wouldn’t know the child.’
‘I must fly to her.’
‘And do, dear, finish your toilet,’ Mrs Collins beseeched.
‘I trust her husband will confiscate all her trailing, bedraggled negligeys,’ Mr Collins said. ‘Slovenly, nasty things!’
Daisy rippled.
‘I wouldn’t build upon it,’ she replied. ‘Her husband often doesn’t get up himself in the morning at all.’
‘Not?’
‘He lies a-bed until all hours. He’s a regular sluggard. The shadows will be falling sometimes, she says, and daylight almost gone, and you’ll find him still between the sheets.’
‘Fortunately Madame La Chose will be routing us out of this before very long.’
‘Eh, Is-a-bel!’
Mrs Collins glowed.
‘And what heavenly happiness,’ she remarked ‘to have no housekeeping – ever any more!’
‘Let’s all dance to-night.’
‘My madcap fairy!’
‘Her husband dances quite wonderfully, she says.’
‘Who would there be to play?’
‘Victoria owns a concertina.’
‘That’s no good.’
‘And William has a banjo … According to him, the banjo is the king of instruments.’
‘Nonsense. I shouldn’t think it was.’
‘Oh! Mumsey! …’
‘We might perhaps call in the Bovon string quartet,’ Mrs Collins said. ‘Just for a serenade.’
‘Oh! what ever has happened to Niece?’
‘If she’s peevish, poor mite,’ the Countess said, returning, ‘it’s on account of the little mulligrubs …’
‘You can’t expect a child of her years to be reasonable,’ Mrs Collins commented. ‘It wouldn’t be natural.’
‘Let me have her,’ Daisy begged.
‘Don’t, Daisy!’
‘What the child likes best is a reel of cotton. She’ll play with that when she wouldn’t play with me …’
‘Pucci! Pucci!’ Mrs Collins ventured.
‘Ecco la nonna! La buona cara nonna … Ah, santo Dio!’
‘When I say cui to her, somehow she doesn’t seem to like it!’
Daisy wagged her tongue.
‘Lat-lat!’
‘How can you be so gross!’
‘Let me lull her. Shall I?’
‘She’s never quiet for you.’
‘Wait till she hears the story of Blowzalinda and the Fairy Bee.’
‘Oh, it’s beyond the child … She wouldn’t know. Buz-z-z!’
‘Isabel!’
‘Yes, dear?’
‘Cook requires her orders.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Behind the screen.’
‘Help me, Mabel,’ Mrs Collins said.
‘Gigi! Ribu! Oh, the clim pickle!’
‘Give her to me, Mabsey.’
‘Yum. Yum.’
‘Give her to me.’
‘She lifts her little hand up to her little nose and then she presses it.’
‘It’s one of her little sarcasms, I expect.’
‘She finds the world so weird.’
‘Still it’s good to know she has such an aunt. A good aunt, she says, is an untold blessing.’
‘Help me!’ Mrs Collins implored.
‘How?’
‘Curry – and then? …’
The Countess turned her head.
‘He can’t endure a rabbit,’ she remarked.
‘My dear, no one proposes it!’
‘Once the child and I were driving on the Via Appia Nuova when we saw a bunny peeping out of a tomb. Oh, such a darling! So I stopped the carriage and told Luigi, the footman, to run and dispatch it if he possibly could. He brought it back to me … And a few hours afterwards it was bubbling away into a fine chicken broth. Oio had it all … But hardly had it passed his lips when he was seized with the most violent spasms. Whereupon he turned round and accused me of attempting to do what certain Renaissance wives are supposed to have sometimes done. Oh! He was so cross. He was as cross as cross … So don’t let’s have rabbit.’
‘Polpettino, perhaps?’
‘In olive oil; garnished “Mussolini-wise”.’
‘And then?’
‘Oh, then, what he really adores, what he simply can’t resist, is a fritter.’
‘Cheese?’
‘Any kind. And he loves a savoury! Zuccata, he likes. Zuccata, Zuccatini … And he’s fond of a soufflé too, so long as it isn’t led.’
‘Not to anticipate, my dear …’
‘Then—’
‘Olive oil!’
‘And then—’
‘Then,’ Mrs Collins’ voice rose as if inspired, ‘then Côtelettes – à la Milanaise …’