But Olive altogether declined to be a young lady.
She waited anxiously for her cousins’ letter, and it meant so much to her that when it came she was half afraid to open it.
It was grotesquely addressed to the
Genteel Miss Agar Olive,
Marsden Street, 159,
Brighton,
Provincia di Sussex,
Inghilterra.
The post-mark was Siena. It was stamped on the flap, which was also decorated with a blue bird carrying a rose in its beak, and was rather strongly scented.
“Dear Cousin,—We were so pleased and interested to hear from you, though we greatly regret to have the news of our aunt’s death. Our father’s sister lives with us since we are orphans. She is a widow and has no children of her own. If you can pay us fifteen lire a week we shall be satisfied, and we will try to get you pupils for English. Kindly let us know the date and hour of your arrival.—Believe us, yours devotedly,
“Maria, Gemma and Carmela.”
Olive read it carefully twice over, and then sat down at the table and began to scribble on the back of the envelope. She convinced herself that three times fifteen was forty-five, and that so many lire amounted to not quite two pounds. Then there was the fare out to be reckoned. Finally, she decided that she would be able to get out to Italy and to live there for three weeks before she need call herself penniless.
She went to the window and stood for a while looking out. The houses opposite and all down the road were exactly alike, all featureless and grey, roofed with slate, three-storied, with basement kitchens. Nearly every one of them had “Apartments” in gilt letters on the fanlight over the front door. It was raining. The pavements were wet and there was mud on the roadway. The woman who lived in the corner house was spring-cleaning. Olive saw her helping the servant to take down the curtains in the front room. Dust and tea-leaves and last year’s cobwebs. It occurred to her that spring would bring a recurrence of these things only if she became a useful help, as she must if she stayed in England and earned her living as best she could—only these and nothing more. The idea was horrible and she shuddered at it. “I shall go,” she said aloud. “I shall go.”