The Sicilian's Defiant Maid
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Carol Marinelli
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16
PROLOGUE
‘ALICIA, HAVE YOU been telling fibs again?’
‘I don’t think so...’
Alicia frowned as she and Beatrice made their way along the private path that led from their tiny school and their residence towards the convent. Even half running it was a good ten minutes along the rugged coastal headlands of Trebordi in Sicily’s south.
‘Maybe a few white lies...’ Alicia admitted, deciding that it might be safer just to apologise in advance. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve got us into trouble.’
‘Again,’ Beatrice scolded. ‘It is hard work being your twin sometimes.’
And, although she was being told off just a little, Beatrice’s words made Alicia’s heart soar because—well, it made them family.
Even if technically they weren’t.
They had arrived at the baby door of the convent within a few weeks of each other and had been fondly referred to as twins at first. Though others had long since stopped, between them the term had remained.
In days gone by the baby door had been used regularly. Its use was rare now, but a benefactor ensured that it remained open. Baby girls dropped off at the convent, if not adopted, lived in the private house and were given a free education at the school in the convent grounds. Baby boys were cared for in the same residence up until the age of one, unless adopted.
‘It’s lucky we’re girls,’ Beatrice would say. ‘It’s such a good school. At least...’ Beatrice would wrinkle her nose, ‘...compared to the one in town.’
‘Well, I wish I’d been born a boy,’ Alicia would say, and sigh, because she hated school and ached for a family with something akin to hunger. A desperate, insatiable hunger. ‘But then, if I were a boy,’ she would say with a smile to Beatrice, ‘I wouldn’t have you.’
Though they were not actually twins, nor even biological sisters, Alicia preferred to think of them that way, and would introduce them as such to any doubtful tourists who might make the trek along the headlands to the nunnery and stop to make a purchase from the produce shop.
‘Twins?’ They would frown dubiously, for Alicia and Beatrice could not be more different in either appearance or nature.
‘Yes,’ Alicia would say as she wrapped their parcels. ‘Though not identical, of course. Our parents died in a house fire. Mamma passed us out of the window to the firefighters. It was the last thing she did,’ she would add with a wistful sigh.
‘Alicia Domenica!’ Sister Angelique rarely spoke, but when she did it was to tell off Alicia, or report her to Reverend Mother, who would scold her for her fanciful tales. ‘Why on earth would you say such a thing?’
Alicia’s answer was always simple. ‘Because it sounds so much nicer than saying we were abandoned.’
It sounded as if they had once been loved.
Alicia had arrived at the convent first, early one September. A feisty and very Sicilian baby with curly black hair and blue eyes which would quickly darken to a deep brown.
The nuns had guessed she was a week or so old, for her cord had been a shrivelled stub, which meant that—for a little while—she had been cared for and loved. She had been bathed and dressed before being left, and there had been a pair of Italian gold hoops pinned to the little baby suit she wore. Despite appearing well nourished she had seemingly arrived hungry—grabbing at the bottle and sucking greedily, then grabbing a finger and clutching on—although the nuns had soon found out that was just her nature. She was frantic not just for milk but for attention. Wanting more, ever more, of any brief taste of love...
They had named her Alicia after the nun who had found her. And she had been given the surname Domenica for she had arrived on a Sunday.
Then, three weeks later, deep in the night, the bell had rung again, alerting the nuns that the baby door had been used. This time around there had been barely a cry, and the babe had been fragile and skinny. She’d still been covered in vernix and the cord had been crudely tied off, meaning the infant was likely just a matter of hours old.
This baby had been as blonde as Alicia was dark, and so silent in comparison that the nuns had been worried. So worried that, despite it being late summer, they had lit the old wood stove in the kitchen and, after feeding and wrapping her, had put her in the same crib as Alicia for extra warmth.
A mistake, perhaps, for after that Alicia had sobbed loudly whenever they were parted.
She had been named Beatrice Festa. Beatrice after the nun who had found her, and Festa for the festival that had been taking place in town when she’d arrived, and they were rather sure she had come from there. Still, it had soon been decided that she was misnamed, for Beatrice meant bringer of happiness, and festas were fun, yet she was an unsmiling, serious little thing.
Alicia loved her so very much, though—even when she was prim and cross and attempting to communicate to her the trouble they were in.
‘Have you been swimming with Dante Schininà in the river again?’ Beatrice asked.
‘No!’ Alicia was telling the truth. ‘Ragno wouldn’t come—he says he’s too old for all that. Anyway, the water is getting too low.’ She called him ragno, meaning spider, because he was tall and skinny and all arms and legs.
‘Thank goodness.’ Beatrice tutted. ‘Or we really would be in trouble.’
‘For swimming?’
‘It’s not just swimming. I know when the river is dry you two go into the cemetery.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Alicia shrugged. ‘We look at the names.’
‘It’s morbid,’ Beatrice said.
‘No.’
‘And you’re lying again—you can’t read.’
‘Ragno doesn’t know that.’ Alicia smiled, for she hid it so well that even Beatrice had only recently found out.
‘He’s trouble, Alicia.’ Beatrice turned to her as if to warn her.
‘Not to me.’
‘You were seen holding hands.’
‘I like holding his hand,’ Alicia said.
‘The nuns think you get up to...’ Beatrice’s voice trailed off.
‘To what?’ Alicia let out a scoffing laugh and then made a gagging noise, for she could think of nothing worse than kissing. ‘Oh, please—we are friends and that is that. I don’t understand why everyone is so mean about him.’
‘I wasn’t being mean.’
‘Yes, you were,’ Alicia said. Though she loved Beatrice, she still stood up for her friend Ragno. ‘You were being mean. I can hear it in your voice that you are cross. Everyone always is when they speak about him.’
‘Because he roams wild. He sleeps in sheds most nights, and he steals—’
‘Eggs,’ Alicia said. ‘For breakfast.’
Beatrice paused then, and nodded. ‘His mother is a disgrace.’
‘She’s been kind to us, though.’
Alicia did not understand Ragno’s mother. She barely housed or fed her own son, yet he had given her a bag a few weeks ago, from his mother, and in it had been sanitary pads and tampons—a far cry from the awful strips of cloth the nuns allocated them. Alicia and Beatrice had spent a few nights reading the tampon insertion instructions, agog! As well as that there had been a glossy magazine, and Alicia had pored over the pictures of gorgeous dresses within, running her finger over the pages as if she could feel the fabric. It hadn’t swayed Beatrice’s opinion, though.
‘She’s unmarried,’ Beatrice whispered as they entered the convent and then climbed the staircase and took their seats outside Reverend Mother’s office.
‘So?’ Alicia shrugged. ‘We’re probably bastards, too, yet the nuns take care of us.’
‘Don’t say that word,’ Beatrice warned. ‘Anyway, it’s not just because she isn’t married. You know what they call her?’
‘Yes,’ Alicia said. ‘And it’s because she’s a beekeeper.’
‘She isn’t though.’ Beatrice shook her head. ‘That’s just what the locals call her.’
‘Why?’ Alicia frowned.
‘Because she gives away honey.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Alicia admitted.
Beatrice rolled her eyes. ‘For someone who’s getting bosoms, you don’t know very much.’
That was another way they were different, Beatrice was still like a stick, and Alicia was starting to fill out. It horrified her—she had thought she was dying when she got her first period, and she hated the little buds of her breasts. She wanted her old body back—the one that had let her swim in her knickers and run...
‘Men go to her home,’ Beatrice explained.
‘Ragno already told me that.’ Alicia shrugged again. ‘They go there to play cards.’
But then she recalled the slightly sarcastic edge to his voice when he had said that, and the accompanying roll of his navy eyes.
Alicia turned to Beatrice. ‘What does it mean to give away honey?’
‘I don’t actually know,’ Beatrice admitted.
‘Ah, so there are some things that the genius doesn’t know!’
‘Shh...’ Beatrice warned, for Sister Angelique seemed to be beckoning them to come into the office.
But as they duly stood and stepped forward, the nun put a hand up to stop Alicia. The signal was clear—Alicia was to remain outside.
She sat on the bench, trying to rack her brains as to what she might have done now! It had been weeks ago that Dante had handed her that bag from his mother, and she hadn’t been down by the river, nor lied to any tourists of late.
Whatever it was must be terrible, though, for the door opened and Beatrice came out, her face pale, her eyes wide. Gosh, it must have been a terribly big lie she’d told, as all Beatrice did was shake her head and mouth the word no.
And now Sister Angelique was pointing for Alicia to come in and see Reverend Mother...
Not a minute later Alicia shouted the very word that Beatrice had mouthed.
‘No!’
She was urgent as she raved on.
‘Reverend Mother, you can’t split us up. No, no, no. Beatrice would never agree.’
Reverend Mother sighed at the perpetual drama of Alicia.
‘You can’t separate twins,’ Alicia pleaded. ‘It’s not right, it’s cru—’
She was halted.
‘Alicia, you are to stop this nonsense,’ Reverend Mother warned. ‘You don’t even share the same birthday. This is an incredible opportunity for Beatrice—a full scholarship in Milan!’
‘It’s so far away that it’s almost Switzerland.’
‘Alicia, you stand here weeping, saying that you love Beatrice,’ Reverend Mother said reasonably.
‘I do.’
‘So surely you want what’s best for her?’
Of course she did. But the absolute truth was that Alicia thought she was what was best for Beatrice. Everybody considered Beatrice cold. She had heard the nuns say that her emotions had been cut with the umbilical cord, and even that she—Alicia—must have got Beatrice’s share. Yet Alicia knew otherwise. Each year in September, when the festival came to town, poor Beatrice would climb out of the window at night and go looking for her mother. And in the weeks afterwards, when the festival had long gone, she would cry herself to sleep and then wake screaming after the most dreadful nightmares.
Alicia’s answer came from the heart. ‘She needs me.’
‘Are you sure it’s not the other way around?’ Reverend Mother checked, planting a little seed of doubt. ‘Alicia, Beatrice is very gifted...’
It was true. Another thing that set them apart was the fact that Alicia struggled to read, let alone write, whereas Beatrice always had her head in books. She excelled in French and was intently studying Latin.
‘There is a reason I have told you separately,’ Reverend Mother explained gravely. ‘Your reaction to this outstanding offer for Beatrice matters very much. If you carry on like this—crying and sobbing—then she won’t go. Is that really what you want?’
Alicia was the silent one now, as Reverend Mother watered that little seed and watched it sprout.
‘Beatrice has a real opportunity to further herself. Would you prefer her future to be working in the shop on the grounds, selling our produce? Or in the nursery when we have a baby arrive? Perhaps she could get a job one of the village cafés...’
‘She could get a job in town!’ Alicia shivered. ‘In the library. She loves it there!’
‘What a selfish young lady you are turning into,’ Reverend Mother said. ‘Quite the rebel too, I hear.’
Sister Angelique happily broke her silence then. ‘Alicia has been seen holding hands with that ruffian—’
‘I’m aware, thank you,’ Reverend Mother cut in, glancing down at Alicia’s emerging figure and then back to her eyes. ‘Sister Angelique will take you to the donation cupboard and find you something suitable to wear underneath your school dress. Then it will be time for evening prayers—use them wisely. I do believe you care for Beatrice, and I trust you will do the right thing.’ As Alicia turned to go, Reverend Mother added one more thing. ‘And, Alicia, choose the company you keep more carefully.’
Her heart felt shorn by the news that she was losing Beatrice, but Alicia’s fire remained. ‘I do choose carefully, Reverend Mother. I only have two friends...’
‘You have many more.’
‘There are people I play with and speak to and like, but true friends are something precious.’
‘You are maybe a little young for this lesson, Alicia, but I feel it necessary to tell you now—there are certain young men a young lady would be well advised to stay away from.’
‘But I thought we were supposed to be kind to the homeless and the hungry?’
Alicia frowned as if she had misunderstood something and watched as Reverend Mother swallowed.
‘Most nights Dante Schininà is both.’
The donation cupboard smelt musty and of mothballs. Alicia’s eyes drifted to a beautiful sequined dress, but then sagged in disappointment as Sister Angelique handed her a bra, already long faded from pink to grey.
It was a very long walk back from the convent to the school chapel, where she sat for evening prayers, feeling just a little relieved that Beatrice wasn’t there so that she could properly think.
After prayers she made her way to the small residence for boarders, where she and Beatrice shared a simple bedroom. Outside the room she stopped at the wooden door and wished mirrors were allowed, just so she could check her face. She didn’t want Beatrice to know she’d been crying, as Alicia really was not one to cry.
She was confused, though—deeply so. After being punished for all the little fibs she had told, now Reverend Mother was telling her to lie. And it would be the biggest lie she’d ever told, for she did not want Beatrice to leave.
Beatrice jumped up from her bed as Alicia walked in. ‘I’m not going,’ she stated immediately. ‘I’ve told them I’ll only take it if you can come too...’
‘They’re not going to give me a scholarship to a posh school in Milan.’ Alicia laughed at the very notion. ‘I can’t write or do sums, but you’re so clever, Beatrice. I think you should go.’
‘You’re just saying that.’ Beatrice shook her head wildly. ‘You’ve been crying.’
‘Yes.’
‘You never cry.’
‘I was told off about Ragno,’ Alicia said. ‘You were right; we were seen holding hands. I am to choose my company more wisely.’
‘We swore we’d never be separated, though—that we’re as good as twins...’
‘But we’re not twins,’ Alicia said. ‘We’re not even sisters.’
‘We’re sisters of the heart.’
‘Yes,’ Alicia agreed, ‘and that means you had better study hard, so that when I’m old enough I can come to Milan and see what you’ve made of yourself.’ She pushed out a smile and squeezed Beatrice’s hands. ‘Then we can be together again...’
