Adam's Breed by Radclyffe Hall — Read

Although Gian-Luca had noticed before his departure that Teresa was very short-handed, the exigencies of his work at the Doric, and later on of his military training, had prevented his suspecting the full depths of the disaster that threatened the Casa Boselli. Even Maddalena who now went there daily, only vaguely suspected the truth at first; for how could she know the amounts that were owing? Teresa never spoke of these things; the deeper her trouble the less it became vocal -- that was Teresa's way.

It was not a dearth of customers that was killing the business, but a dearth of commodities to sell them; a stoppage of nearly all the supplies that should have come from Italy or France. Italy was producing less and less, while daily requiring more and more for home consumption; one after another her exports were failing, and with them the tiny, struggling atom known as the Casa Boselli. Those fine new glass cases that had cost so much money, and that should have been harboring delicious things to eat, now harbored nothing but mendacious tins -- mendacious, because they were all completely empty. Fabio had scrubbed them and soldered down their tops, then set them along the shelves, for anything was better than the heartbreaking void in those acquisitive glass cases.