100. A Rose In Jeopardy (12 page)

But it was too late to speak to her as they were all inside the lift and the porter was pulling the gates closed.

Just before the gilded gates had rattled shut, a small creature shot out of the lift and bounded across the lobby towards Rosella.

The Contessa gave a loud shriek.

“Aiuta! Auita!”

Pickle gave a loud squeal and flapped his wings.

“
Goodness me
!” he cawed, his round eyes bulging with alarm.

A small monkey, dressed in a red silk coat, had run up to the cage and was now peering through the bars and chattering at Pickle.

Much to Rosella’s surprise, Pickle did not scream or try to bite the monkey. Instead, he nodded his head as if in greeting and then squawked,

“Hello!”

The monkey jumped up and down in excitement as Pickle ran along his perch, saying “
can I have a nut
?” – his favourite phrase, which he had uttered in vain many times over the last few days, for there were no nuts to be had at Sarah’s cottage.

Rosella watched in amazement as the little monkey reached into a pocket at the side of its coat and produced a peanut, which it passed through the bars of the cage.

Pickle seized the peanut with his beak and then held it in his foot, as he did with all his treats, while he nibbled on it with great enjoyment.

The monkey crouched down and watched him with its mournful brown eyes.

Something tapped Rosella on the shoulder and she jumped in alarm.

It was the old woman’s walking stick.

“Who are you?” she then demanded in a harsh thick accent, her black eyes blazing fiercely. “And what are you doing with my Pepe?”

“Nothing, ma’am,” Rosella began, but before she could explain what had happened, the old woman poked at her with her stick, pushing her away from the monkey.

“Oh – you little vagabond! You would steal him – is that it?”

“No, no, not at all – I was just – ”

“Oh yes, you may have the face of an angel, but I know your kind!”

She smacked Rosella’s legs with her stick, trying to drive her out of the lobby.

One of the Contessa’s maids caught Pepe and was holding him tightly in her arms.

Rosella was almost out of the hotel door and on the street when cries of a very unhappy baby filled the lobby.

Everyone looked around in surprise and the maids bustled about, searching for the unfortunate child.

Even the Contessa stopped hounding Rosella and turned around to see what was going on.

“
Waaaa – aaaah
!” Pickle cried, standing on tiptoe on his perch and straining to see where Rosella had gone.

“It’s all right!” she called to him. “I won’t leave you!”

“
Oh, meravigliosa
!” One of the maids had spotted the birdcage. “
Un papagallo
!”

She pointed at Pickle, one hand held to her mouth in amazement.

The clerk came from behind his desk again.

“This is not a menagerie!” he shouted out, running towards Rosella. “I have asked you to leave several times, miss! Now
go
!”

The Contessa held out her stick to block his path.

“
Momento
!” she said to him and then she looked at Rosella. “It’s your bird, yes, that makes this crying?”

Rosella nodded.

“Incredible,” the old woman shook her head. “Tell me – how you teach him this?”

“Oh – I don’t,” Rosella replied. “He just does it, he copies whatever he hears.”

“And what else does he say?” the Contessa asked.

“All kinds of things, but – ”

Rosella was about to explain that Pickle sometimes went very quiet if strangers stared at him and expected him to speak to them, when he interrupted her.

“
Is it time for tea
?” he asked in Aunt Beatrice’s voice.

The Countess stared at him with her bright black eyes and then she threw back her head and laughed.

“Si, si! Ha ragione, Signore Papagallo! It is indeed time for tea.”

She rapped her stick on the marble floor and called to the clerk.

“Please bring
Signore Papagallo
to my room,” she ordered him. “He is my honoured guest. And you, girl, I suppose you had better come too.”

Her heart beating fast, Rosella followed the clerk as he carried Pickle up the wide staircase to the Contessa’s luxurious suite.

Rosella almost wept when she saw the tea that had been laid out for the Contessa and her attendants.

There were cucumber sandwiches and little cakes iced with pink and violet sugar, there were thick slices of rich fruitcake and a Victoria sponge as light as those that Mrs. Dawkins used to make.

She hardly dared to taste any of it, as the memories that came flooding back to her of happy teatimes at New Hall, were very painful.

Pickle, on the other hand, accepted many crumbs of cake and a whole ginger biscuit from the Contessa’s own hand.

But he seemed to prefer peanuts and almonds, for as soon as the monkey’s tiny fingers held one of these out to him, Pickle let all the other delicacies fall to the bottom of his cage.

He so entranced the Contessa that she completely ignored Rosella until tea was almost over.

But she was happy to just sit and look around at all the beautiful objects that filled the elegant hotel room.

There were exquisite lace clothes laid out over the tables that matched the delicate edging of the maid’s caps and aprons.

The tall glass vases, which held great bouquets of roses and lilies, were made of swirls and twists of bright colours, red and purple and gold.

Rosella had never seen anything like them before.

And everywhere, from the dangling gems that hung from the Contessa’s ears to the great embroidered cloth that was draped over the sofa, there was gold.

“You don’t like your food, miss?” the Contessa’s harsh voice spoke next to Rosella.

“Oh – it’s quite lovely, thank you, but I have little appetite,” Rosella replied.

The old woman frowned at her.

“Who are you?” she asked. “What is your name?”

“My name is – Jane,” Rosella replied.

The Contessa shook her head.

“
Ja-ane
! I don’t like your English names, but you seem like a well-bred girl. So why are you dressed like a
poverina
, a poor little one with nothing and nobody?”

Rosella looked down at her dark cotton dress.

It was certainly looking distinctly shabby from the long journey from Hampshire and from all the time she had spent caring for Sarah’s children and tramping around the City looking for work.

“I came to find you, ma’am,” she said and pulled out the card the young man had given her. “I am looking for work and a – friend told me that you might be able to help me.”

The Contessa took the card and spoke at length in Italian as she saw the writing on it and then she turned to Rosella,

“Where did you get this?” she demanded.

Rosella explained about the charming young man she had spoken to on the banks of the Thames and, as she described his face and his strange clothes, she remembered how he had looked at her with his dark eyes and she had felt her cheeks grow a little warm.

The Contessa shook her head.

“Ah, that wicked boy! I waited – and he did not come. So you know him? He is a friend of yours?”

“No, but he kindly gave me your card. And – ”

Rosella felt anxiety rise in chest as she continued,

“ – he said that you might need a companion, while you are in London, ma’am”

“No!” The Contessa tossed her head. “Soon I will be going back to my home in Italy and so I have no need of anyone. But – ”

She pointed at the birdcage.

The monkey had reached its arm through the bars and was scratching the top of Pickle’s head, as the parrot blinked his eyes in absolute bliss.

“I will have your
papagallo
,” she said. “My Pepe loves him. Perhaps the bird will keep him from straying. How much do you want for him.”

“No!” Rosella cried and her heart turned over with fear. “I could not part with Pickle!”

The Contessa’s eyes flashed and then she gestured to one of the maids to bring her a gilded wooden box.

“Don’t you know I am one of the richest women in Italy?” the Contessa snapped. “Whatever your price, I will pay it.”

Rosella thought for a moment. Never in her wildest dreams had she considered leaving England, but what was there now to stay for?

She took a deep breath and looked straight into the Contessa’s deep-set eyes.

“If he goes with you, then I must go too! That is my price, ma’am.”

The Contessa raised her eyebrows.

“You don’t want my gold?” she said and ran her fingers through the coins that filled the box. “You strange girl.”

“I cannot be parted from Pickle,” Rosella said once more. “He is – all I have.”

The Contessa stared at her for a long moment and then she said,

“Very well. I agree your price. You and your bird will come to my home. We leave day after tomorrow.”

*

Lyndon sighed with relief as the rowing boat pulled out of the Port of Mestre to take him on the last stage of his journey.

Every inch of him felt gritty with coal dust, even though he had not had to handle any of the sacks, which even now were being unloaded from
The Grace Darling
into carts that lined the side of the dock.

He rubbed his tired eyes and thought longingly of the room he would soon be occupying and the bath that he would soon be able to have in one of the boarding houses in a not-too-expensive district of Venice.

He might find a place in
Canareggio
perhaps or even in
Guidecca
. He whispered the names to himself, practising the pronunciation of the unfamiliar sounds.

The boat was fairly flying through the water as the two boatmen who plied the oars were strong solid men.

Lyndon looked up and then caught his breath in amazement.

He had imagined his first sight of Venice so many times, but nothing he had pictured could equal the vision that now opened up before him.

It was evening and the sun was hanging low in the sky like a huge orb of fire, turning the whole expanse of the sky to glittering gold.

All around him the waters of the Lagoon rippled, stretching away like a sheet of beaten silver.

Straight ahead on the horizon, silhouetted against the glowing sky, were the domes and towers and fretted rooftops of a distant City.

A City that looked just as if it belonged in another world – a more outlandish and extravagant and beautiful world than the one that Lyndon knew.

At last he had come to Venice.

‘This is where my life begins,’ he whispered and he clutched the side of the boat and strained to see more as the sun sank down in the sky.

“Dear Thomas, I am writing to let you know that all is well with me – ”

Rosella dipped the gold nib of her pen into the blue glass inkbottle that stood on the writing desk.

She wanted to tell Thomas about the extraordinary place where she had now been living for a whole week, but how could she possibly describe the Ca’ degli Angeli – the great sumptuous Palazzo, home to the Contessa Allegrini, without using too many long words?

She was sitting by the window of her bedroom, one of the smaller rooms in the old building, yet it was almost twice the size of her room at New Hall.

Below her, through the open shutters, she could see the deep green water of the Grand Canal and the sunlight flashing on the waves that rippled every time a boat drifted past.

“
I am in Venice
,” she wrote, “
and I have just seen a gondola
,” but then she realised that Thomas would have no idea what she meant.

“There is nothing like it in England, she continued. “It is a sort of long boat with a carved prow and a high stern and the ladies and gentlemen of Venice lie back on velvet cushions while the gondolier stands at the back and steers and rows with just one long oar!

There are no roads here in Venice, everything and everyone must travel by water on the canals.”

She was then about to describe the fabulous, gold-painted furniture that filled her bedroom at the Palazzo and the delicious food that was laid out every day on the great table in the dining room – and, most of all, she wanted to tell Thomas about the Contessa.

But she put down the pen to think.

What if someone found the letter and, even though she signed it just with the words ‘
your friend
’, realised who had sent it?

She could not take the risk of someone from New Hall tracing her to Venice and to the Ca’ degli Angeli.

“I cannot say more, Thomas, except that I am very happy and I am staying in a beautiful Palazzo – which is Italian, of course, for Palace – with someone who is very kind to me,” she continued.

“I hope that all is well with you. I think of you often and send you my good wishes. My kindest thoughts too go to your sister, I am so grateful to her for her help.

Your friend.”

With a pang in her heart that she could not write her own name below her words of gratitude, she then folded the thick velvety paper.

She sealed the letter with a blob of red sealing wax and rang the bell for Mimi, the young maid the Contessa had assigned to her and, as she waited for the girl to knock at the tall oak door of her bedroom, she thought how sad it was that the only one she could tell about her adventures was the gardener’s boy.

Sarah would be pleased to know that all was well with Rosella, but she could not read, so there was no point in sending a letter to her until her husband came home.

If only Rosella knew where that young man, Mr. Jones, lived, the mysterious black-cloaked person who had given her the Contessa’s card.

She would have liked so much to tell him that she was here in Venice and to thank him for the introduction.

Rosella felt her face grow warm as it always did when she thought about him. She could not forget the way that his dark eyes had looked into hers and the way that his voice had made her feel.

But she did not even know his name.

“Signorina?”

Mimi was by her side, her round face glowing like a warm peach.