Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (87 page)

“Don’t you dare worry,” I said. “What is there to worry about? I’ve earned this vacation and I mean to enjoy it.”

“All right,” he said. “But if I want to worry, I’ll worry. I take it as my right.”

And at the concern in his eyes, the frown on his face, I felt a little humbled. If I wanted, I could hold out my hand and then, I was almost sure, he would declare himself.

But all I could think of was Gianni’s dark eyes …

• • •

When we left Sabatini’s we walked to the Via Porta santa Maria, for cognacs at an outdoor cafe. There was a pianist, on a platform, a violinist who strolled, and a singer. It was very
Italian.
I was asked my preference by the heavy-browed fiddler. “La Golondrina,” I said, and Peter laughed. “That’s Spanish, Barbara.”

It didn’t matter. The Spanish number was played, and sung, bravura style. The melting strains filled the night.
“Buona notte,”
several patrons said, in a friendly way, as we left, Peter throwing down a few thousand lira on the table, a big spender. We would be welcomed with open arms if we showed up there again, I knew.

“It was a beautiful evening,” I said, as we walked back to the Piazza de Repubblica. “Thank you, Peter. For a glittering, enchanted evening.”

“There’s a song,” he said, and his eyes, very serious, gazed into mine. “Some enchanted evening. Once you have found her, never let her go …”

And all I could think of was Gianni’s dark eyes.

• • •

I was at the villa shortly before eleven. I parked the car in the driveway, let myself in and, after locking the front door, went to my room. I got out of my clothes, brushed my teeth and, with a last look at the fragrant night outside, crawled into bed. I was asleep almost immediately, and dreamed of a dark-eyed young man with a cleft in his cheek. He was holding my hand as we floated over the Arno, like two birds, and he was pointing out the places of interest.

“There’s the Duomo and see, signorina, the belltower? What time do you want it to be?”

“I want it to be forever,” I said, my fingers entwining with his. “No real time, just forever, Gianni.”

“Then it shall be so,” he said, and held up a hand. And time stopped, and the sun became an immovable bright spot in the sky, and the earth ceased its revolutions, and it was forever, eternal, without ending. “Thank you,” I said, kissing him. “Thank you, Gianni, for making me immortal.”

When I went out to the garden for breakfast, the gardener Pietro and his son Emilio were working away. There was a ladder, atop which was the young boy, slicing away at vines that covered the roof of the villa. Elizabeth, sitting at the garden table, was looking up, her eyes haunted. I thought, she’s remembering, remembering Mercedes on top of the ladder. And then the fall.

“… in a quite horrible position …”

Mercedes, lying on the ground, with a broken neck.

She saw my comprehensive look and shrugged. She knew what I was thinking. And I knew what
she
was thinking. “Have some of this lovely jam,” she said quietly. “It’s quince, rather difficult to get here. But as I said, that superb British shop has
everything.
”

I spread some on my roll. “Isn’t it good.”

But I couldn’t keep my eyes away from the ladder. Pietro was calling up instructions to his son. And the boy followed directions. Finally he climbed down, and the two wheeled a barrow, filled with lopped-off vines, round the side of the house. When they had gone I pushed back my chair. I couldn’t help myself; that ladder held a terrible fascination for me. I stood beside it and looked up. Pictured myself there, on the topmost rung … and the ladder swaying under me … the plunge downwards …

I turned abruptly.

And my organdie morning coat caught in a nail that protruded from the ladder. It made a big rip. “Damn,” I said, feelingly. It was a costly bit of frou frou; I had bought it for my trip.

“Serves me right,” I said to Elizabeth. “Look what I’ve done.” And then I saw the blood. I parted the torn material and looked at my arm. The nail had gouged my skin, and blood was running down my shoulder.

“Here,” Elizabeth said, and handed me a linen napkin.

“I can’t use that. I’ll go inside and get some tissue.” The new robe, I could easily see, was ruined. Torn, jaggedly, and stained with blood. So much for the money I spent on it, I was thinking disconsolately … and then I happened to look up and see Elizabeth’s face.

It was as white as chalk. Well, she had a naturally fair, English skin to begin with. But now … well, she had a kind of paper pallor … and she looked a little sick.

“Good heavens,” I said. “It’s only a superficial cut, Elizabeth. I’ll just go in the house and attend to it. I’m just upset about my robe.”

I walked across the lawn, briskly, holding my hand over the bloody gash. I must ask Lucrezia for some iodine, I was thinking. That nail was rusty.

I was already inside the house when I stopped abruptly.

Thoughts are visual: in my mind, as vividly as if it had been painted there, I saw the stained handkerchief of my aunt. That darkened bit of cambric …

Oh, I thought. Oh …

When Mercedes had fallen from the ladder.

And hadn’t bled, had broken her neck, but hadn’t shed blood. Yet Eleanora had found her handkerchief, stained with red …

I stood, in the dimness of the house, thinking. My mind was racing on, reconstructing a scene I hadn’t been part of, but picturing it,
seeing
it …

Supposing that Elizabeth had reached out, looking up and, angered by an earlier squabble, enraged at her own impotence, taking revenge …

I saw it clearly. Elizabeth putting a hand out. Shaking the ladder, in a moment of frenzy … sending my great-aunt to her death. And had caught her hand on the rusty nail.

When the woman with the broken neck lay on the grass, Elizabeth, whimpering incoherently, had snatched up Mercedes’s handkerchief and bound her bleeding hand in it …

And now she was mistress of the manor.

Her face, when she saw my reddened arm …

Like a specter. The red mouth a gash in her shocked face …

I had Lucrezia cauterize my arm. It hurt like the very devil, and then she put a bandage on it. I didn’t go outside again. I didn’t want to look into Elizabeth’s face. I was afraid of what I might find there. I said I would lie down for a while, and I did. There was no formal lunch hour, and it wasn’t until siesta, just a bit after twelve, that I left my room. Lucrezia said, cheerily, that the signora was napping, and how was my wound?

I said it was throbbing a bit but that I guessed I’d live. And quietly, I went out to the garden, where I heard, from the other side of the gate, the sound of a child singing. I knew it was Eleanora, and I knew I wanted something from her. The ladder was gone, for which I was grateful, and I went into the house again and changed into the peignoir I’d worn that morning.

Then I went back outdoors and looked through the gate at Eleanora. I had taken something from my handbag, as a lure, and now I whistled softly to the child. She looked up, saw me, and scrambled up, skipping through the dividing gate.

“Signorina …”

“What are you doing, dear?”

“Sleeping.” Her mischievous eyes challenged me. “I am
supposed
to be sleeping. But I don’t care to.”

“I have a present for you,” I said.

“For me?” Her eyes were eager. “What?”

I held my hands behind my back. I had a Kennedy half dollar, saved for years … but if it would serve the purpose now, I could bear to part with it. “Want to guess?” I said.

She stood on one foot.

“A turtle.”

“A
turtle?
”

“Because I want a turtle.” But she surmised it was not that. How could I have known she wanted a turtle? She had a certain hard realism. “A doll?” she hazarded. “A picture book?”

“No. Come here, darling, I’ll show you.”

She followed me, her yellow dress starched and ironed. Her sturdy legs would one day be beautiful, as she would be. Those exquisite, flowery eyes …

“Where shall we sit?” I asked her.

“Under Paolo’s tree.”

“All right.”

We made ourselves comfortable there, underneath the twisted pine. And then I gave her the silver half dollar. She drew in her breath. “Ah,
che bella, bella,
” she said. She didn’t have any idea of what it meant, but I told her. “One of our presidents,” I said. “And when he died, they — ”

She listened to the story, big-eyed. “It’s not for spending,” I said. “It’s for keeping. It’s the nicest thing I could think of to give you.”

“Ah, signorina,” she breathed. “This is very, very nice.
Grazie, grazie.”

“Can you visit for a while?”

“Certainly, signorina.”

I talked aimlessly for a bit, telling her about American children, American schools, and so on. And then switched the conversation to the subject of my late aunt.

“You liked her, didn’t you, Eleanora?”

“Yes,” she said and then, forthrightly, “Even so.”

“Even so? What does that mean?”

“Because
they
didn’t.”

She had opened her basket again, and was fondling the silver piece I’d given her. “Who didn’t like her, Eleanora?”

“Mama, and Papa, and Nonna and — ”

She dropped the half dollar and parted the grass to pick it up again.

“But
you
were fond of her.”

“Yes, and Gianni too.” She looked up, a lovely, bright smile on her face. “I love Gianni, don’t you?”

“He’s a very nice person.” I feigned indifference. “It’s too bad the others didn’t like your friend the Contessa.”

“Yes, too bad,” she said, but philosophically. “But of course she took everything away from us.” She lifted her head, serious. “They said she did. She had no right to have our house. But signorina, we live here! I am very happy. Why didn’t they want her here?”

“Maybe because once upon a time this whole place belonged to your family,” I said gently. “Don’t you think it must have been that?”

“But it belongs to us,” she said reasonably. “Doesn’t it?”

I wasn’t interested in educating a child in the whys and wherefores of property ownership. I simply said, “I’m sorry I never met your friend the signora. You know, she left me some money. Wasn’t that nice of her? And I had never even seen her. What do you think of that?”

“Bene,”
she said. “That’s good, signorina. I am glad for you. Everyone is always worrying about money.”

“Who?”

“Mama and Papa. Mama cries, and Papa gets angry.” She shrugged, not really interested. “What happened to your
toga
, signorina?”

She was looking at the tear in my robe, as I had intended her to. “I tore it on the ladder,” I said. “Isn’t it a shame?”

“Oh,
male
,” she said, looking sympathetic. “So pretty it is. Oh, you mean the nail. Yes, the signora hurt her hand too. When I came back, with the shears, I saw that she had hurt herself. She was bleeding.”

“You mean the signora Wadley?”

“
Si.
She had the handkerchief on her hand.”

She shuddered, gritting her teeth. “Ugh … I don’t like to see all that red, do you?”

“No.”

The little girl sighed. “It was a very bad day. Mama screamed. And Gianni said,
Mama mia!
He went down on his knees. And then Pietro came, and Emilio. Nonna was walking up and down, saying, ‘Get the doctor …’”

“Do you mean that when my aunt died, there were other people around? Your Uncle Gianni, and the gardeners, your grandmother?”

“But, signorina,” she said, looking at me as if I had a screw loose. “The signora was dead,
capisco?
Of course everyone came.”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “Your grandmother and your Uncle Gianni, and the gardeners, and Mrs. Wadley.”

“And Paolo,” she said. “He barked, and then he was crying, the little dog.” She looked into the distance. “It was very bad, signorina. Afterwards I cried, but Mama said I was not to think of it.”

Her winy brown eyes looked up at me. “But I think of it,” she confessed. “I thought her head was off her body. It looked that way.”

I hated querying her, bringing back what was best forgotten, but there was one last question. “Incidentally,” I said, “you remember you gave me a cookie the first morning I was here?”

“Yes,” she said, looking up.

“Where did you find those cookies?”

“Here,” she said. “Under the tree here. They were nice, like little mushrooms. Paolo was eating them, but I took some for myself. But then Mama took them away from me. So did you, signorina. So I have no more left.”

“You’re sure of that, Eleanora?”

She looked astonished. “But, signorina, you yourself took the last one. Don’t you remember?”

“Could I see your basket, please?”

She frowned, displeased. “I have already shown you my secrets,” she said.

“But you see,” I said carefully, “the cookies might have looked pretty, but they were not the way they looked. Can you trust me? Please do, Eleanora. I don’t want you to be hurt. And I would like to know, for sure, that you have no more of them left.”

“Why?” she asked, her eyes wondering.

“Because I’m your friend. Believe it. Let me see your basket.”

She pursed her lips, thought for a moment and then, sighing, opened the basket, held it toward me.
“Ecco,”
she said, like a little school marm. “Now you can see, signorina.”

And together, we peered into the basket. One by one the treasures were lifted out. She exclaimed, enthusiastically, over a snake bracelet, which I hadn’t seen before. “Ah,
che bella, bella
,” she cried, holding it up to me. “Mama didn’t want it any more.”

“It’s lovely.”

There were no more cookies. I satisfied myself about that. That the child was in no danger was a relief. “All right, thank you very much,” I said. “
Grazie
,
mille grazie.
Now you can close your basket again.”

“I
told
you,” she said, reasonably, and snapped it shut.

I changed the subject. “So you like my present?”