Mediterranean Nights (10 page)

We dined that night in state. The kind of state that is now only to be found amongst the great Italian families; a footman in full livery behind each chair, and two more at the serving table. A wine butler clad in black with a silver chain of office round his neck, and old parchment-face standing expressionless and immovable near the door directing
the service of his underlings by the occasional flicker of an eyelid.

It was a dinner of twelve courses, and although the food was of that rare category which we used to find in the great English country houses before the war, and which no restaurant can ever hope to emulate, I found it almost impossible to get through the meal, yet Nero ate of everything that was put before him with zest and appetite of vigorous youth.

Afterwards we strolled together in the gardens, enjoying the fragrance of our cigars beneath the cypresses that were etched black against a real Italian moon.

I listened principally while Nero made plans for my enjoyment of my visit. We would do this… that… and the other thing together—then suddenly he broke off and threw away the stump of his cigar.

‘But you are tired, my friend—your long journey—how selfish I am to keep you from your bed—have we not tomorrow, and the next day, and the next—many days, for you must not leave me now that you have come. Let us go in, another drink—and then to bed.'

Well, actually, although I'd had a longish day I felt that I could have walked all night in that soft clear air so far from the cities—but Nero waved my protests aside as mere politeness. Twenty minutes later he led me to my bedroom and was satisfying himself that, lest I should wake in the night, fruit, biscuits, drink, and the latest novels were all beside my bed.

By the time I sank into the great four-poster I was not altogether sorry that he had had his way; but you can imagine my surprise when the roar of the Isotta suddenly shattered the silence beneath the windows and I heard it thunder away up the hill, its echoes reverberating through the mountains until they died away into a distant hum.

The same sound woke me in the morning, but later when I came down to breakfast
à l'Anglais
, Nero said nothing of his midnight run and talked gaily of an expedition on the lake, so off we went together.

It was a heavenly day and the scenery was enchanting, but my enjoyment was ruined by the certainty that something was definitely wrong with Nero; he simply couldn't sit still, and at times his delightful chatter would dry up completely in a way
that I had never known before. I hardly liked to ask him what was worrying him as he had ample opportunity to tell me if he wished. The boatman could not speak a word of anything but Italian.

That night we dined again in the same state as before, with the silent-footed servants throwing strange shadows on the arras as the candles flickered. It was then that he apologised in an awkward way for having no other guests to meet me. Once more his unpardonable stupidity about the dates—but no matter, in a week's time the house would be full of people—ten, fifteen—a dozen at the least.

Afterwards we sat in the great library and swapped reminiscences; but twice I caught him casting furtive glances at the clock, and guessing his intention from my experience of the night before I faked a yawn that he might have an excuse to suggest another early night.

My surmise proved correct. He jumped at the opportunity, and no sooner was I beneath the sheets than I heard his car burst into a roar, which quickly died away again as it sped along the twisting road through the valley.

He returned next morning, but later than before, and I was already dressed when I heard the first sound of his engine. By that time I had decided that something must be done about the situation. I was pretty obviously an unwelcome guest, and he was tearing himself away from Verona each morning to come and entertain me during the daytime.

Had we been in England I would have sent myself the usual telegram, but here—cut off from towns and villages by the rugged slopes of Mount Baldo—that was impossible. Plain speaking was the only way, and I took the opportunity just before lunch when Nero was showing me the view over the lake from the battlements of the old fort.

‘Listen, Nero,' I said, ‘it's been most awfully good of you to put up with me for the past two days, but I know that the mistake about the dates has messed up all your plans completely. We know each other quite well enough to be frank about things, so I propose to clear out tomorrow and leave you in peace.'

‘You have heard the car, of course?' he said.

‘Yes,' I admitted, ‘and I know you're dying to get away
from here again, so why be stupid and pretend to each other?'

He pressed my arm gratefully. ‘I know—I feel so bad about this, my friend; but you are right—I must be truthful also. When this happened I put off my other guests—but yourself I forgot! How can I ever hope for your forgiveness?'

‘Is it some trouble in which I can be of help?' I asked.

‘No, no, that is nice of you, but it is personal this—I am what you say—head over heels in love!'

‘A woman!' I exclaimed, and frankly I was a little annoyed at that. For all his English education Nero is pure Latin where women are concerned—I don't think he knows the meaning of the word ‘Love'—they're just a penny plain and twopence coloured to him, and he has hectic affairs with at least twenty different women every year; so it struck me as a little thick that he should mess up my whole holiday for the sake of some new wench whose name he would have forgotten in a fortnight.

‘Ah, but Santa Cristina! What a woman,' he took me up—‘she is adorable—enchanting—I have gone quite, quite mad about her.'

‘Well,' I said dryly. ‘I wish you lots of luck, but why the deuce didn't you ask her here with your other guests—you've got dozens of women among your married friends who would be willing enough to play the complaisant chaperone. I've heard you say that you've often done that sort of thing before.'

‘Yes, yes,' he protested, ‘but this is different,' and then he went on a little awkwardly, ‘You see, she is French—and she is well, how shall we say—a little highly coloured, perhaps—and she has a temper—oh, you do not know! She would make me scenes—terrible scenes. Also—well, I think it would be awkward for my other guests. Things will be different when she is my wife.'

‘Your wife!' I gasped.

‘Why not?' he said with a surly glance. ‘As Contessa Neroni she will be received everywhere, no matter what has gone before. Is it her fault that men have been brutal to her, poor child? As for that husband of hers—if I could lay my hands on him I would thrash him until he was dead!'

‘So she is married into the bargain?'

‘Yes, and what she has suffered! To think of it fills me with black, black boiling rage.'

‘Now, look here, Nero'—I turned and faced him as he stood there, dark and handsome, with genuine tears welling up into his brown eyes. ‘As I understand it, you've run across a good-looking Frenchwoman with a husband and a past, whom you dare not introduce to your friends—and now you talk of marrying her—is that the case?'

‘No, no,' he spread out his hands in a quick gesture of denial, ‘she is of great
chic
and charm—as my wife she will take Rome by storm next winter.'

‘What about this husband of hers?' I inquired.

‘That brute! She will divorce him—proceedings have begun already, and I shall adopt the child.'

‘Good God! So she'd got a child as well,' I exclaimed. ‘But look here—you're a Catholic, aren't you—how can you marry a divorced woman, anyway?'

‘The holy Father will give me a dispensation. I am a Papal Chamberlain, and have friends in Rome who can adjust such matters.'

I nodded. ‘And in the meantime you are living with her in Verona, I suppose.'

‘Ahhh!' was all he said, but the way he raised his dark eyes to heaven was more expressive than any verbal admission could have been.

‘Then why the deuce not carry on that way?' I argued.

‘No, no,' he protested quickly. ‘I will make up to her for all she has suffered in the past. I have wronged many women—here at least I will make amends. Besides, each day in Verona it becomes more difficult—it is so small a town; already people are beginning to talk. When you have gone I shall bring her to the Castello Neroni—as my wife.'

‘What—before you've even married her?'

‘Yes—why not? I wish to be with her every hour of the day—every hour of the night.'

After dinner that night he begged my forgiveness again and again for the inconvenience which he had caused me, but made no secret of his impatience to get away—back to the arms of the Circe in Verona; and so we parted.

I spent the rest of the evening re-planning my broken holiday. Ten days, I thought, of doing the tourist round in
Northern Italy would be as much as I could stand at a stretch—fond as I am of things old and beautiful. Afterwards I would cross the Gulf of Genoa by local boat from Leghorn to Nice, and run down to the little
Sturmer
Hotel at Cavalàire. A fortnight of real rest, lazing in the sunshine on the shelving rocks, would do me a power of good.

The next morning I arrived in Verona, and I purposely avoided the best hotel as I felt certain that Nero and the French houri would be staying there, so I thought it rather queer when, after lunch, the head waiter brought me a letter. It was from the Contessa Neroni, asking me to call on her that afternoon at her
palazzo
in the town.

Nero's mother, of course. I had often heard of the old lady, but never met her.

At four o'clock I duly presented myself, not without trepidation, at the great brown-stone house. I had a pretty shrewd idea that the old lady wanted to talk to me about Nero's affair with the Frenchwoman, and I wondered how much she knew.

An elderly servitor, own brother to parchment-face, led me to a low room that took me back to the days of Leo X and Pietro Aretino.

At the end of that long room were three people: a scraggy, ageless female who was stitching at a frame, a grey-haired priest who told his beads, and in the centre in a stately stiff-backed chair—an old, old woman.

She had an eagle face, witch-like and saturnine. Her piercing eyes stripped me to the soul as I advanced up that seemingly endless length of room.

One of the claws was held out imperiously for me to kiss, and instinctively I bowed over it as though I had stepped into another century. Then she waved me to a stool.

When she spoke it was in a curiously musical voice.

‘You are the friend of my son,' she said. ‘Many times have I heard how you entertain him in England. On your return you convey, please, my grateful thanks to your noble mother.'

‘Thank you,' I said awkwardly. ‘Yes. Of course it's always been a great pleasure to have Nero with us—we are all very fond of him, you know.'

She gave me a sharp glance. ‘I had thought that—you are
older also—good influence with him. Have you met this—er—
Madame
Ribereau?'

‘No,' I admitted, ‘but Nero has told me about her.'

‘That he goes to make her Contessa Neroni?'

‘Yes.'

The old eyes blazed at me out of the wrinkled face. ‘The notorious
Madame
Ribereau!—
une poule de luxe—une cocotte
! How can it be that such a woman should make wife to the Neroni? Have you not spoken sense to this mad son of mine?'

‘I have,' I told her.

Madame Ribereau, I learned, had been installed that very afternoon at the Castello as Contessa Neroni, and the old woman trembled with anger at this insult to her house.

Young men needed their adventures, she said; that was but natural—but how should this woman raise up children to an ancient race? Twelve years older than Nero—married already, and utterly outside the pale of the black aristocracy.

I tried, out of loyalty to Nero, to put his case, and had it been the daughter of a local squire, or even an Italian peasant girl, I might have put it better—but a French
cocotte
, who was twelve years older than him—what could I say to support such folly?

At last she said that, as I had already done all that I could, she must make the journey to Rome. She, the Contessa Neroni, would humble herself even to speaking with that upstart journalist, Mussolini—who, people said, controlled all things in these strange days.

I expressed my sympathy, kissed the wrinkled claw once more, and left her.

The next day I spent in Padua, then I went on to Venice, where I stayed three nights; after that I came south to Florence, and it was there on the fourth and last day of my stay that I ran into Hummy Pringle.

I had never cared much for Hummy, although I had known him since he was a fat, unhealthy boy. His father had left him enough money to indulge his tastes in what he chose to call painting, and failing to receive any recognition in England, he had settled some years before in Florence.

I was sitting outside a café, and he bustled up to me at once:

‘Hello… hello! just fancy seeing you here—how too positively thrilling!'

I offered him a vermouth, but he wouldn't drink. ‘My figure, yeu know'—but he sat down quickly, avid for gossip of our mutual acquaintances at home.

Having satisfied his craving to the best of my ability, I gave him particulars of my days in Florence, and chanced to mention my brief visit to Neroni.

‘My dear!' he gasped, ‘did yeu hear?—such excitement ten days ago—the Blackshirts beat him up!'

‘What, Count Neroni?' I exclaimed.

‘Yes, it was teu, teu thrilling. Of course, he's a real bad lad—everyone knows that—and, would yeu believe it, he tried to marry a French tart!'

I nodded, and Hummy went on with his eyes popping out of a flushed, excited face. ‘Pretty ghastly, wasn't it—for the family, I mean? You can imagine how they felt when he took her to Castello Neroni as his wife—all the aged retainers went into fits; but of course they couldn't do a single thing, and at first they didn't even know he wasn't married to her at all.'