Roman Summer (10 page)

She rose from the dressing-stool and slowly began to undress. There were all the tomorrows of the summer to be faced. For only when Cicely went home could the link with
Erle
be broken. Though just how much, her honesty wondered, did she want it broken? When the days to autumn could be counted on the fingers, would she do the counting eagerly—or with pain?

The preliminaries of the Corso del Palio were afoot early the next day. The shops were shut, but outside booths were set up for the sale of snacks and drinks. The central square, the Piazza del Campo, where the historic horse-race would be run, was ringed about with seating-stands, and all the overlooking windows and even the rooftops were at a premium. Ruth and Cicely heard that as the race had some remote religious connections, each horse and each jockey competing would be blessed with holy water before the start. Each of the seventeen town districts had an entrant; the betting ran high, and long before the race was due the jockeys were in their colourful costumes of doublet and breeches and hose, mingling with and being feted by the crowds. Though the race itself would be a headlong stampede round the arena lasting only a few minutes, the whole day was given over to carnival which would last far into the night.

Erle
’s influence had obtained good viewing seats for his party and after making a morning’s tour of the sideshows, they were in them in time for the parade of runners and riders before the race. They had placed their bets,
Erle
playing safe with the favourite, Ruth and
Cicely
hoping to make money with outsiders.

Suddenly Cicely was staring across the arena and nudging Ruth. ‘Look over there. Who’s that? It can’t
be. Why, it is! It’s Jeremy. Keep my place
—
’ She
was out of her seat and darting through the crowds to accost the young man in scarlet shirt and black jeans whom she had pointed out to Ruth.

Ruth identified him for
Erle
. ‘It’s Jeremy Slade, the English boy I told you about,’ she told him as Cicely brought the young man over, plying him with questions and offering him six inches of her seat.

‘He hitch-hiked all the way from Rome,’ she told the other two. ‘But I’ve said he can have a lift back with us. That’s all right, isn’t it?’ she appealed to
Erle
.

‘Of course. We’ve got a spare seat, which he could have had on the way up, if he’d asked. What brought you?’
Erle
asked the boy.

‘Well, Vivien—my sister—went down with a bit of summer throat, and with Cicely away that left me on my own. So as I knew there’s a special Sienese school of painting, I thought I ought to see it and at the same time make some sketches of the Palio that I can translate into colour later on.’

‘Just to look and sketch? I hoped you’d say you came because I was here,’ Cicely teased him.

‘Well, I did wonder if I might run into you,’ he admitted.

Erle
asked, ‘Where are you staying?’

‘Oh, just a cheap youth place behind the Cathedral.’

‘But you’ll join us now and have dinner with us tonight?’

‘Thanks, sir. I’d like that,’ said Jeremy, and edged in beside Cicely, his precarious hold on the narrow slice
of seat necessitating his putting his arm round her waist.

They all concentrated on the arena, where the horses were being manoeuvred into position for the start. In that confined space it hadn’t the slightest chance of being a fair start, but once a ragged line-up was achieved, the signal for the Off was given to a deafening roar from the crowd. The race was a short mad rush. The winner, named Leo, which had led all the way, had been
Cicely
’s choice, and as soon as they could edge through the crowds, she and Jeremy went off to collect her winnings.

Watching them go,
Erle
commented drily, ‘Do you really believe that story of single-minded dedication to his art? I’m afraid I don’t.’

Ruth laughed. ‘You think he really came to see
Cicely
?’

‘Well, don’t you?’
Erle
countered. ‘And what do you bet we don’t see much more of them until they turn up for dinner?’

Nor did they, until
Cicely
and Jeremy reappeared for a meal for which no one had changed from day clothes, as the ‘done thing’ for the evening was to tour the town on foot to see the various street parties which each district laid on for its particular competing jockey. After dinner
Cicely
and Jeremy again went off on their own and
Erle
and Ruth joined a party of the hotel guests for an evening on the town which culminated in the ward which had won the banner and where the winning horse as well as his rider were being feted at a long supper-table in the main street; the banner being displayed at the head of the table and the whole scene
lighted by flares and lanterns hung from the buildings.

Afterwards
Erle
and Ruth strolled back towards their hotel across the Piazza del Campo, comparatively deserted now that most of the inhabitants were scattered to their own district’s junketings.
Erle
halted suddenly, pointing to the dominating tower of the Palazzo Publico, one of the main buildings on the square.

‘What about taking a bird’s-eye-view?’ he suggested.

‘From the tower? Will it still be open?’ qu
eri
e
d Ruth.

‘Tonight, I should think so.’

They went toilfully up the stairs and emerged on to the top platform where, for the first time that day, they found themselves alone in a public place. Ruth had expected that others would have had the same idea—of viewing the lighted town from far above its streets. She hadn’t thought to be isolated there with
Erle
, too vividly aware of his physical nearness, while in everything else he was as remote from her as a far star.

They moved to the parapet and stood, elbow to elbow, looking down at the lighted island that was the town. The streets were narrow canyons, beaded along their length by the light of lamp-standards; the noise of the revelry, though muted by the distance, could still be heard.

‘There are going to be some thick heads in the morning,’
Erle
commented.

‘Yes. I hope Jeremy Slade doesn’t keep Cicely out too late.’

Erle
said, ‘I shouldn’t worry. He seems a fairly responsible youth. But what happens to your theory now that
Cicely
has an incurable crush on me? I must say she greeted the boy as if he were manna from heaven.’

‘Oh, she can be charming enough when she pleases; she was, with Zeppo Sforza until she dropped him.’ Privately Ruth thought
Cicely
had been using Jeremy as a foil—showing
Erle
that someone appreciated her, if he didn’t in the way she wanted.

He said next, ‘I wonder you haven’t been to Siena before. Did you have to wait for me to bring you?’

‘I haven’t been about very much at all since I’ve been a widow,’ Ruth said.

‘That’s a mistake. Life has to go on. And friends, travel, the odd party now and then ought to help.’

‘Except that a widow makes uneven numbers at parties, and anywhere she goes alone men tend to see her as fair game.’

‘Oh, come! You can’t blame an unattached man for chancing his arm with an attractive widow.’

‘Except,’ said Ruth again, ‘that he isn’t often as unattached as all that.’

‘The wolf type, eh? I’d judge you to have poise enough to keep that kind at a distance. And you can’t run away from all men, just to escape the nasty few. That way you could become so—desiccated that you could forget how to respond to the real thing when it happens again.’

Ruth hesitated. She hadn’t meant the exchange to take this personal turn. For her it was dangerous.

‘
Sometimes I think
—
’ She stopped. Since last night
the present tense wasn’t honest. ‘There have been times when I’ve thought I’d already forgotten,’ she amended.

‘
You should keep in practice by giving even the most
unlikely affair a chance to develop for you.’
Erle
turned to lean back against the parapet, so that he faced her. ‘In that regard,’ he said, ‘I wonder if you know why I suggested we come up here, hoping we’d be alone?’

She was trembling a little. ‘Why did you?’

‘For curiosity’s sake.’

‘Curiosity—about me?’

‘About all this,’ he nodded. ‘To see whether you’re really as detached as you appear and as cloistered as you claim to be; whether your lack of the girl-tricks that most women employ—all eyes and invitation— means that you’ve indeed gone cold. And about that, there’s only one way I know of for a man to find out
—
’

As he spoke, his hands went out to her shoulders, then about her, drawing her to
him.
She drew a sharp breath, panting, her lips parted, as his mouth found hers in a long searching kiss which merged with another ... and another to which she responded with all the pent-up, starved emotion of years. Yet not only because she was hungry for love but because, though he didn’t know it, he was her love, the one man now alive who could rouse her so. Her body willow-bent to the pressure of his arms, she gave herself up to the moment; her hands wandered over his back—and clung as urgently as his until the engulfing tide of feeling ebbed; cold sanity returned, and she wrenched herself desperately free.

She smoothed down her dre
s
s and thrust back her
hair. ‘That was
—
’ she began.

‘Unfair? Yes.’
Erle
stood, his hands limp at his sides, his breath coming as deeply as a runner’s. ‘I’m sorry, I
shouldn’t have invited it. But I didn’t know
—
’

‘Didn’t know what?’ she echoed sharply, afraid.

‘Just how much need you’ve had to keep dammed
up ...
bottled inside you behind the calm face you show to the world.’

‘You claimed that it was what you kissed me for—to find out,’ she accused him.

‘I never expected to spring a mine at your feet. After all, I’m just any man to you. Yet that was neither an iceberg nor a lukewarm response. It was the kind of woman-answer you’d give to a lover, and I shouldn’t have probed something that has so little to do with me.’

So she hadn’t betrayed her secret to him after all! It gave her spirit to say distantly, ‘For mere curiosity, no. And what makes you think you betrayed me into the kind of answer I’d give to someone who really loved me?’

‘Just that, supposing I were a man with hopes of you but no certainties, I’d have been—encouraged.’

‘You were putting on an act. Doesn’t it occur to you that I was enti
tl
ed to do the same?’

His scrutiny of her face was calculating, as if he were weighing that up. ‘If you say so, then I hope so,’ he said. ‘I’d rather not think of your showing that degree of co-operation to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who made an experimental pass. So where do we go from here—into a state of war?’

‘How can we, placed as we are in
r
elation to Cicely? If I can forget a piece of appalling taste, I should hope you can do the same.’

Erle
said, ‘Agreed. I only asked because in war, they say, you can’t afford to blunder twice, and I wanted
you to know that I’ve no intention of offending again.’

‘Good,’ said Ruth. ‘Once was enough for something as meaningless as that.’

Without replying, he turned with her and went ahead of her down the stairs.

CHAPTER FIVE

Ruth
supposed it must be
Erle
’s exp
eri
e
nce with temperamental women stars that enabled him to put the overnight incident behind him. She played her part too, and on the journey back their relationship could not have been more matter-of-fact.

For some time after that
Erle
virtually disappeared into his own circles and Ruth’s and Cicely’s days took up their former pattern. Then, one evening when Cicely was out and Ruth was alone in the flat, she answered the door to find Cesare there.

‘Are you engaged?’ he asked diffidently.

‘
No, I’m alone. Come in, won’t you?’ Ruth invited.

‘Thank you.’

In her sitting-room he looked about him. ‘I’ve never ventured to call on you here before,’ he said.

‘No. Will you have a drink?’ For something to say in the slightly uneasy atmosphere, Ruth added, ‘
Cicely
is out, exploring on her own. But she’s been gone rather a long time. I hope she’ll be back soon.’