Roman Summer (12 page)

‘But—but
—
! You were there as well, two nights,
and Jeremy and you the other
!’

‘They seem to have cut me out. It was the second night. Look, you’re wearing the Roscuro dress you were so prickly about,’ Cicely pointed out.

‘Yes, I remember. But we were all laughing just
then. This makes it look
—
’ Ruth read the caption—‘Who is the Attractive Redhead with
Erle
Nash at Siena’s Annual Palio? See inside for all that
Lo Sussurro
knows of the answer.’ Then she handed the paper back to Cicely. ‘All right, I can wait for nonsense like that until we get home,’ she said tersely.

‘They might have taken
me
with
Erle
,’
Cicely
mourned.

As soon as they reached the flat she produced the magazine again to Ruth. ‘What does it say inside?’ Ruth found a
paragraph on a gossip page. Under the
heading, ‘Our Cover Picture’, she read aloud, ‘The lady is the latest newcomer to
Erle
Nash’s circle, though not of it in the professional sphere. She is English, a widow;
Lo Sussurro
understands she is his childhood friend, now vividly returned to his life. She is currently playing hostess to his
protégée
, a very young blonde. They are both often to be seen in his company, and
Lo Sussurro
is curious enough to wonder which of milord’s favourites may expect to take a
min
or place in order to make room for one of them or both. Or can he bring his well-known flair to the
p
roblem, and keep them all happy?’

Cicely
said, ‘So they do know about me. A “very young” blonde,
indeed
! I wonder who told them all that?’

‘Who knew we went to Siena with
Erle
?’ Ruth mused.

‘Well, the Fontes, Jeremy and Vivien Slade. Or
Erle
may have told a lot of people,’
Cicely
offered.

‘And they can make—
this
—out of it. How dare they?’ Ruth exploded. ‘They know so much about
Erle
that they
must
know what our connection is, and that it’s perfec
tl
y innocent
!’

‘Making trouble for trouble’s sake,’ agreed
Cicely
. At the sound of a car stopping, she looked out of the window. ‘
Erle
. Coming here.
Now
we’ll see what he has to say about it all
!’

She went down to let him in and bring him up.
Erle
said, ‘I’ve brought you two tickets for the open-air
Aida
at Caracalla tonight. It’s the most ambitious opera they do there, all colour and spectacle and a huge cast. So don’t turn up your pretty nose,
Cicely
love, just because you think it will be highbrow. It’s something that your m
ama
will expect you to have seen.’

‘Aren’t you
co
ming
too?’ she asked.

‘No. Sorry. I’ve got to go to hear a new singer of
lieder
at the Eliseo Theatre, with a view to signing her up.’ Noticing the magazine on the table where Ruth had discarded it, he picked it up.
‘
Lo Sussurro,
eh? Whose bedside reading? Yours?’ he asked Ruth.

‘No. I bought it,’
Cicely
told him. ‘Look at the cover, if you want to know why.’

He flicked back to the cover and emitted a long-drawn ‘We—
lll.
’ He glanced at Ruth, turned to the inside paragraph, and read it through quickly, then skittered the magazine from him.

‘Seems I’m supposed to have added some reserves to my alleged harem,’ he commented.

‘Can’t you do any
thing
about it?’
Cicely
demanded. He shook his head. ‘Freedom of the Press, and the Italian Press is more free than most.
Lo Sussurro
practically writes its own licence for that type of speculation. Besides, it manages to sail just the safe side of the truth. I did take you both to Siena, and as I have to be seen to enjoy showing off my professional clients in a social way, both my public and private lives are anybody’s business,
making
it inevitable that there’ll be guesswork as to how far my intimacy with any woman goes.’ He looked across at Ruth. ‘I’m sorry you had to get involved, but that’s your penalty for mixing with a piece of gossip-fodder like me.’

‘It isn’t your fault,’ Ruth said a shade grudgingly. ‘But how do they get their news and pictures? Do they follow you round with a camera or something?’

‘Well, when their newshounds heard about our Siena jaunt, they would have got their local correspondent to angle a picture so that it fitted the story, I suppose.’

‘But how would they hear about your movements?’

Erle
shrugged. ‘Anyone’s guess.’

‘For instance, would they accept the information from
a
nyone of the ordinary public who told them?’

‘Probably, yes.
And
be willing to pay for it, if they thought they could make something spicy out of
using
it. Why?’

‘I only wondered,’ said Ruth with studied carelessness. But her question had had purpose. She knew now that she had indeed made an enemy of Agnese Fonte. Agnese, Ruth felt sure, hadn’t been content to tell her garbled story to Cesare; she had found a much wider audience for it.

A fortnight later, on the eve of Cicely’s seventeenth birthday, Ruth went shopping for a present for her.

She knew what
Cicely
would like and where to buy it—a Parigi cameo brooch from a jewellers’ on the Spanish Square, and she was selecting one from the tray produced by the salesman when she was aware of the woman being served at the next showcase-counter. It was Stella Parioli. She looked up and across as Ruth did; their eyes met and Stella acknowledged Ruth with a nod and a patronising smile. But a minute or two after she had turned back to the spread of jewellery before her, she beckoned with an exquisitely gloved finger.

Surprised, Ruth excused herself to her salesman and went over.

‘So kind of you,
signora
,’ murmured Stella. ‘I am having
diffic
ulty in choosing, and it always helps
t
o have the opinion of another woman, don’t you think? Now, which would you select, supposing you were making the choice for yourself?’

Ruth looked in some embarrassment at the cushions and trays, displaying a dozen or so jewelled sprays and clasps. ‘I think it would depend on what I wanted to wear it with,
signora
,’ she said.

‘Oh—for the lapel of a suit, or to light up a plain black gown, you know? I tried this one; and this’— Stella allowed the assistant to hold each of two sprays against her suit—‘but somehow they lack something. Oh—that? Yes indeed’—as Ruth touched a gleaming spray of leaves and flowers, each flower with a tiny pearl at its heart—‘that’s quite lovely, isn’t it? I think
—
’

‘Allow me,
signora
’—the salesman addressed Ruth as he held the spray against the breast of her sun-dress to enable Stella to judge it.

‘Yes indeed,’ she said again. ‘I’ll have that. How much is it?’

The man named a price at which Ruth barely suppressed a gasp. ‘I’m afraid I’ve chosen something very expensive for you,’ she said.

‘It shows your good taste. Thank you,
signora.
I am grateful,’ Stella said graciously, and then to the man who had asked if the sale was to be cash or account, ‘Neither. It is a present to me. I was to meet Signore Nash here to choose it. But he is late and I have an appointment to keep. So put it aside, will you, and when he comes in, tell him I’ve chosen and ask him to
collect it?’

‘Of course,
signora
.’ She was bowed out with some ceremony, and Ruth returned to her own counter. Puzzled at first, she now felt it likely that Stella had wanted her advice rather less than she had wanted to advertise the fact of
Erle
’s gift. Ruth had chosen Cicely’s cameo and was waiting to have it wrapped when
Erle
came in, looked about him, noticed her, and came over to her.

‘I was supposed to meet Parioli here at noon. Have you seen anything of her?’ he asked.

‘Yes, she
—
’ Ruth began, but stopped to allow
Stella’s assistant to explain what had happened. He produced the spray in its case for
Erle
to see.
Erle
said, ‘All right. Very choice. I’ll pay cash,’ and took out his cheque book. As he wrote, ‘You say you did see Stella?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I was buying a brooch for
Cicely
. It’s her birthday tomorrow.’

‘I know. There’ll be flowers and a present—an evening bag—for her by messenger in the morning. Were you and Stella speaking to each other? You met at the party I gave for Cicely, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, and she called me over, asking me to help her to choose your present to her,’ Ruth told
him
drily.

His eyebrow quirked up. ‘Did she indeed? Propping open the lion’s jaws in readiness for my head with a vengeance!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you disapprove heartily, I take it? Expensive trinkets being very much on the wrong side of that permissible line which you draw between chocolates and mink?
’

‘By my code, yes. I’ve no right to judge for anyone else.’

‘But you’re judging like mad, all the same. Your very backbone is rigid with censure. But if you’ve finished here now, may I drop you anywhere? My car is just outside.’

‘If it’s not out of your way you can drive me home,’ Ruth told him.

‘Right.’

They had reached the flat and she was getting out when he asked, ‘What’s Cicely doing to celebrate tomorrow?’

‘Jeremy is taking her and his sister to dinner, and to a nightclub to dance.’

‘And you?’

‘I
shall
have a quiet evening to myself.
I
shall probably wash my hair.’

He turned in his seat and looked up at her, standing by the car. ‘Don’t wash your hair,’ he said. ‘Ask me to come round instead.’

‘You? Of course, if you
—
Why?’ she asked in surprise.

‘Not with any motive that
Lo Sussurro
could find suspect. May I come? What time are the youngsters leaving?’

‘At about eight, I expect.’

‘Then I’ll come some time after that. Don’t plan to feed me, I shall have dined. O.K.?’

She nodded Yes and he drove off.

Ruth was in a flutter of nerves before he arrived, as she went about hostess motions, plumping cushions
and putting out drinks. She couldn’t think why he should actually invite an evening of the flippant or disputatious exchanges into which he and she were usually drawn.

When he came he accepted a drink and walked about with it, as he had done on his first visit to the flat. Ruth watched him, feeling, as always, the distance between them to be immense. As if beyond all reason, she loved someone on the far side of a great gulf! someone she knew only by sight and in daydreams; someone who didn’t know her at all.

At last he took a chair and sat easily, facing her. ‘You know, it’s a pretty rare exp
eri
e
nce for me to spend an evening with a woman to whom I feel I can talk, and she to me, without the undertow drag of the man-woman thing between us,’ he said.

‘You hope that of
this
evening, you mean?’ said Ruth.

‘With you, yes. It’s a rapport that no Latin women understand. For them it has to be charged, however slightly, with allure, felt, if not by both, at least by one. Or perhaps I’m wrong; perhaps for any woman, the sexual challenge bit has to be got out of the way before she can relax into friendship with any given man. As you and I could be said to have got it out of the way at Siena, don’t you think?’

Ruth reddened deeply at the sh
aming
memory. ‘Did we?’ she said.