The Runaway Visitors (21 page)

‘What you want, my girl, is a good hiding.’ Amanda flushed, but found the spirit to reply:

‘If I were your little girl, I expect I’d get one.’

‘And it would do you the world of good. Everybody spoils you. Victoria spoils you, and all
you
do is try to break her heart. She was worried nearly to death about you.’

Amanda had the grace to look ashamed and Miss Jameson relented.

‘Well, eat your supper and get a good sleep; and try to be a bit more thoughtful of other people in the future.’

Victoria ate her supper alone. She told herself she ought to be feeling carefree and happy, having her sister back. In fact, she felt miserable and wretched. She knew the suspense of the last thirty hours and the near-sleeplessness of last night had told on her; but she also knew she could have made light of that if only Charles had been here with her, instead of dining with Margarita somewhere in candlelit luxury: Margarita of the night-black beauty, Margarita in diamonds and the glow of love, Margarita determined to get what she wanted.

Next morning, she was waiting on their terrace when Amanda came out to join her for breakfast. Amanda still looked shamefaced and a little apprehensive, as if she might be awaiting another lecture. Victoria decided they could dispense with all that.

‘Hallo,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Sleep well?’

‘Yes, very well.’

‘Good. I’ll pour you some coffee. Miss Jameson will be bringing breakfast in a few minutes. Isn’t it a marvellous morning?’

Amanda looked about her, really seeing the morning for the first time. Firenze far below, slightly veiled in morning mist, the domes and towers rising pink and pearly out of it. Sun sharp and bright on the olive groves and the garden. She was enormously relieved to be here. She smiled at Victoria and took the coffee cup from her.

‘You said Sebastien was safely back in England, Vicki?’

‘Yes. He rode over the Alps, and as he thought that would be the best bit and the rest of it boring, he sold the old bike and went on by train and boat. I expect he was getting tired of all that exercise. Anyway, he’ll get plenty more, rock-climbing.’ ‘Sebastien is so efficient,’ Amanda said ruefully.

‘Sebastien is nearly three years older than you, and has a lot more common sense. ’

Just then, Charles came out on to the terrace, dressed so formally in a pale, light-weight suit, with immaculate collar and tie, that Victoria knew he must be going out; but he pulled a chair up to the table and sat down with a cheerful good morning to them both.

‘You both look a lot better this morning. Radiant, in fact. All’s right with the world?’

‘With our world, yes, thank you.’ Victoria smiled at him and offered him coffee.

‘I’ll have my breakfast here, if I may,’ he said. ‘Jeanie’s bringing it with yours.’ And when Miss Jameson had been and gone, he said; ‘Why, it’s so pleasant here, I wonder that I haven’t done this before.’

‘You’re always welcome on your own terrace,’ Victoria said.

‘I wanted to reassure myself that you were both all right. I have to go out to-day and may even be out for dinner this evening. What are your plans?’

Victoria reflected that he had not hitherto been concerned about their plans in the slightest, and she wondered if Sebastien’s unorthodox departure and Amanda’s subsequent adventure were causing him worry.

‘I thought I would drive Amanda to see Giorgio,’ she said, causing Amanda’s head to turn quickly to look at her with wonder. ‘I even thought we might spend the night in a hotel and see him again to-morrow before coming back. ’

There was a pause, each of them looking at this item of news from a different standpoint. Then Charles picked up his coffee cup as Amanda burst out:

‘Vicki,
would
you do that? That would be marvellous! ’

‘I suppose that would be all right,’ said Charles doubtfully. ‘Don’t forget I drove us all down here from England,’ Victoria reminded him. ‘ Staying at inns and hotels.’

‘I shall ring up and make a reservation for you myself,’ Charles said. ‘For my own peace of mind. Although I do realise, Victoria, how sensible you are.’

He did this, also ringing up the hospital to find out if the sisters might see Giorgio and at what times. Then, with what seemed to Victoria like reluctance, he left them. Watching him from the terrace, Victoria wondered how he would be spending
his
day. He had dined with Margarita last night: was he also spending the day with her to-day?

It was indeed a most beautiful morning. Miss Jameson gave them a picnic lunch and told them to be careful. They set off through the sunlit countryside in high good humour, travelling for some distance on the autoroute, then leaving it to find their way through lesser roads and country lanes, through villages little touched by the rush of civilisation, with the peasant women in their black, some of them sitting in their doorways working at the basket work and embroidery sold in the market places, many of them washing clothes outside their doorways in large tubs. Nearly every house in every village had its tomato pulp and tomato paste spread out on great boards to dry in the sun while strings of tomatoes, onions and pimentoes hung from the windowsills. A few of the streets were so steep and so cobbled that mules were used for transport, and Victoria wondered if her not-so-new car would manage them. It was amazing to find all this comparatively close to the rush of the autoroute to the sun.

After their picnic lunch, they came in mid-afternoon to the hospital where Giorgio was impatiently awaiting yet another operation on his ankle. He was overjoyed to see the sisters, particularly as. at this distance from his home, visitors were now few and far between. He seemed more handsome than ever, his dark eyes still alight with life and laughter, but Victoria thought there were lines of strain under them. He said there was nothing the matter with him, he was not ill, but he was not allowed to put any weight on the ankle. ‘The little bones were so smashed, I believe they are making me new ones,’ he said. ‘They think, at least, I am very interesting. They like me so much that they will not let me come home for a long time. But I miss everything, Victoria. I miss the farm and my work, and my beautiful Mama and Papa, and my beautiful English girls.’ He smiled at them so charmingly that Amanda could have swooned with delight. ‘And how is Sebastien?’ he asked.

‘Sebastien has gone back to England, to join a rock-climbing party. ’

‘Oh, how I wish I could go rock-climbing!’ Giorgio said.

Victoria reflected that, if Charles had not forbidden Sebastien to ride behind Giorgio on the motor bike, Sebastien might also be wishing at this moment that he could go rock-climbing, instead of actually doing it.

‘And you?’ asked Giorgio. ‘When do you have to go back to England?’

‘We have a little time yet,’ she reassured him. She saw that there were many things he wanted to say to her which he could not say in front of Amanda; but there seemed no way of having even a few minutes alone, and Victoria was not altogether sorry. Amanda certainly did not want to leave him for a moment. He began to tell them of all the work the nurses gave him to do, since he could sit in a wheelchair with his leg extended before him on a long plank. They made him roll bandages and wait on bed-bound patients, gather and deliver the mail, even feed the patients who could not use their arms. He soon had them laughing, and Victoria realised that this quite beautiful young man carried his blithe spirit with him wherever he went. He must be a boon to the hospital.

As soon as he discovered that they were staying in a hotel that night, he persuaded them to come again in the evening, and then set about persuading the nurse in charge to permit it; so that, after an early dinner that evening at their hotel, they went once more to Giorgio; but by this time he had gained the cooperation of his nurse, and as Victoria and Amanda sat with him in the room he shared with four other patients, the nurse passed through in a hurry, smiling at Amanda and saying to her:

‘Signorina,
would you like to come and get Giorgio’s pill for him? And perhaps you would bring them for the others too?’ Amanda understood all of this and jumped up at once, delighted to do something for Giorgio.

‘Do you have to have sleeping pills, Giorgio?’ asked Victoria. ‘No, I think they are antibiotics. It doesn’t matter, I wanted to speak to you alone. Victoria,
carissima,
I think of you so often, so often; and sometimes my ankle is painful and I don’t sleep and I think of you in the empty night time. Can you not come and see me alone?’

‘I don’t think so, Giorgio. We are here this time because of Amanda. Do you know she ran away by herself to come and see

you?’

‘I saw it in the paper,’ he said impatiently. ‘Why should she do such a silly thing?’

‘Because she’s mad about you, of course. But don’t let that worry you. She’ll get over it.’

‘But you could have brought her, as you are bringing her now. If only
you,
Victoria, were mad about me. For sure, I am mad about you. And all this time is being wasted. By the time I am coming home, you will be in England. It is too much.’

‘Do you really have to stay here so long, Giorgio? What do they say about your ankles?’

‘One is mending without much trouble. For the other, they have to take pieces of bone from here and there. It is all very

difficult. I worry about the farm and my papa . . .’

‘But your cousins are there helping. Don’t worry, Giorgio.’ ‘Most I worry about you, Victoria, and what I am missing. When will you come and see me again?’

‘Tomorrow morning,’ she said, smiling at him. Amanda came hurrying back, straight to Giorgio. Their opportunity for private conversation was over. Amanda was in a seventh heaven of her own. Victoria thought she was really very pretty when anything caused her to sparkle, when thought for others banished the sullenness that was often there. A happy Amanda, she reflected, might be a very charming one; and apparently Giorgio thought it too, or perhaps he wished to be kind to the girl who was suffering for him, for he said:

‘I am the most proud man in the hospital to have two charmers to visit me,’ and he smiled straight at Amanda. ‘I feel I should share.’

‘Then let’s lend Victoria to somebody else,’ Amanda said promptly, and they all laughed, happily and gaily. For the first time, Victoria thought that if Amanda were sixteen or seventeen, she might possibly make it; might succeed with Giorgio if her campaign was a right one, and if she, Victoria, were out of the way. Unfortunately for her, at fourteen one was not taken seriously; and in two or three years’ time, Giorgio might have married somebody else. No, the most sensible thing would be for Amanda to get over this sudden and intense passion.

The two sisters stayed until the nurse came to turn them out. They spent a comfortable night in the same bedroom at their hotel, and after breakfast next morning went back to see Giorgio again, and were greeted like long-lost relatives by the other four patients in the ward. They soon had Amanda practising her Italian with them, but she would not leave Giorgio’ s side to do it; and when they had to leave, the only way in which Giorgio could kiss Victoria’s hand with a close lingering kiss was to do the same thing with Amanda, which filled her with delight. With a grace that became her but was rather unusual, Amanda went round the small ward shaking hands with the other patients, who took advantage of Giorgio’s example to kiss her hand too; and then Victoria’s. Victoria could take this gesture for what it was worth, but Amanda was young enough to find it utterly romantic, and left the hospital treading on air. The long drive back to Charles’s house passed in a happy dream for her; and she had the promise of a visit to the farm to-morrow, for Giorgio had given them a parcel and various messages for his family, and Victoria had said that Amanda could take them.

They had been away only two days, yet there was for Victoria a lovely feeling of homecoming as she ran the car under the carport. Usually they walked round the house to their terrace, but today she wanted to walk in by the front way into that beautiful hall and living room, to savour it all afresh. For a moment, she indulged herself in a dream of being mistress of this house, which vanished as soon as Miss Jameson appeared, looking almost pleased to see them and saying:

‘Well, you’ve got yourselves safely back, I see; and now Mr. Duncan will be able to relax. He’s been like a cat on hot bricks about you both.’

‘I’m sorry we’re such a nuisance to him,’ Victoria said, with a touch of her old stiffness. Miss Jameson matched glances with her for a moment or two, and then relented.

‘You’re dying for a cup of tea, I’ll be bound, Victoria. Well, if you like to have it in the kitchen, you can tell me all about our friend Giorgio.’

While they were in the kitchen, Charles appeared, still wearing an old, clay-daubed smock.

‘So there you are! Good, good, good. I could hear the chatter miles away.’ He surveyed them both. ‘Yes, both looking very pleased with life. Cats that have been at the cream, don’t you think so, Jeanie? Have you got a cup of tea for
me?
Thanks. Well now, how was the beautiful Giorgio?’

And there they all were, happily drinking tea in the kitchen, even Amanda gossiping away in a manner to surprise Charles and Miss Jameson. Charles very relaxed, Miss Jameson unbending. Victoria thought they were all acting as if they were delighted to see each other again, almost like a real family.