The Visconti House (13 page)

Laura’s face lit up. “So you are staying!” She turned to Leon. “Can you come back tomorrow?”

“I guess so.” Leon looked up. “But I should go now. Grandma will be waiting.”

Laura knew this wasn’t true but she didn’t argue. “We’ll go out the front door,” she said. That way he would not have to face everyone again. The sounds of shouting and laughter from the kitchen were getting louder.

“See you tomorrow, Leon,” called Isabella. “Don’t be put off by us. We may be a little wild, but Laura is right; we don’t bite.” She winked again at Laura. “And you thought I didn’t hear!”

Laura was relieved to see Leon almost smile. Maybe it was just the suddenness of so many people arriving, she thought. People he didn’t know. She understood how unnerving that could be.

The front door was stiff from lack of use; Laura had to wrench it open. From the doorstep, she had a clear view across the garden and noticed for the first time an indentation in the grass where the statue in the photograph must have stood. She turned to point
it out to Leon but saw that he was staring vacantly at the weeds in the stone urn at the base of the steps, his lips pressed tightly together.

“Isabella is all right, really,” she said, forgetting the statue. “She’s just a bit startling at first. You will come tomorrow, won’t you?”

Leon did not look at her. His gaze shifted to the gate. “What time?”

“I don’t know. Ten o’clock, maybe? No, eleven. Then everyone is sure to be up.”

“OK.” There was a momentary pause. “See you then.”

Laura watched him descend the steps and start along the path. He looked terribly lonely as he slipped through the gates and onto the road. The sounds from the kitchen drifted out to her but she felt somehow reluctant to go back in. When Samson wandered up, she sat down with him on the doorstep in the warm sun.

“What do you think about Leon?” she asked, running her hand over his fur. “What do you think has happened to him?”

Samson’s only reply was to roll over and rub his head against her knee.

When eleven o’clock the next morning came, Leon was not there. Isabella had managed to persuade Laura’s parents to let them take off one board — Hugo had looked and said that he could easily replace it. Laura had found the tools. Everything and everyone was ready, but Leon did not arrive.

Laura went out to the gate and looked down the empty road, trying to decide what to do. She’d had an uneasy feeling all along that he would not come.

After they had waited almost an hour, she jumped up. “I’ll go and get him.”

She grabbed her sweater, pulling it on as she left the kitchen, and, as soon as she was through the garden, started to run. Why had Leon said he would come if he didn’t mean to? Just what was he so worried about?

She reached Mrs. Murphy’s house and was about to fly through the gate when she caught sight of Leon. He was not alone. To her surprise, he was with the
disheveled man she had seen in town on the long weekend, and they appeared to be in the middle of an argument.

It was not Harry and Isabella that had stopped him from coming, she realized — it was something else altogether, and she had stumbled right into the middle of it. It was too late to retreat. Both Leon and the man had turned to her.

“I can’t come, Laura,” Leon said sullenly. “You go on without me.”

“Leon, what’s all this about?” asked the man.

“Nothing.” Leon now looked directly at Laura, a plea in his eyes. “Go on without me.”

“We can wait,” said Laura. She had not understood until that moment just how much she wanted him to be there when they pulled off the board. “Isabella and Harry aren’t leaving until this afternoon. It won’t be the same without you. We’ll wait.”

“No.” Leon was adamant. “I’m not coming. You go ahead.”

“Not going where?” asked the man, looking from Leon to Laura.

“Nowhere,” said Leon. “It doesn’t matter. Good-bye, Laura.” His eyes were still fixed on her face, but the plea was stronger.

Laura backed away, recognizing the finality in his voice. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not now, at any rate.

“Good-bye,” she said, and started up the hill.

This time she did not run. Her feet dragged, her thoughts a mess. What was going on? The man must be Leon’s father — he looked so much like him. But why were they arguing, and why was Leon so distressed? Laura picked up a stone and began tossing it from one hand to the other. How long had Leon’s father been at Mrs. Murphy’s? And why hadn’t Leon said he was there?

When she arrived home, Isabella was sitting on the back step, sipping coffee. “So we scared him off completely, did we?”

“No, it wasn’t you.” Laura shook her head. “Not today, anyway.” She sat down next to Isabella and began drawing in the gravel with a stick. She could still see Leon’s father clearly in her mind. He didn’t look like a criminal — not that she actually knew what a criminal looked like, but she was sure Mr. Murphy wasn’t one. Something was definitely wrong, though. His clothes were so shabby and his skin was sallow and there were deep lines across his forehead. Just how long had it been since Leon’s mother died?

Isabella put her arm around Laura’s shoulder. “Shall we start without Leon?”

Laura hesitated. “No, we’ll wait,” she said. “He might come later.”

But he didn’t. The afternoon wore on and clouds moved across the sky, threatening rain. Harry, Isabella, and Hugo began talking about leaving before the storm started.

“If we’re going to take a board off, honey, we’ll have to do it now,” said Isabella.

Laura chewed her fingernails and deliberated. “All right,” she said. “We’ll just see. There probably isn’t anything there, anyway.”

Isabella found Hugo and they headed for the hall. Laura followed, but somehow, without Leon, it didn’t feel so exciting. In fact, it felt a little silly. Despite her father’s concern, levering the board off proved quite simple and left little mess, but perhaps, Laura thought, it was just that Hugo knew what he was doing.

“OK, Laura,” said Isabella when Hugo had finished, “where’s your flashlight?”

Laura shone the weak beam into the darkness. There, falling away from her, was a flight of steps — and at the bottom, dimly visible in the wavering light, was
a small room. It appeared to be empty but, when her eyes adjusted, Laura saw that there were shelves on one side with bottles lying on them. There was dust everywhere.

“You were right,” shouted Isabella, peering over Laura’s head. “There
is
something there.”

“Should we take off some more boards?” asked Hugo.

Isabella’s eyes were sparkling. “Of course!”

Hugo expertly levered off enough boards to make an opening big enough to squeeze through. “You go first,” he said to Laura.

Gingerly, Laura stepped into the hole and felt her way down the steps, steadying herself against the rough wall. Isabella and Hugo followed close behind.

“It’s just full of old bottles,” said Laura when she reached the bottom. She shone the light on the bottles.

“Wine bottles,” corrected Isabella.

“Very old wine bottles,” said Hugo. He picked one up carefully, blowing the dust from the label. “Laura, you have found a treasure!”

Laura stared at the writing. It was in Italian, with a crest above it. The crest had leaves surrounding a plumed helmet and a serpent. She looked around.
The floor was brick and so were the walls. Everything was covered with dust, and there was a musty, faintly sickening smell pervading it all. Stale air in stale rooms. It was hard to feel excited about some dirty old bottles.

“So there is a cellar?” called her father.

“Yes,” answered Isabella. “And what a cellar! It’s full of wine. Come and see.”

Soon the cellar was also full of people, and there was hardly room to move. Laura felt a need for fresh air. She climbed back out and sat on the floor in the entrance hall.

“I wonder what all this is worth,” she could hear her mother saying from below. “We might be able to pay for some repairs with this. Look at this bottle. 1900. A good year, do you think?”

“Won’t it all have gone bad?” called Laura from above. “It’s awfully old.”

“That makes it all the more valuable — if it is a good wine,” said Harry, emerging from the cellar cradling a bottle in his large hands. “And this looks like it is very good wine.”

“Of course it is.” Laura rested her head against the wall. “It belonged to Mr. Visconti.”

She wished that Leon was there. It did not seem
right to be finding all this without him. Her mind went back, as it had been doing all afternoon, to Mrs. Murphy’s yard. Laura couldn’t get the image of Leon’s father out of her head. But it wasn’t just his shabby clothes or his untidy haircut. It was his eyes, so like Leon’s. Filled with surprise, but with something else, too. Concern? Pain? Worry? She suddenly thought that something inside him was crushed. Like his clothes — crushed and torn. She felt terribly sad, thinking of him.

As she watched Hugo and her father pull off more boards, and as Isabella and her mother talked excitedly, Laura thought how strangely everything had turned out. She and Leon were the ones who had started the search, but it was her parents and their friends who were now fired with enthusiasm, making lots of mess as they tore down the wall and speculated about Mr. Visconti and the house and its history. She just felt numb. Even when Harry, Isabella, and Hugo decided to stay on for two more days — to savor the celebration, as Isabella said — Laura did not feel elated.

Later, when all was quiet and the others were chatting and sipping wine (
not
Mr. Visconti’s), she slipped back to the cellar and stood in the shadows
thinking. She had brought the flashlight, but she did not use it — not at first. She just stood there, imagining an old man, immaculately dressed, with his hand on the wall, feeling his way down the steps, pausing in front of the bottles, drawing one out and carrying it back up to drink it alone in his garden room. When Laura switched on the flashlight, she almost expected to hear his accented voice quavering, “Who is there?”

The beam illuminated the shelves and the bottles through particles of dust. Laura shone it into the corners and onto the rough floor and walls, but there was nothing.

Nothing.
He’s not here,
she thought.
Mr. Visconti has gone.

She had an odd feeling that she wanted to cry. She felt as though she had lost something — something she never had. As she turned to leave, she caught sight of a dark shape under the bottom shelf. It was a metal box. She stooped to pick it up, then stopped.

No, she would wait.

She would wait for Leon.

Monday morning, for the first time, Laura hoped to meet Leon on the way to school. She was so desperate to tell him about the cellar, she didn’t care who saw them together. He did not appear, however, when she passed Mrs. Murphy’s house, and she did not see him as she crossed the school grounds.

They were halfway through their first class when he arrived. He handed a note to Miss Grisham and sat down without even looking at Laura. Laura stared at him, willing him to turn around, but he didn’t. He just opened his book and started working. Perhaps he did not want to be seen talking to
her.
This was a new idea for Laura, and she was not sure how she felt about it. She returned to her work, trying to concentrate on the descriptive paragraphs Miss Grisham had asked them to write.

“I want you to make me see what you are describing,” Miss Grisham said. “I want every noun to have an adjective.”

Ever since the incident between her and Miss Grisham, Laura had refused to do any work in English. Or rather, she had refused to put any effort into her work. She did precisely what she was asked to do; no more, no less.

Today, however, perhaps because of all that had happened, when Laura started writing she found the words flowed onto the paper, and she was carried away on a wave of inspiration.

It was only afterward that she thought about the consequences and by then it was too late; Miss Grisham had asked her to read her paragraph aloud to the class. For one reckless moment Laura wondered whether she could just make something up, but realized that if Miss Grisham collected the papers afterward, she would be in more trouble. The class was staring at her expectantly, and she could hear the usual sniggering.