To Marry a Tiger (3 page)

A long time went by and still no one had approached Ruth. She began to think that she should make enquiries as to where Mario Verdecchio lived, but she could think of no way of making herself understood, so she abandoned the idea. She was just picking up her suitcase and walking away from the ship towards a cafe she could see about a hundred yards away, when a uniformed man came up to her, his black eyes full of apology.

“Are you Miss Arnold?” he asked in English.

She turned in relief. “Yes. Yes, I am,” she admitted.

He smiled, showing a glint of gold in his teeth. “I am to drive you to Signor Verdecchio’s house,” he said.

He grasped her suitcase and strode over to a large black limousine. Ruth had never seen such a car before. It had a green window in the front to make driving in the hot sun more bearable, and blinds that effectively hid the occupants inside from the rear and sides. The chauffeur opened the door for her and ushered her into the spacious, extremely comfortable rear seat.

“Signor Verdecchio told me to expect a very fair lady,” he went on apologetically. “That is why I didn’t immediately recognise you. I am very sorry.”

Ruth thought wryly that it was hardly his fault if he had not recognised her from a description of Pearl. Ruth was fair too, but she had none of the fragile, ashen-blonde look of Pearl. Ruth was taller and stronger and, in her face lacked Pearl’s prettiness, her features were firmer and full of character.

The chauffeur drove straight through Palermo, heading for the hills beyond. Ruth peered out at the narrow streets, full of tall buildings where everyone seemed to live on their balconies, even doing their
s
hopping by shouting down to the vendors in the street.

“Do the people sleep on the balconies as well as everything else?” Ruth asked the chauffeur.

He laughed. “Everything is
sub coelo
in Sicily,” he told her. “It is too hot indoors. Even the hens prefer the balconies in this weather! And why not?”

Ruth smiled. “It looks a bit crowded,” she commented.

The chauffeur shrugged his shoulders. “It is convenient. The women can gossip, the men can watch the world go by. What more do you want?”

There was so much to look at that Ruth had to lean right forward to see everything. Some main roads had been cut right through the old city to take the main burden of the traffic and which looked much the same as any of the other main roads she had seen in Milan, Turin, or any other big centre. But away from these main roads, the city was just as it had always been. The houses were peculiarly foreign to Ruth’s English eye. They were solid and compact, all of them painted in pale colours, and without either chimneys or spires on the churches. In those houses of which she got a glimpse as they passed, there were tiled floors, and every window seemed to be equipped with Venetian blinds. The whole atmosphere was one of cheerful business which Ruth found extremely attractive.

The Verdecchio house was out in the country. They came to a small village that lay between rich vineyards and drove the whole length of the small street that separated the houses of the people. At the far end were some heavy wrought-iron gates that had been left open. They swept through the gates and up a lengthy tree-lined drive that was covered with yellow dust and a few straggly weeds that fought for a poor living in the shade
of the trees. The house stood far back from the road. It was large with painted shuttered windows and a great deal of wrought-iron work round the windows and doorways. Huge, colourful bushes spread themselves over some large flower beds in front of the house and a few citrus trees thrived at the other end of what was meant to be a lawn, but which actually had little in common with its vivid green English equivalent.

The chauffeur drew up outside the front door and held the door of the car for her to get out. Ruth stood on the drive and looked about her. There was no sign of anyone anywhere.

“I suppose they are expecting me?” she said nervously.

“I will ring the bell!” the chauffeur answered. He did so, pulling on an ancient knob that let loose a grand peal somewhere in the depths of the house.

“Giulia will look after you now,” he said with satisfaction. He placed her suitcase beside her in the doorway and saluted smartly. “Signor Verdecchio will have left instructions,” he added.

Ruth wondered if there was anyone there to answer the bell
.
She pulled at the knob as the chauffeur had done, but the only answer was silence. When she had satisfied herself that no one was coming, she decided to walk round the house to see if there was any other entrance. A like house in the depths of the English Countryside, she thought, could always be approached from the rear sooner than from the front: perhaps in Sicily it was just the same?

The house was even larger than she had imagined. There were some stables set at right angles to the main building in which she could hear some horses moving restively and a donkey braying. A small dog came running out to greet her. He was of no known variety, small and button-eyed, with a proud tail that he waved
behind him like a flag. Ruth bent down to say hullo and the animal graciously allowed her to approach and to tickle the back of his head.

“Are you a Verdecchio too?” she asked him.

The dog waved his tail and led the way round the house to the back door just as a large woman emerged from the vegetable garden.

“Giulia?” Ruth exclaimed in relief.

The woman stared at her crossly. She ripped out half a dozen questions in Italian, so fast that Ruth had no hope of understanding her.

“Signor Mario Verdecchio?” she asked patiently.

The woman nodded, her whole face breaking into smiles. She beckoned to Ruth to follow her into the house, chattering away as they went. Signor Verdecchio had had to go away, but he had left instructions about the English lady who was to come to Sicily. She was to be made welcome and a bedroom was to be prepared for her. She, Giulia, was to serve her with food and to see to her comfort. And so she would, for there was no one within a hundred miles for whom she would rather work than for the Signor. He was a man!

Ruth looked so doubtful that the Italian woman was sure that she hadn’t understood her properly. She gave Ruth a sly nudge in the ribs and laughed. The English lady probably knew more about Signor Verdecchio than she did, wasn’t that so?

Stony-faced, Ruth refused to acknowledge that she had understood the innuendo.

“Where is Signor Verdecchio?” she asked coldly.

“At the bedside of a friend of his,” Giulia replied, a little unsure of this strange English woman. "He is over at Messina. He will be back soon enough.”

Ruth certainly hoped so. She didn’t want to stay any longer at the Verdecchio house than she could help.

“Perhaps I could make myself a cup of coffee,” she suggested gently.

Giulia bridled. “I will bring it to you in the
salotto,
if you will wait there.”

She almost pushed Ruth before her, through the kitchen and across a wide, elegant terrace. The sitting room, full of austere and awkward furniture, was reached through a large casement window.

“Wait here,” Giulia commanded grimly.

Ruth sat nervously on the edge of an elegant
chaise-longue
and wondered bitterly how she was expected to fill in her time before the infamous Mario deigned to come home and meet her. It was strange how he had the ability to make her angry whatever he did! She had never known anyone else who made her prickle with sheer temper when he had done nothing more than compare her unfavourably with Pearl’s ash-blonde prettiness—and at least twenty other men had done that! But then they hadn’t looked at her with quite the same cynical amusement that had so exasperated her
!

There were a few books on a table by the telephone and Ruth went across the room to take a closer look at them. Only one was in English, an American novel that she had already read. Ruth picked it up nevertheless and began to leaf through the pages to see if she remembered the story as well as she thought she did.

The telephone rang shrilly beside her, making her jump. She hesitated for a minute, then she picked up the receiver.

“That you, Mario?” a particularly English voice said in her ear.

“No,” she stammered back. “I’m afraid he’s out.”

There was a lengthy pause, in which she could almost hear the Englishman’s surprise.

“Who are you?” the voice asked.

“Miss Arnold. Ruth Arnold.”

“
Arnold
?”
There was a faint chuckle. “Are you the Pearl Beyond Price?”

Ruth blushed. “No, I am not,” she said distinctly.

More laughter. “I’m coming over to find out!” the voice informed her. “Mario has no right to keep you to himself anyway.”

Ruth tried to sound sophisticated and cool. “Suit yourself,” she said. She put the receiver back on its cradle and wished she were dead. It had all been so simple back in Naples. She would teach Mario a lesson and that would be that. She hadn’t thought that other people might complicate matters, or that Mario
wouldn’t even be there to meet her!

Giulia came running into the room, a cup of steaming coffee in one hand.

“Did you. hear the telephone?” she asked unnecessarily.

Ruth nodded. “It was an Englishman,” she said.

Giulia gave the telephone a knowing look. “That will be
the Signor Brett,” she muttered.

“He’s coming over,” Ruth added.

“Did you tell him Signor Verdecchio is away for the day?”

Ruth smiled slowly. “I think he is coming over to see me,” she said.

“It is your business,” Giulia acknowledged. “But the Signor Verdecchio will not be pleased. This man, Henry Brett, he serves the Signor. He works on his land, laying pipes for water.
He
doesn’t share his leisure-time—”

“Perhaps you will bring a cup of coffee for him when he comes,” Ruth interrupted her.

“Signor Verdecchio will not like it!” Giulia snapped. “He did not bring you here for Signor Brett!”

Ruth held her head high. “I came of my own accord,” she said. “And I’ll do what I like!”

Giulia’s eyes glittered. “I will tell Signor Verdecchio—”

“Signor Verdecchio already knows!” Ruth cut her off curtly and quite untruthfully. “Please show Mr. Brett in here when he comes.”

With a grudging look of respect for Ruth, Giulia set down the cup of coffee and left
the
room. It was very quiet when she had gone. Ruth walked restlessly up and down the room, looking at this and that just to fill in time. There were several dark portraits on the walls, she noticed. Some of them had a distinct look of Mario, cynical and forbidding, with a touch of the hauteur she so despised in him. They were probably, she thought indifferently, his ancestors who had lived in the house before him.

That it was a very ancient house, she had no doubt. The Moorish arches and the fountain that played on the corner of the terrace spoke silently of the Sicilian past, when the island had been a part of the great Arab civilisation that had stretched from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. Some of the material that had been used to build the arches were older still, with Roman capitals, some of them still bearing the legend of the names of the ancient gods of Rome.

Indeed, the house was so full of history that Mario had scarcely impressed his own personality at all. The discovery gave Ruth great satisfaction. Why should she be afraid of such a man? Not that she was, she told herself hurriedly, but it was nice to know that in some ways he was so nondescript.

Mr. Brett’s arrival was announced by the dog. Ruth could hear him barking long before Giulia brought him in to the sitting room with glowering disapproval. Ruth rose to her feet and smiled at the stranger.

“Mr. Brett?” she asked hesitantly.

He was a man in his middle thirties, she judged, although his hair was already turning grey. His skin was of the very fair kind that refuses to tan, but goes scarlet in the sun, and the backs of his hands were a mass of freckles ending in
u
nkempt nails that had apparently seen a great deal of hard labour. His green eyes smiled at her.

“No, I can see at a glance that you are not Pearl after all!” he said regretfully.

“Pearl is my sister,” Ruth told
him.

He looked surprised. “I hadn’t thought that Mario had intended to bring the whole family!”

“He didn’t,” Ruth retorted.

Mr. Brett looked amused and faintly respectful. “Does he know you’re here?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not yet,” she said grimly.

Mr. Brett emitted a long whistle. “Sooner you than me
!
” he exclaimed.

Ruth sat down with dignity. “I prefer not to discuss it,” she told him. “What are you doing in Sicily, Mr. Brett
?
”

He raised his eyebrows a little at her sudden formality. “I’m putting in an irrigation system on Mario’s estate,” he answered her. “We hope it’s going to do great things for the local people. They’re not as poor as some of the people in Sicily—Mario has seen to that!—but the old, grinding poverty is only just below the surface.”

“And how will irrigation help?” Ruth enquired, suddenly very glad to have someone to talk to.

“It’ll help,” he said briefly. “They’ll lose less of their topsoil for a start. It’ll mean they can have water piped to their houses too.”

“D’you mean they haven’t water now?” Ruth asked, appalled.

“They share a tap at the end of the street. Would you like to see what we’re doing for yourself?”

Ruth was immediately enthusiastic. “May I
?
” she said.
“Can we go now?”

He smiled lazily. “I don’t see why not. You can come back to my place for lunch if you’d care to?”

“I’d love it!” she exclaimed. “Mr. Brett—”

“Call me Henry,” he interposed lazily.