“It gave me my first lead. You see, he mentions Beach Compton, a little seaside town here on the coast, so that is where I started my search. I knew she was about seventeen when she left Italy, so I presumed she would have gone to school. There is only one school in the town, and the old headmistress still lives there. However, Floriana didn’t go to school, but the headmistress knew her foster mother, Katherine Bridges, well, for she had taught English there and they had become friends. She remembered Floriana, although of course she wasn’t called Floriana. That’s why I couldn’t be sure. And when I met her, she was so English, she wasn’t at all what I was expecting.”
“Did you find Katherine Bridges?”
“She married and moved to Canada fifteen years ago.”
“I never even knew she existed. Do you think she kept her hidden away on purpose?”
“Possibly.”
“So how did you find Marina here?”
“The headmistress, Christine Black, keeps scrapbooks on everything. She showed me a magazine article on the Polzanze, written not long after it was opened.”
“So, why are you leaving?”
He rubbed his temples. “Clementine, does Marina really want the past dug up? Does she want Grey to know her secret? Does Dante even know she had his child? She returned to Italy to save the Polzanze, not to unearth painful memories. Perhaps I’m a painful memory she would rather not remember.”
There was a knock on the door. Clementine huffed irritably; she didn’t welcome the intrusion. She was surprised when her father peered around the door.
“Rafa, will you come over to the stable block? There’s someone I think you ought to meet.”
Rafa glanced at Clementine, who raised her eyebrows, as baffled as he. Grey saw the open suitcase on the bed, but said nothing. They followed him down the stairs, past reception, where Rose was watching the mysterious comings and goings with curiosity, and across to the stable block, where Jake had now joined them.
Rafa noticed the Alfa Romeo on the gravel and the driver in uniform who was proudly polishing the bonnet. He did not expect to see Dante. When he entered, the sitting room fell quiet. The air grew suddenly still. Dante and Marina stood up. Rafa could see that Marina had been crying. He realized then that she knew who he was, and the relief was unexpected.
She looked at him with such tenderness that he was caught off guard. “My son,” she said.
Rafa was too overwhelmed to reply. He had suspected she was his mother, then in Italy all doubt had been erased—and yet, hearing it said out loud made it real.
He looked at Dante. “Mio figlio,” he said, and reached out his hand.
“You came looking for me?” Marina whispered as she moved hesitantly towards him. All he could do was nod dumbly as the two people who had brought him into the world wrapped their arms around him.
“So, you’re not Baffles, the gentleman thief?” asked Jake, finding the intensity of emotion intolerable.
Rafa laughed. “Of course not.”
“Then what were you doing in Marina’s room?”
“Trying to find proof that she was my mother.”
“And did you?” Marina asked.
“No. Just a poem. ‘My Marine Marina.’”
“Ah, wrong box. That was how I got my name. I chose it out of Katherine Bridges’s book of poems that was on my bedside table when I arrived in Beach Compton. Of course, I didn’t understand it, speaking no English, but Marina is also an Italian name from mare, meaning sea. The sea was the only thing I could find that England had in common with Italy, so I chose it as my name and tore it out to keep. Let me get the right box and show you how I clung to your memory all these years.”
She left the room and hurried upstairs. Her heart was so light she could feel it bouncing in her chest like a big helium balloon.
Rafa sat beside his father, still holding the file he had been showing Clementine. Now he showed Dante. “There was no mention of you anywhere in my uncle’s file,” he told him. “But I’m glad I’ve found you, too.”
Dante withdrew a little velvet pouch and peered inside. There, glittering through the dark, was the diamond ring he had given Floriana, and the charm bracelet from his mother. He turned the ring over in his fingers, remembering the night he had given it to her, beneath the stars overlooking the sea. He had once thought they’d grow old together.
“Now that I know who you are, I can see you have Marina’s eyes,” said Jake.
“Good God, I think you’re right,” Grey agreed. “I can’t think why we didn’t notice before. The resemblance is startling.”
“And my coloring, not that you can see because I’m now so gray,” Dante added.
“I never thought you were Baffles.” Clementine smiled at him affectionately. He grinned at her and allowed his eyes to linger before Marina returned with an old shoebox, and he had to tear them away.
She knelt in front of the sofa and opened the lid. The contents no longer afflicted her with guilt. Like grenades, they had been defused. “These are small treasured things from our brief time together. A photo of you the Mother Superior took.” She lifted it out and stared at it, amazed that the little baby in the photograph now sat before her as a man. “There, you see how sweet you were. And your blanket.” She pressed it to her nose then pulled out an envelope. “A lock of your hair. Look how blond you were. You had such fine, silky hair. Silly things,” she said dismissively, feeling foolish as she rummaged about with trembling fingers. “But they were all I had.” She lifted out a wad of letters tied with the pink ribbon with which Violetta had wrapped her birthday present. “And these, how I treasured these.” She caught Dante’s eye and smiled wistfully.
“What did you call me?” Rafa asked.
“You were christened Dante.”
He looked down at his buckle. “Well, that has always been my middle name. Rafael Dante Santoro. R.D.S. When you introduced me to Dante in Italy, everything fell into place. It was then that I knew where I came from. But I wasn’t sure I could go through with telling you. I wasn’t sure you’d want to know. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know—I hadn’t anticipated feeling a sense of rejection. But now I know the truth, I understand why I was given up. I understand that you were given no choice.”
There were so many questions Marina wanted to ask, she didn’t know where to begin. So she took his hand and asked him the one question that had worried her more than any other. “Have you had a happy life?”
He smiled down at her. “Very,” he replied.
“I am also here for another purpose,” said Dante.
“What more could there possibly be?” Jake asked, weary of yet more revelations.
“I would like to invest in your hotel.” Marina looked at Rafa and pulled a face. “Yes, Rafa told me before you came down to breakfast. Don’t be cross. I asked him why you had come, and he told me. I respect you for not having asked, but now let me make you an offer.”
“I’m embarrassed,” she said, replacing the lid on the box.
“There is nothing wrong with loving a place and doing all you can to hold on to it. I love La Magdalena and would fight with all my resources to keep it, were I in danger of losing it. Let me do this for you, because I can.” He smiled at her fondly. “And because I want to.”
She nodded in resignation, secretly pleased, for all their sakes. “Then I will hand you over to my husband,” she said, pushing herself up from the floor. “Grey understands the finances better than I do. Why don’t you talk business with him while I go and arrange lunch? I suggest we all eat together. One big family.” She looked around. “Where’s Harvey? Has anyone seen Harvey this morning?”
“He went to visit his mother yesterday evening,” said Jake. “Maybe he’s not back yet.”
“Then I must call him straightaway.” And she strode off into the kitchen.
Grey invited Dante over to the hotel to discuss business in the library. Jake returned to his duties, pleased to leave the stifling atmosphere of th
e little sitting room. Clementine and Rafa were left alone.
“So, are you still going to leave today?” she asked, thrusting her hands into her trouser pockets.
“How can I?”
“Well, you’ve found what you were looking for.”
“I’ve found more than I was looking for.” He gazed at her in that intense way of his. She averted her eyes, not wanting to hope and be disappointed. “Clementine, I found you.”
“But you didn’t want me.”
“I always wanted you. I wanted you so much it ached.” He took her in his arms. “I couldn’t expect you to love me when I was hiding my identity from you. I couldn’t risk hurting you.”
“But you did all the same.”
He traced his fingers down her face. “I’m sorry, mi amor. I never wanted to hurt the woman I love.”
“So what do we do now?” She lifted her chin defiantly.
“I suggest we enjoy the rest of the summer here. I want to spend time with Marina and share her memories. Then I will take you on a long trip around South America.”
“That’s presumptuous.”
“We will start in Argentina, then go across to Chile on horseback, up to Brazil and Mexico and Peru.” He bent his head and softly kissed her neck.
“That’s going to take a while. What will Mr. Atwood say?”
“You’re not going to work there anymore.” He placed his lips on her jawline.
“I’m not?”
“No, because you are made for better things than that.” He moved his mouth up to her cheekbone and lightly brushed her skin.
“What things might they be?” she asked weakly.
“I don’t know, but we’ll discover them together. That will be the fun of it.” Before she could say another word he pulled her against him and pressed his lips to hers. As he kissed her, all the disappointment and longing that had built up over the last weeks evaporated like summer mist.
Marina telephoned Sun Valley Nursing Home and asked for Mrs. Dovecote. There was a lengthy scuffle, the mumbling of voices, then the receptionist returned on the line to tell her there was no one of that name in the home.
“But there must be some mistake. Perhaps she’s registered under another name. Her son, Harvey Dovecote, goes to visit her regularly. Recently, he’s been going several times a week.”
“I’m sorry, there’s no one by that name, and everyone who visits has to sign in. There hasn’t been anyone by that name. I’d remember a name like Harvey Dovecote.”
Marina put down the telephone, perplexed. She thought of his nephew’s beautiful Jaguar, and her heart began to pound. He had started mentioning his nephew only recently. Wouldn’t he have mentioned him before? And if he wasn’t going to visit his mother, where was he going? If his mother wasn’t at Sun Valley, what else was he lying about? Did he have a mother at all? He was past seventy himself.
Suddenly, she had the most terrible vision. Hot with anxiety, she hurried over to her office and rummaged around in her drawer for the key to Harvey’s shed. She wasn’t sure whether she had one, having not been in it for years. However, it lay there among all the other keys, tagged and labeled. She clutched it tightly, hoping her fears were unfounded. Perhaps Harvey had a plausible explanation. However, the vision refused to go away. Without a word to anyone she stole down the garden to Harvey’s little shed, nestled at the back of the vegetable garden in the shadow of a giant horse chestnut. With a trembling hand she slotted the key into the lock and turned it.
The door whined grudgingly as the contents of Harvey’s secret life were brought into the light. She gasped in astonishment. There, in neat piles among the baler twine and Agritape were jewelry, paintings, and silver, pilfered from the grand houses he had robbed. On the shelf nailed to the wall was a neat pile of books by E. W. Hornung about Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman.
Hurriedly, she closed the door and locked it, her heart thumping frantically in her chest. No one must know about this, she thought to herself, feeling sick. At least, not until I’ve spoken to Harvey. She slipped the key into her pocket and made her way back up to the house.
Maria Carmela heard the telephone ring and knew instinctively that it was her son, Rafa. She hurried into the kitchen and picked it up. “Hola.”
“Mamá.”
“What news? I haven’t heard from you for a week.”
“I have found my biological parents.”
Maria Carmela sat down. “You have found them? Both of them?”
“Yes. Marina, the woman who owns the hotel, is Floriana. She fell in love with a man called Dante. They’re here, both of them.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m happy, Mamá. I know where I come from now, but I also know who I belong to.”
“You do?” Her voice sounded strained.
“I belong to you, Mamá. I always have.”
Maria Carmela’s heart felt as full as a bag of sunshine. “I have been so worried. You see, when Father Ascanio asked us to adopt you, I had to confide in my employer, Señora Luisa. When she took you under her wing, I feared she would take you from me, for she was the only person who knew you did not belong to us and she was enchanted by you. When you set out on this quest to find your biological mother, again I feared I’d lose you. I have always been aware that you were entrusted to us, but not one of us. I’ve always feared I would lose you one day.”
“But that makes no sense. You were the mother who kissed me good night, who read me bedtime stories, who bandaged my knee when I fell off Papa’s mare. You were the mother I ran to when I was unhappy, to whom I poured out my heart when it was broken. You are the woman who has been a mother to me in all the ways that are important. I had no other mother but you.” He sensed her emotion down the line and understood that she was too moved to speak.
“Listen, you know the girl I told you about? Clementine?”
She sniffed and composed herself. “Of course, Rafa.”
“I want to bring her to meet you.”
“You’re coming home?”
“Yes, I’m coming home.” There was a pause. Rafa could feel his mother’s happiness, and his heart swelled with joy. “She’s incredibly special. I know you’ll love her, too.”
“If you love her, then so will I. How wonderful to think that you went in search of one woman and you have found two. Tell me, hijo, was your biological mother very happy to see you?”
“Yes, she was.”
“Did you tell her how well I looked after you?”
“I told her that I have had the happiest life possible.”
“We weren’t rich.”
“Neither was she. But like you, she is rich in everything that matters.”
“I think your father would be very proud of you.” Rafa didn’t reply. “I mean it, mi amor, he would consider you very brave. You took a risk, one he would have advised against, but it has paid off.”
“I miss him.”
“And I miss him, too. He wouldn’t have approved of me giving you his brother’s box of personal items, but he would be happy to know the outcome. That you are safe, that you know where you come from, but that, above all, you still know where you belong.”
Rafa put down the telephone and pulled the little pouch out of his pocket. He tipped the ring and the bracelet into his hand. He had always wondered about the woman to whom these had once belonged. He lifted his eyes to the window and saw Marina and Clementine beneath the cedar tree with Biscuit. He had arrived with a sense of dislocation, as if the truth about his birth had cut him off by the roots. Now he realized that those roots had never really been severed, for Maria Carmela and Lorenzo would always be his parents.
What changed now was his future. In his search for his mother he had found Clementine, and she had altered everything. Suddenly, he felt the desire to commit, to settle down and raise a family of his own. Floriana and Dante had not enjoyed a happy ending together, but he and Clementine could. He clenched his fingers around the jewelry. With Ma
rina’s blessing, he’d give the jewelry that had once meant so much to Floriana, to Clementine.
That night, in order to distract herself from Harvey’s hoard of stolen treasure, Marina sat on the bench at the bottom of the garden with Costanza’s letters and the half-written letter Father Ascanio had never sent. The sea murmured gently below her, and the moon lit a silver river across the water to Jesus’ marble kingdom, where he had finally answered her prayer. She pulled her shawl around her shoulders and opened Father Ascanio’s first. She switched on the torch and read his tidy, looped writing.
My dear Floriana,
I trust this finds you well in your body and healing in your heart. You are a very brave girl, and I am immensely proud of you. You have conducted yourself throughout your ordeal with great dignity and strength.
I would have given anything for you to have remained in Herba where I could keep a fatherly eye on you, but as I explained at the convent, your life and the life of your son are in grave danger. This was the only way. Beppe Bonfanti is a very powerful man, capable of silencing his enemies in the most brutal manner. Therefore, I’m afraid I cannot forward any of your letters to Costanza—as her father now works for Beppe, it is too dangerous. No one must ever know where you are.
It grieves me greatly to inform you that Father Severo, who I have trusted for over fifteen years, overheard my conversation with Dante and let slip our secret to your father. He has confessed and is full of remorse. I felt it only right that he should leave Herba.
Trust me, my dear child, when I tell you that your little boy has been given to the most loving couple and will be brought up in the Catholic faith by an Italian family. You have given him the best possible start in life by your sacrifice. God knows what it has cost you, and I pray that He comforts you as you settle into your new home.
The Mermaid Garden Page 43
