“That’s the problem,” said Viola, twirling around in her little pink and white chair. “I feel as if Lord Warburton must always be a stranger to me—always. No matter how long I knew him. And I don’t need to know him any better than I already do . . . do I? In truth?”
The two exchanged a long look. Then Libby bent and kissed her stepdaughter. “No,” she said. “You needn’t do anything you don’t want to do.”
“Ah, if only that were true!” exclaimed Viola, burying her face in Mimi’s silky fur.
“What must you do? You’re not at the convent anymore. You don’t have lessons.”
“No, and I’m glad of it. I never knew how glad, till you came.” She gave a little shudder. “It was very gloomy there. So quiet. It seemed the sun never shone inside those stone walls. I miss the music lessons, that’s all.”
“Well then,” said Libby. She stepped back and surveyed the girl’s golden braid critically. “It always comes out crooked when I do it,” she said. “I have not enough patience.”
“But I still must do certain things—even things that I want very much to do.”
“Oh?” Libby undid the braid and began over again.
“I must always please my father,” said Viola. “That is the most essential thing. I must not play my flute too much, nor ask for music lessons.”
Libby did not answer this. Instead she said musingly, “Do I feel like a stranger to you also?”
“No,” said Viola. “You seem like the most familiar person in the world to me. Around you I feel—well, almost as brave as you are!”
Libby’s hands trembled in the girl’s soft hair. “I wish I were as brave as you think me!” she exclaimed.
Chapter Fifteen
Soon, too soon, it seemed to Libby, her bravery was tested. Osmond sought her out one night, as he seldom did anymore. He needed her help, he explained, in identifying duplicates in his stamp collection. It was a very fine collection that he owned, of valuable, old stamps. Some differences were so subtle that it required an expert eye to tell the difference in coloration. For this purpose, he had laid out two magnifying glasses on his large ebony desk. Libby had already gone to bed, but she dutifully put on a robe and came downstairs to help. Viola had been asleep for hours. Osmond had laid out everything for this work of identification.
“In my early collecting days,” Osmond told his wife, “I sometimes got carried away and bought the same thing twice. I’ve always had a contempt for collectors who have two of everything. One is sufficient. One is perfect.”
“Yet you’ve had two wives,” observed Libby.
“Not at the same time,” said Osmond with a thin smile.
“You never do speak of her.”
“There is so little to say. She died young.” He handed Libby the smaller of the two magnifying glasses and gave her instructions on what to look for. “But as we are speaking of marriage, I should ask—what are Lord Warburton’s intentions, do you think?”
“His . . . intentions?” asked Libby faintly, setting down the magnifying glass. At a glance from her husband, she picked it up again. “I’m sure he has no intentions in that direction.”
“I hope you are wrong,” said Osmond. “He was interested enough once to ask you to marry him.”
“That was a long time ago,” said Libby. “It’s all in the past.”
“For you of course. But I’m not speaking of you. He’s still a young man, relatively speaking.”
“Of whom are you speaking then?”
“Don’t be a fool. I’m thinking of Viola.”
Now Libby did lay down the magnifying glass, with a clatter that made her husband frown deeply. “Viola is a child!”
“She is sixteen. In ancient Rome, she’d be a matron by now, with a family of her own.”
“We are not living in ancient Rome!” exclaimed Libby, her color high in her cheekbones. She had grown quite thin over the past several months.
“More’s the pity,” observed her husband. “I believe I would have preferred it.”
“Yes, I think you would,” she said.
“In any event, she could pass for eighteen,” he went on. “If dressed properly.”
“Are you saying we should lie to Lord Warburton?”
“Why must you always put things in the ugliest light?” he said. “Kindly look for the stamp with a small blue flower and a crown on top,” he added. “I don’t ask for your help very often. You could at least try.”
She picked up the glass again with a look of resignation and devoted herself to studying the stamps laid out in albums in front of her. There were a great many designs, so many it made her head swim.
“I believe you still have influence over our visitor. I would take it as a great favor if you would encourage Lord Warburton, in regard to Viola.”
“And if I can’t . . . ?”
He looked at her directly. “I would look upon it as an act of the worst disloyalty. Things between us could get very ugly.”
“Uglier than they are right now?”
“You have never seen me truly angry,” he said.
“Are you trying to frighten me?” she said. “Here—here is your stamp.” She pushed it across the table at him.
He looked at it, shook his head, and pushed it back with the tips of two fingers. “I said pale blue. You must pay attention. Patience. I’m not trying to frighten you, Elizabeth. I am encouraging you to be a positive helpmeet to me—for once. Just because he didn’t suit you, we can’t pretend that Warburton wouldn’t make a very good husband for someone. He has every possible virtue.”
“For someone—yes.”
“Why not for Viola? I have high aspirations for my daughter. I see no reason why she shouldn’t have a fortune of her own. Thanks to you, she’s done with the convent now. She has nothing useful to do. They appear to get along, the two of them. I see nothing on earth to stand against it—unless for some reason of your own you are hoping to keep him single.”
“Why would I hope to do that?” demanded Libby.
“Why indeed?” said Osmond. “Unless perhaps, on the off chance . . . it might be useful for you to keep him waiting in the wings.”
She set down the magnifying glass, quietly this time, and put her head in her hands. “You do not know me at all,” she said. “It’s as if we’d never met. As if we’d never lived together as husband and wife.”
“I am glad to be wrong,” he said in a slightly mollified voice. “Then you will help?”
She looked at him. “What if—what if she prefers to wait?”
He laughed. “Who or what is she waiting for? Men like Warburton don’t come along every day. Don’t be a fool.”
“She is still very young.”
He shrugged. “Will you help me or not? That is the only question.”
“I will see what I can do,” she said wearily. “Here. This one is pale blue. With four petals.” She slid it across the table, and he studied it closely for a moment.
“What will you do with it?” she asked.
“The spare?” He shrugged again. “It’s not worth much. And of course, the more there are in circulation, the less valuable they become. It’s a pretty little thing,” he said, leaning a little closer. “But I suppose I will have to destroy it.”
The Countess Gemini, returned from her travels abroad, attached herself at once to Lord Warburton. They made an extremely odd couple—she was so small and curvy and glittering and he so tall and square and plain. Yet they got along well. The Countess liked to provoke him, with her sharp jokes and barbs, and he seemed to relish being provoked. She took in everything with her sharp, dark eyes, like the eyes of some wild woodland animal perched on a Louis Quinze sofa. At that moment she was watching him pick up a pair of Libby’s light-blue gloves. He touched them with one large forefinger, as tenderly as a big man could appear to do anything, and then he set them gently back down again.
“Your brother is very clever,” he told her.
“Yes,
he had a genius for upholstery.” They looked at each other and smiled. “And what do you think of my niece?” asked the Countess Gemini. Viola was perched on a high stool not far away, dabbing a paintbrush into a bowl of water to clean it. Her painted pear now looked very much like a painted pear.
Lord Warburton set his cup of tea down in its saucer. “I think she is the dearest little maid in the world,” he said.
“She’s very young,” answered the Countess.
“How old is she, exactly? No one will give me a straight answer.”
“I mean for her age. She is young for her age.”
“Well, whatever age she is, I think she is perfect.”
“What do you like best about her?” asked the Countess bluntly.
“Best?” asked Lord Warburton.
“Yes,” said the Countess. “I can see you do like her. But what do you like best about her?”
“What a funny question,” said Lord Warburton.
“I don’t think so,” insisted the Countess. “I could easily tell you what I like best about people. There is a woman of my acquaintance, for instance, an Italian noblewoman—but I won’t risk boring you with exquisite details. What I love best about my niece is very simple. I love her innocence. It is so rare and precious—even to someone as jaded as me. I’m not sure I was ever as good as Viola, even as a small child. Her heart is as pure as a pane of glass.”
“But not as fragile, I hope,” said Lord Warburton with a smile.
“I hope not as well. And of course, she is quite beautiful.”
“But that’s not what we like best about her,” said her companion.
“And so?” The Countess measured out a glass of sherry for herself. She never drank tea if she could avoid it. It seemed to her a barbaric drink, like most things English.
“She is very sweet tempered.”
“So she is, indeed,” agreed the Countess. “She has been carefully trained for that.”
“I think it is charming,” said Lord Warburton staunchly, watching the young lady in question hesitate with her hand over the watercolor paper, brush in hand. She was pursing her lips in concentration, oblivious to everything else in the world.
“No doubt . . . but are you sure it’s what you like best about her?”
“Is there some quality I am too dense to see?”
The Countess looked significantly at Libby’s pair of pale-blue gloves lying on the table, the leather fingers touching almost in an attitude of prayer. “Are you sure it isn’t her proximity to someone else?”
Lord Warburton flushed. His eyes looked very deep at that instant. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “What do you take me for?”
The Countess did not answer this. She took a sip of her sherry and eyed Lord Warburton over the rim of the glass. She said, “We can’t help whom we love. But we can choose what to do about it. Whom we put at risk.”
Warburton set the tea down on the small glass table beside him with a clatter. He spoke in a soft voice, but the tone was urgent. “Do you believe I am endangering her? If so, you must tell me at once.”
The Countess touched his knee. “You are speaking of the stepmother. I am thinking of my niece. My brother is a very determined man. He does not think of his daughter as a child, but rather as . . . an asset. It is not wise to disappoint him. I speak from experience.”
“I see,” said Lord Warburton. He glanced around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. He looked at the fine china in which his tea had been served, the sweets and rolls, carefully purchased and laid out. He felt on his broad shoulders the early spring sunlight filtering faintly through the barred windows. “I will go home to Ireland tomorrow,” he said.
“Be sure to send a note,” she said. “And make a very good excuse. Osmond cares that the forms be observed.”
“But he won’t be happy no matter what I say.”
She gave him a long piercing look. “No . . . he won’t be happy. Thank God you are not responsible for my brother’s happiness.”
“But he will take it out on her.”
“He may likely take it out on both of them, but it will pass. And now,” she said, rising, “it really isn’t wise for me to appear to have spent this much time talking to you. I am lucky that our hosts were out this morning.”
“I suspect luck had little to do with it!” exclaimed Lord Warburton.
The black marble clock ticked audibly in the villa’s parlor. Countess Gemini was absent; only Osmond, Viola, and Libby sat together. The things were laid out for a late afternoon tea, and had remained untouched. Now it was growing dark. There was an air of expectancy in the room; everyone in it was waiting for something. Finally it came—a muffled knock at the door, and a note was delivered. Libby opened it, read it, and laid it down without a word.
“He isn’t coming tonight?” inquired Osmond. “Has your English friend taken ill?”
“He’s been called back to Ireland on business,” she said. “Something came up that required his attention.”
“His attention,” echoed Osmond, his lips compressed. “I wonder that he didn’t phone, at least. This is the twentieth century.”
“The British are very formal people.”
“What else did he say?”
“You are welcome to read the note yourself.” She handed the paper to her husband, who scanned it, twice, then tossed it down.
“He says very little. We deserved better.” Looking at the small sofa where his daughter sat erect with a frightened look, her hands clasped in her lap, he said, “Viola, go upstairs.”
She fled upstairs to her room and shut the door. When the door had closed, Osmond turned to his wife with a look of fury.
“So you warned him away,” he said. “You defy me in everything.”
“I do nothing of the kind,” she answered. “Quite the opposite. I try to please you every way I can, in good conscience.”
“In good conscience,” he mocked. “In good conscience!”
“Yes,” she said evenly. “I still do have one.”
“So you admit that you sent him away—against my wishes! Against everything I desired. Against me.”
“I admit nothing of the kind. I did nothing of the kind.”
“Then why this sudden flight?” he asked. He snatched up the note again and waved it in her face. “A business matter of some urgency. He doesn’t even bother to make a decent excuse! It’s an embarrassment.”
“If it is, the embarrassment should be mine. He is an old friend. Perhaps I bored him.”
“It was your job to keep him entertained—not too entertained. That is all. And even that small task you couldn’t manage.”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a helpless gesture.
“I am deeply disappointed,” he said. “Bitterly. Do you understand? I hope he will return soon. I hope you will find some inducement to make him return.”
“What inducement could I possibly find?” she asked.
He gathered up his things and prepared to go. “I leave it in your capable hands.”
Chapter Sixteen
The next several days were very quiet, indeed somber, at the Osmond villa. The at-home salons had been canceled till further notice. The Countess Gemini still paid occasional calls, but she too observed the difference.
“If possible, your house is even deadlier than my own,” she announced with a sigh.
“Don’t feel obliged to come so often,” Osmond said.
“Well, you needn’t blame me,” she said. “I have nothing to do with the sudden quiet of your life.”
He was paring his fingernails with a short, sharp knife. “If I thought you had, I’d cut you out without another thought,” he said.
Libby returned home from a visit into the city to discover Viola almost in a state of hysterics in her room. Her weeping sounded like the cries of a wild animal. Libby had never seen such an outpouring of emotion from the child; she would not have believed her capable of it. Libby felt her own heart stop inside he
r breast.
“What is it? What’s happened?” she managed to choke out. Her mind went through the desperate possibilities, but Viola was sobbing too hard to answer. She could not catch her breath. This storm of emotion was so unlike the girl that it made her unrecognizable. Viola wailed and clutched a small silk pillow to her middle, rocking back and forth in a paroxysm of grief. “Mimi is gone!” was all she could say for several minutes.
Libby sat on the bed and put her arms around the girl. “Has she run off? Cats do that. We will find her, surely. I’ll put up notices all over Rome.”
Viola shook her head. The look she gave to Libby was full of despair. “Papa sent her away,” she said. “On purpose. He said she was nothing—but a—loathsome nuisance.”
There was no answer Libby could give to this. She stroked the girl’s bright hair and kissed her face, and rocked her in her helpless arms.
That evening a very quiet trio sat downstairs together. Osmond read, licking his forefinger each time he turned a page. Libby plied her needlepoint, and Viola sat very still. Now and again, in an automatic gesture, she stroked the fabric of the sofa beside her. The clock ticked audibly, and every creak and noise in the old villa seemed magnified.
At last Osmond put his finger in the pages of his book, and peered over his reading glasses at the two silent women. “Well, this is a pleasant change,” he said. “We don’t miss that awful music, do we, Viola?”
“No, Papa,” said Viola in a high, dutiful voice.
“It gave me headaches. Another time, perhaps you’ll play again. Something quieter. And that smelly little cat—you don’t miss her much either, I presume.”
“Not—not so very much.” Here the voice quavered. A few seconds later, Viola excused herself and went up to her room.
Osmond went back to his reading. But Libby turned on him. “Why do you torture the girl?” she demanded.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, without glancing up from his book. After a page or so, he rubbed his forehead, as if he had a headache. “It’s not good for her to become too attached to anything,” he said. Then he added, “When she is grown, and married, and has a home of her own, she can have as many musical instruments and cats as she likes. As many as her husband will abide.”
Beauty and Attention: A Novel Page 18
