by Iris Danbury
ISLAND OF MERMAIDS
Iris Danbury
Living in Capri and in love with Kent Sanderby, Althea should have been in the seventh heaven of delight. And so she would have been—if she had had any reason to suppose Kent felt the same way about her!
CHAPTER ONE
Althea was convinced that no garden could ever have been designed with a more enchanting view. From this villa high up on the island of Capri the whole Bay of Naples curved in a wide arc punctuated by other islands, Ischia and Procida. Naples was a gleaming white cluster and Vesuvius, capped with its rosy smoke cloud, towered over the plains. Farther away the Apennine mountains outlined a snow-tipped background.
‘This lovely view makes me eternally lazy,’ Althea said to her father, resting on a long cane chair.
‘An island for lotus-eaters to dream away their lives,’ he replied. ‘But perhaps it doesn’t harm us to spend a little time in idling, especially with such views to gaze on and living in such comfortable surroundings. I wish I’d done more of it when I was young.’
That might have been sensible, reflected Althea, for overwork had brought her father, Lawrence Buckland, to the verge of a complete nervous breakdown.
In the twelve years since his wife, Althea’s mother, had died, he had applied himself wholeheartedly to his business, a small textile firm in London, importing Italian and French silks and exporting fine English and Scottish woollens and tweeds.
His life revolved around his frequent visits to Milan and Rome and Paris, to Yorkshire and Scottish mills, a never-ending cycle of plane flights, train journeys, hotels and business meetings.
Since leaving school Althea had worked in his London office, dealing with the intricacies of customs duties and purchase tax, learning from her father the different techniques applied to natural or man-made fibres, as well as the art of interesting modern fashion-buyers in an exclusive design.
But she could not save him from the final collapse when the doctor had said, ‘Give everything up. Sell your business. Retire—or at least spend a year in some place remote from telephones and cables and business lunches. If you don’t, then the consequences are not far off.’
The decision had been hard for Lawrence Buckland to face, but Althea had insisted. She found a buyer for the business, dealt shrewdly and successfully with the negotiations in consultation with her father and helped to find new jobs for his displaced staff.
Then had come the matter of finding a place to stay, somewhere restful, mild and sunny. The sitting-room in the Bucklands’ house had been almost knee-deep in cruise brochures and travel agents’ literature, but Lawrence had little enthusiasm for anything offered.
Then one day a business friend called, an English manufacturer whom Lawrence had frequently met both in London and Milan. He knew of a Signora Marchetti who owned a villa in Capri and might be able to offer accommodation.
‘She lost her husband three years ago,’ the friend explained, ‘and she’d probably be glad of a little extra money. I know her personally. In fact, I’ve stayed at her villa myself with my wife. I’ll arrange it for you if you decide.’
So now Althea and her father had been staying nearly two months at Signora Marchetti’s lovely Villa Stefano on the slopes of the village of Anacapri.
The arrangement worked well both in the matter of privacy and company. At some time in the past a single-storey extension had been built on to the villa, connected by a corridor to the main part. It was almost a separate suite with its own front door to the garden, a hall, two bedrooms and a sitting-room and a very well-appointed bathroom.
‘It’s like the gingerbread house out of Hansel and Gretel!’ Althea exclaimed as soon as she saw this attractive apartment.
She and her father took their meals with Signora Marchetti and her daughter Carlotta, a girl slightly younger than Althea; the Signora’s cook, Rosanna, delighted in creating tempting dishes for the English signore and the signorina.
Now as Althea and her father dreamed away the afternoon in the Villa garden, the sound of singing floated out to them. Carlotta was practising. The girl possessed an excellent soprano voice and once a week her teacher came over from Naples to visit half a dozen pupils in various parts of the island.
Carlotta, more often called ‘Carla’, had confided to Althea that she would prefer the reverse arrangement. ‘If I could go to Naples for my lesson with the maestro, I would have a chance to see some life. Here in Capri I meet no one, there is no gaiety. I am at the convent in Sorrento until I am eighteen and now for a whole year I remain doing nothing except help Mama or telephone for the groceries.’
‘At least the convent taught you to speak excellent English,’ replied Althea. ‘That should be very useful if you intend to make singing your career.’
Carla laughed. ‘Do you believe that Mamma would allow me to become a professional singer? That is only for women who do not wish to marry and have a husband and babies. Also, to sing for the money is in her eyes a trifle vulgar.’
‘Then why does she encourage you to have lessons?’ Althea asked.
‘It gives her pleasure to hear me sing, especially when she invites her friends here or perhaps we attend their dinners. But it must be no more than an amusement, you understand, like painting or embroidery.’
Now, as Carla practised scales, first legato, then staccato, every note true and liquid, then proceeded to arias from the operas or traditional Italian songs, Althea thought what a waste of talent. The girl had no incentive, no ambition; either she would drift into a suitable marriage arranged, no doubt, by her mother, or she would break out from her restricted life and possibly find herself in difficulties. Already she had tasted a few harmless, but forbidden, pleasures.
‘Last year,’ she told Althea, ‘an Englishman came to stay near here at the Villa Castagna. It is almost a ruin near the edge of the sea, but he liked music and he gave some parties.’ The girl’s dark eyes sparkled at the memory. ‘Oh, they were wonderful parties, very gay and much laughter. Of course, Mamma did not know, for she thought I was safely in bed, but I slipped out of a side door each time and came back in the dawn.’
‘Did your mother not approve of this man?’
Carla placed her hands together and rolled her eyes upwards. ‘She thinks he is very wicked. Why, I could not say, but she declares he has an evil reputation and invites only impossible people from the wrong parts of Naples.’
‘And did these people seem like that to you?’ queried Althea.
‘Not at all. But you must realise that Mamma cannot forget that she is the niece of an admiral, even though her own father was nothing so grand. So she is extremely—what do you call the word—snob?’
‘Snobbish,’ supplied Althea. ‘What does the Englishman do? Just come here for a holiday?’
‘No. He is a composer. He comes here to work on his opera, and once or twice when I was able to avoid Mamma I went to his villa and he played some times for me and I sang them. Oh, I hope he will come again this year in the summer. If perhaps he would fall in love with me, then I could marry him and escape. He would take me away to a marvellous life. London, Paris, New York.’ Carla whirled around the room, hope in her eyes and an ecstatic smile on her face. ‘His name is Kent.’
Althea was filled with pity that a girl so attractive as Carla, with her dark brown eyes, delicate features and a cloud of almost black hair, should have to consider a chance-met tourist as a means of escape through marriage from what appeared to be a happy and comfortable life with Signora Marchetti. Such a prospect as marrying the wild but musical Mr. Kent seemed very remote indeed.
The singing ended and Carla had evidently finished her practice for the day. Althea shook herself out of her dreamy state and announced that if h
er father had no objection she would take a walk for an hour or so before dinner.
‘Certainly, my dear, go and explore,’ her father agreed. ‘In due course I hope to see much more of the byways and interesting corners of this lovely island.’
‘When you’re stronger,’ she promised with a hint of threat that he was not to be encouraged to overtax his strength.
In her bedroom she tidied herself and changed her crumpled dress, choosing a tawny linen that suited her slender fairness and added a sparkle to her grey-green eyes.
She walked to the little piazza of Anacapri, then along the village street where the shops were reopening after the siesta. At the end of the village the houses stopped abruptly and she was in open country among the terraced vineyards with the slopes of Monte Solaro, the highest point on the island, on her left. When she reached the Belvedere della Migliara she paused, for from this look-out point the most entrancing bird’s-eye view demanded attention. Away to the left were the Faraglioni rocks, jagged sugarloaves standing in amethyst isolation out of the darker sea. Directly below she could see the inlet of the Green Grotto. Everyone knew about the famous Blue Grotto, but until she had arrived in Capri, Althea did not know that other grottoes existed, some of them known and exploited by the Romans.
On her way back to the Villa Stefano she took a narrow path that she believed might be a short cut, but it proved deceptive and led her right into the grounds of another villa. Oh well, she could probably find a way round without trespassing, and so after walking through a clump of chestnut trees she found herself in what seemed to be a garden full of ruins. Two old stone arches must be all that remained of some former building, and the ground was littered with fragments of broken marble and pieces of twisted ironwork.
Some of the marble still glowed with colour, deep reds and rain-washed greens. She bent down to examine one piece more closely when she was startled by a voice.
‘What the devil are you doing there?’ exclaimed a man’s angry voice in English.
She straightened up, but in turning quickly she lost her balance as her foot twisted on a loose stone and the next instant she had fallen backwards down a rough slope.
A pair of strong arms seized her shoulders and against the sky she saw a man’s face contorted with anger.
‘What on earth are you up to?’ barked a harsh voice almost in her ear. ‘If you want to commit suicide perhaps you’d kindly choose someone else’s precipice!’
She was in a sitting position now on a very sharp and uncomfortable piece of rock. ‘Suicide?’ she queried. ‘If you hadn’t startled me out of my wits, I shouldn’t have fallen. You could have told me I was trespassing and I’d have gone away immediately.’
She now saw that the man was young with lean dark features and a pair of keen blue eyes. His blue open-neck shirt disclosed a patch of white, untanned skin much paler than his face.
‘I’m sorry I frightened you, but you were in a highly dangerous spot. Another yard or two and you might have rolled clean down the precipice into the sea, and that’s quite a drop, I assure you.’ He helped her to her feet. ‘Are you hurt? Sprained your ankle or anything?’
‘It’s my shoulder.’ She put up her hand to rub her right shoulder and winced with the pain.
‘You’d better come indoors,’ the man invited.
He helped her over the rough ground until they came in sight of a pink-washed villa with a vine-covered pergola. He placed a chair for her, then fetched a bowl of water and a towel.
‘You’ve a graze or two on your arm. Nothing very much when I’ve cleaned it up. Are you staying near here?’
‘At the Villa Stefano.’
‘Friends of yours?’ he queried.
‘Well, no. My father has rented part of the villa for the summer. He’s been ill and needs rest.’
‘I see. My name’s Sanderby. I came yesterday. I’m hoping to be able to spend a couple of months here. I’m trying to repair this villa and make it more habitable. That place where you fell is the site of one of the Emperor Tiberio’s old villas—or at least, so the tale goes.’
She groaned slightly as he lifted her shoulder to wind a bandage around the top of her arm. ‘Thank you for your first aid,’ she said.
‘Rather clumsy, I’m afraid. It’s not my kind of job. If you have real trouble with that shoulder muscle, see a doctor, Miss—er?’
‘Buckland,’ she answered shortly. ‘Althea Buckland.’
She rose to go, but he interrupted with, ‘I can’t offer you a dainty English tea, I’m afraid, but perhaps you’ll have a glass of wine?’
‘No, thank you,’ she replied.
He began to smile. ‘On what grounds are you refusing? Don’t you like the local wines or is it that you won’t drink a friendly glass with me in my house?’
‘Neither. If you’ll show me the way, I’d like to get back to the Villa Stefano. I’ll promise not to intrude on your property again.’
‘What English chilliness!’ he murmured. ‘All right, have it your own way, although I assure you I have some excellent Marsala in stock.’
She emphasised her refusal by turning away and walking to what she thought would be the path that led through his garden back to the main road.
‘Not that way, if you’re sure you really must go. There’s a path up this way that will lead you straight to the Villa Stefano.’
He accompanied her until she was in sight of the villa. ‘You can hardly lose your way now,’ he said. ‘I apologise for leaving Tiberio’s ruins in a place where you fell over them, but I hope the shoulder won’t give you trouble.’
She knew that the coolness in his voice was merely a cover for hidden laughter and the look in his blue eyes infuriated her.
‘Goodbye, Mr. Sanderby,’ she said decisively, and hurried towards the villa.
No one was in the garden and Althea slipped into the ‘gingerbread house’ and to her bedroom without meeting her father or anyone else in the household. She had already decided to say nothing of this encounter with the Englishman. Yet, she asked herself, what inexplicable reason made her want to hush up the incident? This was a question she could not answer, but she would certainly take care not to intrude again, as she had said, on Mr. Sanderby or his ruins.
For tonight she had to choose a dress with sleeves that would hide the smaller bandage she had managed to apply.
Even so, it happened that as Carla went to her place at the dinner-table, she touched Althea’s shoulder. Althea could not smother the sharp gasp of pain and her father looked at her in surprise.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said glibly. ‘I knocked my arm against a piece of wall when I was out this afternoon.’ That was probably true enough even though the piece of wall had been lying on the ground at the time of impact.
After dinner Carla decided to sing and asked Althea to play the accompaniment. Althea did her best, but afterwards Carla reproached her. ‘You did not play well for me tonight, but perhaps it is your arm that hurts you.’
‘Oh, it’ll be all right by tomorrow,’ Althea returned airily.
She was uneasy that so much attention was being focused on this trivial injury.
Next afternoon she was sitting in the garden with her father when she was amazed to see Carla coming across the lawn, followed by Mr. Sanderby, spruced up today in a pale beige jacket and trousers with a white silk shirt and well-polished brown shoes.
‘Kent has come to visit you,’ announced Carla, her face twisted into a scowl. ‘He wants to know about your arm.’
‘Mr. Buckland? I’m Kent Sanderby.’ The young man held out his hand to Althea’s father, then turned towards her. ‘No really bad effects from yesterday’s adventure, Miss Buckland?’
Althea was almost too astonished to make any reply other than a jumbled murmur. So this was the composer who was such a powerful magnet to Carla! Of course Althea had wrongly assumed that his surname was Kent. Carla had not indicated that it was his first name.
Already the two men, a g
eneration apart, were talking happily together. Carla sat upright and silent on a garden chair and glared at Althea.
‘Are you sure that your arm is not painful?’ insisted Kent Sanderby.
‘I’ve told you! It’s quite all right,’ Althea snapped the words, but was immediately sorry for that flash of temper, for she noticed a brief satisfied smile cross Carla’s face.
The girl brightened when Mr. Sanderby turned towards her. ‘And how are the singing lessons, my dear Carla?’
‘My teacher says I sing like an angel, but he does not really know, for he has never heard an angel. He is too old, also, and I wish I could go to Naples for lessons from a better teacher.’
‘And preferably a younger one?’ Kent teased her, and laughed when she blushed.
Rosanna came out with a tray of coffee and little cakes, and Carla acted as hostess until her mother appeared. Signora Marchetti gave Kent Sanderby a polite, but cool, greeting. ‘So you have come back again,’ she said as though he were a bad penny that had turned up again.
‘Last year I could only attend to the foundations of my villa,’ he explained easily, ‘but this time, if I can stay long enough, I hope to repair some of the walls and roof.’
Signora Marchetti shrugged her plump shoulders. ‘Is it any use? One day your villa will fall into the sea. It is too near the edge.’
‘Not so near as to be dangerous,’ he answered mildly. ‘It’s only venturesome young women who clamber about and trip over broken marble columns.’ He gave Althea a meaning glance, and she could cheerfully have killed him with her return glare.
‘Oh, was it there that you fell against the wall?’ queried her father, obtusely pushing her farther into this awkward situation.
