She bit her lip, her cheeks scarlet, and shook her head.
His smile died. The mischief remained, tinged with sudden and unexpected malice. ‘You sure about that? I ain’t seen you spendin’ much time with that husband o’ yours tonight. An’ he, sure as damn’it, ain’t come chasin’ after you, has he?’
She felt as if he had slapped her. Deep colour flooded her cheeks. She looked down at her hands that had clenched to small white fists upon the table. There was a long silence. She lifted her head at last, her face composed. He was watching her, pale eyes alight and thoughtful. ‘Thank you for your very good advice,’ she said, pleasantly, pushing her chair back and rising, chin up. ‘And for letting me look at your lovely books. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’ She was proud of herself. Somewhere within her his words had released a surging rage, that screamed for release like an evil genie from a bottle. Her guts twisted with it, painfully. It was almost all she could do not to show it.
‘Don’t be daft, gel.’ His voice was suddenly mild, even conciliatory, ‘It was me disturbed you as I remember it. Sit down fer God’s sake – I get a crick in me neck if I look up, even at a slip of a thing like you.’
The unexpectedness of it took her off guard, as he undoubtedly had known it would. For a moment the obscure commiseration in the words brought a painful lump to her throat. After a moment’s hesitation she sat down again, with an ungainly thump.
“‘Thy love to me was wonderful—”’ the old voice was very quiet, ‘“—passing the love of women—’
She was stunned by his perception. ‘That’s David and Jonathan, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘Book of Samuel.’ He chuckled suddenly and wickedly, ‘Now you can truly say you’ve heard the devil quote Holy Scriptures with your own ears!’ He seemed to find the idea inordinately funny, quaking with laughter.
She had to laugh with him, and the laughter was genuine.
The strange old man regarded her with twinkling, running eyes. ‘I like you, gel,’ he said, briskly. ‘Come again. Come often. We can talk about books. No one else around here’s interested in talkin’ about books. They’re all too busy scribbling pictures. Or choppin’ up inoffensive bits of stone. ’Cept Arthur of course – an’ he doesn’t want to talk about books, he wants ter dissect ’em. Thinks he knows better than them as wrote them what they’re about—’
She smiled. ‘I’d like to.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
‘’Course. Hand me me cane, would yer, gel?’
She handed it to him, watched as he struggled to his feet, knowing instinctively that he neither wanted nor needed her help. When she stood her eyes were on a level with his, so wizened was he. ‘I don’t suppose—?’ she found herself asking.
‘Hm?’ he eyed her sharply.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever come across a man called Danilo O’Donnel? Danny O’Donnel? Half Irish, half Italian. A sculptor, I think. He’d be – I don’t know – about twenty-eight or twenty-nine now—?’
He did her the courtesy of thinking about it, his painted brow wrinkled. Then he shook his head, positively. ‘No.’
Despite all her efforts a bleak flicker of disappointment showed in her face. This had been her last hope.
He held up a veined and corded hand. ‘But then – I’ve a terrible head for names. Always have had. People remember me. Don’t have to remember them.’ He went off into another wheezing cackle of laughter. ‘You leave it more than a couple of days to come back, an’ I’ll have forgotten yours, I promise you. I’ll ask. About your sculptor. Ask some of the others. Come back tomorrow. Your Robert has undoubtedly already received the invitation—’ the old voice was suddenly waspish, ‘an’ if he’s goin’ ter monopolize Arthur, don’t see why I shouldn’t monopolize you! Danny O’Donnel. I’ll ask. Do what I can.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Now—’ the testiness had not gone, ‘p’raps you’d be good enough to prise your husband from our pretty Arthur’s side and take him home? Or I daresay they’ll be up all night worshipping at the altar of that mountebank Byron. It’s too much to hope, I suppose, that your Robert doesn’t find the man as fascinatingly heroic as soft-headed Arthur does?’
She laughed. ‘As a matter of fact he does. And as a matter of fact so do I.’
He shook his head in unaffected gloom. ‘The youth of today! Bird-witted and led by the nose by a posturing poet! Oh, you’ll have to come back, gel – whether you like it or not. Someone’s got ter teach yer ter tell the dross from the gold—!’
* * *
Theo Carradine, undoubtedly the most bizarre candidate for bosom friendship that Jessica had encountered turned out to be, to her surprise and his delighted amusement, a most entertaining, engaging and stimulating companion, and one with whom she thoroughly enjoyed spending her time. An unexpected and warm relationship blossomed from that moment of first meeting, the usual preliminaries of friendship disposed of in typical style by Theo’s testy reminder that such time-wasting tactics were for the young and not for those unfortunates with one foot in the grave.
Jessica laughed. ‘Don’t be silly. You aren’t that old!’
‘You think not?’ The shrewd, almost colourless eyes twinkled. ‘That’s all you know! And – what’s more – that’s all you’re goin’ ter know! Needn’t think yer goin’ ter wheedle me age out of me, so there! Not fer a thousand guineas! My secret. A gel’s entitled to her secrets. An’ if her age ain’t one of them I don’t know what is!’ He chuckled at the expression on her face. One of the delights of this relationship for him, she knew, was the ease with which his sometimes outrageous conversational tricks could take her off guard. Certainly she found disconcerting this occasional habit of his of referring to himself as a member of the female sex. He pointed with his cane. ‘Now – fetch me that book, there’s a good gel – the one we were lookin’ at yesterday – there’s somethin’ I want ter show you—’
The man was a positive fount of knowledge. Grotesque, unprincipled, degenerate, debauched, he was most certainly all of those things. But what his detractors had failed to tell her was that he had a mind like a needle, a questing soul and a memory like an encyclopaedia. A professed creedless, godless, atheist, yet he could, if the mood took him, discuss not only the various and fascinating facets of Christianity but the beliefs and ideals of Islam as well with a quite remarkable depth of perception and understanding. If the mood did not take him he dismissed them all, with his yellowed grin, as mindless hypocrites. His knowledge and appreciation of the arts was, he informed Jessica, the product of a lifetime’s passionate study and a total lack of any kind of talent. In his company the city’s galleries, that she had visited so often, suddenly gave up their secrets and became exciting places of discovery. He discoursed, in his dry, drawling irreverent way, upon technique, perspective, colour and form and she suddenly found herself looking at paintings she had seen a dozen times before with new eyes. The pencil sketches of the Master, Michelangelo, which in her ignorance she had hardly noticed before, were a passion with him; indeed he had in the library a priceless original, a series of sketches of a woman’s head that he was certain was the model for the sculpture of Dawn in the so-called New Sacristy of the Church of Saint Lorenzo. Together they studied Titian and Raphael, Botticelli and da Vinci. They visited the Laurentian Library, which was to Jessica something of a disappointment. ‘Your books are much more interesting.’
‘’Course they are. But my library wasn’t designed by Michelangelo.’ His stick tapped hard on the floor. ‘Still, you’re right. We’re wasting time. Come. Come. We’ll take another look at the Magi. See if you can remember the faces I pointed out to you in the procession. A glass of champagne for every one you get right—’
* * *
Robert was openly amused and, Jessica suspected, even secretly gratified by the favour shown to his wife by the eccentric old man. Certainly he showed not the slightest trace of pique at the amount of time she spent with
him, and made no objections to their frequent expeditions into the city; on the contrary, Jessica knew, her absences suited him well since they gave him the opportunity to pursue without guilt his fast-growing friendship with Arthur Leyland. The two young men met every day, either at the via del Corso – where, Jessica deduced, Arthur lived – or in the city where they would spend hours over a jug of wine discussing endlessly whether Homer wrote first the Iliad or the Odyssey, whether the tragedy of the one outweighed the romanticism of the other, whether the Iliad could above all others be considered the most perfect example of the Greek method of constructing a play—
Jessica tried very hard to like Arthur. She wanted to like him – for Robert’s sake if for no other reason. But try as she might she could not. She could readily admit to his good looks and his quick and well-educated mind. His voice, when he deigned to use it for the pleasure of Theo’s assembled guests, was very fine indeed. She could very well see his attraction when he expounded a theory or argued a point, the grey-blue eyes bright within their deep arch of bone, the fair hair tousled across the broad forehead, the narrow, elegant hands gesturing fluently. Yet after very short acquaintance it seemed to her quite apparent that Arthur Leyland’s predominant characteristic was vanity, his predominant concern himself and his predominant belief that gifted and talented people such as himself should never, in view of their noble qualities, be called upon to dirty their hands, figuratively or actually, by earning their own living – nor indeed to do anything that did not sit well with their well-founded opinion of themselves. Aware of the possibility that her antipathy towards her husband’s new friend might well be rooted in the certain feeling that he returned the dubious compliment in full measure, she hoped for Robert’s sake that her judgement was perhaps too harsh, but strongly she doubted it. And Arthur, she guessed, knew it. Consequently they were always meticulously polite to one another, but there was little of enthusiasm and nothing of warmth in their exchanges, and it seemed to her that Arthur spent every effort to keep Robert from her company. Perhaps it was perverse of her to resent that, but resent it she did, and the situation was not eased by her growing suspicion that Robert was giving Arthur money.
‘Tell me – what does Arthur actually do for a living?’ she asked Robert one morning as they breakfasted on the shaded balcony.
‘Mm?’ Robert barely glanced up from the book he was reading.
‘Arthur. What does he do for a living?’
Robert managed not to look too impatient as he laid his book face down on the table. ‘I’m not sure. He’s had some poems published—’
‘So you said. I shouldn’t think that would keep him in those lovely shirts he wears, let alone anything else?’ Jessica put down her cup. ‘I assume he must have money of his own?’
‘I don’t think so. His father was a wastrel. Led poor Arthur a terrible life. Left nothing when he died.’
Jessica smiled at the hovering maid. ‘Thank you, Angelina. You may clear away now. So – what does he live on?’
Robert’s lips tightened. He picked up the book again, closed it very precisely, marking the page with a piece of paper upon which Jessica could see some scribbled notes in Arthur’s flamboyant hand. ‘He’s employed by Theo,’ he said. ‘You of all people know how generous Theo can be.’
She ignored the inference. ‘He doesn’t work for Theo,’ she said gently. ‘He just takes his money.’
‘Jessica—!’
‘Don’t you think it a little odd for a grown man to live in a style that he has no apparent means to support?’ She truly had no wish to provoke an argument, but Arthur’s growing dominion over Robert worried her, as did Robert’s total inability to see fault in the other man.
‘I really don’t think it’s my business what Arthur lives on,’ Robert said, coldly. ‘Nor,’ he added, his eyes level and unsmiling, ‘—yours.’
‘You’re absolutely right, of course,’ she agreed mildly. ‘As long as it isn’t our money that pays for those pretty shirts?’
She knew by the quick rise of colour in his face that her suspicions were justified. She shook her head. ‘Oh, Robert—!’
Defensively he lifted his head. ‘If a man can’t lend a few guineas to a friend who’s strapped for funds—’ he stopped. The money they were living off was Jessica’s, her marriage settlement left to her by her father, and they both knew it.
She could not bear to see his embarrassment. She leaned forward quickly and covered his hand with her own. ‘Robert, I don’t want to quarrel. Least of all about Arthur.’
He looked at their linked hands, then lifted his head, searching her face with his eyes. ‘Don’t try to come between us, Jessica. Please don’t do that.’
She was shaken by the intensity of the words. ‘I wouldn’t. I promise.’ He bowed his head. A small silence fell between them. He turned his hand to grip hers, and the strength of it was painful. Then with an effort he relaxed his grip, and with an unexpected gentleness that almost touched her to tears he lifted her hand to his mouth and brushed it very lightly with his lips. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Robert, it doesn’t—’
He stopped the words with a sad shake of his head. They sat in silence for a moment. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I’ve neglected you. You have every right to be annoyed. I’ll make it up to you. In fact—’ he tried a small smile, ‘—if you’d like we could ride in the Cascine this afternoon? I know you enjoy that, and I know you can’t go alone.’
She nodded. ‘I’d like that.’
‘Arthur has a special class with the Maestro, so I’m free all afternoon. I’ll pick you up at two.’
Thus relegated neatly, firmly, – and despite all her resolutions gallingly – to her rightful place in his life she smiled, very brightly. ‘I’ll be ready.’
Chapter Eleven
From time to time it occurred to Jessica to wonder if Theo monopolized her time as a small revenge upon Robert for apparently supplanting him in Arthur’s affections. She knew certainly that Theo was not altogether happy about the amount of time that Robert and Arthur spent together – not she felt so much that he resented their friendship as that he found intolerable their total absorption in each other and the consequent exclusion of anyone else from their private world, and in this she could not help but sympathize with him. It pleased him to support Arthur in the expensive and privileged lifestyle that the young man considered his due because he liked to have about him attractive and charismatic young people of both sexes who could divert him in his hours of boredom and ornament his life in much the same way as did his books, his exquisite home and his works of art. Arthur’s supreme self-confidence in flouting his wealthy and influential patron astonished Jessica, yet still she had to admit that it appeared to be justified. Theo grumbled waspishly about cocksure ingrates, even occasionally threatened to cut the purse strings, but never actually did anything. It was perfectly evident that not only Robert was under the young man’s spell.
In the meantime Theo’s unexpected and sometimes mischievous attentions were turned to the novelty of an obviously neglected young wife.
Jessica was more than happy to accept his testy friendship. Her feelings for Robert, with the unexpected intrusion of Arthur upon their private lives, were more ambivalent than ever. A fondness that has taken the length of a child’s growing years to develop does not die easily and sometimes, despite Arthur’s demands upon Robert’s time, their friendship still emerged quite surprisingly strongly. They still rode together in the Cascine – both amused to see how many of their former acquaintances now somehow managed to avoid seeing them as they rode by. Florence in some ways was as enclosed a society as the smallest village and gossip travelled fast as flame in dry undergrowth. Their open association with the coterie of the via del Corso had obviously not escaped notice. On those evenings that they were not at Theo’s they always dined together – though very noticeably when at the via del Corso they hardly ever did – and exchanged news and views in the old
way, enjoying each other’s company as they always had. But Jessica was coming to realize that this could never be enough; there were indeed times when she found herself seriously doubting if such a relationship could last, and when that happened she often, oddly guiltily, found herself recalling Robert’s words about the possibilities of an annulment. But then the thought of what such a step would mean, for herself and for him, frightened her from even the contemplation of it. There seemed no way out of the coil. She had discovered too late what a terrible mistake she had made and could no longer deny to herself that simple friendship was not, after all, enough. She knew now why David and Annabel’s relationship had so disturbed her – knew that what she had felt was jealousy, pure, simple and destructive. Her young body was maturing. The old terrors were still there – the nightmare of violence that seemed to be the only thing that linked Clara and Giles together still haunted her, as did Caroline’s betrayal of Danny and the naked pain in his face as he had realized it – none of it was forgotten. But the Romseys had shown her another, and she was coming to suspect a more natural, face of love, and she envied them with a depth of feeling that was like a sickness. Sometimes now, alone in her bed, she would deliberately conjure up in her mind those sounds of lovemaking in the room above, and that half-shameful wholly confusing excitement would burn in her body again. She ached to know what they had known, but was afraid; and Robert could not help her. For that, for all their friendship, she was terribly afraid she could grow to hate him.
Theo watched, the age-bleached eyes reflecting a cynical lifetime of experience coupled with an even more cynical understanding of human nature.
They sat one day in the library, coolly shuttered against the afternoon’s heat, in companionable silence, he, wigless, and with one leg propped on a stool in front of him, apparently half-asleep, she absorbed in a book.
The Hawthorne Heritage Page 31
