‘Afraid not.’ Robert went back to his book, ‘We’re going to the matinée at the opera. Martinelli is singing, and we have an introduction from the Maestro.’ No need to qualify the ‘we’ – it was understood that where Arthur went, there Robert would follow.
‘That’s a pity. I’d like you to meet him. I think you’d like him.’
‘Ask him to stay to dinner. I daresay I’ll be back by six. Or get him to come to Theo’s tomorrow. We’ll all be there.’
‘Yes. Perhaps I’ll do that.’ Her brain was racing. She’d wear the new blue dress. Or perhaps the green? She’d be so damned grown up and sophisticated he’d never call her ‘Mouse’ again—
The morning was undoubtedly the slowest she ever remembered. If she looked at the clock once she looked a hundred times, and a dozen times she checked that it had not stopped. By the time the hands were at last reluctantly creeping around to show the hour of two she was in a state of utter panic, had changed her clothes three times and the arrangement of the furniture in the drawing room twice. The apartment was empty – shamelessly she had manufactured an errand for Angelina that would take the best part of the afternoon – and very quiet. She had placed teacups on a tray, arranged it prettily upon a small table by the fire, then changed her mind, stacked them back untidily into the cupboard and hunted out the wine glasses.
Two o’clock came. But Danny did not.
The weather had turned milder, though still cloudy. She stood upon the balcony, watching the road, poised to draw back when she saw him turn the corner. It would never do for him to catch her watching for him—
The minutes passed slowly – became a quarter of an hour – half an hour—
The clouds had gathered and the sky had darkened. Fine drizzle began to fall, drifting in a dismal curtain through the wet streets. Her heart was as leaden as the skies with disappointment.
Another miserably slow quarter of an hour dragged past before she reluctantly gave up her watching.
He wasn’t coming.
Chilled, she wandered back into the pretty drawing room, that Theo had designated her ‘salon’ and of which usually she was so proud. The inexpensive but stylish second-hand furniture she had found had been painted and cleverly reupholstered in palest green and silver by one of Theo’s young artists. The walls and curtains were ivory, the curtains trimmed with blue that was reflected in her most extravagant buy, an exquisite pale green and blue Chinese carpet. Sapphire blue velvet cushions were scattered upon the chairs and sofa. Robert’s piano stood in the corner. Stealing the willing Theo’s idea she had used potted plants and shrubs to great effect, screening the mirrors and creating small interesting areas within the big room. In the summer it would be light, airy and cool; now, with a fire dancing in the marble hearth it was warm and cosy. Normally just the sight of the pretty room would cheer her. Now she hardly noticed it. Disconsolately she wandered to a sofa, perched on the arm, picking with small, angry fingers at the silver piping.
Danny O’Donnel was no different from anyone else. What humiliatingly idiotic, ridiculously romantic notion had made her think otherwise?
* * *
The clocks of the city were chiming four when he arrived and she, in a miserable attempt to divert herself from her disappointment had changed into a plain grey day dress and had settled to a sketching exercise set her by her drawing master. As she worked she fiddled abstractedly with her wiry hair, pulling and twisting it about her fingers. When the door bell sounded she all but jumped out of her skin, and dropped her pencil.
‘Drat it!’ She picked it up. The point was broken. The bell rang again. She must have forgotten to give Angelina the key—
He stood in the open doorway, rain glinting in his hair and on his shoulders, his dark face contrite, a small sprig of winter jasmine in his hand.
She gawped at him like an idiot.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m late.’
‘I – yes. You are.’ She cleared her throat. The most extraordinary things were happening to her insides. She stepped back awkwardly, waving him past her, and shut the door, leaning on it for a moment, watching him, trying to calm the strange racing of her heart.
He looked about him. ‘What a charming apartment.’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Her voice was falsely bright, too high-pitched. She hated the sound of it, but to her horror simply could not stop talking. ‘It was in a terrible mess when we came, last year. But Theo helped me, and we’re very pleased with the results. We’ve tried to use the same colours – or at least related ones – in the different rooms, to give some continuity—’ Without pausing for breath, and with no difference in her tone she added in an exasperation she could no longer disguise, ‘Oh, Danny, I could kill you! Just look at me!’ She had caught sight of herself in the mirror – wild hair, crumpled dress and all – and she could not prevent a small splutter of half-angry laughter. ‘What a mess!’
He turned. His mouth was twitching. ‘You look marvellous. Just as you used to after you’d run down to St Agatha’s through the woods with Bran!’
‘But I’m not supposed to look like that!’ She was still torn between anger and laughter.
He proffered the jasmine with a small, charmingly apologetic smile. ‘I’m sorry. It’s unforgivable of me to be so late. If you’re busy would you rather I left? I could call again some other time—?’
‘No!’ she could not disguise the urgency in the word. ‘No,’ she said again, more lightly. ‘Please stay. I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you.’ She took the spray of sweet-smelling flowers and bent her face to them, using the moment to calm her jumping nerves. ‘Please – go into the drawing room. There’s a fire in there, and it’s cosy. I won’t be a moment. Would you like tea? Or a glass of wine?’
‘Tea would be very nice,’ he said, solemnly. ‘Thank you.’
The spark in his eye alerted her. She eyed him suspiciously. ‘You’re teasing,’ she said, suddenly.
He was all innocence. ‘About the tea? Of course not. I’d love a cup.’
‘The way you said it,’ she said, repressively.
‘Ah.’ He grinned, and her heart lurched. ‘Well – just a little. My Mouse playing house. I never thought I’d see the day.’
‘I’m not—’ She stopped. The dilemma was clear. To him she was still Mouse, the little girl for whom he had had such affection, and who had demanded nothing in return for her love. The advantage of that was the immediate ease of their relationship; the old bond had been renewed with no strain and no affectation. In view of her rather more basic feelings for him, however, the disadvantage of such an attitude was obvious. She smiled her sweetest smile. ‘I’ll make the tea.’
She walked away from him composedly. Once in the kitchen, like a whirlwind she rummaged in the cupboard for the cups and saucers, put the kettle, fortunately already full, on the hob. Then she flew silently across the hall to her bedroom, hastily undoing buttons as she ran. With fingers like thumbs she changed her clothes, feverishly hunting through drawers and chests, mislaying one of the slippers that matched the pale green gown, not remembering until after she had dragged the pretty dress over her head that she had lost the ribbon that went with it to tie up her wild hair. Settling for a white one she dragged the brush through the mop of her hair that was made even more unruly by the damp atmosphere of the day, winced in despair as it flew in a cloud about her head. With no time for finesse, and with a grimly humorous recollection of how long she had taken to get ready that same morning, she pulled it back and tied it at the nape of her neck. Then tying the sash of her dress as she ran she dashed into the kitchen, only to find Danny already there, making the tea.
‘I came to find you,’ he said, eyeing her changed appearance with some surprise. ‘The water was boiling—’
She skidded to a halt, smoothed her pretty skirt down casually. ‘The weather seems remarkably close, for all the rain. I thought I’d – put on something a little cooler—’
He was watching her with a very odd
expression on his face – tender, half-amused, yet somehow suddenly guarded. She had for an awful moment the feeling that he looked through her eyes straight into her soul, and was wary of what he saw. Holding to the fragile thread of her composure she turned from him. ‘I’ll bring the cups.’
They drank tea in the drawing room as decorously as two maiden aunts. He apologized again for being late, but gave no explanation; with a stab of fearful and irrational jealousy she wondered if it had been Serafina who had delayed him. They spoke for some time about inconsequentials before he asked her, with an air of such carefully casual interest that it made her suspect that this was perhaps the main reason for his call, to tell him in more detail about Caroline. She told him all she could. ‘—We don’t really see much of her now. But I think – I’m sure – she’s happy. As happy as she’s capable of being. She has what she wants—’ she hesitated, ‘—what she always wanted—’ she added, gently.
He nodded, apparently undisturbed. ‘Yes. I see that now. Don’t worry—’ he smiled a little, ‘—it’s been a very long time since I pined for Caroline. I just wanted – had – to know what happened after I left. It’s strange how that summer has stayed so clearly in my memory. You – Caroline – the house, and the lake and that glorious old church – it was all somehow very special, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice low.
‘I remember the wild flowers that grew along the river. And the great hole that Bran had dug under the old oak, trying to get at the rabbits—’
She was watching him, unblinking, barely breathing.
‘You used to get so worried when I swam in the lake—’
‘Yes.’
‘Funny little thing you were. So intense. So eager. So very lovable.’
The word fell into a silence.
Danny stirred. ‘And then – it all fell apart. I’ve never forgotten the way you came—’ He stopped, and turned his head to look at her. ‘Tell me – do you still believe that your father would have killed me that day?’
‘Yes,’ she said, flatly.
He nodded, accepting it. ‘So. I owe you my life. Brave little thing that you were. Are you still so brave?’ The tone of his voice had altered a little. Subtly and suddenly the atmosphere between them had changed. She held his eyes, willing him to see not the small, lonely child he so obviously well remembered but a grown young woman who in that instant would be willing to do anything he asked of her to keep him by her side. ‘I don’t know.’
He turned away from her, breaking that small, strange communion. ‘I owe you my life,’ he repeated. ‘You’re entitled to despise me for what I’ve made of it.’ The scar on his cheekbone shone suddenly white in the light as he moved his head.
She put down her cup very carefully. Not for the world would she let him see the shaking of her hand. ‘I don’t,’ she paused. ‘I never would.’
He laughed, a short, harsh sound. ‘Don’t speak too soon.’
She shook her head. ‘I know.’
‘You don’t. You can’t.’ He ran a hand through his still-damp hair. ‘I’m not what you think I am, Mouse. Don’t be fooled.’
‘If I’m being fooled,’ she said quietly, ‘it isn’t by you.’
He turned again to look at her, a question in his eyes. Again she felt the tantalizing change between them. And again it was he who drew back, leaning down upon his elbows, looking fixedly at his scuffed shoes. She nibbled her thumb and waited.
‘What a bloody mess I’ve made of things,’ he said at last, as much it seemed to himself as to her.
She hazarded a single word. ‘Serafina?’
‘Serafina.’ He smiled a small, harsh smile and shook his head a little. ‘Serafina,’ he said softly, ‘is simply the well-deserved end of the road to degeneracy. A road paved with the carnal sins and leading downhill, very fast. The day that you saved me from your father was neither the first nor the last time that I fled down that road.’
She waited until it was obvious he would not say more. ‘And what of your work?’ she asked, ‘Are you still going to be the greatest living sculptor in Florence?’
He laughed at that, quite genuinely. ‘Is there nothing I ever said to you that you don’t remember? The arrogant dreams of the young! No – I’ve found my niche. Had found it at St Agatha’s and simply didn’t see it.’
‘You restore churches?’
‘I do. And I do it well. There’s something very satisfying in salvaging something beautiful that might otherwise be lost. In working on something that other hands fashioned hundreds of years ago. I still get the odd commission – quite often stemming directly from restoration work. It’s not unusual for people to commission something new to take the place of something that’s been irreparably damaged. It keeps the wolf from the door—’ he smiled that quick, heart-stopping smile that she had never forgotten, ‘—and it keeps me out of mischief.’
She laughed back at him, half-teasing. ‘Always?’
He did not answer for a moment. The smile left his face. He looked at her steadily, and as steadily she held his eyes, feeling again the flash of frightening excitement that flickered between them. ‘Do you always stay out of mischief?’ she asked, quietly insistent.
In silence they looked at each other, and in that moment she knew certainly that he saw the depth of her desire for him.
Abruptly then he stood up, reached for her hands, pulled her to her feet and held her there, at arms’ length, shaking his head firmly. ‘I think I’d better go.’
She had no talent for guile or artifice, the arts of the coquette were beyond her. ‘Please don’t,’ she said and then added again, with no attempt to disguise her pleading, ‘Please?’
‘I must.’ The words were gentle.
She stepped back, smiling brightly, the high blood of mortification in her cheeks. There was no doubt in her mind that he had known what she meant. She had offered herself, and – however gently – she had been rejected. ‘Perhaps we’ll meet again at the via del Corso?’ she said, over-lightly.
He nodded. ‘Sir Theodolphus has kindly offered me an open invitation.’
‘Then we’re bound to bump into one another again. We’re there quite often.’ She wanted to scream. Or to throw something. She wanted to beg him to stay—
She followed him in silence to the door. There he turned, bent, swiftly brushed her cheek with his lips and was gone, running lightly down the stairs, his hand lifted in farewell.
She closed the door with a thud and rested her forehead against it, closing her eyes. She had chattered like a child, then thrown herself at him like any trollop. No wonder he had run away as fast as his feet would carry him!
She wandered back into the room where she had been drawing when he came. Picked up the broken pencil. And in a sudden burst of nervous energy and fury at herself flung it across the room. ‘Damnation! Oh – double damnation!’
* * *
She convinced herself she would not see him again. Tortured herself by imagining his reaction to her awkwardness and inexperience. Perhaps he had laughed, after he had left her? Perhaps – terrible thought – he had told Serafina of the child who had thought to seduce him—? If, that is, her pathetic performance could be classed as an attempt at seduction.
She moped about the apartment until even Robert noticed that something was wrong. ‘—You aren’t sickening for something, are you?’ he asked, anxiously. Even at this time of year an epidemic of deadly fever was not unknown.
She shook her head. ‘No, no. I’m all right. It’s the weather I think. One gets so used to the sunshine that this—’ she gestured towards the window where the rain ran like tears down the glass ‘—can get on one’s nerves ridiculously quickly. Funny. I never really minded bad weather at home. I suppose it seemed more natural.’
He did not reply. He was seated at the piano in the corner of the room, a sheaf of notes spread across his lap. Lethargically she wandered across the room and stood looking over his shoulder. ‘What are yo
u doing?’
He made an odd, almost unconscious movement with his arm, like a secretive child hiding his work from prying eyes. Then he laughed self-consciously and relaxed, leaning back on the stool. ‘You promise you won’t laugh?’
Intrigued she shook her head. ‘Of course not.’
‘I’m writing an opera.’
‘An opera!’ She stared at him.
He nodded.
‘But – how exciting!’ And how ambitious. She did not say the obvious. ‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s about the Trojan War. Oh, Jess, it could be splendid! I’ve so many ideas! I can hear them in my head—!’ His eyes were shining. He stopped speaking and nibbled his lower lip, obviously fighting down excitement. He played a tentative short phrase, one fingered, on the piano. ‘It’s such a wonderful story, of course. It has everything – heroes, battles and a beautiful heroine. If only I can do it justice—’
‘Of course you can.’
He turned a shining face to her. ‘Yes. Do you know – this time I believe I can! This time I think it will work. Jess – just imagine – a first night in Milan – or Rome—’
She laughed, caught up in his excitement.
‘The libretto is Arthur’s, of course. I shall write the part of Achilles for him – oh, he’d make a marvellous Achilles! – but the music will be mine. Entirely mine.’ She had never seen him so fired with enthusiasm, so full of energy. She touched him on the shoulder, lightly, and he smiled up at her, his small handsome face positively lit with excitement. ‘This time I’m going to try. This time I’m going to stick at it. It’s a wonderful story, and the music is all there, inside my head. All I have to do is to get it down on paper—’
She laughed. ‘You make it sound very easy!’
He shook his head. ‘Oh, no. It won’t be easy. I’m not stupid. I know it won’t. But it will be good, Jess. I’m determined on it. You’ll see.’ Touchingly, he was like an eager child, needing reassurance but unwilling to ask for it.
She smiled at him affectionately. ‘I’m sure it will.’
The Hawthorne Heritage Page 35
