And now she sat, alone and experiencing for the first time that strange melancholic reaction that can follow the most ecstatic lovemaking, wondering with unjustified and anguished jealousy just what might be the worst that Serafina could do, and just how Danny had learned to counter it: and realizing as she thought it that the achievement of a heart’s desire once accomplished could just as easily complicate the business of life as ease it.
‘Oh Lord,’ she said out loud, a little dolefully, ‘What a muddle life can be!’ and for some odd reason almost imagined that she could hear Theo Carradine’s laughter.
* * *
‘Well, gel—’ Theo squinted at her knowingly, ‘somethin’s brought a bloom to yer cheeks. Bin sittin’ in the sun?’
She had to laugh. It was a little over a month since she and Danny had come together, and Theo was not the only one to notice a difference in her. It was no surprise to her that she looked different; she felt different. She was different. It was as if until now she had lived in chains that had been struck from her by Danny’s love. Robert had been the first to sense it and had guessed unerringly at its cause. To his credit he had been happy for her, she suspected partly because her relationship with Danny eased his feelings of guilt with regard to her. All he asked was that she and Danny should be discreet in their liaison. Serafina’s reaction had been rather more violent; for a week Danny had carried a livid scratch on his face and – something that had caused their one and only bitter lover’s quarrel – another on his back. He had refused to discuss it, and in the end she had had to accept that, though it still rankled these weeks later. One thing she had learned in this past month; Danny’s feelings, though sincere and deep, were not the same as hers. As he had tried to warn her he was older and more scarred than she. His life had been different, and he was a man. The world for him would not, she realized, end if their love died. For the moment certainly she was the most important thing in his life; but she was not life itself – that would go on, he knew, though the world crumbled and the skies fell. Jessica had not the experience to know that and for her love was all. But she had learned to accept the differences between them and the knowledge that her passion for him was more single-minded than his for her no longer agonized her. He was as he was, and as he was she loved him. That had been her pledge, and she would keep it no matter what happened. It was enough. In his company the world had become a dazzling place. ‘The sun,’ she said now, ‘has very little to do with it. As you well know.’
Theo chuckled.
They were strolling in the Boboli Gardens, the strengthening March sun warming their backs, she slowing her steps to his. He stood for a moment leaning on his stick, panting a little. She looked at him in some concern. ‘Are you all right? Should I send for the carriage?’
‘No no!’ Testily he dismissed her concern. ‘Just a bit breathless, that’s all. Good God, can’t a gel lose her breath on a slope without the world thinks she’s dyin’?’
She knew better than to argue. She waited until his breathing eased, then strolled on with him.
‘What’s all this I hear about Robert an’ Arthur goin’ ter Rome?’
‘That’s right. For a fortnight.’ Even as she said it a faint frisson of excitement stirred in her body. A fortnight of utter freedom—
‘What they goin’ ter that godfersaken place for?’
‘It was Arthur’s idea, I think. An old friend of his is visiting Rome and has invited him to stay – and of course, Robert must go too—’ She hesitated. ‘I’m a little surprised really.’
He glanced at her sharply. ‘Oh?’
‘Well – when Arthur first mentioned the trip Robert said that perhaps he should stay behind – he’s working on this opera of his, and he didn’t want to leave it. He even said that it might be a good idea for him to get a fortnight’s uninterrupted work in on it—’
‘So? Why’s he goin’ then?’ They were climbing the steep flights of steps to the very top of the gardens and he was puffing again.
A little exasperated she caught his arm. ‘Theo! Why climb all the way up here? The sun’s very warm, you know—’
He made a small, sharp, very rude noise. ‘Don’t be impertinent, gel. Answer the question. Why’s Robert goin’ ter Rome instead of spendin’ time on this masterpiece of his?’
Used to his acerbity she ignored it. ‘I’m not quite sure,’ she said, thoughtfully. ‘He seems to me to have changed lately – to have lost interest—’
‘P’raps he doesn’t care for the thought of his wife cuckolding him at every opportunity with a certain handsome hewer of stone?’ He giggled like a prurient schoolgirl.
She chose to treat the comment seriously. ‘No. I’m sure it isn’t that. He doesn’t care what I do. I think it’s worse than that.’
‘How – worse?’
‘I think he suspects that his work isn’t – won’t ever be – what he hoped. He’s losing faith in himself. He was so enthusiastic when he started this project, so sure of himself. But now—’ She shrugged. ‘He’s very moody. And the other day I found a heap of ashes in the drawing room hearth, half-burned. He’d burned pages and pages of manuscript. And twice over the last couple of weeks he’s had far too much to drink. He’s never done that before—’
Theo, pausing for breath again, nodded.
‘—when I asked him why he was going to Rome after all he said—’ she hesitated.
‘Said what?’
‘He said that a lesser talent should always serve a greater in this world, unselfishly and without stint.’
Theo made a small, eloquent and very rude sound.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that’s what I thought, rather. But what can I do?’
‘Nothin’ gel. Nothin’ at all.’ He turned mildly malicious eyes upon her, ‘An’ tell me – while the cat’s away, what’s the Mouse planning to do?’
She laughed aloud. ‘Mind your own business, you awful old gossip!’
He hooted with laughter. ‘Just what I’m doin’ young lady! Ah – here we are.’
They had reached the terrace at the top of the gardens. Behind them lay the city. Beyond the lift of land on which they stood lay a magic landscape of green hills that rolled to the mountains beyond. Nestled in the folds of ground white-walled villas and farmhouses could be seen, and tall cypress dotted the hillsides. Vineyards, tiny patches in the distance, lay fresh and budding beneath the spring sunshine. Theo lifted his stick and pointed shakily. ‘Pretty, ain’t it?’
‘It certainly is.’
He cocked his head. ‘Fancy a little trip?’
She smiled, humouring him. ‘Why not?’
* * *
The carriage bowled along the riverbank, through the city gate of San Giorgio and out along the via San Leonardo into the warm, spring-fresh countryside.
‘Where are we going?’ Jessica asked, the sharp clip at which they were travelling alerting her to the fact that this was no aimless afternoon ride.
Theo, still high-coloured and a little breathless leaned back, looking smug. ‘Hold yer horses, gel. Wait an’ see.’
The trip was short, no more than an hour, yet the narrow lanes that climbed and fell through the gentle hills might have been a whole world away from the busy city streets. Jessica fell to silence. A country girl born and bred she had not realized how much she had missed the green beauty and the life-restoring quiet of the countryside. Through the dappled light and shade of the woodlands they drove, past neat and pretty vineyards, through scruffy villages where hordes of children and dogs ran beside the carriage, the one with flashing teeth and hands outstretched, the other barking with manic excitement at the horses’ heels. They passed one or two grand villas, for the greater part hidden behind walls or hedges, their white walls and terracotta roofs glimpsed fleetingly in passing. Then, unexpectedly, the small carriage turned through a gate and drove down a sanded, rather overgrown drive. Jessica looked at Theo in enquiry. Theo said nothing.
They rolled to a halt outside a sm
all, pretty villa, shuttered and faintly neglected-looking. As the sounds of their passage stopped and the horses stood snorting and blowing in the sunlit quiet, Jessica heard somewhere the sound of a cock crowing and a man’s voice lifted in urgent, not to say panic-stricken, tones. Seconds later a plump woman, her girth enshrouded in the inevitable black, the equally inevitable apron as big as a bedsheet, hurried around the corner, talking volubly, her hands expressive in the air. Jessica, good as her working knowledge of the language had lately become, could barely understand a word she said.
‘Be still, woman,’ Theo said, crustily but by no means unkindly, in Italian. ‘We’ve not come on a tour of inspection to catch you out! Just unlock the door for us – my young friend here would like to see the place.’
Still grumbling fluently the woman produced from the folds of her skirt a great bunch of keys, sorted one from the rest and set off for the villa’s front door. More slowly Jessica and Theo followed. With the door open Theo flapped a hand at the woman as if she had been a straying chicken. ‘Off with you, off with you. A jug of Marco’s excellent wine and a plate of your execrable cake for the young lady in half an hour—’
Muttering the old woman left them.
‘Theo—?’ Jessica began, but Theo held up a gnarled finger.
‘Wait.’
They entered the villa. It was not large, but even in the dim light filtered by the shuttered windows Jessica got an impression of airy, pleasantly proportioned rooms, simply furnished, that immediately enchanted her.
‘Open the shutters then, gel. You might have cat’s eyes, but damned if I have.’
She opened the shutters. The villa was sited perfectly, halfway up a hillside, south-facing, sheltered and quiet. In the distance Florence in her valley shimmered like a jewel on the silver chain of the river. Nearer at hand, beneath the window, beyond an unkempt garden that was delightful with early wild flowers and butterflies, vineyards and lemon groves clothed the hillside in a patchwork of greens and browns. Dark cypress trees pointed their long, Florentine fingers to the sky. ‘Theo – it’s lovely! Absolutely lovely!’
She ran from room to room, throwing open shutters and windows, letting in the air and the light of the spring day. The layout was simple, four rooms upstairs and four down, a long verandah fronting the southern side, that overlooked the distant city. The furniture too was simple and practical, a comfortable cut above the basic and fitting into this pleasant rustic setting perfectly. Jessica thought she detected Theo’s discriminating hand in the deceptively unpretentious decor and in the few apparently casually displayed ornaments and artefacts that brightened the otherwise fairly austere rooms.
‘Good Lord—’ She touched with a gentle finger a lovely marble bust of a young boy, the purity of the profile silhouetted against a mirrored reflection of sunlight. ‘This looks positively Roman.’
‘It is.’ Theo was obviously enjoying her pleasure.
A small hopeful idea had implanted itself into Jessica’s brain. ‘Theo – this is your house?’
‘It is,’ he said again, with a different inflection.
She turned to him, eyes bright, a question on her lips.
‘Go on, gel,’ he said, blandly, enjoying himself to the full, ‘ask away. Them as don’t ask don’t get, as they say.’
She hesitated still.
He watched her, mischief in his old face. ‘Well?’
‘Theo – could we? Could – Danny and I—’ she had an odd difficulty in getting the name out, ‘—could we come here, while Robert’s away?’
He turned and stumped from the room. ‘I’ll think about it.’
* * *
They spent a blissful week there, at the Villa Francesca, and for that week it was as if no one and nowhere else in the world existed. For the first time they spent long days together, and for the first time they went to sleep on their loving and woke with the morning together. Their physical need for each other never seemed to be assuaged, and was stimulated and enhanced by the ease and enjoyment of their companionship. Jessica had never believed in, let alone experienced, such happiness, and she knew that whatever befell them in the future this week would be for them both a shining memory of sheer delight. She lived for the moment, savouring each second, loving as much the two days of unseasonal rain that penned them indoors as the sunshine that enticed them out and into the footways of the hills. She enjoyed dour Lucia’s peasant cooking as she might that of a royal chef, and found in Marco’s homemade wines a sparkle she had never yet discovered in the vintages of champagne.
With reluctance and the first stirrings of resentment, upon Robert’s return to Florence she too returned to the city.
Three weeks later, she knew that she was pregnant.
* * *
The timing was not the best it might be. Since his return from Rome Robert had been moody and withdrawn. He no longer spent the hours he had at the piano, and she had not seen him put pen to paper in weeks. His enthusiasm for the project of the opera seemed to have been lost entirely. Indeed she began to suspect that he had abandoned the writing altogether.
Tentatively she questioned him about it.
He jerked away from her irritably. He had been drinking – another sign of the change that had overtaken him in the past weeks. ‘Don’t nag, Jessica. It’s none of your business.’
Hurt, she was silent.
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s just—’ He ran a hand through his uncharacteristically tousled hair.
‘What? Robert – what is it? What’s the matter?’
He took a long time to answer. ‘It’s no good, Jessie,’ he said at last, tiredly, ‘I have to face it. I’m deceiving myself. Making a fool of myself.’
‘In what way?’ The defeat in his face struck her to the heart. For a moment she forgot her own dilemma.
‘Arthur’s friend in Rome,’ he said, after a long silence, ‘was a musician, and a composer. A real one. He told me the truth. I had known it I think for some time. I simply hadn’t faced it.’
‘What truth?’
‘That I’m mediocre. Worse than mediocre. I will never produce anything of any merit—’
‘No! Robert, you mustn’t let yourself believe such things! Signor Donatti says—’
‘Signor Donatti is a nice old man who wouldn’t hurt a fly and who likes an easy life discussing over a jug of wine how much of the known text of King Lear is Shakespeare’s and how much the product of a sixteenth-century actor’s promptbook! It’s no good, Jessica. I have to face it. It’s true. It’s always been true. The only thing I ever could do well was to sing. Now that’s gone, and there’s nothing I can do, nothing I can find to take its place. Arthur’s friend was right – brutal, but right. I have no future either as a composer or as a musician.’
‘You should keep trying,’ she said, obstinately and unwittingly voicing her own philosophy.
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘But – what of your opera? You were so certain that it was a perfect idea—?’
‘It was. It is!’ He turned sharply. ‘The opera will go on. Arthur’s—’ He stopped.
Her mouth tightened a little. ‘What? What is Arthur going to do?’
‘He’s going to – help me with it. When he has time.’
The hesitation spoke for itself. ‘Help you? Or take it over and write it himself?’
He sighed. ‘All right, yes. Arthur will write it, and I’ll help him.’ Before she could speak he turned from her, stood with his back to her, looking out of the window. ‘Don’t say what you’re thinking, Jessica. Please. I know you don’t like Arthur, and it saddens me. I just wish you could see in him what I do. He’s a fine man, and a splendid friend. He has courage, insight, talent – and something more – a something that adds a different dimension to everything he does—’
‘And his friend in Rome obviously thought he could write the opera?’ Jessica’s voice was absolutely neutral.
‘Jessica, don’t talk
like that! As if Arthur has – stolen the idea—’
‘Well, hasn’t he?’
‘No! I’ve offered it to him, freely and without stint. He’ll make something of it that I never could. I don’t mind. I really don’t.’ The look in his eyes belied the words, but she could say nothing. ‘At least it will live. Arthur will give it the life that I never could.’
‘And you? What will you do?’
‘I’ll help him. Support him in every way I can.’
And that, she knew was the end of that. If she had ever harboured hope that Arthur’s domination of Robert might some time wane she gave up that hope in that moment, seeing the fervour in his dark eyes, the stubborn set to his mouth. Robert needed a star to follow, and he had found one. He was by nature a squire rather than a knight, one of the devoted herd rather than the shepherd. In Arthur, for good or ill, he had fulfilled his need for a master, and in his own way he was happy. Nothing would change that now.
* * *
Perhaps strangely the first person that Jessica told of the coming child was Theo. She had to tell someone, and she was afraid, for different reasons, to broach the subject to either of the two men closest involved, and so she found herself confiding in the worst gossip in Florence in the absolute certainty that he would not betray her confidence until she was ready. His first reaction did not surprise her at all. Prepared for anything from derision to disgust she got both in full measure – ‘What yer thinkin’ of, gel? Yer gone mad?’ – She was, however, taken aback when he started making plans for the child. ‘What yer goin’ ter call the little sod, eh? Poor little bugger’s got ter have a name, hasn’t he? An’ where yer goin’ ter get a nurse that ain’t goin’ ter tie the poor wee beast in knots fer the first six months of his life?’
She laughed. ‘I haven’t thought of a name yet. It might be a girl, you know. And Angelina will make a perfect nursemaid – and I certainly won’t allow her to swaddle the child, whatever the silly fashion still is in Florence. I thought you didn’t like babies?’
The Hawthorne Heritage Page 37
