To Marry a Tiger

by Isobel Chace

  “I think you must be Ruth?” she said diffidently. “You are so exactly what I would have chosen for my son!” She turned back to Roberto. “Where is Mario?”

  “At home,” he told her.

  “Then we must go there at once!” She cast a displeased look at the sisters’ luggage and the porter who was struggling to carry it up the gangway. “And I won’t hear another word about anyone going to England!” She smiled slowly at Ruth. “Sicily is always home to us Sicilian wives—worse luck!” she added wryly. “Even in New York!”

  “Even if you are staying, I am going home,” Pearl said evenly. “I feel decidedly de trop amongst your new relations—”

  Mary-Anne regarded her quizzically. “I imagine that you might,” she agreed. “I’m surprised you didn’t go before.”

  Ruth felt distinctly uncomfortable. None of them were being fair to Pearl! But they needn’t think that they could dismiss any sister of hers so easily! She would see to that!

  “Pearl has been a very welcome guest of both Mario and myself!” she addressed her mother-in-law haughtily.

  Mary-Anne raised a thoughtful eyebrow. “Really?” she drawled.

  Ruth remembered the row she had had with Mario over Pearl’s visit and blushed. “If it hadn’t been for Pearl then I never would have married Mario,” she went on doggedly.

  “Now that I can believe!” Mary-Anne said warmly. “But one can’t have one’s sister around one for ever, can one?”

  Ruth, who at any other time would have been glad to see Pearl go, shook her head. “Mario likes her,” she said. She gave Roberto a look of mute appeal to help her, but he too seemed to have nothing better to do than to speed Pearl on her way.

  “She must do as she pleases, of course!” he ended a rather garbled piece of advice to the effect that Pearl would have to pay heavily if she didn’t use her ticket back to England.

  “And I choose to go home!” Pearl reiterated. “Sicily is not for me! If you had any sense, Ruth, you’d come with me!”

  Ruth smiled faintly. “I know,” she said. “Oh, Pearl! I don’t know what to do!”

  Pearl gave her a quick hug. "You won’t be coming home,” she told her frankly. “We both knew that all the time! Goodness knows why you have to drive yourself to the point of despair! I don’t! I settle for what I can get—”

  “But I can’t!” Ruth exclaimed helplessly.

  “Then come with me,” Pearl retorted, not without humour. “Only, for heaven’s sake, make up your mind, or the boat will go without either of us!”

  Ruth didn’t know what she might have decided. She hesitated, wishing for the first time in her life that she didn’t have to make the decision. She felt foolish and feminine and rather weak-kneed. If only someone would tell her what to do! But there was no one. Mary-Anne and Roberto were busy talking to one another and Pearl was engaged in separating her luggage from Ruth’s and instructing the porter to carry only that on board the ship. Ruth felt both ignored and lonely. Nobody really cared, she thought, what she did!

  Her eyes filled with tears that she tried her best to blink away. She turned her head and watched fascinated as a small dog raced across the quay towards her, scattering ruin as he came. Luggage was overturned, women were tripped up, and children knocked fiat, but Saro didn’t care a rap for any of them. He gave a final leap into Ruth’s arms, barking uproariously an exuberant greeting.

  “Oh, Saro!” she sobbed against his neck. “How did you get here?”

  An argument swiftly followed the dog’s arrival. Angry people gathered round Ruth and the dog, prodding her with angry fingers and shouting at her with even more angry voices.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying!” she told them frantically in English.

  The uproar began again and stopped only with the arrival of a policeman, who shouted as much and as often as everyone else.

  “Is this your dog?” he asked Ruth eventually.

  “Well—” she began.

  “He belongs to you?” the policeman insisted.

  Ruth looked over the policeman’s shoulder straight into Mario’s dark eyes. She clutched Saro closer to her, feeling more and more harassed.

  “N-not exactly,” she said.

  Mario strolled through the crowd to her side. “It’s very unwise not to tell the police the truth,” he observed gravely.

  Ruth gave him a look of unspeakable loathing. “I am telling the truth!” she said heatedly.

  The policeman was relieved to see one calm man in the crowd around him. He addressed Mario eagerly, with a wide, flattering smile. “This dog is not under proper control. You can see for yourself that it has inconvenienced many people already—”

  Mario’s eyes twinkled. “He certainly has!” he agreed warmly.

  The policeman sighed. “Can you tell me, signore? To whom does the dog belong?”

  “To my wife,” Mario replied promptly.

  The policeman looked startled. “But this young lady is travelling to Naples?” He glanced down at Ruth’s luggage. “She has English labels, signore,” he said suspiciously.

  “I am English,” Ruth put in gently.

  “Then the dog does not belong to you?”

  Ruth hesitated. She tucked Saro under her arm, feeling a traitor for denying the bond between them. “Not really. I mean—”

  “She means that the dog was a wedding present to her,” Mario interrupted helpfully.

  “He belongs to the Verdecchio family,” Ruth added firmly.

  The policeman cast his attention back to her. “And your name, signora?”

  “Ruth Arnold—”

  “Signora Verdecchio!” Mario answered as well, thoroughly enjoying himself.

  The policeman threw up his hands in despair. “I must see your passport!” He took the document from Ruth’s reluctant hand. “Signora Verdecchio!” he confirmed, and gave Ruth the respectful look one might accord a lunatic. “Perhaps you have not been married very long? But I must ask you to keep your pet under control, signora! The world goes on!” He grinned at Mario and bowed. “Many years of happiness to you both!” Mario shook hands with him. When he wanted, Ruth thought bitterly, he had quite the common touch. He didn’t have to be arrogant and devilish and impossible! So why did he have to be like that with her?

  “Did you think you would escape so easily, piccina?” he asked her when the policeman had gone.

  “You should have let me go,” she answered evenly. “It isn’t as if you care!”

  “I care very much that my wife—”

  “But I’m me!” Ruth said sharply.

  He looked amused. “So I see,” he said.

  Ruth blushed. “Your mother’s here!” she blurted out, determined to distract his attention.

  She was touched by the quick look of affection that crossed his face, even though he turned away from her. He really loved his mother, she thought. Well, there was no surprise in that! Ruth thought she could quite easily love her herself, if only for a certain look in her eye that was so strangely like her son’s.

  Mary-Anne took a step forward and her son took her into his arms.

  “Mamma mia,” he said in her ear. “Have you come home?”

  Mary-Anne sniffed and nodded. “For always!” she said with a touch of exasperation. “New York isn’t home to me any more! Oh, Mario, will you mind having me here?”

  His dark face grew very gentle. “It wasn’t I who wanted you to go away,” he reminded her.

  She gave a wavery laugh. “No, but I was lonely here without Papa. Only I was more lonely in New York!”

  He kissed the end of her nose. “It will be less lonely, Mamma, for now you will have Ruth—”

  “But she’s going to England! Didn’t you know?”

  “No, no,” he assured her. “Ruth came to see her sister off!”

  Mary-Anne didn’t argue with him. Instead she patted his shoulder comfortably and smiled mistily up at him. “Do I look awful?” she asked him. “I was determined that
I wouldn’t cry! I hate crying! I always feel so awful afterwards!”

  He grinned. “If you call that crying—! Mamma—”

  “What do you call it?” she demanded crossly. “Wasting an elegant tear,” he teased her. “Mamma darling, you cry as beautifully as you do everything else, so you have nothing to worry about! Ask Ruth, if you don’t believe me!”

  Mary-Anne obediently turned to her daughter-in-law. “It’s so nice to be home!” she exclaimed. She gave Ruth a rueful smile. “You must think me very interfering,” she sighed. “And I promised myself that I would be nothing of the sort! I didn’t mean to be rude to your sister, my dear.”

  Mario smiled at them both. “Where is Pearl? he asked.

  Ruth looked up at the ship where Pearl’s ash-blonde hair was easy to be seen. “She’s gone on board,” she said. “She doesn’t want to stay any longer.”

  Mario looked at her keenly. “Do you mind so much?” he asked.

  Ruth shook her head, unable to lie about it. “No,” she said abruptly.

  Mary-Anne went limp with relief. “I’m sure she will be much happier amongst her own friends,” she said politely.

  Ruth gave Mario a cross look. “I don’t know why you have to be so beastly about her! Just because Pearl isn’t—doesn’t pretend to think that everything Sicilian is the best in the world—”

  “What!” Mario gasped.

  “She doesn’t happen to admire men who think they’re the lords of the earth! I’m not sure that I do either!”

  “Only not sure?” he inquired demurely.

  “Quite sure!”

  Mary-Anne laughed at them both. “Children! Hadn’t you better wave Pearl goodbye?”

  Ruth was furious with herself. How could she have stood there bickering with Mario while Pearl sailed away? She rushed to the edge of the quay as the ship pulled away out into the centre of the harbour.

  “Pearl!” she shouted out. “Tell the family—”

  “I’ll tell them,” Pearl answered.

  “I’m sorry I’m not coming with you!” Ruth called out pathetically.

  Her sister laughed ungraciously. “I’ll believe that when I see you in England!”

  “But I’ll miss you!”

  Pearl’s laughter grated on Ruth’s ears. “Why pretend?” Pearl turned on her. “You’re as glad to see the back of me as I am to be going! Oh, don’t look so stricken! How I loathe intense people! Goodbye, Ruth!”

  Ruth waved her hand, wishing that things between Pearl and herself could have been different. “Goodbye,” she said.

  The hooter blared above her head and the ship eased slowly out of her berth, taking Pearl out of sight and hearing. Ruth waved again and was dizzily happy when Pearl waved back. She should have known, she thought. Pearl never meant more than half of what she said.

  Mario eased Saro away from her tight clasp. “Come on,” he said gently. “It’s time to go home.”

  Ruth wanted to travel back with Roberto. Mary-Anne would want to be alone with her son, she reasoned, and She would be glad to have a few minutes to herself to collect her scattered wits and to make some kind of decision about what she was going to do next.

  Mario though had other ideas. The touch of his hand round her wrist was relaxed and gentle, but she knew better than to think that he wouldn’t use physical force if he wanted to. In the end they would all travel home in the cars that he decided they would go in, so it hardly seemed worthwhile to have yet another battle of wills with him. It would be so much easier to surrender, she thought. She was tired and it hurt her badly every time she crossed swords with him.

  Mario studied her face for a long moment. “You shouldn’t have left Saro howling for you in the stables,” he said gently.

  “Is that how you knew I’d gone?” she demanded.

  He nodded. “That and the fact that Sophia saw the car go by.”

  “And she told you?”

  His dark eyes met hers. “She is one of my people,” he answered simply. “Besides, she knows you are my wife!”

  “Then she knows more than I do!” Ruth snapped back before she had thought.

  “And,” Mario went on just as if she hadn’t spoken, “the place of my wife is by my side—”

  “But your mother—”

  Mario’s patience snapped. He said something in an undertone to his uncle and towed Ruth away with him, whether she wanted to go or not. When they reached the car, he let her go and opened the door. “Get in!” he said briefly.

  “But—” Ruth began.

  “Get in!” he said again.

  Ruth got in quickly and took Saro on her knee before Mario could touch her again. She was suddenly very glad to be in his car and to have him drive her home, but not for worlds would she have admitted the fact.

  “Your mother is beautiful too,” she said dreamily, as he got in the car beside her.

  “More comparisons?” he asked, smiling.

  “No,” she said. “But she is beautiful.”

  “Yes, she is,” he agreed. “Are you going to be jealous of her too?”

  Ruth’s lips twitched. “Certainly not!” she said with aplomb. “I think she’s unhappy as well as beautiful,” she added hesitantly.

  “That’s acute of you,” he admitted. “Since my father died she has been unable to settle anywhere. I’m glad she’s decided to come home, though, a few grandchildren will be a new interest for her.”

  Ruth’s cheeks flamed. “I’m not sure—” she began.

  He cast his amused eyes over her face. “Some time we’ll talk about it,” he said. “When we can be alone and sure that there won’t be any interruptions.”

  “You mean you’ll talk and I’ll listen,” she said in despair.

  He laughed a great deal at that. “My dear girl, if you think I have any control over that ready tongue of yours—”

  “But you don’t listen to me!” she complained.

  “Don’t I?” His voice sounded so loving that she was obliged to swallow hard.

  “You know you don’t!” she said.

  He started up the car with a flourish and laughed. “You shouldn’t make it so tempting to stop your mouth with kisses!” he teased her, and waited with obvious delight for the colour to flood into her cheeks. “And hold that dog still! He has as little idea of how to behave in a car as he has in the house!”

  Ruth held on to the dog tightly. “But then in your opinion neither of us know our place!” she reminded him smugly.

  The glint in his eye made him look more devilish than ever. “It’s something you can both be taught!” he answered her grimly.

  She lifted her chin and glared at him. “You can try!” she challenged him.

  He forbore to answer, but drove the car very fast out of Palermo and along the road towards his home.

  Ruth could feel the power of the car in the small of her back and found it a very satisfactory sensation.

  “I shall want a car of my own,” she informed him suddenly.

  “You shall have one.”

  That caught her off balance. “When?” she asked cautiously.

  “As soon as I can be sure that you won’t rush off again!”

  She sighed. “As soon as I know my place, in fact?”

  He smiled. “No, there are other rewards for being good,” he remarked.

  She knew better than to ask him what they were. She thought she could imagine what he meant. Supposing, just supposing—She drew her thoughts up with a jerk. How could she actually want him to kiss her when he didn’t love her! She wasn’t the beautiful kind, such as the women he was accustomed to, so why should he look twice at her. She was his wife, family, someone to grow accustomed to, but not someone to love to distraction or until it hurt. And yet she would be content with such a small piece of his love, she told herself, and knew, even then, that it wasn’t the truth. She wanted as much as she was prepared to give, and that was everything!

  Lucia was waiting for them when they arrived at the house. She
was so terribly relieved to see Ruth getting out of the car that Ruth wanted to laugh.

  “Mario would have been sure to have blamed Roberto,” Lucia said to Ruth. “And he would have been right! Nobody should come between a man and his wife!”

  Ruth blinked. “Roberto was no more than kind to me,” she answered with dignity.

  “Yes, he is kind, isn’t he?” Lucia agreed, much pleased. “I love him dearly because of it! But I’m also very glad you changed your mind and didn’t go with Pearl. Mario is not always very kind and that can be very uncomfortable to bear with, let me tell you!”

  She saw the second car draw up with Roberto and Mary-Anne in it and stood stock still with sheer surprise. A second later she had rushed forward and had pulled open the car door and was lavishly hugging her sister-in-law. “How could you come and not tell me?” she demanded. “Did Roberto know? How long do you stay? We have to be back in Tunis almost immediately, so it is fortunate we are here to see you! How mean of you not to give us any warning!”

  “Yes, wasn’t it?” Mary-Anne said, returning Lucia’s hug with energy. “But I had to see my new daughter-in-law for myself!”

  Lucia frowned. “But you made Roberto come from Tunis—”

  Mary-Anne gave her a guilty smile. “I know I did. You see I was worried about her. I know what it feels like to be a brand-new wife, married to a Sicilian!”

  Lucia giggled. “How could it feel but very nice?” she protested. “I remember your wedding very well, Mary-Anne, and nothing would have dragged you away from Sicily!”

  “No, but I did feel lost. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to come and make it easier for Ruth.”

  Lucia, Sicilian born and bred, dismissed this as a peculiar foreign quirk. “Ruth is very well!” she said. “What could she possibly find wrong with being married to Mario?”

  Mary-Anne made a face, hoping to silence her impulsive sister-in-law. “We’ll have a nice gossip in a minute,” she said. “But first I want to get to know my new daughter!”

  Ruth, who had been standing tongue-tied while this conversation had been going on, found herself suddenly being grasped by her mother-in-law’s hand and whisked into the house.