The Fires of Torretta

by Iris Danbury

  “But if all the plates move so slowly, only inches in a hundred years, why is it that earthquakes happen so suddenly?” she asked.

  Brent laughed. “Perhaps we now know why. What we don’t always know is when. You see, collisions occur along the edges of the plates which are at different levels, different angles perhaps to each other. Then you get a fault, one like the San Andreas fault in California. Only there are usually extra faults branching off, sometimes unsuspected for centuries until they suddenly give way.”

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t grasp it very well.”

  “Look—imagine you break a saucer or a plate roughly in half. The jagged edges fit perhaps, but push them out of line and they’ll grind against each other. If one piece sinks below the level of the other, then—in the case of the earth—there’s a gap. The centre core of the earth is molten and under terrific pressure, so if a gap occurs, that pressure is released either in earthquakes or volcano eruptions.”

  Rosamund could now begin to see the connection. “So you can plot probable earthquakes in some places?”

  “The earthquake belt is well known by now. Parts of North Africa, Sicily, Greece, Turkey, then in a curve up to Japan, across the Pacific to Alaska and down the west coast to South America, Peru and Chile and across the Atlantic again.”

  After a pause she said, “I suppose that’s your life’s itinerary? The earthquake belt?”

  “Not quite. It would take too many lifetimes to study all the places. I might want to change my plans—” and then he broke off. “I think I see lights in the kitchen, so Maria and Tomaso are back.”

  She rose immediately. Before she could move away from the doorway, he held her shoulders and gave her a gentle brotherly kiss that undoubtedly meant “Good-bye. Thanks for a pleasant friendship.”

  She stood passively, neither responding nor struggling from his light grasp.

  Then he whispered, “Look to this day; for yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow is only a vision.”

  “A quotation?”

  “Yes. Sanskrit. Not good advice to a geologist, perhaps. But useful to remember sometimes. Goodnight, Rosamund.” He did not accompany her across the courtyard, but she felt his gaze boring into her back as she knocked on the kitchen door. Maria might as well let her in.

  In the kitchen Lucia was too excited to stay still. She danced around the floor, her hair flying wildly over her shoulders.

  “She has taken the hearts of all the young men at the wedding,” explained Maria in slow Italian for Rosamund to understand.

  “Good for Lucia!”

  The girl stopped her gyrations. “And you, signorina? It was a good day.”

  “Very good,” agreed Rosamund. “I enjoyed it all.” That was a secret lie, but until the evening when the significance of Brent’s outpourings dawned on her, the day’s pleasure had been most satisfying, except for that initial surprise in being one of a trio of girls.

  “You came home with the signore inglese?” asked Maria.

  Rosamund nodded. “But I had no key to the front door.”

  “I show you where there is always a key for this back door,” offered Tomaso, and opened the door and indicated a key in a tin box on a ledge. “Sometimes the signore inglese uses it.”

  So Brent had known that she was not really locked out. She said good nights to Maria, Tomaso and Lucia and went through the villa and upstairs to her room. Erica, she had been told, had been dropped at the Mandelli villa along with Adriana, and Stephen would bring his daughter home.

  Rosamund needed to be alone and hoped that Erica would not eventually disturb her. When she was in bed she lay in the darkness, her eyes wide open. Of course she had known long before today that she had unwittingly, even unwillingly, given her love to Brent, but now a profound desolation swept over her at the knowledge that he was going away for some time, not out of consideration for her, but for Adriana.

  Trying to sum him up dispassionately, if that were possible, she had imagined that he was impervious to the wiles and stratagems of women, that the life he had chosen in the field of geology precluded marrying and settling down, at least for some years. Evidently she was wrong, for Adriana had melted his resolutions with her sorrowing face and challenged him to overthrow her desire to enter a convent.

  Yet he could be kind and considerate. Maria and Tomaso adored him for his generosity and concern for their welfare. Even tonight, he had insisted on leaving the wedding gala early so that the horse might travel home in daylight and not be startled by cars. He had shown her how to take good photographs and finish them properly and had given her the use of his cottage so that she would not be obliged to use a room in the villa as a darkroom.

  Why could she not have accepted this friendship that he had offered her? Why must she demand more of him than he was prepared to give? Dry-eyed and sleepless, she could find no answer to these questions. She had recognised long ago that, in spite of all the wrangling and jangling between them, her daily life took on a brighter, more vivid colour when he was around.

  Yet if she did not want to fall so headlong in love with him, how could she have withdrawn from the situation short of giving up her job with Stephen and upsetting the work he had come to do in Sicily?

  Before a long-awaited sleep overtook her, she remembered the quotation he had spoken: “Look to this day; for yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow what was tomorrow? Ah, yes, only a vision.

  For her, Brent did not figure in that vision and the dream was yesterday’s. From his departure, she would choose the more indifferent saying—“Out of sight, out of mind.” She would deny her heart the chance that absence might strengthen such a hopeless infatuation. Surely a long period without his frequent presence would help to quell the smouldering fires that burned within her, fires that leapt into flame at his touch or the sound of his voice.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Erica came into her father’s study and announced dramatically, “Brent’s gone!”

  Stephen looked up from his book and Rosamund stopped typing.

  “Gone? Gone where?” he asked.

  Erica ignored the question but came towards Rosamund. “What is it you do to Brent?” she demanded. “Every time he comes here, you evidently upset him and frighten him away.”

  “Frighten him? He’s hardly the type to be frightened off,” Rosamund said mildly.

  “Well, it was only yesterday when he took us to the wedding in that village. You were the one who came home with him and now he’s gone.”

  “I thought he said he was here for a week’s leave,” put in Stephen.

  “Oh, yes, and he would probably have stayed if it were not for Rosamund, but as soon as he’s with her for a few hours, he decides to go elsewhere to spend the rest of his holiday.”

  Rosamund had rarely seen Erica so angry.

  Stephen turned to Rosamund. “Did you know he was going soon?”

  After a moment’s pause she answered, “He plans to return to Stromboli, then to some of the other islands.”

  “But he’s not coming back to the cottage?”

  “No. He’s giving up the rest of the tenancy.”

  “When did he tell you all this?” Erica wanted to know.

  “Last night when we came home from the wedding.”

  “That was a piece of crafty planning on your part,” stormed Erica. “Neither Adriana nor I knew that he’d gone off early and taken you with him. As it was, we had to come home by car.”

  “I didn’t plan it at all,” Rosamund defended herself. “He wanted to return in daylight for the sake of the horse.”

  Suddenly Erica’s angry composure crumpled and she burst into tears. Stephen rose immediately to comfort her and Rosamund deemed it tactful to leave him alone with his daughter.

  She walked slowly out of the villa and across the courtyard to Brent’s cottage. The door was open as it had been on that first meeting with him several months ago, but now the two rooms were tidy. His books, his clothe
s, the small personal possessions usually strewn about, all were gone. A wine bottle only about a quarter full stood on the dresser, the sole object to remind Rosamund of that last conversation yesterday evening.

  But as she looked around her, she realised that there was more of Brent’s personality here than a nearly empty wine-bottle. His presence permeated the cottage, so that she felt that any moment he would be standing beside her, taunting her, riling her or merely being helpful over photography.

  She walked out of the cottage and through the garden before she, too, collapsed into a flood of tears.

  As she returned along one of the paths, Tomaso came to meet her. He carried a large sack over his shoulder.

  “Vegetables for the dinner?” she asked, in an attempt to be jocular.

  “No. It is for the rubbish heap.” He set down the sack for a moment to ease his shoulders.

  Rosamund tried to lift it, but it was far beyond her strength. “Haven’t you a wheelbarrow?” she asked. “You shouldn’t have to carry such loads.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “No. There was never a carriola.”

  “Then we’ll buy you one,” she promised. Then it occurred to her that he was probably lacking in various other tools and helpful necessaries. “Tomaso, come and show me what you have for tools.”

  It was less than fortunate that he conducted her to the stable in which the Sicilian cart now stood, empty, its shafts tipped up, but she controlled a wild desire to touch it where Brent had sat. She examined the poor collection of gardening implements that Tomaso had been given for his use, a fork with a broken handle and bent tines, a spade with an almost fluted cutting edge, a rake almost worn away to the head.

  “Oh, these are almost useless,” she decided.

  “I have tried to mend the fork many times,” Tomaso told her.

  Rosamund had gradually built up a picture of the owner of the Villa Delfino and it was not a flattering one. A couple left winter after winter in the little shack that even Brent had said was draughty; a pittance of wages that scarcely allowed for adequate food and now her discovery of the lack of gardening tools.

  “You shall have a carriola,” she promised, “as well as new fork and spade and whatever else you need.”

  Tomaso’s eyes shone with pleasure. “The signorina is kind and thoughtful. But come with me to the kitchen, for Maria has something to give to the signore.”

  Maria was busy with the cooking, but when she saw Rosamund, she wiped her floury hands and fetched a pottery jar with a lid. From it she extracted a handful of money.

  “For the signore,” she said. “Please take.”

  “But I don’t understand. The English signore?”

  “Yes, the professore.”

  At first Rosamund thought they meant Brent. “But what is the money for?”

  Maria and Tomaso stood closely together and beamed at each other. “We have saved this money from our wages,” she explained in slow Italian, “to pay back the money we took from the young English signore Brent.”

  “Oh, no, we couldn’t take it from you,” she said at once, knowing Stephen’s views on such a trifling matter. She picked up the money and placed it back again in Maria’s hands.

  The woman’s head drooped and Tomaso turned away. “Yes, yes,” he said. “We were wrong, but you understand that Maria was ill and needed medicines.”

  “We must now pay back,” declared Maria obstinately. Rosamund saw at once what she must do. Their pride would be immeasurably hurt if she refused the money, trifling to Stephen, but a great sacrifice for them.

  “Look, I know. Tomaso will buy new tools for the garden and you, Maria, must have a new dress. The professore has forgotten all about the rent for the cottage.”

  Their faces instantly brightened. “You are kind,” murmured Maria.

  “If you have any left over, then send your son a nice wedding present,” added Rosamund.

  Maria bent her head to kiss Rosamund’s hand. “Yes, we will do that.”

  Outside the kitchen and strolling past Brent’s shack on her way to the front of the villa, Rosamund reflected that it was quite possible that Tomaso and Maria had tried to save a little out of their wages, but now she surmised that Brent had helped to make up the total sum. If so, she would never let the old couple or Brent know what she suspected.

  At lunch Erica had regained her composure and the conversation omitted any mention of Brent, but when the two girls were taking their siesta on the villa terrace, Erica said suddenly, “I’m sorry I went off the deep end like that.”

  Rosamund smiled and put her hand over Erica’s. “Not to worry. We both know by now that Brent is unpredictable. He comes and goes by his own laws.”

  “M’m. I don’t think I’d get on very well with him day by day. At first I was a little bit taken with him. So were you!”

  Rosamund laughed softly. What could she answer to that accusation? “I think he counts on girls being a little bit taken with him.”

  Erica raised herself on one elbow. “You weren’t really—I mean it didn’t go very deep with you, did it?”

  Rosamund stared across the sapphire bay beyond the terrace balustrade. “No,” she lied. “In a foreign place you tend to notice one of your own countrymen more than you would at home.”

  If she could persuade Erica that her longing for Brent was only a superficial and transitory experience, then in due time she might be able to convince herself.

  After a pause Erica asked, “Do you think Adriana has fallen for him?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, because Niccolo has mentioned the matter once or twice. He seems concerned in case—well, he might think that Brent wasn’t all that serious, and you know how fiery these Sicilians can be over their sisters.”

  Rosamund laughed. “I don’t think we shall see a duel between Niccolo and Brent.”

  “In any case, Seppi says that Adriana has met a new man, Italian, but she doesn’t want her parents to know yet.”

  “Oh?” This was news to Rosamund and welcome information at that.

  “Niccolo told me that Adriana had a very unhappy time over a man she wanted to marry. Then he was killed in an air crash. So she’s sworn Seppi and Niccolo, I suppose, too, to secrecy.”

  “A fine way Seppi has of keeping a secret!”

  Yet a tiny spurt of hope rose within Rosamund’s tangled feelings. Did Brent know of Adriana’s new attachment and was that the reason for his disappearance, so that she could have time to choose?

  Several nights later Stephen took the two girls to the Greek theatre in Taormina for a performance of “Oedipus Rex”.

  “It should be worth seeing,” Stephen told Rosamund when they were about to start and were waiting for Erica.

  “I’ve never seen anything acted on such a stage.”

  “I thought it might also be a lift to Erica’s spirits, although she seems to have got over her annoyance with Brent. A rum chap, he is. Disappearing like that without a word to any of us. Oh, well, perhaps we shall all get on better without him. So far, I’ve done very little real work since we came here.”

  “If we both go on at the same pace you’ll need to be here five years instead of one,” said Rosamund, laughing.

  Erica came out to the car at that moment. “What are you laughing about?”

  “Rosamund wants to be here in Sicily for five years,” Stephen answered lightly.

  “Not in the least. That wasn’t what I said,” objected Rosamund.

  “Well, whichever it was,” retorted Erica, “I hope you don’t include me in that five-year plan.”

  “Why? Don’t you like Sicily?”

  “Enough to stick it out for one year. After that—who knows?” Erica gave her father a bewitching smile as she settled herself in the car.

  The performance in the Greek theatre was an occasion that Rosamund knew would be imprinted on her mind for a long time. The auditorium was floodlit at first in a fiery glow, but when the play began, the ligh
ting was confined to the arena stage, where the ruined columns and arches created a superb background to the players, more theatrical than any stage set could have been. Paving had been laid over the rough stone slabs and the orchestra was grouped in a roomy, sunken pit. The only concession to any kind of stage scenery was in the shape of cut-outs representing trees placed in the wings. The actors made their entrances and exits from the black shadows on either side.

  Stephen had chosen seats in the first raised tier above the rows of seats which had been placed on the level of stalls.

  “You get the idea of a Greek theatre better from this height,” he whispered to Rosamund.

  Cleverly designed lighting varied the scenes throughout the tragic span of the play, and although Rosamund knew the sequence of events, she realised that she had never been so absorbed as tonight watching a tragedy that had first been enacted in similar surroundings over two thousand years ago.

  Only when the play and its spell were finished did she return to the material world of the twentieth century. Through the gap between the arches and pillars at the back of the stage a curving chain of light against the dark sea indicated the shore of Giardini and a snaking zigzag of bright light showed the road up to Taormina, with pinpoints on the slopes of Etna.

  “What a place to choose to build a Greek theatre,” she murmured to Stephen as they left their seats and walked to the gangway.

  “Oh, the Greeks had an eye for a good viewpoint, certainly.”

  They chatted about the performance and Rosamund was glad that Stephen at last seemed to have overcome his antipathy to the theatre in general.

  For the next few weeks Stephen worked on various chapters of his new book concerning the legendary Atlantis and its shifting population first to Crete, then to part of Sicily. Rosamund welcomed the anodyne of hard work and spent much of her free time in research or note-taking. Sometimes she went up to the Villa Mandelli to refer to the library collection there, and on one of these visits Niccolo came into the library.

  “Can I help you to find something?” he asked.