by Jane Arbor
She had little clue as to how Cesare thought of her. She knew he liked her, looked forward to their talks and often deferred to her opinion on all sorts of things. It was Agnese who enlightened her, making opportunity of a morning when Cesare had been called away.
The day was overcast, threatening rain. Cicely, prepared in waterproof cape aid hood, had ridden off with a groom, and Agnese invited Ruth into the house for coffee, just as the rain came down. Under the darkened skies the high salon seemed more austere than ever and cold with a chill which, to Ruth’s imagination, had no relation to the physical atmosphere.
Agnese was not a woman for finesse. She came straight to her point with, ‘May I ask you, signora, what is your view of your obvious attraction for my brother?’
Ruth stared. ‘My attraction for him? I don’t think I understand you, signora?’
‘Ah, come! You must know what he feels for you by now!’
‘I know that he is friendly, that he likes me, I think. No more than that.’
‘Well, it is no secret from me that it goes further than that; that he is in love with you, whether you claim to know it or not.’
Ruth said patiently, ‘How can I know it, when he has given me no sign?’
‘Bah! A woman always knows these things. She does not need another woman to tell her.’
‘Then why are you telling me, signora?’ asked Ruth.
‘As I have said, I thought you would not need telling, and I wanted to know how you would answer him, should he propose marriage to you.’
‘I should be honoured, but I should refuse him.’
Agnese bridled. ‘Why? We are poor, but Cesare is a Count of the Holy Roman Empire! His wife would bear the title of Contessa.’
‘Yes, I understand that, but—’
‘Then he has spoken to you of marriage?’
‘No, he mentioned his title in passing, at our first meeting. But now you know I should refuse him, is that all you want of me, signora?’
Agnese folded her hands in her lap and sat very upright. She had the air of a judge about to pass sentence. ‘No, it is not all,’ she said. ‘I have to request that if you mean to refuse him, you should not see as much of Cesare as you have done hitherto.’
Ruth smiled placatingly. ‘Oh, really, signora! We have contracted for a series of riding lessons for Cicely, and while they continue, I have to drive her over here. She cannot drive herself. And why should I avoid your brother, when I have come to value him as a friend? And he to value me, I hope.’
Agnese shook her head. ‘In Italy we do not understand such friendships between a man and a woman. If she encourages him as you encourage Cesare, she is not blind to what he has in mind. Cesare understands this very well, and you are giving him hope which you say you do not mean to fulfil. This is cruel of you, and is a state of affairs which, I warn you, I do not intend to tolerate.’
‘But when he has said nothing to me, what reason could I give him for avoiding him, even were I able to? What do you want me to do?’ Ruth asked bewilderedly.
‘That I must leave to you,’ said Agnese with a shrug. ‘You are an adult woman, signora. You have been married. You must know many ways of discouraging a man.’
‘Before he has done or said anything that calls for discouragement?’ Ruth set aside her coffee cup and stood up. ‘No, I’m sorry. While matters are as they are between your brother and me, they remain so. I can’t do as you ask, and for instance, you could hardly wish me to tell Cesare that I was avoiding him because you had demanded it of me?’
‘I should have to hope that you would have more charity than to make trouble between a devoted brother and his sister,’ said Agnese calmly. ‘But if you have not, then you must do as you please. Even that would be a small price to pay for Cesare’s freedom from a woman who wants him as a lapdog, grateful for her favours, though from whom she means to withhold the ultimate one.’
That was too much! Ruth retorted hotly, ‘If I did as you ask, of course I should not implicate you. But as I am not doing as you ask until Cesare himself gives me cause.’
‘And when he gives you cause? After that, what then?’ Agnese insinuated.
‘That I must decide if he ever gives me cause, and what he wishes himself that I should do, after I have refused him.’
‘I see. Then there is nothing more to be said?’ ‘Nothing, I’m afraid,’ agreed Ruth.
‘And it does not matter to you that on my side I shall do everything in my power to discourage his attentions to you? Even to the point of an open hostility which he can hardly mistake?’
Ruth shook her head a little hopelessly. ‘That I must leave to you, signora,’ she said. She went towards the door, and reaching it, turned. ‘Addio, signora,’ she added distantly.
Agnese merely looked through the window. ‘It is still raining,’ she said.
‘It doesn’t matter. We English are used to rain.’
Plunging out into it, but forced at last to seek the shelter of the belvedere’s portico, Ruth felt stifled by her own impotent indignation. It was not until later— much later—that she saw a parallel which was distasteful to face. Just so—as Agnese Fonti had appealed to her—had she appealed to Erle not to encourage Cicely, and had met with about as frosty a reception. Were they both then meddling do-gooders, Ruth wondered, believing their own case good and thrusting it down the throats of other people? The thought made her feel a little kindlier towards Agnese, who obviously cared for Cesare. But she writhed to picture how Erle must despise her for seeing mischief where—probably—none existed. Then she gave herself a mental shake. She had meant well by Cicely, hadn’t she? And if he couldn’t see that, why should she care what he thought of her for it?
He was still away in Vienna when, one morning, there was a surprise in Ruth’s mail. An expensive-looking envelope contained a large gilt-edged card of invitation to herself and Cicely to a private showing of the haute couture collection of Roscuro, one of the best known names in Italian fashion. Smiling, Ruth passed the card to Cicely. ‘Do you want to go?’ she asked.
‘Want to go? Silly question!’ breathed Cicely rapturously, taking credit to herself that the invitation must be Erle’s doing. She had asked him to arrange it, and he had remembered and had done it. ‘It just goes to show—’ she murmured dreamily, though what it went to show she did not share with Ruth.
If ever there was a misnomer, they both agreed, it was the description ‘private’ for a showing which had brought crowds of elegant women, with a sprinkling of men, to the foyer of the gracious building on the Via Condotti which housed the display theatre and workrooms of the partnership known as Roscuro. Ruth and Cicely were greeted and gathered in, offered drinks or coffee and ultimately shown to their places in the theatre, where the audience disposed itself on spindle legged gilt chairs so cheek-by-jowl that Cicely declared in a stage whisper to Ruth, ‘If I so much as take a deep breath I’m going to dislodge this dame next to me!’
The showing began to a medley of Italian voices which stilled to complete silence only when the impact of a particular number galvanised the audience to dap feverishly instead. For the most part its attention was laconic, even slightly bored. The buzz of talk continued unchecked and even a sotto voce conversation could not help but become public property.
Such a one was being conducted by Ruth’s immediate neighbour and a woman in the row behind. This latter sat forward; Ruth’s neighbour craned a graceful neck backwards, with the result that each spoke almost in Ruth’s ear. And to her consternation they were discussing Erle...
She glanced quickly at Cicely. But the girl was rapt, watching the nonchalant pirouetting of the model on the catwalk, and in any case she hadn’t enough Italian to know what was being said.
‘I see he is not escorting either Gancia or Parioli today,’ said the woman behind.
‘No, he is in Vienna, one hears. And only La Gancia is here. La Parioli is—where?’
‘You think she may be with him?’
; ‘Well, she is not in Rome. If she were, she would not risk not to be seen at a Roscuro.’
‘No. Then perhaps—though of course one can only guess, and as you and I know, there are half a dozen others who just might be in Vienna at the same time as he—There are also, they say, his very pretty English protégée and the hostess he has found for her.’
‘And whom, among his friends, could he choose to chaperon a young girl, would you say?’
‘Oh, I don’t think she is a friend of his. Just someone for whom he advertised to shepherd the girl for the time she is here.’
‘Ah—’ With a nod the woman behind Ruth turned front again to add her applause for the traditionally final showing of the collection—a demure wedding gown of ivory lace with a veil merging with a train which ran the whole length of the catwalk behind the model.
Then the audience broke up into chattering groups and Ruth and Cicely, knowing no one there, were about to leave when they were approached by the head saleswoman who had welcomed them on their arrival.
She laid a hand on Ruth’s arm. ‘Signora, signorina—I have instructions. From Signore Nash, you understand. That whichever design of our collection pleased either of you most should be made to your fitting at his expense.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘You were each able to select your favourite one, no doubt?’
Ruth gasped and interpreted for Cicely who, with a whoop of delight, leafed through her programme and pointed. ‘That one for me!’ she crooned. ‘That utterly snazzy sailor suit with the bell-bottoms and the round straw hat. Did Erle really mean—? And something for you too! Oh, isn’t he a—a positive lamb-chop!’
The saleswoman smiled. ‘We shall send you an appointment for a fitting, signorina.’ She turned to Ruth. ‘And for the signora—?’
As Ruth said nothing, momentarily too nonplussed for words, Cicely cut in, ‘I know which one for her. That sea-greeny dinner dress with the bishop sleeves caught in at the—’ She stopped as Ruth shook her head. ‘Not that? But you drooled over it when it was shown! Which, then? You certainly fooled me!’
Ruth said, ‘None of them.’ In Italian she told the saleswoman, ‘I’d rather not choose anything for myself. I will explain why not to Signore Nash.’
‘You cannot decide today? You will be choosing later?’
‘No, not at all, I’m afraid. Addio, signora. Grazie—’ With a hand under Cicely’s elbow, hurrying her along, Ruth made her escape. Her temper against Erle sharpened by her enforced eavesdropping, she was fuming within. What did he think she was? Another one added to the ‘half dozen who just might be in Vienna at the same time as he was’? Didn’t he know that one didn’t accept expensive clothes from a man unless—? She
had to swallow hard upon her indignation in order to answer Cicely’s clamorous, ‘Why on earth not? Why did you turn down Erle’s offer like that? Why?’
‘Because—’
‘Because what?’
‘You ought to know. It was an—insult.’
‘Then why,’ Cicely argued reasonably, ‘wasn’t it an insult to me?’
‘Because he is a friend of your people and you’re in his charge.’ Ruth almost added, ‘and a mere child’ before she remembered that she had argued with Erle that Cicely was mature enough to fall in love. Instead she said, ‘That makes it different for you.’
‘And at what point does it become different for you?’ Cicely asked.
‘Why, at the point where he is my employer, of course; where there’s no relationship between us except that.’
‘Though I thought you were supposed to have been friends since you were both so high,’ remarked Cicely blandly.
‘But we’d completely lost touch since then and we met again as strangers.’
‘Oh,’ said Cicely, sounding unconvinced. And then, mock-piously, ‘Preserve me! Just how 1890 can quite sensible people get?’
Inevitably Ruth was to dread her next meeting with Cesare. If she could have confided in Cicely or if Cicely were able to drive the car she would have been tempted to dodge the issue and not to go over to the Casa, and though that would be to play into Agnese’s hands, she knew she was going to be guarded and watchful of everything Cesare said and did. In fact, if Agnese had wanted only to disturb their friendship instead of ending it, she had already succeeded in that.
But on the occasion of Cicely’s next riding lesson, Cesare had worries of his own which, to Ruth’s relief, had nothing to do with her.
When Cicely had gone out with the groom he confided, ‘It looks as if I may have an accommodation problem on my hands before long. Our landlord has had an offer from a buyer for the Casa, and he thinks that if the price is right, he may sell. Which could mean—’
‘That you might have to go?’ prompted Ruth. ‘But haven’t you a lease on the place?’
‘For seven years, yes. But it runs out this autumn, and it all depends on whether the buyer would renew.’
‘And supposing he won’t?’
Cesare shrugged. ‘I can’t run a profitable school without stables on this scale, and though we could hardly have a worse landlord, even a bad one plus a renewable lease is better than a good one without.’
‘Could you find out if the buyer would renew?’
‘Not at this stage. So far, I gather, only feelers have been put out, and our man isn’t telling much while the affair is still fluid.’ Cesare went on, ‘Agnese, of course, is very homesick for Quindereggio, our place in Calabria, and would willingly go back there if we had to. I brought her to Rome hoping to widen her circle. But she doesn’t mix easily and it hasn’t worked out. She says she would rather be poor in the South than moderately well off in Rome.’
‘Could you afford to go back if you had to?’ asked Ruth.
‘Just about, with what I could get for the goodwill of the school and the stock. But me—I do not want to go back. I have more reason than Agnese has for wanting to stay. For instance, friends I value, of whom you happen to be one.’
Ruth said, ‘Thank you. Though you don’t have to lose friends by going away.’
‘One need not. But it happens, doesn’t it?’
‘Sometimes,’ she shrugged, remembering how often it had happened for her.
Cesare sighed and looked at his watch. ‘I must go, I’m afraid. I have a lesson to give. Will you stay here’ —they were on the portico of the belvedere—‘or join Agnese in the house?’
‘I’ll stay here. The sun is lovely,’ said Ruth, glad of any excuse to avoid another clash with Agnese, even though the other woman seemed to have done nothing yet to carry out her threat to do all in her power to come between Cesare and herself.
A few days later Erle flew in from Vienna and Cicely announced her intention of meeting him at the airport, even though Ruth had to travel to give an English lesson on the far side of the city. ‘I’ll go out by coach, and Erle will have left his car at the airport, so that he can drive me back. I shall also wear my Roscuro and stun him with it,’ Cicely claimed.
But whether or not Erle was duly stunned Ruth was not to learn without asking the question. For when she returned to the flat Cicely was already there, full of grievance.
‘Did you meet Erle?’ Ruth asked.
Cicely nodded glumly. ‘And might have saved myself the trouble. Because who do you think came off the plane with him, and all the way back by car? The Parioli woman! I knew who she was, because you had pointed her out at the party Erle gave for me. But he introduced us and—well, she practically patted me on the head! And monopolised him all the way home. Pawed him too, and swivelled her eyes. If he hadn’t dropped her first before he dropped me, I’d have thrown up. I swear I would!’
Though the gossips had prepared her, Ruth had to hide her dismay. ‘Did they—that is, did you gather whether she had been in Vienna too?’
‘Not from anything they said—they were talking in Italian all the while. But after we had got rid of her, I asked Erle, and he said she had been there the last few days—not all the ti
me he had.’
‘Oh,’ Ruth changed the subject. ‘What did Erle think of your Roscuro rig?’
Cicely brightened slightly. ‘Oh, he liked it. Asked if he could take a swig from the bottle of grog I must be carrying in my hip pocket. He wanted to know what you had chosen too. So I said you’d gone all upstage and refused to accept anything.’ Cicely slanted an apologetic look. ‘Did you mind my telling him? He did ask me.’
Ruth bit her lip. ‘No. He had to know. What did he say?’
Cicely hesitated. ‘M’m, nothing. That is, I don’t really remember.’
‘He must have said something.’ But suspecting that Cicely was shielding her from whatever caustic comment Erle had made, Ruth pressed the thing no further. If he chose to misunderstand her refusal, he wouldn’t have spared her much, she knew.
CHAPTER FOUR
They had no further contact with Erle until the day when he telephoned the flat while Ruth was out. When she returned Cicely greeted her with ‘Erle rang. He plans to take us both to Siena.’
‘Siena?’ Ruth echoed. ‘Why Siena?’
‘Several reasons. Because he has to go there next week to hold some auditions. Because he says it’s the best-preserved mediaeval town in Italy and I ought to see it. And because we should be there when they run some crazy horse-race all around the main square of the place. Quite something, Erle says.’
‘Oh yes, the Corso del Palio. It’s famous.’
‘What’s a palio?’
‘The banner that all the wards in the town compete for in the horse-race. It’s ridden by jockeys in mediaeval costumes, I believe. But when next week, and how long for? I have lessons to give,’ Ruth said.
