Anne Weale

by Terrace in the Sun [HR-1067] (epub)

  Julien said, "It's beautiful hair, and perhaps you would not like to have it cut. But I think you would look very charming with a different coiffure. I cannot explain in English. Do you understand French?"

  She nodded, and he said in French, "I am sure it would suit you the way they are wearing it in Paris this season —very short, with soft curls and a little fringe across the forehead. You have an excellent profile, you know."

  "Have I?" she said, taken aback.

  "Yes, I noticed it at dinner last night And your skin too is lovely."

  She did colour at that. "I'm too brown," she said, looking away. "English girls are supposed to have pink and white complexions."

  "You are not brown—you are golden," he told her.

  The tone of his voice sent a queer little tingle through her. And then she remembered what he had said to David Cassano the previous afternoon. I have never met one of these serious-minded girls before. I wonder if she is really so different? It might be amusing to find out.

  Was that what he was doing now? Flattering her to see if she would rise to it? Hoping to get a laugh out of her gullibility?

  Somehow, in spite of his good looks and debonair manners, he didn't give her the impression that he was a hard-boiled young man, with that streak of ruthlessness and cynicism which she sensed in David Cassano. Julien must be aware of his looks, and he was probably a tremendous flirt. But there was something disarmingly boyish about his broad grin. He didn't seem the kind of person who would get a kick out of playing on other people's weaknesses.

  She said, reverting to English, "How long will you be staying here, m'sieur?"

  "Oh, please—you must call me Julien," he protested.

  "All right . . . my name is Justine."

  "Justine? But that is a French name."

  "Is it? In my case it's a feminine version of Justin. My parents were expecting to have a son. They hadn't thought of any names for a girl."

  "Your mother does not come with you on these expeditions? She prefers to stay in England?"

  "My mother died when I was born."

  "Oh, I am sorry. I also do not remember my mother." He hesitated, and then went on, "After my father was killed in the war, my mother was very unhappy here. She came from Ajaccio, and was not accustomed to the dullness of Pisano. One day, when my sister and I were very young, she went away and did not return. It was a great scandal because my father had been a leader of the Resistance in Corsica, and everyone said it was very wicked of her to betray his memory and desert her children. But I understand how it was for her."

  "Do you know what happened to her?" Justine asked.

  "Yes, she is married and living in Paris. I have met her there. This is a confidence, you understand. My grandmother does not know I have seen Juliette. She has never spoken her name since the day she left Pisano."

  "Where is your sister now?"

  "She lives in Nice with her belle-mere."

  "Her mother-in-law? You mean she's married. But Sophia called her Mademoiselle Diane."

  He smiled. "Sophia forgets we are grown. Always she thinks of us as children. My sister is a widow now. Her husband was many years older. They were married for only a few months before he died with a heart attack. Diane also wished to escape from Pisano."

  "How strange that you should all want to leave the island. I'd be happy to spend the rest of my life here," said Justine, half to herself.

  "But it is so out of date," he objected. "No electricity, no hot water from a tap, no television. And in winter, when there are storms, it is sometimes very cold here. My appartement in Paris is much more comfortable."

  Justine laughed. "You're obviously a born sybarite, Julien. For me, the view from the terrace is worth a dozen television sets."

  "What does this word sybarite mean?" he asked perplexedly.

  "It's means someone who puts luxury and pleasure above everything," she explained.

  "Oh, I see." He sat up and leaned towards her. He said, in French, "It is the first time I have seen you laugh. You should laugh more often. It becomes you."

  She said lightly, "I can't laugh when there's nothing to laugh at."

  He sprang to his feet, shrugged on his robe, and held out his hands to pull her up. "Then I must see that you have many things to laugh at. First, we will have breakfast together on the terrace. You can look at the view, and I will look at you. No, no, don't tie up your hair. I like it the way it is."

  Holding hands, they ran across the beach to the foot of the staircase and then, laughing and panting, up the steep winding flight to the terrace. About half a dozen steps from the top, Justine's energy gave out, and Julien put his arm round her waist and half carried her up the remaining steps.

  "Oh, I've got such a stitch!" she gasped, leaning weakly against him, her cheeks glowing, her unbound hair wildly dishevelled.

  He was out of breath too, but grinning from ear to ear. With his arm still round her, he lifted his free hand to smooth back her tumbled hair.

  And it was then that they both sensed they were not alone. A few feet away from the opening in the balustrade, at a point from which he must have witnessed the whole childishly exuberant scramble up the staircase, stood Professor Field. With him was David Cassano.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FOR a long moment nobody moved. They stood like figures in a tableau, the two young people facing the two older ones whose presence they had only just noticed.

  Julien was the first to speak. Unaware that all the colour and animation had drained from Justine's face, he said cheerfully. "Good morning. We have been swimming."

  "That is self-evident, young man," the Professor observed acidly.

  Even then Julien failed to realise that the atmosphere was charged with tension. Evidently he thought the tall, thin, grey-haired Englishman had addressed him in that tone because he had omitted to introduce himself.

  "I beg your pardon, sir. I am Julien di Rostini," he said, stepping forward to shake hands.

  For one appalling instant, Justine thought her father was going to ignore the gesture. It might not be apparent to the others, but she could tell he was angrier than she had ever seen him.

  He shook hands, then addressed his daughter. "We are waiting to begin breakfast, Justine. I trust it will not take you long to compose yourself?"

  The bite in his voice made her flinch. "I'm sorry, Father," she said in a low chagrined voice.

  "Go to your room, then."

  "Yes, Father." Not daring to look at the others, she hurried indoors.

  It took her five minutes to put up her hair, and another five to nerve herself to go downstairs again. She could not remember her father ever speaking to her in so glacial a tone before, and her humiliation was intensified by the fact that David Cassano had been present, not only to see her reprimanded, but to witness the hoydenish conduct which had provoked her father's censure.

  How could I have behaved in that silly vulgar way? she thought miserably, realising what she must have looked like with her hair all over the place, and her face scarlet with exertion. Most shaming of all was the recollection of how she had let Julien put his arm round her, had even hung on to him for support—a man she had only met yesterday.

  The three men had already begun their breakfast when she joined theM. Julien and David Cassano pushed back their chairs and stood up as she approached the table. But her father ignored her arrival, and went on buttering a newly baked croissant.

  "Thank you," Justine murmured huskily, as Cassano drew out the fourth chair for her.

  "How do you like your coffee, Miss Field?" he asked, when he had seated her.

  "White, please," she answered, without looking at him. He filled a cup for her, and saw that everything she might want was within her reach. Then he resumed his conversation with her father.

  Usually, Justine ate three or four of the warm, flaky crescent-shaped rolls, with butter and some of Sophia's delicious peach preserve. But this morning she ate only one roll, and that taste
d like sawdust to her.

  Something nudged against her foot under the table. She realised Julien was trying to attract her attention. Unwillingly, she glanced at him, and received a conspiratorial wink.

  Pretending not to have seen it, Justine said to no one in particular, "Excuse me, please. I may as well go and get ready."

  It was a wretched morning. As she had feared, her father continued to ignore her, speaking only when it was essential to give her a curt instruction. It was a form of punishment which, in childhood, had frightened and distressed her far more than a conventional spanking, or an angry dressing-down.

  But it was more than twelve years since she had last been subjected to this treament, and now, as the long hot morning dragged by, her penitence became tinged with resentment, and a mounting sense of injustice.

  Had her race up the steps with Julien really been so deplorable? Undignified—yes. But no worse. And surely the sarcastic rebuke delivered in front of David Cassano had been sufficient punishment? There was no need to treat her as if she had done something disgusting.

  At noon, she discovered that, although she had brought their two vacuum flasks, she had forgotten to pack the napkin-wrapped package of bread, black figatelli sausage and hard-boiled eggs which Sophia provided for their lunch each day. The housekeeper had not been in the kitchen when Justine went to fetch the lunch pack and, in her upset state of mind, she must have put the flasks in the knapsack but overlooked the food.

  When she told Professor Field about her oversight, he said coldly, "You will have to fetch it then, won't you?"

  Justine bit her lip. For a moment, she felt she hated him. It was the same sudden upsurge of emotion as that which she had experienced the day before, only this time it was directed, not at an arrogant stranger, but at her own father—the man who had loved and cared for her all her life, and to whom she owed everything.

  "I'll be as quick as I can." Turning away from the place where the Professor was working, she hurried towards the path leading back to the coastline.

  Hot tears stung her eyelids and blurred her vision, making her stumble over stones and exposed roots.

  The day was even hotter than yesterday. As she passed the grotesquely shaped wild olive tree where the track forked in different directions, she felt suddenly dizzy and a little sick. Feeling that she must rest for a few minutes, she slumped down on a convenient boulder and closed her eyes.

  She was on the point of getting up, when she heard footsteps approaching from the other side of a dense thicket of maquis. She expected to see one of the village men, but it was David Cassano who presently came into 1 view. He was carrying a basket in one hand, and a plastic bucket in the other. The bucket contained a bottle of wine, packed round with chunks of ice. There was no refrigerator at the villa, or anywhere else on the island, so he must have obtained the ice from his yacht.

  "Hello," he said pleasantly. "Are you on your way down to fetch your lunch? Sophia told me you'd forgotten it. I have it here. If you and your father have no objection, I'll have mine with you. I've brought some extra food along."

  Justine stood up. At the moment, it seemed to her that | in the past twenty-four hours, the whole placid orderly progress of her life had been abruptly jolted out of kilter—and that it all stemmed from the arrival of this man, and was caused by his disruptive influence.

  "If you wish," she said distantly. "But we only take a short break for lunch"—and then the ground seemed to tilt under her feet, and she thought her final ignominy was going to be staggering behind a bush to be sick.

  But she was not sick. And, after he had made her sit again and pushed her head down between her knees, the giddiness and faintness passed off. When she straightened and opened her eyes, David Cassano held a glass to her lips.

  "Don't drink it. Sip it . . . slowly," he ordered.

  The wine in the glass was a light dry Hock, chilled but not icy, and wonderfully refreshing and steadying. After she had taken two or three sips, Justine felt sufficiently recovered to hold the glass for herself, and to say, "Thank you. I don't know why I felt so groggy suddenly. I'm not usually affected by the heat."

  "Today is exceptionally hot, and you had very little for breakfast," he reminded her, moving away to replace the tall taper-necked amber bottle in its bed of ice.

  "So did you," she said.

  "I haven't been working this morning." It was then she noticed he had changed the clothes he had been wearing earlier, the casual but unmistakably expensive dark grey linen shirt, with a silk scarf folded inside the collar, and the pale knife-creased slacks. Now, he was dressed in hard-wearing maquis-proof drill, and a pair of the canvas boots called pataugas, the best of all footwear for rough walking in the wilder parts of the hinterland.

  Who is he? she wondered perplexedly, wishing she had thought to question Julien about him when they were down on the beach.

  "You had better go back to the villa and rest for an hour," he said. "I will explain to your father."

  "Oh, no, I can't do that. Anyway, I'm all right now."

  "You may think you are, but you'll soon feel ill again if you don't take it easy for a while. It isn't wise to work during the hottest part of the day."

  "I've done it ever since we've been here, and I've never felt ill before."

  "Possibly not—but you aren't well today, and you need a rest," he replied, as if that settled the matter.

  His tone made Justine bristle. "I'm not here on holiday, m'sieur. I have work to do. My father needs me to help him."

  Cassano studied her for a moment He was standing with his feet apart, and his hands on his narrow hips. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, and, as he was no longer wearing a scarf, she could see that his throat and chest were as darkly tanned as his face. Somehow, in that attitude and the rough clothes, he looked even more intimidating than he had in the salon the night before.

  He said, "In that case he shouldn't upset you."

  She stiffened. "What do you mean?"

  "There are marks on you cheeks. You've been crying."

  "No, I haven't!" she flared indignantly. "I—I got some grit in my eyes. I never cry."

  "Never?" he echoed sceptically. "Then perhaps you should try it It might release some of the tension."

  Her face flamed. "I don't know what you're talking about" she said, in a shaking voice. "Just because I felt giddy for a minute—"

  "Hot climates can be a strain on the toughest people, Miss Field," he cut in mildly. "You can't beat the heat —you have to adapt to it. To rest in the middle of the day isn't weakness, it's common sense."

  "I don't want a rest," she said mutinously. "I've told you . . . I'm perfectly all right now."

  He shrugged, and said impassively, "Very well—but I think you may regret your obstinacy." And he picked up the basket and the bucket, and strode past her.

  He had gone only a little way, and she had begun to follow, when he stopped and turned to face her again. Justine stopped too.

  "Tell me, Miss Field, how long is your work on Pisano likely to take?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure . . . several months," she answered uncertainly.

  "In that case it would be diplomatic to disguise the antipathy which I seem to arouse in you," he said dryly, and walked on.

  Justine was still puzzling over this cryptic remark when they reached the site. When David Cassano stated his intention to join them for lunch, she expected her father to show as little enthusiasm for his company as she had done.

  To her surprise, Professor Field said affably, "By all means, my dear fellow ... by all means."

  As well as providing wine, Cassano had supplemented the Fields' usual simple fare with smoked salmon sandwiches, cold roast legs of chicken, grapes and peaches, and three waxed cartons containing tiny, luscious wild strawberries. They were all packed in an insulated bag to protect them from the heat and dust.

  "A Lucullan repast!" the Professor exclaimed appreciatively, as they sat on crates under the canvas
awning which served as a pottery store. "Grateful as we are for Madame di Rostini's extremely generous hospitality, I must confess to finding the local cuisine a trifle indigestible."

  "You must do me the honour of dining on board Kalliste one night, sir." the younger man suggested.

  To his daughter's dismay, Professor Field said cordially, "We should be delighted."

  Justine took no part in the conversation during the meal. She could not understand why her father seemed to have taken a liking to the other man. The Professor was not usually forthcoming with strangers, and could be almost offensively brusque to anyone who attempted to engage him in trivial small-talk, or indeed upon any topic which was not related to his all-absorbing life's work.

  As soon as they had finished eating, Cassano left them and disappeared over the ridge as he had done the day before.

  "Interesting man . . . unusually well informed," the Professor murmured approvingly, watching him go.

  "I don't like him," Justine said abruptly.

  Her father frowned at her. "Indeed? For what reason, may I ask?"

  Wishing she had not spoken, she said, "I don't believe he's really interested in us ... in our work. I think he's here for some purpose of his own. This morning, when you first met him, did he tell you anything about himself, Father?"

  "He appears to be a friend of the family," the Profesor said shortly.

  She shook her head. "I don't think he is ... I think this is the first time he has been here."

  "Then we must assume the connection is with that young sprig who seems to have made such a favourable impression on you," her father answered acidly. And with that, he walked away and left her.

  When they returned to the villa that evening, Justine learned from Sophia that the excitement of her adored grandson's homecoming had overtaxed Madame's frail strength, and she had not been well enough to get up.

  "Monsieur Julien has been with her all day. He is a good boy, that one. Not every young man would exert himself to amuse an old lady," the housekeeper said fondly. "He is to have supper with her, and afterwards I will give her a sleeping draught and perhaps tomorrow she will feel stronger."