by Jane Arbor
Alix laughed. ‘ “Old times” is good—of Carlo’s. It’s less than a month since we met!’
‘Well, it feels like old times.’ He sounded moody and cross, and though he had passed it off lightly she guessed he was irked by the incident of the ring. Unlike him, he seemed disinclined to chat, and after one or two attempts she let silence lapse.
Carlo greeted them effusively, shaking Alix warmly by the hand and bringing their cappuccinos himself to the inside table in a dark corner which Michele chose.
‘We shall be quiet here.’ Michele spooned the froth at the top of his cup into a miniature vortex. ‘Look,’ he began savagely, ‘I’ve had enough, haven’t you? That thing of Mama’s about my ring for you was too much. It can’t go on. It mustn’t.’
Alix nodded feelingly. ‘I know. It was rather—horrible. But what are we to do?’
‘Do?’ he echoed. ‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing I’m not doing—now or ever. I’m not going through the farce of buying you a ring. I wouldn’t insult you so. What’s more, I’m not playing this game any longer, like that or not as Leone may.’
‘You mean you’re going to tell your mother the truth about us?’
‘She is going to hear it. All right, I know I began it. But my wits must have been having an off moment. It was a fool idea then and the thing Leone has blown it into since is downright criminal. To you and to me and even more so to Mama. It must end some time, the wrong way, and what is that going to do to her, do you suppose?’
Alix said slowly, ‘But Leone argues that in saving your mother distress and worry for you now and giving her something to hope and plan for now, he is ensuring that by the time she has to learn that there is nothing doing for you and me, she will be so much more herself that she will be able to take it then.’
‘You asked me once whose side I was on. Well, whose side are you?’ Michele accused. ‘And of course that is typical of Leone—making a virtue of trying to play God!’
‘Oh, I don’t think he—’
Michele brushed aside the protest. ‘All right, then. Say instead, being so logical and hardheaded that it’s just not true. Why, if I didn’t know he was a Parigi to his core, I’d wonder if he was Italian at all. For we’re not like that, you know. It’s a kind of deep thing with us, in our blood, that we live the present; we let it ride.’ He paused to admit, ‘Of course it lets one down sometimes. Thinking that way, that it would all work out, I was trapped into handing all this over to Leone. But as far as I’m concerned, it is finishing now ... dead ... buried.’
Alix shook her head in sad bewilderment. ‘You’ll warn Leone first? You aren’t thinking of going straight back and blurting it straight out to your mother? Michele, please—not today! She is so much better, and happy, and looking forward to the party. Please—!’
She believed she had touched him. He reached for her hand and squeezed it. ‘You do care about her, bless you. It makes me almost wish—But it’s no good, Alix carina, it has to come. Meanwhile I’m making no promises about how it is broken to Mama.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It will soon be time for getting you back, but I just want to slip round to my place. So have another cappuccino, will you, while I’m gone?’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No. Wait here.’ Edging round the table, he went to pay Carlo and left.
Alix changed her order to black coffee and when Carlo brought it he stayed to chat until some other customers came in. Time passed. Too much time. She wished she had asked Michele how long he would be away. But perhaps he had met one of his cronies. Or had not been able to find a place to park. Perhaps—When she had run out of excuses for him she went to the door to see if he had taken his car or had walked the short distance to his apartment.
The topolino was not outside, but as she lingered a taxi drove up. The driver went past her into the cafe, spoke briefly to Carlo, then came back to her. He had a letter in his hand.
‘Signorina Rhod-e?’ He made two syllables of her name. Her heart plunged with apprehension.
‘Yes?’
‘For you, signorina.’
He stood aside, waiting, when she had taken the letter from him. As she knew intuitively, it was from Michele and it read—
I have paid this fellow and tipped him well to take you home. You should not be too late. But count me out as having sunk without trace. I told you I wasn’t making any promises, and this is as good a way as any of bringing it home to Mama that none of it was ever true about us. Desperate measures ... but cruel to be kind.
This way too Leone will have to get the message that we are not his puppets, and it lets you out. You can be off and away as soon as you like.
Meanwhile, don’t let Mama worry too much about me. I shall surface some time ... somewhere, even if not at Fontana.—M.
Alix folded the paper, feeling physically sick. The taxi-man opened the door of his cab for her.
‘Castelgandolfo, signorina? The Villa Fontana?’
‘No.’ She gave him Michele’s address. ‘Go there first. I want to speak to the signore who engaged you.’
The man hesitated. ‘No affair of mine, signorina. But I think he is not there now. He called me from that address and when he had booked me he left himself in a topolino,’
‘Never mind. Take me there, please.’
‘As you say, signorina. I only thought that as he had luggage—’
‘Luggage?’
‘Si. A big valise and a—pack, so big—so wide.’ The man’s gesture indicated the size and shape of a duffle-bag which Alix had seen Michele use. But it was still possible that the janitor might know something.
The janitor was not helpful. Yes, he assumed Signor Parigi had returned to pack, as he had left later with bags in his car. No, he had not handed in his keys and no, the janitor had no idea of his plans. Why should he? The signore had the right to come and go as he pleased, so long as he paid his rent.
The taximan was wearing an ‘I told you so’ look as Alix climbed back into his cab. ‘The Villa Fontana now, signorina?’ She could only nod Yes.
What now? What now? Her thoughts whirled as she stared unseeingly at the road. This evening’s party! How could Dora Parigi be expected to face it on the shock of this news? She had to hear it, of course, and in her present state, what might it do to her?? When Michele prated about cruelty for kindness’ sake, had he visualized her hearing that he had deserted for good? Did he care? ‘Ruthless’ he had said of himself. Now Alix knew why.
Strangely—perhaps in contrast to Michele’s weak defection—she found she was thinking of Leone as a reliance she could count on ... a strength ... a rock. She guessed she would not escape the backwash of his anger and his contempt for Michele’s way out. She might even have to prove to him that she had had no complicity in it. But she thought he would believe her. Whatever his arrogances, they did not include injustice.
If only she could hope to see him alone before she had to face the Signora! Deciding that she could best get into the house unseen if she dismissed the cab short of the gates, she did this and had just turned into the drive on foot when Leone’s car followed her in.
He braked. ‘Was that your taxi? Have you only just got back? Where is Michele?’—a question he had put so often in the last month that he would have saved himself breath if he had tape-recorded it, was Alix’s wild, silly thought on hearing it yet again.
She did not answer it. ‘May I come in with you?’ she asked.
His reply was to open the door for her. He threw her a measuring glance. ‘Something is wrong,’ he stated before moving off.
‘Very wrong, I’m afraid.’
‘Michele? An accident?’
‘Michele, yes. But not an accident. Nothing like that.’ When Leone made to stop at the front door Alix added, ‘Could I come round to the garage with you, please? I have to talk to you.’
In the garage he hooked an arm over the steering-wheel and turned to her. ‘Well?’ he invited.
She gave him
Michele’s letter, watching his face for his reaction as he read it. He looked up. ‘How did you come by this?’
She explained, adding her fruitless errand to the flat.
‘He had given you no inkling that he intended this?’
‘Not this. But I knew he was rebelling, and I think his mother’s disappointment over the ring was the last straw for him. He insisted she must be told the truth. I begged him to see you first and at least to act the party through. But he left me without promising anything.’
‘Do you suppose he decamped on the spur of the moment, or did he have it planned?’
‘I don’t know. But if he meant to do it when he took me into Rome, that would explain why he didn’t take the Alfa, wouldn’t it?’
‘Seems likely. When he left the apartment in his car, was he alone?’
‘Alone?’
‘Well, it wouldn’t have been out of character if he had had a woman along,’ Leone said dryly.
‘Oh no. He was alone. If not, surely the janitor or the taximan would have said so? They both saw him leave.’ Alix added wretchedly, ‘His mother—she will have to know?’
‘That he has disappeared? Of course. We can’t keep it from her.’
‘And the party?’
‘No, that’s out. When I have broken the rest to Madrigna she will be in no state to face it.’ Leone glanced at his watch. ‘It’s a late hour at which to cancel it, but it must be done. While I go to Madrigna I’ll leave that to you to see to. I’ll give you the guest-list; they are all on the telephone and they will understand if you explain that we are having to cancel because she is not well.’ He got out of the car. ‘Come along. There’s no time to lose.’
Though she felt diffident about the task he had given her, Alix was grateful for having something positive to do while her thoughts ran rampant over how he was breaking the news to his stepmother; how she was taking it; how bitterly she might react against herself, Alix, for her part in the cruel deception.
For how other than as cruel could the Signora see it, now that Michele’s action had stripped it of all the future good which Leone had hoped for it? She would be bewildered, hurt beyond measure, all the small headway her spirits had made, lost. Alix found it a strange sensation to feel pity for Leone. But she knew something very near to pity for him now. It could be said that he had brought the burden on himself. But she had to believe he had bent Michele and her to his will for the Signora’s good, and the guilt of failure would lie heaviest on him.
Michele was not here to share it and she herself would be gone. How soon? Tonight? At latest, tomorrow. She owed that to the Signora who would surely not want to see her again. She would be free once more. Free—and alone. Terribly alone. From where she sat at Leone’s desk in the window of his study she had a vista of the full length of the cypress avenue; beyond it, the fountain and the water steps and the wild garden where once ... twice ... Leone had been gentle with her. Tomorrow and all the rest of the tomorrows they would still be here and she would not. She did not belong here and never would now. And how long after she had gone would any one of the Parigis want to remember her name?
She finished her telephoning and sat on, dreading Leone’s return. When the door opened she turned sharply. But it was Venetia who came in.
She was in day clothes, but her hair was elaborately piled under a chiffon scarf. ‘Look, what’s going on—or not going on?’ she wanted to know. ‘I’ve been having my hair done for tonight. But nothing seems to be happening around here. The tables aren’t laid; nobody is doing anything about drinks. What are the maids thinking of? Time is getting on. Where is Michele? And Leone? And Zia Dora? And what—?’
Alix said, ‘Something has happened, I’m afraid. The party has had to be cancelled. Leone asked me to telephone round to everyone you had asked, and I’ve just finished. He is with your aunt now. She has had a dreadful shock. Michele has disappeared.’
‘Disappeared?’ The girl came slowly forward. ‘What do you mean? People don’t—just like that!’
‘Well, Michele has,’ Alix said flatly. ‘You know he took me out after luncheon? Well, we went down into the city. We had a cappuccino together. Then he left me to call in at his apartment and later sent me a note by taxicab to say he was leaving, and that the cab would bring me back here. There was nothing I could do. I found out he had taken luggage with him from the flat, so I came back, and Leone is breaking the news to the Signora now.’
Alix could not have said whether it was self-protection or regard for Leone’s right to his secret which decided her against blurting the whole ugly truth yet. Watching Venetia, she saw her perplexed frown and then the something—a lightening, a gleam almost of relish—which dawned in her eyes.
Venetia breathed, ‘Well! So Michele couldn’t take the pressure any more! Though I can’t say I blame him—the way Zia Dora has been breathing down his neck about clinching matters with you. Nothing puts a man off worse. If you were serious about him you’d have done well to make sure of him before you let him bring you up here. I mean, it can’t be much fun for you, finding yourself suddenly jilted in front of a lot of in-laws-to-be who have already assumed the thing was in the bag? If a man did that to me, I don’t know what—! I think I should die of shame. I really would!’
Alix said dryly, ‘It has happened before—to other people. So I daresay I shall get over it.’
The gleam sparked again. ‘So it is a jilt? He handed it to you in the note he sent you? He isn’t just running away from here?’
‘No, it is a jilt,’ Alix confirmed.
‘I must say you are taking it calmly. But I’ve heard that the English do. Still—poor you! I shall tell Leone he must be especially nice to you, to make up. Though I suppose you won’t be staying now, whether or not Michele changes his mind and comes back? Which he must in the end, you know. He can’t help himself.’
‘Why can’t he?’
Venetia shrugged. ‘Well, money, of course. What else?’
‘Money? Should that worry him? He has never seemed short of it since I’ve known him,’ Alix said.
‘Maybe not, but—Do you mean,’ Venetia queried, ‘that you don’t know he is only on an allowance? That the capital his father left him is all tied up in Parigi Cameos until he is twenty-five?’
Alix said, ‘No, I didn’t know.’
‘You don’t even sound interested! Still, that’s the way it is, and can you see Leone meekly continuing to finance him until he chooses to stroll back? No, that’s one screw Leone can use on him, and you can be very sure he will.’
‘Though only, surely, if Michele means to be found? From the tone of his note, he seemed determined to cover his tracks completely. And if that is what he wants, I suppose he could always get a job?’ Alix argued.
‘A job? Michele? You’re joking! Why, you might just as well expect me to earn my own living!’ Venetia scoffed, but sobered quickly as Leone came in.
One glance at the granite planes of his dark face told Alix her pity had not been misplaced and Venetia sympathized, ‘Oh dear! Zia Dora is taking it badly?’
Leone nodded. ‘Very badly, I’m afraid.’ He glanced from Alix to the telephone. ‘All right?’ he asked. And then of Venetia, ‘Alix will have told you? That we’ve had to call off this evening?’
‘But of course you had to,’ she agreed eagerly. ‘But I could—I could slay Michele! Doing this to Zia Dora! And to Alix too! Though she is wonderful about it—quite wonderful. For it must be awful for her, mustn’t it? A real slap in the face—Would you like me to go to Zia Dora now?’
‘No. Not just yet. She wants to see Alix first.’ Ignoring Alix’s start of surprise, Leone put an arm lightly across Venetia’s shoulders and turned her towards the door. ‘A pity to waste that hair-do and whatever dress you were going to stagger us with. Why don’t you ring Giraldo or someone and demand that you be taken out to dinner?’ he advised.
‘Oh, I couldn’t! Zia Dora—’ Venetia visibly wavered. ‘But if she w
ouldn’t think it too heartless of me—?’
‘I’ll see that she understands. Run along and give Giraldo a treat.’ Firmly Leone shut the door on her and turned back to face Alix.
Perplexed and wretched, she looked across at him. ‘That wasn’t the truth, was it?’ she asked. ‘You may have wanted to see me alone. But how can Signora Parigi want to lay eyes on me ever again, after this?’
‘On the contrary, she asked me to bring you to her as soon as you feel equal to it.’ Leone crossed to the window and spoke over his shoulder. ‘You see, as far as she is concerned, nothing between you and her has changed, except that it is doing something for her to feel the reliance isn’t all on her side now; that you may be in as much need of her comfort as she is of yours.’
‘But how can she believe that now? Oh no!’ As comprehension dawned and Alix’s voice cracked in dismay, Leone faced about.
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘I haven’t told her the whole truth. Only your role is altered from that of Michele’s sweetheart to his dupe, so far as she still knows.’
Alix sat forward, shading her eyes with her hand. She said to the bright surface of his desk, ‘In other words, you expect me to carry on with this—fiction as before. Only more so. You want me to pretend that Michele has deserted me. And I can’t. I can’t! You must allow me to tell the Signora the truth and then let me go. Which of course she will want me to, once she has heard it.’
His answer to that was a single purposeful stride and an iron grip on her shoulders which brought her to her feet to face the dark command in his eyes.
‘You are staying,’ he said, making no question of it. ‘Staying—and holding your tongue. This fiction, as you call it, continues. Is that clear?’
‘You can’t force me to go on being a party to it. Nor keep me here against my will!’
