by Jane Arbor
‘Such an occasion, to see you again, signora’ he crooned. ‘You must allow me to celebrate it in my own poor way!’
So half a dozen models paraded; minced, pivoted, strode; were nonchalantly careless with priceless mink and wraps and obeyed the head vendeuse’s beckoning finger whenever Signora Parigi or Alix showed interest in a detail of the gowns.
Afterwards the Signora was gracious with the head vendeuse. ‘Thank you. That was unexpected and delightful,’ she said. ‘But I miss one of your models who used to be here. A very handsome girl with a magnificent figure. I’m afraid I don't remember her name?’
But the vendeuse appeared to. ‘Ah yes, I think you must mean Bettina, signora. Bettina Valdi—No, I regret she is not with us any more.’
‘So? A pity. Though she could wear clothes which of course were far too young for me, I always admired her style. She had been with you a long time. I hope you did not lose her to a rival salon. But I expect she left to get married? She must have been very attractive to men.’
Heavy eyelids hooded the eyes of the vendeuse for a moment. ‘Very, signora,’ she agreed. ‘No, she did not go elsewhere. Her contract with Signor Luigi, which forbade it, had still some time to run when she left us, some weeks ago. Quite suddenly, though whether she was to be married, I do not know. She did not make me free of her plans, I’m afraid.’
‘Prego. I only wondered.’ Signora Parigi turned to Alix. ‘Are you ready?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ But during the exchange Alix had done some swift, dismayed thinking. Bettina! The girl with whom Michele had flirted so openly on the morning he had brought her, Alix, to Luigi. His ‘type’—against whom he had later disparaged the flower-selling waif on the Spanish Steps. Michele had disappeared ‘some weeks ago’. So had Bettina Valdi. It was the wildest possible shot in the dark. But supposing—?’
On a sudden impulse, as she answered the Signora, Alix thrust the small parcel of her belt under the velvet cushion of her chair. She had no plan in her mind as they left the salon and took a taxi for the restaurant where they were to lunch. But a glance at her watch offered one as she saw that the time was five minutes to noon. On the hour, in common with all the city’s luxury shops, Luigi would be closing for the afternoon. If she went straight back she might or might not be in time to collect her parcel. But it would probably suit her purpose better if she were not. Soon after the salon’s closing, the salesgirls and models would be coming out and she would rather tackle one of them than the basilisk-eyed head vendeuse. Recovering the belt must take its chance. Just now it was her least concern.
‘Tch!’ Her vexed exclamation brought her a questioning look from her companion. ‘I’ve left my belt behind. In my chair, I suppose,’ she explained.
‘Oh dear. But no matter. They will find it and send it up to the Villa by messenger. Or would you rather go back? If so, tell the man to turn.’
‘He can’t turn here. It’s a one-way street,’ Alix pointed out. ‘There isn’t time for him to take a way round; they will be dosing. But if he could stop for a minute I could run back while you take him on, and I’ll follow you later to the restaurant.’
‘Very well, dear. Take care.’
As Alix had half-hoped, the salon was dosed when she reached it. She pretended interest in the window of the art galleries next to it until she saw the girls coming out of a side door and separating. She chose one of about her own age.
‘Mi scusi, signorina—’
‘Prego.’ The girl stopped and smiled.
‘I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid I left a small parcel just now. I wonder—?’
‘But of course, signorina. I found it myself in the chair you sat in. It is quite safe, but I’m afraid I can’t get it for you now.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I can collect it later, or they could send it, perhaps.’ Alix hesitated, then plunged. ‘There was—something else. Signorina Valdi—Bettina. Were you with Luigi when she was? And when she left?’
‘Oh yes.’ The girl looked her surprise.
‘Then I wonder if you could remember exactly when she did leave. To a day or so, I mean?’
‘I shall have to think back.’ A minute or two of calculation. Then—‘It was—’ The girl named the end of the week before Alix’s birthday, confirming the head vendeuse’s ‘some weeks ago’.
Alix said, ‘Yes, that’s as I thought. Would you know where she went from here?’
The girl shook her head. ‘I don’t think any of us were in her confidence. But—though perhaps I shouldn’t say this—there was talk in the dressing-room at the time that she was having an affair with some man who had come to the salon with a client. No one knew who he was. She kept that to herself. But when she left very suddenly, we supposed that either he had proposed marriage, or that—’ a shrug was expressive of the alternative, and the girl showed curiosity for the first time.
‘You know Bettina and you have lost touch, signorina?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know her. I only saw her once in the salon.’ Alix added, ‘I was really inquiring on behalf of—of someone else. I suppose it would be too much to hope you could give me Bettina’s address?’
‘I’m sorry. I could have found it out for you. But I have also heard since that she has left. So it wouldn’t help.’ The girl hesitated. ‘You won’t make any public use of the gossip I have repeated, signorina?’
Alix assured her, ‘Of course not. It is quite safe with me. And on my side I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention in the salon that I had been asking about Bettina Valdi. Thank you very much for your help.’
‘Prego.’
Innocent conspirators, they smiled at each other, shook hands and parted. And there’s nothing more sure, thought Alix, than that there’s no possible use to be made of what you have told me.
For suspicions, fears and tied-in clues of timing and likelihood were one thing. But finding Michele by means of them alone was quite another.
It was a few evenings later that Leone made a suggestion which could be seen as a kind of milestone for the Signora to pass if she would. They were at dinner when he told her, ‘I have to entertain a mixed bunch of foreign buyers on Tuesday of next week—English, German and French, a few of them women—and I’m wondering if you would feel equal to playing hostess to them for me this time, Madrigna?’
He ignored both Venetia’s quick frown and Alix’s glance of pleased surprise in his direction. His stepmother fluttered, ‘Oh Leone, no, please! You mustn’t ask me. It is so long since I undertook anything of the sort. You must ask Venetia again. She enjoys doing it for you. Don’t you, dear?’
Leone cut in, ‘But this time I’m asking you, though not that you should trouble with them here. My secretary has seen to everything and booked tables at the Hassler Roof, so all I want of you is that you should allow me to show you off to them and that you should enjoy yourself in the process. Will you come?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. They will all be strangers!’
‘Not all. At least four of them will remember meeting you before.’
‘But Venetia would—’ The Signora glanced for help to Alix. ‘I don’t know what to say. Shall I?’ she appealed.
‘I wish you would,’ Alix told her.
‘Then I’ll try.’ She turned to Venetia. ‘You’ve been so good about standing in for me while I haven’t felt equal to this sort of thing. You won’t be hurt at Leone’s not asking you this time, dear?’
Venetia’s chin jerked up. ‘Hurt? Why should I be, missing out on a lot of old fogeys all talking shop? Last time there wasn’t a male under forty, and every one of them so earnest and dedicated to jewellery that they couldn’t care less who was playing hostess to them.’
Leone commented dryly, ‘On the contrary, if I had made your telephone number available, they would have queued up for it!’ He added to the Signora, ‘Then that’s settled, and I promise you won’t find the evening too arduous.’
‘If I feel well enough—’ she agreed.
Earlier, believing it was a hurdle she would be glad to have behind her once she had taken it, Alix had encouraged her to the effort. But now doubt and pity took over. ‘We’re trying to make her rim before she can walk. Pushing her too fast,’ she told Leone dejectedly. ‘She is making a guilt too of having promised you, perhaps only to let you down.’
‘Has she said as much?’
‘No, but I can tell she is full of tension. Don’t you think you should ask Venetia to take her place again?’
But Venetia, approached the next morning when a high temperature and a raging headache made the evening out of the question for Signora Parigi, claimed to have other social plans afoot for herself.
‘Sorry, but I already have a date,’ she said airily. ‘If Zia Dora can’t cope, you will have to manage without a hostess for your party, won’t you?’
‘I hope not.’ Leone turned from her. ‘Alix, would you agree to step into the breach at such short notice, I wonder?’
‘I? But—’ Surprised and embarrassed, Alix fell back on excuses. ‘I shouldn’t know how. Besides, ought Signora Parigi to be left?’
‘I’ll check with her doctor about that. He will probably say she is only in need of a few hours’ sedation, and if so her maid can sit up with her until we get back, as we may be late. I’m assuming,’ Leone added, ‘that if she may be left, you are willing to take her place?’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘As if the stuffed shirts will know the difference between your best and your worst, as long as Leone gives them enough to drink,’ Venetia murmured. Later she asked Alix, ‘What do you plan to wear for this riotous night out?’
‘Well, I’ve never worn the dress Michele’s mother gave me for my birthday. That, I thought,’ said Alix.
‘Whenever I’ve “obliged” for Leone he has stood me a new dress. You should have made him do the same for you.’ Venetia paused. ‘After all, it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve touched him for clothes, would it? And a Luigi model, at that!’
Unable to deny it, Alix started and flushed. But how could Venetia know? Venetia enlightened her.
‘Not to worry,’ she advised. ‘Nobody told on you. I happened to see the account for it open on Leone’s desk. Well, well, I said to myself. What’s all this? So I asked Michele, who said it was a present from him to you, only as he was short of cash at the time, Leone backed him. Did I believe him? Does it matter? Though you did let me think you were in the Luigi price bracket, didn’t you? Since I’m not myself, unless Leone is paying, I shouldn’t have thought any worse of you if you weren’t. So I do rather wonder—why?’
Upon which, as if satisfied with the effect she must have read in Alix’s face, Venetia yawned and strolled away without pressing her question. But she left Alix with some of her own.
How much longer must she stand such needling? And what was really at the root of Venetia’s enmity? The other day she had supposed it was caused by the other girl’s dog-in-the-manger claim on Giraldo Torre. But now she seemed to be mounting ‘Keep Out’ signs over Leone too. As if she need bother, Alix reflected bleakly. Even supposing Venetia’s sharp feminine intuition had begun to suspect her own feeling for Leone, as if she need fear any warmer involvement of his than that he still had good use for Michele’s accomplice whom he had seen fit to make his own!
Now the evening was nearly over. Nervous of her role at first, Alix had thoroughly enjoyed the company of Leone’s cosmopolitan guests. For one thing, they were all foreign to Rome society, so that she could be at ease with them as she never was now with the Parigi circle, sensing its curiosity about Michele’s disappearance like an almost tangible question-mark.
These people were travelled and knowledgeable, the women among them as poised and assured as women must be who compete in a man’s business world. They talked interestingly about their jobs and they accepted Alix at the face value of Leone’s introduction of her—as a friend of the family, a house guest at the Villa, standing in for Signora Parigi who wasn’t well.
They had dined high above Rome, above the magical vista of lighted avenues stretching away to far distance, above river and the span of bridges and above the clamour of street traffic muted, if not to silence, at least to a tolerable purr. After dinner the party had separated, some people to dance, others adjourning to the bars. They met up again for a drink before parting, and when Leone had seen them all away in their cars, he brought up his own.
South through the city, the suburbs. The straight, taut ribbon of the Appian Way dappled in shadow by a late full moon, amber-gold against the indigo sky. Speeding time and distance between Alix and a relaxed, uncomplicated evening in which she had felt able to be herself and which she did not want to end.
She was content simply to sit at Leone’s side, making believe that it was her place, that she belonged there, and letting the peace and beauty of the Italian night wash over her. And after a while of desultory talk he seemed to sense that she preferred silence, and left her to it.
They began the now familiar climb towards Castelgandolfo and Alix alerted to catch a glimpse of the lake for which she always watched. It was so late that most of the villas with frontage to it were unlighted, but the moon made a silver ladder across the water and as she caught her breath in wonder Leon braked and stopped.
‘Would you care to go down? There’s an easy path just above this point, if you would,’ he said.
How badly she wanted to agree! But—‘It’s very late, isn’t it? And—?’ She indicated the heels of her evening sandals.
‘So late,’ he agreed, ‘that a quarter of an hour this way or that can’t matter. But those—No. However, there’s still a better view than we have here from a few metres in from the road. We’ll settle for that instead.’
He parked the car under some pines, and, the decision taken from her, Alix let him help her out and take her hand to guide her. He indicated a worn sign, ‘Bella Vista Del Lago’ which pointed through the trees. ‘Now you are being really tourist on the cheap,’ he said. ‘By day, an old crone would charge you two hundred lire for the “beautiful view”.’
They came out on a kind of platform above a sheer drop. There was an elbow-height rustic balustrade on which to lean, and below, Lake Albano spread its dark expanse before them.
Reluctantly Alix unlaced her fingers from Leone’s grasp of them, and faced outward to the lake, leaning on the creaking balustrade. For a minute or two Leone did the same, then shifted position, his back to the woodwork, more than half facing her. Aware that he was watching her and unwilling to meet his glance, she kept her own eyes on the view he had brought her to see. A wry thought struck her—If they had been lovers, they would both have known it for an excuse; they would still be holding hands and his long, deep look would have been a signal, an invitation, a sweet demand she would understand. As it was—!
But when at last he spoke, uncannily he voiced a parody of that thought. ‘You’re thinking, aren’t you,’ he challenged, ‘that this is rather out of context where you and I are concerned? That accepting my offer of a fine view is one thing, but indulging me in any romantic moonlit nonsense is quite another, and certainly no part of our contract—hm?’
‘I—don’t know what you mean by “moonlit nonsense”,’ she lied unsteadily.
‘No?’ His scepticism was plain. ‘I think you do. Even if Michele’s courtship of you was perfunctory to non-existent, you must know what any man would be hoping of an hour as late as this, in this kind of idyllic setting and with a moon or starlight for good measure?’
Though her heart seemed to be beating high in her throat she saw that this had to be played lightly, if at all.
‘Not any man,’ she correcte
d. ‘Only one who had shown his feeling for me and whom I’d encouraged. Yes—then I’d probably know what he would want.’
‘Just so. He’d mean to make love to you and you would—co-operate. A privilege you’d refuse me in no uncertain terms, because I’m your “any man” who doesn’t qualify?’ She allowed her slight shrug to give him his answer.
‘As I thought. But supposing I dared to chance my arm, what then?’
‘You—’ In the name of pride and safety from herself as much as from him, she should have wrenched away ... fled. But instead, her turn of protest towards him imprisoned her and with a little exultant laugh he caught her to him and held her fast.
His eyes were smouldering and the grip of his hands that was bending her body to the mould of his was an exquisite pain. But close as he brought his lips to hers, he did not kiss her at once.
‘Shall we say—just to demonstrate how real or how phony an Italian I am?’ he reminded her of Michele’s criticism. ‘Just as a proof that I also can—how did you put it?—let the present wash me along?’ Then, as she knew it would, his mouth clamped down on hers in a long savage kiss which took the surrender of her lips for granted and which, had it signified any gift of himself, would have spelled utter rapture. Even though it did not ... could not, she craved that the moment of illusion should last. Wanted—No, madness lay that way. She broke free, panting and ashamed. Something within her felt—bruised.
‘That was—’ she broke off, finding no words.
‘Unfair of me? Meaning that you’re not so Italian yourself that you can accept what the present offers, make use of it and then let it go?’
She shook her head dumbly.
