by Jane Arbor
‘Perhaps you should try. Besides, I’d remind you that there’s a code of practice in these matters. If you had refused my offer of our “Bella Vista”, I’d have known where I stood.’
She stared up at him. ‘And as I had agreed to come, you thought I was willing?’
‘On the contrary, you had made it quite clear that you weren’t. But let’s say your coming had given me enough licence to try my luck. And though I’d have enjoyed it more if you had been willing, the Italian in me won’t hold it against you for long that you don’t care for dalliance for its own sake. I can forget it, as I advise you to,’ he said lightly. But as she turned dispiritedly from him, surprisingly his hand went to her hair, smoothing it gently back from her brow. ‘Come home now,’ he invited. ‘We’re both suffering from moonlight hysteria, I think.’
In the car again for the last kilometre of their way he drove in silence. Once Alix made as if to speak, only to check at his almost stern, ‘No!’
Briefly he turned to glance at her. ‘No postscripts, please,’ he ruled. ‘It’ll all keep until the morning. By which time you will probably find that none of it needs to be said.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
And how true that proved! By the cool sane light of morning the incident had dwindled to its real value. It had simply been Leone exacting a toll, thinking she had been willing to pay it in the same light spirit in which he asked it of her. He couldn’t guess at the agony of longing it had spelt for her, and if he could dismiss it, so must she, Alix resolved.
Now the fierce heat of the Italian summer was reaching its peak. But it was expected. No one bothered to remark on it and no one, not even Signora Parigi, appeared to wilt under it. Dark skins glowed to it and long custom came to terms with it with closed shutters and rest in darkened rooms until in the comparative cool of the evening hours the outdoor life of garden and piazza and pavement cafe came into its own.
In the wild garden of the Villa the blackberries were beginning to ripen, and Alix, sampling them six weeks earlier than she had ever gathered them in England, thought often of Leone’s taunt on her first evening. Still here at blackberry time? he had accused her of thinking and rebelling. Yet here she still was, still under the sentence he had imposed on her, yet which Michele had escaped.
The difference was now that she saw it as a charge she meant to honour while she could believe that with every day that passed Michele’s mother was taking new heart; fretting for him still, but coming to accept that if indeed he had no use for his home, nor for Alix nor for herself, then she must learn to live without him and fill with other things the void he left. Physically she was much stronger; mentally she was almost mistress of herself again. Leone’s fantastic plan could be seen to be paying off, and there would be a day before long now, Alix thought, when Dora Parigi would be able to say Arrivederci to her and let her go; their friendship unshadowed; with fellow feeling instead of bitter reproach between them; the truth of Alix’s coming to the Villa Leone’s secret for good.
And then? But beyond that unknown day which she had once seen as release but now dreaded, Alix was reluctant to look or plan, except to realize that the whole city of Rome would not be big enough for both her and the Parigi family. Another Italian city might be. Venice perhaps, or Florence or Milan. But whatever friendship she might keep with Dora Parigi would have to be by letter, for once she had left the Villa Fontana she would not be coming back.
Once or twice, when she had gone alone to the city, she had called in for an ice or for coffee at Carlo’s in the vague hope that if Michele were still in or near Rome, he might do the same. Of course he never did, but it was the only regular haunt of his that she knew, and Carlo, who had been in on what he supposed had been Michele’s desertion of her, was all nodding and gesticulating sympathy whenever she appeared. And one morning, when she had been driven down by Leone, meaning to return by bus, Carlo greeted her with more than sympathy. His nods and tongue-clucking as expressive as ever, he took her order, then jerked his head towards the far end of his counter, where a youth stood alone.
The signorina saw the ragazzo there? She remembered him perhaps? Must often have seen him before? A regular patron of Carlo’s and a great friend of il Signor Parigi. Very few, the days when they did not drop in together for a caffe or a vino before Signor Parigi—His name, Brindisi. Signor Beppo Brindisi, yes—
Beppo! Recollection leaped in Alix’s mind. The Beppo Brindisi of the mythical bet by which Michele had baited his snare for her! There had never been a bet, but there was a Beppo. Alix had heard his full name only once, but she had often seen him with Michele at Carlo’s.
She looked from the young man back to Carlo. ‘Yes, I know him by sight,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘Because he has news, signorina. Of the signore, yes. By the merest chance, he has seen him; knows where he is to be found!’ Carlo crooked a beckoning finger in the young man’s direction. ‘My friend, the signorina would like a word with you! About her fidanzato—what else? And if you have a heart of pity, signore, you will tell her all you know.’
‘Volentieri.’ Beppo strolled up to join Alix. ‘You are not Italian, are you, signorina? But you can understand me, I hope?’
‘Well enough, I think.’ Alix added, ‘Michele Parigi and I were only unofficially engaged, you know, when he left home. But he went very suddenly and from here. That’s how Carlo knows about it, and if you have any news of him I—that is, his family and I—would be grateful for your help. Carlo says you have seen him. Have you spoken to him too?’
Beppo shook his head. ‘No, and I have little news of him. But I know where he is to be found. He is at a riding school and livery stables on the outskirts of Bracciano.’
‘You mean he is running his own riding school there?’ Alix puzzled.
‘Not his own, I think. From the questions I asked, I gather he is employed there. Bracciano is a lake-resort, you know, and there would be much demand for riding parties and mounts on hire to the summer visitors.’
Michele employed! Earning his own living! He must have been desperate to escape from the Villa, thought Alix. ‘But what makes you think he is working at this place?’ she asked Beppo.
‘Because I saw him leaving it with a string of horses and a riding party. I was on my way back to Rome from Ronciglione, beyond Bracciano, and had stopped for a fill-up and a small repair to my Lambretta at a garage next door to the school. I came out on to the forecourt as the string cantered by, and I can’t be sure that Michele saw me. If he did, he looked through me and didn’t want to know, and by the time my scooter was ready it was too late to follow him up.’
‘But while you were waiting, you had made inquiries about him? Found out that he really was employed at the riding school?’
‘Yes, and that he would be out with this party for the rest of the day. I couldn’t wait. I’m at the University and I had to get back for a lecture.’ Beppo paused. ‘But I’m free today. I could take you over to Bracciano if you like, signorina.’
‘Take me? How?’
‘Pillion on the scooter—how else?’
‘Oh. How far is Bracciano?’
Beppo shrugged. ‘Forty or fifty kilometres. About an hour’s run.’
Alix hesitated, doubting the prudence of accepting his offer. He had been frank and helpful, but what did she know of him, except that he was a friend of Michele’s? She was debating too her right to pursue Michele to his hideout and his incognito. But as if he read her thoughts Beppo grinned at her.
‘You make a rule of not going pillion behind strange men? Well, I make one too, signorina. Except in emergency, I don’t take girls tandem either. They fidget too much. And Carlo will speak for me that broad daylight kidnapping has never been one of my crimes!’
Reassured, Alix smiled. ‘I’d trust you to get me there—and back. It’s just that, supposing Michele did see you and—’
‘—And cut me deliberately, perhaps he should be left to lie low for as long as he chooses? Wel
l, to that I’d say that in your shoes, if Michele had left me as flat as he did, I’d think I had the right to ask him why. He owes you that at least?’
‘Yes ... yes, perhaps,’ Alix agreed slowly. Impossible to confide in Beppo how little Michele owed her personally. But the thought of the distress he had caused his mother decided her. ‘I’ll come,’ she told Beppo. ‘But I’ll have to telephone first.’
She rang the Villa and asked a maid to tell the Signora that she would not be back to luncheon. The sun was at its zenith when she and Beppo set out and in spite of the Lambretta’s speed, it was not long before she was regretting her bare head and her low-cut sundress which exposed her neck and shoulders to the pitiless heat.
In front, Beppo’s back acted as a shield, but before they were clear of the city suburbs the nape of her neck felt as if it were pierced by red hot knitting needles. Out there the shops where she might have bought a protecting scarf were all closed for the afternoon, and though Beppo helpfully produced a triangle of cleaning rag, this blew away. By the time they reached Bacciano she was feeling slightly sick, though as much with apprehension as with sunburn.
At the riding school only a listless youth seemed to be in charge. Michele would not be back on duty until four o’clock, but he was probably to be found where he lived, a cabin on the lakeside. Beppo took the boy’s directions to it, and they went on.
It was indeed a cabin—a single-storied daub-and-wattle shack which looked as if it comprised a couple of rooms, no more. But surprisingly there was a glimpse of frilled white muslin at the tiny windows and some hands or other had done what they could for the strip of sunbaked garden. A handkerchief of grass-plot had been clipped with shears, a few canna lilies glowed and some bedded-out geraniums had been watered that morning.
Beppo made his horn yell before he cut his engine and tipped Alix gently from the pillion. ‘Ecco il tuo fidanzato, signorina,’ he said.
But to Alix’s surprise it was not ‘her fiancé’ who came out at the sound of the scooter’s horn. It was a girl. A girl with childish wing-tied hair, barefoot, her dress a kind of sarong above which her slim shoulders glowed golden bronze. A girl whom Alix recalled with a breathtaking jolt of memory. The flower-seller of the Spanish Steps; Michele’s ‘metre-and-a-half of waifhood’ who had thrown him a cool ‘Grazie’ and ‘Prego’ before she had walked away!
She and Alix looked at each other across the cannas. Then she came forward, offering her hand. As she did so Alix caught the glint of gold on the ring-finger of the other, and while she took in the significance of this, the girl called over her shoulder, ‘Michele mio, ecco la signorina Alix,’ adding to Alix, ‘I think you don’t know my name, signorina. It is Baptista. Baptista Manzoni—’ She broke off to blush. ‘No! Baptista Parigi now. I am Michele’s wife—’
Michele came out then, appeared to measure the situation at a glance, put an arm round Baptista’s waist and addressed himself to Beppo.
'How did I guess that you couldn’t keep your big mouth shut!’ he accused.
‘So you did see me that day?’
‘Of course. I only hoped you hadn’t seen me.’ Michele turned to Alix. ‘And you, my darling sleuth—are you nose-down to the hunt on your own account? Or are you spying for Leone?’
Alix said quickly, ‘Leone doesn’t know. I met Beppo by chance at Carlo’s this morning and he offered to bring me out here. And you are married! But why on earth did you have to go about leaving home the way you did?’
‘What else could I do?’ he retorted. ‘I’d gone off the deep end for this fledgling at sight—’ he squeezed Baptista’s waist—‘and though I doubled as your fiancé as long as I could, that business about giving you a ring for your birthday was the crunch. We all knew that Mama would have to hear some time that the thing wasn’t on, and as it had been Leone’s fool idea in the first place, I decided it was his job, not mine, to tell her the truth and take the consequences.’
‘It didn’t occur to you, I suppose, that he might judge her to be too shocked by your disappearance to be told the truth?’ Alix watched Michele’s jaw drop in dismay.
‘You mean he didn’t admit it had all been a plant? You didn’t either? And that’s why you’re still around? Mama thinks—?’
‘That you walked out on our “engagement”, yes,’ Alix finished for him. ‘And Leone begged me to stay on for a while, in the hope that her belief that you had deserted both of us might help to override her own pain. He was right, at that. She is better. She is almost herself again, though no thanks to you. Michele, why had you to be so cruel to her? Why?’
‘Because—’ He broke off to kiss his wife’s cheek. ‘Bambino, suppose you go and lay on some wine and stuff and take young Beppo with you? He’s a no-good layabout, but he draws a pretty cork and he deserves a bit of your company for all his trouble. Meanwhile I’ll put Alix in the picture about us—hm?’
‘Prego.’ As the girl turned back into the house Michele’s eyes followed her adoringly. ‘Isn’t she the loveliest thing that ever happened? And then you ask me why!’
‘Not about her,’ Alix corrected. ‘I agree she is charming, though you didn’t seem at all impressed the day you rescued her flowers from that lout.’
‘Not impressed? I was whirling on my axis!’
‘Well, no one would have guessed it. Not your type, you said, and you called her a waif.’
‘That was to put you off the scent. In fact, I was terrified that when I went back to the Steps she might not be there again. But when I did, she was, and after that the whole thing blazed, and I knew it was for real, utterly and for ever. But you see the spot I was in? There was I, supposed to be on the edge of proposing to you for Mama’s sake, and Baptista—’ Michele hesitated—‘Well, she was a ballet student, taking lessons one week and earning the money to pay for them the next, and getting the odd job in the Opera Corps de ballet during the season. Her home is in Naples; we were married there; she has six brothers and sisters—assorted, not six of each—and her father is a railway clerk. So—you see?’
‘No,’ said Alix bluntly.
‘What do you mean—no? If you think I was going to stand for their looking down their noses at Baptista—!’
‘And if you knew your mother as you should, you would give her credit for coming to accept Baptista as warmly as she accepted me—for your sake, as she thought. She would have settled for your appearing to jilt me, if you had proved to her how much more Baptista meant to you “for real and for ever”. But you didn’t even try. Instead, you ran away,’ Alix accused.
Michele’s bluster died. ‘Moral courage not being my strong point, yes,’ he agreed. ‘Besides, Mama was one of the least of my problems. There was Leone. There still is. And on the other side there was Baptista. To hear her, you’d think I was a wretched remittance man dependent on Leone’s charity, the way she refused to marry me unless I showed willing to go to work to keep her. She wouldn’t listen when I told her I had a right to my prospects in Parigi Cameos. We had to live now, hadn’t we, she argued, and in her world a man who doesn’t work can’t keep a wife. Simple. So I had no choice. And there was also you. I thought that, by taking off when I did, I was setting you free. How was I to know Leone had other ideas?’
Alix sighed. ‘I wish I could agree you did the right thing. But I can’t. At least you’ve proved you aren’t the parasite you claimed to be, but what else have you gained? You still have all the rest of your headaches to face, haven’t you?’
But Michele shook his head. ‘I’m facing nothing for the moment. You say Mama is recovering without me, so I’ve less guilt towards her than I’d have to Baptista if I served her up to Leone’s tender mercies just yet. I told you I shouldn’t surface at the Villa again until I saw fit. And that still holds. I’m not showing up until—Well, not today nor tomorrow, shall we say? And you, my pretty ex-fiancée, are not going to sell me to the enemy.’
Alix stared at him. ‘But, Michele, I must tell them where you are, now I kno
w!’
‘You don’t have to. You seem to be managing pretty well so far, and you can hang on a bit longer, surely?’
‘A bit longer! How long? Until Leone finds out for himself where you are and insists on your coming back?’
Michele shook his head again. ‘He won’t find out, and he can’t insist. No, I’m going to choose my own time for going back unless something—though not Leone—chooses it for me. Meanwhile,’ he grinned engagingly, ‘what do you know? There’s that lightweight of a Michele Parigi chivvying stable-lads and watering horses by first light, every morning of his life! Yes, coming, carina—’ he answered Baptista’s signal from the house and took Alix by the hand. ‘Come along, before Beppo wolfs all the attorte which Baptista makes so flaky that she practically needs to weight them to keep them on the dish!’
An hour later Alix and Beppo took again to the road. Michele had adroitly avoided any further occasion of argument with Alix and she had had to leave without any firm promise from him as to his plans. Meanwhile her sunburn fever was mounting, and when, on the outskirts of the city, Beppo shouted back that he would take her all the way back to the Villa if she liked, she agreed gratefully.
As once before on Michele’s business, she thought it wise to suggest she should be dropped short of the drive, and directed Beppo where to stop.
She thanked him warmly and he turned his machine. ‘I’m sorry, signorina. I had no idea Michele was married when I offered to take you to find him,’ he told her.
With an effort she realized that Beppo believed Michele had thrown her over for Baptista. ‘I know you didn’t. But it doesn’t matter. If he is happy, I am for him. As I told you, we weren’t really engaged, and the important thing, I thought, was to find him. For his mother’s sake more than for mine,’ she said.
