Cast the First Stone: A stunning wartime story

by Angela Arney

  The evening was a consummate disaster. Nicholas hardly said a word, only answering in monosyllables when he absolutely had to. As soon as the meal was over, he rose to his feet and kissed Eleanora goodbye.

  ‘I’m sure you and Raul want to be together,’ he said, ‘and I feel like a brisk walk. No, don’t come with me.’ He raised his hand to stop her. ‘I’m quite happy to be alone.’ Without waiting for her reply he left.

  ‘So the English Papa doesn’t approve,’ said Raul, lighting a cigarette and watching Nicholas stride out through the restaurant and into the piazza. ‘Too bad.’

  ‘I wish he had.’ Eleanora was miserable.

  ‘Why? You are a free agent. You don’t need your parents’ approval for what you do.’

  ‘But I love them. I want them to approve. Especially Daddy.’

  ‘Love,’ Raul scoffed. ‘Substitute the word bondage for love, then you’ve got it about right. Be a free spirit, my dear, like me. Then life is one long string of pleasures.’ He ran his finger sensuously down her arm. ‘We have had our pleasures haven’t we?’

  ‘Well, yes, but . . .’

  ‘And you didn’t need Papa’s approval. You just went right ahead and enjoyed yourself. Come on.’ He paid the bill. ‘I feel in need of a little pleasure now. Let’s go home.’

  It was no use Eleanora protesting. ‘No, Raul. I don’t feel like it tonight.’

  Raul insisted. ‘What rubbish, you always feel like it.’

  Later, at home, when Eleanora did not immediately respond, he grew rough. Her indifference inflamed him with passion, his fingers pried painfully and his teeth pulled on her nipples until they bled. Eventually, in spite of herself, Eleanora coiled her limbs around his and did as he wanted. They made love time and time again, Raul high on a tide of lustful ecstasy. But it was not like that for Eleanora. She found herself wishing it were over, although she took care to hide it from Raul. He was well pleased and once he had finished with her, fell asleep immediately.

  When sure he would not awaken, Eleanora slid out from beneath his suffocating embrace and, creeping across to the window, leaned on the balcony. Looking out across the misty twinkling vista of Florence, she could see in the far distance the Apennines standing out darkly against the sky. It was very beautiful, but she felt sick and unhappy. So this is what it’s like to feel homesick, she thought, wishing it were possible to press a button and be back in her own room in Broadacres. There, one of the dogs would be snoring noisily at the foot of her bed and the stuffed toys of her childhood would still be sitting in a row on the top of the bookshelf. Peter would be asleep in his house across the sheep-strewn valley and before breakfast they would ride together in the early morning mist.

  But no, she pulled herself up with a jerk. None of that was possible. She could go home but it would never be the same. The clock could never go back, only forwards. Peter was in Hollywood, and she was not the same, not the girl she had been. Peter would not approve of me now. He would not approve of my affair with Raul. Somehow the thought of that was the hardest thing of all to bear.

  She looked back at Raul, spread out in sleep on the bed. Even in sleep he looked in command of himself. Most people looked vulnerable, softer in sleep, but not Raul. He looked the same, arrogant and self-assured. What was the saying? ‘When you have made your bed, you must lie on it.’ Eleanora climbed back into bed and lay down. I have made mine, she thought miserably, and now I’m lying on it. She felt like a child, lost and frightened. She remembered getting lost on Waterloo station in London once and feeling the same way, only then her mother had been a few yards away, hidden by a timetable hoarding. Now there was no-one near. This time she had to find the way on her own.

  Not far from Raul and Eleanora’s apartment overlooking the Pitti Palace, Nicholas sat on the balcony of his room in the Hotel Tosca, staring with unseeing eyes at the Ponte Vecchio. Coherent thought was an impossibility. He had tried but had given up in despair and was now halfway through the duty-free whisky he had intended as a present for Eleanora.

  Gut instinct told him that Eleanora desperately needed help, even if she were unaware of it. If he had been a more religious man, he would perhaps have understood his fear and said her mortal soul was in danger from a man like Raul Levi. As it was, confused by unhappiness and bemused by the whisky, his muddled thoughts stumbled blindly along. He had to do something, but what? He thought of Liana. She is strong, much stronger than I am or ever will be. He felt no shame in the thought, it had always been so, something he had accepted. Now their daughter needed her strength. She must do something. Between them they must do something. Between them they would get Eleanora away from Italy and out of the clutches of Raul Levi.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Everyone on the Broadacres estate was well aware of the fact that His Lordship and Her Ladyship were hardly speaking. The estate and its workers had been welded by Liana to form one big family, and like all families they gossiped and worried. What was wrong up at the Big House? What on earth was going on now?

  They had watched the love affair between Eleanora and Peter blossom over the years, and been proud and pleased for the young couple. Now it was over, finished quite suddenly, and no-one from the Big House, or the Ramsays, so much as breathing a word. Why was Miss Eleanora in Italy while Master Peter was on the other side of the world in Hollywood?

  ‘It’s Lady Margaret I’m most sorry for, Mum,’ said Meg. ‘She’s so lonely. She still misses James and now Eleanora has gone. Donald Ramsay is still incapacitated from his stroke and her rheumatism’s so bad she can barely haul herself up on to a horse. I know she still rides but it must be agony for her. And Lady Liana’s no help; she’s pretty poor company these days.’

  Mary Pragnell, true to form, was exasperated and wanted to shake some sense into Lady Liana. ‘It beats me, it do really. She’s so clever at some things, and yet she can’t see that Lady Margaret and Lord Nicholas are as upset as she is. It’s not for us to ask what happened between Miss Eleanora and Master Peter, but it don’t help one little bit her not talking to anyone. It’s not our place, I know, but someone ought to shake some sense into her.’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ sighed Meg. Her years of working closely with Liana had given her and Dolly, although she could not properly express herself, a deeper insight into the complexities of Liana’s character than most. The two sisters sensed a long-term, far deeper sadness in Liana than the tragedy of James’s accident warranted. Although Lord knows, Meg thought often enough, that in itself was more than most people could bear. And now Miss Eleanora had disappeared off to Italy without even saying goodbye, and Peter, too. It was so out of character for them both. To say Meg was puzzled would have been an understatement. She returned to the subject of Liana. ‘Mum,’ she repeated, ‘I think it is a question of waiting. You can’t shake sense into someone who has turned to ice. She would shatter into a million pieces.’

  ‘Good Lord, Meg! Turned to ice indeed. You read far too many books these days.’ Mary’s imagination did not run to such flights of fancy. ‘What I’d like to know is, what have started all this misery off again. Things seemed to be picking up nicely, then all of a sudden it’s back to square one.’ Mary sighed heavily. The effort of putting her thoughts into words was onerous. ‘Sometimes I’m thinking she don’t love His Lordship at all.’

  ‘Oh, I think she loves him,’ said Meg softly, ‘but she has lost her way. It needs something to happen, something to open her eyes and point her in the right direction.’

  Mary Pragnell gave up. Life was uncomplicated and clear cut to her. You either knew something or you did not know it. You loved, or you did not love. All this complex reasoning gave her a headache. But that did not stop her from loving Liana like a daughter. She would never forget her kindness to Meg and Bruno those many years ago or all the other little kindnesses over the years. ‘The trouble is, I’m simple Meg, I just don’t understand,’ she said. ‘A plain and simple woman, that’s me.’

  ‘A good woma
n, that’s you,’ said Meg affectionately. ‘But don’t worry about them up at the Big House, something will turn up. You wait and see.’

  But in spite of their opinions and varying notions on what should be done, it was left to Donald Ramsay to actually say something. He purchased a new trap admitting at last that he would never ride again. It was more secure and better sprung, and he invited Liana for a ride.

  ‘Why not,’ she said. ‘If you want to test out the springs, we could drive over to the new crayfish ponds.’

  Donald smiled. ‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ he said. Which was true. The ponds were off the beaten track, which meant he would succeed in getting her out of the office and have her to himself for a while.

  Together they drove down towards the river, then took the track across the water meadows towards two large ponds. Broadacres’s latest farming enterprise was the breeding of freshwater crayfish. Arriving at the ponds, Liana introduced Donald to Dick Kent, the man she had put in charge of the operation. Dick pulled up a trap full of struggling, brown, lobster-like creatures for Donald’s inspection.

  Donald was fascinated. He knew freshwater crayfish lived in the chalk streams of Hampshire, but had never seen them, his main interest being in flyfishing for trout and salmon and the odd day of floatfishing for grayling in the coarse season. ‘How on earth do they all get into these ponds?’ He poked in an exploratory finger, hastily withdrawing it as a vicious-looking brown claw snapped.

  ‘I’ve collected them from the river and the chalk stream tributaries in the valley,’ Dick explained. ‘They will breed better here because these ponds are fed by water from boreholes twenty feet deep, not river water. It’s much more pure and clear. They’ll thrive in that.’ He picked up a particularly large specimen. ‘This one is about five years old. We’ll let him breed for a year and sell him for the table next year.’

  ‘They fetch a very high price in London and Paris,’ said Liana. ‘That’s what made me decide to start breeding.’

  ‘Can’t let them get too big in a confined space, though,’ said Dick plopping the struggling crayfish back into the pond, ‘they’re a fearsome, cannibalistic lot.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Liana as the trap bumped back over the molehills of the water meadows, ‘there won’t be much of a profit for the first four years, but after that, Dick Kent will more than earn his keep. He is also an expert on rivers and pollution, and I want him to keep an eye on things now that all these new artificial fertilizers are coming on to the market. I’m inclined to agree with Wally, go slowly, and stick to the tried and trusted ways if possible.’

  ‘What does Nicholas think about all this, the crayfish farming and the fertilizers?’

  Liana immediately stiffened, her relaxed manner evaporating in an instant. There was a long pause, then she said. ‘I’ve been very busy. Nicholas is away at the moment. There hasn’t been time to talk.’

  Donald came straight to the crux of the matter. ‘Always supposing you actually want to talk to him at all.’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Liana stared straight ahead, screwing up her eyes against the brilliance of the light reflected from the broad river. But she knew she had not deceived him. It was not easy to hide things from Donald. Why waste time in the futility of pretence? She turned to him. ‘No, I don’t talk, not if I can help it,’ she admitted, then added fiercely, ‘don’t tell me I should, because I can’t, I just can’t. Every time I look at him I think of James and the fact that he might still be with us if only Nicholas had not let William stay.’

  Donald sighed and reined Pegasus to a halt. The horse blew out noisily through his nostrils and, bending his head, began munching at the sweet meadow grass.

  ‘Liana, my dear. You are an intelligent woman. You must know deep inside you somewhere that it is wrong to go on blaming everything on Nicholas. It was not all his fault; we are all partly to blame. If it were possible to see all the pieces of the jigsaw that comprise our lives, do you think we would knowingly fit them together if we knew the final picture would be one of sorrow? Of course not. Nicholas made a mistake in keeping William’s illness from you, a mistake, Liana, a tragic mistake. But none of us is perfect, not even you, my dear.’ There was silence. Donald waited hopefully but Liana gazed stonily into the distance. He tried again. ‘If you can’t bring yourself to be a wife to him, then at least be a friend, and talk to him. God alone knows he needs one! And so, my dear, unless I’m very much mistaken, do you.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Can’t what? Be a wife? Be a friend? Talk to him?’

  ‘I can’t be anything. I can’t do anything. Don’t you understand, Donald? I can’t do anything.’

  ‘God almighty, but you’re stubborn, Liana. I don’t understand . . .’

  ‘That’s just it, Donald. You don’t understand. No-one does. No-one ever can.’ It was a deep, wretched lament from the depths of her being, a fusion of guilt and sorrow which Donald knew nothing about.

  ‘But, Liana, you must . . .’

  ‘I should have known you weren’t really interested in crayfish,’ said Liana harshly, ‘you just wanted to lecture me.’ Seizing the reins from his hands she gave them a sharp flick.

  Pegasus, startled by the unexpected sting on his rump, broke into an indignant gallop.

  Donald took the reins from her and gentled him down to a trot. ‘Take your temper out on me, not my horse,’ he said sharply.

  The trap rattled and bumped along, and Liana remained silent. Why couldn’t she be left in peace? Burning tears threatened to spill down her cheeks, but she grimly held them back and concentrated instead on the beauty of the water meadows. But Donald Ramsay, damn him, had spoilt it all.

  Liana was out of the trap the moment it entered the Broadacres courtyard, not even waiting for it to stop before leaping out, fleeing without a backward glance to the sanctuary of her office. Collapsing at her desk, she let her rigid control go at last and dissolved into a violent paroxysm of weeping.

  How could she go on with all this guilt and pain? Time passing had made no difference, for no sooner than one pain began to recede, a new burden appeared. How could she tell Donald Ramsay that James’s death, and William’s madness were not the only crosses she had to bear? She had additional ones of deceit, deceit and more deceit. In her deepest moments of depression, when she was honest, she knew that blaming Nicholas was a deliberate ploy. It took her mind off her precarious hold on sanity. But she could not tell anyone that, not even Donald Ramsay.

  The violent weeping died away. Exhausted, Liana wiped her eyes and once more looked to the future. She would cope. Hadn’t she always? In time she would even learn to face Nicholas again but not yet. The worst thing was the longing to confide in another human being and knowing that it was impossible. That was the worst thing, the emptiness.

  *

  Nicholas, hoping against hope for a warmer greeting from Liana on his return from Italy, was disappointed although not entirely surprised. Liana, her mind in a turmoil of confusion and guilt, a legacy of the morning spent with Donald Ramsay, seemed colder and more remote than ever.

  This much was soon plain when Nicholas sought her out in the library office. ‘Eleanora sends her love,’ he said. Not perhaps strictly true, but a good way of introducing the important subject of their daughter.

  ‘She is well?’ Liana didn’t even raise her head, keeping her eyes fixed on the file she had before her.

  Nicholas resisted the impulse to snatch the file away with difficulty. Why the hell couldn’t she look at him? ‘Do you bloody well care?’ But the words on the tip of his tongue were never uttered. What was the point of sowing the seeds of an even greater alienation? He said instead. ‘Yes, she’s very well.’

  ‘Good.’ Liana felt genuinely relieved. At least Eleanora appeared to have sorted herself out more or less satisfactorily. That was because she was fully occupied. Nicholas ought to keep more busy. It would stop him forever reaching back into the past. She ignored the voice telling
her that it would also remove him from her presence, thus preventing shadows of the past touching her quite so often. ‘Don’t you think you ought to go up to the Lords? The Prices and Incomes Bill is going through parliament.’

  Nicholas shrugged disinterestedly. So Liana was anxious to be rid of him again already. ‘I’ve never had that much enthusiasm for politics,’ he said. ‘You know that, and now the Conservatives are in opposition, what can I do?’

  ‘You can vote on any sensible amendments there might be to the bill,’ snapped Liana, ‘and at least try and limit the potential danger.’

  ‘What danger?’

  In recent years, Nicholas had hardly paid any attention to current politics. He had spent his days fishing and riding; it was his way of finding solace. Whereas Liana, who read voraciously anything and everything she could lay her hands on, knew exactly what was happening. Although her interest in politics was solely motivated by how Broadacres and its diverse businesses might be affected.

  ‘The danger of the devaluation of sterling, of course,’ she said now sharply.

  ‘I’ll go to bloody London if that’s what you want.’ Wheeling round abruptly Nicholas left the office, slamming the door violently behind him.

  He had wanted to tell Liana about this man Raul Levi, about the disastrous relationship Eleanora had become involved in. But he had not because Liana made sure there was no opening for anything like normal conversation. God, it was useless! How could they ever help Eleanora, when the two of them were on some crazy emotional merry-go-round from which it seemed they could never get off.

  ‘No, Nicholas, don’t go. I don’t want . . .’ But what did she want? Swamped with guilt, she answered her own question. She wanted the impossible. These days she thought of Raul more and more. He had made her laugh. When had she last laughed? So long ago, a lifetime ago.

  It was all right for Donald Ramsay to preach, telling her to be a friend to Nicholas, to help him as well as herself. But she needed a strong man, someone who would support her, someone to whom she could confess everything, even the duplicity of Eleanora’s birth, knowing that he would still be there and stand by her. But Nicholas was not that man. Liana ached with loneliness. It was the utter desolation of that loneliness which forced her to think again of Nicholas. Donald Ramsay was right, of course; he always damned well was! What brutal, cold-blooded side of her nature was forcing her to condemn Nicholas to even greater wretchedness than was necessary? I must try and talk to him, she decided. I will try. I owe him that.