by Angela Arney
Liana looked down the table. The vivid rich blue and gold of the Coalport china coffee service caught the light. How beautiful it looks, she found herself thinking. How beautiful everything is. Everything and everyone, all so dear to her and so well loved. With a conscious effort she tried to imprint the scene on her memory. After tonight, everything she loved so much, the beautiful house full of wondrous things, the estate, all the people on the estate and the people surrounding her now at the dinner table, all would be lost to her. But it was the people nearest to her that mattered most, the people whose lives she was about to shatter for ever.
Meg and Alice finished pouring the coffee and liqueurs. ‘Leave the coffee pot, Meg. We will help ourselves to more if necessary. If we need anything else, I will ring.’
‘Yes, Your Ladyship.’ Meg put the coffee pot on the silver salver in the centre of the table and motioned Alice ahead of her out of the Waterford Room.
Liana tapped the side of her cup with the tiny silver spoon. The tinkling sound halted the faint hum of conversation. She stood, straightened her back and collected what reserves of strength she had left to get the better of her sudden breathlessness. ‘There is a story which I must tell you,’ she said quietly.
The poignant, hopeless quality of her voice touched all those listening. Distressed, Peter realized what she was about to do. He had to speak.
He stood, too, so that his eyes were level with hers. ‘There is no need for the story,’ he said equally quietly, willing her to understand what was in his mind. ‘It can be resolved.’
Suddenly, Liana was aware that her hand was being clasped. She looked down. Nicholas was looking up at her, his eyes blazing with compassion. He was certain now that at least part of the story must be true, and she was about to confess it. ‘I, too, have read The Two Girls,’ he said. ‘I came across it by accident in your office. Sit down, darling; it is of no consequence to anyone but ourselves. As Peter so rightly says, it can be resolved.’
Raul took a hasty gulp of coffee, scalding his throat in the process. Jesus Christ! Nicholas and Peter had read the story! How the hell did they get their hands on it? Why wasn’t it still with Milton Hyam in Hollywood? Then he remembered Eleanora telling him that her cousin Peter was a writer, and that he had a contract in Hollywood. Bloody hell! That must be it. What sodding bad luck! Of all the people Milton could have given it to, he must have chosen Peter Chapman, the only man who would recognize the names. Raul opened his mouth to ask if his guess were true, then closed it. He would wait, see what Liana had to say for herself. He put the coffee cup back in the saucer but found to his annoyance that his hand was shaking so much the cup rattled noisily.
Eleanora turned and looked at him. Raul looked nervous. She wondered why.
In the moment that Nicholas spoke, Liana knew what had eluded her ever since the day of her marriage. She realized that it was not just his good qualities she admired. She loved him. Like a great beating of wings, all the love she had spent so many years denying flooded through her. Too late, too late sneered her mind cruelly, ruthlessly logical. And, of course, it was true. She was impotent now to change the course of events. The new-born love foundered and was stilled, her heart turning into cold stone. Once he knew the truth, the whole truth, he would turn away from her for ever. Any man would. It was inevitable.
‘The story you read, Nicholas, is incomplete,’ she whispered. Then her voice gained in strength as her resolve hardened. For Eleanora’s sake, she had to go through with it. ‘There is a final chapter which must be told. And I am the only one who can tell it.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Liana closed her eyes. There was no escaping the truth; it had to be told. But she could not bear to watch the hurt in their faces as one by one, they realized the extent to which she had betrayed their love and trust. That would be more than she could endure. And so she closed her eyes.
The sound of the combine harvester working up on Inkpen Acre drifted in through the open window, carried on the still warm air of the September evening. Night-scented stocks outside in the garden filled the room with fragrance. There was no sound or movement in the room, and yet Liana felt the air vibrating with a feeling so intense that she knew that if she did not speak soon, it would stifle her.
She began the story at the beginning, from her earliest memories as a small child before the war, when her mother had been a servant and she had been chosen to be the young Marchesa Eleanora’s companion. She told it all, scrupulously careful to leave nothing out. She told how gradually, innocent childhood happiness had been replaced by misery after misery, first by the death of Eleanora’s father then by the nightmare of war, starvation, and the murder of her own mother. There was a faint hissing intake of breath. Liana guessed it to be Eleanora, but it did not cause her to shrink from continuing the harrowing sequence of events which eventually led to her becoming a prostitute in order to survive. Neither did she shrink from telling how innocence, of necessity, gave way to hardened cynicism. How she became used to selling her body for money and food and grabbing with both hands whatever else she could get, legally or illegally. Survival, and getting her beloved Eleanora well were the motives, but Liana did not offer them as an excuse, merely stated the facts.
The lush smell of the Itchen Valley had long since gone for Liana. Now her nostrils were filled with different, less pleasant perfumes – the heat and dust of the arid hillside outside Naples; the stench of the city after bombing: how well she remembered that acrid, all-pervading smell of burning buildings and bodies. Long-suppressed images of the past filled her mind, becoming more real than the reality around her as she spoke: the death of the old priest; his makeshift burial at night by the light of a single lantern; the bombing raid after her evening’s work as a prostitute; Nicholas and Charlie Parsons digging her out; and her subsequent flight back to the castello which was burning. She caught her breath at the memory. Oh, the terrible beauty of that sight, the vivid red and gold, the walls shimmering like living velvet in the fire. She could see it, smell it, almost touch it. Her heart pounded as it had on that night so many years before. Then she told of her first meeting with Raul Carducci on that night. How they fought the fire together.
Only then as she spoke, did the irony of it strike her. The two men who were destined to chart the pattern of the future years for her had both entered her life on the same night. One was to betray her, the other to be betrayed. But these thoughts she kept to herself. The story had to go on; only when it was finished would the picture be clear.
When she got to the death of Eleanora, her voice faltered and she stopped. Raul, thinking she would stop there, breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God, she was going to leave out his part in the story. As it was, she had spared him involvement by carefully adhering to the name she had known him by at that time, Raul Carducci. Of all the people in the room, only she knew Raul Carducci was now Raul Levi. So the years had not changed her that much after all. Underneath that steely exterior she was still soft-hearted, still thought of others; but she was a fool, too, he thought wryly. If only she had kept silent, something could have been worked out. After all, he was not such an unprincipled bastard that he would have purposely wrecked the life she had made for herself. Why the hell was she blurting it all out now? He could only suppose she had panicked on realizing that Nicholas and Peter knew part of the story, thinking they would put two and two together and come to the conclusion that she was the Liana in the story. Pity, he thought. I could have sworn it was fiction; but if she chooses to sacrifice herself on the altar of truth, how can I stop her?
Curious, he wondered how the family would take to the fact that she had admitted being a prostitute, and glanced at the faces around him. Were they shocked, horrified? No, he decided, none of them seemed to be registering those emotions. Disbelief was the expression he saw written across their faces, sheer, utter disbelief. He was surprised. He had expected the strait-laced English to be shocked. But, on reflection, perhaps they were so stra
it-laced, they just couldn’t believe what she was saying! What Raul did not and could not know was that Liana had passed herself off as the Marchesa Eleanora, and for the other occupants in the room it was a double revelation. Not only were they trying to come to grips with the fact that she had formerly been a prostitute, but also that she was not the marchesa they had always thought her to be.
His smug self-satisfaction was shattered a few seconds later, and his eyes flew back to Liana. She was continuing the narrative.
‘After Eleanora’s death,’ said Liana softly, ‘I thought my spirit would never emerge from the sorrow which smothered it. I never went back to prostitution. I had enough money saved, and anyway in those first few weeks whether I lived or died was unimportant to me. But the young man Raul, Raul Carducci, whom I had distrusted so much at first, gave me strength and showed me kindness. Slowly, little by little, I fell in love with him, and eventually we became lovers. My life was transformed. We had enough to eat, not a lot, but enough because Raul was clever at manipulating the thriving black market of Naples. For me it was a magical time. I left the horror and sorrow of the past behind me and stepped into a world full of love and beauty which, foolishly, I thought would last for ever. But, of course, it didn’t. It ended very abruptly. On the nineteenth of March nineteen forty-four, to be precise, for that was the last day I saw Raul Carducci.
‘My last sight of him is imprinted on my memory along with the date. It was the day Vesuvius erupted, and I last saw his figure disappearing into the ash, which by then was falling like snow, as he walked down the mountainside into Naples. I thought he would return some hours later with the coffee he’d gone to buy, but he did not come back. Two weeks later I found out that I was pregnant.’
Liana paused again. The hardest part was yet to come, but soon it would be over. She opened her eyes briefly. The audience watching her was so still it seemed they were hardly breathing. The only movement was the flicker of light from the guttering candles. The candles in the silver candelabra had almost burned out. Like me, thought Liana sadly, by the time their light is out, mine will be, too. Eyes closed again, she continued. This time she came to the fateful meeting again with Nicholas in his office, when, in order to impress him, and hoping to find Raul, she had introduced herself as the marchesa.
‘At the time, I thought it would only be necessary to play the part of my friend, the marchesa, for a few days. Just until Raul was found. But Raul was never found, not a trace. He had just disappeared. The days dragged by, and eventually Nicholas told me that he was sure Raul must be dead. Of course, I believed him. There was no reason not to. Many people just disappeared in those days, killed in bombing raids or murdered. Once I was convinced that Raul had gone from my life for ever, it seemed logical to go on with the pretence.’
Leaving nothing to her listeners’ imagination, Liana told how, knowing that Nicholas was already attracted to her, she made up her mind to make Nicholas love her enough to want to marry her. He thought she was a marchesa, and she knew he was an English earl. The American dollars, the proceeds of prostitution, would be her dowry, buying her and the coming child, another life far away from Italy. She also had Eleanora’s jewels, no use to a dead girl, but essential now to her in the role of a marchesa. Shrinking from nothing, Liana explained that in Naples it was possible to find doctors, who, for a price, would stitch up a girl’s hymen. The sordid details of the operation and aftermath described with stark reality, caused her audience to shudder. It was necessary, Liana explained carefully, that her hymen be stitched, so that Nicholas would think her a virgin on their wedding night.
She paused, and opened her eyes. Raul, sitting opposite, was staring, but Liana could see the full impact of her story had not yet sunk in. ‘I succeeded in my subterfuge. Nicholas did think me a virgin. But Eleanora, born on December the seventeenth nineteen forty-four and thought by everyone at Broadacres to be premature, was in fact a full-term baby. Because I was two months’ pregnant on my wedding night.’
Raul gasped. What was she saying? That Eleanora was his daughter? No, surely not. Liana wasn’t pregnant when he left. She must have slept with someone else. She must have gone back to prostitution after he left. It had to be.
‘But that means . . .’ Eleanora’s horrified voice broke into Liana’s narrative.
Liana turned towards her. ‘It means two things. First, the man you’ve always called Daddy, Nicholas, Earl of Wessex, is not your father. Raul Carducci is, and . . .’
‘But Raul Carducci is dead,’ interrupted Peter quietly. His heart was bleeding for Liana. God, how he wished for her sake that he had never set eyes on the story. But another person was involved, the girl he loved and would always love, and for Eleanora’s sake, he had to know for certain what he already suspected. ‘Why have you told us the truth now? Why did you not leave Eleanora and Nicholas in ignorance? What further harm would that have done?’
Liana inclined her head in his direction. The movement, untypically, lacked grace, seeming like that of an old woman. ‘I think you already know the answer, Peter,’ she said wearily. ‘But will you tell me something first? Do you know the author of The Two Girls?’
‘Raul Levi,’ said Peter.
‘Raul Levi!’ Nicholas’s voice broke with disbelieving emotion. ‘Oh, God, Liana, tell me what I’m thinking isn’t true, please.’
With a tremendous effort of will, Liana denied the tears which were longing to be spilled. The pain in his voice, the despair! And all put there by me, she thought. I’ll never be able to make reparation.
‘I only wish I could, Nicholas,’ she said, her voice low and steady. It had to be that way. The last few ugly facts had to be spelled out quietly, clearly, so that not a doubt, not a shred of misunderstanding was left in the mind of anyone. She lifted her head and looked straight at Raul. ‘Raul Levi is the Raul Carducci in the story of my life. They are one and the same man, only the name is different. Raul Levi is the father of my daughter, Eleanora.’
There was silence, broken eventually by Eleanora’s horrified whisper. ‘Raul Levi is my father?’ She turned her head from side to side, frightened and confused.
Liana could not answer for a moment. Outside, the low rumble from the combine harvester stopped abruptly: the barley harvest was gathered in. In the silence that followed, an owl hooted, mournful, lonely. The long, drawn-out cry emphasized the stunned silence in the room.
‘Yes, Raul Levi, is the man I knew as Raul Carducci, and he is your real father. I did truly think he was dead. I’m not telling you this and trying to excuse myself. There is no excuse, I know that. But I hope perhaps you will understand the reason for my deception. I vowed you would never know, that no-one would ever know. I thought, mistakenly, that the deception could harm no-one, that only I would suffer by never knowing peace of mind. But it seems that the saying is correct, and that true life really is stranger than fiction. Of all the men in the world you could have met and fallen in love with, fate ordained that you should meet the man who is your real father, and fall in love with him. Believe me, not for any other reason would I have told the truth.’ Liana’s voice took on a ring of defiance. ‘I intended to deceive until the day I died. But circumstances have forced the truth out of me. So now at last you know.’
Liana looked around at the faces staring at her. ‘Not only is Eleanora not Nicholas’s daughter, but neither she nor I have a single drop of aristocratic blood in our veins. We spring from peasant stock, both of us.’ At last she looked down towards Nicholas sitting silently by her side, but still she could not bring herself to look into his eyes. ‘I ask only one thing of you, Nicholas, and that is, please don’t blame Eleanora. None of this was her fault. I, and I alone made the decision to deceive you before she was even born. And to her you are her father. She has always loved you as her real father, and I know her love for you will never die. I beg you, if you can, please go on loving her as your daughter. I am the only one to be blamed. My whole life, since the day I met you, has been
one long lie.’
Nicholas half rose as if to speak. But Liana put up her hand and stilled the words. ‘There is one other sin to which I must confess, but which I must admit seems unimportant to me now. However, you may wish to do something about it. I suppose criminal charges could be brought against me; I leave that decision to you. It concerns William. It is true that he murdered James, but equally it is true that I, in turn, quite deliberately, murdered him. After he had dropped James through the ice, I pushed his head back into the water with the boat pole, and held it there until he drowned.’ It was the only time her composure faltered. With a half-strangled sob at the memory, she said. ‘That is a sin I do not repent. I would do it again if necessary.’
Liana turned and walked to the door. There was nothing more to say; she had said it all. Now there were no more secrets. The room was dim; most of the candles had burned out. She switched on the lights and the magnificent Waterford chandeliers sprang into brilliance as a thin ribbon of smoke drifted up from the last candle. Pausing a moment, she turned to look at the family seated at the table, imprinting their dearly loved faces on her memory, but careful to avoid looking into their eyes. Then silently she opened the door and left the room.
*
‘Well, that was one hell of a story,’ said Donald Ramsay slowly. He was filled with admiration for Liana.
So was Dorothy. ‘What a terrible life she had. The poor, poor girl,’ she whispered.
‘What a terrible life she had! Where do you think that leaves me?’ Eleanora was near to hysteria. ‘Suddenly she springs it on me that I am the bastard daughter of . . .’ Turning and looking at Raul with an expression of revulsion on her face, she pulled her chair away from his with a violent movement. ‘Oh, God, I’ve been sleeping with my own father! It makes my flesh crawl!’ she said, clasping her hands to her mouth as if she was likely to be sick at any moment. ‘I’ll never, never forgive her for this. What has she done to me?’ Her voice rose higher and higher on a thin wail of frenzied hysteria.
