The Battle of the Villa Fiorita

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The Battle of the Villa Fiorita Page 9

by Rumer Godden


  ‘It was literally into your arms,’ said Fanny. ‘Almost before I saw you, you were holding me. You were kissing me.’

  ‘It had been so long,’ said Rob. ‘I had almost taught myself not to hope, to make myself think you were right and we had succeeded in being good. I suppose it was “good” officially. After all, I didn’t want to break up a home where there were children. I was resigned, or very nearly. I was going to Africa and could try and forget you. Diamond Pipe was an interesting picture, I had always wanted to do it, then Margot pointed out your husband and I knew I was not resigned, nor ever would be.’

  ‘So we were both driven out on the hill,’ said Fanny. ‘I’m afraid I wept.’

  ‘I thought it was rain on your face,’ said Rob. ‘Until I tasted salt. When I knew they were tears, I knew too I could never let you go.’

  Fanny opened her eyes. She was not on Whitcross Hill with the whitebeams blowing in the rain to show their underleaves, the smell of wet chalk and summer grass. She was in the garden of the villa; not chilled by the wetness – she remembered how Rob had run his hands up her arms under her coat and said, ‘You’re cold.’ She was warm, sunned; not driven, tormented, but quiet and at peace. The sun, as it grew higher, was even too hot and she opened the Japanese sunshade Rob had brought her back from Milan; every time he went he came back with presents. ‘I hadn’t anyone to buy them for before,’ said Rob. The oiled paper cast a cool glow over the chair cushions and on Fanny’s dress, a lavender glow lit with sun. Now, when she had balanced the sunshade and lay back again and shut her eyes, the light did not swim red through her lids. I didn’t feel guilty any more, thought Fanny, not after that day. I hardened. I had tried to stop it, quell it, cut it off, be good, ‘officially good’ Rob had called it, and it was no good being good. It seemed meant, thought Fanny, and, ‘Why not?’ she had said and told herself that other women had lovers – and Rob was not even my lover then.

  ‘We hadn’t consummated it,’ said Rob, ‘if that’s what you mean, but I was your lover. I loved you, and you knew it.’

  ‘I knew it,’ and Fanny gave the secret satisfied smile of a woman who knows she is loved. All through that time the world had seemed to her lit, bright at the edges as if everything had a halo, as Caddie and Hugh were to see it that first evening in the villa garden. I have never been nicer to Darrell and the children, thought Fanny, valued Gwyneth more, been more patient with Lady Candida. She remembered Lady Candida’s, ‘You seem very happy, Fanny.’

  ‘Thank you, I am.’

  ‘Yet only three weeks ago I was telling Darrell you looked as if you needed a good tonic.’

  ‘Perhaps I am taking one,’ said Fanny. That led to, ‘What tonic? Where did you get it? Not one of those iron things? You should take yeast. Brewer’s yeast,’ and Fanny, without irritation, promised she would take yeast.

  That had been perhaps their happiest time or, ‘Our only absolutely happy time,’ they could have said: afterwards she had been too well aware of the ruin, and it was fun, thought Fanny. To her that was surprising. In the puritan mind, so carefully instilled in her by Aunt Isabel, fun was the last thing Fanny had thought an affair would be – in those days she still, conventionally, called this ‘an affair’. Passionate, yes, breath-taking, but it did not seem suitable for it to be fun. That was an unexpected gift Rob brought her. It was fun to run up to town, be taken out to lunch or dinner – in places she had never thought she would see, with food such as she had never tasted; to be put into taxis, handed in and out of cars, bought flowers, taken to the theatre.

  No one in Whitcross noticed what she did – except Gwyneth. August was a doldrum time; most people were away but the Clavering young never wanted to stir from Stebbings, except Philippa, and she was in France. Next summer we should have had Marie José Lefevre in exchange, thought Fanny; poor Marie José, she would never come now. Hugh had been building a telescope and spent half his time going into High Wycombe or up to London to get parts. Caddie was absorbed; she was having riding lessons, beginning to school Topaz. Lady Candida was mercifully absent. She always went to Switzerland for August and September, to stay up in the mountains, ‘Far, far away,’ said Fanny. Darrell came and went; he was in South America for five weeks, she remembered, delayed. He was always being delayed. That, once upon a time, had been exasperating; it had spoiled many invitations; often at the last minute I had to ring up and say he was not back, thought Fanny, which left me odd woman out, but now it opened the way to a halcyon time, filled only with Rob and herself, and if any voice spoke or whispered in her, she stifled it at once. ‘It’s all harmless,’ she told herself, even after the warning of the sleep-walking weeks that had gone before. All harmless. What is it? A few lunches and dinners; a theatre, an occasional kiss. ‘We are friends – friends,’ Fanny tried to insist. ‘I can have a friend?’ and when that was too palpably a lie – she had only to meet Rob’s eyes, touch his hand to know it – ‘He is going to Africa,’ she would say. ‘Then it will be over.’ Rob was at the studios now, finishing Haysel to Harvest. In the evenings he was up in London, or at Technicolor. They could only meet desultorily, but even when they did not meet … ‘Why did Darrell and the children have so little power?’ whispered Fanny aloud. ‘Because Rob had so much. So much,’ and in spite of the sun shining down on the villa terrace she felt as if she shivered. She was getting to the crisis.

  All that time, Darrell had noticed nothing. ‘That wasn’t his fault,’ Fanny defended him to Rob. ‘He didn’t notice things, often not until Lady Candida pointed them out to him.’ It was not that he was stupid or obtuse. It simply would not have occurred to Darrell that his wife could fall in love with somebody else. He gave me all his trust, thought Fanny, and I was not trustworthy.

  Darrell would not have betrayed her, she knew that. Not even if he had fallen as much in love with a woman as she with Rob. If he had not been able to resist it, and she thought he would resist, Darrell would have been able to … compartment it, thought Fanny. He would never have hurt her or the children. He was steadfast, thought Fanny, as he was steadfast with his mother, though Fanny had sometimes had an idea that he did not like Lady Candida any more than she did. Darrell was a disciplinarian – well, he is used to commanding a regiment; he expected people to come up to his standard, particularly his children, but he would never have hurt them, never, thought Fanny, and he was bewildered that she could.

  ‘But what did I do wrong?’ he had asked over and over again in the one time Fanny saw him. ‘What did I do wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing ever.’

  ‘Then why?’

  Lady Candida too, in Fanny’s last meeting with her – I had to see her for old enmity’s sake – ‘You weren’t on bad terms with Darrell?’

  ‘They weren’t bad,’ Fanny had answered wearily. ‘Not bad, not good, just terms.’ She could not tell Lady Candida that it had all … ceased, thought Fanny, if it ever had begun. She knew now that she had never been properly married to Darrell.

  Some couples, for instance Margot and Sydney, were apart on the surface but could not do without one another. Darrell and Fanny seemed to be of one accord, we were, yes, comfortable together, thought Fanny, but I did without him perfectly well. That was not his fault, she insisted again; he was loyal, faithful, kind; she had followed him unquestioningly. ‘Because I didn’t know enough to question?’ asked Fanny, yet now she saw that her happiest times had been since he was made a Queen’s Messenger and was away so much.

  ‘Clavering shouldn’t have left her alone,’ they said at the Club House.

  ‘Damn it all, if a wife can’t be faithful while a man does his work …’ She could imagine them saying that.

  ‘But I was faithful, technically,’ Fanny might have said. That began to be the trouble. Restlessness set in. The holidays ended. The children went back to school. She remembered how Caddie begged to be a day-girl again so that she could go on with Topaz’s training. If it had not been for Rob, should I have persuaded Darrell
to let her? asked Fanny. Lady Candida came back with her prick-needle eyes. ‘Do you have to be so fidgety, Fanny? What’s the matter with you? First down, then up. You can’t keep still a minute. I believe you have nerves. Darrell must take you away.’

  ‘If you worry Darrell, I shall never speak to you again.’ The fierceness was so unlike Fanny that Lady Candida was more than ever convinced that she was ill. ‘Something is the matter,’ said Lady Candida firmly.

  Fanny herself did not know what it was, any more than an adolescent knows; this strange heady excitement, at once miserable and sweet. Lady Candida was right; Fanny could not be still. She, who had always been peaceful, seemed on jerk strings, who had been almost selfless, ‘willy-nilly,’ she might have said, thought only of herself. ‘I.’ ‘I.’ ‘I’, struggling like a moth to break its chrysalis. She worked in the house and garden, ‘and hated the house and garden’; was as impatient as Hugh, silly as Philippa; could not bear to be with Rob, could not bear to be without him; rushed up to London to see him – and then did not telephone him but tramped about the streets and came home frustrated. Then driven, thought Fanny, that day I did telephone. We went to Chirico’s, the rain came and it happened.

  She sank her cheek into the long-chair cushions remembering that first time. She had said they were innocent, but was she? Wasn’t I ripe? thought Fanny. It seemed to her now she had been like a girl, thin, big-eyed with lust. Yes, lust, thought Fanny. One should call it by its ugly proper name because it creeps into love; but it cannot maim love, if it is love, and, thank God, I was not a girl, thought Fanny, but a woman who can hide what she is thinking. All through that luncheon she could hardly take her eyes off Rob. Then he had to go to his appointment, and I said I would walk in the park, thought Fanny. Walking was the only thing that helped, to walk into exhaustion, but it rained. ‘Why?’ Fanny, once again, argued with God. ‘Why did you let it rain?’ God sends the rain, they always say, not the devil, and there was nothing devilish in what happened that afternoon; it was more right, more tender, and beautiful than anything I had ever known, known or dreamed of, thought Fanny.

  Rob had driven her home that night, too tired to think. ‘You are too tired and so am I,’ said Rob. ‘I will come and see Darrell in the morning,’ but Darrell was still away, mercifully, thought Fanny, or I could not have gone back to Stebbings, and even then, thought Fanny now, even then in the month – no, it was not a month – in the three weeks that followed, I hung fire, shilly-shallied.

  Rob had argued. ‘I must talk to Darrell. It’s only honest to leave, Fanny. Leave now. It isn’t right that you should stay there,’ and all the while this passion burnt them; they could not bear to stay away from one another, could not have enough. There is a word ‘slaked’, thought Fanny, when one’s thirst is satisfied; we were never satisfied, never slaked. Yet Rob was patient. If I had needed any telling, I found out in those weeks how much he loved me, how he could go against himself for me. I didn’t know what I was waiting for, or perhaps not waiting, only trying to keep everything together, not hurt Darrell too much, not hurt the children. Perhaps I thought that somehow I could have Rob and the children and Stebbings. Perhaps I could have had them, we could have stayed as we were. No, I was living in a fool’s dream, thought Fanny, because Darrell came home, ‘And he noticed me,’ said Fanny.

  It had dawned slowly. She had heard him talking to Gwyneth. ‘Is Mrs Clavering quite well?’

  ‘A little upset,’ said Gwyneth cautiously. Dear loyal Gwyneth.

  ‘Upset? About what?’ Darrell was honestly perplexed.

  ‘It’s been a trying summer and – ladies get moods.’

  ‘Moods?’ He sounded more than ever lost. ‘Is there anything you think I could do?’

  Gwyneth’s advice was of the nursery, she had had a great deal to do with children. ‘I should leave her alone, sir, and she will come out of it.’

  ‘Leave her alone.’ It might be of the nursery, but it was sound. If Darrell had had the wisdom to do that, should I be here now? asked Fanny, but Darrell did not leave her alone; the opposite. He took more notice of me than he had since we were first married, thought Fanny, and she wondered, does a woman, roused, give out an emanation, like a female moth?

  It was after dinner, the third night he had been home.

  When Darrell was at Stebbings the ritual was always the same. Changed, he and Fanny met in the drawing-room for a drink before dinner. That always irked the children; they had an aloof disapproval, but Darrell liked to sit, with a whisky and soda or a gin, telling Fanny about the day, or his last journey. ‘And I liked it too,’ said Fanny. ‘It was adult. A change from those very children.’ Then they had dinner, which Gwyneth used to dish up for Fanny, after which they waited on themselves; it was a three-course dinner, the table was properly laid, ‘with all the panoply,’ said Hugh, and the children were not allowed to leave the table for their private ploys, no matter what these were.

  ‘Probably good for them,’ said Fanny, but again it was irksome. Philippa chafed while some boy who had called for her sounded his horn outside. ‘You can ask him to come in and have some coffee,’ said Darrell. ‘He doesn’t want coffee; he wants me,’ and, ‘We have been sitting here an hour!’ Hugh had once burst out. ‘A whole hour, or an hour and three-quarters since you started drinking, and there is an important concert I need to hear.’ But Darrell had forgotten what it felt like to be young, to be passionate about things, thought Fanny. ‘Can jazz be so important?’ he had asked, quite kindly, but it was almost with hate that Hugh said, ‘This is classical jazz.’

  The girls washed up or, when they were not home, Fanny washed the silver and glass, the rest waited until the morning. She brought coffee into the drawing-room. Darrell read the paper or watched television, while Fanny watched too or wrote letters, or mended. At ten o’clock they went tamely to bed, usually to read, thought Fanny, each putting out their own light, with a kiss, usually on the cheek or forehead, only now and then something warmer, again not passionate but kindly. An ordinary harmless married couple, like any in the world, but that October night Darrell did not settle down with the paper, did not switch on a programme, he came over to her and touched her hair.

  ‘You’re looking very well tonight, Fanny.’

  ‘The same as usual.’ Fanny tried to speak lightly. Presently she got up and moved to the other side of the fireplace.

  ‘Why go over there?’

  ‘It’s too hot.’

  ‘You feel beautifully cool,’ and he asked, ‘Isn’t it time for bed?’

  ‘It’s only a quarter past nine.’

  ‘Never mind. Why not go when we want to?’

  ‘You go. I have things to do.’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘Yes. I have to …’ Fanny got up.

  ‘Not now,’ said Darrell. He got up too. ‘Damn it all. I have been away for weeks.’ He put his arm round her and kissed her. ‘What would you say, Fanny, if we went away? Just you and I, for a few days. Mother says you ought to have a change and I think we deserve it. This job is brutish. You have been alone too long. We could go up to town, do some shows, or what about Madeira?’ asked Darrell.

  ‘No,’ said Fanny. ‘No,’ but she could not get the words out. He bent his head to kiss her again. She tried not to shrink, but she shrank. He held her firmly, closer. ‘Darrell, please don’t.’

  ‘Why, what’s the matter?’

  This, thought Fanny to herself, is where you use control. Other women … but it was no use thinking of other women. He was holding her closer still, and before she could stop herself she had cried out, ‘Darrell! Please don’t touch me.’

  ‘Don’t touch you?’ The blue eyes looked so astonished and hurt that Fanny fought again to control herself. This was not Darrell’s fault and she did not want him to be hurt, any more than Danny, she thought, and caught herself back, but there was something as simple and noble as an animal about Darrell. ‘Not touch you? I’m your husband.’ She tried to be still, but when
that possessive hold tightened, the panic came up again.

  ‘I can’t.’ Now the struggling was growing frantic. ‘I can’t. Perhaps never again.’

  ‘What is all this?’ He was still holding her, but now not in his arms, holding her with his hands as he felt her struggling. ‘Dear! You are not afraid? I’m your husband. Your husband.’

  ‘Then help me.’ Now Fanny was clinging to him. ‘Help me.’

  ‘Help you? Why? How?’

  ‘Just leave me for a little while. Leave me alone.’ In his grasp, the panic was coming up again. ‘Leave me. Then it may be all right.’

  ‘What may be all right? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Don’t watch me like that. Don’t probe.’

  ‘This is all nerves,’ said Darrell.

  ‘It’s not nerves. Darrell, perhaps I should tell you …’ but he was too sure of himself to listen. He was not angry; he still had not grasped what she was trying, though frantically, to tell him. ‘This is where, dearest,’ he said, ‘you have to let the man know best. It’s only that somehow in the last few months we have lost one another a little, come somehow to be almost strangers.’ So he had noticed, thought Fanny. ‘Trust me. It will be all right in a little while,’ said Darrell.

  ‘No! No!’ cried Fanny, but he turned her gently towards the door and into the hall.

  ‘You go up to bed and wait for me.’

  ‘I knew then that I couldn’t,’ said Fanny. ‘I had made love with Rob. Yes, that is what I had made, something binding, unforgettable, and “private” is not a big enough word, a “keep” between two people, made of minutes that last a lifetime, until death, perhaps past death, and for anyone else to touch me was desecration.’

 

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