Island of Mermaids

by Iris Danbury

  ‘I was also sorry that you were so much with the Englishman yesterday,’ he continued.

  ‘I had dinner with him, that’s all.’ Althea considered it enough to try not to offend Signora Marchetti, but to have Cristo trying to dictate to her was too much.

  ‘He likes to know all the girls on the island. Last year it was Carla—and many others, of course. Now you have come, he means to make you fall in love with him.’

  Althea laughed. ‘He’ll have his work cut out. Why, I’ve only met him three or four times. I don’t fall in or out of love quite so easily.’

  ‘But I wish you could fall in love with me. I am very jealous of this Englishman.’ His dark eyes gleamed with hostility.

  ‘There’s no need for jealousy, Cristo,’ she assured him. ‘I’m not likely to fall in love with him. It’s enough that he believes all the girls fall easily for him. Carla will get over her infatuation.’

  ‘But that means you could love me?’ he persisted.

  ‘No, Cristo, I don’t think that’s likely.’

  ‘How do you know?’ he demanded. ‘I can love most passionately. You would not find it hard to love me.’

  ‘Oh, Cristo, don’t be absurd! You’ve known me only two days.’

  ‘Enough to know that I love you,’ he cut in.

  ‘Not enough for me to know about you,’ she said firmly. ‘Look, Cristo, you’re here for a holiday. Don’t spoil it by imagining you’re in love with me. As soon as you go back to Rome, you’ll forget me. Besides, you must know dozens of other girls there, all of them prettier than I am.’

  ‘But not so sweet English girls are so gentle.’

  Althea wondered grimly how many unsuspecting English tourists he had said he loved to distraction.

  She was glad when Carla came out to the terrace. The girl was in a ferment lest Kent Sanderby should delay the choice of the singing teacher.

  Althea did her best to soothe the girl’s impatience and it was a relief to everyone at the Villa Stefano when Kent telephoned nearly a week later that he had arranged a visit to Naples for two days ahead if that would suit Signora and Signorina Marchetti.

  ‘You must come, too,’ suggested Carla, ‘for you must also see that I am visiting a respectable place.’

  Althea accepted the invitation with certain misgivings. She had not met Kent since the interview at his villa. He might not be too pleased to have her in the party for Naples.

  On the morning when they were to take the early Naples steamer, Carla announced that Cristo was also coming.

  “He will be company for you when we are discussing the arrangements.’

  Althea almost groaned. She could have borne any coolness or sharp-tongued words from Kent, but to have Cristo forcing his escort on her was all that she needed to make her regret she was involved in the project at all.

  She extorted a promise from her father that he would take only two short walks during the day and rest all afternoon. She had rarely left him for a whole day, but, as he pointed out, he was a poor weak thing two months ago. ‘Anyway, Rosanna will look after me and see to the meals and so on.’

  It turned out that her fears about both Kent and Cristo were unfounded. Kent chatted naturally to her on the steamer crossing, while Cristo was at his most attentive towards his aunt Emilia.

  ‘How many times have you been to Naples?’ Kent asked, as the steamer neared the harbour.

  ‘Only twice, I’m afraid,’ she admitted. ‘But I hope to explore the city and other places near by soon.’

  ‘Then go soon before the tourists arrive in force. Pompeii is one place you mustn’t miss.’

  ‘I thought I’d make a preliminary visit there and later on take my father who has never been there, although he’s made many business trips to parts of Italy. I don’t want to tire him too much.’

  ‘It’s not strenuous. Just a lot of hunks of stone sometimes to trip you up. The pavements aren’t asphalt.’

  She laughed, accepting this further jibe at her propensity to trip over rough ground. ‘I’ll be careful, of course.’ After a slight pause, she said, ‘I’m sorry I seemed to belittle your occupation the other day.’

  ‘Think no more of it!’ he said airily. ‘What’s a hardworking stonemason compared with a glamorous musician? I should probably wear the right clothes when I’m in Capri. Long hair as well.’

  ‘And what would be the right clothes for a composer?’ she queried. ‘Most young men go in for a touch of fantasy nowadays, especially on holiday, so how could you dress up as a Verdi or Puccini?’

  ‘Your determination to cut me down to size is something I find quite unflattering.’

  The passengers were gathering ready to land and in a few minutes the gangways were down. Althea accompanied the others along the quay until Kent secured a taxi.

  The house of Professor Tomaso Scarpelli was in a small comparatively quiet square some distance from the port.

  ‘I wish you good luck.’ Althea embraced Carla and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Sing well for the professor.’

  When Carla and her mother accompanied by Kent had entered the house, Cristo suggested that he and Althea might make use of the waiting taxi to go down to the city centre.

  ‘That wouldn’t do,’ objected Althea. ‘When the others come, there’ll be no taxi.’

  ‘They can easily get another,’ Cristo assured her.

  ‘Oh no. Kent promised that if Carla’s audition went well and the professor would accept her, he’d take us all to a celebration lunch.’

  ‘Suppose Carla fails?’

  ‘Then Kent said it would have to be a consolation lunch just the same.’

  ‘What is “consolation”?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, it means—comforting someone who has lost or has a certain grief.’

  ‘Like me.’ His black eyes glittered. ‘I must have this consolation. What does it matter if we don’t lunch with my aunt and cousin? We can amuse ourselves and do what we like.’

  Althea, however, was adamant. ‘You’re very inconsiderate, Cristo,’ she scolded. ‘Not at all courteous to your aunt.’

  She had guessed that an accusation of lack of manners would hurt Cristo more than an attack of logic.

  He exclaimed that he was ‘dolent’. ‘Now I have offended you.’

  Althea gave him a guarded smile. ‘Let’s explore the square while we’re waiting. We shall soon see when the others leave the professor’s house.’

  Cristo agreed and, away from the inviting interior of a taxi, proved an interesting guide and most anxious to atone for any recent discourtesy.

  He told her that several houses in the square had once belonged to noble families. ‘You can see the crests over the doors and the gates to courtyards.’

  On the far side pizza-sellers announced their hot steaming wares set out in tin trays, while a man diligently brushed peaches until they glowed; then he arranged them on his barrow in a beautiful golden pattern.

  Cristo led Althea down narrow streets across which washing hung suspended between the windows; women in upper storeys let down baskets on long ropes so that street sellers could fill them with vegetables or a bottle of milk.

  The air was filled with the din of voices and calls and Althea enjoyed this glimpse of Naples away from the routine tourist’s-eye view.

  Suddenly she became aware that she and Cristo had left the square behind. ‘We must go back!’ she said urgently.

  But the taxi still waited in the square.

  ‘We must have a drink,’ Cristo suggested. ‘Would you like coffee or something iced?’

  ‘A long cool drink, please.’

  They found a cafe at the corner of the square and she was grateful for the delicious lemon drink with shaved ice.

  Cristo talked about Rome and its delights. ‘So much to see and to do. You must come soon and stay with my mother,’ he invited expansively, then added as an afterthought, ‘Your father, too. Does he know Rome well?’

  ‘He’s been several times, but
mainly on business. I doubt whether he has taken time off to see the sights at all leisurely.’

  Cristo told her about his job as a car salesman in a showroom and amused her with anecdotes about some of the would-be purchasers.

  Presently she glanced at her watch, then screwed round in her chair towards the other side of the square. ‘The taxi! It’s gone!’

  ‘What matters? We can get another for ourselves,’ was Cristo’s unperturbed reply.

  ‘But I don’t know the name of the restaurant where we were to lunch.’

  ‘I shall be delighted to give you lunch wherever you choose,’ he offered.

  In the smart hotel which Cristo selected Althea failed to enjoy the delightful lunch set before her, course by course. She was worried chiefly on Carla’s account. What would the girl think when she came away from the professor’s house, either elated at success or needing sympathy for failure, only to find that obviously Althea and Cristo had become impatient and gone off somewhere by themselves?

  After lunch Cristo suggested a stroll through the streets and arcades. ‘It is possible that we might see Zia Emilia and Carla if they want to do some shopping.’

  Althea thought it as unlikely as hoping to spot an acquaintance along the length of Regent Street.

  At one point they came to a small public garden set on a height overlooking the harbour.

  Cristo pointed out Capri. The island, a saddleback between the two heights of Monte Tiberio and Monte Solaro, rested like a bird on a sapphire sea. The peak of Solaro was capped, as nearly always, by the white sirocco cloud brought by the south wind from Africa. It was easy to see why legends of sirens and mermaids had been whispered about this idyllic island.

  Cristo was in favour of staying longer in Naples, but Althea was determined to return on the six o’clock steamer. ‘We shall meet your aunt and the others then.’

  Yet although Althea searched the ship during the crossing there was no sign of either of the Marchettis or of Kent Sanderby.

  ‘You see?’ Cristo was all smugness. ‘They have stayed j somewhere to enjoy themselves and we could have done the same. There was no need to hurry home.’

  ‘I couldn’t have stayed any longer in Naples,’ Althea told him coldly. ‘My father needs me.’

  ‘That is nonsense! There are servants in my aunt’s house. They can do everything for your father. Besides, he is not an old man unable to look after himself.’

  Althea did not answer, although she recognised the truth of Cristo’s words. She was aware that she was making devotion to her father the excuse for fending off difficulties or anything likely to prove tiresome.

  At the villa dinner was an uneasy meal with only the three of them there, Mr. Buckland with Cristo and Althea. Mr. Buckland had wanted to know the verdict about Carla’s future and was surprised that his daughter did not know. Cristo was more than usually talkative about cars, Rome, his own future and places he intended to visit. Althea longed for the moment when she could escape to the sanctuary of the ‘gingerbread house’.

  At last the meal was over and after coffee on the terrace she left the two men. Let them talk if they wanted to.

  It seemed that Mr. Buckland had no wish to have long conversations with Cristo, for he joined Althea in their sitting-room after a short time.

  ‘I’ve had enough of Cristo for one day,’ Althea said. ‘I felt I couldn’t take any more.’

  Her father smiled gently. Tie’s a bit irritating, I’ll admit. Seems rather vain and shallow, but perhaps I’m too old to understand young men of today.’

  ‘He’s twenty-five and he seems to have all the faults of a nineteen-year-old,’ she snapped.

  ‘Remember he’s Italian. The young men mature quickly in some directions and in others seem to us quite callow. But the same could be said of Englishmen.’

  Althea related the incidents of the day and how she and Cristo had lost touch with the rest of the party.

  ‘No doubt I shall hear all the news tomorrow morning. I hope Carla was successful.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that,’ was her father’s comment. ‘It might be a happier future for Carla if her voice isn’t quite good enough for a professional career. She’s not really cut out for it.’

  ‘Well, even a few lessons in Naples will provide her with a little variety in her life, even if eventually she never makes the grade,’ returned Althea.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Althea was correct in her estimate that she would hear all the news the following morning.

  She and her father usually took their breakfast coffee and rolls in their sitting-room with the french windows open on to the garden.

  Carla followed Rosanna with the tray. Obviously the girl was in a gay mood.

  ‘Oh, I am so happy!’ she exclaimed before even a ‘Buon giorno’ could be exchanged.

  ‘The news is good?’ queried Althea quickly.

  ‘The professor will take me as a pupil. He likes my voice. But there is more than that to make me happy.’

  ‘Have some coffee with us and sit down and tell us all about it,’ invited Althea. ‘Rosanna, would you bring a cup for the Signorina?’

  But Carla was too exultant to sit down. She roamed excitedly around the room, perching on the arm of a chair, springing up and whirling around to some other fleeting resting place.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry we missed you, Cristo and I,’ began Althea. ‘Actually, we were only at a cafe in the square opposite the professor’s house, but somehow the taxi went away when we weren’t looking. I wanted to know how you got on.’

  ‘Oh, it didn’t matter. Kent took us to lunch and we celebrated. Then we went for a drive along the coast. We stopped for tea and cakes at a small place, where there was an hotel they were getting ready for the tourists. Kent met a friend who had a boat and we all went out in it.’ Carla giggled. ‘Mamma was not very keen. She does not like little boats, only large steamers. Still, she was not ill. Then we came back to Naples in the evening and had dinner at a new hotel in Mergellina. That was most exciting, for there was dancing in a kind of covered garden and I danced with Kent many times.’

  ‘And how did you come home when the last steamer had gone?’

  ‘Kent told Mamma not to worry. It would be no trouble to hire a motor launch to bring us back to Capri any time we liked. So that is what we did. Past midnight when we arrived here.’

  ‘You seem to have enjoyed yourself very well,’ put in Mr. Buckland.

  ‘One of the happiest days of my life,’ agreed Carla.

  ‘Now you will have to work hard at your singing,’ Althea reminded her.

  ‘Oh yes, indeed. I must work hard for Kent. I must please him.’

  Carla took a couple of sips at the coffee, then skipped off across the garden. In a few moments she was practising scales and arpeggios with joyous abandon.

  ‘Trips to Naples merely for singing lessons are going to seem very dull to Carla after all this initial send-off,’ murmured Mr. Buckland.

  Althea laughed. ‘Oh, she’ll simmer down.’ She spoke casually, but her thoughts were not at all casual. Carla was doubly vulnerable where Kent was concerned, in her desire to please him by her singing and, much more important, as a woman. Was it fair of Kent to build up the hopes of an impressionable girl and then cast her down when it suited him? He would stay at his Villa Castagna for two or three months, then when he returned to England, Carla would be left forlorn and unhappy. Unless, of course, Kent Sanderby was going to change his plans and his whole way of life and marry Carla.

  Althea asked herself how could she know what was in his mind and the answer was that his future was no concern of hers.

  She packed up the breakfast tray ready for Rosanna to take later, then sat down close to her father. ‘I’ve thought over your ideas for a shop here,’ she began.

  Tes? With what result?’

  ‘I think I like the idea, provided you can be relied on not to work yourself to death.’

  Lawrence Buckland patted
Althea’s shoulder. ‘I’m glad, my dear, although I don’t want to force you to stay here. Nor do I want you to work yourself to death. It shouldn’t be necessary for either of us to put in more than a part-time stint. I guarantee you’ll have ample time for leisure.’

  ‘What’s the first step?’ she asked.

  ‘Approach the local authority first for a permit to trade, I should imagine. My good friend, Dr. Fortini, will advise me there. Then suitable premises.’

  ‘I’ve noticed some new shops being built near the piazza in Anacapri. One or two are occupied, but there are others not quite finished.’

  ‘We shall have to find out what we can get. I don’t want some dark little place next door to a cheese shop or a tavern.’

  ‘D’you think Kent Sanderby would be of any help to you?’ She had spoken before she could stop herself. She would be the last person to ask Kent for the benefit of his professional knowledge, even on behalf of her father.

  ‘He might be most useful,’ her father agreed readily. ‘He could at least point out faults and snags in a place.’

  ‘Did you know he was an architect?’

  Her father glanced at her. ‘Of course. He told me he specialises in restoring old properties.’

  Althea was silent for a moment or two. So Kent had revealed his profession to her father and naturally he would assume that she would also be aware of it. Instead, she had taunted him with having a certain amount of bricklayer’s knowledge.

  ‘I don’t want any mention of our plans in front of Emilia or Carla.’ Her father’s quiet warning cut through Althea’s thoughts.