‘I’m sorry – but I have to say it – you knew, before we married, how I felt about—’ he paused, cleared his throat, ‘—about physical love.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you didn’t understand. And that was my fault.’
She shrugged, wearily. Despite the sun she felt suddenly chilled. ‘Robert – please – I truly can’t see there’s anything to be gained by talking about it—’
‘There’s everything to be gained.’ He swung to face her, took her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him.
She lifted her head, looked him in the eyes, asked the question that had haunted her since that night. ‘What you said – about the woman – the nursemaid – it was really true?’
She felt the tremor that ran through his body in the hands that held her. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry. It must have been horrible for you. Couldn’t you – couldn’t you stop her? Couldn’t you tell anyone?’
He laughed, a dry, unpleasant sound. ‘Do you remember being eight?’
She did, all too well. She nodded.
‘Then you’ll remember how easily intimidated you are by an adult. How easily threatened.’
‘Yes.’
‘And—’ he smiled, the familiar, rueful smile, ‘I wasn’t a very brave little boy. I was never like you.’
‘I’m not brave.’
‘Oh, yes. You are. You always were. It is what I have always admired most in you. Oh, Jessica, can’t you see? You were always blind. You looked up to me because I was older. But – you were the brave one, always.’
She shook her head. The sun, lowering to the west, gleamed through a tracery of stone and glittered in her eyes.
‘I don’t feel very brave now,’ she said, and turned from him.
In the silence that followed a clock struck, closely followed by another. Somewhere, distantly, a bell tolled.
‘Jessica,’ Robert said. ‘Listen to me. You are my wife. For better or for worse, you are my wife. You agreed to that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I am as I am. I’m sorry for what happened. I’m sorry I was weak enough – cowardly enough – to accept the sacrifice you offered when I knew that you didn’t know what would be involved for you. I despise myself.’ It was said evenly, almost unemotionally.
She turned her head, watching him, the wide brim of her hat shading her small face.
‘It’s done,’ he said. ‘But—’ he hesitated, painfully ‘—it can be undone.’
She frowned in question.
His face was like stone in the sunlight, with less of life about it than the blank-eyed David who stood above them. ‘You could have the marriage annulled,’ he said, quietly. ‘No court would deny you.’
She stared at him. ‘You’d – do that?’
He nodded.
‘But – Robert – what would that mean for you? What – what would people think? They’d – they’d be sure to say the most awful things. It would kill you!’
In the silence a pigeon strutted at their feet, pecking crumbs. A gaily-dressed girl, dark hair glossy, olive skin smooth as silk swung past, a basket of flowers on her arm.
Jessica shook her head. Her eyes were bewildered. ‘No!’ she said.
‘Think before you say that. I might not always be so – courageous.’ His mouth twisted bitterly upon the word.
She turned from him, staring at the feet of the statue. ‘No. I couldn’t. I couldn’t!’ Her vehemence surprised herself. She pressed a hand to her forehead.
There was a very small silence. ‘Why not?’ Robert asked, very softly.
‘I – don’t know.’ But she did. Somewhere within her the lump of ice that had been her heart since that night in Vienna was melting. The pain she had locked within that ice flooded her. She almost cried out with the force of it. She knew that to do as he offered would be to hold him up to public ridicule, and possibly worse. The Oxford scandal would be dredged up, and that could destroy him. And that was something she could not – would not – be a part of. He was, after all, still Robert. Still, despite all, her lifelong friend. And for that, still, she could not help but love him.
‘Why not?’ he asked again, gently persistent.
‘Because—’ she struggled, and stopped.
Very gently he turned her again to face him. ‘Because you’re my dear little Jessica,’ he said. ‘My good friend. Sister of my soul.’ He lifted a finger and touched her lips, the tenderest of gestures. She blinked rapidly against the scald of tears. Tiredly she leaned to him and softly he held her.
‘What can we do?’ The words and the tone of her voice were that of a bewildered child.
For a long time he did not answer but stood, his arm about her, his head thrown back as he looked at the sculptured glorious boyhood of innocent David.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, honestly. ‘But – Jessica, life isn’t a child’s puzzle, with one easy answer, that someone else will give you if you can’t find it yourself.’ He turned, smiling a little, and took her hand, drawing it companionably into the crook of his arm – a gesture that a few short hours before she would never have believed possible. ‘Don’t let’s say any more for the moment. For now—’ he smiled down at her, ‘well, at least we’ve broken that beastly silence and are friends again. That will do for now, won’t it?’
Bemusedly she nodded.
He indicated a small street that ran into the square not far from where they stood. ‘Our new home,’ he said, smiling, ‘is somewhere over there if I’m not much mistaken. Shall we go and find it?’
* * *
Numero 3D, via Condotta, was a surprise, and a delightful one. Though now much-neglected it had once been the reception rooms of a small palace. Marble-floored, ornately-ceilinged, the rooms, though smaller, were as splendidly proportioned as any in New Hall. As the swarthy, ill-tempered-looking caretaker threw open the vast double-doors that led from a landing at the top of a wide, dark sweep of staircase that must once have seen the grandeur of palatial comings and goings Jessica gaped like a child.
‘Good Lord!’ Robert said.
Tall shuttered windows led to a balcony that overlooked the narrow street. Ornate, fly-specked mirrors reflected, floor to ceiling, the slatted golden shafts of the setting sun. The furniture was ramshackle and barely filled the place, and the sorry curtains hung in ragged holes. In the centre of the gracious but empty reception hall their trunks stood stacked, a small lonely island in a sea of smooth marble.
Robert turned to the man. ‘Thank you, Signor. This will do very well.’
The man grunted but made no move to go.
Jessica cocked an eye at Robert, who reached into his pocket. The gnarled fist closed over a small coin – a paoli – and without thanks the man turned and left.
Jessica, all tiredness forgotten, danced a few steps. ‘Robert – this is magnificent! And at such a rent! We can buy furniture, and curtains, and it will be truly beautiful! And Mama thinks we’re starving in a garret!’
Robert strode to the tall windows and flung them back with a clatter. Slanting golden sunlight streamed into the room. The walls were painted with idyllic hunting scenes, the hunting party in the gay clothes of 300 years before, a palace in the distance, pennants streaming gallantly from its towers. Amongst stylized trees and flowers the stag reared, unafraid, frozen in lordly defiance of the puny hounds that snapped at his heels. The cobweb-hung ceiling was ornately gilded. Jessica clapped her hands. ‘A palace! Our very own palace!’ She turned to him, laughing, and stopped, struck to stillness by the expression on his face.
He reached for her hand, smiling. ‘That’s the first real laughter I’ve heard since Vienna,’ he said.
She flushed. ‘Don’t. Don’t talk about it. We’re here. A new start. We don’t have to talk about it.’ He held her hand a moment longer, studying her face, his eyes serious, then stepped back, letting go her hand.
Jessica ran to the window and looked down into the street. Carts rolled by on the smooth, flat paving. A horseman, b
ravely dressed in red and blue glanced up, caught her eye and bowed gallantly from the saddle. In her excitement she smiled shyly back, and was rewarded by the gleaming flash of white teeth. Children shrieked along the road, playing some game of battle, the unknown liquid tongue of Tuscany echoing in her, rattling from the high walls and closed shutters of the narrow street. A spired church stood at the corner, ornate and graceful. Florence. She was in Florence at last.
Robert joined her and stood leaning, his narrow hands upon the wrought iron rail of the balcony, looking down. ‘Florence,’ he said. ‘At last.’ And was surprised and pleased at the soft sound of her laughter.
Chapter Ten
Almost the first thing that any newly-arrived English traveller to Florence discovered was that the well-established British colony in the city fell into two distinct and utterly inimical parts. Into the first – the society that revolved about the residence of Lord Burghersh, reputed to be the most popular ambassador in Italy – the young FitzBoltons had easy entry, their way already prepared by judicious letters to various family and business contacts. The Romseys as well had brought letters of introduction – indeed, since Annabel’s second cousin’s husband was cousin only once removed from Lady Burghersh herself they were even better connected than were Robert and Jessica, and all four young people were assured of that immediate and unqualified acceptance that, oddly and to the favoured few, only such a closed society can offer.
The second group of British exiles, however, proved in their own way to be more exclusive, for doors here were not so easily opened by money or by social connections; on the contrary such things could prove a positive disadvantage when approaching the artists, writers, musicians and their acolytes who were centred upon a house on the via del Corso not far from the splendid Cathedral Square of the piazza del Duomo. Between these two groups there was no love lost, their common language and heritage serving rather more to divide than to unite them. To the established society of monied and influential expatriates who dined regularly at the Embassy with the ambassador and his Lady, who frequented the boxes of the theatre and the opera with the Grand Duke and his family, who drove in fine carriages or rode imported English hunters with imported English hounds at their heels along the leafy avenues of the Cascine, their less conventional compatriots who frequented the elegant Palazzo owned by Sir Theodolphus Carradine on the via del Corso were a frank embarrassment, to be ignored if possible and dismissed with confident scorn if not. A bunch of penniless and scruffy artists with a known collective addiction to cheap wine and radical politics contributed no great service, in the eyes of the Establishment, to the name or reputation of their country. That the apostate king – or, as sly tongues would have it, queen – of this alternative society should be a renegade from their own ranks did nothing whatsoever to encourage friendly relations between the two groups. And that Sir Theodolphus, last, elderly, utterly amoral sprig of a well-founded Buckinghamshire family, cared not a fig for any opinion but his own did not greatly help matters. Bravado in the face of censure might have been understood – even possibly secretly admired – but total and honest indifference to the disapproval of a righteous world was not to be endured; and so Theo Carradine, wicked old libertine that he quite truly was, was persona non grata with his own kind. To the struggling and sometimes literally starving young artists that he gathered around him, however, he was food and drink and a roof above their heads. For the price of a little entertaining conversation there was good company, good food and good wine to be had, the loan of a few paoli for next week’s rent and pretty young things of either sex ready and eager to please the good friends of their good friend Theo. There was always a meal and a bed for anyone, on one condition – convention was Theo Carradine’s sworn first enemy, his second boredom and his third self-righteousness. Anyone suspected of being tainted with one or all of these deadly sins was politely shown the door and invited not to return. For the rest, there were, quite simply, no rules. Small wonder that almost the first words that were spoken to Jessica over the dinner table at the Embassy a few days after their arrival concerned Theo Carradine and were words of warning.
‘—it’s always just as well to be forewarned, my dear. For – is Mr FitzBolton about to take up the study of music? Very creditable, of course, and I’m sure he must be enormously talented but – one must always be careful. This is not London. One never can tell with whom one might come into contact—’
Jessica found herself reflecting, with fleeting amusement, that the speaker, a florid-faced matron whose enormous bosom rested upon the table like a pudding upon a shelf, might have been speaking of the possibility of contracting some awful contagious disease. ‘—Not that such personable and – normal – young people as yourselves are likely to hold much interest for Theo—’ The red lips pursed sanctimoniously. ‘How such a man, born to such privilege, can have fallen so low is beyond me. Utterly beyond me.’
Jessica had her own reasons for being interested in what she had heard of Theo Carradine and his coterie of penniless British artists. ‘You know him?’ Something about the easy use of the Christian name had alerted her.
Her informant flipped a pudgy, scandalized hand. ‘Knew, my dear, knew. No one – no one who is anyone, you understand – knows Theo Carradine these days.’
‘But – you did know him?’
‘Oh, yes. Quite well, in fact, in our younger days. His people were friends of my parents. Lived not far from us in the country, so the two families used to spend quite a lot of time together. His father mastered the most wonderful pack of hounds, I remember. Many a happy day I’ve spent following them. Not Theo, though. The man never could keep his seat. Simply could not stay on a horse—’ She spoke with a kind of smug satisfaction, as if nothing she could say of the man after that could possibly be as bad. ‘Even then he was a bad lot. Always has been. How the Carradines came to whelp such a runt I’ll never understand.’
Jessica was intrigued. ‘Is he really that bad?’
‘Worse, my dear. Much, much worse! The man is pernicious!’ Liking the word she repeated it fiercely, rolling it on her tongue, her chins wobbling fiercesomely. ‘Pernicious! And is really not a fit subject for civilized table talk.’ She dismissed Jessica’s obvious interest out of hand. ‘Now, tell me – the Suffolk Hawthornes, you say? It seems to me that I may have met your parents – and your sister – don’t you have a very pretty sister—?’
* * *
A week or so later the Romseys left the city to continue on their tour, with tears from emotional Annabel and on Jessica’s part a guilty trace of well-concealed relief. Much as she liked them, their blissful relationship had sharpened her nerves intolerably, as had the need for pretence in their company. Even a little removed, as they had been these past two weeks, she found their constant, happy presence a strain. What that revealed about her relationship with Robert she did not care to think too deeply about.
Robert, meanwhile, had begun his attendance at the teaching studies of Maestro Pietro Donatti, studying the pianoforte and – more importantly to him – composition. He was delighted to discover in the Maestro a kindly and intelligent man, patient with his pupils and unhurried in his ways. Robert was no musical genius, and he knew it, but that did not prevent him from feeling passionately about his music. For all of his younger years it had been his life. Desperately now he needed to discover and nurture some talent that might replace the glory of the one of which he had been so cruelly deprived. His voice had been his treasure, and it was lost. Without it he was nothing. His dream was that in creating music for other voices the treasure would be his again, this time to keep for ever and to pass on to others. Maestro Donatti, a pleasant, easy-going man, semi-retired and finding endless pleasure in discussing his own passion for the works of William Shakespeare with an intelligent and well-educated young man, did not see the necessity to destroy that dream. And so, at least for now, Robert was happy and occupied and his heart was hopeful.
Not so Jessica’s.<
br />
It was a month after their arrival in the city and two weeks after the departure of Annabel and David that she first honestly admitted to herself both the magnet that had drawn her to Florence and the utter idiocy of believing she might find what she at last forced herself to acknowledge she had come to seek. She stood one day upon the busy thoroughfare of the Ponte Vecchio and stared disconsolately at the broad, muddy waters of the Arno. The bridge’s fourteenth-century creators had, even so long ago, left a gap in the buildings so that passers-by might gaze on the lovely view of the river and its valley. The first time she had stood here she had been enchanted, and every word that Danny had spoken about it had rung in her ears. Now she hardly noticed it. The weather was very hot, the sun blazed from a brazen sky. The river smelled appallingly. The gold and silversmith’s shops of the Ponte Vecchio were thronged with customers. Crowds pushed and jostled on the bridge. The lungarnos too – the built-up banks of the ever-flooding Arno – were alive with people. She must have been mad ever to think of finding Danny here! To think for a moment that it might be possible to find one person, one individual, in this teeming city of tens of thousands of souls! And someone moreover who might anyway never have returned here in the first place. She had nothing but instinct to suggest that he had, not one shred of evidence beyond a private conviction that with war-torn Europe at peace at last Danny O’Donnel would have made for his personal Mecca with all speed. – ‘One day, Mouse,’ he had said in the cool darkness of St Agatha’s, ‘when Europe is free again I shall go back. And I shall be the greatest living sculptor in Florence—’
Since she and Robert had arrived they had explored Florence street by street, building by building. They had marvelled at Ghiberti’s Gate of Paradise, been captivated by the beauty of the Pieta, and dazzled by Botticelli’s lovely Spring. They had visited the Duomo and the Baptistry, and climbed Giotto’s famous campanile. They had been to so many churches and basilicas, so many galleries, palaces and museums that Jessica found it difficult to remember names and geographical placings. They had strolled in the Boboli Gardens with their great walks and fountains, had ridden the shady avenues of the Cascine, that ran by the broad slow waters of the Arno, passing the time of day with other riders and carriage parties for all the world as if they had been in Rotten Row. And yes, as Danny had said, as she had known it must be, Florence was the most wonderful of cities.
The Hawthorne Heritage Page 28