He joined her, moments later, still laughing.
‘That little tyke!’ He tilted Jessica’s face to his and kissed her lightly. ‘She’s got more energy than a barrowload of monkeys! She never stops!’ He tweaked Jessica’s hair teasingly. ‘I really can’t imagine where she gets it from, can you?’
Jessica smiled.
He strode to the fire, turned his back to it, lifting his coat-tails. ‘God, but it’s cold out there! Do you know, there are three inches of snow in the city—?’ He stopped, for the first time aware of her silence. ‘Jessie? Is something wrong?’
She nodded.
He came to her swiftly, concern on his face. ‘What is it? You aren’t ill—?’
‘No. Nothing like that.’ She hesitated. ‘There’s – a letter from home.’
Barely perceptibly his face altered. The only time she had ever spoken of the possibility of a return to Suffolk they had quarrelled, and the subject had never been raised again. ‘Bad news?’ he asked, his voice level.
‘I’m afraid it must be. The letter is from my mother. It’s addressed to Sir Robert FitzBolton.’
It took a moment for the significance of that to sink in. ‘So – Robert’s father is dead?’
‘He must be. It’s strange that the letter should be from my mother and not his.’
‘You haven’t read it?’
‘No. It’s addressed to Robert.’
Silence fell. He walked back to the fire, leaned against the mantlepiece, staring sober-faced into the flames. ‘You think – she wants you to go home?’
‘Almost certainly.’
He raised his head. ‘What will you do?’
She did not answer.
He pushed himself away from the mantlepiece, frowning. ‘Jessica?’
She shrugged, helplessly. ‘I suppose – we’ll have to go.’
‘No!’ He shook his head fiercely. ‘No – you don’t have to go! Why should you?’
She turned away from him, not wanting to see the dawning anger in his face. ‘Danny – please – we have to face it. If Robert’s father is dead – and he must be – then we have to go back. Please – don’t make it harder than it already is—’
‘It isn’t hard. It’s very simple. You don’t have to go.’
‘But we do!’ Her voice shook a little. ‘Please Danny – you don’t understand—’
‘You’re right. I don’t.’ In a couple of strides he was beside her, his hand on her arm, swinging her to face him. It was a long time since she had seen him so fierce. ‘You’re telling me that you’re going to leave? Just like that? Is that all our life together means to you?’
She stood still, swallowing the words that she knew would infuriate him more than ever. We don’t have a life together. Whether you admit it or not your life is still with Serafina, however much you say you hate her. She spoke very quietly. ‘Danny, you know that isn’t true. You know how much I love you.’
‘Then how can you talk of leaving?’
‘But – can’t you see? – If Robert’s father is dead, then we have to! There’s Robert’s mother – Old Hall – the land – the tenants – we can’t just desert them—’
‘Why not? What has any of it to do with you? With us?’
‘It has everything to do with me!’ She obstinately resisted the anger that was beginning to rise to meet his own. ‘Danny – I don’t want to go – you know I don’t! It will break my heart to leave. But there are other things to be taken into consideration apart from my own happiness—’
‘Yours? What about mine? What about Gabriella’s?’
She caught his hand. ‘Danny – please – don’t let’s quarrel about it! Wouldn’t you – couldn’t you come with us? Things wouldn’t have to change all that much—’ She knew as she made the plea how childishly silly it sounded.
He shook free of her. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses altogether? “Things wouldn’t have to change”? In what way, tell me, can they possibly remain the same if you run back to England? Are you suggesting for a moment that we could live like this—’ he gestured, his arms wide, ‘—at Old Hall? Really, Lady FitzBolton, give me credit for a little more intelligence than that!’
She flushed at his sarcastic use of the title. She stepped back from him. In the silence that followed Gabriella’s young voice called, and was answered by Angelina. Outside the horse that Danny had ridden was led away, its hooves scrunching on the gravel.
Jessica watched him for a long moment. ‘If this letter says what I think it must say,’ she said at last, quietly, ‘then Robert and I are going to have to return home. We have obligations. You can surely see that?’
‘What about your obligations here? To me? To Gabriella?’
‘Gabriella won’t suffer by being taken back to England,’ she said, evenly, ‘I’ll see to that. In fact I believe it will be good for her. Danny, we’ve had this out before. She is, in law and in her own belief, Robert’s child. He’s been a good father to her. Old Hall is her home as much as it is ours. You agreed. At the moment she’s running wild. Her English is dreadful. She’s more Italian than English—’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
Her control broke. ‘Oh, Danny stop it! You know what I’m saying is true! You know we have no alternative but to go! Why make it harder?’
He brought his hand down with considerable violence onto the table. ‘You don’t have to go!’
‘We do! We do! But – oh, Danny, why not come with us? Please? We’ll work something out—’
He flung to face her, his long, tense hands spread before him. ‘Go with you? To what purpose? To be a faithful servant to the lord and lady of the manor?’
‘No—!’
‘To be Lady FitzBolton’s kept man? Her ne’er-do-well lover? Don’t be ridiculous, Jessica – what kind of a fool’s paradise are you living in? We live as we live because we’re here! You could no more transport our—’ his mouth turned down sardonically ‘—our menage – lock stock and barrel to Melbury than you could transport the sunshine of Italy to Suffolk! Can you imagine it? You’d be the laughing-stock of the county!’
‘I wouldn’t care!’
‘Oh, yes you would. And so would I, and so would Robert, and so, as she grew, would Gabriella! No, Jessica – there’s nothing in England for me. In England I would be nothing. In England I would lose you more surely and more painfully than if I let you go now. And besides—’ he stopped.
‘And besides,’ she finished for him, very quietly, ‘there’s Serafina.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t have to.’ Her voice was suddenly weary. Here indeed was the long-standing cause of friction between them. For all his protestations, for all his bitterness Danny’s wife still held him in strange thrall. He hated her, she apparently despised him, yet still their marriage held them captive each to the other. Many, many times over these past years Danny had come to Jessica with livid wounds that could only have been caused by Serafina’s raking fingernails. Six months before he had all but lost his life in a bar brawl. Devotedly Jessica had nursed him, night after feverish night she had watched with him as he fought the infection in the knife wound. And all the time she had known what he had never told her – that the injury had been taken defending his wilful and beautiful wife’s dubious honour. Unable in her own situation to show too strong a resentment of the situation yet it had cut her to the heart to know that when Danny left her it was to return to Serafina. ‘Oh, Danny, please—’ she said now, tiredly, ‘must we quarrel? We don’t even know what’s in the letter yet. It might not be what we fear.’
He stood, tense as strung wire for a moment longer, until he relaxed and took the hand she offered. But his face was still sombre. He drew her to him and she leaned against him, her face turned to his chest.
On the table the letter lay, innocent and implacable harbinger of change.
* * *
Robert stared at the envelope for a very long while, making no move
to open it.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, you might as well read it,’ Jessica said at last, more sharply than she had intended. ‘Whatever’s in it won’t cease to be just because you haven’t opened the beastly thing.’
He still made no move.
‘Robert! Please! Read the damned thing or I will myself!’ Her nerves were strung to breaking point.
Reluctantly he broke the seal. In tense silence she watched him. His eyes scanned the page swiftly.
‘Well?’
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a small, nervous gesture. ‘Father’s dead.’
‘When?’
He frowned. ‘Last July.’
She stared at him. ‘Last July? Why didn’t someone let us know before? Your mother must surely have written? Did the letter go astray?’
His eyes were running over the letter again. ‘Wait. Your mother’s writing – it’s a little difficult – not as clear as usual – “Sorry to be the source of such sad news – your mother not herself since the tragic loss of your father – advise a swift return – your father’s affairs—”’ he trailed off. ‘Oh, damn!’ he said, bitterly, ‘Damn and blast it!’
‘Your mother’s ill?’
‘I don’t know. “Not herself”, your mother says. And it seems that father’s affairs are in a bit of a state.’
A wind had blown up since the afternoon. In the silence it rattled an ill-fitting shutter. Lucia’s sharp voice lifted in the kitchen, to be answered by Marco’s conciliatory one.
Robert, the letter still in his hand, dropped into a chair and sat with bowed head and slumped shoulders.
‘We have to go home,’ Jessica said, quietly. Since the emotional scene with Danny that afternoon she had had a chance to adapt a little to the idea and her voice was calm.
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Robert, please. We have to. You know it. We can’t possibly leave your mother alone, in God only knows what state to cope with God only knows what kind of mess. There must be something very strange going on that Mother felt she had to write. Why didn’t your mother write? Why didn’t Clara? Does Mother say?’
He shrugged dispiritedly. ‘No.’
She took a long breath. ‘We have to go.’
There was a very long silence, then, ‘I suppose so,’ he said, his voice dull.
She stood up, looking about the pretty room that in the past four happy years had been home. ‘Very soon,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘I’ll tell Lucia. We’ll have to start to pack.’
* * *
Breaking the news to Theo was more difficult than she had imagined it would be. Because of the particularly bad winter Jessica had not visited the city since Christmas, and so had not seen the old man in two months. Calling at the via del Corso two days after the arrival of her mother’s letter she was shocked to find Theo confined to bed, propped up with a mass of pillows, his shrunken frame all but lost in the huge bed, his bald pate with its wispy hair wigless, his unrouged face pale as death. He looked very old indeed, and mortally sick.
‘Theo – are you ill?’
‘Of course I am, you silly beast! Why else would I be lying here like a helpless infant?’ he snapped, querulously. He tilted his head sharply to receive her kiss on his dry, cold cheek, his eyes going past her to the door. ‘Where’s the child?’
‘At home, I’m afraid. I thought it too cold to bring her out.’
He tutted, annoyed. ‘Nonsense! Utter nonsense! Child’s as strong as an ox. Takes after her silly mother.’
She sat down, taking his hand. ‘Theo? What’s wrong?’
‘What’s right’s more like it. Tired is all, but the silly quack won’t have it. Says it’s me heart.’
She frowned, concerned.
He waved a weak, impatient hand. ‘All nonsense, of course. Nothin’ wrong with me heart.’
She smiled, gently. ‘You mean it’s as hard as ever?’
He chuckled, caught his breath and coughed, wincing. ‘What brings you here? Thought you’d given up visiting poor old Theo?’
‘Oh, don’t be so silly! You know why I haven’t been. The weather’s been terrible.’
He cast a meaningful glance at the window. ‘Don’t look any better to me today.’
She sighed. ‘No. It isn’t.’
‘So. What brings you here?’
She did not for a moment answer. Then, ‘We have to go home,’ she said, quietly. ‘Robert’s father died last year, and his mother is apparently ill. We have to go.’
In the silence that followed he watched her, the pale old eyes unusually sympathetic. Finally he stirred. ‘So. The carnival is done. Off with the mask and the magical ball gown, child. Real life calls you.’
She was surprised that he had voiced her own feelings so very aptly. ‘Yes.’
‘Think yerself lucky,’ he said. ‘Not many have what you’ve had.’
‘I know. But it isn’t easy.’
‘Apart from farting, what is?’
The tart humour brought a small smile.
‘You’re takin’ the child?’ It was only just a question.
‘Of course. There’s never been any argument about that. Robert thinks of her – treats her – as his own daughter. Old Hall is her home.’
‘And Danny?’
She shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen him since I told him. We quarrelled. I wanted him to come with us—’
‘He won’t.’
She said nothing, picked with a sharp fingernail at the bedspread.
The grotesque head shook slowly upon the mound of pillows. ‘Not in a month of Sundays, gel. Would you expect it? Would he be your Danny if he tamely trailed behind you like a trained monkey?’
She laid a hand upon his gnarled, discoloured one. ‘I’ll miss you Theo,’ she said, apparently inconsequentially. ‘Very much indeed.’
‘Miss me bad tempered tongue, you mean. Who’ll keep yer in order, gel, without me around?’
She smiled. ‘I’ll never forget you. Never ever. I’ll write. Often.’
He held her eyes. ‘Don’t waste yer energy, gel.’ The words were smothered in a sudden bout of coughing. Face scarlet he clung to her hand, choking.
‘Theo, you’re ill! Let me send for someone—!’
‘No!’ He caught his breath again. The hand that clung to hers was surprisingly strong. ‘Keep them stupid women away from me. Fussin’ and frettin’. Can’t stand it. Silly bitches.’
‘You must take care of yourself.’
His face creased into a parody of his old wicked grin. ‘Too late, gel, as usual. The Good Lord’s doin’ that. He’s caught up with me at last, it seems.’ He laid back on the pillows, his breath laboured. ‘So—’ he said at last, ‘You’re goin’ home.’
‘Yes.’
‘Best place on God’s earth.’ The words were so quietly spoken she thought for a moment she had misheard them.
‘You – you think I’m right? Robert doesn’t want to go. I think for two pins he’d stay. But – oh, Theo! – how can we?’
‘Yer could if yer really wanted to.’
She shook her head.
He let out a dry rustle of laughter that brought on another fit of coughing. ‘Tell me why yer goin’.’
‘Robert’s mother’s ill—’
‘That all?’ The old eyes snapped open, bright and perceptive as they had ever been.
She held them for a moment with her own, then let out a small explosive breath. ‘No. Of course not.’
‘What then, Yer Ladyship?’ he asked, slyly.
‘Old Hall. The house, the land, the people—’
‘Homesick.’
‘A little.’
He nodded, satisfied. ‘Lie to the world by all means, gel. But don’t try to lie to old Theo. An’ don’t—’ he added, softly ‘—ever try ter lie ter yerself. Y’er goin’ home because the time has come, and yer know it. Y’er goin’ home because the place is in yer blood, an’ there’s nothin’
yer can do about it.’ He moved his head a little. ‘Y’er lucky, gel. Yer know that? Damn’ lucky. I envy yer. Just think o’ that. Old Theo envies yer!’
She stayed with him for half an hour, during most of which time he slept. As she stood to tiptoe away he opened one eye. ‘Bring that scallawag child to say goodbye before yer go.’
She bent to kiss him, gently. ‘I will.’
* * *
The last and inevitable row with Danny was a bitter one. He could not – or rather she suspected would not – see or accept her reasons for returning to England with Robert. He accused her of faithlessness and betrayal, complained bitterly that she no longer loved him. She, in tears, was adamant. She loved him, she would always love him, but she had to go. He was angrier than she had ever seen him.
‘If you go I swear you’ll never set eyes on me again.’
‘Danny, don’t say that! Please don’t. You know where I am. I’ll wait for you—’
‘You’ll wait for a very long time.’ His voice was hard.
‘Why are you so angry? It isn’t my fault—’
‘You don’t have to go!’
‘I do! Oh, God! – Why can’t you understand that?’
He looked for a terrible moment as if he might have struck her. He backed away from her, his hands clenched at his sides, then turned and strode to the door.
‘Danny!’
He stopped, his back to her.
‘Remember St Agatha’s,’ she said, very quietly. ‘It’s still there. It will always be there. And so will I. With Gabriella.’
He left the room with no word of farewell, slamming the door behind him.
She did not see him again before they left. He did not come near the villa and pride prevented her from visiting him at the apartment in the city that he still shared with Serafina. Miserably she oversaw the preparations for their departure. Small Gabriella was at first shocked and then intrigued by this unexpected move to the unknown, any terrors removed from the adventure by the fact that her beloved Angelina was travelling to England with them as her nurse. Tickets were bought, possessions crated. She saw little of Robert who, miserable as she, spent these last precious days with Arthur and left the bulk of the work to Jessica, which at least gave her little time to brood on the sudden and shattering break with Danny. On the day before they left she visited Theo again, taking Gabriella with her. The visit was not a success. The old man was failing, the child overawed by the oppressive atmosphere of the sickroom.
The Hawthorne Heritage Page 39