by Isobel Chace
Ruth felt distinctly uncomfortable. “I hope you weren’t worried,” she began apologetically.
Pearl looked at her at last. “You know me better than that,” she said. “I never worry!”
“No, you don’t,” Ruth agreed doubtfully.
“Well then,” Pearl advised her frankly, “there’s no need to look so downtrodden. It’s you who lectures me about my behaviour, not me you!”
Mario smiled down at Pearl. “Ruth has almost forgotten that she is a schoolmistress,” he drawled. “You mustn’t tease her!”
“Oh, I won’t!” Pearl promised immediately.
Ruth hoped that Lucia’s look of complete disgust was not reflected in her own face. “Shall we go inside?” she said hastily. “I’ll show Pearl to her room.”
“Good idea,” Mario agreed. He looked tired, she noticed with concern, and wished that she could do something about it.
“Are you coming, Pearl?” she asked her sister. Pearl tore herself reluctantly away from Mario, blowing him a light kiss as she went.
“I see you’ve had your hair done,” she said to Ruth as they mounted the stairs. “Was that how you did it?”
“Did what?” Ruth countered.
“Oh, let’s not play games! I didn’t think Mario would fall so easily, or I might have held out for marriage myself. Congratulations, sister dear!”
Ruth gave her a shocked look. “I was trying to protect you,” she explained. “Pearl, I don’t know how you came to give him such an impression, but the last thing Mario had in mind was marriage!”
Pearl chewed her lip thoughtfully. “If you could make it occur to him, I expect I could have done so too!”
Ruth sighed. Giulia had prepared a room for Pearl as far away from the one she was occupying as possible. Ruth had been going to argue the point with her that morning, but now she was glad she had not. It was bad enough having her in the house at all.
“I’m not very welcome, am I?” Pearl muttered, as Ruth opened the door to her room.
Ruth flushed, unwilling to admit the truth that Pearl had suddenly become very unwelcome indeed. “You’re my sister, aren’t you?” she replied.
Pearl giggled, “What has that got to do with it?” She walked across the room and looked out of the window, before flinging her handbag on to the bed and stepping out of her high-heeled shoes with a grimace. “Mario actually told me that you wanted me to come. And, knowing you, I almost believed him!”
“The invitation came from both of us,” Ruth said flatly.
Pearl’s bright blue eyes looked the picture of innocence. “You’re a fool, Ruth.”
Ruth smiled faintly. “Am I?”
“Did you really think that having his ring on your finger was going to stop me from taking him away from you?”
“No.”
Pearl looked at her sister with a new interest. “You wouldn’t have said that a couple of days ago in Naples!” she observed.
Ruth was amused. “Probably not,” she agreed readily. “But I’ve learned a lot about us both since then.”
“Us both?” It was easy to see that Pearl resented their being bracketed together in any way. “What do you mean?”
Slightly astonished that she had managed to seize the initiative so easily, Ruth said vaguely, “Oh, I don’t know! I actually believed Mother that it was up to me to look after you—”
“You are the elder!” Pearl said in an aggrieved voice.
Ruth suppressed a chuckle. “In some ways,” she said.
Pearl gave her a thoughtful look and then shrugged her shoulders. “If you tell Mother, I’ll kill you!” she said lightly.
“It would kill her!” Ruth said warmly. “I never would have believed it! Pearl, you wouldn’t really have stayed here with Mario, would you?”
Pearl looked her straight in the eyes. “It didn’t seem to bother you!” she said.
“But I thought—But I didn’t know! I was coming straight back to Naples as soon as I’d told him what I thought of him!” Ruth stammered.
“I can imagine,” Pearl said with cynical amusement. “Off you went, with your little wooden sword, determined to be a martyr. Well, it’s your own fault if he took you at your word—”
“But he was away!” Ruth burst out.
“Away! Away where?” Pearl sounded truly indignant. “Do you mean to say he didn’t meet the ship?”
“No, he didn’t. It would have been rather awkward if he had, for I shared a cabin with his aunt, who was expecting him to meet her. He left a message for her, telling her that a friend of theirs was seriously ill, and Lucia went there. The friend died in the night and Mario came home then, only it was too late to disturb me—you—so he waited until morning.”
“Then why did he marry you?” Pearl demanded.
Ruth blushed. “He said he’d compromised me,” she confessed.
“Compromised you!” Pearl exclaimed. “But he hadn’t touched you!” She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “Or had he?”
“N-no.” Ruth wished that she sounded more emphatic. “But this is Sicily,” she went on miserably, “and he didn’t think he had any choice.”
Pearl uttered a scream of laughter. “Didn’t you warn me about these customs in southern Italy?” she shrieked. “It serves you right! Or it would, if it wasn’t Mario!”
“It was a trifle awkward—” Ruth admitted.
“Have you told the parents?” Pearl interrupted her. Ruth shook her head. “Then you’d better not!” Pearl went on. “It can’t possibly last, and so the less they know the better.”
Ruth stood her ground bravely, even as she wilted inwardly. “I don’t think it can be undone very easily,” she said.
Pearl stood up, losing interest in the whole conversation. “But he doesn’t want you,” she said scornfully. “And I shan’t hold it against you! Mario and I will get along just fine without you!”
Ruth took a deep breath. “But I’m not going!” she said stubbornly.
Pearl’s innocent look vanished in a flash. Ruth wondered why she had never noticed before how vindictive her young sister could look, and was immediately sorry that it should have been her who had brought such an expression to her face.
“He’ll divorce you!” Pearl spat at her.
Ruth stood up very straight. “There is no divorce in Italy,” she answered calmly.
Pearl looked at her sister and made a discovery. “You’re in love with him!” she accused her.
Ruth blanched. “What if I am?”
“I’ll still take him from you!” Pearl threatened her.
Ruth lifted her chin in a characteristic gesture. “You can try,” she said. She turned on her heel and left the room, shutting the door carefully behind her. It was time to get out her dress and get ready to go to the party.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE dress was better than she had remembered. Ruth took it out of the suitcase with loving care and laid it out on the bed. It was made of a man-made fibre that closely resembled wild silk and looked, at first glance, expensive. Closer inspection showed that it had been worn several times before and even that at one time she had had to darn a tiny hole on the hemline where her shoe had once caught in the long skirt, but that scarcely showed at all. Indeed, she liked the dusty pink colour as much now as she had ever done, and the style suited her as well as any dress she had ever had. It was not, perhaps, outrageously modish, but there was nothing frumpish about its classical lines and it was comfortable to wear.
Ruth had barely started to dress when Mario knocked on the door between their rooms. Ruth put down the hairbrush she was holding and picked up the rather skimpy bathrobe that was all she had with her. Even so, she was too late, for he had already come in. If he was embarrassed to find her in her petticoat, he didn’t show it.
“Do you mind?” he asked, his eyebrows slightly raised.
“It would be all the same if I did!” she retorted.
He chuckled. “I suppose it would,” he agreed. He pick
ed up a box of powder, lavishly covered with Luigi’s name, and smiled at her. “I see you took my advice,” he remarked.
“Oh?” she muttered.
“Making up to your eyes!” he reminded her.
“Oh, that!” She tried to sound indifferent. “I’m glad you approve!”
He looked at her closely. “Are you?” He sat down on a stool and smiled at her. “Has Pearl settled in?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, piccina, but she had to come. You don’t really doubt that, do you?”
She was undone by the gentleness of his tone. “No,” she said briefly. “But I wish it wasn’t so soon!”
He rose to his feet. “It won’t be for long. I shall arrange for her return passage to England in a few days—”
She turned and faced him. “I shall have to tell my parents first!” she said baldly.
“That too,” he agreed.
“They won’t—they won’t be very pleased,” she told him.
The haughty look returned to his face. “I will naturally explain the circumstances to them myself,” he said.
Ruth tried to imagine her father’s reaction to any such tale and failed dismally. “I think I’d better tell them,” she said at last.
But Mario shook his head. “It is only right that they should know the truth from me,” he insisted. “If I didn’t think so, it would still be the wisest course. Pearl’s imagination is more torrid, I find, than any truth.”
Ruth blushed. “She is rather silly—”
“But she is so pretty that nobody minds,” he finished for her. “That has always been the way of the world. Any man will forgive a pretty girl much!”
Ruth was forced to admit the truth of this. It was galling, though, to hear Mario talking about her sister in such affectionate tones, especially as she could easily wring her neck for all the trouble she had caused.
“I think I’d better finish dressing,” she said aloud.
He touched her dress between his fingers. “Is this what you shall wear?” he asked her.
She nodded, immediately worried that he should find it inadequate. “It’s the best one I have,” she said defensively. “I know it isn’t new, but I like it!”
“Then I’m sure I shall like it too,” he agreed calmly. “Will you?”
She bit her lip nervously. “Lucia wanted me to go into Palermo and buy a new one. It’s—it’s important that I should look well tonight, isn’t it?”
“Very important, he answered calmly.
“Well then, perhaps I should have—”
“Why don’t you put it on and let me see?” he suggested.
But the very idea made her dither. She hadn’t finished her make-up; nor had she coaxed her hair into the new fashion Luigi had wrought for her; nor was she at all sure that she would be able to do either of these things with him standing there, watching her every movement!
“I can zip you up,” he persuaded her.
She sat down in front of the dressing table and did her best to make up her face as Luigi’s beautician had taught her. If her hands trembled a little, it was not surprising, she thought with a touch of indignation. She leaned back and looked at herself, noting with satisfaction that she had really managed very well. Her eyes caught Mario’s in the glance and she blushed to see the warm amusement in his.
“I’m afraid whatever I do everybody’s eyes will be on Pearl rather than me!” she sighed.
“Perhaps,” he grunted.
“Well, they will!” she went on, getting more and more heated as she thought about the sheer injustice of it all. “They’re bound to!”
“I don’t know,” he answered, carefully considering the matter. “It’s true that she catches the eye like a flame in the dark, but she is not my wife. That too is of importance to the village. Tonight, at least, you will not be ignored, carissima, for your sister!”
The endearment caught her by surprise. It was so difficult to tell what he meant by it. If it were translated straight-into English, she supposed it would mean ‘dearest’, but it had to be a much looser term in Italian or he wouldn’t have used it at all.
“I don’t mind,” she told him with dignity.
He laughed. “You are one of the few women of whom that might be true!” He held up her dress. “Are you going to put it on?”
She did so, blushing as she felt his fingers on the zip that ran up the back. When he had fastened it to his own satisfaction, he turned her round to face him and studied her carefully.
“Does it look nice?” she asked him anxiously.
“You look—beautiful,” he said.
She blushed in earnest at that. “It’s nice of you to say so,” she said happily, “even if it isn’t true.”
He looked amused. “But of course it is true!” he teased her. “My judgement in these matters is never at fault! And didn’t I tell you that you would be beautiful if you made up your eyes?”
She was confused and more than a little embarrassed. “You are very experienced, of course!” she rallied him.
“Do you doubt it?” he drawled.
“N-no,” she admitted. “Do you think Lucia will approve?”
He smiled slowly. “Shall we go downstairs and find out?” he suggested.
It would have been hard to have felt anything else but rather special, Ruth thought, with him standing beside her. He wore his immaculate dinner jacket with an air that any man would envy. She supposed that his clothes were exceedingly expensive, for she was almost sure that the shirt he was wearing was made of silk, but even if he had hired them for the night, she couldn’t imagine him looking less distinguished. Of course he was arrogant, but it was comfortable too to be with someone who was so much at home with himself and so completely sure that everything was going to work out his way.
“Don’t be too sorry, my dear,” he said in her ear. She managed a tremulous smile. “Oh, but I’m not!” she assured him. “I’m even beginning to like knowing that I’m being discussed the length and breadth of Sicily! I assure you, life was positively dull, when I was quiet and respectable and I didn’t know I had any honour to lose!”
He laughed. “I thought I detected something complacent about you this evening!”
She bit her lip to stop herself laughing. “Why not? Not even Sicilian bandits hold any terror for me now!”
“Did they ever?” he asked with interest.
“When I had some honour to lose!”
“Perhaps you have—” he observed, watching the colour fly up into her cheeks.
“But,” she stammered, “that doesn’t have anything to do with it! We—we’re married—”
“I wondered when it would occur to you!”
“I think you are singularly ungallant to remind me!” she complained. To her great annoyance she saw that Mario was looking remarkably pleased with himself. “And I don’t find it in the least bit funny either!” she added crossly.
His eyes lit with laughter. “You disappoint me,” he said. “I was beginning to think that your spirits could rise to anything!”
“Then you must think me very stupid!” she retorted, unaccountably flattered.
“No, only rather brave,” he amended. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her lightly on the fingers. “Well, madame wife, shall we go down and show your dress off to the others?”
Ruth was very conscious that every eye was on her as she came slowly down the stairs, her hand lightly resting on Mario’s arm. She could tell from Pearl’s wide-eyed astonishment and Lucia’s smothered laugh of triumph that she had never looked so well in her life before.
“Ruth!” Pearl addressed her, unable to hide her chagrin. “Would you believe that she is always lecturing me about wearing too much make-up!”
“It is a question of how you use it, not how much you use,” Lucia explained to her kindly.
Pearl turned her back on her, looking downright sulky. Ruth thought she looked small and hurt and her heart was wrung on her behalf. She
hurried down the last few stairs and went straight to her sister.
“Are you coming with us into the village?” she asked her gaily. “I think Henry Brett is bringing his jeep to take those who can’t get in to Mario’s car.”
Pearl’s attention was immediately caught. “Who is Henry Brett?” she asked.
“He is an Englishman,” Mario answered her. “He is putting in a new irrigation system in the village.”
Pearl’s eyes fastened on him earnestly. “You are so good, Mario! I suppose you are paying for it?”
Mario was frankly embarrassed. “I have more land than anyone else which will benefit from the scheme,” he said abruptly.
“I want to go in your car,” Pearl pleaded with him. “You promised me that I would see your village in your company! Don’t you remember?”
Ruth tried not to listen to his answer. She was helped by Henry’s arrival, looking Strange and uncomfortable in evening dress. He came across to her immediately, blatantly pleased to see someone else of his own nationality on what promised to be a very Italian occasion.
“You should see the traffic outside!” he told her. “They’ve put up lights in all the streets, and even the saints from the churches have been brought out to greet you!”
“What?” Ruth said in disbelief.
“The statues! You should see them all in their party dresses!”
Ruth laughed. “I do hope they will like me,” she said, betraying her nervousness with a wry grimace.
Henry looked her up and down. “They’ll like you!”
“And what about me?” Neither of them had seen Pearl come dancing up behind Henry’s back, but at the sound of her voice, he turned sharply and stared at her. “I’m Ruth’s sister,” Pearl went on. “I don’t suppose anyone has mentioned me, because I am quite unimportant—”