2008 - Recipes for Cherubs

by Babs Horton

  “It’s been a long time,” a voice said coldly.

  Kizzy screwed up her eyes against the darkness. The man came closer: she swallowed hard. The pulse in the man’s throat was beating quickly, his face drained of colour in the moonlight.

  “So you came back at last, then?” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Hallo, Meredith. Well, you’ll be glad to hear I’m not staying long. I’ve just come to pick up my daughter.”

  “That’s a shame. She seems happy here, and she looks a damn sight better than when she arrived.”

  “Ah, well, that’s good. I need to get back to London with her as soon as possible.”

  “Where are you off to now?”

  “Up to Shrimp’s, actually, looking for Aunt Alice.”

  “You won’t find her there.”

  “I see,” Kizzy said. So she was right, he must have married Aunt Alice after all. Kizzy slipped her shoes back on and followed Meredith back up Cockle Lane, huffing and puffing loudly, hoping he’d do the gentlemanly thing and carry her suitcase.

  He walked resolutely on and stopped by the wicket gate that led to the graveyard.

  “She’s over there,” he said.

  Kizzy looked bemused as she followed his gaze. Then he pulled something from his pocket and the beam of a torch danced across the gravestones, coming to rest on one.

  Alice Katherine Grieve

  Taken after a short illness

  Kizzy looked from the grave to Meredith and then down at her feet in embarrassment and annoyance, realising with irritation that she’d laddered her stockings and she’d put them on new this morning.

  “Have you at last come back to apologise for what you did?”

  “I didn’t even know she’d died,” Kizzy said sulkily.

  “Because you never bothered to find out.”

  “No, because Ella Grieve unceremoniously threw me out. You know what Ella’s like. She wouldn’t listen and she had no intention of forgiving me.”

  Meredith looked away in disgust. “Alice broke her heart when she found out what you’d been up to with that bloody Campbell.”

  “And you can honestly tell me that you were sad about that?” Kizzy taunted.

  Meredith bristled with anger. “Everybody knew I hated him, but I never wanted her to be hurt, never thought she’d leave Kilvenny. She left, you know, and didn’t come back for a long time, and by the time she did she was seriously ill.”

  “And that was my fault, too, I suppose?” Kizzy snapped.

  “I think the fact that you were pregnant had a lot to do with it.”

  Kizzy laughed uproariously. Meredith glared at her, clenching and unclenching his fists as if contemplating hitting her.

  “So you knew I was pregnant? I’m not the first and I won’t be the last girl to fall for someone’s charm and be left holding the baby.”

  “What you did to Alice was despicable, and you think it’s funny?”

  Kizzy curbed her laughter, fell silent and then looked at Meredith as if she had suddenly realised he had two heads. “I don’t believe it! You think that I was pregnant by…?”

  Meredith nodded slowly, deliberately.

  “Oh my God! You think that Catrin’s father is…?”

  Kizzy put her hand to her head and then looked beyond Meredith at a figure emerging from the shadows.

  “Dan Gwartney?” she said.

  Meredith turned and saw Dan Gwartney standing there, a glowing cigarette clamped between his lips.

  “Welcome back, Kizzy. It’s been a long time.”

  63

  The icy wind whistled around the tower of Santa Rosa church, and the bells clanged loudly. In the piazza people milled around, stamping their feet to keep warm, blowing on their fingers, as they waited impatiently for the doors of the church to open. Today was the grand unveiling of Piero di Bardi’s painting of Feasting Cherubs. There were shivering peasants dressed in rags, huddled together for warmth, a clutch of priests from nearby villages chattering like starlings, and excited children running hither and thither, calling loudly to their friends.

  The crowd grew quieter as the door of the Villa Rosso opened. Signor and Signora Bisotti, dressed in their finery, heads held high, emerged into the piazza followed by Alessandra and Adriana on either side of Father Rimaldi.

  The crowd clamoured behind them but as they entered the church they grew quieter, pressing urgently for seats near the front, where a large canvas was covered by a crimson cloth.

  The Bisottis stood together while Father Rimaldi looked around impatiently for Piero di Bardi. Where the hell was the fellow? After a few minutes he sent a little lad scurrying off to the Via Dante in search of him. The child returned, red-faced with the cold, and whispered to Father Rimaldi, who in turn whispered to Signor Bisotti.

  The crowd began to grow restless and Signor Bisotti, eager not to lose his moment of fame, spoke hurriedly to Father Rimaldi.

  “I paid him last night, so the fellow’s probably already drunk. These artist types are so unpredictable, so unreliable, not like normal people at all. Let’s just get on with it. These peasants don’t smell too good when they’re all cooped up together.”

  Father Rimaldi addressed the congregation, eulogising about the generosity of Signor Bisotti and how a small village like Santa Rosa would now be on the map, boasting a work of art from the renowned Piero di Bardi, who sadly was indisposed at present.

  Then, after a ferocious dig in the ribs from his wife, Signor Bisotti stepped forward and with a flourish whipped a corner of the crimson cloth away from the painting.

  Signor Bisotti’s eyes rolled upwards and he squealed with pain as Signora Bisotti’s nails dug into the soft flesh on the inside of his wrist.

  Alessandra and Adriana began to howl plaintively, screwing up their faces into masks of misery. Father Rimaldi’s face turned as white as the altar cloth and the crowd craned their necks to see what all the fuss was about.

  64

  In the silence of the kitchen the clock ticked loudly. The only other sound was the intake of Catrin’s breath as the door opened and Kizzy made her entrance, breezing into the room and demanding immediate attention.

  “Well, it’s all very nice and cosy in here,” she said sarcastically.

  Catrin jumped to her feet with alacrity and stepped behind the chair she had been sitting in.

  “Ah, at last the absent mother deigns to show her face,” Ella said, folding her arms firmly across her chest and staring defiantly at Kizzy.

  Kizzy Grieve, as beautiful as ever, immaculately dressed with not a hair out of place and flawless make-up, was back in Kilvenny and determined to make her presence felt.

  Kizzy gave Ella a cursory glance, then turned on Catrin, hands on her slim hips, her face set in anger.

  “Well, madam,” she said, “I’d be very interested to know why I was left abandoned in Italy because you ignored my request for money!”

  Catrin bit her lip and looked to Ella for reassurance. Ella smiled at her and winked to give her courage.

  “I’m waiting for an answer to my question.”

  Catrin looked away, wringing her hands in agitation.

  “Maybe you’ll have to wait a long time,” Ella growled.

  “This is my daughter, Aunt Ella, and I’ll be the judge of how long I have to wait.”

  “Yes, she is your daughter and it’s a pretty sorry state of affairs that you sent her down here without asking if it was okay. Now, as it happens it was fine, but you, feckless idiot that you are, didn’t know that!”

  “I was desperate, as it happens, and how was I to know you’d let Shrimp’s go to the dogs?”

  “You’ve been up to Shrimp’s?” Ella asked.

  “No, Dan Gwartney told me all that’s been going on here.”

  “Well, I think that now you’ve decided to grace us with your company it’s you who have some questions to answer, not Catrin.”

  Kizzy looked perturbed, anxiety drawing down the corners o
f her painted mouth momentarily.

  Catrin took a deep breath and braced herself. “I didn’t send you any money and I didn’t want to ring Arthur Campbell because I thought he’d come and take me away from here.”

  “So you thought it fine to leave me languishing miles from home in a lunatic asylum.”

  “I wanted to teach you a lesson, if you must know, let you know that you can’t always get your own way.”

  Catrin’s voice was high, a wobble of fear tightening in her throat. She’d never in all her life answered her mother back, and she was afraid of the consequences.

  “Teach me a lesson? Do you think I’m a child? You left me stranded, and I had to beg a voyage back on a bloody boat from Naples and I was put in a cabin that was full of crates of onions and dried fish.”

  Ella turned her head away to hide her amusement and Catrin, seeing her, had a terrible urge to giggle.

  “I was sick of doing everything you asked me. You didn’t even tell me I had family here until it suited you to go gallivanting after some man.”

  “Well, if you must know, the man in question sent me a postcard inviting me to Italy and then he didn’t bother to show up – I went all that way for nothing. To cap it all, when I got home the house had been burgled,” Kizzy said with a pout. Catrin thought that she looked more like a ten-year-old than a grown-up.

  “I know you’ve told me lies, too,” Catrin faltered, biting her lip.

  Ella got up and went to her.

  “For goodness sake we can do without the theatricals, Catrin,” Kizzy said, slumping into a chair, removing a shoe and rubbing her toes.

  Ella snorted. “That’s bloody rich coming from you, Kizzy Grieve. There wasn’t a day went by when you didn’t make a drama out of something when you were a teenager.”

  “That’s rubbish. I was highly strung and sensitive.”

  “I think you have some explaining to do.”

  For the first time ever, Kizzy looked as if the wind had been taken out of her sails and Catrin looked at Ella with admiration.

  “Catrin knows you were pregnant the summer you left school.”

  Kizzy stiffened. “I suppose you couldn’t wait to tell her that. You always were a stickler for the truth except where it concerned you.”

  Ella glowered at Kizzy. “You have a very bright daughter – which is a miracle in itself. I told her nothing but she put two and two together and found the truth.”

  “You told me I had your surname because my father’s name was foreign.”

  Kizzy was breathing deeply. That hadn’t exactly been a lie, had it?

  Ella wrung her hands in anxiety. The truth had to come out, and any minute now Catrin would know who her father was, and God knows how that would make her feel.

  “It wasn’t very easy for me, either, you know,” Kizzy wheedled, stepping towards Catrin.

  Catrin edged closer to Ella, who put a hand on her tremulous shoulders.

  “I want to know who my father is.”

  The three of them stood in awkward silence, unaware that the door had opened and someone had come quietly into the room.

  “It’s not a difficult question, is it?” Catrin said in a barely audible voice.

  “I think you should tell the child his name.” Ella’s gaze was resolute.

  There was an expectant silence.

  As Kizzy opened her mouth to speak, someone said, “I’m her father.”

  The three of them turned to see Tony Agosti standing white-faced in the doorway.

  65

  Over in the library Dan Gwartney was sitting in his usual chair opposite Meredith Evans when Ella came hurrying in.

  “Am I interrupting something?” she asked.

  “Sit down, Ella, and join us in a drink.”

  She sat down heavily and said, “You heard the news, then?”

  Dan and Meredith nodded.

  “Nonna’s over the moon,” Dan said. “She thinks the world of that little girl in the short time she’s been here.”

  “That was a turn-up for the books,” Meredith said. “How did Catrin take it?”

  “Shocked but delighted, I’d say. I’ve just been up to check on her and she’s sleeping like a baby.”

  “We were worried it might set her back.”

  “It seems, though, that I have an apology to make to Kizzy, and that will stick in my craw.”

  “You thought the father was Arthur Campbell?”

  “I was convinced of it, especially after seeing the photographs you sent Alice of Kizzy and him together.”

  “I didn’t send any photographs,” he protested.

  “Come on, Meredith. It’s been a day for uncovering the truth, so why don’t you own up and clear the air?”

  Dan coughed and Ella turned to him.

  “It was me who sent the photographs and the note to Alice,” he said sheepishly.

  “You what?”

  “I sent the photographs and the note.”

  “But why?”

  “I knew what was going on between Kizzy and Campbell – I’d seen them in Gwartney’s Wood together – and I thought Alice should know.”

  “Didn’t you think of telling me first?”

  “I sent them, Ella, because I thought…I know it was wrong of me, but I knew he was a rotter and I thought if Alice didn’t marry him she’d stay at Shrimp’s and that would keep you here, too.”

  Ella fell silent, and Meredith looked away in embarrassment.

  “There, I’ve said it. Bloody old fool that I am, I never gave up on you.”

  “Christ, I need to apologise to you, Meredith, as well,” Ella said, running her hands through her hair in agitation.

  Meredith smiled wryly. “If it’s any help, Alice had decided to cancel the wedding before she saw the photographs.”

  “Why?”

  “Arthur Campbell wanted something desperately from Alice, and he couldn’t get it unless he married her.”

  “What was it?” Ella asked.

  “He wanted her book of recipes and paintings and she’d said they would be part of her dowry and be given to him on her wedding night.”

  “Why on earth would he want that old thing?”

  “Because that book is worth a fortune,” Meredith said patiently.

  “It’s a child’s colouring book.”

  “No, it’s a book of paintings by Piero di Bardi.”

  Dan blew a breath in disbelief, and Ella gasped.

  “The book my mother wanted burnt, the one Catrin’s been copying her recipes from?”

  “That’s the one. Whatever your mother burnt, it wasn’t that. Anyway, Alice had shown Campbell the book. There were some loose paintings in the back and Alice had given him one, and then she found out he’d sold it for a fortune.”

  “I’m completely lost now,” Ella groaned.

  “She gave him a picture of a cherub. She thought it was worthless, but later she saw a postcard of the very same picture, the Napoli Cherub.”

  “Good God!”

  “I did some research for her and found out that it had been sold by an anonymous seller – Campbell, obviously – and she realised he’d betrayed her.”

  “The bastard!” exclaimed Ella.

  “So you see, he would have done anything to get his hands on that book, and when she didn’t turn up for the wedding he must have been furious. He went through the castle like a dose of salts looking for it.”

  “He wasn’t the only one looking for Piero di Bardi paintings, though. Do you remember Benito, Ella?”

  She nodded.

  “I think Alice showed him the book, too, but swore him to secrecy.”

  “And then he was accused of – ”

  “Trying to steal something from Arthur Campbell’s sister, which was all very convenient, looking back.”

  “But he escaped from the tower and ran off.”

  “Never to be heard of again?”

  “Tony had a postcard from him a few weeks later from Italy,” Dan said.
“I saw it a few weeks ago but there was something odd about it which got me thinking. You see, I don’t think it was Benito’s handwriting.”

  “So someone else sent the postcard,” Meredith ventured.

  “Exactly. I’d seen Benito’s handwriting when he came into the library to study. The writing on the card was a good likeness, but it wasn’t his.”

  “Why would someone send Tony a postcard?”

  “To put people off the scent,” Dan said.

  “What do you think happened to him?”

  “I don’t know, Ella, but my guess is that Campbell wanted him out of the way. Whether he used blackmail or something worse we’ll never know, but the thing is, Ella, if Campbell knows Catrin has the book she could be in danger. That man would stop at nothing.”

  “I thought I saw him the other week, up at Shrimp’s,” Dan said.

  “So if he’s been snooping about, he could well have found out that Catrin has the book,” Meredith said.

  Ella shivered. “You know, sometimes I fancied I could hear people walking about upstairs.”

  “I used to sneak in sometimes, just to check that you were still alive,” Dan said.

  “Me too,” Meredith added sheepishly.

  “Well, if Campbell does come here, we’ll be waiting for him,” Ella said.

  “Oh, he’ll come,” Dan said with certainty.

  66

  The cart pulled up outside the Convent of Santa Lucia in the middle of the night, stirring up a cloud of dust. Someone climbed down from the cart, ran to the door and tugged the bell-pull. The sound of the bell echoed through the gloomy corridors and Sister Annunziata hurried to see who was there before they woke the whole convent up. She opened the grille and saw three tense faces, then a fourth as Bindo was lifted to eye level.

  “What do you want at this time of the night?”

  “To see Ismelda,” Bindo said emphatically.

  “Don’t be absurd. You know she’s allowed no visitors.”

  “You must tell her, then, that we are leaving but we will be back for her.”