Siena Summer
Page 14
She smiled her goodbye, watched as the little man ran swiftly down the last of the steps to the square and pushed briskly off through the crowds.
‘Right.’ Michel waved the map. ‘We’re to meet Umberto at his cousin’s house at four o’ clock. That gives us five and a half hours. What do we do first?’ Peter was standing, head tilted back, looking up, wide eyed, at the great balustraded bell-chamber of the tower. ‘What I’d like best,’ he said, ‘is to go up there.’
Michel turned to look at Poppy, eyebrows raised, amusement gleaming in his face.
Poppy shook her head very firmly. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, young man, but I’m afraid “going up there” is probably the very last of my priorities.’
Peter’s face dropped a little. Michel laughed. ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Let’s find the Duomo first. It’s apparently one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Italy, and that’s saying something. We can take our time there, and then come back here for lunch. Then—’ he laid his arm across his nephew’s shoulders in an affectionate gesture ‘—Poppy can pay a nice low-level visit to the Palazzo Pubblico and you and I can go up the tower. How’s that?’
‘Great.’
‘You’re both mad,’ Poppy said amicably.
*
The cathedral, just a short walk from the square, was indeed a spectacular and beautiful building. Constructed in black and white marble, its façade with its three magnificent arched doorways was as florid as a wedding cake. The same black and white marble had been used in the huge, columned interior – ‘It’s a bit like being inside a zebra, isn’t it?’ Poppy asked, irreverently – and the inlaid marble floor was a marvel in itself. They wandered around in silence, overawed by the sheer opulent magnificence of the place. Altars gleamed with gold and with silver, statues decked in precious stones stared, sightless, down the long centuries of their lovely but lifeless existence. The lamps of the sanctuary flickered, and soft light fell through beautiful stained glass that had defied its own fragility to last through more than six hundred turbulent years. Above them the roof, as studded with stars as the midnight sky, soared in vaulted splendour. They blinked, all but blinded as they came out into the brilliant sunlight of midday. Poppy stepped back, shading her eyes to look up at the dozens of statues that adorned the façade.
‘You’re very quiet.’ Michel was beside her.
She sucked her lip thoughtfully. ‘I noticed in Florence. With Kit. These places make me feel—’ she hesitated, searching for the word ‘—odd.’
‘In what way?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. On the one hand the excesses of it all, all that money spent on a place of worship that could have been used to alleviate misery. It might be cynical, but it’s hard not to wonder exactly to whose glory this place was really raised. And yet – one can’t help but be moved by the kind of dedication that embarks on such a task, knowing it will take hundreds of years – several generations – to complete. Or by the genius of the artists who brought it to completion. Or, more than anything, I suppose, by the knowledge of the hundreds of thousands of people who have worshipped there, true believers—’ she broke the solemn mood with a quick, wry flash of a smile ‘—at least I suppose some of them must be. If these places illustrate anything, to me it’s the triumph of faith over common sense. And as you’ve probably gathered by now I tend, to a fault, to err on the side of common sense.’
In a gesture so natural that even Poppy herself hardly noticed it he drew her hand within his crooked arm. They stood for a moment in silence, studying the building. ‘It should have been even bigger, did you know?’ Michel asked.
She shook her head.
He pointed. ‘Over there. You see? The great arches across the street? They were supposed to be the façade to a new aisle. The original building – this—’ he gestured, encompassing the Duomo with a sweep of his arm ‘—was to be simply the core of the church. Those arches are all that is left of a construction that would have at least doubled the size of the cathedral.’
‘What happened?’ Peter had joined them.
‘Mostly it was the Black Death, in the fourteenth century. So many people died, there weren’t enough craftsmen, enough stonemasons, enough workmen so that the project had to be abandoned. It happened all over Europe.’
‘Decimation,’ Peter said with some relish. ‘The population was—’ he paused, and pronounced the word with a child’s dramatic impact, ‘decimated! Kit told me all about that the other day, when we were talking about the Romans. If a legion was cowardly, or mutinied, they executed every tenth man, just like that, whether they had done anything wrong or not. Not very fair, really.’
‘I’ll bet it worked, though,’ Poppy said with a grin. ‘So, what’s next?’
Michel pointed. ‘The building over there, next to the arches, is the cathedral museum. Kit said we shouldn’t miss it. Apparently it’s a real treasure house.’
It was about ten minutes later that Peter disappeared. He wandered off whilst Poppy and Michel were looking at a particularly beautiful collection of marble statuary, and apparently simply vanished.
‘Where can the little monkey have gone?’ Poppy was not greatly concerned; she was certain the boy would not go far without them.
‘He was interested in the Treasure Room. It’s up those stairs, I think. Perhaps he’s gone ahead.’ Michel led the way to the stairs. But the Treasure Room with its staggering collection of silver and gold, of jewelled vestments and reliquaries was empty; there was no sign of Peter. At Poppy’s prompting, Michel asked the custodian of the room if he had seen the child. The man shrugged, shook his head. No child had come in to the room alone; he would certainly remember if he had.
Puzzled, they retraced their steps to where they had first noticed he was missing. ‘Do you think he got bored and went outside to wait for us?’ Poppy asked, a little uncertainly.
Michel shook his head a little, frowning. ‘He shouldn’t have done. Not without telling us. It’s not like him to be naughty.’
‘Well, there isn’t a lot of point in both of us standing around here. I’ll tell you what – you stay here in case he comes back. I’ll slip downstairs and see if he’s waiting outside.’ She wagged an admonishing finger at him. ‘And don’t move! I don’t want to lose you, too!’
She moved swiftly from room to room and downstairs to the door. There was no sign of Peter. Truly concerned now and fighting the urge to shriek his name at the top of her voice, she made her way back, slowly this time, searching each room thoroughly. There were a thousand places for a mischievous child to hide – behind cabinets, statues, great slabs of carved marble – she’d give him what for when she found him, that was certain.
The small door, when she found it, was standing slightly ajar, above it a pointing finger and the word Panorama. She put her head around it. Steep stone steps led up through the thickness of the wall. She felt a warm blast of air on her face. ‘Peter?’ she called tentatively, ‘Peter, are you up there?’
No reply.
The stairs were so narrow that she could touch each wall as she climbed. Sunlight gleamed above her, reflecting around a curve in the wall. She stopped for a moment, called again. ‘Peter?’ She heard the tremor in her voice; her heart thumped against her ribcage. And still there was no reply. She desperately did not want to go on; even here, safe within the stone, she could sense the height. Just a few more steps – if he were not around the corner she would go back to find Michel. She laboured on upwards, turned the corner into the sunshine and a wind in her face.
She froze. She had stepped on to some sort of parapet. Around and below her stretched the ancient tiled roofs of Siena. To her right loomed the great black and white structure of the cathedral; the dome at eye level, the huge bell-tower soaring to the sky, the movement of white, fluffy cloud behind it making it look for all the world as if the massive thing were about to crash to the ground. Vertigo clenched in her stomach and spun in her head. Trembling, she clutched at the
wall; she felt as if the solid stone upon which she stood was shifting beneath her feet.
But that was not the worst of it; the spot where she stood was reasonably sheltered, and surrounded by sturdy walls of almost shoulder height. Ahead of her, however, stretched a long, narrow walkway that spanned the square far below and the parapet that edged it was very much lower; only waist height to the child who stood in the centre of it staring, white-faced and fascinated, down to where people moved, ant-like across the marble paving. She knew now where she was; on the lower of the two huge arches that Michel had pointed out when they had left the cathedral; the arches that had originally been intended as the façade to a great new cathedral that had never been built. A gusty wind blew, hot and airless. To her horror, Peter swayed a little, still staring down.
Very carefully, without taking her eyes from the child, she dropped to her knees.
‘Peter! Peter?’ She willed the tremor from her voice, kept it very low, afraid of startling him. ‘Peter, darling, please come away from there. I don’t think it can be very safe.’
At first he did not move. Then slowly he lifted his head to look at her, blinking as if waking from sleep. His eyes were huge and very bright in his pale face.
She held out a hand encouragingly. ‘Why don’t you crawl, darling? It’ll be easier, I think.’ She clenched her mind against the knowledge of the abyss beneath him, against the spiralling, physical sickness that rose in her at the thought of it. Her skin, slick with sweat, was as cold as the stone upon which she knelt.
He shook his head. ‘It’s all right. Truly it is. I’m not afraid.’ His voice was high and clear, yet there was a breathy edge to it that terrified her.
‘Please, Peter.’ She trod the fine line between supplication and authority very carefully. ‘It’s very naughty of you, you know. We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Poor Michel is terribly worried.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ For the first time his eyes truly focused upon her. He took a step forward. ‘I really am sorry. I didn’t think.’ As he moved, there was another sharp gust of wind that caught at the wide brim of his sun-hat, lifting it from his head. To Poppy’s horror he made a wild grab for it. Too late. It flew into the air and spun into the space beneath them. For a moment he teetered, watching it, his balance gone. She heard him laugh, high and shrill.
‘Peter!’ She was shaking uncontrollably now. ‘For God’s sake will you get down!’
He hesitated for one more moment before, sobering, obediently he dropped to his knees:
‘Now get back here. At once! You hear me?’ Poppy’s panic flared into anger. ‘I told you – your uncle will be worried sick about you!’
‘I’m coming.’ Calmly he crawled towards her.
The moment he was close enough she reached out to catch hold of his shirt collar and hauled him into her arms, clutching him to her. He looked at her in real astonishment. ‘I’m sorry. I really am. The door was open. And I wanted to see the panorama. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’
‘Whether you meant to or not, you managed it pretty well!’ She still could not quite control her voice. ‘Now for goodness’ sake, come on. Poor Michel must think we’ve both been kidnapped or something.’ She pulled herself up to stand on legs that shook like jelly. For a moment she could not trust herself to take a step. ‘You go on down. I’ll follow you.’
He turned to the door, hesitated. ‘Poppy?’ His voice was suddenly uncertain. ‘Yes?’
‘You won’t tell Kit that I did something naughty, will you?’
She took a long breath, then shook her head. ‘No, of course not. As long as you promise me – faithfully! – never to do such a thing again.’
His smile was beatific. The colour had come back into his cheeks. ‘I promise.’
The rest of the day passed off with no more upsets.
Peter, truly sorry for the trouble he had caused, behaved impeccably, and Poppy, with her feet once more thankfully and firmly upon the ground, could not continue to be cross with him for long. They met Umberto at his cousin’s at four, as arranged, and by half past were heading back out along the valley road to the Tenuta di Gordini. With the long day of sightseeing behind him, it was not long before Peter’s head nodded on to Poppy’s shoulder, and he slept. She eased him down more comfortably on to her lap, stroking the shining cap of russet hair gently, touching the smooth curve of his cheek with a curled finger. ‘He’s nothing like his mother, is he?’
Michel was sitting on the seat opposite, watching her. ‘I’ve always supposed he looks like his father.’
‘You didn’t know him?’
He shook his head, his eyes on the sleeping child’s face. ‘No.’
Poppy’s ever-lively curiosity was stirring. ‘Has Eloise told you much about him?’
‘Hardly anything. To be truthful I don’t think she can bear to talk about him, even now.’
‘She must have loved him very much.’
‘Oh, yes. There’s no doubt about that.’
Poppy touched the child’s face again. ‘It’s strange. She doesn’t strike me—’ She stopped, her eyes flying suddenly to Michel’s face and she flushed a little. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, truly I don’t.’
He smiled a little, finished her sentence for her. ‘She doesn’t strike you as being the kind of woman to love in that fashion?’
‘Well – no. She doesn’t.’
‘Ah, but that is because you only know the Eloise of today. The Eloise of yesterday was very different.’ He stretched his arms along the back of the seat, relaxing. The sky was reddening in the west, the dipping sun gleaming fitfully through streaky cloud. ‘The Eloise that I knew as a child was full of love. Full of warmth. Full of sunshine. Full of laughter. Oh, I know you may find that difficult to believe, but it’s true.’
‘What happened?’ Poppy asked bluntly, throwing, she realised, any pretence of tact to the wind.
Michel shrugged. ‘The war. Losing the man she loved. Struggling to support a fatherless child. None of it has been easy.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ She looked down at the sleeping child again. ‘Oh, by the way – I forgot to tell you – I promised Peter that we wouldn’t tell Kit about the escapade at the cathedral. Is that all right?’
‘Of course.’
‘He can’t bear the thought of Kit thinking him naughty.’
‘A touch of hero-worship there, I think. He’s of that age, of course. And he could do worse than Kit, I think.’
Poppy shifted a little, settling Peter more comfortably on her lap. He stirred, sighed, settled. ‘It probably comes of not having a father of his own.’
‘Only a boring uncle who teaches.’ His smile was wry.
She looked at him with suddenly pensive dark eyes. ‘I can think of a lot of things you seem to me to be,’ she said after a moment, very collectedly. ‘But I must say that boring isn’t one of them.’
The silence that followed was thoughtful, but by no means difficult.
‘Perhaps I’ll ask you for a list later,’ he said at last, straight-faced. And their quick, shared laughter was quiet, so as not to disturb the boy.
*
It was later that evening that Poppy remembered her promise to ask Kit for the sketches he had done for the portrait ten years before.
‘Good Lord, I’d quite forgotten about them,’ Isobel said, trying to prevent Robbie from upending his supper dish on to the table. ‘Robbie, do stop that and get on with your supper like a good boy. It’s nearly time for bed.’ She looked back at her sister. ‘They’re up in the back attic, I think. There’s a trunk of Kit’s bits and pieces up there that’s followed us about from pillar to post for years. Now I stop to think about it, I’m sure they’re in there. Why don’t you go and have a look? I’d rather like to see them again myself.’
‘Would Kit mind my rooting about in his things? Shouldn’t we wait?’
‘Oh, no, of course not. Why should he? Robbie, will you stop playing about!’
Isobel sighed exasperatedly, and began to struggle to her feet.
‘It’s all right. I’ll do it.’ Poppy jumped up. ‘What a naughty boy you are!’ she said to Robbie, her tone so indulgent that the child, totally unchastened, beamed happily up at her. ‘How do I get in to the attic?’ she asked as she mopped up the mess.
‘There are some stairs round the corner from Robbie’s room. You’ll have to take a lamp. There’s all sorts of rubbish up there – centuries-worth of it, I should think. But the trunk’s right near the door. You can’t miss it. Oh, do go on. It would be fun to see them again.’ There was a small note of wistfulness in Isobel’s voice. ‘It all seems so very long ago, now, doesn’t it?’
*
The attic, as Isobel had said, was indeed cluttered with what looked like the cast-offs of several hundred years. Chests and boxes, furniture, carpets, children’s toys, all shrouded in cobwebs and dust. Just inside the door, however, stood a cheap-looking, battered trunk plastered with peeling labels that was obviously a more modern addition to the jumble. Poppy set her lamp beside it and threw back the lid. Inside were two or three rolls of stained canvas, a few old tubes of paint, squeezed almost flat, and a couple of ancient paintbrushes. She lifted them out and laid them on the floor. Underneath them was an untidy mass of paper and some cardboard folders, carelessly tied together with string. There were a lot of dog-eared sketch-books, several half-finished sketches, scribbled notes, what looked like a collection of old bills. Again, carefully, she gathered these together and then reached for the folders; but, as she picked them up, the string gave and before she could prevent it the things had slipped out of her arms, spilling some of their contents as they did so. Sketch-books, drawings and watercolour pictures slithered on to the dirty floor.