Angels of the Flood

by Joanna Hines

  This was not how her life had meant to turn out. When the good-looking and easy-going young Filippo Bertoni came into the cocktail lounge with his handmade suits and his wallet bulging with dollars she’d thought she’d found the wealthy husband of her dreams. It was only later, after the wedding and the trip back to Italy, that she’d discovered it had all been a facade, a sham, a six-month spree on his father’s inheritance and it was all used up. Not that lack of money stopped him spending. The first words of Italian she learned were about interest rates and deferred payments and credit. If it hadn’t been for Zio Toni…

  He’d always had a soft spot for Francesca, and no wonder: she’d been a child like a little angel. He’d paid for her to be educated at home because they thought she was too sensitive for school. Annette had learned to plump up the expenses for Francesca and get by on the surplus. And he’d dropped hints about his money: he’d always said it would be a shame to break the estate up, that the pictures and the land should stay together. Hints, but nothing definite. Annette had grown mean-spirited as a starving dog, disaster only kept at bay with casual scraps of hope.

  And now the old crook was dying. The doctors said it was a matter of weeks, not months. No one knew how much he was worth, but the estate and the art collection alone were worth a fortune. Several fortunes. Annette had already borrowed vast sums at extortionate rates of interest on the expectation of inheriting his money. But recently, Zio Toni had let her know he was displeased with the way Francesca was turning out, and no wonder. In his odd way, the old man had forgiven her that incident with the boiling water—had even said that she was a girl after his own heart and knew about inflicting pain. It was the way she turned her back on them, disappeared to God knows where, which had caused the problems. And all the time she’d been in Florence with those deadbeats. But she always had been wayward and hard to handle. Not like Simona. Thank God her younger daughter had always been pliable. All her hopes now were pinned on Simona. She had to replace Francesca in her uncle’s affections and inherit the fortune for her family.

  Otherwise they had no future. No future at all.

  Chapter 28

  Disguises

  BY EARLY EVENING, THE Villa Beatrice had been transformed. Angelica had swept away every last trace of the party. Where there had been empty wine bottles and damp rings on the marble surfaces, now there were jugs of spring flowers. Rugs that had been rolled up were back on the floors, shutters were flung wide to let in the light, fires blazed a welcome in all the main rooms, even in the hallway. The stink of cigarette smoke and socks, and the winter-long smells of damp and neglect, had been chased away by polish and fresh air. Kate was so amazed by the change that she was prepared to credit Angelica with magical housekeeping abilities until Francesca informed her that two women from the nearby farm were always on hand to help out at short notice. Angelica herself was busy in the kitchen, and if the pungent aromas drifting into the hallway were any indication, they were in for a treat that evening.

  Kate relished every detail. She’d stayed in comfortable houses before now, but never one as palatial as the Villa Beatrice. The previous night the bedrooms had been firmly off-limits and she’d made do with a cushion on the floor, but this evening she had a room to herself, crisply laundered white sheets and fleecy towels and a bottle of San Pellegrino on the table beside her bed. When Zio Toni issued his surprise invitation she thought he meant she was to stay with him at La Rocca, but it turned out that accommodation in the converted tower was limited and since his illness took hold he’d insisted on eating his meals alone, so guests were always put up at the Villa Beatrice. She’d been told they’d be returning to La Rocca for a drink before their dinner at Villa Beatrice and she was looking forward to the guided tour of the art collection she’d heard so much about.

  But in the meantime, there was plenty to keep her occupied at the Villa Beatrice. Mario, for instance. She couldn’t make him out. The previous evening he’d come on strong and then been gratuitously rude. Then he’d come to her aid when she was being stonewalled by Signora Bertoni. And now here he’d come knocking at the open door of her bedroom. ‘Kate, I must talk with you.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ She stared at him coldly.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  He came in and closed the door carefully behind him. Every gesture was bristling with tension. ‘I think maybe I go back to Florence,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ said Kate. ‘Goodbye then.’

  ‘I want for you come with me.’

  ‘You must be joking!’

  ‘Is not joke. Is better not to stay here, with this family.’

  ‘Is Francesca coming too?’

  ‘No, she must stay with her family.’

  ‘I’m not leaving Francesca,’ said Kate. ‘And you must be mad if you think I’d go anywhere with you after last night.’

  ‘I apologize,’ he said. ‘I say bad thing, but is not important.’ He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘But going, going now, that is important. There is much family trouble here. We must go to Florence together.’

  ‘What kind of family trouble?’ Kate wanted to know.

  ‘Is their business, not for us. We do not belong with this family.’

  Kate stared at him. To her amazement, he seemed perfectly sincere. She was baffled. ‘I don’t understand you, Mario. You were so fired up about Francesca coming here this weekend, I can’t believe you’re just going to abandon her now.’

  ‘Is not abandon. Is for her own good.’

  ‘That’s what you say, but unless you tell me why, I’m afraid I don’t believe you. I’m staying right here with Francesca just as long as she wants me to.’

  Mario swore in Italian. ‘You are foolish child,’ he said bitterly. ‘You do not understand what you do. Come back to Florence with me—it is best for Francesca.’

  ‘Sorry, Dr Bassano, but I don’t see it that way. Now, will you get out of my room, please? I’m going to take a shower.’

  He moved towards the door, obviously deeply unhappy with her decision. The weirdest part of it, thought Kate, was that he really did seem to be sincere. To her amazement, he said that if she wasn’t leaving the Villa Beatrice, then he intended to stay there too. She started to argue with him, but discovered he could be as stubborn as she was. Unless she left with him, he was going to stay put. If she hadn’t still been so suspicious of his motives, she’d have been flattered. As it was, confusion was her strongest emotion.

  Once she’d showered and put on her jeans and her rumpled shirt, she went down to the hall where she found Francesca and Simona arguing in Italian with their father. Or rather Francesca was arguing all on her own while Simona watched miserably and he occasionally spoke in a quiet, conciliatory voice. Mario was nowhere to be seen. It was the first time Kate had had a chance to study Signor Bertoni. Medium height, brown haired and with a kindly, contented face, he looked a lot younger than his wife, more like an older brother to the two girls than a father. She felt embarrassed at gatecrashing what sounded like a full-on family row, and she was about to move silently up the stairs, when Francesca spotted her.

  ‘Kate,’ she said in English. ‘You’ll never guess, now Pappa is trying to make us wear skirts at dinner—knee-length skirts! Can you believe it?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Kate, smiling angelically, since she figured this was another male member of Francesca’s family likely to be susceptible to young women, ‘but I’ve only brought jeans with me.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Signor Bertoni, ‘either my wife or Simona would be happy to lend you what is necessary. You must all be about the same size.’

  The idea of borrowing clothes from Francesca’s mother was distinctly alarming, and Kate would rather dress in brown-paper bags than the kind of clothes Simona was wearing. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Pappa,’ exclaimed Francesca. ‘You can’t make us look like frumps.’

  ‘What is a frump?’

  ‘An old w
oman who wears horrible clothes.’

  ‘Neither of you would ever look a frump,’ he said charmingly. ‘Can’t you just do this small thing for me, ’Cesca? It will mean so much to your mother—’

  ‘No—’ Francesca began.

  But Simona burst out, ‘Please ’Cesca, just this once. I can’t bear it when everyone is arguing all the time. You know how Mamma will go on, it’ll spoil the whole evening if you stay in those dirty trousers. Why do you have to upset her on purpose? It’s just clothes, for goodness’ sake. It doesn’t really matter what you wear, that’s what you’ve always told me.’

  ‘Yes, but…’ Francesca’s arguments died away. It seemed she was a match for any amount of opposition from her parents, but found it impossible to resist an appeal from Simona.

  All three retreated to the bedroom Simona and Francesca were sharing and went through the clothes she had brought with her. Kate couldn’t see what Francesca had made such a fuss about. As far as she was concerned, Simona’s clothes might just as well have come out of a dressing-up box, they were so far removed from anything she’d normally wear. Simona was more than happy to treat the whole business as a joke. Kate was particularly taken with a bottle-green dress with tucks across the bosom which tied at the back. ‘It’s a frock!’ she exclaimed in delight. ‘I haven’t worn a frock since I was nine!’

  Simona giggled. ‘Mamma made me buy it last winter. It makes me feel like a cabbage!’

  ‘And look like one, too,’ said Francesca. ‘Poor Simi, why don’t you try on some of our clothes? Then you can see what it feels like to be a mud angel.’

  ‘Don’t you mind?’ asked Simona shyly, but it was obvious she was longing to put on the forbidden garments. Kate and Francesca dug out their shabbiest things.

  ‘Look, here’s a shirt I got off Aiden,’ said Francesca. ‘It still smells of him—ugh!’

  Kate laughed, remembering the fastidious girl with the patent-leather handbag and shoes they’d first seen on the bridge over the Arno.

  ‘And here’s some really cheesy jeans,’ she said. ‘They haven’t been washed in a month.’

  Simona was scandalized, and enjoying every moment. ‘The nuns tell us it’s a sin to wear trousers that do up at the front,’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘In fact they’re not really very keen on trousers at all.’

  ‘Quite right too,’ said Francesca. ‘All that chafing will give you bad thoughts. Go on, put them on—you won’t go straight to hell, you know.’

  Kate and Simona paraded up and down in front of the mirror, Kate in the green dress. ‘Hello, cabbage,’ giggled Simona.

  Kate said, ‘My, what very front-opening jeans you’re wearing. They look very sexy on you!’

  In the end, no one wore the cabbage dress. Simona had brought two twinsets with her as well as the one she was wearing, so they all wore sensible A-line skirts with twinsets. Kate’s was green and Francesca’s was pale blue.

  ‘Now we’re all dressed the same,’ said Kate, ‘we look like a backing group. What shall we call ourselves? The singing cabbages? Twinset and pearls?’

  She was acting up to Simona, who gave the impression she’d never met anyone so sophisticated and amusing. Basking in the unexpected hero-worship, it was some time before she realized that Francesca did not seem to find their clothes funny at all. Far from it. As soon as she was clad in the pale blue twinset and the brown A-line skirt, she fell silent and seemed to shrink.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Kate asked as they were walking up to La Rocca. ‘It’s only for one evening.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ said Francesca.

  ‘Of course I don’t if you won’t explain.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Francesca spoke in a small voice, like a child’s. ‘I just cant.’

  ‘Well, at least your zio will approve,’ said Kate as they approached the house.

  ‘That only makes it worse.’

  ‘Honestly, Francesca, you do make heavy weather of them all.’ She caught sight of Zio Toni standing by the window and watching out for them and she flashed him a smile. ‘I mean, I know your mother’s a bit of a battleaxe, but your family aren’t that bad. Simona’s all right when she’s not dressed like a cabbage, and your father’s perfectly nice, and as for your uncle, I think he’s a dear old man.’

  Francesca didn’t respond, only stared at Kate with misery in her eyes.

  Chapter 29

  The Price

  ALONE IN HIS ROOM, Umberto Bertoni doubled over in pain, the worst he’d ever known. There had always been pain in his life, from his step-father’s brutality and the first beatings given by the good fathers to drive out the sin from the priest’s unwanted bastard, to the arthritis that had blighted the last decade—but never pain like this. Pain like a white-hot blade scything through his guts, like vermin tearing him to pieces from within, like a foretaste of the torments of hell that lay in wait for him, soon, so very soon. But this agony would pass. He knew it would. Sweat pouring from his face as he rode the waves of pain, he waited for it to ease. No morphine, not yet. There was still work to be done before the night’s forgetting.

  With tormenting slowness, the pain released its grip. As soon as it was possible, he forced himself to breathe normally, wiped his face with a lawn handkerchief, waited for the trembling to die down.

  Even the worst agony passes in the end; he’d learned that much in a life dominated one way and another by pain. But terror? Ah, terror’s a different matter entirely. Terror never goes. On the contrary, with each day that passed, his terror grew.

  He was dying. No need of doctors to confirm what his body told him hour by hour. It was not death he feared. If death was simply a matter of shucking off a rotten body that had become both prison and skilled torturer, then he would have welcomed it with open arms and laughing. It was the prospect of what came after death that turned his bowels to water: all those images from childhood that he’d never quite shaken off, those hungry fires and the everlasting torment of the damned.

  He’d spent his life in defiance of God. He’d grown rich and powerful to prove to his early keepers that he was stronger and cleverer than they ever imagined, and he’d never missed a chance to spit in the face of the Almighty. He hated God with a passion, but he’d never ceased to believe in Him. Right now, he’d forfeit everything he’d ever owned to know that the journey into death would be no more than a light going out: darkness and nothingness for ever. But he wasn’t going to get off so easily.

  There was sure to be some special punishment waiting for him. But why him? Was he truly so much more evil than others? Wasn’t everyone capable of terrible deeds if temptation came their way? God knows—and God did know, he was sure of it—he’d watched enough people turn from innocence to corruption and on each occasion he’d revelled in the change. Watching others fall from grace was the best way he knew to keep the terror at bay.

  And now the terror was back, worse than ever. Well, if he was wicked beyond redemption, then it was only because he was human. Others were just as bad. He could prove it easily.

  The lawn handkerchief was a sodden ball in his hand and he threw it down in disgust and rang the silver handbell that stood on the table next to his chair. A young man with a broad, smiling face came in at once.

  ‘Brandy, Dino.’

  The young man poured him a glass and set it in his hand. He drank it down quickly, and let out a sigh of relief.

  ‘Now, tidy me.’

  Without a word the young man wiped his face with a scented towel, combed back his hair and straightened his clothes. He stooped to pick up the crumpled handkerchief and straightened a pot of white jasmine, then stood, waiting for further orders.

  ‘Fetch the ivory box.’

  Surprised, but always obedient, Dino went to a low table at the side of the room and picked up an elaborately carved box, about the size of a book, and set it under the single lamp on the table beside the old man.

  ‘I’m cold.’

  His servant
crossed the room and closed the window, fetched a cashmere shawl from the ottoman and laid it across his shoulders. Then he held up a hand mirror for inspection.

  Umberto Bertoni nodded. He was ready. ‘Tell her to come in.’

  A few seconds after Dino left the room, the door opened once again and Annette walked in. She was wearing a sheath dress of shimmering blue silk, her hair swept back in a chignon, diamonds on her ears and throat. A fine-looking woman, he’d always thought, and far too good for that useless nephew of his. Tense, though. Strung out like a thin wire, ready to snap. Well, he’d find out soon enough.

  ‘Zio Toni, how are you?’ She addressed him in Italian. ‘Is there anything I can do? You look tired.’

  He gestured for her to sit down. ‘Dear Annette, you’re more beautiful than ever this evening.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She touched her earrings with a nervous gesture as she took her seat on an upright chair and crossed her legs. Diamonds. He wondered where they’d come from: a grateful admirer, probably. There’d been several of those, he knew.

  ‘I hope you have everything you want at Beatrice,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Angelica is very good.’

  ‘Excellent. And the girls are well?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, but I fear that Francesca’s friend is a bad influence.’

  ‘I rather agree.’ He was silent for a moment, thinking. The English girl had shown no fear when she smiled at him and he didn’t like that. There’d even been pity in her gaze and he liked that even less. ‘I think he’s a dear old man.’ Her words had floated up to his open window on the evening air. A dear old man. That was unforgivable. Never in his life before had a good-looking young woman treated him with such contempt, like a doddering old fool, a nobody. He said slowly, ‘Maybe you should find a way to get rid of her.’