by Lucy Gordon
The years would pass and their child would grow, become a success, married. But without a father to show his pride and love.
‘I took it away from him,’ she mourned.
‘No,’ Hope said. ‘You have to understand that Dante was right about doing the quick-step with fate. He’s giving himself the best chance, or rather, you’ve given it to him. You were fate’s instrument. Now it’s out of our hands.’
At last he was wheeled out of the operating theatre, his head swathed in bandages. He looked pale, ghostly, and completely unlike the Dante they knew. But he was alive.
‘It went well,’ the doctor told them. ‘He’s strong, and there were no complications, so we were able to support the wall of the weak artery with less difficulty than usual. It’s too soon for certainty, but I expect him to live.’
‘And-the other thing?’ Ferne stammered.
‘That we’ll have to wait and see. It’s a pity he delayed treatment for so long, but I’m hopeful.’
That qualification haunted her as she sat beside Dante’s bed, waiting for him to awaken. She didn’t know how long she was there. It was a long time since she’d slept, but however weary she was she knew she couldn’t sleep now.
Hour after hour passed. He lay terrifyingly still, attached to so many machines that he almost disappeared under them. Part of his face was invisible beneath the huge plug clamping his mouth and attaching him to the breathing machine.
She had seen him wicked, charming, cruel, but never until this moment had she seen him totally helpless.
Perhaps it was for ever. Perhaps she had condemned him to this, although he’d begged her not to. He’d asked her forgiveness, but now, in the long dark hours, she fervently asked for his.
‘I may have taken everything away from you,’ she whispered. ‘You tried to warn me, but now, if your life is ruined, it’s my fault. Forgive me. Forgive me.’
He lay motionless and silent. The only sound in the room was the machine helping him to breathe.
Dawn broke, and she realised that she’d been there all night. A doctor came to detach the breathing machine, saying, ‘Let’s see how well he manages without it.’
Ferne stood well back while the plug was removed from his mouth and the machine pulled away. There was a pause, while time seemed to stop, then Dante gave a small choke and drew in a long breath.
‘Excellent,’ the doctor declared. ‘Breathing normal.’
‘How long before he comes round?’ Ferne asked.
‘He needs a bit longer.’
He departed and she settled back beside the bed, taking Dante’s hand in hers.
‘You’ve made a great start,’ she told him.
Could he hear her? she wondered. Hearing was supposed to outlast all the other senses. Perhaps if she could reach him now she could even help to keep his brain strong.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said, leaning close. ‘You’re going to wake up and be just the same as I’ve always known you-scheming, manipulative, dodgy, a man to be avoided by a woman with any sense. But I’ve never had any sense where you were concerned. I should have given in the first day, shouldn’t I? Except that I think I did, and much good it did me. Do you remember?’
He lay still, giving no sign of hearing.
She went on talking, not knowing what she said or how much time passed. The words didn’t matter. Most of them were nonsense, the kind of nonsense they had always talked-but he must surely hear the underlying message, which was an impassioned plea to him to return to her.
‘Don’t leave me alone without you; come back to me.’
But he lay so still that he might already have gone into another world. At last, leaning down, she kissed him softly on the lips.
‘I love you,’ she whispered at last. ‘That’s all there is to say.’
Then she jerked back, startled. Had he moved?
She watched closely. It was true; he moved.
A sigh broke from him, and he murmured something.
‘What did you say?’ she asked. ‘Speak to me.’
‘Portia,’ he whispered.
‘What was that?’
After a moment, he repeated the word. ‘Portia-I’m so glad you’re here.’
She wanted to cry aloud in her despair. He didn’t know her. His brain was failing, as he’d feared. Whoever Portia was, she was there inside with him.
Slowly he opened his eyes.
‘Hello,’ he murmured. ‘Why are you crying?’
‘I’m not-I was just happy to have you back.’
He gave a sleepy smile. ‘You were calling me names-scheming, manipulative, dodgy. Never mind. My little friend will stand up for me.’
‘Your little friend?’ she asked, scarcely daring to breathe.
‘Our daughter. I’ve been getting to know her. I want to call her Portia. She likes it. Darling Ferne, don’t cry. Everything’s going to be all right.’
It took time to believe that his recovery was complete, for the news seemed too good to be true. But with every hour that passed Dante showed that his faculties were as sharp as ever.
‘We played fate at his own game,’ he told her. ‘And we won. Or, rather, you did. You were the player. Before you came, I never had the nerve to take that game on. Without you, I should never have had it.’
He touched her face.
‘I see you there so clearly, and everything around you; all the world is clear. I hadn’t dared to dream that this would happen.’
‘It’s what I always believed,’ she said.
‘I know, but I couldn’t be sure. There was always the chance that you might have had to put me in an institution.’
Ferne hesitated. It would have been so easy to let this moment slip past and be forgotten, but something impelled her to total honesty, whatever the risk.
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I would never have done that.’
He frowned. ‘But you promised, don’t you remember?’
‘I know what I promised,’ she said calmly. ‘But nothing would have made me keep that promise. Even now I don’t think you begin to understand how much I love you. Whatever happened, I would have kept you with me. If you were ill, that would have been more reason to love you, but you were in no state to understand it then. So I had to practise a little deception.’
He looked stunned, as though the full power of her declaration was only just dawning on him.
‘But,’ he whispered at last, ‘you promised on everything you hold dear and sacred.’
‘I lied,’ she said calmly. ‘You wanted to be kept out of sight, so that’s what I would have done-but you would have been in our home, where the world couldn’t see you, but I could see you every day. Whether you were yourself, or whether your mind had gone, you would have been my husband and I would have loved you until the last moment of my life.’
Suddenly, shockingly, she found her temper rising. Why should she have to explain all this to him?
‘So now you know,’ she said. ‘I lied to you. I wanted to marry you so much, I’d have said and done anything. I made that promise without the most distant intention of keeping it, because I loved you with all of my heart and all of my life-but you just couldn’t realise, could you?
‘Can you see it now? Or are you just too proud and arrogant-and too stupid-to understand? You think love is a matter of making bargains, and you can’t get it into your head that love has to be unconditional. If it isn’t unconditional, it isn’t love.’
She waited to see if he would say anything, but he seemed too stunned to speak. Was she being foolish? she wondered. Was she risking their marriage for the satisfaction of getting this off her chest?
But she had no choice. If they were to stand a chance, the air must be clear between them.
‘So now you know the worst about me,’ she said. ‘I tricked you into marriage by deceit. I’m a shameless, dishonest woman who’ll do anything to get her own way.’
When at last Dante spoke, he said only two words, and
they were the last words Ferne expected to hear.
‘Thank goodness!’
‘What was that?’
‘Thank goodness you’re a liar, my darling! Thank goodness you had the courage to be shameless and deceitful. When I think of the disaster that could have befallen me if you’d been truthful, I tremble inside.’
‘What-what are you talking about?’ she said, half-laughing, half-afraid to believe her ears.
‘I never felt I had the right to marry you, knowing what I might be leading you into. It was my way of setting you free. If you’d refused to promise, I’d have forced myself to refuse the marriage, although to be your husband was what I wanted with all my heart. In life, in death, or in that half-life I dreaded so much, I want you, and only you, to be there with me.
‘But that felt like selfishness. I demanded that promise because I believed I had no right to trap you and blight your life.’
‘But you could never blight my life,’ she protested. ‘You are my life. Haven’t you understood that?’
‘I guess I’m just starting to. It seemed too much to hope that you should love me as much as I love you. I still can’t quite take it in, but I know this: my life belongs to you. Not only because we married, but because the life I have now is the life you gave me.
‘Take it, and use it as you will. It was you who drove the clouds away, and you who brings the sunlight. And, as long as you are with me, that will always be true.’
Two weeks later Dante was discharged from hospital, and he and Ferne went to spend a few weeks at the Villa Rinucci. Even when they returned to their apartment they lived quietly, the only excitement being the delayed wedding-breakfast, celebrated when the whole Rinucci family was present.
After that everyone held their breath for the birth of the newest family member. Portia Rinucci was born the next spring, a combination of her mother’s looks and her father’s spirit. At her christening, it was observed by everyone that it was her father who held her possessively, his face blazing with love and pride, while her mother looked on with fond tolerance, perfectly happy with the unusual arrangement.
If sometimes Ferne’s eyes darkened, it was only because she could never quite forget the cloud that had retreated but not completely vanished. As her daughter grew, it might yet darken their lives again-but she would face it, strengthened by a triumphant love and a happiness that few women knew.
Lucy Gordon
***
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