“She won’t let us know when she’s coming,” Miranda explained. “She hates to be tied down in any way. She’ll just drop in some day.”
“Does she run her boutique on those lines?”
“Oh, no. Pauline is a very good business woman; she’s made a great success of it.”
Flora felt a foreshadowing of distaste for this Pauline, who seemed to reserve her affectations for her friends.
Miranda sat up and shook out her hair.
“I’m ravenous, are you, Flora? We might start for home in about five minutes. Only it’s so lovely here I don’t want to go.”
Flora raised herself on her elbow to look again at the scene before leaving it. Beyond the swimming pool a wide flight of shallow stone steps, bordered by statues, climbed to the terrace which was occupied only by lemon trees in big terra cotta jars. The white garden furniture used by the family on their rare visits was stacked in one corner of the loggia that ran all along the front of the villa. In the ochre-coloured walls three rows of shuttered windows made the house look as though it slept in the noonday sun. The only sign of life was in the red-tiled contadino house built at right angles to it, where some washing hung almost motionless on a line, and even in this heat a window was unshuttered and open. Behind the house the lower slopes of the hills were terraced and planted with vines. There was an olive grove above them which gave way to rows of round-topped Roman pines that marched to the crests of all the hills that enclosed the valley.
“Just imagine, Miranda, having a place like this and only coming to it for a few weeks in the year, didn’t you say?”
“The Orbini are fabulously rich. They have another house near Venice as well as a palace in Rome. They’re big industrialists from Milan, who made their pile in the fifties when Italy was having … what’s the opposite of a slump?”
“A boom.”
“Yes, that’s it. I think the Orbini must have bought this villa then for something to do with their money. It was such luck for me that when they were here last year for three weeks they were seized with caprice to have a swimming pool made, and they let me use it. I could never have afforded to have one at the Rondini. There’s a fantastic tax on them as well as the expense of making the pool. Besides it’s rather nice to drive over the hills to this one, it makes a place to bring people to. Always keep guests moving is my motto, then they don’t get bored or quarrel, or lose their nerve over Agatina and Enrico screaming at each other in the kitchen.”
She added, “Of course I don’t mean you. I should never need to keep you moving. You’re the easiest and nicest kind of guest.”
“Thank you. I’ll try not to quarrel with any of the others.”
“Oh you won’t. But Martin never liked Dennis, and Dennis is sure not to like the friend Martin is bringing with him. I don’t know who or what Dulcie likes. I think Dennis only brings her here himself because he’s afraid of handing her over to my bad influence. Of course, you know I could have kept her with me after the divorce, they don’t take a child of seven, as she was then, away from her mother. But I knew it would be shattering to Dennis to lose her, and I wanted to come out here for a year and find a holiday house, so it was better that way. Dulcie went to Dennis’s mother and now he’s married again he can give her a home. Do you know this Ludo, the young man that Martin is bringing out here with him?”
“No. I’ve really only seen anything of Martin when he’s made up a party carré with my friend Lalage Penfold and me and some other man.”
“Oh yes, I’ve heard of Lalage. She’s in love with him, I suppose?”
“She knows him very well.”
“That doesn’t seem to stop them.”
“She’s been a great friend of Martin’s for some time.”
“There’s no future in that,” Miranda said with unusual sharpness.
“Don’t you think we have all kinds of different relationships in our lives?”
“No, I don’t. I think there are three kinds. Man and woman, man and man, woman and woman.”
“What about parent and child?”
“Perhaps that’s a variation of one of the others. No, I suppose there is something special about it. I seem to have missed out on that one. I expect it’s often duty more than love. To me love is enjoying another person enormously. When that’s over it’s finished. Flora, I think we’d better go home now so as not to be late for lunch. Agatina is nervosa because of all these visitors coming. She’s always in a state before people arrive though she adores having them, so long as they eat plenty and praise her cooking. Once I had a dyspeptic friend of Martin’s who kept on saying ‘Isn’t this rather rich?’ and pushing half of it to the side of his plate. Agatina dropped a Spode dish and broke it, and then had hysterics and went to bed for two days.”
In the next valley, Miranda’s house, Le Rondini, stood on a shelf of land half way up a low hill. It was very different from the stately Villa Orbini. It had been two old contadino houses skilfully made over by an Englishman into a casa colonica of taste and charm. It was much less secluded from the world than the Orbini villa. The church, school and bar and the red-tiled houses of the village clustered at the foot of the slope. There was much coming and going at the bar, especially at midday and in the evening. The bus from San Gimignano called there three times a day. There was often pop music belching from a loudspeaker to the outside tables and a constant starting up of cars. The contour of the land and an old wall studded with capers and festooned with rhinco-spermum cut off a good deal of the noise from Le Rondini; Miranda liked the activity.
“I couldn’t stand living at the Orbini even though it is a much more beautiful valley. I like to know the world is inhabited. And it’s useful having the village. I don’t have to be always driving off to fetch something Enrico has forgotten.”
They lunched on the loggia in front of the house under the awning of vines half overgrown with wistaria. Flecks of sunlight penetrating the leaves touched the wine in their glasses, the blooming skin of the ripe peaches, and the bright, improbable gold of Miranda’s hair. Flora had at first thought it a pity that she dyed it gold, it seemed incongruous with her dark eyes and brown skin, but now she had come to like the contrast.
“I had a letter from Nan this morning, my pupil who writes poetry. I told you about her.”
“Yes, you did. Is she writing any poetry now?”
“She sent me two new ones. One is very sad about the young man she is supposed to be going to marry. He has gone to America and doesn’t write to her.”
“Poor child! But she’ll soon find another young man. Is the poem good?”
“Half of it. Hers are often like that at present. But she’s waking up to self criticism. The other poem is about a day at the sea with her brother Ben. That is less ambitious and comes off better. She’s got a nice streak of irony.”
“Show me afterwards. You must bring her with you here some time when you come. Next year perhaps.”
Miranda laid her hand on Flora’s arm. “Because you’ll come again next year, won’t you? Any time, whenever I’m here. Do say ‘Yes’ Flora, then I shall know that Martin was right for you as well as for me.”
“Of course I should love to come again.”
“Perhaps you could bring your poet some time? I’d adore to see what she made of this. Just think—here, after a Yorkshire mining village. She might write poems that were good all through instead of only half.”
An instinct of defence of she did not quite know what made Flora say,
“She writes best about her own home and the mining life that she grew up in. But it doesn’t matter what you write about, only how you do it.”
“Do you think it wouldn’t matter what materials Pauline’s clothes were made of, only the design?”
“I expect the design matters most.”
“The design has to be right for the material.”
“Of course, that’s the same for writing too, the design grows out of the subject.”
Miranda smiled brilliantly.
“We do agree about most things, don’t we? I shall design a dress for you. I’ve been thinking about it. We’ll get it made at Pauline’s, special terms for friends. I’ll draw the design here, then it can be made up as soon as we all go home. You can stay here with me until I go home in September, can’t you?”
“If you can do with me for so long. Only I’ve got two new lectures to write.”
“You can write those here in your own room, nobody will disturb you.”
“I haven’t got the books I should need for them. But I daresay I can do them in the last three weeks of the vac. Term doesn’t start till October 14th.”
“Don’t think about them now. Don’t think about next term. Let’s go and have our siesta. Martin thought they would probably get here about six.”
As they walked through the dimly lit salone, shuttered against the heat, Miranda paused, and switched on a light.
“Something I’d forgotten.”
She threw back the lid of a painted Venetian chest and fossicked about inside.
“Yes, I thought so. Here it is.”
She extracted a large photograph in a chased silver frame. She let the lid of the chest drop, and poised the photograph on top.
“I think it would be nice for Dennis to see I haven’t forgotten him.”
Flora found herself looking at a younger Miranda, a beautiful bride in stiff silk with a veil of tulle falling over her dark hair. She studied with interest the open face of the obviously proud and happy young bridegroom by her side.
“Dennis’s mother gave us that ghastly frame.”
Miranda shifted the picture a trifle and stepped back to look at it. “Dennis has put on weight since then, and he’s got one of those compromise hair cuts, not quite short, which doesn’t really suit him. He’s getting a bit pompous too; he’s a solicitor, I expect it’s giving people all that advice, but he can still be great fun all the same.”
She added virtuously,
“Of course I always ask Jane, that’s his wife, to come out here with them, but she doesn’t want to come. She gets enough of Dulcie at home, I suppose.”
Lying on her bed in her shuttered room Flora thought about Oxford next term. It would be an empty place, savourless; and there would be Lalage, a problem to be faced. Flora had written a brief note to her telling her to use the cottage for the rest of the vac if she liked, “because I’m going to Tuscany to stay with Martin Croft’s sister”. Writing that Flora had felt a malicious satisfaction; it would give Lalage such a shock. She would so much have loved to be included in that family party, she would expend a lot of energy trying to imagine how it had happened that Flora was there, envying her … serve her right!
With a revulsion of feeling Flora remembered all that Lalage had been to her during those dreadful last weeks of the summer term. She did not want to think about them now. She switched on her bedside lamp, curled on her side and opened her book. It was a novel that Miranda had liked very much, and by talking about it had made Flora want to begin reading again.
After a time she grew sleepy, and switched off the light. There was no distant noise from the bar now; the store would be closed for the siesta; at this hour fewer cars travelled the valley road; there was only the creaking of the cicadas in the cypresses and the spiteful hum of a mosquito frustrated by the fine net over the window. Flora fell asleep.
She dreamed that she was in the cottage, and heard a car coming down the lane. It was Hugh coming back; everything that she had thought had happened had not happened. He was coming back to tell her that their quarrel had been a nonsense, and that he loved her as much as ever, nothing could ever really go wrong between them. In her dream she ran to the door of the cottage and opened it, but she was puzzled to find that the door opened, not onto the English garden and countryside, but onto the terrace of Le Rondini, and it was not Hugh getting out of the car but Miranda, who was coming towards her, laughing, calling out her name. Flora felt a confused shock of surprise, disappointment, and also something that was both pleasure and relief.
As she slowly came back to awareness of her dim room it became clear to her returning senses that a real car was grinding to a halt on the gravel. A horn tooted, a car door opened, there were voices on the loggia below her window, she heard Miranda’s voice calling her own name.
“Flora! Flora, come down. They’re here.”
“You seem to have made a great hit with Miranda.…”
Martin swung the car round the last of the hairpin bends; the next valley opened before them; the Villa Orbini, a block of warm colour against the silvers and greens of the hillside, came in sight.
“She’s been so kind to me. I’m most grateful to you for suggesting that I should come here.”
“I’m glad it’s been a success. You look much better for it.”
Flora, who had been ushered firmly into the back seat of the car, eyed with some amusement the two backs in front of her: Martin’s long dark head and flat shoulders, Ludovic Sawley’s shoulder-length bob of silky auburn hair, falling over the collar of the turquoise silk shirt patterned with small brown ships. He was the only member of the party who had changed his clothes since their arrival.
Martin had given Flora an off-hand greeting, and hardly spoke to her while they were having tea on the loggia. He seemed anxious to establish that she was a mere acquaintance who was to make no special claims on him. Since she had never thought of making any this did not disturb her. She chiefly regretted that her tête-à-tête with Miranda had been interrupted by the invasion of all these people.
“Have you forgiven Lalage yet?”
Flora jumped. This was something she was not ready to discuss, certainly not before a stranger.
“I haven’t heard from her. Is she at the cottage?”
“I’ve no idea.”
Ludo, who had had enough of any conversation that did not include him, thrust forward his shapely hand and wrist.
“Look, Martin, do you see how that mosquito bite I got yesterday has swelled up? It’s frightfully red, isn’t it? It’s inflamed. Do you think it’s poisoned? You never know where a mosquito has been last, do you?”
“They’ve generally been at the pozzo nero.”
“What’s that?”
“Cess pool, a primitive form of household sewage.”
“Oh Christ! Then a bad mosquito bite must be frightfully dangerous, isn’t it?”
Ludo turned round and held his wrist out towards Flora.
“What do you think, Dr James?”
“I expect it will have gone down by tomorrow. I had one the other day just like that.”
“As red and swollen was it? Was it really?”
“Yes, quite.”
“And is it all right now?”
“Practically. I’ll give you some of my stuff to put on yours.”
“You are kind.” He gave Flora his charming smile. She had seen in the first half hour that he wanted them all to like him, and that with Miranda and Dennis he was not, so far, making much headway, while Dulcie, a wary child, looked at him as if she was suspending judgement.
Ludo, relieved, babbled cheerfully.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been in Italy. It’s just fabulous, isn’t it? I expect you’ve often been before, Dr James? I can’t keep calling you Dr James, can I? because it sounds like somebody old and ugly. Can I call you Flora?”
“Of course, if you like. I have been to Italy several times before but I’ve never stayed in this part, only been through it on the way to Siena. I think it’s one of the most beautiful countrysides I’ve ever seen.”
“Oddly enough,” Martin said, “I’ve never before been over to this valley. I hadn’t heard anything about the Orbini until they made this swimming pool, apparently for Miranda’s sole convenience—which is the kind of thing that does happen to her. I’ve never driven over this road before. Not one that I should recommend for Pauline’s driving. You’ve heard about her, I im
agine?”
“Yes. I think she’s coming to stay at Le Rondini before long.”
“That will be when I leave.”
“Is she a very reckless driver?”
“She likes to be thought one. She’s a bloody poseuse in every direction. Fortunately I think that particular pose will always be limited by concern for her own precious life. Not that I care if she misses a curve so long as she’s not driving Miranda.”
They had dropped down from the hills and turned in at the big gates of the Villa Orbini.
“By God what a wonderful place to live! Not another house in sight.”
“Oh Martin,” Ludo squealed. “That would be terribly lonely. You wouldn’t like it in the winter, would you?”
“Love it. You will not understand my dear child that I don’t like the proximity of other human beings.”
“Can you avoid them living in All Souls?”
“More than you would think, Flora. You can always shut yourself up in your room to work. And the place is quiet, and the cooking is good, and with a car you can go off into the country at a moment’s notice. I’m thinking of following your example, and buying a cottage about ten miles out. Are you going to keep yours on?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s only rented; I don’t know whether the Woolcotes at the farm would want to sell it. But anyhow it wouldn’t suit you, it’s got no mod cons.’
“It soon would have if I bought it.”
“Oh, look, the others have just come over the hill behind us. They’re catching us up.” Ludo did not seem to share Martin’s aversion from the company of other human beings; he wriggled in his seat with pleasure. “I’m so glad we got here in time for a bathe before dinner. It’s a super day for it, isn’t it Martin?”
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