by Jane Arbor
Even in Italian Ruth found Cesare easy to talk to. As it had been easy to talk to Alec. As it wasn’t always with Erle, with whom she felt that both their talk and their silences were a kind of duel; even that he enjoyed it that way. She doubted whether she and Erle could have sat for an hour, as now, chatting mostly in agreement, without a single clash of verbal swords.
When she worried aloud that the other two had been a long time away, Cesare said, ‘That’s Erle. Anyone who rides with him has to go at his pace and for the time he chooses. That is the secret of his success, I sometimes think—he expects and demands that people strain every nerve to give their best.’
‘How well do you know him?’ Ruth asked.
‘Well enough to know that he hasn’t much use for amateurs or laggards; nor for women who don’t add anything to his public image or his self-esteem.’
Ruth commented drily, ‘You make him sound as if he’d need to be specially kind to his grandmother or to animals, to be a tolerable character at all.’
Cesare laughed. ‘Do I? I think it is that I see him whole—warts and all, as they say, but envy him a little for a steel that I haven’t got. It is, as they say also, as simple as that.’
When at last Cicely and Erle appeared, Cicely was prettily radiant. She patted the neck of her mount lovingly and went with Cesare to see both horses rubbed down and stabled. Erle and Ruth went down to his car to wait for her.
His arm crooked over the wheel, Erle half-turned in his seat. ‘Well, do you recognise the signs this time?’ he asked.
‘What signs?’ But Ruth was afraid she could guess. ‘The kitten-with-the-cream smug look, of course. About Cicely.’
‘You’re telling me that you’ve kissed her while you were out?’
‘No less.’
‘Was that quite—fair?’
‘She wanted me to, it was written all over her. What was unfair about my doing it?’
‘Because you must know how vulnerable she is to you.’
‘No more than to as many other males as want to kiss her for her pleasure and theirs. As the Latin grammars have it, she is “meet to be kissed” and who am I to slap her ego in the face by turning her down?’
Angry now, Ruth retorted, ‘Who are you? I’ll tell you. You’re a man who’s twice her age and should know better than to encourage her. She’s at the stage where she wants to be kissed seriously, or not at all.’
‘Phooey. She wants to be kissed, full stop.’
‘I don’t agree. Nowadays they grow up sooner than we—we did, and at seventeen, which Cicely nearly is, they can be jealous and hurt, and they long to know a man is serious—you, for instance, when on your own showing you’re just having fun.’
‘Not just having fun. Saving her face as well.’
‘At the price of a lot of pain for her when she realises you aren’t serious and never were.’
Erle’s eyebrow lifted. ‘I declare you can make a mere kiss for a schoolgirl with a teenage crush sound like a plighted troth!’ he taunted.
‘At Cicely’s age she could delude herself it was a plighted troth.’
‘For heaven’s sake! How many engagements is she prepared to take on at one time? The Sforza boy kissed her the other night, didn’t he?’
‘You can’t know that he did.’
‘She told me so. So you see—as many kisses as she can collect, so many scalps for her belt, that’s all. She’s open to all the homage she can get, and no obligations on either side.’
Ruth said tartly, ‘I’d like to believe that. But you haven’t seen her jealousy over your other—commitments.’
‘My other commitments?’ His eyes narrowed into a hard stare. ‘For that sweeping statement you should be made to name six!’
She shrugged. ‘I’m only quoting your own words— that you enjoyed plenty of jam.’
He made a gesture of mock despair. ‘And to think I meant my little story to show that it’s possible to have a surfeit of jam!’
‘But you’re still willing to use it for your own ends.’ With an indiscretion quite foreign to her, Ruth added, ‘I think Signore Fonte is right about you—all your relationships have to add something to your image.’
‘In—deed?’ He drawled out the word. ‘One short afternoon in each other’s company and you get intimate enough to go into a huddle over your friends’ shortcomings. Quick work, I must say!’
‘It wasn’t a short afternoon. You and Cicely were away over two hours. And Signore Fonte—’
‘Oh, come! You must have got around to first names, surely?’
She ignored that. ‘—wasn’t critical of you. In fact he admires you for an ability to forward your career that he claims he hasn’t got himself.’ She broke off. ‘But this is a fruitless argument—we’re completely at odds, and all I ask is that you don’t hurt Cicely any more than you need.’
He straightened in his seat, touched an imaginary forelock. ‘Yes, ma’am. Noted, ma’am. But if you think I’m going to go all avuncular, with a long white beard—’ He stopped at sight of the other two, before they came into earshot. Cicely got into the back seat. ‘All shipshape and Bristol-fashion?’ he asked her.
‘Yes. Lovely. We’ll do it again, won’t we, Erle?’
‘Madam has only to command—’ He sketched a salute to Cesare and drove away.
At the gate to the road he gave way to allow another car to turn in. It stopped as it drew level. Stella Parioli, in an open-necked shirt and with a silk bandeau round her hair, was driving. She reached across to offer him a hand. ‘Leaving, Erle—just as I’m arriving? Can’t you turn round and ride with me?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, no. I’m playing chauffeur today, as you see.’
She thrust forward her lips in a little pout. ‘Too bad. Then tomorrow perhaps? I am free.’
‘Tomorrow—perhaps. I’ll have to ring you,’ he promised.
‘When? I’m dining out tonight.’
‘So am I. With Signora Gancia.’
‘With Clara Gancia? I didn’t know she was in Rome.’
‘I’m hoping to put her under contract for the winter opera season.’
‘Clara Gancia? Oh well—’ Stella Parioli tossed her head, ‘I suppose you know your own business best— ’
Clearly supposing nothing of the sort, she accelerated and drove away.
To no one in particular, as he set his own car in motion, Erle murmured, ‘Believe me, I do.’
CHAPTER THREE
Of all times of the day Ruth thought she loved Roman summer mornings best. Noons were fierce, afternoons frenzied and noisy and the lovely evenings had to compete with the glare of neons. But in the very early morning the city had an air of being clean-washed, the streets were empty and quiet as they never were later, and it was possible to hear every ‘plash plash’ of the three fountains which gave the Via Tre Fontane its name.
Cicely was no early riser and didn’t want to join Ruth when she walked in the Borghese Gardens before breakfast. So Ruth went alone, usually striking across the park to the wilder parts where it was possible to believe herself in the heart of the country. Here the sun penetrated the early mist in slanting rays between the trees. It made dazzle which could be temporarily blinding—which was why, on the morning that Ruth almost collided with a soft-shoed solitary runner, she did not realise that the runner was, of all unexpected people, Erle.
He was in running shorts and a thin silk T-shirt which hid nothing of his tan and the strong ripple of muscles of chest and shoulders. As he held her off from him with an outstretched hand, she thought—Funny that I should ever have wondered whether he might have gone to fat. His body is as fit and disciplined and male as when he used to win things at school sports ...
Then she was apologising, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t see you,’ and he was saying, ‘Why—aren’t I big enough?’
‘It was the sun.’ She stepped into shadow and got him in focus. ‘I’ve never seen you here before.’
‘No, I usually
use one of the parks nearer my place, Giulia or Balestra. Do you walk here often yourself?’
‘Fairly, on summer mornings. It clears away the cobwebs. But don’t let me stop you, please.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’d nearly finished the stint I allow myself.’ He fell into step beside her. ‘Is this before breakfast or after for you?’
‘Oh, before. Cicely wasn’t up.’
‘Then why not finish your own stint by walking back to the car with me and letting me give you breakfast? I parked at the Canestre entrance, so we’re on our way.’
Ruth hesitated. ‘Cicely will wonder where I am.’
‘She won’t for long, if she isn’t up yet. I’ll drive you back on the way to my office.’
‘You mean—at your apartment?’
He said drily, ‘That’s where I’m in the habit of breakfasting. And as with you, at this hour my neighbours can’t suspect me of having sinister designs upon you. Will you come?’
Wanting to accept—she had never visited his apartment—she said, ‘Thanks, I’d like to, as long as I’m out for not much longer than if I’d walked as far as usual.’
‘H’m—a tight schedule, but we’ll do our best. And I warn you, you’ll have to help to get breakfast. My daily woman doesn’t arrive until after I’ve left.’
When they reached his flat he asked if he could leave her to watch the coffee percolator, heat some rolls, and lay a tray for carrying out on to his tiny balcony, while he showered and changed.
‘If you’ll show me where I find things,’ said Ruth. There was something intimate and friendly about coping with his domestic chores, and after years of eating alone she was glad, as she had been when Cicely came, to breakfast opposite someone; to be able to pass the butter or to ask ‘More coffee?’ instead of reaching in silence for the dish or pot.
Erle might have read her thoughts, for as she poured coffee and gave him his cup, he remarked, ‘I must say there’s something to be said for certain aspects of marriage, such as breakfast for two as a matter of course.’
‘And someone to get it for you?’
He grinned. ‘Well, naturally! Though for the sake of something attractively feminine across the table I might settle for getting it myself now and then. But tell me,’ he was grave now, ‘don’t you ever miss the masculine touch yourself?’
She raised frank eyes to his. ‘Yes. Often,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry.’ His hand could just reach hers and it did in a momentary pressure. ‘Have you ever thought of remedying that?’
‘You mean—marrying again?’
‘Considering it.’
She shook her head. ‘Not seriously. It wouldn’t be the same.’
He took her up sharply. ‘But of course it wouldn’t be the same! You couldn’t want it to be. Every deep experience has to be new, not the copy of a prototype. For two different men you’d be different too. What was your husband like?’
How to describe Alec in a few words to another man? At last Ruth said, ‘Quiet. Modest. Considerate. Reliable as a rock.’
‘Then don’t look for another of his kind. For you’d either be disappointed or for ever be drawing comparisons.’
She poured herself some more coffee. ‘I’m not “looking”,’ she said with a finality which he seemed to recognise as he let the argument go.
Presently he asked, ‘How goes Cicely’s affair with the Sforza boy?’
Ruth smiled self-consciously. ‘I rather think it’s off,’ she admitted.
‘Off?’ Erle’s chuckle was one of triumph. ‘What did I tell you? You’d have me believe in her grand passion for me, and she’s nothing but a butterfly on the flit! Who is the object of her latest amour, then?’
‘It isn’t an amour. She treats this one as cavalierly as she did Zeppe Sforza. He’s an English boy, here with his sister. He’s an artist and he takes her sketching. She shows talent too. She’s done an awfully good one of the Spanish Steps—’
Erle cut in, ‘You’re talking for talking’s sake. Simply to avoid having to eat your own words. Three of us in as many weeks! And to think I half listened to you and have avoided the child!’
Cornered, Ruth took refuge in attack. ‘And that hasn’t been kind of you either. She’s worried since as to whether she’s offended you, and if so, how.’
‘Well, really!’ he protested. ‘If I see her, I’m to curb my natural instincts to flatter a pretty girl, and if I don’t, I’m being brutal. You can’t have it both ways, my dear Ruth, you really can’t!’
‘I only asked you not to encourage her. I know she probably tries to set the pace.’
‘And that’s something you should learn about me. In dealings with your sex, I set my own pace or it isn’t set at all.’
‘And that’s pretty arrogant of you,’ said Ruth, though she wondered, remembering Stella Parioli’s confident kiss for him. But she was relieved too, as it meant that if Cicely instigated some flirtatious nonsense with him, he had ways of dealing with it.
He shrugged. ‘Arrogant or not, it’s the way I tick,’ he said. Then, ‘By the way, though, mind you, I don’t admit you’re right about Cicely. Does she regard you as one of my “commitments”, ripe for her jealousy?’
Ruth’s eyes widened. ‘Me? Of course not. She has no cause—’
‘Then you can tell her you’ve been to breakfast with me, without creating a scene?’
‘But of course I can. Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Why not?’ he echoed casually, then looked at his watch. ‘Time I was moving. And you?’
‘Yes, quite.’ Ruth stacked the tray. ‘Do we wash up?’
‘Heavens, no. Maria will do it when she comes. I’ve just got to collect a few things.’
Ruth followed him through to the living room. When she came back from leaving the tray in the kitchen she could hear him in his bedroom. He had left two drawers of a desk wide open, and as she couldn’t pass without closing them, she closed the first and was about to close the second when she froze, staring at something that was half hidden by some papers lying on top of it.
It was a powder compact. She knew it well. Cicely had complained of having lost it—when? More than a week ago. But what was it doing here, in Erle’s apartment? Unless?
That ‘unless’ made Ruth a little sick. As far as she knew, Cicely, like herself, had been to Erle’s office, but never here. As far as she knew... But if Cicely had lost the thing on some clandestine visit here at Erle’s invitation, that would account for her lack of worry about it, after having mentioned casually that she had mislaid it. So when could she have been here? Some time when she claimed to have been sketching with Jeremy Slade? Oh, surely not!
But Erle was coming back, and full of doubts without any certainties, Ruth did the craven thing. She closed the drawer, leaving the compact where it was, and with every minute that passed knew that it was already too late to accuse him playfully, (‘Hey, what’s this doing here? How come?’) to which he might have a totally innocent answer. But again, might not, and that she shrank from knowing.
They went down to the car and she supposed she made some articulate conversation on the drive to her flat. She remembered hearing Erle say that he was flying to Vienna to finalise some artistes’ contracts with the State Opera, and his sending Cicely his love. And when she went in and told Cicely of her encounter with Erle without mentioning her find in almost the first breath, again it was too late to mention it at all.
Or was she pretending it was too late, when in fact it was that she didn’t want to learn the truth—about either of them? That Erle was lying when he claimed to have avoided Cicely? That Cicely, accused, would lose face and try to prevaricate? Or might they both laugh in her face, call her a frumpish out-of-date and claim that girls went to men’s apartments alone in these days without a second thought? No, she had to give them the benefit of the doubt; act as if nothing had happened to disturb her. That way she would forget it the sooner herself. And the sooner the better for her peace of mind
.
But she hadn’t reckoned with her watchfulness of everything Cicely said in relation to Erle. When Cicely grumbled, ‘He didn’t tell me he was going to Vienna,’ Ruth’s unspoken question was, When could he have told her, if they hadn’t met? Nor did she reckon with a rankling inner voice that wanted to know why she cared so much that they shouldn’t be lying to her; why it mattered to her that Erle shouldn’t cynically add Cicely to the list of his conquests that he didn’t take seriously enough for marriage to any of them. But she didn’t consciously answer the voice. For the answer had something to do with that awareness of Erle’s virility which she had experienced in the Gardens—like an electric current turned momentarily on, lighting a response within her which she thought had died with Alec. It also had something to do with envy of Cicely’s open wooing of his favour, and with Stella Parioli’s certainty of it. And the sum of all that was something she would have given a great deal to deny.
Ruth was to find that Erle’s advice to dilute the dose of culture for Cicely was sound. Also as he advised, she sent Cicely exploring on her own, finding she picked up more conversational Italian that way than she would in any formal lessons. Her use of it was neither wholly grammatical nor particularly elegant, but she made herself understood.
Between the ‘musts’ of architecture and art and antiquity that Ruth was firm Cicely must see, they went out once or twice a week to Cesare Fonte’s riding-school and Cicely persuaded Jeremy Slade and his sister Vivien to meet her there often for riding too. They would go off, a gay party of three, leaving Ruth willing to rest and relax in the garden or on the terrace of the Casa. Occasionally Cesare or a groom went with the riding-party, but mostly he allowed them to go alone, when, unless he was giving a lesson himself he would join Ruth and they would talk over a glass of wine. Agnese Fonte was not often in evidence, and her grim reserve was something of a dampener when she was.
Cesare and Ruth had enough in common for her sometimes to think that being with him was like being with Alec; to speculate on his age—he was probably younger than he looked—and to wonder why so nice a man shouldn’t have married yet. As far as she was concerned, he lighted no spark of physical attraction in her; she could have enjoyed the company of another friendly woman as much as she enjoyed his. What had Erle said of the marriage that he meant to forgo for his own ends? That it should be a ‘heady, distracting adventure’, and yes, it should be that and more. She remembered too his warning, right or wrong, that in a second marriage it would be disastrous to make comparisons between two men much of a kind.