by Jane Arbor
‘Not while she’s got this fool thing about “older men”. I suppose you know she’s carrying a torch for that uncle figure, Erle Nash? I tried to laugh her out of it once, by telling her she’d only got a yen for him because he was a sugar-daddy who was out of reach. But she said that was all I knew; that he kissed her when they went riding together and that he’d welcome her at his apartment any time. Is that true? Does she go to his rooms?’
Remembering the evidence of Cicely’s compact in Erle’s desk-drawer, Ruth felt a little sick. ‘Neither of them has ever told me so,’ she said.
‘Well, would they, if—?’ Jeremy doubted. ‘I mean—sorry if he’s a friend of yours, but he is supposed to have a reputation, isn’t he?’
Ruth took him up on that. ‘Either you think Erle is out of Cicely’s reach, or you suspect him of playing around with her. You can’t have it both ways. I’ll certainly ask her if she’s ever been to his apartment alone, but I think she’ll say No.’
‘Then why did she tell me she had?’ said Jeremy unarguably as they reached the shop Ruth was going to, and they parted.
When Ruth put her question there was a moment’s pause. Then Cicely said ‘No’ convincingly.
‘Well, I met Jeremy this morning, and he says you told him you were always welcome there,’ Ruth told her.
‘Oh well—’ Cicely’s shrug admitted it. ‘What if I did? He’d insulted me, so I let him have it. Anyway, if he wants to know anything about me now, why doesn’t he come and ask me himself?’
‘Would you be glad to see him if he did?’
‘No.’
Which exchange, whatever it did for Jeremy’s chances, satisfied Ruth that Cicely’s denial had been the truth and that her boast to Jeremy had been so much empty air. There was still the mystery of the compact, but Ruth decided against appearing to throw doubt on the girl by confronting her with it.
So matters rested until, returning one evening from giving a late lesson, Ruth found that Cicely was still out. There was nothing remarkable in that, if she could have been with Jeremy or Vivien, or had left a note saying where and with whom she was and when she expected to be back. But there was no note. Ruth looked at her watch. It was nearly ten o’clock and it was dark. Ruth made herself a light meal and ate uneasily, sitting on the edge of her chair.
Whom could she ring for advice or in search of Cicely? Erle, obviously. The Slades. Zeppe Sforza’s home? Cicely’s French girl-friend had gone home a week or two ago, so she was ‘out’. The Casa? No, Cicely couldn’t have got there without the car and she wouldn’t have gone at night. Anyone else?
Before she rang anybody, Ruth went to see if, by elimination, she could find out how Cicely had dressed. The answer seemed most likely to be wedge-heeled evening sandals, velvet evening slacks, and the embroidered halter-top she usually wore with the latter. So she was not in day clothes and in that rig must have gone by taxi. But where?
Ruth’s call to Erle’s apartment elicited no answer. Next she rang his office, expecting no result, and got none. When she rang the Slades’ pensione Vivien came to the telephone. She was concerned but surprised that Ruth should ask. Neither of them had seen Cicely, as Ruth must know, since the night of her birthday. Jeremy was out, but Vivien knew where he was and Cicely certainly wasn’t with him.
Ruth cradled the receiver. Where next? The police? The hospitals? She rejected the idea for the moment. She would ring Erle again—and again. He must go home some time, though she feared it might be in the small hours. Meanwhile, Cicely would surely come back safely; apologetic, Ruth hoped, but with some reasonable excuse.
A second and a third call to Erle were both abortive. Ruth fidgeted about the flat, listening, tensed, for every car which sounded as if it might be stopping. None did, at her door. The time became eleven o’clock; half-past; midnight. Vivien called back once to see if Cicely had returned, and then, much later, the telephone rang again.
Ruth snatched at it. It was Jeremy, his voice staccato, sounding annoyed.
‘I was in bed,’ he said. ‘The night porter had to bring me to the phone. Cicely—’
‘Cicely? Wh—where?’
‘At Erle Nash’s apartment.’
‘But—but she can’t be! I’ve rung there more than once and there’s been no reply!’
Well, that’s where she is. Says she’s been there all evening, and they’re having a whale of a time.’
‘I don’t believe it! And why should she ring you?’
‘To get even, is my guess. She knew I didn’t believe her when she said she was on—those terms with him, and I suppose she wanted to show me, and made it nearly one o’clock in the morning as sure proof.’
Ruth said, ‘I’m sure she can’t be there with Erle. He wouldn’t have kept her until this hour.’
‘He may think you know where she is, and so wouldn’t worry.’
‘He’d still answer his own telephone.’
‘You’d think so,’ Jeremy agreed. Then, ‘I ought to warn you that Cicely sounded a bit—odd.’
‘How—odd?’
‘As if—Well, her words were a bit slurred, and she was giggling.’ Jeremy sounded embarrassed.
Ruth took his meaning. ‘Oh no!’ she breathed. ‘Erle can’t have allowed her to—’ She broke off. ‘I’m going round there,’ she said.
‘At this hour? Do you want someone with you?’
‘No. Go back to bed. I shall go in the car. It’ll be something I can do, instead of sitting about and worrying myself sick. Goodnight, and thank you, Jeremy. I’ll ring you in the morning.’
There was still plenty of traffic in the streets. On summer nights Rome never slept. As Ruth drove, though her worry was uppermost, she knew that, for all her protestations to Jeremy, she was almost equally revulsed by the fear that she might indeed find Erle and Cicely together, both of them in a state of no particular concern for her. For one thing, how could Cicely possibly be in Erle’s apartment if he weren’t there? She couldn’t have got in.
When Ruth reached the building the mystery deepened. To her knocks on the door of Erle’s flat there was no answer and no sound from within. Back in the street again, she reconnoitred; none of the windows on that level was lighted. At last she drove back by the way she had come, garaged the car, and was using her key on her own door when it was opened from within and Erle stood there, a figure of granite.
‘Where’ve you been?’ he demanded.
Too taut with anxiety to show relief at sight of him, Ruth retorted, ‘And where have you? I’ve been over to your apartment. Where’s Cicely?’
‘In bed.’ He stood aside to allow Ruth to pass, and closed the door behind her.
‘In bed?’
‘Sleeping it off.’
‘Sleeping what off?’ But Ruth thought she knew.
‘Her flirtation with my drinks cabinet. She knows her limit is about one glass of rose, but she seems to have had herself a ball.’
‘And you let her? How could you?’ Ruth accused.
‘Let her?’ he exploded. ‘I wasn’t there!’
‘You must have been! Otherwise how could she—? And you’ve brought her home, haven’t you?’
‘Oh—! He made a gesture of exasperation. ‘Come up, and I’ll give it to you—in words of one syllable, if necessary.’
He followed her up into the living-room, where she took off a cape she had flung over her shoulders, and turned to face him.
‘Now,’ she said belligerently, ‘you invited Cicely for the evening; you may or may not have known she didn’t tell me where she was going, but you let her drink too much; you let your telephone ring, and whether or not you were there all the time, you must have been there some of it, because she couldn’t have got in otherwise.’
Erle’s small push on her shoulder surprised her; it thrust her down into a chair. He remained standing.
‘That’s all you know,’ he said. ‘At some time or another I must have told Cicely that my woman goes back in the evening, to cook f
or me if I’m going to be in or to lay the table and leave something for me in the fridge if I’m not sure. Tonight Cicely arrived, says she persuaded Maria that I was expecting her, and when Maria left, Cicely stayed on. That would have been—’
‘Something before ten, which was when I came home,’ supplied Ruth.
‘Oh, long before ten. She admits to have been there for nearly five hours, waiting for me. Expecting me every minute and afraid it might be you, looking for her, she didn’t answer the telephone when it rang two or three times. She mixed her drinks well on an empty stomach, trying a little of everything I’d got and not liking any of it except a creme de cacao liqueur which tasted of chocolate. I, incidentally, was dining Parioli, and after taking her home, got back about half an hour ago to find Cicely drowsy and maudlin. And if you think I roused her with a Sleeping Beauty kiss, you’re wrong. I shook her awake and got the story out of her. Then I brought her home—your car and mine must have crossed on the way—and manoeuvred her to the point of bed if not actually into it.’
‘Did she tell you,’ Ruth asked, ‘that well after midnight she rang Jeremy Slade to tell him that you and she were whooping it up together?’
‘I tell you,’ Erle reiterated, ‘I wasn’t back until around one o’clock. Anyway, why should she do that?’
‘To impress him, Jeremy thought. He rang me to tell me where she was. And even if’—reaction from strain was working Ruth up—‘even though she laid on the whole thing herself, you’re not entirely without blame, you know.’
‘Indeed? How come?’
‘You should know. I’ve told you. You’ve encouraged her, flattered her, kissed her; dropped her flat for a while after I’d protested. You—you turn charm on and off like a light. You use it on people.’
‘And on whom do I practise this electric exercise?’
‘On Cicely, for one. And she can’t take it. She lets herself believe all it seems to say. So she thinks she has only to show willing, and you’ll take it further.’
‘And make herself a thorough-paced nuisance to all concerned. Look—tonight it was on the cards whether, before taking Parioli home, I took her first to my place to collect an opera score she’d lent me. What would she have thought of finding Cicely there?’
‘I daresay you could have reassured her. After all, it’s a hazard you must have encountered before now.’
Erle’s expression hardened. ‘And what the merry andrew do you mean by that?’ he demanded.
‘Well, you make so little secret of the number of strings to your bow that you must expect to get your lines crossed sometimes.’ Quite reckless now, Ruth added, ‘And while we’re on the subject, this isn’t the first time you’ve had Cicely in your apartment, is it?’
‘Alone—the only time she has been there was tonight.’
‘Then how did she manage to leave her powder compact there? A blue enamel-and-silver square—I saw it in a drawer of your desk the morning you asked me to breakfast.’
Erle’s stare was hostile. ‘You saw it there, and you hadn’t the honesty to ask me about it?’
‘I’ve never asked Cicely either.’
‘Why not?’
‘I—didn’t want to watch either of you lying.’
‘But you didn’t forgive us. You stored it up, making a canker of it. I wish you were of an age to be made to write out the “Honi soit qui mal y pense” bit a hundred times. It might teach you charity. In fact, I found that thing in my car one day; threw it in that drawer, meaning to return it to Cicely, and forgot it until now. Does that satisfy your moral fears, Mrs. Grundy?’
Ruth flared at that. ‘You put Cicely in my charge, and it’s not grundyism to care what happens to her!’
‘Well, she’s in no danger from me, and never has been. I refuse to shoulder blame for her adolescent crazes—they’ll have to bum themselves out. I don’t collect scalps—of teenagers or anyone else—for the sake of counting them on my belt. I look for some poise and balance in the women I cultivate as my friends, of whom, incidentally, I thought you were one. Seems I was wrong. Or perhaps it is that the most stable of women can call on the vituperation of a fishwife when they have a grievance and a whipping-boy handy. Up to men to make allowances, I suppose.’
His tone withered Ruth’s like a frost. ‘You don’t have to make allowances for me,’ she said. ‘When I’m in the wrong, I’m not above making my own amends. I’m sorry I misjudged you on both counts. But the evidence I had tonight seemed against you, and up to date that other time, I think your encouragement of Cicely had given me cause.’
She waited. But when he didn’t offer her any matching generosity of his own, she stood up. ‘Will you go now, please? Before I go to bed myself, I’d like to see that Cicely is asleep and comfortable.’
As she moved towards it, he put himself between her and the door. ‘I hope you’ll do nothing of the sort,’ he said. ‘Leave her alone. You’ve had your say with me; your rocket for her can wait until the morning.’
‘I wasn’t going to—’ Ruth protested. But not waiting for her to finish, he turned on his heel and left her.
The street door slammed, the car moved off, and Ruth stood, fighting the lump in her throat which threatened to well up in tears of strain and unwonted self-pity and regret for something lost to her which she could have kept, if only she had bridled her tongue. Erle’s regard.
After a difficult scene with Cicely Ruth exerted her authority by insisting that Cicely should ring Jeremy herself.
‘I promised to,’ Ruth told her. ‘But you’ll do it instead.’
Cicely grumbled, ‘Why should I?’
‘To apologise for getting him out of bed in the middle of the night to tell him a pack of lies,’ Ruth replied crisply. But she thought it tactful to absent herself when Cicely went to the telephone and Cicely didn’t volunteer what had passed between Jeremy and herself.
That evening, from Erle to Cicely there were flowers—a tight posy of pink rosebuds—which she dismissed as ‘the least he could do after the way he treated me last night’, but which Ruth suspected she was willing to take as his closing of an incident she was only too glad to forget. There was no message for Ruth, and the next news they had of him was a telephone call, which Cicely took, to say that he was flying to New York that night and would be in touch when he came back.
While Cicely was not seeing Jeremy, she was willing to give more time to ‘culture’ and Italian lessons from Ruth. But on a morning when Ruth had planned a visit to the art galleries of the Casina Borghese, Cicely asked diffidently, ‘Would you mind very much if I went sketching with Jeremy in the Trastevere instead? We could go to the Casina any other time, couldn’t we?’
‘Why yes,’ Ruth said, and then, ‘When did you two make it up?’
‘I don’t know that we have. He’ll have to watch his step. But he and Vivien were having coffee at the next table on Vittorio Veneto yesterday, and he came and asked me, and I said Yes, if you were willing. So shall I go?’
‘Do,’ said Ruth. ‘The El Grecos and the Titians and the Rubens have been in the Casina for a good many years now, and I daresay they can wait a bit longer.’
That same morning, while Cicely was out, Vivien Slade called to see Ruth. ‘Jeremy doesn’t know about this,’ Vivien said. ‘But he wouldn’t go riding at the Casa while Cicely was off him, in case they should meet there. And now he’d like to go again, he won’t ask her if you’d give us a lift again, for fear she’d snub him. So I decided to ask you myself. Only need you tell Jeremy I did? I mean, could you ask us—sort of out of the blue, you know?’
Ruth laughed. The intrigues of the young, designed to ‘save face’! ‘Of course,’ she told Vivien. ‘I’ll ring you tonight and suggest we go over tomorrow. Will that do?’
‘Oh, thanks,’ said Vivien. And then, ‘By the way, did you know that the Casa was to be sold?’
‘Yes. Cesare Fonti told me some time ago.’
‘And that Erle Nash has bought it?’
&nb
sp; Ruth’s head jerked up in surprise. ‘Erle? No! How do you know?’
‘It was in the paper this morning. Just a paragraph. What paper do you take? It’ll probably be in yours too.’
Ruth said, ‘La Gazzetta. But it isn’t delivered. We collect it, and I haven’t been out. What did yours say?’
‘Just that he was “understood to have acquired” the Casa Rienzi for an “unnamed sum in the region of”— oh, I don’t remember, but billions of lire, and then a bit of history about the Casa, and that was all. But I’d have thought you’d know,’ said Vivien.
Ruth shook her head. ‘It must have only just gone through. Erle is in New York now, and as Cicely twisted her ankle and couldn’t ride, we haven’t been to the Casa for a fortnight. But I’ll ring you, and if Jeremy is willing, we’ll all go over tomorrow, and Cesare will tell me, I’m sure. Wait. If you’re going, I’ll come with you and collect my paper. I’d like to see what it says.’
Evidently the item of news had been syndicated, for the wording in La Gazzetta was identical with Vivien’s version, as far as it had gone. Ruth’s first puzzled reaction was to wonder why Erle should be interested in buying the Casa at all; her second, to wonder how the sale would affect Cesare’s future.
But this even Cesare did not know. When the three youngsters had gone off with the groom, he said, ‘I’d been waiting to let you know that it was Erle who was in the market for the place, and now the sale has gone through.’
‘He hasn’t mentioned his interest in it to us. Why do you suppose he bought it?’ asked Ruth.
Cesare shrugged. ‘As an investment, perhaps. He could more than treble his money any time, if he sold or developed the grounds for building. Although—’
Ruth cut in, ‘But how will you stand? Is he willing to renew your lease?’
‘He won’t say either way yet. He is within his rights of course, until my lease does run out in the autumn. I shall press him to let me know before then, but he can’t throw me out until then.’
Ruth remembered the point at which she had interrupted earlier. You began to say “Although—something”,’ she prompted Cesare.