by Teresa Crane
Fresh from the recollections of those childhood summers she would not let him see her flinch at the brisk brutality of that. ‘He may be. But he may not. And if he were alive, had Grandmother not made these provisions the house would have been divided between us. By law, you see. And she didn’t want that. She wanted me to have it.’
‘Us,’ Arthur said.
‘Yes. Of course. Us.’
There was a small and slightly dangerous silence. Carrie glanced at her husband’s face unable to disguise her open anxiety. It was Tuesday. Above all things she did not want to anger him. She would surely suffer for it later if she did. A small, unpleasant sensation, something between fear and aversion, twisted in her stomach. ‘Would you like some more tea?’
He shook his head. ‘So, tell me about this mumbo jumbo again.’
Carrie sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I really can’t remember all the legal terms he used. Something like usu frutto was one, I remember – and there was something else—’ She felt the colour rising in her face as he lifted sharp, impatient eyes to hers. ‘Anyway, what it means is that Grandmother gave the property into the hands of someone else, a close friend of hers. He, I assume it’s a he – Mr Bagshaw didn’t know exactly who it was – held the house in trust whilst Uncle Henry lived there. Now I have to pay a small sum of money and, according to Grandmother’s wishes, the house becomes mine. Ours,’ she amended, hastily.
‘What an unutterable shambles.’ Distaste for foreigners and all their works was in his precise voice.
‘Yes, Arthur. I’m sorry.’
He leaned forward, poked a long, large-knuckled finger at her. ‘Tell me this: what is to stop this, this so-called friend from keeping the place, eh? Eh? What makes you think he’ll let it go now he’s got his hands on it?’ He nodded sharply, an oddly smug gesture. ‘You tell me that.’
Carrie folded her hands in her lap. Glanced down at them. Small sallow-skinned paws, undistinguished and unladylike. Her wedding ring, that had been Arthur’s mother’s, hung loose and heavy upon her finger. ‘I don’t know, Arthur. Truly I don’t. All I know is what Mr Bagshaw told me. He said I would have to go to Lucca, to Grandmother’s Italian lawyer, and he would put me in touch with the person who’s holding the house for me.’ She lifted her shoulder a little, flicked a glance at him, decided against calling attention to her slip by correcting it. ‘It apparently isn’t an unusual arrangement in Italy.’
‘I’m sure it isn’t,’ Arthur said, repressively. He sat for a moment, thoughtful, a strong nail clicking against his teeth. Carrie watched him warily. ‘The house,’ he said at last, ‘it must be worth something?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘This Bagshaw, he didn’t have any idea how much?’
She shook her head.
‘And the contents?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know if there are any. The house has been empty for months. And Uncle Henry – well, you know he wasn’t quite—’ she hesitated.
‘There was no “not quite” about it, my dear. From what I gather your uncle was as simple-minded as a two year old and there’s an end.’ There was another moment’s silence. When her husband straightened in his chair Carrie almost jumped. ‘I shall go to see this Bagshaw myself,’ Arthur said, firmly. ‘I’ll get the right of it from him. We shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Inconvenient it might be, but the thing must be worth something and we might as well have the benefit of it. Yes. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll see the man myself.’
‘Yes Arthur. Of course.’
‘If worse comes to worst – who knows? – perhaps I’ll take some time from the bank and accompany you to Italy. Could make something of a jaunt of it.’
The small, subversive spark of hope that had been kindled that afternoon flickered and died. ‘Yes, Arthur.’
He stood up, came to the chair, laid a bony hand upon her shoulder. ‘And Carrie—’
She looked up. A faint, dark colour had lifted in his long face. ‘It’s Tuesday, my dear. You won’t forget to bathe, will you?’
She shook her head, numbly. ‘No, Arthur. I won’t forget.’
*
Arthur arrived home from his interview with Mr Bagshaw in chancy temper. ‘Pompous ass. The man’s an incompetent idiot.’
‘Oh?’ Carrie lifted her head, added mildly, ‘I thought he was quite nice.’
‘You think everyone’s nice, Carrie.’ The comment was not intended as a compliment and Carrie did not take it as such.
Arthur paced the room thoughtfully, hands clasped behind his back. ‘He absolutely insists that this ridiculous arrangement has to stand. We have to go to Italy. It really is very inconvenient.’
‘Yes, Arthur.’
‘I don’t know how much time I can get off from the bank.’
‘No. I realise that. It must be very difficult.’
‘Blasted idiots.’
‘Who?’
‘The Italians. Napoleon conquers them, imposes his laws, and here we are a hundred years later still suffering them. A totally foolish system that does nothing but break up the holdings of a family—’
‘I think that was what it was designed to do.’
He ignored her interruption – ‘and instead of changing the law they find devious ways around it. It’s absurd.’
She smiled the smallest of smiles. ‘It’s Italian,’ she said.
He had come to rest in front of the fireplace, rocking a little on his heels, looking into the flames. ‘Three to four weeks, Bagshaw said.’
‘Yes. That was what he told me. And there’s the house to clear, if we’re going to sell it. If there is anything left it may take longer.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t take that amount of time off from the bank, of course. Even if I could get permission Cranshaw would be bound to take advantage of such a long absence.’
She sat very still, hardly daring to move. Hope whispered, and stirred again.
He clicked his tongue in sharp irritation.
Carrie reached calmly for another skein of wool.
He turned again, paced to the window. Stopped, his eye caught by a small, brightly painted china bowl. He contemplated it, frowning a little. ‘This is new, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. I found it in the market. The little stall in the corner that sells second-hand goods.’ Collectedly she arranged the wool, teased the end from the skein.
‘Second-hand?’ The word expressed distaste. ‘How much did you pay for it?’
‘One and sixpence.’ In some part of her heart she marvelled; how easily, how automatically, she lied. ‘I thought it quite a bargain. It’s pretty, don’t you think?’
‘At the price, I suppose so.’ He picked it up, turned it in his hands, set it back absently upon the table. ‘There must surely be someone we can call upon?’
‘Call upon?’
‘To accompany you. Perfectly obviously it is out of the question that you should travel alone to Italy. And as for coping with an Italian lawyer—’ he shook his head sharply.
She contemplated him with tranquil eyes. The rage that suddenly shook her quite genuinely surprised her. ‘There’s no one,’ she said, quietly. ‘Arthur, it seems the choice is clear. Either I go alone, or I don’t go at all. If I go, the house is ours, and we can keep it or sell it as you see fit. If I don’t go, then presumably Grandmother’s friend benefits. As I say, it’s a simple choice.’ She picked up the wool and shook it, separating the strands. ‘It seems a pity to let such a chance for profit go.’ She saw, as she had so often seen lately, the house and the garden, dreaming in the soft Tuscan sunshine. ‘It may not be worth a fortune, but it surely must be worth something?’
Fretfully he turned. ‘But, Carrie – my dear – how will you manage?’
To be strictly honest, the same question had occurred to her, many times. ‘I have made the journey before, as a child. I’m sure it can’t be too difficult. And of course there’s a large English community in Bagni di Lucca. I’m sure I’ll find someone r
eady to help when I get there. Grandmother – and Uncle Henry – must have had friends and contacts in the village.’ She watched him, covertly, her breath suspended; saw the battle between greed and propriety, between the desire for profit and the desire to keep her here, under his eye. Saw, suddenly and certainly, the moment that avarice won. She lowered her eyes and waited.
He clicked his fingers suddenly. ‘Thomas Cook,’ he said. ‘Of course, that’s the ticket! Thomas Cook. They’ll arrange everything for you, I’m sure.’
‘Yes. I’m sure they would.’ Freedom. A few, precious weeks of freedom. Freedom from number 11 Barrymore Walk. Freedom from Arthur’s parsimony, his constant, critical attention. Freedom from the tyranny of Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
‘You’ll have to be careful about what you spend. I can’t afford to let you have much, you know that.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘You’ll presumably live in the house, that will save hotel bills.’
‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘Of course.’
‘With the travelling time – three weeks, the man said.’
‘He did say it might take a little longer.’
‘Three weeks should certainly be enough.’ His voice was firm.
She said nothing.
‘Once the place is legally ours you can come home. We can sell it from England.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well.’ He rubbed his long hands together. ‘That’s settled.’
Carrie bent her head. Smoothed the material of her skirt over her knees. ‘Yes,’ she said again.
‘I’ll go into Cook’s for you tomorrow. See what I can arrange.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Your grandmother might have been a rather strange old bird, but she was a character, and Bagshaw tells me she wasn’t ill thought of in some circles.’
‘No.’
‘Her bits and pieces might fetch something.’
She took a small, steadying breath. Repressed rage could so easily become a stab of hatred. ‘We don’t know that there’s anything there.’
‘No, of course not. But if there is – well she had enough contacts in the artistic world to make it worth while trying.’ He looked at her then, sharply, almost in irritation. ‘I don’t like this, you know. I don’t like the thought of your going off on your own. I shall worry about you.’
‘I’ll manage, Arthur. I’m sure I’ll manage.’ She lifted her head, smiling. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
*
Arthur, as always with good sense and practicality on his side, decided for her that it was not appropriate to travel in the worst of the winter months. Letters were written, arrangements made. March. She would go to Italy in late March.
The knowledge shone in her head, in her heart, like a lamp in darkness.
March. In March I’ll go to the Italian house again. Alone. She gazed at the pictures in the boxroom, picked over the newly aroused and precious memories – not just of the Villa Castellini but of the family house in Hampstead, forever associated with Christmas, forever associated with her grandmother, Beatrice Swann, dead now these ten years yet still vivid in her mind. Vivid too, she suspected, in the mind of anyone who had known her. The Hampstead house was gone, sold many years before the war, when Beatrice’s carelessly managed money had begun to run out. Carrie’s own mother Victoria had bewailed that loss. Carrie remembered it still. ‘What on earth does Mother think she’s doing? For goodness’ sake, where will we go if she doesn’t keep the Hampstead house? She can’t – she surely can’t – be thinking of living in Italy? Not even she could be thinking of that!’
But, characteristically, that was exactly what she had done, with Henry, her handsome eldest, handicapped and best-loved son. And then, for Carrie, there had followed those summers, magical times of sunshine and delight, spiced by her cousin Leo’s beguiling and perilous presence and blessed by the gleam of her grandmother’s capricious interest — the child had always hesitated to call it love — occasionally blithely and impulsively intent, usually absent-minded, always sought-after.
Then all had changed; Beatrice had died unexpectedly in 1912, leaving Henry to live in the Villa Castellini alone. And then, suddenly and shockingly, the war had come; and with it privation, young adulthood, her mother’s sickness, and the terrible responsibility that it had brought. Leo – his father, her Uncle john, dead a mere two years after his mother – had disappeared into the trenches with so very many of the country’s young men, and she had heard neither from him nor of him since. Italy had seemed a lost world away. Carrie had been eighteen years old when the war had ended, living hand to mouth in a rented apartment in Islington with a demanding and querulous invalid of a mother and very little money. Arthur Stowe’s correct and conventional attentions had offered an escape that her mother had been firm in accepting on her daughter’s behalf. Carrie, never a fighter, always anxious to please, had acquiesced. What else was there to do?
And now, by some quirk, perhaps some remembered regard, some tie of blood, the Italian house had come to her. She would see it again, this one last time, wander its rooms, explore its gardens. Without Arthur. Her one adventure in an unadventurous life. She would come back to Hastings, to Arthur, and to the bank, she knew it. Nothing would change. Not in the long run. How could it? But at least she would have a memory. A dream, of sorts, to sustain and protect her.
In late March 1923, her outward calm concealing an apprehensive excitement that dried her mouth and unsettled her stomach, she allowed Arthur to install her in a ‘Ladies Only’ carriage, fuss about her luggage and her tickets, oppress her with a stream of last-minute instructions and orders and then sat quite still, watching his tall, gaunt figure recede as the boat-train pulled out of a noisy, steam-filled Victoria Station.
She often wondered, afterwards, where she had found the courage not to return his wave.
Chapter Two
When she thought about it later Carrie supposed that she should have foreseen that the journey, that started with so much anticipation, might end as something of a nightmare. On grounds of economy Arthur had eschewed the efficiency – as he saw it – of the Belgian and German rail networks and had opted for the French, which were cheaper if a little slower; the extra cost of a sleeper had predictably outraged him, but not even he could bring himself to suggest that Carrie sit up all night. He had booked her a second-class ticket through France to Switzerland and then on to Milan and to Parma, where she would change to the branch line that ran through the mountains to Bagni di Lucca. It was a route that, in the summer, was much frequented by the British going to Bagni to take the waters; but this, of course, was March.
The crossing to Calais was stormy; Carrie never forgot that first acquaintance with the wretched embarrassment of seasickness. The boat was late; by the time they were ready to board the train the cold afternoon was darkening. Still feeling wretchedly queasy she settled into her corner seat and resigned herself to the relentless chatter of her apparently inescapable travelling companions; for by this time the Pilkingtons had found her.
They had sat opposite her as Arthur had fussed and advised and settled her into her seat at Victoria, the three of them the only occupants of the carriage. She had studiously managed to avoid the woman’s small, inquisitive eyes for the first twenty minutes of the journey; it was with a sinking heart that she had returned the beaming smile that the first crossing of glances brought forth. The plump, middle-aged woman leaned forward confidingly. ‘I see you’re travelling alone, my dear. How very brave of you.’
Carrie’s smile grew, if possible, fainter. ‘Not really. It was – unavoidable.’
‘How far are you going? To Calais? You have relatives there, perhaps?’
Carrie shook her head. ‘I have to go to Italy for—’ she hesitated ‘for family reasons.’
‘Italy! Clarence, did you hear that? The lamb is going to Italy all alone!’ The woman settled in her seat, cosily. ‘Well, my dear, at least we can accompa
ny you as far as Switzerland. We’re going to Lucerne, you see, to visit friends – very dear friends – the Peter Thorncrofts, Doctor Peter Thorncroft that is. He and Clarence were in practice together before they retired, weren’t you Clarence? As a matter of fact, my dear, I remarked to Clarence on the marked physical resemblance between your husband – he was your husband, I take it? – and Doctor Thorncroft. Remarkable. Really quite remarkable. Wasn’t it, Clarence? Didn’t I say…?’
Her voice, Carrie found herself thinking, was like the sound of cutlery clattering in a sink, loud, soulless and sharp.
‘And you’re going to Italy! All alone. Well, my dear, I must say you have my admiration. Why, I never stir a step without Clarence. Do I, Clarence?’
Her name was Milly. They had three children, two boys and a girl, all properly and advantageously married, all with offspring – Carrie had admired endless photographs long before they reached the grey, storm-tossed Channel. They lived in Maidstone. Their house had four bedrooms, three reception rooms and a newly modernised kitchen. They had two cats and what sounded like a decidedly ill-behaved spaniel. Mrs Pilkington was a stalwart of the Women’s Institute, the Tory Party and the local bridge club. Carrie smiled, and nodded, and contemplated in some despair the prospect of this ordeal all the way to Switzerland. The one relief afforded by the dreadful crossing was that Milly Pilkington was as incapacitated as anyone. The moment she stepped on to dry land, however, she was her unrelentingly loquacious self again. ‘Honestly, my dear — the French! The French! We never set foot in the country without some contretemps.’ She beamed happily at her own aptness. ‘Do we, Clarence?’
Carrie actually rather liked Clarence; she imagined that had they had a chance to exchange more than three or four words at a time they might have constructed an interesting conversation. But Milly was unflagging. She complained about the trains. She complained about the sleeping accommodation, which admittedly was less than comfortable; she complained – at length and vociferously – about the toilet facilities. She complained about the food, that Carrie actually rather liked. As in the dusk the countryside of France streamed past the window, and as Carrie tried to watch it, beguiled by the vast, rural landscapes, the tiny villages, the odd, intriguing sight of a château nestling, slate-roofed, amidst groves of trees and the roll of picturesque parkland, Milly talked, mercilessly. She was last into her narrow bunk and first out of it in the morning. She talked all the way through breakfast.