The Italian House

by Teresa Crane

  ‘But did no one suspect? That Henry wasn’t Grandfather’s child?’

  Maria shrugged, looking into the distance. ‘Who knows? There is always gossip, in Bagni. Always talk.’

  There was another long silence. Then, ‘Leo wants me to marry him,’ Carrie said, quietly.

  The old woman’s head turned sharply. ‘No!’

  ‘I know. That’s what I said. But he doesn’t understand. He says it’s because I don’t love him.’

  ‘But you do? Still? You are sure?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes. But—’

  ‘You must not marry him.’ Maria leaned forward in her chair, her eyes fierce, ‘And you must not bear his child.’

  Startled and uncertain, Carrie stared at her.

  ‘The blood is bad. Is bad!’

  ‘No. Maria you mustn’t say that. I told you, Leo is himself, not his father—’ Carrie stopped, aghast. ‘His father,’ she repeated. ‘Henry. Beatrice and Leonard. Leonard’s death. That’s what John found out,’ she said, suddenly and flatly. ‘Wasn’t it? He discovered the story – read the journal? Somehow he found out about Henry and he blackmailed Beatrice – blackmailed his own mother! Oh, God, that is truly awful.’

  Maria’s face was set in grim lines. She said nothing.

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what happened? That’s why Beatrice – and you – hated John so much. That’s why you both went to such lengths to prevent Leo from inheriting any part of grandmother’s estate?’

  Still the woman neither moved nor spoke.

  ‘And if I marry him, all of that will have been for nothing.’ Tiredly she dropped her face into her cupped hands for a moment. ‘I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what to do.’

  ‘You must not marry him.’ The intensity of emotion in the words made Carrie flinch a little. ‘Is a sin!’

  ‘No! Oh, I don’t know—’

  ‘Your love is a sin,’ the old woman spoke more quietly now, watching her steadily.

  ‘No,’ Carrie said again, shaking her head fiercely. ‘No Maria, please don’t say that.’

  Maria sat back in her chair, folding her hands upon her lap. ‘If you marry him,’ she said, ‘you will be punished. As she was punished. Best to send him away. Best to let him go to his other woman.’

  ‘I can’t. Maria, don’t you understand? I love him. I love him so very much. And he loves me. I know he does. He wouldn’t go, even if I could bring myself to try to make him. And as for Angelique, he’s finished with her. He told me so.’

  The small eyes regarded her with something close to sympathy. ‘The woman has been seen again.’

  Carrie’s heart all but stopped. ‘In Bagni?’

  ‘Si.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Is true.’

  ‘I tell you I don’t believe you!’

  Maria made a small, dismissive movement, but said nothing.

  ‘You’re – you’re just trying to come between me and Leo. You’re trying to make me believe he lied to me, trying to make me distrust him. Aren’t you?’

  In reply, unexpectedly, the old woman held out her hand. Carrie took it, dropped to her knees beside her, searching the wrinkled face with unhappy eyes. ‘Maria, please don’t hate him so. I keep telling you, he isn’t his father. He’s himself. It isn’t his fault, what his father did, horrible though it was.’ She tightened her grip on the frail hand. ‘That was what happened, wasn’t it? John did discover Beatrice’s secret, and blackmailed her?’

  The woman nodded, once.

  ‘But how? How did he find out?’

  For a moment the woman did not answer. She took a long, sighing breath. ‘I told him,’ she said.

  Carrie stared, eyes and mouth wide. ‘You?’ she asked, faintly, ‘you told him?’

  ‘Si.’

  ‘But why? Why would you do such a thing?’

  The woman sat pensive for a moment, searching for words. ‘He was a young man of great – persuasion. He had a tongue that flattered. His words were soft, though his heart was black. He came one summer, when his mother was in London.’ Her thin-lipped mouth tightened, and her eyes glinted real anger. ‘He became my friend.’ There was a terrible bitterness in the word. ‘There had been, as I said, much gossip in the village, even for many years after. John heard it. He came to me, worried, he said, for his mother and his brother. Wanting to help. He brought wine. We talked. He was – what do you say? – he had much sympathy for his mother. He spoke of love, and of pain.’ The old woman laid her head back for a moment and closed her eyes. ‘I was a fool. I showed him the book.’

  ‘The journal?’

  ‘Yes. I wanted him to understand. As I wanted you to understand. How much they loved. And how great was the pain.’

  ‘And he used the information to extort money from Beatrice.’

  Maria nodded. Her eyes opened. ‘And now his son is here. In her house. With you.’

  ‘The sins of the fathers,’ Carrie said. ‘I never did understand that. And I won’t accept it now. Leo’s done nothing wrong. He didn’t even like his father.’ She stood up, still holding Maria’s hand. ‘Please try to understand. I love him.’

  The small, bony hand gripped hers. ‘Don’t marry him, child,’ Maria said. ‘Promise me.’

  Carrie shook her head, gently disengaged her hand. ‘I can’t do that. I can’t promise. I have to think.’

  She turned and walked to the door. Her hand on the latch she stopped, looked back at the old woman. ‘Maria, is it true? Is Angelique back in Bagni?’

  ‘Is true.’

  ‘And – has Leo been seen with her?’

  The old woman shrugged, her eyes suddenly sly.

  ‘Maria? Has he?’

  She hesitated. Then, with a small. almost regretful sigh, ‘No,’ she said. ‘My nephew at the hotel, he says no.’

  ‘Perhaps Leo doesn’t know she’s here?’

  ‘Perhaps not.’

  Carrie opened the door. The blaze of the sun dazzled her. ‘Then perhaps I’d better tell him.’

  *

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ Leo said, ‘that’s all I need.’ He ran his hand through his already disordered hair. ‘Angelique? Here? She swore, she promised—’ he stopped. ‘I might have known, I suppose.’

  ‘She loves you,’ Carrie said.

  He lifted his shoulders, helplessly. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Leo? And you?’

  His head came up, his eyes met hers. ‘Once, yes. Since you, no. There’s a simple way out of this, my darling. Marry me. Then she’ll know. Then she’ll have to understand.’

  ‘No. More than ever, no. If you stay, stay because you want me. Not because we’re tied together.’ Carrie was astounded at her own words, at the sudden strength of her own conviction. At her own courage in expressing it. ‘Leo, I love you. I want you. I want you to stay with me. But I won’t be rushed into marriage. There are so many things to take into account.’

  ‘What if there were a child?’

  The silence was long.

  ‘There was no child with Arthur.’

  ‘Your fault? Accounted your fault?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of course.’ His smile was wry. He walked to her, bent to kiss her lips, gently at first, and then with less control.

  ‘Leo!’

  His fingers had found her breast ‘My darling. My poor confused darling. Come to bed,’ he said.

  *

  They spoke, later, about his father.

  ‘How could he do it?’ Carrie asked. ‘How?’

  ‘With ease, I should imagine.’ Leo turned on his belly, laid his head upon folded arms. ‘Knowing him.’

  She reached a hand to stroke his hair.

  Abruptly he twisted from her, sat up, knees drawn to his chin, arms linked about his slim, bent legs, his face brooding. ‘He was a gambler. We were always either in money or out of it. An awful lot of the time out of it. I lost count of the num
ber of schools I got pulled out of. The number of houses we lived in. The number of excuses I used to think up to explain it. The moonlight flits. The bailiffs. The friends who came when the money was there and went when it wasn’t. The tears my mother cried. And still, off he’d go to the race track. Dressed to the nines. He was a dandy. A handsome man. And one for the women, too.’ He flicked the hair back from his eyes.

  ‘And all with Beatrice’s money.’

  ‘Apparently so. Yes.’ He reached for his cigarette case.

  Carrie trapped his hand in hers. ‘Leo, it isn’t your fault. It’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘I know that.’

  She watched him as he lit the cigarette and blew smoke thoughtfully towards the ceiling. ‘Leo?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘What are you going to do about Angelique?’

  ‘Do about her? What can I do? It’s a free country. I can’t forbid her to stay in Bagni di Lucca, now can I?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘If I stay away from her she’ll get tired and leave.’

  ‘And if you don’t?’ she asked, softly.

  He glanced at her, lifted his narrow, naked shoulders in the slightest suggestion of a shrug.

  ‘What does she want of you?’

  He smiled, with not the faintest trace of humour, slid from the bed and walked to the window, stood with his back to her looking out across the valley. ‘She wants what you apparently don’t. She wants me to marry her.’

  ‘Leo—’

  Swiftly and impatiently he turned. ‘What? Leo what? I won’t marry you because I’ve had this crazy idea put into my head that something that happened upwards of fifty years ago somehow has to be atoned for? I won’t marry you because some crazy old woman has convinced me that I’ll be punished for it if I do? Or is it, Leo, I won’t marry you because I don’t love you enough to give up new-found freedom? To promise to share my life with you? A lover is one thing, a husband quite another. Is that it?’

  ‘No! You know it isn’t.’

  ‘Carrie, I know no such thing. From where I’m standing Beatrice, Leonard and Henry seem a very, very long way away. They have nothing to do with us. You love me or you don’t. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘It isn’t. You know it isn’t.’

  ‘Beatrice didn’t want me to have this house. Is that it? If you marry me I’ll have a share in it.’

  ‘You have a share in it already,’ she said, very quietly.

  ‘Do I?’ There was a bitterness in the words that twisted like a knife in her flesh. ‘Do I?’ He reached for his clothes, shrugged his shirt on, stood looking at her. ‘Marry me,’ he said.

  She bowed her head, and her tumbled hair hid her face; when she lifted it, he had gone from the room.

  *

  The quarrel that led to his leaving was as savage as it was unexpected.

  For days Leo had been his normal, affable, loving self and had not again mentioned marriage; tentatively Carrie began to hope that he had come to terms with her refusal, or at least that he was ready to give her the time for which she had asked. Peace had apparently re-established itself between them. The tea chests had been returned to the attic, and the house, beneath Isabella and Carrie’s ministrations, had come into its own again, lived in and loved. Carrie never tired of wandering the rooms with their smell of polish and the lovely, faded colours of the rugs and shawls and worn, comfortable furniture. It seemed to her that every day she discovered a new delight: a picture she had not noticed before, a tiny silver thimble, a piece of Venetian glass.

  The garden too was showing some signs of the attention it was at last being paid, though progress there was slower, for there was a huge amount of work to be done and her young helpers, though cheerful and obliging as it was possible to be could not exactly be said to be over-industrious. Yet still, slowly, under Carrie’s supervision the terraces were being rebuilt and the weeds cleared. She spent hours studying Beatrice’s sketches of the layout; was surprised to see how much of the original plan could still be discerned on the ground.

  In a shed at the top of the garden she discovered several large pots, which she planted with some of the brightly coloured geraniums that, now that the hot days of true summer had arrived, ran riot all over the tumbledown terraces. Most of these she set about their favourite sitting area, the terrace outside the kitchen. The others she put on the balcony of the tower room – something that turned out not to be such a good idea as she had thought, since a couple of days later one of them, set less carefully than the others on the uneven coping stones, crashed to the ground not a yard from where she was standing, giving her the fright of her life and causing Leo firmly to remove the others and put them in a safer place, shaking his head in gentle exasperation at this latest illustration of the impracticability of some of her notions.

  At Leo’s suggestion they set off at dawn one day to ride into the mountains, travelling by donkey, to visit the high and improbably picturesque village of Montefegatesi. Carrie was utterly enchanted. The air was cooler than in the valley and the fields beyond the tree line were still profuse and bright with the wild flowers of late spring. With them, in panniers, they carried a simple picnic, which they ate sitting on an outcrop of rock in brilliant sunshine beneath a lucent sky. The air was as intoxicating as the wine that Leo, as always, poured with a generous hand.

  ‘What a lovely, lovely day!’ Carrie spread her arms as if to encompass the world. The pretty little village perched on its peak opposite where they sat, the only sign of habitation in the wilderness of the mountains. A small herd of goats grazed beneath it; distantly through the clear air the tinkling of bells reached them.

  Leo pointed to where a narrow track wound further upwards. ‘Are you game to go a bit higher? The view from the top must be absolutely magnificent.’

  Carrie eyed the track a little doubtfully. ‘It looks awfully steep. Are you sure it actually goes anywhere?’

  ‘Of course it does.’ He jumped to his feet, held out his hand. ‘Come on. Let’s try it. We can leave the donkeys here. They’re perfectly safe. Come on! Don’t be a spoilsport.’ His eyes were bright with laughter, the breeze blew his hair into his eyes. She came to her feet and into his arms. His mouth was cool. and demanding, and tasted of wine. ‘Careful,’ he said, softly, as she drew away from him at last, ‘careful, my darling. If we can see the village over there it’s a fair bet that the village can see us. We don’t want to shock anyone, now do we? Come on, let’s try the path. Who knows what we might find?’

  They set off together, hand in hand. The goat-track climbed slowly at first and then, suddenly, very steeply over a tumble of rocks. Carrie pulled back. ‘That’s more of a climb than a walk. I don’t think—’

  ‘Oh, do stop it.’ He drew her on. ‘I’m here. No harm can come to you.’ He pulled her to him and kissed her again, undisguised excitement in his eyes. ‘I’ve never made love on a mountainside before. Let’s do it. Let’s make love on top of the world!’

  The air, the warmth, the wine she had drunk, the sheer pleasure of his company had induced a reckless happiness; had he suggested that they jump from the ledge where they stood and attempt to fly she might well have agreed. She took his hand.

  Halfway up she truly wished she had shown more sense. The climb was steep and dangerous, the footing unstable. Her head for heights had never been particularly strong; twice she had to stop, eyes shut tight, to regain her uncertain balance. But always Leo was there, unhurriedly encouraging, his hand strong in hers; and when they reached the top, even breathless and trembling as she was, Carrie had to admit that it had been an effort worth making. ‘Leo! Oh, Leo – it is like being on top of the world.’ Still unsteady on her feet she took a step. Small stones slid from beneath her foot and she stumbled a little.

  ‘Carrie!’ Laughing he grabbed her, pulled her to him. ‘Will you for goodness’ sake be careful? Stay away from that edge. Here,’ he drew her towards a cleft in the rock. ‘Look, the perfect pla
ce. Waiting for us.’ He slipped the small knapsack he had been carrying from his shoulders, pulled from it a soft woollen rug which he spread on the rock. She stood watching him, unmoving, pulse suddenly hammering, eyes very wide. He straightened. Took her face in his hand, brushing the silky web of her hair from her shoulders. ‘Take your clothes off, my darling,’ he said. ‘All of them. I want to take you here, in the sunshine, in the sky. And I want to see you while I do it. Please. Take off your clothes for me.’

  The wine-fed excitement heightened. With a small smile she challenged him. ‘You first.’

  He spread his hands, his eyes warm. ‘With pleasure.’ With swift, graceful movements he stripped whilst she watched him, stood easily before her, his skin very smooth and very white except for the golden vee at his neck and the even tan of his face and arms. ‘Now,’ he said, gently. ‘Your turn.’

  They made love not once, but twice, and lay sleepily together as the sun moved across the sky, and the high breeze drifted coolly upon warm skin. At last Carrie stirred, rolled over, lifted herself on her elbow above him and kissed each of his closed eyes in turn. ‘Leo. We have to go. It’ll be dark before we get down the mountain otherwise.’

  He grinned and shook his head, groaning. ‘Why can’t we stay here?’

  She kissed him again. ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘We’ve got a bed,’ he said, opening one aggrieved eye. ‘What else do you want?’

  ‘Supper,’ she said. ‘I’m hungry as a hunter.’

  He groaned again. ‘God, woman. Where’s the romance in your soul? Hungry?’

  She laughed delightedly. ‘Hungry.’ she insisted firmly, and sat up, reaching for her shirt. ‘Come on, for goodness’ sake. Or we really will be here all night. And what about the poor donkeys? They must be wondering what on earth has happened to us!’