"Have you ever been to England, Nicki?"
She shook her head violently. "Never. I do not want to go. In England it is cold and grey and always raining, and the people are old and dull."
"Steady on!" Jonathan laughed, taking the pipe from his mouth. "Our climate is tricky, I admit, but there are compensations. And you would find some places very beautiful indeed—especially Devon and Cornwall. That was a sweeping statement, Nicole—and we are not all doddering in our dotage!"
"I know." Suddenly she was humble, contrite. "My father was very fond of the English, in spite of the way my grandfather treated him. It was my mother who was too proud to return . . . but of course you do not know that story. It happened a very long time ago and it was very silly. But my mother—she was too proud of my father to go and eat humble pie to my grandfather; he must have been a beast! I would have hated him. Yet she was very homesick sometimes. After we came here she would tell me stories of Combe Castleton. . . ."
She pronounced the familiar name with a slight rolling sound that Jonathan found endearing. "Tell me the story," he said, feeling a traitor yet anxious to hear Nicole's version.
The girl shrugged, unshipping the oars and beginning to row slowly back towards Gandria. "This is very deep here, the deepest part of the lake," she remarked conversationally, "and it is very cold. If you want to swim tomorrow, you'd better try the shallow water at the Lido, it will be warmer."
"All right. I'd like to wander round the town tomorrow morning, there are some things I want to buy." Jonathan did not press his question, but after a little silence Nicole-said brusquely: "It is a stupid story. My father was an artist, a real artist. He would be ashamed of the way I paint pictures for the tourists. But like any artist, he was poor. ... He went to England once, long ago—twenty-three years ago—after the war. He went to the West Country, because there are places there very good to paint —places like your Polperro?"
"Polperro attracts many artists, yes."
She said sombrely, "There were many of his English paintings in the Paris studio, but we lost them all, of course. ... I think he fell in love with England a little, and very much with my mother. But her parents were rich, and stuffy, and stupid—her father did not understand about their being in love, he had no understanding of art, either. He said my father was trying to marry Maman because one day she would be rich, too—so they ran away." Nicole told the story simply, as if it was something from a book she had read. But suddenly her voice was strong and warm and vibrating with love and pride.
"We never had much money, but I never knew him do anything mean or dishonest. When he sold a picture he would treat the other artists in our house. When someone really liked a picture he could not afford to buy, my father would give it to him—" She smiled suddenly. "Often my mother would scold him for being so generous when he could not afford it, but she was just as generous. My grandfather must have been a fool not to know the sort of man my father was!"
Jonathan, remembering Henry Stannisford, could not help agreeing secretly with that outspoken verdict. He said gently, "I expect they were very different men, as you said, with no understanding of each other. But they were happy, your parents?"
"Very happy. You see, they were truly in love. They did not need anything else."
Jonathan was moved by that declaration of faith from a girl who was no romantic little sentimentalist; she had known family happiness and tragedy and enough hardship to make her a realist. For a moment the squeaking of the oars in the rowlocks was the only sound; there were no other boats this far up the lake.
"You believe in love, Nicole?" he said, not sceptically hut a little wonderingly; almost enviously. This place, and this girl with her old-fashioned fairytale background, was having a strange effect on him.
"Oh, yes." She was mocking his wonderment a little hut he could not doubt her sincerity. "When I marry, it will be for love, and for always. I do not believe in these casual arrangements—" She looked at him gravely, and in the soft lights along the approaching shore her face was suddenly beautiful. "How can a man and woman expect to make a good life together, to give their children happiness in this awful world, without love?" she demanded reasonably. "It is the bêtise otherwise! The first little storm will sink their boat!"
He laughed involuntarily. Nicole Berenger was full of surprises.
"Yet you believe in hate, too, I think. You said your mother wanted to go home—later, when you came here—"
"Of course she wanted to go home!" For a moment Nicole rested on her oars and the boat drifted gently. "She loved her mother, who was afraid of her father. After we came here she told me much of the story I had not known before. Always Maman was hoping that there would be a reconciliation, an invitation for all of us—especially when she had written so many letters telling of her happiness! But my grandfather was too proud to admit he had been wrong and my mother would not beg!" the vivid blue eyes flashed fire. "Do you know, because Papa asked her to try again when he was dying in Paris, she wrote and told them . . . and they did not even answer that letter—and now, if you please, that that horrible old man is dead too, they think that I—Nicole Berenger—will come meekly back to the house that was refused my father!"
Jonathan felt in entire agreement with her. He wished again that he had not come as an emissary from Helen Stannisford, yet he could not forget the frail old lady's appeal. He wanted to tell Nicole the truth, but if he spoke too soon it might make the unhappy situation worse. He had certainly not expected Nicki to confide in him so soon.
"You think I am hard and unforgiving?" she demanded defensively when he did not speak. "Would you expect me to accept favours—now—to accept money that might have saved my mother's life...? Perhaps Papa's, too, if we had not had to live in that old cheap atelier house—"
"That we can never know," Jonathan answered quietly. "I imagine that your parents would have refused financial help while your grandfather was alive. But everything is different now."
"How—different?"
"Your grandmother must be getting old, and somehow I think your mother would wish you to forgive and forget the past," he said gently, "but it must be your own decision when the time comes, Nicole. These family-feud things are ridiculous in this day and age, but you will have to make up your own mind, child."
"I will," she laughed shakily, and began rowing again.
Nicole manoeuvred the clumsy boat alongside the iron ring neatly and tied her up. Handing up the rugs and cushions to Jonathan on the steps above she said shyly, "I am sorry to bore you with my family history. I do not usually talk so much to strangers."
He smiled down at her. "I'm glad you felt you could talk to me, Nicole. And I hope you'll think of me as a friend, not as a stranger, now—"
"Grazie." She allowed him to hand her up to the steps, and somehow the firm, warm little hand lying in his own made him feel suddenly that he had in truth made a friend.
That he could ever have thought of Nicole as a boy, even for a moment, astounded Jonathan during the days that followed. Slender and boyish, yes; active with some inner reserve of nervous energy; but nevertheless very much a woman. Not as young Bianca was a woman, all physical tricks and graces, but her spirit was feminine enough. Emilio, who loved her in a manner that Jonathan did not regard as brotherly; Pietro, even the wilful Bianca, all looked to Nicole as the woman of the house, the mistress of the albergo; she was their little mother, despite her gypsy boyishness. It was Nicole who arranged the meals with old Lucia, who saw to the comfort of the guests, who overlooked the children's homework and chased them off to bed at a reasonable hour, Nicole who did the small amount of book-keeping that was necessary for their tourist trade, and the running of Pegasus and the inn. Jonathan soon discovered that any money Emilio made and the sales of Nicole's paintings were all pooled in a common fund, from which she paid the running expenses and put aside each week a certain amount in Emilio's savings account.
"What about your future—don't you have a sa
vings account also?" Jonathan asked cautiously one day when he found her wrestling with figures.
Nicole smiled absently. "I shall be all right. I can always earn my living. But Emilio has the bambinos to provide for, and one day he will want to get married."
She was completely practical, unsentimental; he dared not press her any more then with questions about her private affairs, but he found himself worrying about her future at times. If she was going to marry Emilio, then of course the problem would be simplified; she was working and planning for her own future as well. But if not, then all her hard work and planning would not benefit her at all In the end ... Jonathan thought of Nigel, that amiable, feckless youth who would inherit the Stannisford fortune that belonged by right to this girl, and felt a surge of real anger at the twistings of fate. Yet Nicole was happy, in spite of her sad memories ; when Jonathan tried to make her plan for herself she always smiled with a quaint wisdom that defeated his anxiety.
"Englishmen are always trying to plan ahead!" she told him once, laughing. "Che sara, sara. What will be will be. It is no use looking too far ahead. Trust in God. He will look after us all, though naturally He expects us to work hard for ourselves, too."
"You still believe in God?" he asked curiously without mockery. "After all the suffering in your family, and the mess the world is in today?"
Nicole looked up at him, suddenly grave. She guessed that in his job Jonathan would see a lot of human suffering, and sometimes in repose his mouth was set in a grim line and there was a bitterness in his grey eyes that seemed to be remembering the savage devastation in the jungle villages of war-torn Vietnam. The things he had come here to Lugano to forget, the things he must forget if he was going to take up again his work of healing.
"Yes," she said quietly, almost maternally, as if for once their positions were reversed, "I believe in God. My parents and Tia Maria suffered—much. They died too young. Yet God was good to them."
"How do you make that out?" he demanded gently; in Nicole's position he thought he would have become em-bittered, but there wasn't an ounce of self-pity in the girl.
Her thin brown hands were clasped together almost as if she was praying. She smiled a little. "I told you, they had much happiness together, they loved God and each other ... I think perhaps today that is a rare thing in your world, Jonathan?"
"Rare—people are so confused, mixed-up, in the Tower of Babel," he acknowledged drily, "with the scientists and the economists and the politicians all shouting their policies at us morning, noon and night."
Nicole nodded. "Perhaps they shout too much. If they left us in peace, to listen to God's voice, it would be easier. My father died bravely—did not Jesus say it is a good way to die, to lay down one's life for others? And you see, my mother and Tia Maria were allowed to join their loved ones quite soon . . . now nothing can separate them, ever again."
Jonathan was silent. It was a long time since he had heard death referred to as a blessing, in this way, except as an end to incurable disease. Nicole, for all her amusing childish ways, had the Latin philosophy of acceptance; of faith and wisdom that was beyond sophisticated cleverness. He felt oddly humbled in the realisation that this girl could perhaps teach him to recapture some of the ideals of his youth that had become somewhat tarnished along the road to success. Or at least they seemed tarnished to him in the clear light of Nicole's convictions.
"Nothing can spoil their happiness, ever again," she added gently, almost joyously.
An appeal for old Helen Stannisford's happiness trembled on Jonathan's tongue; he felt deeply that if he told Nicole the truth when she was in that serious, gentle mood, she could not fail to respond . . . yet he was afraid to put it to the test. She had emerged from an extraordinary tragedy with her faith and personality undamaged; he would have to walk with extreme delicacy in the matter of the grandmother. Above all, as the days slid past and Jonathan shed the last mental fatigue of war-strain and convalescence, he was determined not to cause Nicole any further suffering. Sometimes, smoking a last pipe by his bedroom window that jutted out over the lake, he felt reluctant to interfere at all. In spite of her sorrows, in spite of her practical responsibilities for the Fionettis, in spite of her wisdom, Nicole had retained the lovely, elusive independence of childhood; she could still escape to some magic world of her own, beyond everyday problems. Jonathan feared that life at Qsterley House might change the girl too drastically, might even destroy her philosophy. He discovered, to his own amazement, that the idea of a civilised Nicole—chastened and tamed from her gypsy freedom—was beginning to appal him.
She was so very lovable just as she was.
That first morning Emilio had dropped him at the central wharf when he took Pegasus over to begin the day's trips round the lake. "Nicki will fetch you at noon; I have to take a party for luncheon at La Romantica," he explained.
Jonathan had enjoyed walking about the town, pleasant under bright sunshine and clear blue sky. The snatches of talk that swirled about him under the chestnut promenade by the lake made him realise that people from all over the world were here; English and Poles, Germans and French and American girls in every kind of way-out dress from the indestructible mini-skirt to hipster pants, that were masculine in a very different way from Nicole's shabby jeans and shirts. Having a drink in one of the open-air cafés he was in a completely cosmopolitan atmosphere. The English and Americans, discussing their itineraries for sightseeing, made him feel grateful that he was living over at the albergo, with no itinerary, no excited gaping and frantic photographing to do. In fact, the next six weeks stretched out very pleasantly before his tired eyes. For the first time in his adult life he was going to drift; to work to no schedule, but to do each day just whatever came into his head. The hospitals and the nursing homes of Combe Castleton seemed very far away; they might belong to another planet.
There's something in this complete change and rest idea, after all, he told himself. He was rediscovering the delight of small pleasures. To pass the Globus Coach Station on his way to Paradiso, to notice the seething activity of drivers, couriers and passengers on their way to Venice, to Florence, to Rome, or merely to Lake Maggiore and to know that he need not do anything but wander round Lugano until Nicole came for him in her rowing boat was sheer delight. And when he turned back from the rose-garlanded terraces of Paradiso and the big luxury hotels he was glad he was not staying there, in a palace where formal clothes would be demanded and polite social intercourse . . . The children and Emilio took sandwiches and he would probably share a picnic meal with Nicki and old Lucia. Already the albergo felt like home to Jonathan. He walked back to the town along the arcades of the Via Nassa, enjoying the bright and tasteful display of goods in the shop windows and the sensation of having a home in a place full of tourists in transit—hotel-birds. The albergo might be technically an inn, but by no stretch of the imagination could it be called a hotel, and Jonathan was glad. He hated hotels. Sometimes when he was called away to perform an operation he had to spend a night or two in a hotel, but he would never like them.
Already the sun was hot, and it was pleasant walking in the shade of the arcade. There were shops of every description—the most colourful, piled high with tourist goods; raffia baskets, straw hats, sandals, the small Chianti bottles in their straw holders, music-boxes like Swiss chalets, carved wooden toys and the prevailing bear of Switzerland. But there were besides many clothes shops of impeccable taste, shops displaying objets d'art of real value, chemists' and lingerie and stationery and book shops. Jonathan went into one of the chemists'; he had left his toothbrush on the train, and carefully uttered his first Italian phrase.
"Uno spazzolino da denti—"
"A toothbrush, yes, sir. Do you prefer hard, medium, or soft?" the elderly man behind the counter enquired suavely, and Jonathan felt himself colouring like a boy. Uncle Steve was right, all these people spoke English. But he was determined to learn at least some Italian while he was here.
He found t
he art shop Nicole had told him about, the shop that sold her paintings, the paintings that were so bad her father would have burned them. Here again the dealer spoke such fluent English that Jonathan had no chance to air his carefully rehearsed phrases. He bought some more materials and several etchings of the villages round Lake Lugano. They would hang nicely in his rooms at Uncle Steve's, he thought; they were excellent etchings, well enough executed for a consultant's rooms. The dealer was pleased with his selection, and a trifle reproachful when he asked to see some of Miss Berenger's paintings.
"They are a little bright, signore, to be hung with these good etchings—"
"I'd like to see them, all the same."
Nevertheless he flinched when the man strewed them over the counter. Nicole had been merely truthful when she said they were bad. The green of the lake, the violent magenta of petunias, the lavish purple wistaria, the Turneresque sunsets, hurt the eye. They disguised the soft and exquisite beauty of the ancient stone houses with a horrible garishness; yet Nicole said the tourists bought them. They were, he was thankful to see, unsigned.
"Ten francs each," the dealer said indifferently. "The signorina paints for the tourist, you understand. She can paint otherwise, if you want something better."
Dorothy Quentin - The Inn by the Lake Page 5