"How you have changed!" she accused scornfully. "Only a few months ago you enjoyed kicking that detective down the steps! When Jonathan arrived you were afraid he would tell me stories of England and make me want to go there—now you can't get rid of me fast enough!"
The expressive young face sobered instantly, and the boy took her free hand in both his own, giving it a little squeeze. "Silly one!" he said affectionately. "You know I love you like a sister, Nicki. You know that you will always, always have a home here with us, whenever you choose to come. But things have altered since Jonathan came—yes, that is true. I have almost paid for Pegasus, and we shall have much trade here in a few weeks, and Francesca's parents look upon our marriage much more favourably."
"So—" Nicki looked as cross as she felt. "So now you can do without me, you will send me to my rich grand-mother with your blessing, eh? Two months ago it was different—what would the albergo have done without me? And the children ?" She caught her breath, thinking of the children. "You were not so pleased to think of me going away to England then!"
Emilio caught her small head between his brown hands and kissed her soundly. "It was you who said you would not stay here when I married," he reminded her gently, "and it was you who helped to make my marriage come closer. We love you dearly, carissima; even Francesca loves you dearly; she will never mind you living with us if you wish it—" He could not tell her that other things had altered besides his financial position. He had offered Jonathan every franc he could lay hands on, he had even offered to sell Pegasus, but the surgeon had refused to take any fee for the operation.
"Call it a busman's holiday; I am only too pleased young Pietro got out of his scrape so lightly," he had said, smiling.
"He will never play truant again, the villain," Emilio had promised, his gratitude bubbling out of him like champagne, until Jonathan sent him about his business briskly.
Now Emilio liked and trusted the Englishman, and he thought Nicole had a good friend in Jonathan, one who would see that her English relatives did not impose on the girl. It was all very different from sending her out to an unknown country, to unknown relations, at a time when it would have been most awkward to manage the albergo and the children without her. Emilio, for all his Latin impulsiveness, was a realist; he was frank enough with his adopted cousin.
"Never, never will we forget what you have done for us," he said at last, emphatically, releasing her, "so shut up and do not talk any more silliness, it is not like Nicki."
She smiled in spite of her temper. "If I have done anything for you it was only paying a debt," she said slowly, "a debt to Tia Maria that can never be properly repaid."
"O.K., so you know my mother would want you to look upon this as your home, always," Emilio answered promptly, and got up to shout for the lagging Bianca "Meanwhile, you can go and enjoy a holiday with your rich grandmama. Why not?"
When the motor-boat had sputtered away with the boy and the schoolgirl, who had submitted unwillingly to a last-minute inspection of her hair and fingernails, Nicole resumed the reading of her letter.
My Dear Nicole, the spidery handwriting ran,
It gives me such joy to be writing you a letter which you will actually read, at last. I cannot put into words the sadness I have felt for many years at the estrangement from your mother—you must lake my word for that, and then we will try and for get the sad past. I am so pleased that you have agreed to visit what is really your own home, am hope that you will be happy here. I am looking forward so much to seeing you—Jonathan says you are very like my dearest Evelyn—and can hardly believe that a cherished dream will soon come true. . . . Forgive the ramblings of an old, tired woman, my dear, and believe me—
Your loving Grandmother,
There was a P.S. about the bank draft, and a request that Nicki should draw upon Jonathan for anything more she might need, and it would be repaid as soon as they arrived in Combe Castleton. For, of course, you will travel with Mr. Grant. I would not like to think of you undertaking such a long, tiresome journey unescorted, the old lady had concluded.
Nicki sat for a long time with the letter in her hand, her blue eyes clouded with perplexity. It was written on stiff, good quality paper, and the Osterley House address was engraved. A flicker of ironical amusement crossed the girl's face at the final postcript, as she remembered her plan to paint her way round Europe—round the world— unescorted. . . .
Unescorted! What an old-fashioned word! Had this elderly, rich, sheltered Englishwoman any idea at all of what had happened to her daughter after she had run away from the sheltered tyranny of her home twenty-two years ago?
But Helen Stannisford had a weak heart, she must be kept wrapped in cotton-wool, though her daughter Evelyn had died in her forties from a broken heart.
Nicole put her head down on her knees in a sudden paroxysm of weeping and fear. Already she was the grand-daughter of an old, rich, respectable woman ... a woman with a great big house that could hold six families comfortably, a staff of servants, and plans were being made for Nicole's entertainment as if she were of the blood royal.
"Maman! Maman!" Nicki whispered desolately, "why did not this happen to you, instead of me!"
It seemed to the girl the cruellest of ironies that the invitation, the letter full of affection, the bank draft, should have come years too late. . . .
"What's the matter now, Nicki?" Jonathan, looking out of his window, had seen the small figure huddled on the steps. The abject misery of her attitude was in such startling contrast to the beauty of the June day that he had come down swiftly to find out the cause. "Dear Nicki, do you want a shoulder?" he demanded gently.
By way of reply she thrust the wet letter into his hands, and the envelope and the bank draft. "It's no good!" she cried desolately, childishly, wiping her tear-stained face roughly. "I shall never be able to live up to it! I shall give my grandmother heart attacks, I shall be rude to the servants, and if they treat me like a child I shall spit in their eye!"
"Aren't you behaving rather childishly now?" Jonathan said casually. "There's nothing wrong with this—we can travel together at the end of next week. Pietro can be safely left to convalesce then; the nurses will stay on until Emilio gets married, of course."
She stared at him, trying to recover her poise, her in-dependence. "You will not want to be bothered with me," she said, with an attempt at dignity. "I am a gypsy. I do not know how to behave! In the dining car I shall embarrass you, and my clothes will be all wrong. I shouldn't have said I would go—I shall feel like a wild animal shut up in a cage!"
"A very small wild animal."
He was laughing at her, and it was infuriating. He added dryly, "And the wagon-lits make very comfortable cages. Stop being a little idiot, Nicki—go wash your face, and we will go to the bank and cash this draft."
She looked doubtfully at the draft. "I've never had that much money in my life," she said suddenly, "and I know nothing of banks. Will you really come with me?"
She added quickly, "The papers say you are very famous, very rich, so you'll know all about money."
Jonathan grinned. "I'm not very famous, and certainly not rich by your grandmother's standards," he said dryly. "I have only what I've earned, no inherited capital."
"But that's so much better!" Nicole brightened at once. "I hate the idea of waiting for people to die, so that you can have their money! What you have earned yourself, with hard work, that is good money."
"Good or bad, it melts away pretty quickly. But I think Ï know enough about banks to help you cash that draft, Nicki; then we'll buy your ticket and reservations. After that, if you are worried about clothes, something to wear on the journey—and don't forget, you can call on me for more money if you need it. My uncle will pay me back."
He was so comforting, sitting there on the steps, smoking his pipe. Nicole had been looking over her beloved lake, wondering how on earth she could ever bear to leave it. Her grandmother's letter had left her unmoved, her heart wa
s still too full of the bitter past; she had consented to go because she knew her parents would have wished it, because Jonathan advised it. But already she was full of foreboding.
"Will you help me choose the clothes?" she demanded childishly. "I'm no good at clothes. They don't interest me—" She glanced down at her small boat anchored by the steps, the boat she loved so much; the boat that had given her, with the addition of her own young strength, the freedom of the lake; a whole world to live in. "In a row-boat one does not need to look chic," she said sadly.
"I'm afraid I won't be much help in choosing clothes." Jonathan looked doubtful at last. "Wouldn't it be better to go with Bianca or some—some girl friend in the town?"
Nicole shook her head emphatically. "I have no girl friends in the town—they are all chic young ladies there, and I am a gypsy! And Bianca would make me look like a—" She used an Italian word whose meaning was very clear. Jonathan threw back his head and laughed.
"All right, only the sales ladies won't like it. I'll help you choose something that won't shock your grandmother out of her wits—"
"Thank you, Jonathan." Nicole jumped up, her tears forgotten, her small face alight with mischief. "I hate shopping, too! I think you are my very good friend, we will suffer together."
"Get a move on, then, or we shall be late for lunch," he retorted good humouredly. He wondered if his whole life would have been different if he had had a young sister like Nicki.... She was perpetually interesting to him, with her changes of mood, her extraordinary mixture of age-old wisdom and tragic experience with childish fears, childish dreams, childish honesty.
I hope to goodness they don't make her into a chic young lady, all the same! he thought vehemently. For an instant his heart misgave him that he had, after all, influenced her towards this great change in her life. He could understand her love of this place, and there was in her a freedom of mind and body and soul that was very appealing . . . she was not a wild animal, but she was his little wild goose. . . . Somehow he could imagine Nicki, flying free and unfettered, above the ordinary world. It would be a thousand pities if Osterley House changed her too much, transformed her into the conventional Miss with a round of provincial social engagements, dinners and dances and bridge parties . . . with regular appointments with her hairdresser, her dressmaker, her manicurist . . .
He heard her light step on the stone and looked up, and was immediately comforted. Nicki had washed her face and lightly powdered it, and because she was going to buy clothes she had put on one of her three cotton frocks. By now he knew them all—the faded blue, the green, and the russet. Nothing that they could do to her in Combe Castleton would ever transform this girl, with her small, proud head poised firmly on her slender neck, into a conventional society girl—she had far too much character, he realised thankfully.
"It's only about fifty pounds, you know. We'd better get your ticket and clothes first, darling."
Nicole was practically dancing out of the bank. She had no handbag, only the shabby little purse she usually stuffed into the pocket of her slacks, and she had passed the bundle of stiff, new notes over to Jonathan for safe keeping. Already she was spending her windfall in imagination as they passed the windows of shops—sports shops, stores, seedsmen. She made Jonathan feel very tall as she walked by his side through the sunlit town, so lightly that her feet hardly seemed to touch the ground. She made him feel very old, she was so light-hearted in her planning, as if the tears and rebellion of an hour ago had never been.
"Pietro can have the fishing-rod he has been after for so long—there, in Caeno's. Bianca says going to school each morning and coming back each afternoon he stands and stares at it. I'm giving him my boat, of course, but I shan't tell him until it's time to go; it will make parting less hard for him, poor bambino." She rattled on gaily, more talkative than Jonathan had ever known her, choosing gifts as they walked. "A wrist watch for Emilio—he never knows the time without listening for the church bells—and a blouse for Bianca. She is growing so fast! Oh, this morning I fee! like a millionaire, Jonathan!"
It was then he made the remark about fifty pounds. Nicole would have none of his prudence. He had no means of guessing that her joy in spending, in buying presents, the novelty of being able to give lavishly, was compensating her for her coming grief. Beneath her gaiety she knew very well she would soon feel the parting from Emilio and Bianca and Pietro and old Lucia terribly. Probably before the train got to Basle she would be bitterly homesick. . . .
She kept reminding herself that she was only going to England on a visit; that had been clearly stipulated, her grandmother and Mr. Grant and Jonathan had all agreed to it. Yet deep within her heart she had the feeling that once she had crossed the threshold of Osterley House it would not easily relinquish its hold on her.
"Lucia must have a new shawl, it is cold here in winter." She smiled up sideways at Jonathan, using her hands. "Does one not always give gifts at parting? They're going to miss me, those four, even if they don't think so now, and to use my gifts will bring me back to them."
Jonathan did not argue any more. Going up to the station in the crowded funicular he noticed people smiling at Nicki—young men and old women alike. She chatted in rapid Italian with the housewives in their sombre black, discussing the bargains in their loaded baskets, and played with a very sticky baby. There were all sorts of people in the crowded car—travellers catching trains, town-people taking a short cut to the Via Basilica, workers going home for early lunch; and Nicki seemed at home with them all, and quite oblivious of her faded cotton frock and shabby sandals. He wondered why she had suddenly worried this morning about appearances and manners. Hanging on to the strap, watching her unobtrusively, Jonathan felt a warm affection for his young protégée. Whatever clothes she had on, however empty her purse, Nicole Berenger— unconventional and impulsive little wild goose—would ways be what her blood and upbringing had made her, a gentlewoman—in the proper meaning of that old-fashioned word.
How Helen would love her, when she had got over the first shock of meeting, the first shyness caused by the shadows of the past!
At the station, while Nicole was absorbed in the travel posters, he managed to pay for her ticket and sleeping reservation without touching the six hundred francs. Judging by the shopping programme ahead, that would be needed for other things. After making his own reservation, Jonathan found that he would have to go carefully with the remainder of his own allowance, and for the first time he cursed the stringency of the currency regulations. It would have been fun to let Nicole have a real orgy of spending. . . .
She was tugging at his elbow with sparkling eyes, drawing him over to a brilliant poster of the Grand Canal. "Jonathan! You haven't even seen Venice! You must go—the buses go there twice a week. One day going, one day coming back; a whole day and a night in Venice— there's still time!"
"Have you ever been there?" he asked curiously.
Nicole grinned. "Once. The lady courier was taken ill, and a driver who is a friend of mine got me the job. They knew I could speak three languages, but I had to sit up half the night before learning all the patter! There's much to see on that trip; it's quite cheap and very worth while. There's the Basilica of St. Antony at Padua, and Milan—Lake Como—and Venice is wonderful, though I should hate to live there!"
"Why?" He was amused by her eagerness, and curious. "I should have thought Venice would appeal to an artist."
Her eyes acknowledged the tribute, but she shrugged. "It's too much of everything! The buildings are huge— enormous slabs of marble and stone. It must have taken years and years to make the mosaics for the walls, and the paintings—And it's too full of tourists always; the canals are dirty, full of paper and orange peel, and the air is too hot. In summer it's like trying to breathe in front of an oven door!"
"You're not a very good publicity agent!" Jonathan laughed. "I think we'll give Venice a miss this time." Ho did not want her to know that there was not enough money left for a trip to V
enice.
She looked up at him searchingly. She almost whispered, "This time ... ? Do you think, then, that one day you will return to Lugano?"
They had walked slowly out of the station, and he looked down the steep hill, past the cathedral, to the sunlit town on the shore of the smiling lake. "I think it very likely that I shall come back to Lugano, one day," he answered quietly. And he knew that he was speaking the truth. This place drew him, inexplicably, with its peace and sunshine and cleanliness and its cheerful people. "Perhaps many times," he added.
"Oh, it's good to hear you say that!" For a moment Nicole was very happy. "It makes me feel I'm not going away for ever—"
"You silly child! Travelling is easy now, and I think your grandmother will do anything to make you happy."
Nicole nodded doubtfully. "If she likes me. She may not like me at all, and I may hate her."
"I don't think you will, but if you do there's no harm done. You can start off on your world tour from England just as well as from Lugano," he teased her.
She glanced back over her shoulder regretfully at the gay poster. "All the same, I'm sorry you haven't seen Venice—it is very beautiful at night. And coming back there's the Roman amphitheatre at Verona, and the houses of Romeo and Juliet, and Napoleon's chapel at Bergamo . . . and, all the way, the Italian farms and vineyards. At this time there would be whole fields of scarlet poppies—" She laughed suddenly at the sound of her own voice. "You see, I was not such a poor courier! All the people in the bus gave me presents at the end, anyway."
They were walking down the steep hill past the cathedral, which she made him visit. When they came out he said thoughtfully, "You're a mystery to me, Nicki. You don't mind taking tips from tourists, or selling them bad paintings; you don't mind spending this money from your grandmother on Emilio and the others—yet you refused even to answer my uncle's letters offering you a comfortable home, a good allowance from your grand- mother—"
Dorothy Quentin - The Inn by the Lake Page 10