by Norrey Ford
She drew back sharply. ‘No, thank you. I’d like to keep everything. It’s so wonderful to have it all back again. Like a miracle. I hardly believed it would come. So if you don’t mind—’
He kept his hand extended. ‘All right, keep some more for your shopping. But I can’t guarantee a rescuer appearing for the second time, and you didn’t manage very well on the earlier occasion, did you? You need that money and other things, for getting home. So let me keep them in my briefcase where they’ll be safe. No bag-snatcher will have a chance to grab them from me.’
Common sense. He talked common sense all the time. He made it sound so plausible. Yet the plain fact was that once she parted with her passport, she’d be his prisoner again.
‘Hurry,’ he said crisply. ‘We haven’t all morning to waste. You’ve planned a programme for yourself you won’t accomplish in a whole day as it is. Take a taxi to the Vatican. Be sure he has his meter operating and don’t give more than ten per cent tip.’
What could she do? Go back into the bank and claim that her elegant young escort was trying to rob her? A rich, well-known businessman? She might make a run for it, and finish off her holiday in the hotel room for which she’d paid. But if he chose, he could then make things difficult for her. She was clad from head to foot in his sister’s clothes, and carrying an expensive handbag which wasn’t hers.
She surrendered the items he’d asked for. 'What happens if I meet your sister in Rome, and she has me arrested for theft?’
His eyebrows lifted. Devil’s eyebrows, pointed rather than curved.
‘Bianca in Rome? I hardly think so. You know she is in Florence, visiting her aunt. Still, if you’re nervous—’ He took a business card from his wallet, scribbled a word or two across the back. ‘If you meet with any trouble, use this.’ He laughed abruptly. ‘I’ll warrant it would bring Bianca to her senses!’
So Bianca needed bringing to her senses, did she? And Marco, for all his confidence, thought it possible she might turn up in Rome? Racing headlong towards St Peter’s in the taxi Marco had hailed for her, Jan turned the idea over in her mind. She felt a sympathy, almost an affection, for the girl. Young and filled with modern ideas of independence and freedom, she would undoubtedly find the slow, even tenor of the long days at the Villa Tramonti boring beyond endurance. One would need to be deeply in love, and fully involved with the life of the island, to live there permanently. So it was likely Bianca had run away. Eloped, maybe, with the boy of her choice. And Marco hadn’t a clue to her whereabouts.
Jan chuckled to herself. If that were the truth, it served Marco Cellini jolly well right!
Just then her taxi-driver decided to race two others to get through the narrowing gap between two converging buses, and Jan closed her eyes waiting for the crash. When nothing happened except a great deal of shrieked abuse, she opened them cautiously again, and found she had already arrived between the great stone wings of Bernini’s magnificent colonnade, with St Peter’s church in front of her.
Going up in the lift, she found herself on a flat roof from which she had all-embracing views of the city of Rome, the river Tiber, the gardens of the Vatican. The stone statues of Christ and his apostles which dominated St Peter’s Square and seemed, from ground level, a little larger than life-size, were now revealed as giants. Tourists and photographers, gazing in awe at close quarters, were pygmies. How strange it seemed, she thought as she gazed over the parapet at the toy traffic below, the insect-humans moving to and fro, that centuries ago, when the magnificent Roman Forum now in ruins was in its heyday, this very spot, now so revered, was the cruel Roman circus. Under this same sky, this same blazing sun, thousands of young Christians had been martyred by those Romans, and buried where they fell. Ordinary people, common people, who worked and paid taxes and got tired and frightened, their lives ending in a mess of blood and stink, dust and terror, because they had enough courage to die for what they knew.
How could they have imagined such a vast and splendid monument over their poor crushed bones and mangled bodies? Or dreamed that one day the whole world would come, day after day, to visit their splendid tomb and stare at the broken remnants of the .empire which swatted them down like flies? A girl my age, in love with life and maybe with a boy in chains beside her, hearing the lions roar and smelling the fetid odour of the wild-animal cages? Would it have comforted them, to see all the people coming and going, drawn from countries undiscovered then, to this vast magnet?
Time had flown. There was just enough for her to climb in ever-narrowing circles up inside the dome to the topmost gallery and see an even wider view of the city and the hills on which it had been built. The city on seven hills! On the way down, she went inside the dome and stared into the body of the great basilica, the top of the baldaquin over the High Altar.
Then it was time to hurry down to the obelisk where Marco would arrive prompt on his hour. To her relief, she was there first, looking out for his low white car.
He arrived, after all, in a horse-drawn open botticella which sported a bright new flowered canopy with a deep white fringe, and fresh clean covers of the same material over the seats. The coachwork shone, the horse was well-groomed and in good condition. Trust Marco to find such a splendid vehicle out of all the tatty carriages, all the bone-tired thin horses in the city.
‘In you get,’ he smiled, and handed her in with a flourish, touching her hand to his lips as he did so. ‘I said you needed an escort for the most elegant street in Europe, and it occurred to me you needed a carriage too.’
Almost too astonished to answer, she gave him a brilliant smile of thanks and seated herself, feeling like a queen going to her coronation. The horse travelled at a spanking trot down the broad processional way of the Via della Conciliazione.
He laid a hand on hers. ‘Happy, Jan?’
‘Over the moon with sheer joy. I can’t even thank you, Marco. How could you think of such a lovely thing, when you’re so busy with your own affairs? You really are a most remarkable person.’
‘So are you—young, lovely, with all the world before you. Yet you plan such a hardworking, unglamorous life for yourself. Don’t you want any fun, any luxury, any—love?’
‘I want all those things. I’m not such a fool as to think they make up the whole of life. Fun and luxury only exist for those who rarely get them. Have them all the time and they are commonplace.’
‘You open new vistas on the feminine mind, signorina. What are your astonishing views on marriage, if one may ask?’
‘A partnership. A sharing. Love—I don’t know. Perhaps it’s different for everybody, but for me it must go a long way beyond the physical. There must be tenderness, and caring, and a sort of astonishment and delight.’
‘Does it last?’
‘How should I know? Your parents’ love lasted, didn’t it? I have an idea that if love was real, one might never get to the end of it, but always be discovering new marvels right to the end of time.’
‘You’re an idealist. But in your country you believe in marriage for love.’
‘And yours are arranged, are they not?’
‘Quite often. Especially in the older, more traditional families. Often big estates are involved, vast businesses or fortunes. It would not do, you see, to trust to love. One also needs common sense, and common sense is not a noticeable feature of lovers.’
‘I think that is quite dreadful! Love can’t be arranged.’
‘It often is. The majority of such marriages are successful. Can you say your own system has a higher proportion of successes than ours? Can two youngsters crazily in love see the pitfalls?’
‘Often. But foolishly believe love will carry them safely over. Sometimes it does, too. Are you in love, Marco? I’m not prying, I just meant are you officially betrothed and looking forward to a happy marriage?’
‘No, I’m not. Eligible daughters are constantly paraded before me, of course. That’s inevitable. But they’re all so—’ he shrugged and spread his ha
nds in an expressive gesture, ‘predictable. Educated at the same schools, reared in the same atmosphere, dressed in the same fashions—’
‘Is Bianca like that?’
‘I don’t know. I’m her brother. She’s just a child—no, that’s not true. She is a really lovely girl and, I suppose, ripe for marriage. When she comes home, I shall suggest to her fiancé that he puts the wedding forward. I had asked him to wait a year as she is so young.’
She cried in surprise, ‘Bianca’s engaged! You never told me!’
‘My dear, do you think I would neglect my duty to a sister? Certainly I have found her a good marriage. He is young, rich, has a fine estate in Tuscany. Bianca will be a contessa.’
‘Great! If she wants to be. Does she love him?’
‘Love comes after marriage, our women admit that. You look doubtful, but if love can die after marriage, can it not also be born?’
‘Y-yes, I should think so. But how awful, if it didn’t, and one had to face a lifetime with a man one didn’t love.’
‘You have other plans for yourself, eh? A lifetime of service to the sick and old.’
‘How dull you make my career sound. I assure you, if and when I meet the right man, I shall be happy to marry and have a home and children of my own. Only I happen to think that domestic duties are not enough to occupy one’s whole time. I’d probably be a better wife for having interests outside the house. I’d stay younger and be a more complete person, so perhaps I’d be more attractive and interesting to my husband and other people. A cabbage existence I couldn’t abide.’
The little carriage had now begun to encounter the heavy motor traffic in the narrower streets, and progress was slower. Marco made the driver stop once or twice, so that Jan could admire the huge fountains with their enormous figures spouting water in innumerable cascades. And at last they entered the Via Veneto by the Pincine Gate, and Jan reluctantly said goodbye to the shining botticella.
They ate outside, under a striped pink and white awning. The smart tables were covered in deep pink linen cloths, and banked with flowers.
‘I shall choose everything for you,’ Marco said at once. ‘Including the wine, for how can you possibly know what is best for such an occasion?’
During lunch he proved a delightful companion, knowledgeable and witty. Please don’t let me fall in love with him, Jan prayed, for if I do I’ll never recover, and never find anyone so charming, when he exerts himself to be; so masterful and confident, so difficult to understand completely. One would never get to the end of making discoveries about him, she thought. He can make a woman feel like a queen or a beggarmaid, and be sublimely unaware that he was doing either.
And when he kissed, he could make a girl feel like a woman. Even now, as exquisitely dressed women and deft waiters moved between the tables, among the scent of massed flowering plants and shrubs, the noise of the Rome traffic and the glimpse of a tall palm tree reflected in the plate glass window of the hotel, the memory of his hard male kiss could stir her. Would it ever be repeated?
Better, safer, not. Her best chance was to get back to England and her examinations, and forget the Rome episode.
At last he glanced at his watch. ‘Alas, I must go. Work calls. Where for you?’
‘I didn’t have time to see the treasury or do my shopping.’
‘You can shop anywhere. Do that in Capri. Nowhere else in the world can you see the jewels of the Vatican—rubies, emeralds, diamonds, pearls. Crowns and crucifixes, cloth-of-gold robes and jewelled Orders—’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to sell all that, and give the money to the poor?’
‘Who could buy? They are beyond price. And if some millionaire bought even a fraction of what has been given with such love and faith over so many ages—wouldn’t people still be saying the same thing, in his country? Man is not forbidden to give glory to God, and still take care of the poor and sick. One Michelangelo for the glory, one Jan to nurse the sick. Both have their place. Off you go, now. No botticella next time. It will be the car and straight back to Naples, where we will dine. Don’t be late, mind.’
It was midnight before they arrived at the Villa Tramonti. Signora Cellini had waited up for them, and came hurrying through the garden to meet them.
‘Have you brought Bianca?’ she called anxiously.
‘You are so late, both of you. Bianca, my love, you should not have allowed your brother to keep you out till midnight. It is not discreet for a young lady. And you will miss your beauty sleep.’
‘I am not Bianca, madame,’ Jan said gently. ‘See—I’m Jan. Bianca is in Florence with her aunt.’ Marco put a tender arm round his mother’s shoulders. ‘Mamma, you must not begrudge the child a little holiday. She is having a fine time with her aunt and cousins.’
The Signora stared at him hardly, not a sign of confusion in her handsome face. ‘Then why doesn’t she write? Why, why, why?’
Jan’s heart turned over. At last Marco would have to say something definite.
He turned towards the wide open doors of the villa, drawing his mother with him. ‘She did write, darling. Don’t you remember? She told us all about her visit to the Uffizi Galleries, and Aunt Tina’s liver trouble.’
‘Never, never! You’re lying, Marco. You lie all the time. My daughter is dead, isn’t she? Like my husband.’
‘Mamma, I’ve told you a hundred times, Bianca is nothing of the sort. She’s as strong and well as I am. Don’t cry, please don’t cry, little Mamma!’
The Signora was sobbing, beyond her control. She buried her face in her hands and shook with crying.
‘Liar, liar, liar!’
Marco, murmuring gently, tried to draw her hands from her face. Without warning, his mother flung up her head, and screaming Liar! once more, struck him heavily across the cheek.
Quicker than thought, Jan scooped water from the fountain in her cupped palms and dashed it into the older woman’s face. The Signora gasped and shivered.
‘Hysteria!’ Jan snapped over her shoulder to Marco. ‘Leave her to me. This is my job.’
Gently she led the trembling woman indoors, helped her to undress and put her to bed. There were sleeping tablets in a small onyx box by the bedside, so Jan administered one and put the box out of reach. Then she closed the shutters and sat quietly waiting till the sobs died down and more even breathing told her the Signora slept.
Then she went outside. Marco was slumped in a chair by the fountain, staring at nothing. She sat on the marble lip of the terrazzo. After a minute she said:
‘Start talking, Marco. You’ll have to tell me now, won’t you? Where is your sister?’
He gave a heavy sigh, then lifted his head and spoke. ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’
‘You don’t know? Your sister disappears and you do nothing but calmly import a strange girl who happens to look a bit like her? Where do you think she is?’
He twisted towards her, with an expression of murderous rage. ‘For God’s sake, woman, shut up!’
Jan compressed her lips, got up and marched into her bedroom, where she stripped off every last stitch of Bianca s outfit, rolled it into a ball. Then she put on her own simple skirt and cotton sweater, and went back into the garden. Marco was there. He was holding a cigarette between his fingers now, the smoke rising in a thin line of blue under the terrazzo lantern. ‘Enough is enough, Marco. Either you tell me exactly what you know about your sister here and now, or I quit. The masquerade is finished. Do you understand? Are you listening?’
‘Don’t shout. There’s nothing I can tell, you silly little fool.’
‘Right. Goodbye. I’m going to pack now and I shall leave first thing in the morning.’ She threw the bundle of Bianca’s clothes at him. Hard driven by temper, it hit him on the head and rolled down his shoulders, unfolding as it went.
Jan swung on her heel and marched indoors, banging the louvres after her. Hands shaking with rage, she dragged out her suitcase and began to thrust her things in. She could get
back to the Rome hotel now she had her money. The room there was paid for, till Saturday.
Saturday! She stopped, struck by the thought that she was due, back in England at the end of this week.
There’s to be no more. Nothing. No Marco ever again!
And she loved him.
Love? Was that possible, after so short an acquaintance? Didn’t the kind of love she craved grow gently, come into flower slowly; a wondrous thing of the mind and spirit, as well as of the body and the beating pulses? How much of what she had felt for Michael had been real love, and how much the simple magnetism of young body to young body, the leap of the stirred blood, the eternal male-female pull?
But Michael had been a boy. Marco was an intensely masculine man, with all the masculine qualities of leadership and confidence. He was autocratic in a country where men were expected to be autocratic, to be the heads of their families, to rule and be obeyed. He was dependable, thoughtful in small ways as well as great. He was the head of big business, a man of wealth; and how could he have achieved that, without being tough, determined, strong?
But emotionally? What did she know about him emotionally? Unlike most of his fellow-countrymen, who wore their emotions like banners, Marco kept his feelings under stern control. There could be a volcano under that stern crust, but only an occasional shower of white-hot sparks hinted at the locked-in fires.
With an uncontrollable desire to escape from her racing thoughts, she pushed open the shutters which led to the balcony of Bianca’s bedroom, and stepped out. The sky was velvet black and studded with stars. The flower scents of the day rose powerfully on the cooling air. Somewhere out there, hidden in the dark, was Vesuvius, that sleeping giant—dead, some believed, since the eruption of 1944. Was it extinct? Or merely biding its time again?
This was the end. The end of her holiday, which had started so modestly, and become so unexpectedly luxurious. Which had started with tears for lost Michael, and would end with tears for lost Marco Cellini.