by Jane Arbor
On closer view, the garage was obviously a lock-up and they failed to rouse anyone there. Further along the main street an inn-sign swung, creaking, above a shabby doorway—A l'Aigle dOr. ‘Let’s see what kind of an eyrie the Golden Eagle can offer,’ Cesare suggested, and knocked on the door.
Silence. No response. He knocked again and stood back in the roadway to look up at the first-floor windows. Presently a light flickered on up there; a woman put out her head, called ‘Un moment ’ and shut the window.
The ‘one moment’ became several minutes before she came to unbolt the door and to usher them into the hall. Cesare explained their plight and told her they wanted two beds for one night. She
nodded.
‘Certainement, monsieur,’ and pointed the way up the stairs.
Dinah, recognising the French and Swiss custom of showing the room to the client before a booking is made, went up with her and Cesare. But she was completely unprepared for the triumph with which the Swiss woman ushered them both into a room containing two beds, saying, ‘ Voila, madame, monsieur! ’ with finality.
Cesare’s eyebrows went up, and Dinah found her voice. ‘Yes, very nice. And—the other room, madame?’
A blank look. ‘The other one? I have only the one room, madame. But two beds—you see?’
Dinah looked at Cesare, who didn’t help.
‘But.......’ she began, and the woman regarded her with a puzzled
frown. ‘You are “family”, madame? Husband and wife—is it not so?’ Dinah knew she was blushing. ‘No,’ she said, and belatedly Cesare came to her rescue. He laughed, told the woman, ‘You are premature, madame. The signorina and I are not even engaged!’ and told Dinah to accept the room for herself; he would sleep in the car.
She went downstairs with him; he booked her in at the desk, and refused Madame’s suggestion that he should sleep on a bench in the bar, saying he wanted to get a mechanic on to the car repair very early, and he would come for Dinah as soon as they could set out again in the morning.
She went to the door with him. For a moment there was a nothingness between them—a kind of vacuum in time. Then he put his lips very lightly to her brow at the hairline.
‘That’s for not screaming, not complaining, not blaming. It’s not an assault on your virtue,’ he said of the kiss, and went out.
Dinah was up early the next morning and had to wait some time for coffee and rolls to be brought to her in the inn’s austere breakfast -room. She had gone to bed a lit tle bemused by Cesare’s unexpected tribute. He criticised so caustically that by contrast his praise was very sweet, and between sleep and frequent waking her mind had
mulled over his exact words—her need reading more into them than he could have intended; her fitful dreams making an importance of his kiss. It took the cold sanity of morning to get both words and kiss into focus. He would have commended a child or a younger sister in just that way.
She decided to go to find him at the garage, instead of waiting for him to call for her. She paid her modest bill, hoping he would make no argument about paying it for her, and had bade Madame au revoir when the latter asked,
‘You did not hear M’sieur return last night?’
‘No. Why did he?’
‘He wanted to telephone. Me, I was just getting into my bed a second time, and I had to come down again.’ Madame gave a resigned shrug. ‘However, in this business—that is life.’
Dinah wondered about the telephone call. Since Cesare wouldn’t have known overnight how soon the car could be repaired, it wasn’t likely he would have been ringing Giuseppe to arrange a new time for the man to meet them with the launch, and it wasn’t until they were on their way again, with the repair completed, that Cesare enlightened her.
He asked the same question as Madame had done, explaining, ‘I’d hoped to find a kiosk in the town, but I had to come back to the hotel in order to ring Francia Lagna to tell her that I couldn’t keep our appointment in Milan last night.’
A cloud obscured Dinah’s personal sun. ‘You were meeting Princess Lagna in Milan?’ she said, not liking the sound the words made.
‘Yes. For dinner at The Continentale where I had booked for you and myself, and where she has been staying too, auditioning for a film.’
This was a new and daunting aspect of the Princess. ‘Is she a film-star, then?’ Dinah asked.
‘Not yet. But given the right promotion and the right vehicle for her particular talents, she will be, one hopes.’
Dinah longed to ask what he considered the Princess’s ‘particular’ talents to be. Instead she said, ‘And is she expecting to see you in Milan still, even though you couldn’t keep your appointment last night?’
Cesare shook his head. ‘No. Like most women, she wasn’t too pleased over our broken date, and she’ll have gone back to Venice this morning by train.’
‘But if you hadn’t been delayed, I suppose you would have been driving her?’ Dinah couldn’t resist turning the knife in her own wound.
‘That was the idea,’ he agreed. ‘But as it is, we are going to have to bypass Milan, except for a quick meal, if we are to make Venice at a reasonable hour ourselves.’ Which left Dinah to contemplate and be thankful for at least the small mercies both of being spared effacing herself from his tete-a-tete dinner with the Princess last night, and of not having to play an unwanted third on the journey from Milan onwards today. For all her resolution, the plain fact was— she admitted it—she was jealous of Francia Lagna, and on the one or two occasions they had met since their first encounter outside the Royal Danieli, the Princess’s manner had been supercilious to a degree. It was small of her to mind, Dinah knew, but her resentment had had allies in the twins.
‘Seems to regard Cesare as her exclusive property; that we don’t belong to him at all and haven’t any right to be here! ’ Lesley had grumbled darkly on one occasion when the other woman had remarked with pseudo-sweet tolerance that, considering all Cesare’s responsibilities, he showed extraordinary patience in shouldering the entertainment of young people, virtually strangers to him, who, she understood, had invited themselves. But that was Cesare all over— generous of his time to a fault.
To which Lesley, using Dinah as reluctant interpreter, had retorted rudely, ‘You think so? Well, perh aps you should ask Dinah about that! ’—advice which the Princess had loftily ignored.
From Padua Cesare telephoned to tell Giuseppe when to meet them; arrived at the Palazzo, he left again almost immediately, presumably to placate the Princess over his defection last night, and Dinah ate dinner alone. It would be her last dinner there, she reflected forlornly, missing the twins’ spirited com pany. She meant to pack tonight and to move herself and her belongings, with Trevor’s help, into her rented flat after work tomorrow. She hadn’t wanted to enlist Trevor, but he had insisted, and just as she was ready for bed, he rang to confirm that she was back and that she would be in good time at the office in the morning.
Sooner or later conversations with Trevor usually became shop talk, and this one was no exception. The manager was back from his holiday; he had praised Trevor’s deputising; he would be putting Dinah into the inquiry counter at first; later she would be second-incharge of Day Tours, and Etta, Dinah would be glad to hear, seemed to have taken to heart whatever Dinah had said to her. Now she couldn’t do enough to show interest in her work and his; they were a team again as they had been earlier; he thought even Dinah would notice a change in her.
‘And,’ he concluded earnestly, ‘I really hope she has got a boyfriend who is good to her. For I found myself looking at her the other day, and actually, you know, she’s quite pretty! ’
As Dinah knew from experience, Mondays were apt to be the busiest days of the week in a tourist office, and the Mondays of Plenair were no exception, when its clients, newly arrived from all points on Saturday evening, had had time and leisure on Sunday to devote plans and on Monday descended on their agents in eager droves.
Dinah spe
nt her morning on the inquiry counter, answering questions, directing people to other departments, advising on shopping, explaining the intricacies of the Italian currency, and demonstrating on street-maps the best, ways of getting from here to there. There was an English novelist in search of local colour, wanting to know where he could best meet and talk to some gondoliers on their own ground. A French lady, outraged by the prices of Venetian leather goods, had to be soothed and assured that they would be even higher in Paris. A freelance tour guide called to complain that Plenair was poaching his preserves by advertising tours cheaper by a thousand lire than his own. A bachelor on a lone-wolf holiday didn’t want anything in particular of Dinah exce pt to ask outright for an evening date. To him she replied with her sweetest smile that she was engaged.
‘Fidanzata o occupata?’ he wanted to know, trying out his Italian.
‘Both,’ she lied, in order to get rid of him. But when she had no choice but to lunch with Trevor at the Grillo, she decided against reporting this evasive play on words. Busy she was for the evening; betrothed she was not, and for her own reasons she didn’t want Trevor to think she had made the claim seriously. The subject of being engaged was one she did not want to bring up with him just now.
It was nearly eight o’clock before they were both free to go to the Palazzo to collect her luggage and take it to the flat. Trevor had hired a water-taxi, and when her things were loaded and while he waited in it, Dinah sought out Cesare.
He brushed off her thanks for his hospitality. ‘I made conditions; you accepted them. It’s all worked out smoothly; no obligations on either side,’ he said.
‘I don’t agree. Unwelcome guests we may have been at f irst, but since then you’ve spared nothing to make us all feel at home. ’
‘What did you expect? You’re not the only one to honour bargains,’ he retorted. ‘And now, I suppose, you revert to your role of bachelor career woman?’
Irrationally she was hurt by hi s cool brusquerie. ‘You could say that,’ she agreed, her voice falling away.
He took the hand she held out to him. ‘So what am I to wish you in it?’ he asked.
(If only he wouldn’t sound so final, as if they were never likely to cross paths again! She was still to be in Venice. He was. So surely?) Aloud she said, ‘Well, to hope that I’m going to enjoy it would be — friendly, don’t you think?’
‘Would it? Then I’m friendly. Take my good wishes as read, won’t you? And perhaps we could meet some time, say for an academic argument over luncheon, perhaps? I’ll ring you.’ He released her hand.
That was all—as politely mannered a parting as she had ever experienced. He wouldn’t ring, of course. She had no reason to hope he would.
At that hour the Calle Maser was noisy and crowded with all those of its residents who had escaped the heat in their apartments to gather on the street for an evening gossip. Trevor and Dinah, carrying her luggage from the nearest mooring-basin, were eyed with curiosity, and chatter followed them into the courtyard off the Calle.
Maria Pacelli, who was not leaving for England until the morning, was waiting for them at the door of her apartment. She stood aside after greeting Dinah, who gave a gasp of surprise as she stepped from the vestibule into the living-room.
It had been completely done over. The faded wallpaper had gone, replaced by a deep cream colourwash; the blotched ceiling was cleanly white. Through a door which stood ajar it was possible to see that the kitchenette had had a similar treatment. There the walls were a cerulean blue, the woodwork of the fittings a glossy white.
Dinah turned back to meet her young landlady’s smile. ‘My word, you have done wonders with a pot of paint! ’ she praised.
‘Or did your landlord agree to do it for you?’
Maria Pacelli shook her head. ‘I did n’t have to ask him,’ she said. ‘It was your’—she hesitated—‘it was Signor Vidal, who was with you when you came to view. He came back the next day, said he had been in touch with my own landlord, who had agreed to the redecoration as long as Signor Vidal paid for it,
and the Signore wanted my agreement to put the job in hand.’
Dinah stared. ‘But I’ve seen you since at Plenair, and you didn’t say anything about it! ’
‘He asked me not to. As a friend of yours, h e wanted to surprise you.’
‘But there was no reason why................’ Dinah began
as Trevor broke in, ‘Why on earth should he have done such a thing for you? You’ve always said you’ve found him rather distant!’
There was a note of suspicion in Trevor’s tone which irritated Dinah. ‘You don’t suppose I know why he did it, do you?’ she demanded. ‘Whatever he may have told Signorina Pacelli, he couldn’t have meant it as a pleasant surprise for me. He could only have urged her to secrecy because he must have known I wouldn’ t have allowed him to do it.’
‘Then I did wrong to agree? It embarrasses you, and I should have told you?’ Maria Pacelli inquired anxiously.
‘Not if you had promised Signor Vidal you wouldn’t,’ Dinah assured her. ‘Besides, the only ex planation must be that he was as shocked for you as for me by your landlord’s laxity, and so took things into his own hands to benefit us both. ’
‘He couldn’t have had any thought for me in his mind,’ the other girl denied quickly. And Trevor mut tered, ‘Pretty presumptuous of the fellow, if you ask me. What business was it of his?’
Dinah looked about her at the fait accompli of the brightened room. ‘Well, anyway, it’s done, isn’t it? So I suppose one must just accept that it has made the place pleasanter for Signorina Pacelli, as well as for me.’
At that Maria Pacelli looked relieved, and after giving Dinah some final instructions and advice, she left to spend her last night with friends. But Trevor was not so easily placated. As he helped Dinah to unpack and arrange her belongi ngs, he suggested, ‘You’ve turned rather complacent, haven’t you? Aren’t you going to make any protest at all about the man’s overstepping himself like this?’
‘Of course I mean to ask him why he did it,’ she retorted.
‘Then you do see how it puts your relationship with him in a questionable light?’ Trevor persisted.
‘We had the dubious kind of relationship you mean, yes. But we haven’t.’
Trevor murmured a perfunctory, ‘Sorry,’ adding, ‘But you are going to ask him what his motives were, I hope?’
Dinah said wearily, ‘I’ve told you I mean to. It has done a lot to make the place presentable, you must admit. But he had no right to go about it so furtively, and particularly not to pretend to Maria Pacelli that he did it as a surprise package just for me.’
There was a pause. Then Trevor questioned diffidently, ‘I suppose you wouldn’t like me to tack le him for you? ’
‘No! Why should you?’ she snapped so sharply that he made a shrug and a compression of his lips his reply, and they hadn’t returned to the subject when he left some time later with his usual parting kiss and a ‘See you at the office in the morning, then?’ which tonight struck her as a rather bleak reminder of the only ‘relationship’ they had.
After he had gone she wondered what she had expected or hoped of his reactions to Cesare’s quixotic gesture. Would she have been more gratified, or less, if he had followed up his first suspicious protest by insisting she should allow him to get Cesare’s ex planation at first hand, instead of abandoning his half-hearted offer in face of her sharp refusal to accept it? Somehow she felt let down by his lack of emotional concern for her at the same-time as she felt freed by it. She was weakly feminine enough to want his protection, but from now on she needn’t feel gui lt that she had as little loyalty to offer him as he had to give her. They had nothing in common but the daily round which had thrown them together, and she suspected he might be as relieved as she was when, sometime in the future, they had to acknowledge it as fact.
Meanwhile, if only for the reason that Cesare would look for some move from her, she had to make it
. Would she thank him? Yes, she supposed so. But if he expected mere twittering gratitude,
he was going to be mistaken! Thanks she would have offered freely, if he hadn’t been so devious and cryptic in his methods. What made him think he had the right to ‘surprise’ her with so high-handed a manoeuvre? Why had he let Maria Pacelli draw her own false conclusions about it? Trevor, too, hadn’t been wa nting in suspicious reaction, and as Cesare knew Trevor had called at the Palazzo to take her to the flat, he must have guessed Trevor would be there when she first saw how it had been made over. It wasn’t fair of Cesare to put her in such an equivocal po sition. It really wasn’t!
She looked at Maria’s telephone several times without summoning the will to use it. And when at last she made to lift the receiver, the bell rang, forestalling her.
‘Pronto,’ she said automatically to a silence on the line before Ccsare’s voice said in English, ‘Well?’ on a note of question for which she wasn’t prepared.
‘Oh.......’ she said. ‘You? I was just going to ring you. That is—
I mean, why are you calling me?’ The words came out as a babble which she deplored.
Cesare said coolly, ‘To hear your approval of my e fforts on your behalf, of course. What else?’
‘You mean the renovations here? Yes, well— they’ve done wonders for the place.’ She pulled herself together. ‘But why had you to lay them on, and to tell Signorina Pacelli that they were a personal favour from you to me?’
‘Which they were.’
‘But where was the need? And for all the secrecy? You must have known how it would look to—to other people; that it would embarrass me to explain it away.’
‘“Other people” comprising La Pacell i and...................?’