A Growing Moon

by Jane Arbor

  Dinah stared again. She knew she had coloured, but refusing to commit herself in words, she queried, ‘You mean, signora, that you’d prefer to believe Cesare isn’t planning to marry the Princess?’

  ‘I mean,’ said Cesare’s mother, spelling it out, ‘that I mostly certainly do not want a harpy of a fashion-plate as a daughter-in-law and hoped that you too, as our friend, wouldn’t wish to see him waste himself

  so. However ---------- ’ with a shrug and a switch to

  Italian, ‘che sara, sara. One cannot fight destiny, after all.’

  Which, Dinah thought wryly, was about as phoney a piece of fatalism as she had ever heard. What will be, will be, indeed! As if, from all she knew of Cesare Vidal and his mother, either of them would ever yield to the preordained without a fight! As for this issue for or against the Princess Lagna as Cesare’s future bride, Dinah was quite sure that, even in mock-resignation, he had never uttered the words Che sara, sara, and if he meant to marry Francia Lagna, he would.

  During that week Dinah finished making the last of her informal reports on the seven hotels, and though she had had some adverse criticisms to make, she was particularly glad that she had been able to praise both those which f igured on Plenair’s recommended list.

  At the outset she had had to argue with Cesare that she was doing the survey voluntarily and for her own interest as much as for his syndicate’s purpose. It was pleasant homework which she enjoyed and which widened her experience; therefore no question of payment must be involved.

  He curtly demolished this reasoning. ‘Nonsense. You are going to places of our choice, not yours, and possibly at times when you might prefer not to go out. Of course you must be paid.’

  ‘For dining out seven times, when you know I often take myself out to a restaurant? And you’ve said I could choose my own evenings for each one,’ she pointed out. it’s a—a privilege to do it for you. Don’t put a price on it, please.’

  He appeared to waver. ‘At least your expenses?’ She met him half-way. ‘Very well. My expenses.’ ‘Faithfully rendered?’

  ‘To the last single lira,’ she had promised him, and had duly added the exact figure to the foot of each report she had made.

  She had still found nowhere to live when she would be leaving the Palazzo, and on the day before Cesare and his Swedish colleague were due to fly to Stockholm, Trevor waylaid her and asked her to lunch with him. Surprised by the invitation, she told him she had to be out with a party of tourists all the morning and, accepting, asked him where they should meet. ‘At the Grillo as usual?’

  ‘No. At the Casa Savoia on Calle Cervia,’ Trevor told her,

  naming a small restaurant rapidly gaining a name for its cuisine. He had news for her, he said; in fact, two items, both of which he hoped she would be glad to hear.

  When she arrived at the Savoia he was waiting for her in the foyer. He had ordered drinks to be brought to his table, he said, taking her straight into the restaurant where, at the table to which he showed her, Etta was already sitting.

  ‘We’re celebrating in a mild way, and we wanted you to be in on it,’ Trevor explained Etta’s presence. ‘Last night we got engaged, and Etta couldn’t wait to let you know.’

  ‘Engaged? I’m glad—so very glad for you both.’ Dinah stooped to kiss the girl’s glowing cheek. As she took her seat she teased Trevor, ‘A fast worker, you! May I remind you of how short a time ago you were claiming to me that you didn’t mean to marry yet?’

  ‘Yes, well’—he had the grace to look abashed —‘that was before I’d admitted to myself how much I’d come to value Etta; how little I could bear to let her go, perhaps to another job, perhaps to another fellow. And when she admitted that she felt—something—for me, then we began to go ahead, and very soon it seemed silly to wait, considering how getting married wouldn’t interfere with our work at all. Wasn’t that how it was, darling?’ he appealed to Etta.

  She nodded happily. ‘Except that it wasn’t just work we were concerned with. It was when we realised that we couldn’t bear not to share all of our life with each other. I think I knew it before Trevor did,’ she told Dinah. ‘But once he did, that made me happy. And you are glad, aren’t you?’ she appealed wistfully.

  ‘Glad and gratified, both,’ Dinah assured her.

  ‘Gratified?’

  ‘Terribly glad for you, and gratified that Trevor and I realised before it was too late that we were only skirmishing on the edge of loving each other

  enough for marriage ------------ ’

  ‘You realised it. I didn’t want to,’ he put in.

  ‘But you must have agreed in your heart, or you would have rushed me, as you seem to have rushed Etta. You are not getting him merely on the rebound from me, and I’m flattered that you wanted me to be the first one to know,’ Dinah told Etta. ‘When is the wedding to be?’

  ‘Next month, we thought, when the season will be finished,’ said Trevor.

  ‘And you’ll invite me, though I don’t know yet whether I shall still be here for it?’

  ‘You should be, I think. Just before I asked you to lunch this morning old man Corotti sent a memo through to pass on to you, to see him in his office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.’ ‘And you think that means he’s going to keep me on?’

  ‘I’d say so, certainly. What else could it mean? And that was the other piece of news I had for you,’ Tr evor said.

  But Dinah was to find that the ‘else’ which was the purpose of the manager’s summons to her was very different from her hopes.

  He had sent his secretary out of his room and he greeted Dinah curtly from behind his desk, pointing her to a chair.

  She sat down. Signor Corotti was not renowned for affability, and she had not expected wreathed smiles from him. But his very first words were to give her cause for a disquiet she didn’t understand.

  He said, ‘I’ve called you for interview, Signorina Fleming, to give you the opportunity to explain to me

  some extra-mural actions and disloyalties to Plenair which could have the gravest possible consequences to your trusted position with us. You probably know to what I am referring?’

  Aghast with dismay, Dinah stammered, ‘I—I don’t, I’m afraid, sir. You have me quite at a loss.’

  He shrugged. ‘Oh, come! I have consulted your contract, and I admit it contains nothing to bar you from undertaking some pin-money work in your spare time. So that if what you had been doing had been, say, some private typing or English coaching, that would be your affair. But this! This presumption on your privilege as an employee of Plenair to connive at a spy service directed at a selection of city hotels—certain of them on our own recommended list—happens to be very pointedly our affair. And now I hope you will not pretend you do not understand why I expect you to explain it, signorina!’

  He waited through the silence Dinah needed to collect words for her defence. At last she said, ‘I do understand that you think I am guilty of something of which I assure you, sir,

  I am not. I have accepted no paid work outside my obligations to Plenair, and I’ve lent myself to no spy service. I was merely asked, in an entirely private capacity, to sample the services offered by those seven hotels you are referring to May I tell you, please, how it all came about?’

  A frigid nod. ‘Please do.’

  ‘It was at a business dinner-party Signor Vidal gave to the members of the syndicate which was considering buying the

  chain of hotels in question------------------------------------------ ’

  ‘And how did you come to be present at this business function?’

  Dinah explained, ‘You’ll remember, sir, that I was burned out

  of my rented flat in the Calle Maser, and afterwards Signor Vidal, to whom I’d escorted two of his young cousins from England, offered me hospitality again until I found some other accommodation.’

  ‘Very well. Go on.’

  ‘And so, as I was living at the Palazzo d’Orio, I was occasional
ly asked to dinner with him and his friends, though more often I dined alone or went out for the evening. And it was partly because I was used to eating out alone in various restaurants that the suggestion was made that I should report on these places in which the syndicate was interested. They seemed to think,’ Dinah added drily, ‘that as I was a very ordinary lone female, my estimate of the treatment I got would be of some value to them.’

  ‘A very amateur approach on their part, surely, and yours, a very minor contribution to their knowledge of the hotels?’

  Dinah agreed, ‘I thought so too. But it seems they wanted a kind of worm’s-eye view privately made without any prejudice, and when they urged it on me’—momentarily she was aware of a tiny nag of memory of the scene—‘I said I would do it and make my report. And incidentally, if my experience was a usual one, the two hotels of ours, the Orsini and the Largo Vasto, emerged with flying colours. I did make my reports in writing, I admit, and I did turn them in to the syndicate. But I saw nothing in what I did as being disloyal to the firm. After all, it was only an amateur exercise, and the opinions I expressed were only my own. ’

  ‘Some of which were adverse, no doubt?’

  ‘One or two only. But when I thought the service was poor, I admit I said so.’

  ‘And what do you suppose our reputation would be worth, if it got know in the city that a minor employee of ours was engaged in making secret paid reports on independent establishments without their agreement to be vetted so? Signor Vidal’s syndicate had every right to test for a sample of what they were buying; they had no right whatsoever to pay you extravagantly—you, employed by us—to do the work for them. That, in my view, was double dealing of the worst kind. I hope you agree?’

  Dinah said tautly, ‘I would—if there had been any question of my being paid. But there was not.’ ‘You claim you did this survey for love—as one might say? You received no pay at all?’ ‘I didn’t want to. I didn’t mean to. But in the end I agreed I should have my bare expenses—for my taxi, my meal and so on.’

  ‘Amounting to, approximately?’

  Dinah did a swift mental sum, arrived at a modest figure and named it.

  Signor Corotti repeated it after her. ‘And that is the total you have received?’

  ‘Expect to receive. I haven’t been paid it yet,’ she corrected. ‘But you say that is the total you claimed and should get?’

  ‘I have only added it up in my head for you. But a few lire this way or that, yes.’

  ‘Then how do you account for this?’ He took a cheque from his desk drawer and flourished it. ‘This is for a very differ ent figure. In fact, deducting the odd amount which one supposes was for your expenses, it appears to show that you are to be paid around one hundred thousand lire for your visits to each of the seven hotels of your assignment— approximately seven hundred thousand lire in all. Well?’

  Dinah felt all the blood drain from her face and downward, chilling her whole body. Her lips went dry and she had to moisten them before she could speak. ‘That—that is

  astronomical, and completely absurd,’ she said. ‘May I exa mine the cheque? And may I ask how you came by it, Signor Corotti?’ ‘It has been temporarily entrusted to me by my informant on your activities, as I thought it only fair to confront you with it. But I have given my under taking for its safe return.’

  ‘And your informant?’

  ‘I am sorry. The information was in confidence and I am not at liberty to name its source.’

  Now Dinah’s anger was rising, her confidence re turning. ‘The cheque, then? May I verify that?’

  He passed it, to her. The figures and wording were as he had said; the payee was herself and the cheque carried two signatures, one of them Betholde Lesogno, the other Cesare Vidal. Dinah fingered it for a moment, folded it once and across again, then tore it into pieces and allowed them to drop to the floor.

  Signor Corotti stared. Dinah said. ‘That’s all that bit of nonsense is worth. But I daresay, if you ask your secretary to piece it together, your informant will accept it back. Meanwhile, it says nothing of me that is true, and it has no value, and I ask you to accept my word on that.’

  He attempted to bluff it out. ‘You only make a haughty gesture, signorina. A mere cheque could be written again.’

  ‘I assure you, this cheque will not be written again. I never earned such money, nor had it offered to me for something I did voluntarily and in good faith and with no idea it might prejudice the interests of Plenair.’

  ‘The cheque was made out to you for some purpose,’ he

  maintained. ‘However ---------------------------- ’ he hesitated,

  moved one or two things on his desk—‘I only aske d

  you here to get your explanation of the affair ----------------- ’

  ‘Which I have given you to the best of my ability.’

  ‘By destroying the evidence of the cheque.’

  ‘And by my word.’

  Signor Corotti made a steeple of his fingers and examined it dispassionately. ‘Yes, well—I’m sure you will understand, signorina, that I have no choice but

  to suspend you until such time as...............’

  But Dinah, as sickened by his distrust as by what she read as Cesare’s betrayal of her, had had enough. She stood up. ‘And I,’ she said, ‘feel I have no choice but to ask you to accept my resignation from Plenair. To operate from now, if that’s convenient. If not, from when it is.’

  ‘I can make it convenient, signorina, if that’s your wish.’ ‘Good,’ said Dinah, driven by her pride, but not meaning ‘Good’ at all.

  SHE went blindly back to the front office, her thoughts in a turmoil of anger, bewilderment and frustration.

  Anger—how dared that man doubt her word and her good faith?

  Bewilderment—why, why had Cesare let her believe the service he and his friends had asked of her had been voluntarily given, when he must have known that to pay her a ridiculously high fee for it while she was employed by Plenair was unethical by any business standards? She hated to think it of him. But he had signed that cheque, hadn’t he? She had never seen Signor Lesogno’s writing, but she knew Cesare’s, and the signature had undoubtedly been his.

  Frustration—today he was due to fly to Stockholm with his Swedish colleague, so that she hadn’t even the bitter satisfaction of confronting him, hearing him try to justify his reasons and mincing no words in letting him know what she thought of them. As it was—she had a sense of stalemate which almost physically choked her.

  She questioned whether she should confide in Trevor, ask his advice. But he was not at his desk. Etta said he was out, and was there any message Dinah would like to leave with her? Dinah said ‘No, ’ and again ‘No,’ rather shortly when Etta asked eagerly whether at her interview with the manager he had asked her to stay on.

  Arrived at her own desk, Dinah supposed that her ultimatum of ‘Now’ which Signor Corotti had accepted meant that she could leave at once. But she decided to see the day out. Tomorrow she would not come in and would have to see about booking her return journey to England.

  And how she dreaded having to go back in such circumstances! Her people trusted her and would take her side. But the fact remained that she had had to resign to save herself probable dismissal, and their hopes of her prospects with Plenair had been as high as her own. She would almost certainly have left Venice before Cesare returned, but there was also the ordeal before her of explaining matters to his mother, and she could hardly expect any but divided loyalties from her. She would leave the Palazzo d’Orio under a cloud, if no worse, and whenever she had envis -aged her parting from Cesare, she had meant it to be with dignity, however much her heart ached.

  Between dealing with clients and inquiries and the telephone she sorted and tidied her desk, and listed details of tomorrow’s work for the use of anyone who took her place. During the morning a clerk from Accountancy brought her a cheque for her pay to date and in lieu of notice, and she deli
vered the receipt herself to Signor Corotti’s secretary. Her own immediate chief was on leave, so she had to explain herself to no one, and by tomorrow it would be common knowledge that she was not coming back.

  She did not try to contact Trevor again, and when the office closed at seven she hurried away on foot. At least she would have the evening alone in which to lick her wounds, for she knew that Signora Vidal was dining out and would not be back until late.

  She had little appetite for her dinner and went straight to her room after making a show of eating it. Mechanically she began her preparations for packing, her mind not on her task but ranging back and forward— back to her arrival with the twins and their frosty reception by Cesare; to the camaraderie they had achieved with him, while her own relationship remained rather fraught, always warmed by his praise and chilled by his indifference—and forward to a future that was going to be empty of him for good.

  Looking through the books she had acquired since she came to Venice, she remembered she had left one, a collection of coloured plates of the Doges’ Palace paintings, in the salotto. She went down to fetch it and had just taken it from a side table when the door opened and someone— Cesare—came in.

  He threw his briefcase on a chair. ‘Ciao,’ he greeted her. ‘You wouldn’t expect to see me?’

  Temporarily both her wits and her pent-up anger against him deserted her. ‘Of course not. You— you’re in Stockholm,’ she said foolishly.

  ‘Am I? So much for plans! There was a lightning strike of staff at the airport, and afte r waiting all day to fly out, there’s no hope now until further notice. Tomorrow—perhaps, though more likely not. Have you

  had dinner?’ he asked.

  ‘Ye-es.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t, and I’m starving.’

  ‘I—I’ll tell Tomasa. Or does she know you are back?’

  ‘No. But here’s a better idea. Will you come out with me for a meal somewhere?’

  Her rancour flooded back. ‘I’ve told you, I have eaten. So no, thank you.’