Every Mother's Son (32 page)

‘We have to toe the line,’ Charles added gloomily.

Marco laughed heartily. ‘Toe ze line, and travel on a string, these English expressions I do not know until now. You must write them down for me,
per favore
.’

Then came a clattering up the steps and Calypso appeared on the terrace, followed by her father.

‘More caffè,’ Marco shouted towards the house, and in response a long stream of unfathomable Italian words from Sophia came spilling out through the doors. Marco ducked as if something was being thrown at him, and Calypso and Leo laughed uproariously.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

It was decided that they would go back to Genoa by ferry, collect the ponies and bring them back the same way. In the meantime Leo would arrange terms with a local grower who had a small acreage of land down near the village and would allow them to let the ponies graze, so that they could stay on for a few more days.

‘Oh, Papa. Can I go to Genoa too?’ Calypso pleaded. ‘It’s such a long time since I was there.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m too busy to come with you right now.’

‘She’d be perfectly safe with us, sir,’ Charles said eagerly. ‘We’d look after her; Beatrice has travelled all this way with us and felt perfectly at ease, haven’t you, Bea?’

Beatrice put on a frail and winsome expression that fooled no one as she agreed she had felt quite safe and not at all threatened, with such strong and capable male escorts to take care of her, and privately wondered what her father would have to say about it once she arrived home.

‘It’s different in Italy,’ Leo argued. ‘It wouldn’t look good, even though Calypso has more freedom than most unmarried young women.’

‘I think it wouldn’t hurt, Leo,’ Marco broke in. ‘She would be travelling with a cousin, after all – your nephew who is also my grandson!’

‘How would you get to and from this lodging house,’ Leo asked briskly, ‘if it’s not in Genoa but outside in the hills?’

‘Well, if you’d agree,’ Daniel offered, ‘the Haflingers are very strong and Calypso could ride behind me. It’s not a long journey from our lodgings, fifteen minutes at most. We walked into the town on two occasions.’

‘
Please
, Papa.’ Calypso pouted her lips. ‘I do so want to ask Beatrice about English ladies.’

‘Oh, very well.’ Leo realized that he had been overruled and admitted also that his views had changed since he had lived in Italy. Had he lived in England and in the same circumstances he’d once known, his daughter would probably be working for a living, unlike the fair gentlewoman Beatrice, travelling with her brother and Daniel. How has that been allowed? he mused. She must have very liberal parents.

Calypso gave her father a smacking kiss on his cheek. ‘Thank you. I’ll get my hat,’ she said, jumping up to dash into the house. ‘It will be very hot in Genoa.’

‘Whoa, whoa!’ her father and grandfather chorused. ‘You’re not thinking of going
now
?’

‘It will be too hot for Beatrice,’ Daniel said, flushing slightly. ‘She’s so fair, as is Charles,’ he added.

Calypso turned back. ‘Oh, of course,’ she murmured. ‘I’m so sorry. But Papa, you won’t change your mind, will you?’

‘No,’ he promised, ‘I won’t. You could go later this afternoon and catch ’last ferry back.’

‘But then we can’t look at Genoa,’ Calypso objected. ‘Tomorrow morning then,’ she decided, ‘and I will show you the sights of Genoa.’ She smiled at Beatrice. ‘And we’ll catch the late ferry home.’

During the hottest part of the day they all adjourned inside. Beatrice chatted to Calypso and Charles hung on to every word that Calypso uttered, and whilst Marco went to his room for an afternoon nap Daniel answered as many of Leo’s questions as he could, about his mother and how she came to be living in a country district and married to a farmer.

Daniel only knew that his mother had married Noah in Hull, and he had then taken her to live with him and his family by the marshy estuary land near Brough.

‘Harriet was a town girl,’ Leo said. ‘I can’t imagine her living on a farm.’

‘Ma told me she was on her uppers when she met Noah,’ Daniel told him. ‘She’d lost her job – at a mill, I think – her mother had just died, and then Noah offered her marriage. He said he needed a wife.’ He paused. ‘I gather that, erm, well, I don’t think there was any love between them. It was convenient for them both.’ He paused, and wondered how anyone could marry without love in their lives.

‘Ellen Tuke, who’d adopted Noah, showed her how to milk a cow and look after ’hens, and taught her to cook and bake, but after I was born and when Noah died, my ma left, cos she felt she wasn’t wanted, and went to live with a friend in her cottage.’

Daniel had always wondered what had gone wrong between them for Granny Tuke to take such a dislike to his mother. There had always been a mystery that his mother was unwilling to talk about. ‘It’s history,’ she used to say.

‘And your brothers and sisters,’ Leo said. ‘They’re your stepfather’s children?’

Daniel frowned. He never thought of them in that way. ‘Y-eh,’ he replied reluctantly. ‘But I’ve onny ever known Fletcher as my father, so there’s never been any difference between us. They’re all fairer than me, except for Lenny.’ He smiled. ‘Ma has allus said that he looks like you, wi’ same dark hair and brown eyes.’

‘And she named him after me?’ Leo had a catch in his voice, as if overcome that he hadn’t been forgotten after so many years.

‘Yeh.’ Daniel laughed. ‘I can’t wait to tell them all that I’ve met you.’

‘I was thinking about that onny this morning before you were up,’ Leo said. ‘I was talking to Marco and Calypso and trying to plan when I – that is Calypso and I – could come to England, and we thought that December might be best. Marco wouldn’t come, as it would be too cold for him. Probably too cold for me, too, after living in this climate. But the olive harvest will be over apart from some of the pressings, and that can be left to the locals, who know more about it than I do, being a mere newcomer. I negotiate the sale of the products.’

‘So you really will come?’ Daniel was overjoyed. He had nurtured doubts.

‘Of course.’ Leo expressed surprise at the question. ‘But I had to think it through, and think also about Marco. Sophia has said she’ll stay with him. Her father’s an old friend of Marco’s, which is why she’s so familiar with him: she’s known him all her life. She also says that her parents will watch over him or even come to stay, though don’t tell Marco I said so. He’s very spirited and independent, but his legs let him down. Still, I’m sure he won’t mind us leaving him, and maybe one of his daughters might come to stay too. He could be inundated with friends and family.’ He hesitated. ‘But just in case … I have been wondering, might it be better not to tell Harriet – your mother – about me just yet? Then if we can’t leave Marco for any reason, she won’t be disappointed, and if we can come over it will be a wonderful surprise. What do you think?’

Daniel pondered. Harriet would be so happy to know that Leonard was still alive – would it be fair to keep the news from her for even a day? On the other hand, Leo’s reluctance to risk disappointing her was understandable too. ‘What about this?’ he said slowly. ‘I tell her that I’ve met you and that you’re planning to come to England at some time in ’future, and then you can write to me and arrange a date and
then
we could surprise her, without worrying that she’ll be terribly upset if you do have to cancel.’

Leo beamed. ‘That’s perfect. We don’t catch her on the hop, and we don’t risk letting her down either. So – we plan for December!’

The next morning they were up early to catch the first ferry back to Genoa. Calypso was thrilled to be going and Daniel, Charles and Beatrice again promised her father that they would take great care of her. However, once they were on their way down the hillside and heading towards the harbour, they discovered that she was perfectly capable of looking after herself.

‘Papa treats me like a child,’ she complained. ‘He doesn’t know that I often come down to the town and meet friends.’

‘Oh,’ Charles said. ‘Do you have any special friends?’ Male friends, he wanted to say, but thought better of it. It would be prying.

‘Oh, lots,’ she said gaily. ‘We sit on the harbour wall and discuss so much. If we see any of them, I will introduce you. They will be intrigued by you, Beatrice, and the girls will fall in love with Charles,’ she said slyly, looking at him from beneath her lashes. ‘But my cousin Daniel, they will think he is Italian and will want to know if he is promised.’

‘Promised?’ Daniel repeated. ‘How do you mean – promised?’

‘Promised in marriage, Daniel,’ Beatrice broke in lightly. ‘The same as in England. You’re not, are you?’

He gazed back at her and slowly shook his head. ‘Nothing to offer, I’m afraid. I’ll have to stay single all my life, like Uncle Tom.’

‘Ah.’ Calypso shook back her long dark hair. ‘But you are an Orsini, yes? We will find you a
reech
Italian woman who won’t mind about you being poor if she can have your name.’

‘And what about you, Calypso?’ Charles cleared his throat, and dared. ‘Are you promised?’

‘No.’ She laughed. ‘My papa won’t let me go.’

She was so much merrier and more light-hearted away from her father and grandfather, had so much more to say when out of their earshot, that although they were not so very strict with her it was obvious that she was expected to conform as a young lady should.

‘The ferry it is coming, see.’ She pointed. ‘I am so looking forward to being with you. What would you like to see? The Duomo, of course, and the Sottoripa galleries when we get to the waterfront – oh, and you must look inside the San Giovanni church. It was a – what you call, a Knights Hospitaller of St John; pilgrims on their way to Rome and the Holy Land would rest there.’

‘You’re very well informed, Calypso,’ Charles said, paying for the tickets as they boarded.

‘Oh, I was at school in Genoa,’ she explained. ‘And our teachers take – took us to see all these places. It was our history lesson. And then I will show you where Papa and I used to live.’

She took them on a tour of the city whilst the morning was still cool, Calypso and Beatrice walking in front with their arms linked, Daniel and Charles close behind. They attracted much attention and curious glances were directed at them; Beatrice with her fair skin and elegant demeanour and Charles, so obviously her brother, tall and slim, with the bearing of a gentleman, and a neat beard and sideburns, for he had paid particular attention whilst using the blade this morning, and his fair hair tucked beneath his hat. Calypso, vivacious and ‘
italiana
’ like the young man behind her, who was an inch shorter than his male companion but broader in the shoulder and lithe as a cat, hatless, with dark curls falling about his face and a silk scarf knotted around his neck.

Calypso guided them down narrow and ancient winding streets, bringing them out to face the church of San Giovanni. ‘It is a most ancient church,’ she told them. ‘Two churches – Romanesque.’ They had a look inside, at the statuary and the wide hall with black walls and arches and the wooden ceiling that once sheltered the pilgrims, and admired the bell tower.

Then she led them on to the ducal palace, and showed them the
palazzi
built by bankers and rich traders, until by mutual consent they stopped to rest their legs and drink coffee.

When they had finished, she urged them on uphill to see the villa where she and her father had once lived. It was set high on the hillside, a tall house with shutters at the window, and she told them it had a private terrace at the back. She led them towards an open area next to the villa, where from a low wall they looked down over a panorama of the city below them; the Duomo and the ducal palace and in the distance the busy waterfront and ships from the world over, the jetty where small boats were being unloaded and, standing tall, La Lanterna, the old lighthouse, that was said, she told them, to have been built by a relative of Christopher Columbus.

‘I love it here,’ Calypso said softly. ‘Of course I love my nonno’s house too and the mountains, and Rome where Papa took me a few years ago.’ She turned to Beatrice. ‘But, do you not think, Beatrice, that women should be allowed to travel more? I would so like to see more of my own country, as well as others.’

Beatrice nodded. ‘It will come in time,’ she said. ‘English women are travelling more. Independent women who perhaps don’t have husbands, who dare to travel alone or with only a female companion.’

‘Not yet in Italy,’ Calypso murmured.

‘Perhaps,’ Charles suggested, hoping to plant the idea of himself in her mind, ‘you will find a husband who wants to travel too, and you can go together.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘It would be very nice to find someone compatible.’

‘But are you not too young yet, Calypso?’ Daniel asked anxiously.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Soon I will be eighteen. Perfect marriageable age.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

From the top of the hill they walked down to a restaurant where Calypso’s father was known. Calypso was greeted effusively and volubly by the proprietor, who kissed her on both cheeks and tapped the top of her head to indicate that she had grown since he had last seen her. She laughed and introduced her
inglese
companions, telling them breathlessly that Giuseppe Cerutti didn’t speak any English.

He invited them to sit down and eat and brought them a small carafe of wine, touching the side of his nose as if to say to Calypso,
Don’t tell your father
. Then he brought water and fresh warm bread and olive oil, a dish of sliced tomatoes, and cloves of garlic that Calypso showed them how to eat, peeling and slicing, then pouring the olive oil into a dish, dipping in a piece of bread and rubbing the garlic on to it.

‘Delicious!’ she said, and they smiled and tried it and the oil dripped down from their lips to their chins.

Giuseppe brought them pasta with tomato and olive oil and salad, and after eating they all lifted their hands and said, ‘No more, Calypso.’