The Diamond Waterfall (16 page)

The life here is very simple. I breakfast by myself at nine, after which Sophie joins me and we discuss the day's plans—for there are so many people staying or about to! It seems to be a Romanian habit that the most casual of invitations is taken up. Among others are two
boys, Mihail and Radu, their sister Alexandrine, together with their mother—they will be here for at least three more weeks and came I understand quite on impulse because she had had words with the mother-in-law with whom they usually stay in the summer. The children's mother is called Madame Xenescu (apparently there are a lot of
escu
here and it is enough for any foreigner wishing to settle to add it to his name and presto, he belongs!). Madame is rather haughty in manner and told me frankly that she prefers things German to things English. (She must beware as I believe an Englishman comes to dinner this evening.) She said, “I find more purpose and order in their (the German) way of doing things, and we Romanians do not have order and purpose ourselves, so that it is most attractive.” Personally I think
we
do, but she insists that we are only amateurs—which is not serious enough and will bring us to grief! I learned later that her eldest daughter at just seventeen was this summer married to a German who is part of the court entourage. So much for impartiality! Madame Xenescu has been beautiful, with hair that is still red but faded. Her skin is dry and her figure beginning to go. About forty and obviously past her best (listen to me, who will be thirty next year! But thirty is not forty,
n'est ce pas?).
I think she has settled in to be disagreeable, if not to everyone then at least to me. Her husband is with the army and often absent.

On a lighter note, as family there is Cousin Alecco, who chatters away all the time—and no one listens! He looks about ninety and is I believe seventy-five—a little dried, hard apple,
very
friendly. There's also Tante Elise, in her late sixties and apt to tell Sophie off and even Teo. She is very industrious, always tatting. “Hands which are making something cannot make mischief,” she says. I translated for her our “the devil finds work for idle hands.”
“C'est exactement ça,”
she said. I have this picture of her tatting even in the bath! (Sadie, dear Sadie, I can just see your face now.)

I pick this up again at just after midnight. I heard it strike from the monastery, but I shan't be going to sleep for a while. I have already had so much rest today! Three hours every afternoon—followed always by refreshments: little cakes and coffee and some conserve of rose petals and sugar in a little glass with a very long spoon, together with a glass of water. First you eat the confection, and then drink. I eat very well. There is a great deal to tempt me. The wild raspberries from the woods above us—and the cream we eat them with, so rich and yellow. (Every herd has always two or three buffalo, you see!)

We have overnight guests—two naval men stationed at Constanza. Their train came in this evening, bringing also, just as I had been
promised—an Englishman! Not especially for me, of course—he is at the embassy in Bucharest and has been their friend since last winter. His name is Ogilvy, and he is about fifty-five and a widower. He was seated next to me at dinner and told me lots of Romanian history and background—all about their Roman origins, and their years of being under Turkish domination—and the great fight for independence this century. In fact the table was quite weighed down with the seriousness of his discourse, and one guest remarked, “When are we to be allowed to hear the English milady's voice?”

He was telling me, Sadie, they
still
do not have the whole country rightfully theirs. Transylvania, just a little way from here, although really Romanian, belongs to the Hungarians, who are of course much disliked. The magyarization of everything. The Romanians want so much to be united (who can blame them? After all, you are the
United
states of America and would not like still to belong partly to
us!).
The area they have now is about the size of England, but all the population together only so many as in London.

He explained it so well that I scarcely noticed what I was eating, which was a pity. We had some fresh caviar, which was delicious but gray and quite unlike Russian, and an unusual sour cream fish soup, and oh, much else. By this time some were complaining, “You are monopolizing our guest.”

Tomorrow I shall be received by the royal family—paying a call only, but it will be interesting and will give me a topic for dinner parties. (“As the King of Romania was saying to me …”) Am I not vulgar? The truth is, I have had a most pleasant evening. I do rather like men in their fifties, especially when they are so distinguished and silver-haired and make such a fuss of me.

Now it is time for bed. I can just hear fiddles playing faintly, from the town, I think. The sound carries in the clear air after the rain. It is so foreign, so exotic—and so far from home, which means of course,
my baby.
Dearest, I
miss him so
—and especially now at bedtime, the time I creep always into the night nursery, to see that he breathes still.

Write to me soon that you have visited him and that he is well, and
the better for my absence.
Oh let it be so!

Good night, dearest friend.

She was outside the chalet in the sunshine, playing with the Borzoi dogs, when the visitors arrived. She was surprised: she would not have thought the chalet could hold any more people. At once the dogs turned their attention from her, and the silk scarf she'd been teasing them with.

A slight fair-haired youth leapt out of the carriage. And at the same time the younger Xenescu boy, Mihail, came running through the front door. Both put their arms about each other. Mihail cried, “You're not alone?” An older, very dark youth got out too. A servant was already unloading luggage. “You'll stay, you'll stay?”

Sophie appeared in the doorway. She gave an excited cry, clapping her hands like a child. “Ion! And Take! Oh but I'm so happy!” The Borzois barked wildly.

A third person was climbing out, slowly. Lily thought, Ah no, he is not possible. He was tall, unusually so for a Romanian, and enveloped in a large silk cloak. He had gathered it about him as he stepped down. She imagined that he must have waited in the carriage so as to make the greatest possible effect. For he was very beautiful.

He was in Sophie's arms. “Oh happy visit, happy visit!” she insisted. Then suddenly they were all of them before Lily. Introductions must be made at once. Sophie was all excitement: here, for them, was a famous English actress, met in Paris. And for Lily—here was Ion, who was Teodor's nephew. And the dark youth, this was dear Take. Take was the student friend of Valentin—Valentin of the silk cloak.

Valentin had a high color and dark heavy brows meeting almost in the middle. He took Lily's hand very firmly and kissed it a little too long. Sophie was saying, “Valentin,
Tino,
is Ion's brother, and so also Teodor's nephew.”

Mihail had dragged Ion away. Take, left standing beside Valentin, had a wide, eager face, the expression intent.

“A surprise visit,” Valentin said. “I was to have been on a yacht to sail from Constanza for Athens, then the idea was suddenly
ennuyeux,
so I thought of here. Take consented to come too. We plan to stay a long time.”

Oh dear, thought Lily. Oh dear. Sophie was explaining now that although Lily managed so well in French, Valentin must practice with her his beautiful English. Lily smiled politely, prettily, while in front of the chalet the Borzois ran in excited circles, whimpering, nuzzling the visitors.

“Take,” she discovered, was the diminutive for Demetre. He belonged to one of the oldest families in Romania, but Ion, sitting next to her at luncheon, explained to her in his rapid French, “He's not what his family expects, not at all, they think him almost anarchist.
Take anarchisticu.
But it is only that he's very, very much for the cause of unity. There's a group of them, in Paris …”

“But he's your
brother's
friend?”

“Oh yes. I've not been in Paris yet. I go in January perhaps. But my brother—you should be talking to him, Lady Firth, he has excellent English. I've only a few words. ‘How are you, I am very well, at what time is the train in the station?' I used to know more—when I was small there was an English
governess,
very
smart to have, but she left because of ill health when I was still only seven. Valentin was older so he learned more. And then he has had his time in England …”

“Yes, yes,” she said. As he talked she glanced down the table to where Valentin sat, next to Madame Xenescu. He appeared to hang on Madame's every word. She wasn't looking at him but straight ahead, smiling, pouting a little—occasionally shrugging her beautiful shoulders.

“So you must talk to my brother all about London,” Ion was saying.

“Yes,” Lily said. She saw then that Valentin was looking at her. At once he turned away, back to Madame Xenescu. “Of course.”

Mr. Ogilvy returned that evening from a short stay at Sighişoara to spend a day or two with them on his way back to Bucharest. Seated next to him at dinner (something she would have welcomed a week ago), Lily wondered how she could have even contemplated a flirtation. She felt restless, angry with herself. The charming, complimentary,
civilized
Mr. Ogilvy, with his silver hair, his long, distinguished face. Why bother?

Why bother either that Valentin had as yet hardly spoken to her? He had been out between the afternoon siesta and dinner, admittedly, but whenever there had been a chance he had not taken it—and
she
was not going to seek him out. Yet now, during this meal, she knew that he looked at her often.

Madame Xenescu noticed. While they were eating a pudding of lemon and white wine and eggs, Lily glanced up and saw that Madame stared at her—with dislike.

Afterward, as they drank Turkish coffee in the long sitting room, Sophie cried suddenly, “Tino—you haven't spoken
at all
to Lady Firth …” She touched his arm. “Come at once with your lovely English …” He had been deep in conversation with Madame Xenescu, seated so that his knee touched hers. Now he looked up, annoyed. Letting his fingers trail lightly over Madame Xenescu's skirt:

“Of course, I come in a moment. I've just been telling the story of the Munteanu summer ball and
that
scandal. I had almost done …”

Lily was angry. He was making an event of speaking to her. She began, “Do not bother—”

But he stood before her. “How ungallant of me, how uncourteous, to wait till now—please, dear Lady Firth, may I sit beside you?” Then to Mr. Ogilvy: “Now I'm going to be talking, in spiffing English, so that you'll both be amazed.” He ran on, telling Lily that he'd already had a long conversation with Mr. Ogilvy earlier. “He's told me of your show in London, and my aunt had spoken to me already that you're famous …”

Soon, perhaps because Valentin spoke about nothing in particular but was doing all the talking, Mr. Ogilvy gently excused himself. Valentin said:

“Alone—at last. Except of course for everyone else in this room. I hope
now you are going to sing for us. I can tickle the ivories for you. I'm amazed someone so beautiful and famous is staying here at Tante Sophie's. You must have noticed how flabbered I was? And that I've fallen head over heels—” He waved his arms dramatically, his voice laughing, mocking. “Say now you feel the same about me—”

Joining in the (foolish) game, “Oh but
certainly,”
she said.

At once he lay down full-length on the rug at her feet. “Look, everyone,” he called out in French, “I am prostrate in adoration before the beautiful English actress Lily Greene—”

“Don't be stupid,” she said sharply, “please get up at once.” Madame Xenescu looked over at her. Her eyebrows were raised angrily but her expression was pitying.

Valentin, sitting up again, said wonderingly, “Don't you like high jinks, horseplay, bear fights?” He sounded like a disappointed child. “I thought, because you were English—”

“Tell me about Oxford,” she said.

He did. But what he had to say seemed dull and predictable—perhaps he was sulking, that he hadn't been allowed to posture. After a while he changed the subject and spoke about the theater, drawing her out finally on her stage career. She must, absolutely
must,
sing for them. “Hum the tune,” he said, “any tune you're famous for. I'll be able to thump it.”

She felt curiously irritated. “They're not
thumping
tunes.”

But at last persuaded, she agreed to sing. She did not think she did it very well. As she was crossing to the piano, she saw Madame Xenescu leave the room, speaking first to Sophie, then in an aside to Valentin.

“Ah, the poor treasure,” Sophie cried when she had gone, “she's a martyr to
such
a headache. Tomorrow we keep her from the sun.”

Later, dressing for bed, Lily worried about Hal. Stories of infants dying suddenly, without obvious cause, in their cradles. To calm herself she sat down with pen and paper and for a few moments talked to Sadie:

“One of the new arrivals is a nephew, a beautiful young man much too pleased with himself. His name is Valentin but they call him Tino, which I don't like. He was one year at Christ Church, Oxford. He seems to think one year makes him an authority. And, so rude about actresses! (‘We stormed the Gaiety when we were visiting London—I was very rich so could afford whom I pleased.') Ugh!”

“I'm awfully sorry, Lady Firth, awfully sorry.
Honestly.
I know that I behaved badly. It's my way. I showed off and played the fool and you don't like me at all. Yes?”

“No,” she saidj a little coldly. Then, because her answer must be ambiguous, added, “It's quite all right.”