The Runaway Visitors (14 page)

‘Ay, not a bad bunch of young people. Nothing much rattling round in their heads! The pick of the bunch is that Giorgio, and
he’s
got eyes for nobody but Victoria. All the darkest corners of the garden for
them.
A budding attachment there, or I’m much mistaken.’ And Charles would say something like: ‘Oh yes, I’m afraid Victoria is just what Italians like. There’s young Giuseppe Orselli losing his head about her, too.’ So that Charles would have a picture of Victoria which was not very near the truth.

When the party was over and everybody had gone, Sebastien and Victoria went to the kitchen to help clear up, but everything was already done there.

‘Where’s Amanda?’ asked Victoria.

‘Gone to bed,’ said Miss Jameson, ‘and that’s where I’m going too. Good-night.’

‘Why did she go? Didn’t she feel well?’

‘I don’t know. I expect she was tired. ’

‘Well, thanks awfully, Miss Jameson, for all your help,’ said Victoria. ‘ It’s really very kind of you.’

‘It’s just my job,’ drily.

Sebastien went to her side and surprised his sister by putting his arm round Miss Jameson’s shoulders.

‘It isn’t your job, Jeanie,’ he said. ‘Not putting on parties for
us.
It’s just the goodness of your heart.’ And he kissed her on the cheek.

For a moment she stood as if turned to stone. Then, again to Victoria’s surprise, colour came up in her cheeks.

‘My goodness,’ she snapped, ‘if ever a young man kissed the blarney stone, it’s this brother of yours. Save your soft words for those that need them, my boy!’

She whisked out of the kitchen and Sebastien smiled impudently at Victoria, raised his eyebrows and then gave her the thumbs-up sign.

‘I’ll have her eating out of my hand yet,’ he confided in a whisper.

‘Oh,
you
! ’ was all Victoria was capable of, wondering if it was good for him to be able to manipulate people so easily.

She went into the bedroom she shared with Amanda and it was in darkness. Amanda was either asleep or feigning sleep, and Victoria preferred not to know at the moment what had brought her sister to bed early; so she undressed in the darkness.

CHAPTER VII

Several things happened in fairly rapid succession after that party to cause Victoria some anxiety. The first of them was the disappearance of Amanda’s long-lasting good mood. She became sulky, silent and suspicious, and was often rude to her sister.

When she went out she would not say where she was going and Victoria hoped she was becoming a nuisance at the farm, or continually trying to meet or waylay Giorgio.

The second anxiety was Sebastien. One of the girls who had been brought to the party by Giorgio was his cousin Gabriella. She had been one of those helping Sebastien to wash the dishes and she was spending her holiday at the farm. There was nothing in this to cause Victoria concern: what she did worry about was that Sebastien continued to ride Giorgio’s powerful motor bike on the private farm roads, and that Amanda let fall one evening at supper that he had taken Gabriella on the back. Victoria thought he had far too little experience himself to risk taking the girl. Sebastien did not agree and would not promise not to do it again. Suddenly, her family was becoming a problem to her.

The third thing was Margarita. Charles arranged his postponed dinner party, and the guests were the James and Elsa whom Victoria had heard but not seen on the evening of her arrival here, the Contessa and her dependent cousin, Margarita, and Giuseppe Orselli who had wanted to meet Victoria again. Two other people, an Italian writer and his American wife, completed the party.

Victoria had looked for a new dress for herself when she bought Amanda’s; but everything she liked was far too expensive for her, and she fell back on the one she had brought with her from England: a pretty enough dress but completely eclipsed by the clothes of all the other women; and it was small comfort to know that her friends said: ‘Oh, Victoria looks nice in anything! ’ because these other women looked quite beautiful in what they wore. Nor did her humble pieces of jewellery bear comparison with the wonderful jewels of the others.

Margarita looked superb in a flame-coloured dress of some diaphanous material flowing about her in generous folds, and wearing rubies and pearls. She carried her plumpness with such assurance that she made others feel that this was the ideal way to be. She made a great deal of the fact that ‘Charles had really arranged the dinner party so that Giuseppe could meet Victoria again’, causing all the other guests to regard them with the indulgence accorded to young lovers; and then upset Giuseppe by

talking of the party Victoria herself had given.

At the table, Giuseppe looked at Victoria with reproachful eyes.

‘You were most unkind not to ask me to your party,
signorina.
’

‘I don’t think it was quite your kind of party, Giuseppe. ’

‘Why not? All parties are my kind. ’

‘This was just for the young people around here: farmers’ sons, young men who work in offices in Firenze and their girlfriends, my young sister and brother. It wasn’t this kind of thing at all.’

‘Then if you do not invite me, I invite you. Will you have lunch with me?’

She accepted because she had no good reason for refusing, at which he brightened up immediately, arranging time and place.

After dinner, Victoria escorted the American woman upstairs to a powder room, where they were joined by Elsa, and she waited for them while they leisurely saw to their make-up and flicked carefully at their hair, excluding Victoria from their conversation.

‘How is the campaign going, Elsa?’

‘Margarita, do you mean?’

‘Who else? She’s very persistent, isn’t she?’

‘Absolutely adamant. But so is Papa. I hear she told her father it was going to be Charles or nobody, and that if he wanted to see any grandchildren he had better give his consent. ’

‘And he won’t?’

‘Adamant, too, my dear. It doesn’t matter to him that Charles is going to be one of the important names in world sculpture—or so everybody says. He doesn’t have the right kind of family tree for Margarita’s father. As if aristocracy really meant anything anymore!’

‘Oh, but it does, my dear,’ said the American Signora Giacomo. ‘But I do see Margarita’s point of view. I adore Charles myself. He makes me wish I were twenty years younger.’ She turned to Victoria. ‘I think we’re ready,’ she said. ‘And, by the way, where do you fit in this entourage, my dear?’

‘It’s rather a long story,’ said Victoria. ‘Mr. Duncan says we are foundlings dropped upon his doorstep.’

‘We?’

‘My younger brother and sister and myself. Our parents left us in Mr. Duncan’s care while they are in New Guinea.’

‘How intriguing!’ Signora Giacomo looked at Elsa, and Elsa laughed.

‘No,’ she said. ‘ Charles is fully engaged in one direction, and I hear that Victoria has
two
handsome young Italians keeping her busy.’

So they all know about Giorgio too, thought Victoria, leading the way downstairs again. She heard Signora Giacomo say behind her:

‘Why doesn’t Margarita simply please herself?’ and Elsa replied.

‘The usual thing. Money. Papa holds the purse strings, and what a fat purse it is too!’

Victoria thought she had the picture complete. Margarita wanted to have her cake and eat it: wanted Charles and her inheritance from her father as well. The conversation certainly led her to believe that there was an understanding between Charles and Margarita, and the way Margarita behaved seemed to endorse it. Victoria decided that it had nothing to do with
her
but still could not shake off the depression that it caused.

Elsa had said, ‘Charles is fully engaged in one direction’, and to Victoria this seemed all too true. Margarita scarcely left his side all the evening. Victoria was distracted from studying them by Giuseppe, who claimed her attention. He was a pleasant enough young man, but Victoria was simply not interested in him, and his English was so difficult to understand that it made conversation with him very hard work.

In fact, she told herself she was a dog in the manger. She had felt cut off when she was
not
included in Charles’s party, and now she felt cut off when she
was
invited; for it seemed that she and Giuseppe were outside the charmed circle, looked upon indulgently, even slightly petted, but still regarded as children. And this was not at all what Victoria wanted. She was not quite sure what she did want. She had decided to do without Charles, to cut herself off from him; yet still seemed to be hankering after
something.
And it was so obvious that anything Charles had to give, Margarita was determined to get; and Margarita was indeed tough opposition.

At this thought, Victoria took herself to task. Opposition? What on earth was she thinking about? This implied a battle of some sort, and the battle had been won before Victoria appeared on the scene. Margarita was in possession.

Yet subsequent events raised a doubt from time to time. Margarita invited Victoria to a ladies’ luncheon and was perfectly charming to her. She was invited to join Margarita and a few friends on an expedition to Siena. The Contessa and Margarita invited her to the private view of an exhibition of pictures, which Victoria remembered chiefly for one of the remarks Margarita made. Introducing Victoria to some people she had not met before, she had said: ‘Victoria’s family are very great friends of Charles, and of course Charles’s friends are my friends too.’ That, thought Victoria, was a fairly obvious declaration of intent. Yet occasionally she wondered. If Margarita was as sure of herself as she seemed to be, why did she bother about Victoria at all? They had very little in common.

Then came the day when Charles asked Victoria to pose for him. He appeared on the guest terrace when the sisters and brothers were having their lunch under the shade of the big coloured umbrella to spare them the greatest heat of the sun; and asked if Victoria could give him an hour in the studio that afternoon. She immediately consented, and when she joined him there later, he plunged straight in to what he wanted.

‘Oh, good, good,’ he said, as she appeared at the wide open double doors. ‘Come in, Victoria. I won’t keep you longer than I can help; but I’ve got you on my mind these days. I feel I must get going on the Madonna sculpture. I’ll try to work it in with the other jobs. And I haven’t quite got that particular elegant flowing line I wanted.’ He was bringing a large envelope from one of the tables. ‘The photographs were quite good, I expect you’d like to see them, but there isn’t one that exactly captures what I want.’ He brought out the pictures, one by one, passing them to her after examining them. Victoria thought they were extremely good, even flattering, and thought she would later ask if she might have copies for herself. ‘You see, that one is the nearest to it,’ said Charles, ‘so if we can recapture that particular pose, but with the light somewhat stronger behind you, I’ll make a sketch of it. In a sketch, I can remind myself of the precise details I need. Would you stand just here, Victoria? Good, that’s fine, but bring the right hand round just as you did before—that’s it. In fact, you’d better hold something, like the little group—what about this? Not too heavy for you? Good. Head down very slightly: no, that’s too much, up a little. Good. And if you’ll allow me, I’ll arrange the hair as it was before. ’

Victoria had left it loose, but Charles now arranged it exactly as he wanted it, and Victoria felt a strange pleasure and excitement at the touch of his hands among the strands of her hair.

‘That’s splendid,’ said Charles. ‘Tell me if you get tired.’ And he stood at the drawing board that was already arranged, and began to work.

There was silence in the studio. And outside it. The silence of a hot and somnolent afternoon. Silent and still. Not even the wide open doors admitted a breeze. Victoria stood like a statue, not daring to change the pose by an inch, nor daring to distract his attention by speaking. Charles himself did not feel the need of speech, apparently. He worked on steadily in complete silence, complete absorption.

After a while, Victoria began to feel the strain of holding this unfamiliar pose for so long, and the small sculpture he had given her to hold proved surprisingly heavy. As she was holding her head at an uncharacteristic angle, her neck began to ache; and because she was standing so still, without even the small movements one always makes to be more comfortable, her legs ached too. She told herself that it was ridiculous to tire so quickly, but it did seem hot and airless this afternoon, and the light outside the window was extremely bright, almost dazzling. She began to feel a most unusual giddiness, but would not give way to it. It would pass in a moment and she would not humiliate herself by asking to rest so soon. Resolutely, she held her ground, until at last a stronger wave of dizziness caused her to give up. Her throat was dry and she gave a strange little gasp as she said:

‘I think I shall have to . . .’ and collapsed on to the floor, the sculpture rolling away from her.

She was only dimly aware of Charles’s rush towards her, even more dimly conscious of being gathered up in his arms, and then knew no more.