The Runaway Visitors (22 page)

It was true that Charles went out to dinner again, but even that did not worry Victoria, since he said:

‘I’ll have to go and change now. Quite an important client and I don’t want to keep him waiting.’ So it was not Margarita, and nobody else mattered.

CHAPTER X

A day or two later, Charles flew back to Paris, ‘ for some unfinished business,’ he said, which he hoped to conclude very quickly, to be back in Firenze by the weekend.

‘Was it something we interrupted?’ asked Amanda apologetically.

‘It was. So please don’t do it again, will you?’

‘No, we’ll do our best to behave ourselves until you return,’ Victoria promised him.

Amanda spent the morning writing a letter to Giorgio while Victoria was in the kitchen with Miss Jameson bottling peaches and making peach jam; but in the afternoon, Victoria drove her sister in to Firenze to buy materials for her embroidery; silks and wools, peacock blue and emerald green sequins. Victoria drove round the centre for some time looking for a parking place and finally decided to use the Contessa’s courtyard as a refuge. One or two cars were already parked there.

Back in the shopping centre, they bought Amanda’s materials and then a pair of golden sandals each, and then repaired to the Piazza della Signoria for coffee and ices. Amanda was in a sunny and friendly mood and both sisters were enjoying their expedition. They strolled back to the Contessa’s courtyard well pleased with themselves, their purchases and with Firenze itself; both of them relaxed enough to be receptive to the city’s beauty, history and romance.

‘Shall we just drive away from the Contessa’s house and ring up when we get home to thank her?’ asked Victoria. ‘Or shall we go in and say thank you?’

‘I’d quite like to see the house. You always say it’s so marvellous.’

‘All right. We’ll see if she’s at home.’

They did not need to find out. The Contessa’s manservant came out to them as they walked across the courtyard, to invite them inside. They followed him up the marble staircase to the salon, and there Victoria saw that Margarita was ensconced comfortably with the Contessa.

‘Ah, Charles’s charming foundlings,’ smiled the Contessa. ‘ You all know each other, don’t you?’ Margarita and Amanda had not met before, but the fact was overlooked. ‘Come and sit down, my dears. You have been shopping? You like our shops in Firenze? And I expect you would like some coffee?’

‘We have just had some, thank you,’ said Victoria.

‘Then a little later we will give you a drink. Unless of course you have been drinking with Charles again?’

‘Mr. Duncan has gone back to Paris. ’

‘Ah yes—our naughty little girl here brought him back in a hurry before he was ready to come.’ Amanda blushed scarlet. Apparently everybody knew of her escapade. ‘Oh, don’t be embarrassed, my child. We haven’t quite forgotten what it was like to be young.’ The Contessa was smiling at Amanda quite kindly.

Victoria was glad to see Margarita sitting there, although she was never comfortable with her and knew that Margarita did not like her. It proved at least that she was not with Charles. But her pleasure in Margarita’s presence was not to last long.

The Contessa had taken Amanda to the long windows overlooking the garden to show it to her. Margarita began to ask Victoria about Sebastien, and Victoria realised that Charles must have talked over the Fenn family situation with her. She hardly noticed that the Contessa and Amanda had gone out on to the balcony, and that from there they went down the flight of steps into the garden to look at the plants and the statuary there. But it was the opportunity that Margarita was waiting for; and it was only afterwards that Victoria realised that the opportunity had been prearranged between Margarita and the Contessa.

‘Victoria,’ said Margarita, in a voice quite unlike her usual social voice, quite without the slow husky drawl that people seemed to find so attractive. ‘How long are you intending to stay in Charles’s house?’

‘No definite date has been set for our return to England. Why do you ask?’

‘Because I am sure you will never hear from Charles himself what a great deal of inconvenience you are causing him; and how much you have upset all his plans for the summer.’

There was a sudden vindictiveness in her words that shocked Victoria into awareness.

‘I’m very sorry to hear that—if it’s true.’

‘Oh, it’s true. Many things were arranged which he has cancelled for your sake, yours and your sister’s and brother’s. A yachting trip, to which my father and myself were also invited, and which would have been good for him because he had been working so hard: an exhibition of sculpture in Germany at which many of his own works were on show: other minor things. . . . And it is not only Charles who has been put out. It has affected my life too, and this is why I ask you how much longer you intend to stay.’

So now they were coming to the point, thought Victoria.

‘Your life,
signorina
? In what way have we upset you?’ ‘Charles will not announce our engagement until you have gone. It would mean a great many visits, a great many celebrations, and he doesn’t feel free while he has to worry about such a troublesome family. Your brother first, rushing about on motor cycles, then going back to England without telling anybody of his plans. Your sister, who is only a child, running off to a man . . .’

‘You mean to visit a sick man in hospital,’ said Victoria stiffly. ‘Why does she have to do it
that
way? To ruin the visit Charles and I were enjoying in Paris, and bring him racing back here? And not only the stupid things your brother and sister do, but you yourself. ’ And now she made no attempt to hide the spitefulness in her voice. ‘Making him feel guilty if he so much as invites his friends to the house. Making a fuss because you were not invited. You, a newcomer; and the rest of us his dear friends for a long time. Aren’t you ashamed to intrude? Aren’t you old enough to look after your family yourself? Must your parents shirk what is
their
work to send you off to upset other people’s arrangements?’ ‘I think you are bitter for your own sake more than for Charles’s.’

‘Of course I am bitter for my sake. For both our sakes. We want to be together; but in my home there is my father who is still not quite reconciled; and in Charles’s house there is this troublesome family always on the spot. Why should we run off to Paris to have privacy? And even then he is called back urgently, by
you
! Of course I am bitter.
I
want you gone every bit as much as Charles does. We long for our peace and quiet again.’

‘Mr. Duncan has never indicated that he wants us gone,’ said Victoria, hurt beyond measure to think that it might be true. ‘Because he is too much of a gentleman. Because he thinks he owes your parents gratitude. How long must one be grateful? All one’s life? If your parents encouraged him years ago and bought his sculptures, they did themselves a good turn, for his work becomes more valuable every year.’

‘They didn’t know that it would, when they bought. And I’m sure they don’t expect Mr. Duncan to go on being grateful.’

‘Then why do
you
expect him to? Why don’t you go, and let us live our lives? When I heard you were coming, I thought you were all children; but you drove here from England, perfectly capable of arranging the journey. Why then aren’t you capable of arranging the journey back? Why outstay your welcome?’ She flung up her hands in anger and despair. ‘My God, if
I
were in your shoes, I wouldn’t stay a moment longer . . .’

She broke off. She was very resentful and angry, and her voice had risen from its usual contralto to a shrill, unpleasant tone. Victoria wondered if Charles had ever seen her like this: if, whenever she did not get her own way, Margarita would turn into a shrew. Her dark eyes were now hard and full of hatred. No night-dark, mysterious beauty about them now. Victoria said:

‘As soon as Mr. Duncan returns from Paris, I shall tell him that we’re going back to England.’

‘And no doubt you will tell him it is because of what
I
have said. ’

‘And you wouldn’t like that?’

‘I would not, because I am sure you would misrepresent it. And also because he would be sorry
I
fought for our privacy, although it is what
he
wants too.’

‘Well, you needn’t worry. I shall simply say we have stayed

long enough. ’

Margarita exclaimed in exasperation.

‘And
his
feeling of responsibility will make him insist that you stay; even though he regarded you all as a nuisance from the very first. Oh, it is hopeless . . . hopeless . . .’

Both of them were silent now. Neither of them made an effort to break the silence. When the Contessa and Amanda came into the room, apparently on the best of terms, smiling pleasantly, they came into an atmosphere stiff with dislike, resentment and the bitter words spoken. But the Contessa ignored it. She said: ‘Now for our drink. Amanda, my dear, press that bell, will you?’

Victoria rose to her feet.

‘I’m so sorry, Contessa, I’m afraid we can’t stay for it. Amanda and I have to get back. ’

‘You have time for one drink, I am sure.’

‘No, really, thank you. We have another engagement.’

The manservant had appeared.

‘The
signorinas
are just leaving,’ the Contessa told him.

Victoria extended her hand to the Contessa.

‘Thank you so much for letting us park in your courtyard, Contessa. ’

‘You are always welcome.’

‘I think we shall not be intruding on your hospitality much longer. Goodbye, Contessa. Goodbye.’ The last word was apparently intended for Margarita, although Victoria did not even look towards her. ‘Come along, Amanda.’

They followed the man downstairs, and drove away in Victoria’s small car.

‘We haven’t got another engagement, Vicki, have we?’ asked Amanda.

‘No, but I couldn’t stand another moment of that Margarita. ’

‘I didn’t like her much either.’

‘Well, Charles does. Apparently they're engaged to be married.’ This astonished Amanda, and she showed an inclination to talk it over, but as Victoria became more and more silent, answering in monosyllables or not at all, Amanda also fell silent, happy to sink back into her own thoughts and her own daydreams about herself and Giorgio. They came to the house and Amanda went at once to the terrace to continue the work that had stopped for lack of materials. Victoria said she would take a walk, but she had not gone far on the slopes above the house, where the tall slender cypresses rose dark from the mass of cystus rose and maquis, before she sat down on sun-warmed stone to think about the problem that Margarita’s spiteful diatribe had presented her with.

To begin with, she did not believe everything that Margarita had said. Margarita was too bitterly prejudiced to be presenting the case in its real light, but there was, all the same, enough evidence on her side to make Victoria consider it seriously. It could be that Margarita was anticipating the engagement— Victoria had no way of knowing—but she would hardly state the fact so baldly if there was not some element of truth in it. She knew already how much Charles enjoyed and appreciated Margarita’s beauty, from his own lips. She knew they were often in each other’s company and that they had gone to Paris together. She knew, too, that Charles
had
considered them a nuisance at first. From the little she had overheard, and that might be only the tip of the iceberg, she knew that he had been reluctant to take them in, that he had determined to leave them to Miss Jameson and not let them disturb him, that he had taken her out to Firenze simply to console her for not being invited to his party. She heard the words he had spoken, in his own inimitable deep voice: ‘They’re so damned casual, those Fenns, but don’t worry, this lot won’t get a chance to upset my work schedule.’ And again: ‘Have I
got
to be lumbered with juveniles every day for lunch?’ ‘Their glamorous parents are always dropping their children, like foundlings, on other people’s doorsteps.’ ‘The fact remains that I'm responsible for seeing that Sebastien doesn’t get killed, that you aren't raped, and so on . . .’ ‘Jeanie discovered our fair Victoria in floods of tears, so I realised I had to make a gesture, and this is it.’

Yes, there was no doubt about it, he
had
found them a nuisance; and all of that was before her brother and sister took it into their heads to behave in such an irresponsible fashion. No doubt that made them more of a nuisance than ever; and it was, as

Margarita had pointed out, only his kindness and consideration that hid his feelings from Victoria. That; and the fact that she had fallen in love with him, and been only too willing to blind herself to anything she did not want to see.

She concluded that there was no real reason for them to stay on. It would be indulging herself, probably at the expense of Charles. She had dragged him back from Paris, and, since Margarita was now in Firenze, he probably did have business there, however much business might have been mixed with pleasure before. She could not honestly say to herself that they had been ideal guests. Perhaps he would be glad to have his house to himself. Reluctantly, she decided that she and Amanda would go back to England.