The Runaway Visitors (5 page)

‘Yes, more than once.’ She tried to make her voice noncommittal, not to reveal what she thought of such an arrangement. ‘And what is your job, Victoria?’

‘Nothing remotely glamorous. Just secretarial work. But I believe I’m quite efficient at it, and I’ve worked for two wonderful bosses.’

Looking at her as she sat with her burnished hair shining in the sun, he could believe that her bosses would be wonderful to her.

‘And naturally you resent having to give up your own work to do something so dull as to keep house.’ She was thinking of a suitable answer to this—for she did not really resent it, but she often missed the friends she had made or the people she worked with—when he went on:

‘I can understand anybody resenting that. I’m continually astonished by the little consideration people have for other people’s work. One’s time is the most important commodity one has, and other people waste it; one’s work is the most absorbing thing and other people interrupt it.’

They were silent. Perhaps, thought Victoria, for him it was a restful silence. For her it was no such thing; for could he not see that he had just made an open avowal of his opinion of her parents, who had taken up his time, intruded upon his work by despatching a whole family to his house for a whole summer? She said coolly:

‘Oh, there was nothing so absorbing about my work. It was too routine, and too spasmodic for me ever to get very far in it. And I too happen to think it’s important to keep the family together. I suppose one misses the people more than the work . . . ’ For when she went to work, she felt that she was living life; and often, staying at home, she had the feeling that life was passing her by. ‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘All the young people of your own age.’ They sat in silence again, Victoria remembering some of her friends in London; not knowing that he too had a picture in his mind of the elegant young men in London with their beautiful modern clothes and their beautiful modern haircuts, all admiring Victoria of the burnished hair. ‘Ah, youth,’ he said at last with a smile. ‘Will you have another drink, Victoria, or shall we go back to lunch?’

‘Lunch, please. I’m not used to drinking, particularly in the middle of the day; and I don’t want to
sleep
all the afternoon.’ They walked back to the quiet courtyard for her car.

‘Perhaps you’ll take me back to my car,’ he suggested. ‘I left it near the Duomo.’

She was just about to get into the car when a voice from above hailed them in Italian. Victoria gathered that it was asking them what they were doing there, but the next moment the Italian changed to delighted English.

‘Why, it’s you, Charles. How very nice! Come up at once and have a drink with us. Margarita’s here.’

‘Coming,’ called Charles, and turned to Victoria. ‘We’ll have to go up for a few minutes,’ he said, ‘and be polite. And it will be a good opportunity to arrange for you to leave your car here if necessary.’

So they went into the house, a house new to Victoria’s experience, with its marble floors and stairway and columns, its faded tapestries on the walls, busts and statues and dark old pictures in colossal frames. The drawing room was on the first floor, the tall windows on one side overlooking the courtyard, on the other side opening to a wide terrace overlooking a garden.

Three people were in the room; the Contessa herself, who had spoken to them from the window, a tall, slim regal woman of about sixty; an elderly man who spoke little and who was, it transpired later, a cousin of the Contessa and dependent on her; and a young woman, startlingly and darkly beautiful. This was Margarita, of the low, slow contralto voice. This was Margarita, whose curves, at present contained by youth and careful dieting, could only be called lush; whose voice seemed to drip sex and allure and invitation. This was a woman quite as rare in Victoria’s experience as the house itself.

‘I do apologise,’ the Contessa was saying, as the mixture of Italian and English settled down into English alone, ‘for shouting at you from my window. ’ (Though Victoria would not have called it shouting.) ‘But you would be surprised at the number of people who put their cars in my courtyard without permission. Complete strangers! I even consider locking the gates during the daytime and giving keys to only the people who are my friends.’

‘If you do,’ said Charles, quite at his ease, ‘I hope you will be so kind as to give a key to Victoria, who was quite unable to park this morning and had stopped on a taxi rank and was giving the taxi drivers a piece of her mind when I arrived to rescue her.’

‘But of course I should give Victoria a key,’ said the Contessa immediately. ‘But, forgive me, I am not yet able to place Victoria. Signorina Fenn, isn’t it? And you are staying in Charles’s house?’ Charles went across to the Contessa and sat on the arm of her capacious and doubtless very old and very valuable armchair. Victoria would have hesitated at such an intimacy, but it seemed that Charles was perfectly at home here.

‘Victoria
is
staying in my house,’ he affirmed. ‘So is her sixteen-year-old brother Sebastien, and her thirteen-year-old sister Amanda. The whole family, in short; except for their glamorous parents, who are always travelling the world on the most important assignments, and dropping their children, like foundlings, on other people’s doorsteps.’

‘What a charming foundling to find on one’s door-step,’ said the Contessa. ‘Victoria, will you have a Martini, or can we get you something else?’

‘I won’t drink, thank you,’ said Victoria. ‘I’ve already been drinking with Mr. Duncan in one of the squares.’

The Contessa raised her eyebrows and passed her over to speak to Margarita. Margarita was distinctly annoyed: to find that one of the so-called children could be this attractive young woman, and to find that Charles could be lured from his so-important work to go drinking in the town’s squares; but her anger was nothing to the fury of Victoria, who heard herself described as a foundling, in their light, non-caring, aristocratic voices. Was this how all their parents’ friends looked upon them? as foundlings

dropped upon other people’s doorsteps? She thought of the Innes family in Scotland, who had entertained them for eight weeks long ago, and how little entertainment it had been for hosts or guests: of Aunt Catherine, who had had them on three separate occasions and had baulked on the fourth: of General Stubbs and his wife, who had welcomed them with open arms and then been eaten up with jealousy because all their precious Labradors had transferred their affections as one man—or dog—to Sebastien, and wouldn’t go anywhere without him. And now here was this wretch, this Charles Duncan, who had been encouraged by her parents at the outset of his career, who had sold his work to them and been helped to live that way, calling them foundlings to his aristocratic Italian friends (and who were
they,
anyway?).

She retreated into complete silence, afraid that, if she spoke, she would be rude to somebody; and when they went out to the car—and once more they would be hopelessly late for lunch—she would not speak at all, knowing that if she did, her resentment would come pouring out.

Charles Duncan, after one or two attempts, gave her up. He had no time for these temperamental modern misses.

Miss Jameson and the family had also given them up. Amanda and Sebastien were having their lunch on the terrace. Miss Jameson said nothing to her employer. Nor did she say much to Victoria, beyond:

‘Well, if your lunch is spoiled, it’s certainly not
my
fault.’ But her looks were suddenly aware and suspicious. She had not missed the fact that the air between them was cold and annoyed, but that was not too significant between a man and a woman.

Nor had she missed the fact that they returned together. It gave her plenty of food for thought as she went about her accustomed duties.

CHAPTER III

Victoria and Amanda were sitting in the small garden with the fountain in the centre. Roses, considerably tangled together but in prolific bloom, were giving out a strong and heady scent, vying with the even heavier scent of the jasmine that tumbled from the pergola. Amanda was allowing the goldfish to nibble her finger

while she dutifully repeated her Italian exercises after Victoria; while Victoria was sewing gold galon on to what had been an ordinary day dress, to transform it into suitable wear for cocktails. Just in case, she told herself. In case it might be needed.

The tray was on a small table nearby, with empty coffee cups and plates. Miss Jameson had called out across the wall: ‘Well, you two, there’s coffee here if you want it,’ and since Amanda was in awe of Miss Jameson, Victoria had gone to fetch it. The homemade scones were piled with real cream. However sour Miss Jameson’s disposition might be, it had not affected her cooking, which continued to be delicious.

Into this very peaceful scene came Sebastien. His hair was blown all over his head, his hands were deep in his pockets and he was whistling a tune as he came. He was undeniably in a most jaunty mood.

‘You’re very cock-a-hoop,’ commented Victoria mildly. ‘Where have
you
been?’

‘Where have I not been?’ asked Sebastien. ‘I’ve covered a few miles this morning, I can tell you,’ and he reeled off the names of villages that Victoria had never heard of.

‘How come?’ asked Amanda, jealously.

‘I met Giorgio Beltoni, who lives at that rambling old farm place at the crossroads. He speaks English pretty well, and he’s got a stunning new bike, a really powerful one. He was just going off on it when I came up to him, so we got talking about it, and then he said would I like to go with him—he’d got a couple of places to go to for his father. So you bet I went like a shot. Gosh, he knows how to use that bike!’ He saw that Victoria was immediately looking anxious. He knew that she thought all Italian drivers were mad, and he added: ‘He’s not a madman, he’s jolly sensible, he knows what he’s doing.’

‘Well, I hope so. You know what I think about motor bikes. I hope he
is
sensible.’

‘You can judge for yourself, because he’s outside. He said he’d like to meet you both, but I wasn’t sure if it was O.K. to bring him in.’ It was true that Giorgio had said he would like to meet Sebastien’s sisters, but there was little doubt in Sebastien’s mind that it was Victoria he had in mind. All these dark Italians seemed to fall for blondes.

‘Imagine keeping him waiting outside! Ask him in immediately. ’

So Giorgio was brought into the garden by Sebastien, and was, without doubt, one of the handsomest young men Victoria or Amanda had ever seen. The thick wavy dark hair had obviously been combed into beautiful submission while Sebastien was inside. His features were as classically regular as any on the statues in Firenze’s many museums, his dark eyes sparkled with life, his smile, revealing perfect, gleaming white teeth, would have charmed a Medusa. Victoria could not help reflecting that such a young man was bound to be conceited, and expect girls to fall for him like ninepins, but even so she was not proof against so much happy charm.

He bowed over Victoria’s hand. He bowed over Amanda’s, which enchanted her.

‘I have seen you both,
signorina,
walking along the lanes together,’ he said, and forbore to add that he had seen Sebastien as the most likely link with them. ‘And you see I have brought him home safely. It was good, Sebastien, was it not?’

‘It was super,’ Sebastien agreed fervently.

‘Well, we can do it again sometime,’ said Giorgio. ‘Don’t forget.’ There was a note of pleading in Sebastien’s voice, very foreign to his independent spirit. Victoria knew that he was missing male company, and she came to his aid. She smiled ravishingly at Giorgio. Charles Duncan would have been astonished by that smile.

‘Sebastien gets a bit tired of his sisters’ company,’ she said. ‘All his friends are back in England.’

‘You are always welcome to walk down to the farm, Sebastien,’ said Giorgio. ‘There is always much going on down there. Perhaps you would like to try the bike some time, eh?’

‘I don’t have a licence,’ said Sebastien, dazzled by the prospect of driving such a powerful motor bike.

‘On the farm roads that doesn’t matter. Some time, you must bring your sisters.’ He turned to Victoria. ‘We grow olives and grapes and peaches and figs and melons; and of course the field crops. And you might like to see the house. On the outside, it is like Signor Duncan’s, only smaller; but on the inside, not at all. It is still a very simple Italian farm.’

‘I should like that,’ said Victoria, and smiled again. The three of them were still smiling when Giorgio had gone, still irradiated with the blithe and sunny quality of his presence.

‘Isn’t he super?’ asked Sebastien.

‘Absolutely super,’ agreed Amanda.

‘Too gorgeous for words,’ said Victoria, and laughed at Sebastien as she said it; but he knew her well enough to know that she had liked Giorgio too.

So it was inevitable that Giorgio should stop at the house next time he was going on a trip, to take Sebastien on the back of the bike; inevitable that an invitation would follow for all three of them to visit the farm; and in the mood of happy anticipation that Victoria and Amanda were in, almost equally inevitable that they would fall in love with it.

For there was nothing of Charles Duncan’s interior-decorated modernity about the Beltoni farm. The sitting room of the house was so obviously the best room, not much lived in, that Giorgio soon led them out to the terrace, which
was
lived on. The rough concrete columns supported a shade-roof of bamboo, but a vine luxuriated over the whole place, and branches here and there were drooping under the weight of many bunches of the small, as yet unripe grapes, their tendrils brushing the concrete floor. A rough wooden table with benches each side was obviously used for meals, and some more comfortable chairs to one side offered rest from the heat of the day.