The Runaway Visitors (9 page)

‘What do you think about it, Mr. Duncan?’

He began to talk to her quite seriously about the work in the museum there, admitting that a lot of it was larger than life, but why shouldn't art be? and certainly a lot of modern art was; and told her that she must go to Rome and see the ceiling of the Sistine chapel to see what he meant; but also to look at the Pieta in Rome (which some lunatic had recently damaged) to discover the marvellous tenderness and purity of the work. And they looked at sculpture where the figure was half emerged from the block of marble, imprisoned for ever in it, and Victoria admitted that she could not imagine how sculptors could ever bring their vision out of the rough blocks: ‘It’s wonderful how it comes out of the stone. I don’t know how you can see to get it out. ’

‘In the same way as an artist gets his vision on to canvas.’

‘I think it’s much harder; and a painter can correct a mistake, but if a block of marble is wrongly split, it must be catastrophe. . . And
you,
Mr. Duncan, aren’t cutting out, but building up.’

‘Just two quite different techniques. Building up in clay is for casting in bronze. In marble or wood, one is hammering and gouging out the life and form that is there. Perhaps that’s the more satisfying. And the marble in this country, of course, is marvellous. One sees exactly why Michelangelo chose so carefully and why Henry Moore comes here to select special blocks of marble . . .’

Victoria was so interested that she was surprised to find it so late when Charles said, looking at the flat gold watch on his wrist: ‘Well, that’s enough for this morning, I think. Let’s find a taxi. It isn’t worth going back for the car. We’ll find a place for lunch.’ He had the restaurant picked out. It was slightly up in the hills. It would be cooler, he said. Victoria thought she might have preferred to be in the city, where she could watch the Florentines at their lunch; but when they reached the restaurant, a great many Florentines had also decided it would be cooler in the hills, a great many of their cars were ranged on the car park, and it was obvious that Victoria would not be deprived of her treat. In fact, as they went to their table, Charles was twice stopped by friends, to whom he introduced Victoria and with whom he chatted for a minute or two; and soon after their arrival, the place was full up, and people arriving after that would have to wait some time.

‘You are going to Washington?’ Victoria asked, as they handed the menus back to the waiter and sat back to await their meal, for one of those friends had mentioned his visit to Washington.

‘Not until the autumn. There’s a possibility I may do an important monument there. Negotiations are in the early stages, but I have to go over about it. ’

‘Do you like the States?’

‘ What a big question, Victoria! There’s no quick answer. There are things one likes and things one hates; places one likes and places one dislikes. The important thing is to do my work.’

‘And have you done a lot in America?’

‘Quite a bit. They’re still the big spenders.’

‘And is that what makes you rich?’

‘Rich?’ He threw back his head and laughed.
‘I’m
not rich, Victoria. What makes you think so?’

‘Well, your beautiful house. And you have a flat in London . . .’ ‘Rented to Americans at the moment for a fantastic rent. ’

‘And all your friends seem
very
wealthy.’

‘And how do you know that?’ he asked, amused.

She was caught out. How could she say that she had watched his guests arriving at his party? She blushed and chose not to pursue that topic. Charles’s expression as he saw that blush was slightly quizzical, and Victoria knew that he had guessed. She changed the subject by reverting to the marvels she had seen that morning.

‘I don’t think I ever realised how derivative all creative artists must be,’ she said. ‘Seeing some of the Michelangelo sculptures this morning, for instance, one sees how much Rodin derived from them ... ’

‘I suppose we are all derivative up to the point where we have the courage of our own convictions and begin to break away. ’ ‘Oh, I don’t know. I feel that nowadays nobody wants to do the ground work and build a foundation, but start right off being as original as all-get-out. ’

She had been pursuing her own line of thought, and had not realised with how much interest Charles was regarding her. He smiled at her.

‘I didn’t realise you were so interested in the arts, Victoria.’ ‘What, with
my
parents? We were fed the arts in our cradles. You must have understood that. However interested they were in their jobs, they always wanted to see the exhibitions and galleries; and as soon as my father had enough money, he bought pictures and sculptures—as of course you know. ’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Charles.

‘I remember, as a child, nearly always going to bed to the music of a symphony on records, or an opera, or my father playing the piano himself.
When
they were at home. And there were always books on every conceivable subject, and they were always available to us. We looked at pictures and were taken to museums, even to lectures. One either hated it, or liked it very much. I happened to like it very much.’

‘Good. Then you’ll like the Uffizi this afternoon. . . . What lucky children you were, Victoria, you and Sebastien and Amanda, to have parents like Paul and Barbara, who could make life so interesting for you, and so vivid. ’

She was silent, pretending to look with interest about her, but Charles elected to follow up his observation.

‘Don’t you agree, Victoria?’

‘We must have been lucky. Everybody is always telling us so.’ ‘Which hasn’t actually answered my question,’ he said, but he did not repeat it and Victoria did not answer it.

Lucky? she wondered. She supposed they had been, but she could not help remembering times when Amanda, as a very small girl, had cried herself to sleep night after night at the Innes’ house because she wanted her mother, who was flying off to the jungles of South America to hunt for orchids. Or the time when General Stubbs had taken so violently against Sebastien and made his life a misery by snubbing him, simply because his precious Labradors adored Sebastien and became his slaves. She did not choose to remember all the times when she herself had had to refuse invitations because she was acting as guardian to her younger sister and brother; or, if a guardian was not necessary, was simply cut off from all her friends by being remote in Scotland or in the

wilder reaches of Norfolk. Lucky? Yes, in some ways, but unlucky in others.

‘There’s so much to see in the Uffizi,’ said Charles, ‘that we’d better get going, pleasant as it is to linger here. Come along, Victoria.’

On their way out, they were stopped yet again by a slender girl with splendid auburn hair who was lunching with a very fat man, both of whom were studying Victoria with great interest. Charles introduced them and said they had a pressing engagement and must be moving on; but before they left, the girl said to them:

‘Do come into the Contessa’s this evening. Masses of people there for drinks quite early. ’

‘Can’t promise,’ said Charles, ‘but we’ll see.’ And he took Victoria’s elbow in a possessive manner and led her out of the restaurant.

‘Maria and Giovanni Notario,’ he said. ‘Her first marriage, his fourth. It won’t last, of course. It’s said she married him for his money—a first step up the ladder for her. She’ll end up a princess, or a duchess at least. ’

‘You’re very cynical,’ said Victoria.

‘Italian society makes one cynical.’

‘Then why do you mix with it? It doesn’t suit you.’ Then she was horrified by what she had said and how personal she had become. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said immediately. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘I don’t mix with it in any real sense,’ he said. ‘I’m fond of a few people, the Contessa, Margarita, a few others. There are not many I invite to my house. Now am I forgiven for my cynicism? Must I do more to justify myself?’

‘I’m sorry. You certainly don’t have to justify yourself to me. It was impertinent of me. ’

‘Not at all. I’m interested in your opinions. . . . Ah, here’s a taxi.’

The taxi took them down into the heat of Firenze once more to the Uffizi Gallery; and as Charles had said, there was so much to see that it was not long before Victoria was very weary. True, the pictures were wonderful, but the very richness and extent of the galleries were exhausting and Charles carried her off for coffee, saying there was no need to get mental indigestion, and there

were plenty of other afternoons for the Uffizi. And when they had had their coffee, they wandered over the Ponte Vecchio looking into the tiny shops lining each side of the bridge, and dawdled back to the Contessa’s courtyard where they had left the car.

‘Now,’ said Charles, ‘ do we go up and thank the Contessa for the parking privilege, or do we drive away and ring her up when we get home?’

‘I leave that to you,’ said Victoria.

‘If we go up, we shall be kept there for all these people who are coming for drinks. Which might be a bore. On the other hand, it could be useful experience for you, Victoria, and you might even find it interesting to study this layer of Italian society at first hand. Yes, let’s go up.’

‘I’m not really dressed for a drinks party,’ she said.

‘ You look charming in your sunshine dress. Youth and beauty like yours, Victoria, don’t need dressing up.’

She followed him into the elegant house quite stunned by his last remark. Youth and beauty like yours, he had said. Youth, yes, obviously there was no arguing with that. But beauty? From this so expert judge of what was intrinsically beautiful? A strange glow settled over Victoria as she went up the marble staircase with Charles into the salon where there were already a number of people gathered together. So much of a glow, indeed, that several people were struck by it without knowing its cause: a sunshine girl, with that burnished hair and an aura about her. The Contessa called her ‘dear child’ and a young man immediately attached himself to her and was not to be shaken off. It was the younger women who appraised her with criticism, Margarita who felt not only coldness towards her, but an implacable determination to keep between this unwelcome newcomer and Charles.

The young man was Giuseppe Orselli and he refused to leave Victoria’s side. His English was eccentric, to say the least, and half the time Victoria could not understand him. As time ticked away, she began to be bored by him. He had inveigled her into an alcove by one of the windows, to keep her to himself and to avoid the crowd which was now becoming quite thick. It was from this vantage point, half hidden by a brocade curtain, giving up the struggle to cope with Giuseppe’s English, that Victoria’s boredom was suddenly penetrated by Margarita’s voice from somewhere quite close by.

‘No really, Charles, you
are
catching them young nowadays. One might even say cradle-snatching. Can you really find such ingenuousness interesting?’

‘Whether or not I find it interesting, whether beauty is enough by itself . . .’

‘Beauty?’ sharply.

‘You don’t find her beautiful, Margarita?’

Margarita was not to be so easily caught.

‘I hadn’t thought of her that way, I suppose. Yes, of course, she has a kind of beauty . . .’

‘Not your kind, admittedly. Not that southern kind of night-black richness, that mystery . . . but as I was about to say: Whether or not I find such ingenuousness interesting is quite beside the point. I am simply furthering Victoria’s education ...’ ‘Charles, Charles! ’

‘By showing her what Firenze has to offer; by looking at Michelangelo for the thousandth time, by trailing round the Uffizi. The others would have been with her, and were invited to be with her, but the boy’s passion is for cars, and the younger girl didn’t want to be educated. ’

‘I’d like to know whose idea this was—this course of further education. Was it yours, Charles, or could it possibly have been Victoria’s?’

Giuseppe spoke to Victoria at that moment, and she was guilty of snubbing him completely by turning her back on him, for she simply had to hear what Charles and Margarita had to say. Giuseppe stood somewhat crestfallen by her side, wondering what he had done.

‘You may be surprised to know,’ Charles was saying,

‘that it was neither. The idea came from Jeanie Jameson. ’

If Margarita was surprised, she could not have been more surprised than Victoria.

‘Apparently,’ Charles’s voice went on, ‘I’ve been guilty of neglect and inconsideration. When I agreed to the family coming here I took on the responsibility for their welfare, but must admit I didn’t realise that included their social life. But on the night of the party, Jeanie discovered our fair Victoria in floods of tears because she hadn’t been invited, and came along the next morning and read me a lecture on my shortcomings. So I realised that I had to make a gesture, and this is it.’

‘But how ridiculous, Charles! You can’t allow what Miss Jameson thinks to order your life. You know you regard your working hours as sacred. Why, your friends—I myself—would never dream of intruding. We never come without ringing up, and nearly always arrange to see you in the evening. I simply don’t
like
to think your work is being interrupted. ’