Across the Lagoon (23 page)

Another night drew in. Wearily she went down to eat. Every time she looked at Gray across the table during dinner, she told herself it was their fault. If they hadn't been so wrapped up in each other they would have sensed Stephanie's loneliness. They were the ones who had driven her away.

Carol convinced herself of this almost to the point of breaking up. She knew that Gray too was feeling the strain keenly.

C
AROL
dragged herself off to her room after dinner and lay until the early hours staring wet-eyed into the darkness.

At breakfast there was the usual scattering of guests at the tables. Afterwards Carol went back upstairs. Full of despair, she was drifting round the apartment, preparing herself for another day of waiting when the bell rang.

She went and opened the door to find Gray there. He strode into the room and looked at her in her light dress. 'Get a coat,' he said briskly. 'Aniello's on to something. He's just rung up.'

Her heart leaping into her eyes, Carol looked at him to ask tremblingly, 'Is it good news?'

'He wouldn't say.' Gray strode into her bedroom and came back with a white summer coat. He threw it round her shoulders and scooped her towards the door, telling her as they went out, 'He wants us to meet him in Venice.'

Carol's legs were almost too weak to carry her as the ' two of them made for the lift. Downstairs, Gray hurried her across the foyer and out to a waiting taxi.

The wind was cold at the landing stage. The crossing on the launch was the longest she had ever known. Her heart pumped out a rhythm to the swish of the engines. Her mouth was dry as she tried to guess what they would find across the water. Both hope and fear rose within her.

On the Venice side Gray scooped her along through St Mark's Square. They had quite a way to go from there. They did part of the journey by water-bus and the rest on foot.

Eventually they arrived at the corner of some back streets where Aniello was waiting for them. His face inscrutable, he said, waving a hand, 'Come with me, please.'

Carol threw a scared look at Gray. She couldn't have gone on without his support.

Aniello took them towards a dilapidated building set amongst shabby dwellings and tenement blocks. The exterior was carved and ornate like many of the rundown palaces in Venice, but with its high arched windows and plain wooden doors it looked like a school or an institute of some kind.

'The Bonvecchiati Mission,' Aniello enlightened them with the glimmer of a smile.

He led them round to the back and up to one of the tall dusty windows which looked out on to a strip of waste ground. 'See,' he invited, rubbing a patch of dust away from the window for their benefit.

Her head close to Gray's, Carol looked inside. She saw a huge stone-floored interior lit mainly by fanlights in the roof. Small children ran up and down noisily, and one or two older boys were hammering at a bench.

Down at the far end were the kitchens with huge steaming vats on the boil and white scrubbed tables. There were several female figures about, but one in particular, carefully filling salt-cellars over a tray, made Carol's heart spiral up into her throat.

Neat in a striped overall which was slightly too big for her, her face scrubbed, her hair piled up to give her the look of a mature little eighteen-year-old, was an unmistakable figure.

'It's Stephanie!' Carol gasped, half laughing.

'It is indeed,' Gray said with a worn smile, his relief matching hers.

Radiantly Carol swung round on the little guide and almost grabbed him. 'Aniello! I could kiss you!' she sparkled.

With a twinkle the guide gave her his cheek and said with sly humour, 'Please do so quickly. My wife has many friends in the neighbourhood.'

Gray, watching as he was smothered in a hug, said with a dry gleam, 'You've come off better than me in this, Aniello.'

'Perhaps you should live in Venice,
signore,'
the little guide replied with an amused light.

When he had straightened himself out he beckoned them, 'Come.'

They went round to the front and in through huge double doors. Inside there was a kind of tiled anteroom with chairs against the wall beneath rows of pictures, and one or two trailing green plants on tall pedestals.

Aniello spoke in rapid Italian to the teenage boy who was cleaning the brass knobs on doors leading into a chequered hallway. As he hurried off, the guide told them, 'Signor Cassiano, who runs the mission, is a good friend of mine. He knows you are coming.'

Presently a man in a dark smock came along the hall. Though he was elderly he walked with an upright step. He and Aniello greeted each other in the effusive way that Italians do, then the guide introduced Gray and Carol to him and presumably explained the business of Stephanie.

Signor Cassiano nodded. His English was more hesitant than Aniello's, but he spoke it well as he explained, 'We found her roaming the streets alone. She wouldn't tell us her name or where she belonged.' He shrugged his shoulders with a kindly light. 'Many people come to us. They don't want to be known. We respect their wishes. Although,' he smiled, 'if we had known your niece was so young I don't think we would have kept silent.'

Gray accepted his explanation. He shook his hand warmly and thanked him for all he had done.

Signor Cassiano shrugged again as though it was as natural as breathing to him to give shelter to those who needed it. He turned towards the hall and suggested, 'Shall we go to her?'

Carol started to follow him. Before he joined her Gray said something to Aniello, who nodded and went out into the street.

They walked along the hall and across a cluttered courtyard to rough paint-peeling doors. The noise was quite deafening when Signor Cassiano stepped inside and invited them to follow. Carol saw that they were in the large enclosed space they had peeped at from outside. As she walked with Gray down towards the kitchen section, children raced and tumbled about, their voices echoing up to the fanlight roof.

Her gaze searched eagerly for the little overalled figure she had seen earlier. Her heart beat unevenly when she couldn't find it. Then she spotted her coming through an open doorway from outside, an empty bowl in her hand.

She had put down the bowl and was just turning when her lacklustre gaze caught sight of the visitors. Her pale face became suffused with colour. Her eyes shone with a new brightness as Carol hurried towards her.

'Stephanie!' She threw her arms round her as if she had been one of her own younger sisters.

For several seconds they hugged, laughed and gulped tears. Gray stood over them saying to his niece with flinty humour, 'Remind me to put you over my knee some time, young woman!'

Carol didn't know what to say. The moment was too charged with emotion to do anything but to cling to each other. She was just about to find her tongue when Stephanie looked past her. Her brown eyes had widened unbelievingly.

Carol followed her gaze and was startled to see the same couple whom Gray had been talking to yesterday on the terrace at the Albany coming in the door at the far end. She was even more flabbergasted when she heard Stephanie say, floating away from her in a dream, 'It's my mother!'

The younger girl was soon running as fast as her flapping overall would allow. 'Mummy!'

The dark-haired, attractive woman came forward, her arms outstretched. 'Stephanie darling!'

The hugs, laughter and tears, plus delighted chatter, started all over again.

Gray dropped an arm round Carol's shoulder and said, guiding her towards the door nearest to them, 'I don't think we're needed here any more.'

Carol allowed him to lead her out and across a strip of waste ground into the street, saying with a dazed smile as they went, 'Was that really Stephanie's mother and father?'

Gray nodded. 'I got in touch with them soon after she disappeared.' He gave Carol his flinty gleam. 'I laid it on the line to them in the same way you sounded off at me. I think I made them see they've got a daughter who needs a home.'

'How did they know we were here?' Carol asked.

'They booked in at my hotel in Venice to conduct their own search for Stephanie,' Gray said. 'When I got the tip from Aniello I gave them a ring and told them where he had asked us to meet him. They're not very familiar with the city, so they probably had a job finding the place. I sent Aniello out from the mission to keep a look-out for them.'

'And now they're all together again.' Carol walked close to Gray and gave a happy sigh at the world in general. 'Isn't life wonderful?'

Gray slanted her a jaded smile and said with feeling, 'What we both need is a drink.'

He guided her back the way they had come and through the city until they came to the little canal-side hotel where she had stayed once before.

In the velvet-draped corner lounge, he ordered her a coffee and something stronger for himself.

As they sat soaking up the peace Carol began to feel the reaction of more than a week of tension. A heavy lethargy overtook her limbs. Her eyelids became weighty with the warmth of the room. From far away she heard Gray say, 'You'd better rest here before we go back to the Albany.'

As he drew her to her feet she said with a washed-out sigh, 'All I want to do is just sleep and sleep.'

He booked her a room, and she was led away up the carpeted stairs towards the back of the building. The porter opened the door on a single white-counterpaned bed and a window looking across the rooftops. Carol didn't notice any more. She closed the door, stripped to her underslip and slid between the cool sheets. Nothing had ever felt more wonderful than the soft pillow beneath her head. She closed her eyes and remembered no more.

It seemed days later when she stirred drowsily to the sound of someone opening and closing the door softly. Then she heard a voice whispering close to her ear, 'Carol! It's me—Stephanie.' Carol opened her eyes to see a radiant little face above her. 'I'm going back to the Albany now to pack,' Stephanie told her as she stretched luxuriously. 'Then I'm going to Beirut with my parents.' She sat on the bed bursting with news. 'Daddy's going to start a business in London. He's going to buy somewhere close to Rowan House for us to live, so I'll be able to come and see you all the time when you and Gray get married.'

Carol laughed, 'He hasn't asked me yet!'

'But he's going to. He told me,' Stephanie said with the indiscretion of youth.

All warm and glowing, Carol asked, 'Are your mother and father downstairs?'

'Yes. They wanted to meet you,' Stephanie nodded, 'but Gray said you weren't to be disturbed. He only let me come up to say goodbye.' She dropped a kiss on her cheek. 'Bye, Carol. I expect I'll be seeing you soon.' She made her way to the door saying with shining eyes, 'I've got to go now. Mummy's waiting for me.'

Carol blew her a kiss as she went out, then drifted back off to sleep.

*

The light was fading from the sky when she finally awoke, refreshed. After a few moments to accustom herself to the idea she rose and slipped on her dress. She found the bathroom and braved a cold shower, returning to her bedroom feeling better than she had done for a week. It was a simple matter to run a comb through her hair. When it was smooth on her shoulders she picked up her coat and went downstairs.

Gray lowered his paper and rose when she walked in the lounge. Her heart swelled with love at the sight of him. Shyly her eyes held his as they met. He took her arm and said deeply, 'Let's eat.'

The restaurant was a circular room with curving windows looking out on to the canal. The dark waters danced under the dappled lights of the wall lamps. Most of the tables were full. From where they sat with a view of the little bridge spanning the canal, Carol glanced down at herself. She was still wearing the dress she had rushed out from the Albany in this morning. Gray was in one of his business suits which had a tendency to make him look severe, only his face wasn't severe tonight when he looked at her.

The courses weren't as numerous as those at the Albany, but each Venetian dish was superbly cooked. Watching Gray as he partly filled her glass with red liquid, Carol asked with an innocent twinkle, 'Am I allowed wine tonight, sir?'

'Tonight you are allowed a little wine,' he reiterated with a tight grin, 'to celebrate.'

They, drank, gazing at the rippling waters beyond the windows.

After dinner Gray rose and taking her coat, dropped it around her shoulders. 'Let's go out,' he said.

The night air was like more wine after the overpowering central heating of the hotel. 'Warm enough?' Gray asked as she buttoned on her coat.

'Wonderful!' she smiled. He turned an arm around her and they walked.

Eventually Gray found what he appeared to have been looking for, a row of gondolas bobbing on the dark waters, waiting to be hired. He chose one decorated in red and gold, with a carved stern and prow and a curtained sedan garlanded with fresh flowers. The gondolier bowed them into the cushioned interior, then he lit candles in the little lanterns and pushed off into the night.

As they lay back listening to the gentle lapping of the water Gray said, 'I've been wanting to do this ever since that other gondola ride, when I couldn't get near you.'

After a while Carol felt Gray draw her close. His lips on hers were all the sweetness she had known they would be. She drank in their warmth which it seemed now she had waited a lifetime for.

A long time afterwards she lay back in the curve of his arm and asked, 'I expect Stephanie will be on her way to Beirut by now?'

Gray nodded, his lips against her ear. 'They caught the four o'clock plane.'

'Are they really going to live in England, all three of them?' she asked unbelievingly.

'Mmm,' Gray affirmed lazily. 'It'll take Scott, Stephanie's father, a while to clear up his affairs in Beirut. She'll miss a few weeks of school, but that won't do her any harm.'

'It will do her the world of good,' Carol said with feeling. She mused for a while, then jerked up. 'Aniello! We forgot to thank him.'