One Hot Summer (10 page)

‘
Who could buy? They are beyond price. And if some millionaire bought even a fraction of what has been given with such love and faith over so many ages—wouldn’t people still be saying the same thing, in
his
country? Man is not forbidden to give glory to God, and still take care of the poor and sick. One Michelangelo for the glory, one Jan to nurse the sick. Both have their place. Off you go, now. No
botticella
next time. It will be the car and straight back to Naples, where we will dine. Don’t be late, mind.’

It was midnight before they arrived at the Villa Tramonti. Signora Cellini had waited up for them, and
came hurrying through the garden to meet them.

‘
Have you brought Bianca?’ she called anxiously.

‘
You are so late, both of you. Bianca, my love, you should not have allowed your brother to keep you out till midnight. It is not discreet for a young lady. And you will miss your beauty sleep.’

‘
I am not Bianca, madame,’ Jan said gently.
‘
See—I’m Jan. Bianca is in Florence with her aunt.’ Marco put a tender arm round his mother’s shoulders.
‘
Mamma, you must not begrudge the child a little holiday. She is having a fine time with her aunt and cousins.’

The Signora stared at him hardly, not a sign of confusion in her handsome face.
‘
Then why doesn’t she write? Why, why, why?’

Jan’s heart turned over. At last Marco would have to say something definite.

He turned towards the wide open doors of the villa, drawing his mother with him.
‘
She did write, darling. Don’t you remember? She told us all about her visit to the Uffizi Galleries, and Aunt Tina’s liver trouble.’

‘Never, never! You’re lying, Marco. You lie all the time. My daughter is dead, isn’t she? Like my husband
.’

‘
Mamma, I’ve told you a hundred times, Bianca is nothing of the sort. She’s as strong and well as I am. Don’t cry, please don’t cry, little Mamma
!’

The Signora was sobbing, beyond her control. She buried her face in her hands and shook with crying.

‘
Liar, liar, liar
!
’

Marco, murmuring gently, tried to draw her hands from her face. Without warning, his mother flung up her head, and screaming
Liar
!
once more, struck him heavily across the cheek.

Quicker than thought, Jan scooped water from the fountain in her cupped palms and dashed it into the older woman’s face. The Signora gasped and shivered.

‘
Hysteria
!’
Jan snapped over her shoulder to Marco.
‘
Leave her to me. This is my job.’

Gently she led the trembling woman indoors, helped her to undress and put her to bed. There were sleeping tablets in a small onyx box by the bedside, so Jan administered one and put the box out of reach. Then she closed the shutters and sat quietly waiting till the sobs died down and more even breathing told her the Signora slept.

Then she went outside. Marco was slumped in a chair by the fountain, staring at nothing. She sat on the marble lip of the
terrazzo.
After a minute she said:

‘
Start talking, Marco. You’ll have to tell me now, won’t you? Where is your sister?’

He gave a heavy sigh, then lifted his head and spoke.
‘
I haven’t the slightest idea.’

‘
You don’t
know
? Your sister disappears and you do nothing but calmly import a strange girl who happens to look a bit like her? Where do you
think
she is?’

He twisted towards her, with an expression of murderous rage.
‘
For God’s sake, woman, shut up
!’

Jan compressed her lips, got up and marched into her bedroom, where she stripped off every last stitch of Bianca s outfit, rolled it into a ball. Then she put on her own simple skirt and cotton sweater, and went back into the garden. Marco was there. He was holding a cigarette between his fingers now, the smoke rising in a thin line of blue under the
terrazzo
lantern.
‘
Enough is enough, Marco. Either you tell me exactly what
you know about your sister here and now, or I quit. The masquerade is finished. Do you understand? Are you listening?’

‘
Don
’
t shout. There’s nothing I can tell, you silly little fool.’

‘
Right. Goodbye. I’m going to pack now and
I
shall leave first thing in the morning.’ She threw the bundle of Bia
n
ca’s clothes at him. Hard driven by temper, it hit him on t
h
e head and rolled down his shoulders, unfolding as it went.

Jan swung
o
n her heel and marched indoors, banging the louvres after her. Hands shaking with rage, she dragged out her suitcase and began to thrust her things in. She could get back to the Rome hotel now she had her money. The room there was paid for, till Saturday.

Saturday! She stopped, struck by the thought that she was due, back in England at the end of this week.

There’s to be no more. Nothing. No Marco ever again!

And she loved him.

Love? Was that possible, after so short an acquaintance? Didn’t the kind of love she craved grow gently, come into flower slowly; a wondrous thing of the mind and spirit, as well as of the body and the beating pulses? How much of what she had felt for Michael had been real love, and how much the simple magnetism of young body to young body, the leap of the stirred blood, the eternal male-female pull?

But Michael had been a boy. Marco was an intensely masc
u
line man, with all the masculine qualities of leadership and confidence. He was autocratic in a country where men were expected to be autocratic, to be the heads of their families, to rule and be obeyed.
He was dependable, thoughtful in small ways as well as great. He was the head of big business, a man of wealth; and how could he have achieved that, without being tough, determined, strong?

But emotionally? What did she know about
him
emotionally? Unlike most of his fellow-countrymen, who wore their emotions like banners, Marco kept his feelings under stern control. There could be a volcano under that stern crust, but only an occasional shower of
w
hite-hot sparks hinted at the locked-in fires.

With an uncontrollable desire to escape from her racing thoughts, she pushed open the shutters which led to the balcony of Bianca’s bedroom, and stepped out. The sky was velvet black and studded with stars. The flower scents of the day rose powerfully on the cooling air. Somewhere out there, hidden in the dark, was Vesuvius, that sleeping giant—dead, some believed, since the eruption of
1944
. Was it extinct? Or merely biding its time again
?

This was the end. The end of her holiday, which had started so modestly, and become so unexpectedly luxurious. Which had started with tears for lost Michael, and would end with tears for lost Marco Cellini.

How stupid could one get? She clenched her fists on the white-painted wrought-iron balcony, angry with herself. She had tumbled headlong into the love-trap again, after escaping once with a whole skin and even a whole heart. What a fool!

After the long hot day, she should have been tired and ready for bed. But she felt full of a restless vitality. The sharp scene with the Cellinis, mother and son, had driven sleep from her brain. She was wondering whether the coast would be clear for her to steal out to the swimming pool, when the remembrance of Signora Cellini brought her up sharply.

She slipped a linen jacket over her bare arms, kicked off her sandals and pushed her feet into soft slippers, then stole silently out into the garden, on her way to the Signora’s bedroo
m
. Although she had seen the Signora safely in bed and asleep only a short time ago, the older woman was disturbed and distressed, frail in spite of her quiet life and the modest activities in the garden. It was high time Jan took a peep at her patient.

The garden was empty. The white chairs were
grouped around the table as if for a tea-party of ghosts. From this side of the house one could see the sea far below, a broad white pathway painted across it by a full moon riding serenely on high like a polished d
inn
er-plate. The moon, the scented lilies, the white furniture—and nothing more but the deep blue of sky and sea, the dark shadows, silence.

Signora Cellini was sleeping, though not as peacefully as Jan would have wished. A damp crushed handkerchief lay in a beam of moonlight, eloquent of the tears Bianca
’
s mother had shed. Jan drew a light chair up to the bed, and waited quietly till the restlessness passed and sleep deepened. Poor worried soul! She shouldn’t be left alone yet. Am I justified, Jan wondered, in walking out on her because Marco has annoyed me? I’m a nurse and surely I’ve learned by now to put the patient’s needs before my personal worries.

The moonbeam had moved halfway across the carpet before Jan was satisfied. Then she smoothed the sheets carefully, moved cautiously towards the paler patch which indicated the tall French windows which stood open on the terrace and garden. In the Villa Tramonti, house and garden blended together so cleverly that one could hardly tell where one ended and the other began.

It was almost as light as day outside. The moon still stood high, and the pale flush of pre-dawn was showing in the eastern sky. Jan drew in a deep breath of the morning air. She was tired at last, and thought she would be able to sleep.

Marco was standing there. The moonlight accentuated the darkness of his tan, silvered the light blue trousers and shirt. Jan stifled a startled exclamation.
‘
Marco! I thought you were a ghost
!
’

‘
No ghosts at the Villa Tramonti. Or if there are, they are not to be feared. Come and sit down. I want
to talk to you.’

He turned and went towards the chairs without looking to see if she followed. She hesitated, longing now for her bed and sleep. She had had a tiring day, and been awake most of the night. This was no time for talking. Then she dismissed the attitude as petty, and followed her host. If he was now ready to talk, it would be stupid to miss the opportunity.

He had already drawn out a chair for her, and was waiting for her to sit down. As she approached he held out his hand and took hers lightly. It was no more than a courteous handing to her seat, but her heartbeat quickened with excitement and a certain amount of apprehension. What could they say to each other, here in the moonlight which warred with the dawn?

‘You have been with my mother,’ he began.
‘
Thank you, Jan. I looked in, twenty minutes ago, and saw you sitting by her bed.’ He smiled at her. ‘After all, you are a nurse before you are a woman. Which makes it easier for me to eat humble pie and beg you to stay with her. If you really loathe me, I can return to the Rome apartment, but my mother needs someone just now.’

‘
I was going to say the same to you.’ Her cheeks burned.
‘
I behaved abominably, throwing those things at you, and I apologise. I don’t loathe you, Marco, and I’ll be glad to remain with your mother till the end of my holiday. But I can’t stay longer. That is out of the question. As you say, I’m a nurse first, and duty means a lot to me. At this distance and in these surroundings, one unimportant nurse among so many may seem not to matter. But it does matter. Hospitals are chronically short-staffed. If I don’t turn up on the right day, someone else’s holiday, or off-duty times, will be affected. I’d be enjoying myself here while another girl works extra hard to make up for it.’

‘
I understand. You think I’m selfish, putting my needs first?’

‘
You are concerned for your mother—that’s natural. You must consider getting some sort of nurse for her to take my place, at least until your sister comes home. Your private affairs are no business of mine, but
—is
she coming home, Marco? Is it true you don’t know where she is? If you can talk to me about it—if I can help in any
w
ay, please do. You’ve tried to be father and mother both, haven’t you?’

‘
As you see.’ He shrugged lightly.
‘
Not very successfully. She was betrothed, and seemed happy about it. Raf is a charming young man, and his family welcomed her. It’s a good match. So why should she suddenly take off into the blue—run away without letting us know where she is?’

‘
With another man?’

‘
That
’
s what I fear. But who? She has met so few, and all of them known to me, of course.’

‘
Have you been to the police? Are you sure she’s even safe?’

‘
The police, yes. I’ve searched myself, and Dino has scoured every inch of the island, all the rocks and caves. We’ve ruled out any possibility of an accident, though we never stop searching.’

‘
How long has she been missing?’

‘
Two days before you came. When I saw you, I thought I
’
d found her. You have the same way of walking, the same proud lift of the head, and almost the same colouring. I asked you here on an impulse, thinking if you were here we could cover up for a day or two, till she decided to come home.’

‘
So it was a masquerade?’

He nodded.
‘
Unplanned, and, I see now, foolish. It wasn’t fair to you.’

‘
It was not. I was very angry when I found you’d been making use of me in that way. What I don’t
understand is why you needed to cover up. Surely some publicity about a missing girl would have helped? Newspapers, television—in our country we’d have used all that, to locate her.’

‘
My dear girl! Publicity is the last thing we want. Rafaello and his family would never accept that; to have her name bandied about, people staring at her photograph. I wouldn’t do that to Bianca. There would be a scandal, her reputation would suffer. The engagement would be broken off.’

She could hardly believe he was serious. ‘You mean—her
fianc
é
doesn’t know? You haven’t asked him if he knows where she is?’

‘We protect our young ladies. The permissive society has not yet penetrated into some of our more traditional families. Raf will expect a bride of unblemished reputation.’