The Buccaneers (48 page)

Annabel was a refugee in a household which her mother would have decried as “low-class.” At the round table that had rubbed threadbare circles on the cheap Turkey carpet in the dining-room, Gennaro and his two old sisters, benign and silent, breakfasted on coffee and thick pieces of bread, unbuttered; their other meals consisted of soup and what they called “pasta,” manufactured daily by the old cook and
bonne à tout faire
Serafina, accompanied by red wine that Serafina bought by the jug. But the same table, its surface not always innocent of tomato sauce, also served for Gennaro's halting and vague work on a study of Petrarch; and the walls, like those in all the other rooms, were lined with books in several languages and hung with lithographic portraits of Risorgimento patriots, and faded broadside manifestos of creeds no longer seditious. For the first time, Annabel was among people who cared—
had
cared—more for ideas than for possessions; and she divined a nobility of the spirit loftier than the
noblesse
derived from Norman blood.

Old Testavaglia, his black eyes dimmer than in his portrait, evinced no curiosity as to Fifth Avenue or Wall Street in talking with Nan (whom Laura had introduced as an American). He requested information as to the state of the serfs emancipated by President Lincoln and the recent work of la Signora Harrietta Stowe. Once or twice, his eyes glittering strangely as eras coalesced, he spoke to Nan not only of Garibaldi and Mazzini but of Voltaire and Washington and the Marchese di Lafayetta, and once even of Brutus, in a conspiratorial whisper, tugging an invisible cloak up to cover his lower face, and looking over his shoulder from under an imaginary slouched hat.

Conversation was confined to meal-times, between which the Testavaglias dozed, read, or slowly wrote; except when Nan, too restless to read, went to the kitchen, where Serafina vouchsafed copious information as to her children and their children and her nephew who had died whose widow, Anna, a cousin from Firenze, was staying with her. The sad-faced Anna, dressed like a Londoner—whereas Serafina dressed exactly as she had in her village in Calabria—told Nan that she wanted to return to Italy. “But I am waiting till I will have more money from the restaurant which I work, I am at the
cassa....
One gains more in London, but I would better go.” Anna's black eyes suddenly glistened with tears. “Italy is more beautiful, and my family will be glad. I have the
nostalgia
of Italia; I am ... what is the word?”

“You are ‘homesick,' ” Nan answered, wondering whether
she
could work at a restaurant
cassa,
envying Anna a family whom she would gladden by returning home.

At night, despondently gazing from her bedroom window at roofs and treetops and stars, Annabel thought of the New York hotels she and Jinny had grown up in. Of Saratoga. Conchita's wedding. The steamer, and the low undistinguished New York skyline receding as her heart leapt toward the storied beauty she would find in England. And of the myriad changes wrought by a single journey.

Now a return crossing was ordained. For she couldn't stay in England. That she would be an embarrassment to everyone she knew was irrelevant. She
could not
stay on never seeing Guy. Reading, one day, of his engagement to a suitable girl.... How could Miss March have elected to remain, not only seeing her false fiance but actually cultivating the friendship of his wife? Nan had once warmly sympathized with an elderly lady whose love had been greater than her pride; but she now thought that Miss March's love must have been of a weedy, sickly variety.

New York (where else could Nan go?) was a blur of gorgeous private houses like the one her parents had built in Fifth Avenue, and which her mother had described minutely in letters to both daughters; of tasteless public buildings, wretched slums, unhandsome inharmonious streets, noise, confusion; above all, a city where she would have no friends. The people she and Jinny had known, and those their mother now knew, were all in the business of getting married or being married and having children or getting their children married. She would no longer be a
jeune fille à marier,
but a divorced woman, unfit for the society whence she came, and obliged to earn a living.

“For I can't let Father support me as a reward for my making a failure of my life,” she thought as she went into the sitting-room with pen and paper.

The room was furnished in a style which her mother's and Mrs. Elmsworth's decorator might have dubbed “Second-hand Utilitarian,” and it was icy cold. “Even so,” Annabel thought, “it's England, and I'd rather be here.” Sighing, she began a letter to her governess. “Please thank your anonymous friend for her suggestion,” she wrote:

 
“It will be very exciting,” Nan went on with a great sob, “to be in a different place and be able to do something to help people. I hope to see you soon. Please give my love to Kitty and Cora.”

Nan knew that she wasn't qualified to be a governess. Denmark Hill had given her a new appreciation of the Marias, Elizas, Christinas, Francescas, Lauras (but there was only one Laura!) who acquired learning (even Greek, some of them) from their fathers and brothers, and then taught the daughters of the aristocracy, in order to support the idealistic Republican men of the tribe.

Nan gave way to helpless, solitary mirth at the vision of her mother—or Lizzy's, or Conchita's—sending “the girls” out to support the Colonel or Mr. Elmsworth or Mr. Closson. Or Teddy de Santos-Dios!

 
 
The hilarity did not last. She thought about the precariousness of Miss Testvalley's penurious and uncomplaining life, with the result that she posted a note asking Virginia to meet her the next day between eleven and twelve at ... She had thought of a park or a museum, but fixed on St. Paul's, which she and Jinny had visited as tourists, as being far from Mayfair in every sense; and at eleven the next morning she walked slowly about the vast domed cathedral, where the music of an organist practising sounded grandly, stopped, and soared again in sublime new chords.

Tired, and too strained to yield herself to the music, Nan sat down, put her head in her hands, and wished she could turn to Jinny, not necessarily for sympathy, but for intimate talk. They had grown away from each other; yet somehow life didn't dissolve bonds between sisters, only made the bonds more tortuous even than they had been when they seemed simple. She and Jinny had played together and slept together; had fought with each other, but had also shared some of their thoughts. Once, when she was about nine, Jinny had confided in her a strange memory from when she was little, maybe two or three, of being in a kitchen and watching Mother at a stove, stirring something in a pot. Did Nan think it could be true? They had considered the question solemnly and decided that Jinny had had a funny kind of dream. Neither girl had ever mentioned it to the other since.

Rising, Nan saw Jinny coming toward her, veiled, but recognizable by her graceful shape and elegant gliding walk.

As they sat down, Virginia raised the veil and demanded in a tone between a low voice and a loud whisper: “Nan, how could you do this to me?”

This was not what Nan had hoped for; the old fierce anger welled up. “I didn't ‘do' anything to you!” she said hotly. But as Virginia frowned, Nan controlled herself and said quietly: “I can't stay with Ushant. I'm going away; it will be best for you, won't it, if I just vanish quietly?”

“It can't be ‘quiet,' and he doesn't like scandals.” As Nan frowned, puzzled, Jinny, without explaining, asked defiantly: “And what about Guy Thwarte?”

“There's
nothing
about Mr. Thwarte!”

“Do you realize people are saying that Ushant is going to divorce you?”

“He ought to. Not because of Mr. Thwarte; but because I've deserted him.”

“Nan, you're crazy,” Jinny said beneath her breath. “I came here—at the risk of being seen with you—because I thought you might say you want to go back to him.”

“No. I asked you to come because I want you to do something for Miss Testvalley.”

“What?
Who?”
Jinny's eyes, blue even in the dimness of the nave, widened. “Why?”

“She'll need to find a new post. She had nothing to do with my leaving Ushant; I think she disapproves. But everyone will think she's behind me. I don't think she'll be at Champions much longer. And who will give her letters of recommendation now? My mother-in-law?
Yours?
Lady Glenloe?”

Nan bit her tongue. She was afraid that Jinny would ask why Lady Glenloe should be angry, and didn't want to reveal Lady Glenloe's hopes for her daughters (or, rather, for one of them). But Jinny didn't ask, and Nan went on quickly:
“You
can help her. She lived in our family for three years. It's thanks to her that we came to England—that you'll soon be the new Lady Brightlingsea, the premiere Marchioness. Do write a letter she can show at the agency she goes to. You know she's a perfectly splendid teacher!”

“I wouldn't know how to.” Jinny had never been much of a one with a pen.

“Say ‘pleased to recommend ... long acquaintance ...' Well, I've written it out.” Nan handed Jinny a sheet of paper. “Write something like that, and be sure to show that you are Virginia Marable, Countess Seadown. Do you promise?”

“I'll ... try,” Virginia said sulkily. “I'll see. Only, if you're right about people blaming her, they'd be furious if they found out. Nan, I have to go, I'm supposed to be ...” She stood up.

Nan, rising with her, forgot her grievance in a rush of sadness and affection. “Jinny, we may not see each other again for years and years.” With a sore heart, she put her arms around her sister, who kissed her cheek. “Goodbye, Nan; I really must go.” Virginia carefully lowered her veil and walked to the door. Then, suddenly, she turned.

“Jinny?” Nan went to her eagerly.

“If you go to New York,” Jinny said simply, “Mother will kill you.”

From the porch, Nan watched her descend the great flight of stairs and gracefully mount the step of a waiting hansom. Only on her way back to Denmark Hill did she realize that her sister had given her no promise.

 
 
“She never lets me forget that I'm younger and more ignorant,” Nan fumed as she jounced about in a stuffy, crowded eastbound omnibus. “I always think I'm the youngest person in the room ... in the bus. Ushant thought I was a malleable child, but I invited it. I let myself fall in love with Guy by making believe that he was an ‘older' man, and I encouraged him to think that I was a little girl. But I am twenty-three years old; I am a married woman who has had a miscarriage; I am going to be divorced; and I am in love with a man I can't marry ... who won't want to marry me.”

 
“In fact, I am a detrimental now. And I'm tired,” Nan muttered that evening, eyeing with disgust the baby-face in the mirror as she brushed crossly at her hopelessly tangled curls, “of being an ingenue.”

She would write to Ushant and to her father, and she would try to arrange her future—once she had seen Guy. She must tell him that she was going to America, and say goodbye in a civilized, modern, nineteenth-century way.

XXXIX.

Guy Thwarte asked the old woman who came to the door garbed in Mediterranean black if the Duchess of Tintagel could receive him.

“Duchessa?”
A stare and a headshake.

Was Robinson wrong? Guy wondered. “Is there not a young lady, a friend of Miss Testvalley's,
una giovane donna
—?”

“Ah.” The wrinkled face lightened. “Annabella,
la ragazza. Sì, sì, vieni, vieni....”
Serafina crooked a finger and led him in.

Nan, at the sitting-room window, had recognized Guy's tall figure and firm stride as he came down the street; had seen him go to the house opposite, where someone opened the door and, after a moment, pointed at the Testavaglia house. She was glad of this brief warning, which allowed her to recover some presence of mind. She had at last prepared a speech, and when Guy entered she was able to begin it. “I'm so glad you've come, so that I can say goodbye properly; we've been such friends....” She kept her head high.

Guy stood and looked at a
ragazza,
her tawny curls coiled carelessly at the nape of her neck, whose huge dark eyes met his gaze steadily even though a fierce blush mounted to her cheeks. “No one would believe,” he said, “that we have never even kissed,” and took her in his arms. In their eager, long first kiss, Nan trembled with pleasure; and as Guy's lips moved from her mouth to her closed eyes she gasped, clinging to him, “Oh, I do love you....” She was dazed, yet aware of her every pulse-beat, and of every breath of the body so close to hers. She ran her hands over the strong shoulders beneath the smooth broadcloth as Guy muttered against her cheek:

“I could not ask you ... I knew you didn't care about Longlands and all that ... but how could I ask you to give it up? Ushant was never the man for you, but I couldn't let you lose... I love you more than anything in the world, and now—Is it true that you have left him?”

“I have left him, yes. I ought never to have married him.”

“You were too young to know. Now you must marry me.”

Nan, still in Guy's arms, and with her arms about him, half lost in a fiery sweetness, could still say: “No!—I'm not too young now to know what
you
would lose if we married. I know what you
have
lost.” She pressed his head closer to hers, stroking his thick fair hair. “You can't give up Parliament.”