The Questing Heart (9 page)

'That won't be necessary,' she assured him. 'The age of chaperones is past, and even you couldn't carry that off. Me with an Italian grandmother!'

'Some English people do have Italian grandmothers,' he pointed out. 'But since you don't like the idea we'll drop it. Sure you don't mind losing your character?'

'Haven't you done that for me already?' she asked reproachfully, for he seemed to have forgotten he had brought about her dismissal without a testimonial. 'But in this day and age, nobody bothers about conventions.'

'What a very sensible point of view,' he said admiringly. 'Now if you're quite happy about everything, let's get on.'

Clare stifled a small sigh as she preceded him out of the
ristorante.
She could ask for nothing better than to be alone with Chris in this mountain retreat, but the castle belonged to Violetta, and she would be there by her grace and favour. Chris was in love with the beautiful Italian and she had a premonition that it would not be long before the Signora invaded their privacy, especially if she discovered that Chris bad taken a girl there. Conventions or no conventions, the Italians had only one idea where a man and a girl were concerned, and the pity of it was her suspicions would be quite unfounded.

As they re-entered the car a new thought occurred to her. Signora was the equivalent of the English Mrs.

'Is there a Signor Albanesi?' she asked with assumed carelessness.

'There was, but he is gathered to his fathers. Do you think I would abuse his hospitality?' Chris returned.

'Sorry, but modern people seem very casual about marriage,' Clare remarked.

'Well, I'm not,' Chris declared unexpectedly. 'That's why I'm still a bachelor. If I ever marry I want it to be for keeps.' He did not seem to be contemplating marrying his redhead.

'Enzo Albanesi was in the motor trade,' he went on after about half a mile. 'A rich old man, and Violetta was made to marry him, before she was out of her teens. Her family were impoverished nobility and though the
castello
was her inheritance it was a crumbling ruin. Enzo renovated it for her and when he died he left her a considerable fortune, so she had some compensation for her forced marriage.'

A rich and lovely widow, what could be more attractive for a young impecunious man? Only Clare doubted that Chris was really hard up. He glanced at her pensive face and his lips curled sardonically. He knew what she was thinking, he had in fact encouraged her to arrive at her conclusions. .

'Come to think of it,' he observed lazily, 'she might make a good heroine for one of your novels. Beautiful, exploited and ready for her first real romance.'

That stung Clare, for surely Violetta's romance had been Chris.

'I'm not supposed to draw my characters from life,' she said, though her heroine was a projection of herself, which she had not realised.

'That's all rot,' he declared. 'Nobody ever created a character that wasn't founded upon a real prototype, however remotely.'

They argued upon this point during the next few miles, » then Chris slowed down, having reached the point where they left the main road.

Their route wound up into the hills, the Maritime Alps having given place to the Ligurian Appenines. Their slopes were terraced with olive trees and vineyards until they became too steep for cultivation. In sheltered places there were copses of deciduous trees, a change from the prevalent cypresses. But there was little water. In summer the rivers dried up and were only stagnant pools when they reached the towns.

The
castello,
when it came in sight, was an imposing erection built on the site of an ancient fortress, perched on the crown of a hill above a scattered village in which most of the houses seemed to be derelict. On either side of the pointed hill were deep depressions descending to distant valley floors, and it was encircled by arid mountains. The scenery was impressive but grim.

'The mountain villages always cluster round a castle for protection,' Chris told her. 'There used to be a great deal of fighting in this part of the world in olden days.'

Clare looked at the precipitous depths on either side of the zig-zag road they were ascending, already filled with violet shadows.

'It's Gothic,' she said, and shivered. 'I could imagine Dracula living up there.'

'It breathes melodrama, doesn't it? Not quite the right setting for light fiction.'

'Or to inspire comedies, we'll have to change our conventions to suit our surroundings,' she remarked.

'Oh, I shan't notice anything once I get going,' Chris told her. 'All I need is seclusion and that it seems I'll get.'

They reached the summit of the hill and Chris drove through a gateway set in what had once been the curtain wall. The house it enclosed was built of honey-coloured stone blocks and followed the pattern of the original structure, two wings with crenellated walls being built out on either side of a square central tower. In front of it was a paved courtyard with several flower beds filled with geraniums, but even these bright patches of colour could not dissipate the slightly sinister aspect of the place. Clare was seized by sudden panic as she realised her isolation. She must have been completely crazy to allow herself to become involved in this adventure. She really knew practically nothing about the man beside her, and he had brought her to this gloomy desolate spot where anything could happen and nobody be any the wiser. When she had accepted the position she had fondly imagined she would be lodging in or near Nice, and when later Chris spoke of a retreat, she had expected a sunny, friendly village, not these decaying habitations surrounded by frowning mountains. She had the sensation of being trapped. Unaware of her perturbation, Chris was looking about him with satisfaction.

'No distractions whatever,' he observed. 'I'll be able to concentrate here.'

'It's hateful!' Clare burst out, and he looked at her in surprise. 'It... it frightens me.'

'You're too impressionable,' he told her. 'You'll soon get used to it.'

About to demand that she was returned to civilisation, the arrival of several Italian servants created a diversion. They looked friendly and greeted them with little cries of welcome. But their English was rudimentary and Clare did not speak Italian, though she knew some French. Christopher spoke the language fluently, and after a short consultation with the man who seemed to be in charge, whileothers were dealing with their luggage, he turned to her.

'All is in readiness for us. We're to be accommodated in the Eastern wing. Violetta's rooms are in the West. This young woman,' he indicated a sturdy sloe-eyed raven-haired girl, 'will wait on you. Her name's Emilia.' He changed to Italian to say something to her and Emilia smirked.

'Buon giorno, signorina.'

'Good afternoon,' Clare responded faintly.

'You ... come?' Emilia asked, seizing the cardboard box, Clare's cases had already disappeared, and she followed her indoors.

The entrance to the
castello
led into a vast marble-paved hall at the base of the tower. A fine staircase ascended upwards to a landing beneath a large stained glass window. From thence other stairways branched left and right to give access to either wing.

Emilia, murmuring 'Permesso,' preceded Clare up the stairs, taking the left-hand turn, at the top of which was a long corridor. It was lighted from above and ran the length of the wing with doors on either side. Clare's bedroom was at its furthest extremity, with one window looking over the courtyard in front and another over the sheer drop into the valley. The bathroom was opposite to it across the passage, as Emilia indicated. Clare's two cases were already installed, and Emilia put the cardboard box on top of them. Then, murmuring something in her own tongue, the girl smiled and withdrew. The furnishings except for a giant armoire along one wall were modern, fitted carpet, bright curtains and divan bed, which somewhat restored Clare's confidence. A door in the inner wall stood open and she saw the room beyond was fitted as a sitting room, and as she surveyed it, a man came in from the corridor and put Chris's typewriter carefully on a square wooden table. So that was where she was to work, and again the sight of the machine was reassuring. It was a familiar object in an alien world.

Clare unpacked, hanging her new clothes in the vast armoire, thinking the expenditure had been a little unnecessary. There was no one here to notice how she looked except Chris, and he had indicated that once he became absorbed in work he did not notice anything.

After a wash and brush up, she went into the sitting room, wondering what she was expected to do next. It was late in the afternoon, and the sunlight was cut off by the bulk of the mountains as the sun sank, and the valleys were full of shadows.

Chris came in through a further door opposite the one into her room, and she guessed that it was his bedroom. They had been accommodated in a compact unit. He unlocked a case that had been deposited on the floor and extracted from it paper, carbons and sheets of manuscript.

'Do you want to start work now?' she asked, going to help him by placing the articles on the table.

'It's too late—besides, you look tired,' he said kindly. 'You see it's not so bad after all, quite luxurious in fact. Reconciled?'

'For the time being.' She would not commit herself.

'We'll make a start tomorrow,' he went on. 'I've ordered dinner for eight and we're expected to dine in state downstairs. I don't care for the Latin habit of eating late.'

'That'll suit me,' she agreed. 'Do we change?'

'Of course. Oh, you needn't dress up, I shall put on a tie and jacket. The servants will expect it. Violetta's domestics are used to style.'

The reminder that she was in Violetta's house was unwelcome. Enzo Albanesi must have been a very wealthy man to be able to perform such a massive reconstruction job » and Chris must be on very good terms with his wife to have acquired the loan of it. It seemed to her the height of ostentatious extravagance to have rented such a palace with its large staff, but if in actuality he was a guest that was more understandable.

'That is my opus,' he told her, indicating the folder Clare held in her hand. 'I've roughed out the plot, and that,' pointing to another bulky folder, 'is correspondence, etc, in connection with it and other works. It's all in a muddle so you could arrange it in date order for a start.'

'I'll do that now,' she said, opening it. 'Oh, I don't mind,' as he started to protest, 'I've nothing to do at the moment.' It contained a miscellany of memoranda, bills, letters and copies of agreements. With deft fingers she began to sort them into some sort of chronology. As she proceeded, the name Cedric Radford became in evidence. There were a lot of letters dealing with an American production of his play,
Autumn Fires.
Cedric Redford was a brilliant young dramatist, who often acted in his own plays. He had been hailed as a second Noel Coward. Clare had seen
Autumn Fires
during its trial run in Manchester. Admitting it was clever, she had been repelled by it. It was a mercilessly satirical comedy dealing with ageing women who refused to grow old gracefully, butts of its cruel wit. The young actor who had mocked them and fooled them had seemed to her, to be a callous brute. Wanting to live herself, she could sympathise with those who felt life slipping away from them unfulfilled.

But what had
Autumn Fires
to do with Christopher Raines? She looked across at him and saw that he had dropped into a chair and was absorbed in the file containing his manuscript. She noticed the ruthless set of his jaw when his face was in repose. Underneath his light-hearted raillery was indomitable purpose when he had an aim to achieve.

'This Cedric Radford,' she said hesitantly. 'There seems to be a lot of stuff dealing with him ...?'

'Oh, that's my pseudonym,' Chris told her absently. 'Please put all the
Autumn Fires
stuff together.'

Clare sat down with a small gasp as everything started to click into place.

Time had blunted her recollections of
Autumn Fires-,
it was two years since she had seen it and she had dismissed it as superficial. Striving to recall it in detail, she remembered that it had been set on the Riviera and its leading man had worn a white suit in the first act very similar to the one , Chris had appeared in on the previous night. He had been slim, elegant and sardonic, a slightly younger Chris. That she had not recognised him was not surprising, as she had seen several plays since and others on television. One good- looking actor was much like another, and Cedric Radford had not impressed her.

Chris had deceived them all, posing as an unknown writer with no hint that he had ever appeared on a stage. He had been able to do so because his real name was not well known and his puckish humour would delight in the deception. Monica had declared he had not the application to succeed, and she herself had lectured him about his extravagance, before she began to have doubts about his supposed poverty. Cedric Radford earned so much money that it had been announced that he was contemplating living abroad to escape his income tax as some fellow artistes had done. Luxurious hotels in Nice were his natural habitat, the luscious Violetta Albanesi his normal appendage, Monica and her tabbies victims of his perverse humour. He had decided that Clare Underwood could fill the gap left by the secretary he had discarded because he did not like him. What had happened to the poor creature? He had not mentioned that. So he had inveigled her into accompanying him to this isolated spot without scruple as to how he did it, and unless she could make herself indispensable she would in her turn be discarded if a more useful candidate presented herself.

Finding something portentous in her stillness, Chris looked up.

'Anything the matter?'

'I'm trying to assimilate the fact that you're Cedric Radford.'

He laughed merrily. 'My own name is a useful disguise, I don't always want to be recognised. Actually I had to act and write under a professional name to appease my grandfather. He brought me up and wanted me to go into the Army as all the Raines men did. My father wis killed in Korea when I was a year old. But it was not the sort of life that appealed to me.'