Vintage Love (79 page)

“What does he say?” Della asked.

“He claims to be old and in poor health,” Sir Roger Drexel said. “He has brought the girl up as Princess Irma Sanzio.”

Della smiled in awe. “So I have a sister who is a princess!”

“An Italian princess,” Sir Roger said. “However, Prince Sanzio fears he will die soon and he does not want the girl to be left alone. It is his wish that she be reunited with her family.”

“Of course!” Della agreed.

Aunt Isobel spoke up: “Let us not be too quick in this matter.”

“What do you mean?” Della asked her.

The old woman said, “Suppose it is a hoax?”

This left Della shocked. She asked Sir Roger, “You must think this all bona fide or you wouldn’t have brought it to us.”

The old lawyer’s white eyebrows met again in a frown as he said, “I’ve gone into it all in as much detail as time allowed. I only received the message this morning.”

“And?” Della said.

“I know there is a Prince Sanzio and that the crest on the letterhead on which he’s written me is his actual crest.”

“That does not prove much,” Aunt Isobel said, still stubbornly refusing to believe the story. “Someone could have somehow stolen his notepaper and manufactured the message. It could be another scheme to drain us of money. There have been such attempts in the past.”

“I know all that,” Sir Roger agreed. “But there is no mention of money in this letter. It only states the facts and asks that Della come to Rome at once and be reunited with her sister.”

Aunt Isobel looked more upset. “This man expects my niece to journey to Rome on the basis of his wild story?”

“I think it may be the truth,” Sir Roger said solemnly. “I cannot think of anything he has to gain by it otherwise.”

“Sir Roger is right, Aunt Isobel,” Della said. “I think you are wrong to refuse to believe. It is wonderful! A dream come true! I only wish that my mother and father were alive to know about it.”

“And I,” Sir Roger agreed. “I think the tragedy of Irma’s vanishing helped bring on the death of your parents.”

“I’m sure of it,” Della said. “And I want to meet this girl. If it turns out she isn’t my sister no harm will be done.”

“You sound so sure,” her aunt said drily. “It could be a plan to get you to Rome and hold you for ransom. Have you thought of that?”

Della stared at her aunt incredulously and then at Sir Roger. “Do you think that, Sir Roger?”

The big man hesitated. “I suppose it is possible. You are one of the wealthiest young women in England.”

“You see!” Aunt Isobel said triumphantly.

“Yet I doubt it is likely,” Sir Roger said, rubbing his long chin. “I believe this letter to be genuine.”

“Why does he ask that Della go to Rome?” the older woman demanded. “Why not send the other girl here?”

Della turned to her aunt and said, “She may be afraid to come here alone. Not sure what sort of reception she will get.”

Sir Roger nodded. “I think Prince Sanzio wishes to see Della and know her. It is understandable.”

“But it could be a wicked trap!” Aunt Isobel insisted.

Sir Roger said, “I would not under any circumstances allow Della to journey to Rome alone.”

Della stared at him. “You think me incapable of making the trip on my own?”

“Not at all,” he said. “But you must be protected. I would insist on sending along a qualified lawyer. And certainly your Aunt Isobel should journey with you as a companion!”

Aunt Isobel said, “I’m not sure I’m up to such a trip.”

“Of course you are,” Della said, turning to her. “If my sister is in Rome and alive I want to meet her and know her!”

Sir Roger said, “I shall try to get any additional information I can. In the meanwhile I would suggest that you two ladies prepare to travel shortly.”

“I’m so excited!” Della said. “It’s like someone coming back from the dead!”

“Just so long as we get the right Lazarus,” her aunt said grimly.

“What do you mean?” Della asked.

“You heard Sir Roger say you are heiress to one of England’s great fortunes. If this is truly Irma living in Rome, she will be bound to share the fortune with you.”

“I don’t care! There’s enough for both of us!”

“I’m sure there is,” Aunt Isobel said with irony. “But would you wish to share the family money with an impostor?”

“An impostor!” she gasped.

“Come,” her aunt said, “surely you are not so naïve as to have overlooked that possibility.”

“No!” she said indignantly. “The idea didn’t cross my mind! I’m too happy to hear that my sister may be alive and safe. That I may have someone of my own flesh and blood to cherish!”

Aunt Isobel drew herself up primly. “I must say that puts me properly in my place!”

At once Della knelt by her aunt’s chair and pleaded with her, “Don’t make things more difficult. I do appreciate all you’ve done for me over the years. No one will ever mean more to me than you! But if my sister is alive I do want to go to her!”

“Your aunt made a sensible comment,” Sir Roger warned her. “There is surely a danger that someone may have located a look-alike for you and now be hoping to pawn her off as your long-lost sister. The search for her is widely known and is the sort of thing to attract the unscrupulous.”

She gave him a troubled look. “Don’t tell me that when you’ve raised up my hopes!”

Sir Roger’s stern expression softened. “I’m sorry, my girl. I did not mean to upset you. I had no choice but to bring this to your attention. And the chances are that we may have found your sister.”

She rose to face him. “But you are no more convinced of it than Aunt Isobel?”

“Frankly, no,” the old man said with a hint of embarrassment. “Yet I think the lead is worth you’re making the journey to Rome. Just so long as you’re protected against possible kidnapping or being tricked by an impostor, or in some other fashion.”

“I see,” she said quietly. “So I should not let my hopes raise too high?”

“That would be my advice,” Sir Roger said. “Now I must be on my way, ladies. I’d like you to call at my office on Monday, Della. We can then work out more of the details.”

“I was going to the country,” she said. “But I will stay in the city and see you.”

“Very good,” the old lawyer bowed in his formal fashion. “I hope you will regard my news as good until it is proven otherwise.”

Della saw him out and after she had watched his carriage drive away, she returned to the living room and the company of her aunt.

“I don’t like it at all,” Aunt Isobel said.

“You’re being too pessimistic,” Della complained.

“Rome is far away and in a foreign country,” Aunt Isobel said. “We could all wind up in our beds with our throats slit open!”

“Nonsense!” Della exclaimed. “This is 1890. People travel everywhere with few problems, if any!”

The prim woman sighed. “I know you’ve been taken in by it. So has Sir Roger to an extent. But I feel it is simply a trap set up by some confidence man to get money from you!”

“The man who wrote the letter and adopted my sister is an Italian prince,” she said with impatience. “He could be more wealthy than I am!”

“He likely lives in a cold, old castle with no money at all,” Aunt Isobel warned her.

“I must find out if it really is Irma,” Della said. “So I shall go to Rome no matter what you say.”

“I realize that,” her aunt answered with resignation. “And I shall accompany you. But I fear for the worst!”

After a while Della left her aunt to retreat to her room and think about this startling new development in her life. She had been too young when Irma was kidnapped to have any real memories of her. Or of the woman who had committed the vile crime. She only knew its effects had poisoned the lives of her parents and had a real bearing on her own happiness.

Now there was a chance the mystery might be resolved. That Irma might happily be restored to her rightful place in London society. That she might get to know this lost sister!

In a closet of her room there was a small velvet-covered trunk that had come into her hands on her father’s death. Prior to that he had kept it in his room. Now she went to the closet and moved out the small trunk from the shadows to study it. She knew well its contents, ancient and yellowed garments of the child who had been stolen that night twenty years ago.

The trunk was not locked so she slipped back the catches and held it open. She could smell the ancient rot of the infant clothes, mildew mixed with a faint aroma of perfume. She lifted a tiny yellow baby dress and stared at it.

She knew that before her death her unhappy mother had spent long hours brooding over this trunk and its contents. Then her father had taken it into his room, a continual reminder of the tragedy. Now she had it.

The link with those distant days gave her an eerie feeling. Was Irma truly alive and grown up in Rome? Or was it part of some diabolical scheme to defraud her and round out the tragedy? She didn’t know and she couldn’t take the chance of not trying to find out.

Something deep within her made her decision unwavering. She owed it to her parents not to fail at this critical moment. She must go to Rome and find out the truth. And if Irma were truly alive, bring her back to London. In the meantime she would live in a state of tension. Difficult days lay ahead for her!

On Monday afternoon Della made the journey to Sir Roger Drexel’s Fleet Street law offices. It was a pleasant day and she sat back in the open carriage enjoying the drive while the coachman sat on a seat high behind her guiding the reins of the brown mare.

Della loved London! There was the theater—she enjoyed every play whether it was an old-fashioned melodrama in one of the lesser theaters or a fine production of Shakespeare at the Lyceum. She liked equally the vulgarity of the music hall and the new plays about social problems. And she often went to the open-air entertainment at Earl’s Court or the Crystal Palace.

She was a part of social Mayfair. Mayfair led a very carefully regulated life as a community. At various times of the year the houses of the aristocracy and of the very rich were filled for the season! At certain times carriages paraded in the park. Children went out with nurses or governesses, all the little girls of one family dressed alike. There were parties, receptions, balls, “drums” and dinners. The shops of Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street showed their newest collections. The opera audience, in full dress, was brilliant and sometimes bored, but Della knew it was thought to be the most fashionable entertainment. When the season ended the dresses and uniforms, the liveried footmen and the starched nursemaids, the window boxes and stiff little park chairs would vanish, leaving the squares of Belgravia and St. James and the streets of Mayfair almost deserted.

Such were the dimensions of her world. And yet she knew there was another London. The world of the poor Londoner. Those who worked hard and lived in slum houses in mean streets. Whose diversions were limited to the public house, an occasional visit to a music hall and rarely a trip as far as Hampstead Heath on Bank Holiday. Drinking, fighting and swearing were common among these men and women. Few visitors came to their areas from outside, except for church missions and fashionable young ladies like herself doing social work.

Along with some of her friends, she had invaded these dark corners of the city on special enterprises. Certain parts of East London were quickly becoming inhabited by foreign immigrants, a large proportion of whom were refugees from the Russian pogroms. By industry, thrift and driving ambition many forged ahead to middle-class respectability. But many of the newcomers retained their own clothes, customs and the language of their birthplace.

The Chinese already had their own quarter in Limehouse, with the Japanese to be found in Bloomsbury, studying English and English business methods. It was an exciting age, Della believed; the first news photograph had just been printed in a London Daily and there were dozens of other amazing inventions said to be on the way.

Her carriage moved slowly along Fleet Street. Men in bowler hats and top hats and lads in caps flowed about in the busy thoroughfare. Because the weather was warming, there were occasional women in wide-brimmed straw hats. And one or two of the men sported straw boaters.

The carriage passed a two-decker, horse-drawn omnibus with a full complement of passengers and ads printed on its sides for “Carter’s Liver Pills,” “Nestles Milk” and “Sanitas” disinfectant. Her driver brought the carriage to the curb by the great stone building in which Lawyer Drexel had his chambers and jumped down to help her to the sidewalk. She told him to return for her in a half-hour and went inside.

A young, bright-faced clerk was there to greet her. “And what is your business, miss?” he asked with a smile.

She was impressed by his manner. She smiled in return as she said, “I’m here to see Sir Roger Drexel.”

“Yes, miss,” the lad replied. “You would be Miss Della Standish.”

“That is correct.”

“Follow me, miss,” the boy said. “Sir Roger is waiting for you.”

She followed him down a short corridor to an oaken door marked
Private.
The boy knocked on it and from the other side came a reply in Sir Roger’s booming tones.

The boy smiled and opened the door and said, “You can go right on in, Miss Standish.”

She entered the big office and the tall Sir Roger stood up to come and meet her. She kissed him in her usual fashion and he saw her safely seated in a chair across the desk from his. He said, “Are you still keen about going to Rome?”

“More than ever,” she said. “Have you learned anything else about Prince Sanzio?”

The craggy face of the old man showed a smile. “I have not been idle.”

“So?”

“Prince Sanzio has a palace in Rome. He is not a poor man but neither is he wealthy. He is respected for his family name and it is known that he has an adopted English daughter.”

“Which must be Irma!”

“Could be your sister,” the old man corrected her. “We must not jump to conclusions. Prince Sanzio would benefit greatly if his adopted daughter came into half the Standish fortune.”