Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (78 page)

That was all; her voice trailed off, and I climbed into the cab, waving through the window. She stood there watching me go, and as the taxi gained the roadway, she was a little like a ghost, or a wraith, a tall woman standing there in the nimbus of the lantern. And then we plunged into the night, on that horrible, narrow road, with me bracing myself. But we passed only one car on the way down. Both cars came to a full stop, almost nose to nose, and then with both drivers muttering imprecations, they eased past each other without even grazing fenders. At the hotel I didn’t even ask how much the fare was, but gave him a five hundred lira note. He complained bitterly.

“Not enough.”

“It’s what I paid going out.”

“But it’s night now.”

“Is the gasoline more expensive at night?”

He sighed, giving me a sidewise look of, perhaps, grudging admiration for my perspicacity. I told myself I was learning fast and, after setting my alarm and lighting a cigarette, pulled out the postcards I had bought. But then I pushed them aside. They could wait. I would have plenty of time to write postcards at the Villa Paradiso.

I was up early again the next morning, too early for room service, so I dressed, locked my bags and went downstairs to tell the concierge that I was checking out. “Oh, but I am so sorry, signorina,” he said. “You’re leaving Florence already?”

“No, I’ve been invited to stay at the Villa Paradiso.”

He clucked, looking impressed, and totaled up my bill on the adding machine. I paid it, said I was going to take a short walk, and would he order me a taxi for eleven o’clock. Then I went outside, strolled over the The Ponte Vecchio, and then back again to the Lungarno Acciaioli, where there were several outdoor cafes. I sat down at one of them, ordered breakfast and then, leaning back, saw a familiar face.

It was that of the man who had sat opposite my traveling companion, Peter Fox, at the Buca Lapi the night before last. He was reading an Italian newspaper and a cigarette dangled from his lips. There was a cup of espresso on the table in front of him.

I was buttering my roll, watching him, when I saw him lift a hand in greeting. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, crushed it out in one of the yellow ricard ashtrays and pulled out a chair next to him.

“Buon giorno,”
he said, and another man threaded his way past the tables, returning the greeting.

The newcomer was the lawyer I’d met, Signore Predelli.

He saw me almost at once, stood up immediately and, murmuring something to the other man, came over to my table.

“Buon giorno,”
he said cordially. ‘Oh yes, you are staying at the Contientale which, like my office, is just a step away. I almost always have my second breakfast at this cafe. Well, are you enjoying your stay, signorina?”

I said yes indeed, and then went on to explain that I was moving out of the Continentale into the Villa Paradiso. An odd expression came over his face, almost one of disapproval, and then he smiled pleasantly again. “How delightful for you,” he said. “But come, you must meet my partner, Pineider. I’ll have the boy bring over your plate.”

He signalled a waiter and then led me over to the other table. “This is the Contessa’s niece,” he said to the other man, who had risen, a napkin in one hand. “And Miss Loomis, this is my partner, Arturo. Signore Pineider. Imagine it,” he said, when my breakfast dishes were brought over and we were all seated, “the lovely young signorina is to stay at the villa.”

“No!” Signore Pineider cried.

“Yes, I’m going there in a short while. Isn’t it intriguing?”

“So you got on well together, you and Mrs. Wadley,” Signore Predelli said.

“Famously. I was invited there last evening. To be sure, it got off to a bad start. My aunt’s dog died. I kept knocking, but there was no answer. Then I went round to the back and there was Mrs. Wadley, bending over the dog. Gianni said he’d gotten into weed-killer. It was quite a shock. I could see she didn’t want to be alone, and accepted her invitation to stay at the villa.”

“The dog?” Signore Predelli repeated, sharply. “Paolo?”

“Yes, it was upsetting.”

I was conscious of a long look exchanged between the two men. I finished up my rolls and jam, felt the sun flaming across my face, thanked Signore Pineider for refilling my coffee cup from the silver urn and said yes, I knew I was going to like Italy. But there was something in the air, something I couldn’t fathom. Both men, though they were talking easily, being flatteringly attentive, had a kind of reserve about them. If there was something wrong about my staying at the villa, why didn’t they say so? And then, looking at Signore Pineider, I thought of him at the Buca Lapi, sitting next to the American, Peter Fox.

It had been a surprise to find myself in the same restaurant as Peter, but the fact of him being with one of my aunt’s lawyers was carrying coincidence a little too far. I remembered Signore Predelli saying, “… many of the late Contessa’s holdings were in America …”

There must certainly be some connection between Peter Fox and the lawyers Predelli and Pineider … something, it seemed more than likely, related to Aunt Mercedes. Well, what of it?

Yet I felt uncomfortable, somehow. As if there were something that was being kept from me. I looked at Signore Pineider, the cigarette dangling again from his lips. The sun made a blinding haze that gave everything an eerie shimmer. I put down my coffee cup.

“I must go,” I said. “I’ve ordered a taxi, you see.”

Both men stood up. Each kissed the back of my hand.
“Arrivederci”
Signore Predelli said genially.

“You must call us,” Signore Pineider said. “We’ll dine at Doney’s some evening soon. It was a great pleasure to meet you, signorina.”

I felt their eyes following me as I walked along the Lungarno back to my hotel. I knew they were watching me walk away. Again I thought, there’s something in the air.

• • •

I was at the Villa Paradiso at twenty after eleven. The driver lifted my bags out and took them to the door. This time I paid a thousand lira, owing to the weight of the bags. I was just about to lift the heavy knocker when I heard a soft voice. Turning, I saw a little girl, eight or ten, so exquisite that I thought of the young Infanta of Spain as painted by Velasquez. She had the tawny hair of Tuscany, and her cheeks were like strawberries. Over one arm was a wicker basket and her eyes were like sherry, enormous and limpid.

“Buon giorno,”
she said.

I was just about to answer when Giovanni Monteverdi — or Gianni, as Mrs. Wadley called him — came through the courtyard. He saw me and waved. “
Buon giorno
, hello,” he said.

“Hello, Gianni. Will you introduce me to the young lady?”

“Sure,” he said and, bending, snatched a kiss from the peach-bloom cheek of the little girl. Teasing, he reached for the basket over her arm.

“No no,” she cried, taking it away from him.

“Secrets, secrets,” he said, shaking his head. “Speak the English, little one. This is an American young lady. Tell her you are happy to meet her.
Si?
Now, darling, you say.”

The beautiful child looked up at me, dimpling. “How do you do?” she said, and Gianni laughed. He walked up to me, holding the child’s hand. “Miss Barbara, this is my little niece, Eleanora. Eleanora, this is an American young lady, say hello nicely.”

“Hello, signorina.”

“Hello, Eleanora.”

“These are your bags?” Gianni asked. “Okay, I’ll take them in for you. Later, though. Now you must meet my family. They are in the garden.”

“Well, I — ”

“Ah, come on,” he said, in a friendly way, and I thought why not, I was not averse to meeting a prince and princess, even if I had to remember to address them as signore and signora. “My father has a headache,” the little girl said to me. “Nonna makes him tea. Papa didn’t sleep well last night. Poor Papa.”

“My brother Benedetto has a headache very often,” Gianni said, smiling. “He drinks too much, that one.” There was a teasing glint in his eyes. “Now, don’t say I mentioned it, but he gambles too much also. Loses … and then gets a headache.”

“I won’t say a thing,” I promised, smiling back.

“It’s different with me,” he boasted. “I don’t need the tables … or the
vino.
I see a lovely face, it makes me feel good, so I don’t need anything else. And then I have good friends.”

He put his arm on the little girl’s shoulder, as we walked round the side of the villa. “This young lady is one of them. Oh, sometimes we fight and hit each other, but — ”

“That’s not true, Gianni!”

“Come on, sometimes you’re a very bad girl.”

“No!”

And then we reached the Monteverdi’s garden. I felt as if I were in a scene by Pisarro or Seurat. Seated around a large white garden table that was sheltered by a flowered umbrella sunk deep in the earth, the family was gathered. A man and woman, elderly, she with springy white hair gathered into a bun at the nape of the neck and he with beetling brows and piercing eyes, nose like a hawk.

There was also a younger man, mid-thirties, stocky, no longer really handsome but bearing the traces of a once good physique. He had a newspaper open on his lap. A pretty, rather plump woman with her hair caught up in a tulle net at the top, pearl earrings and dressed in a peignoir, was lighting a cigarette. The sun gilded everything.

“Papa, Mama,” Gianni said, and led me forward.

There are certain moments you know, even at the time, that you will never forget. It was this feeling I had as I stood there in the late morning, meeting the Monteverdis for the first time. The bright ambiance of the Florentine day, the flowered daisies of the umbrella thrust through an opening in the garden table, the quivering of the leaves in the trees, the picturesque little girl with the basket over her arm, the young couple sizing me up — she with bright, curious eyes and he with the appreciative glance of a man who liked nice-looking women — the proud and acquiline faces of the older couple, the Principe and Principessa … it was as if time suddenly stood still, so that I could store the recollection in my brain.

And the incredible beauty of the city that lay at our very feet, with the clam-white houses and pinkish domes and the gleaming crosses and gray-blue of the river, meandering … it framed itself in my mind, and I knew that when it came time for me to leave this place I would weep for the lost beauty of it, ache for it, as for a lost lover.

“This is the Contessa’s niece,” Gianni said. “Miss Barbara Loomis.” He turned to me. “My mother and father. My brother and his wife. Welcome to the villa, signorina.”

“Hello,” I said. “
Buon giorno.
I’m so very happy to meet you all.”

Gianni’s brother pushed back his chair and stood up. The older man made a show of rising, in deference to the stranger, and then leaned back in his chair again, saying, “Welcome,” in a voice like a singing bass. His son reached for my hand, kissed the back of it and said, “My wife, Francesca.”

The pretty lady smiled ravishingly. “Hello, darling,” she said.

The Principessa was graciousness itself. “We are happy and proud to meet you. Please sit down. No, not there … the sun will be in your eyes. Here, in the shade. Would you like coffee or tea?”

“Coffee, please, thank you.”

She picked up the silver urn. “Gianni, sit down. Don’t stand there like a great oaf. Take a chair, my son.”

The Principe said, “Do what your mother says. Sit down, don’t stare at our guest.”

Gianni laughed, sinking gracefully into a chair. “Stare? My brother is staring too. Maybe you’re staring as well, Papa.”

A fleeting smile crossed the older man’s face. “All right,” he said. “I may stare, but I don’t do it as obviously as you do. So, signorina, you had a good trip from America?”

“Yes, fine, and everything’s been so wonderful here. I can’t get over this view! Oh, the villa is so lovely, isn’t it?”

There was a fractional silence. Then the Principe said, “The Villa Paradiso … yes, a lovely place, signorina.”

Had I imagined it, or was there an undertone of contempt in his voice? I remembered Signore Predelli saying, “They don’t like the name, Villa Paradiso. You must admit it’s not very imaginative.”

But the moment passed and they were, all of them, charming, hospitable. Francesca, amiably, asked how long I would be staying, and wanted to know how I felt about Italy. I said Italy, in my opinion, was pure enchantment. I said, “It has a wonderful, terrible beauty. It — ”

“A
terrible
beauty?” Gianni repeated, looking at me with his black, velvety eyes. No man should have eyelashes like that, I thought. “I don’t know why I used that word,” I confessed. “Maybe just to be original.”

“
Sicily
has a terrible beauty,” he said. “And perhaps Napoli. But Florence? I must get you aside, signorina, and find out why you used that strange word.”

“Gianni,
prego
,” Francesca said impatiently. “Tell me, signorina, did you travel on one of those monstrous airplanes?”

“The 747? Yes, it was glorious. Only half filled. We had the ship to ourselves.”

“I would like to go on an airplane,” the little girl, Eleanora, said. She sat on the grass, at my feet, her basket beside her. “I wish that very much.” She fished in her basket and offered me a dusty cookie. “For you, signorina,” she said gravely. “I want you to have it.”

“Thank you very much,” I said. It must have been days old, was dry and musty-smelling. But I took a small bite. After all, a gift from a child.

“Is it good?” she asked.

I said it was fine, but when she wasn’t looking, spit out the hard crumbs into a tissue. It was
awful.
The little girl’s mother saw my subterfuge. “What is that?” she asked, looking at the stale cookie I held gingerly. “Good heavens, don’t eat that ghastly thing! She saves everything! Here, give it to me, signorina.”

She grabbed the cookie out of my hand. “Now, let’s see what else you have in that basket, young lady.”

“Nono!”

“All right, I won’t touch it, then. Just … do you have any more food in there? From goodness knows what month or year …”