Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (86 page)

She leaned forward, tense.

“Perhaps they will kill him,” she said in a strangled voice.

I sat up quickly. “What do you mean?” I asked, and she pushed the enormous sunglasses up her tiny nose again with an impatient hand.

“My husband is in serious trouble,” she said.

I remembered the two men at the outdoor cafe in the Piazza san Giovanni. The knife quivering in the wooden shaft of the striped umbrella. The drawn look on Benedetto Monteverdi’s face.

“In what way?” I asked quietly.

I saw her teeth set, and for a moment her round, pretty, dimpled face looked gaunt and almost ugly. “He gambles,” she said tightly. “And he needs money to pay. He needs almost two million lira.”

I tried to convert the lira into dollars … but I was no mathematician, and at last I had to ask, “How much is that in American currency?”

She didn’t hesitate for a moment. “Three thousand dollars.”

The rapidity with which she answered gave me the message. I cringed, offended and shocked. Because of course I knew why she had come here this morning. Her husband was in trouble … all he needed to be free of it was three thousand dollars. The American signorina must be rich … perhaps the American signorina could save the situation …

“Ask her,” I could hear Benedetto saying, as if I’d been a fly on the wall of their bedroom, tossing and turning in the bed. “I have to pay. Ask the American girl. For God’s sake, help me, Francesca …”

And, drying her tears, she had gathered up her courage and come to me.

A prince and princess, and their sons and daughters, scrounging for money to pay
gambling debts …

She began talking fast. “The money would be paid back,” she said. “Every penny. He has learned his lesson. Benedetto won’t do it any more. I know he won’t.”

She looked suddenly terribly pathetic, and no longer tried to stem the tears that flowed from her eyes. Her head, bowing like a flower beaten down by wind and rain, drooped sadly. “Just … if we can manage to … to pay this debt …”

She raised her head. Took off the sunglasses, let me see her drowned eyes “I have to save him,” she said brokenly. “The family … if they knew …”

I was terribly disheartened, because her pitiful mission was hopeless. I could no more lend them three thousand dollars than I could fly to the moon. I didn’t have three thousand dollars. In my savings account back home there was eleven hundred dollars I’d saved by scrimping, doing without, economizing in every way possible.

And it was mine. I’d earned it. It wasn’t nearly enough, in any event, for the squaring of Benedetto’s gambling debts. It wasn’t even half the amount.

And that this woman had been desperate enough to tap a total stranger for a loan.

I was horribly disillusioned. Sorry too, for poor, pretty Francesca, with her swollen eyes. Sorry for a family who lived, in some way I didn’t know about, on the good will of my late aunt. I thought, she must have provided for them,
in interim
, in some way. Until they came, after Elizabeth Wadley’s death, into the gigantic estate Mercedes d’Albiensi had left.

Which was so near, and yet so far. Elizabeth might live for another ten years. Meanwhile, although the Monteverdi family had free tenancy (I supposed) and perhaps a pittance for their food and upkeep, they had nothing put aside for a rainy day, such as Benedetto’s gambling debts. And, teary and distraught, one of them approached a total stranger for a loan of three thousand dollars.

My voice sounded thin. I said, “I’m so awfully sorry, Francesca. I wish I could help, but I can’t. I haven’t anything to offer. Just a job is all I have. It pays my rent and utilities and food. I don’t have any money. I will have some money, left to me by my aunt, but not for months, or maybe a year, or maybe more than that.”

I saw her shrink into herself. She believed me, I guess. She had lost her pride, apparently, because she said, “Oh, I told him that. I just had to — ”

A sob escaped from her.

“I just had to try,” she said in a muffled voice. “I don’t know what will happen.”

She got up, leaned against the table for a moment and then, blindly, sticking on the sunglasses again, started to walk away. I was terribly disturbed. I got up too, and walked with her to the gate. The poor thing was shaking like a leaf. “Can’t Gianni help?” I asked. “Can’t — ”

She turned to me. “Gianni? Gianni is an honorable man. He doesn’t gamble, he doesn’t waste. He doesn’t have anything, except when he sells a painting, or a watercolor. Ask Gianni? I should have
married
Gianni! Then I would not spend all my time crying, lose my looks, feel wretched … ah, signorina, you don’t know! I want to die! Because living like this — ”

She put a hand over her face. I looked at her heaving shoulders. “Francesca,” I said, but she moved past me. Lifting her head again, her face drenched, her eyes wild, she asked my pardon. “You must excuse it,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done it. You must excuse me. You must — ”

I put a hand on her arm. “But I feel terrible,” I said. “I’d like to help … only I can’t. Isn’t there anything … anything else I can do? I mean — ”

She wrenched away from me and her eyes, darting at me were desolate, yes, but also vindictive. “There is only one way,” she said. “And if not that, then nothing. I must go.”

“But Francesca …” I put a hand on her arm again. “I wish I could — ”

She looked at my hand as if it had been a snake, and then writhed away from it. I felt as if my touch had dirtied her, that she felt that way, that my flesh, on her flesh, was hateful to her. Her eyes blazed for a second: her face, looking into mine, only inches away, bore an expression of contempt, even detestation.

“I am sorry to have bothered you,” she said in a clear and distinct voice, and the intonations were so filled with anger and fury that I quailed, drew back. And leaving me with that horrid, hateful look, she plowed over the grass and went through the gate. I heard her footsteps swishing through the grass on the other side.

I stood, shaken, and then went into the house. I sat on the edge of my bed, trying to calm myself. Asking me for money! A stranger … where did she think I would get the money she wanted? I was just, after all, a young woman, with a small inheritance that wouldn’t even come to me for quite a while. Why should she tap
me
for a loan? And, failing to get it, look at me with such loathing?

Why?

Why any of it, I thought impatiently. Why any of it. The questions in my mind, and the bloody handkerchief and the bit of sweet that had made me so sick and the enigmatic looks on the faces of Predelli and Pineider? Why the fingerprints in the dust, and Peter Fox staying on because he was
concerned
about me …

The sun blazed in and I was suddenly weary of it. I got up, drew the french windows together, slatted the blinds. I ripped off my shirt and shorts, pulled down the counterpane and lay in darkness, trying to put thoughts out of my mind. Years ago, as a child, I had done this. After a punishment, or a scolding by a teacher at school. Now I must forget about it, I had thought then, and so I thought now.

I must forget about it, and when I woke it would be in a different frame of mind.

I woke when Lucrezia knocked on the door of my room. “Signorina?”

“Come in.”

She opened the door and told me that someone was on the telephone for me. “A gentleman,” she said, withdrawing.

I got up, slipped into a robe, went out to the drawing room. Lucrezia wasn’t there: I assumed that she had gone away to give me some privacy. I picked up the receiver, and it was Peter Fox.

He said, “Can you talk?”

“Yes, I’m alone.”

“Well, then. Listen, Barbara, I’ve been busy. I had the cookie tested at a lab. You’re a very fortunate girl. Let me tell you what the lab technician read to me from his Pharmacology textbook. I wrote it down. Are you listening?”

“Yes, of course, what is it?”

“I’m quoting,” he said. “Quote:
Nux vomica was introduced into Germany in the 16th century as a poison for rats and other animal pets. Its use as a rat poison persists to this day and, as an ingredient of “rat biscuit,” strychnine is a source of accidental poisoning in children. Strychnine was first employed in medicine in
1540,
but it did not gain wide usage until two hundred years later.”

“Unquote,” Peter said. “You nibbled on a rat biscuit, damn it, for God’s sake, and it’s a wonder that little girl didn’t pop one into her own mouth,”

I said, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said impatiently. “It’s a reputable laboratory, of course I’m sure.”

“But it wasn’t meant for me,” I said quickly. “It was for the dog.” I thought about it. “But, Peter, maybe it was meant for rats!”

“There’s a slight possibility of that,” he conceded. “However, if it was used habitually, why didn’t the dog eat a biscuit before? Animals are canny; besides, if that kind of thing was in regular usage on the grounds, your aunt, or Elizabeth Wadley, would have conditioned the dog. It doesn’t wash, Barbara. Nevertheless, you might, discreetly, ask about it.”

“I could pump the gardeners,” I said.

“Do that. And now there’s something else. I had a test run on the handkerchief. As I said, I’ve been busy. And I found out something puzzling. Your aunt’s blood type was O, which is what most of us have. I consulted the coroner who was called in when the Contessa died. But the blood type on the handkerchief wasn’t the same. According to the technician at the lab, there are three other types, to wit: A, B, and AB. The type on the handkerchief was AB.”

“But that’s — ”

“The same type as Mrs. Wadley.”

I looked nervously about, but I was still alone, and rather breathless. “How do you know Elizabeth’s blood type?”

“She was in the hospital a year and a half ago, for tests. I found that out and learned, at the same time, her blood type. The same as that on the handkerchief that was in the little girl’s basket.”

“But what could it
mean?
”

“I keep asking myself that,” he said. “I have two theories, both of which might be way off base. Listen, can we have dinner this evening?”

“Yes, I’d like to see you, since all this throws me for a loop. Why don’t I meet you at the Piazza de Repubblica? I’ll take the car, and tell Elizabeth I’m visiting with someone I met in Rome. Wouldn’t that be better than having you come here? She might begin to wonder.”

“Agreed. Yes, I’ll look for you, under the arcades near the post office, at seven this evening.”

• • •

He was pacing up and down and, as I walked toward him after parking the car, I saw several ladies of the evening wiggling their hips in his direction. I thought why not, Peter was a most attractive young man. That I didn’t vibrate to him meant only that there was an element missing, that his ilk was over-familiar to me. He was just another American man with good credentials, and I seemed to be looking farther afield.

I
am
like my aunt, I thought and, rather than surprise, I felt a kind of warm pleasure. That I wanted to be different, to be not run of the mill but apart from the regular and the mundane. I thought of Gianni’s dark, long-lashed eyes, and wished —

Well, never mind, I told myself. I was having dinner with a nice, decent American gentleman, and I would enjoy myself. He saw me approaching and held out a hand.

“How are you, Barbara?”

“Fine, have you been waiting long? I’m a bit late.”

“Don’t think about it. I was early. I thought we’d go to Sabatini’s. Okay with you?”

“Fine with me.”

He tucked my arm in his and we walked, through the noisy, crowded, narrow streets to the Via Panzani. It was a large
ristorante
, with four dining rooms and an authoritative maitre d’hotel, who handled the stream of guests with an experienced hand. We had a drink at the bar, while waiting for a table, but the din of voices surrounding us made confidential conversation impossible. We simply sat and drank and at last were summoned to a table, where we had another drink and then studied the menu.

“I know what I’m having,” I said.

“The scampi?”

“Yes.”

“Me too. And now we’ve decided that, how are things back at the ranch?”

“Puzzling.”

I told him about the finger tracks in the overlay of dust, and about Francesca’s proseletyzing visit. “It’s all very complicated,” I said. “And then
you
call about blood types. I don’t know what to think.”

“I do,” he said. “I think you should get out of there and stay somewhere else.”

“You mean leave the
villa?
Why, I wouldn’t think of it! Why should you even suggest such a thing?”

“Because I feel your timing’s bad. There’s something going on there … or there
was
something going on there. And — ”

“But it’s nothing to do with
me!
”

“I’m not so sure.”

I laughed. “I’m only a
visitor!
Peter, you’ve been a wonderful friend, finding out those things, and of course I’m intrigued with the status quo. It’s a funny little mystery and it certainly has me wondering. But I’m only a bystander. Of course I’d like to get to the bottom of … whatever there is to get to the bottom of. It’s a very natural interest in my great-aunt … wouldn’t you feel the same? But as for me, why I’m only a — ”

“A visitor,” he said, interrupting. “Yes, I know, you said that before.” He drained his drink glass. “How long do you intend to stay?” he asked.

“For another week.”

“By that time I’ll be gone. This is not a vacation for me, it’s a business trip.”

“I shall certainly miss you.”

“I wonder.” He put his glass down and looked into my eyes. “I simply dislike so much going home and leaving you here. I’ll worry. Can you understand?”

I knew, then, that he was “putting me on notice,” as he had said before. That he was drawn to me, and was letting me know it. A few weeks before it would have meant something to me … a man like this, interesting, solid, substantial and, yes, kind. But all I could think of was Gianni’s dark eyes.