Lessons of Desire (10 page)

"Is this a contest, where I must give a name in order for you to respect my judgment?"

"It is a sincere question, from a daughter who wonders about her mother's last years."

Mrs. Whitmarsh s defensive pique melted. "I do not know. I am only sure—almost sure—it was not my husband. For months she sparkled like she was young again, but then ..."

"Then?"

"It was as if someone had snuffed out a lamp. She was melancholy the last times we called on her. Perhaps whoever it was had disappointed her."

Phaedra had seen that melancholy. She had not understood its reasons or depths, but the description was apt. A light had gone out.

"You are not alone in wondering if she had a new lover," Phaedra said. "Names have even been suggested to me. Mr. Needly, for example. And Mr. Thornton."

"Needly? Well. I suppose that would make some sense. He was not dissimilar to Mr. Drury. Of the same mold. His erudition on Roman art would give them common ground. Although if asked I would say they did not rub well together He could be a very arrogant man"

Mrs. Whitmarsh warmed lo the gossip. She enjoyed the topic more than Phaedra liked seeing. "Sometimes attraction can create storms. I suppose."

"Indeed it can. Now the other, Thornton
..."
She thought it over. "He was a bit young for her. Enigmatic too. But he was around quite a lot. One could not miss him. A handsome man, dramatically so. He had presence, but..."

"But?"

"It is difficult to explain. He was impressive. Startlingly so. But also somewhat
...
vague. My husband used that word to describe him once, and I thought it apt. Yes, he was vague in so many ways."

Phaedra tucked the description away in her mind. When she returned lo England she would have to seek out arrogant Mr. Needly and vague Mr. Thornton, and also pointedly ask a few of her mother's intimate friends if Artemis favored either of these two men.

"I liked her," Mrs. Whitmarsh said. "I did not approve of her life, and she knew it. She accepted my views, however. She never allowed her other guests to make me feel unwelcome. She was very gracious."

"She was accustomed to your views. I daresay. They are the normal ones, after all. Whenever she walked out the door of her home, she was the odd one. Would that the world had been as gracious with contrary views as she proved to be, and as accepting of her company as she was of yours."

Mrs. Whitmarsh blushed. Her rising color told Phaedra more than she wanted to know. The Whitmarshes had never returned those invitations to dinners. Artemis Blair had not been included in
their
circle and
their
parties.

These morning confidences suddenly seemed traitorous to her mother's memory. Phaedra suspected that they echoed Mrs. Whitmarsh's gossip with her normal friends, in drawing rooms that had never opened for the bluestocking whose life defied the rules.

They also gave her a taste of the gossip about herself. She knew that there were women who laughed and speculated and clucked their tongues, just as there were men who misunderstood her freedom. Such people were easier to ignore if she did not actually suffer their company, however.

She had hoped Mrs. Whitmarsh could give the identity of the man who had usurped Richard Dairy's place. Evidently she could not, but her perceptions were not without usefulness.

Phaedra excused herself. She walked out of the loggia and approached the steep road leading down to the town.

Positano became a women's town with the dawn. Able-bodied men had left on their fishing boats long before Phaedra entered the center of activity.

It took a long time to inch her way down the dense warren of old narrow streets. Even with their stepped construction they proved treacherous. She wished she had brought her parasol to use as a walking stick, and to protect her from the sun, which was getting fierce as it hung over the high hill's peak.

Women and children stared as she strolled through the market street. She admired the lemons and leafy produce, the joints of lamb and beef. At the corner of the market some men sat on chairs outside a tavern. They eyed her with curiosity and suspicion.

The youngest one, a dark-haired man dressed in a fashionable brown hock coat, owned a heavy cane that he had propped against his seat. The others appeared old and wizened. She assumed that they had forgone the rigors of fishing many years ago.

She found the other main streets by following the flow of bodies. Her presence created a small spectacle, much as her ride on the donkey behind Lord Elliot had. Heads appeared at windows and bold stares followed her progress.

The streets led her to a little piazza hard against the hillside. Water trickled out of the mouth of a sculpted lion's head. It had been set in a small wall built flush with the hill's rock. Women sat on stone benches in the shade of some trees, waiting their turns to hold their jugs under the lion's mouth.

Phaedra found a spot on a bench to rest in the cooler air. Dark eyes glanced askance at her. A young woman whispered into a boy's ear and he ran down a lane. Women dawdled after they used the fountain, chatting in an expressive melody of conversations, keeping an eye on the newcomer among them.

Soon another woman walked down the lane toward them. Her black skirt swayed with her long strides. She did not look like the other women.

For one thing, she was blonde. Her dark golden hair formed a roll at her nape, visible beneath the deep brim of her black straw hat. She was not as fair as Phaedra but the rich bronze so common in this land had only tinted her skin.

Phaedra wondered if this was another foreigner who, like Matthias, had come to live here. As the woman drew near, however, her almond eyes, high cheekbones, and heart-shaped face revealed she was a native even if her coloring initially confused the matter.

She sat down on Phaedra's bench. She called a few greetings to her friends. Phaedra tried to translate them but the words came in a torrent and the accents in Positano were even different from those of Naples.

The woman turned and gave Phaedra a good look. The conversations around them dimmed.

"English?"

Phaedra nodded.

"They guessed as much, and sent young Paolo for me. My cousin Julia and I are the only women here who speak it. You have met Julia. She is your hostess in the villa. Are you a widow?" The conversation came in respectable English although the cadence and pronunciation reflected some labor.

"No, I am not a widow."

The woman's gaze swept over Phaedra's long hair. "I did not think so." She looked down the lane to their right and smiled slyly. "Ah, here comes Signore Tarpetta. Ignore him. He likes to act like a
padrone,
but his authority and power are all in his head."

The lame man who had sat at the end of the market street limped forward with his cane, exuding self-importance. Two of the old men accompanied him. The three took positions across the piazza.

"My name is Carmelila Messina. I am not a widow either, in case you were wondering from my black garments."

"My name is Phaedra Blair, and I am happy to meet someone who speaks English so well. I have tried with your language, but..."

Carmelita waved her hand, dismissing the apology. "I learned some English in Naples. I lived there for several years with Julia and her late husband." Carmelita gestured with her chin at Signore Tarpetta, who watched them closely despite his conversation with the old men. "He does not like when people from the villa come down here. He fears such as you will corrupt his little kingdom."

"Do they come down often?"

"We are merely colorful peasants to most of them. We are the little people in the corners of sentimental paintings."

"Not even Signore Greenwood mingles among you?"

"Sometimes. He visited frequently last year. One time when he went back, he brought Julia with him." She shot Tarpetta a look of scorn. "He hoped to marry her. He makes much of how he would not have her now, but we all know' he would crawl if she did this." She snapped her fingers.

Their conversation had attracted an audience, and a giggle twittered from the women who had moved closer.

Carmelita again eyed Phaedra. "I wear black lo mourn the
Carbonari
who died when the king killed the republic. If you are not a widow; what do you mourn''"

"I mourn my father, but not with my clothing. The black does not show soiling so fast."

Carmelita translated for their audience. Heads nodded.

"You do not dress your hair, or wear a veil. I would ask if you are a
puttana
,
but I do not think you are because the mistresses who come with the men who visit up there are always fashionable. Perhaps you do it to thumb your nose at men like our Tarpetta?"

"Perhaps I do." She looked to the bay several hundred yards below them. "Do visitors come often to Mr. Greenwood? Do special boats arrive just for the villa?"

"There are often visitors, and some come often. He has many friends, Signore Greenwood does. He is not one of us but many here grow fat from the money he spends."

"Like the family of the boys who found the little ancient statue?"

"I did not hear about this statue. The families must want to keep it a secret so if there is more it is theirs alone. He likes the old things, Signore Greenwood does."

Carmelita again noted the men watching them. "They do not like that you sit here so long, so I hope that you will sit longer still. Tell us about your life in England. Phaedra Blair. No one is taking their water home because they hope to hear some stories from you."

She had taken to translating everything they said, and women smiled and giggled when she relayed her overture.

A girl no more than eighteen ventured closer. She cautiously reached out and stroked Phaedra's red hair.

Phaedra did not mind the familiarity but another person did. A male voice barked. Across the piazza one of the old men stepped forward. He scowled and gestured for the girl to come to him.

Head bowed and eyes fearful, the girl hurried to him. He grabbed her arm and pushed her up the lane, taking her away.

"He is the father lo her husband," Carmelita said. "He will tell the family how she befriended a foreigner's mistress from the villa"

Phaedra did not want lo think about the girl's fate if the tale angered her husband. The cautious expressions suddenly in the eyes of the other women at the fountain saddened her.

"I do not want lo cause trouble for any of you." She began to get up.

Carmelita*s firm hand caught her arm. "There is no change without trouble. These women are ignorant of the world outside this coast, and my tales of Naples grow old. Tell us about your home, and how you came to be a woman who ventures out alone in a foreign land, looking like a mourning whore who fears no man's hand."

Phaedra stayed an hour at the fountain, enjoying the feminine company. She told Carmelita and the others about her life, and how she lived alone and free in London. As the time passed the torrent of foreign words began to make some sense to her. She even comprehended a few of the questions sent her way before they were translated.

Across the piazza Signore Tarpetta watched. Someone brought him a chair so he could sit and rest his leg. The happy party of women did not care that he disapproved. He might think of himself as a
padrone,
but it was obvious to Phaedra that the women obeyed another power, and her name was Carmelita Messina.

Eventually the women drifted away, carrying their water and chatting excitedly with one another.

"Their men will return in the boats soon. They must cook the midday meal," Carmelita explained.

Phaedra stood. "I thank you for joining us, so I could meet the women. I am going to walk down to that tower before I return to the villa."

"I will come with you or you may not find the footpath that takes you there. If Tarpetta follows, pretend he is not there. He will be a fool to do so with that leg but such a man often proves he is stupid."

He proved it today once more. Phaedra thought he had declined to follow until she and Carmelita were on the promontory's footpath. Then she spied him limping onto the docks so he could keep an eye on them.

"How did he hurt his leg?" she asked.

Carmelita stepped through the portal, into the tower. "He was a soldier and among the ones who came for Julia's husband at our house in Naples. He betrayed us. We fought them, although it was hopeless. I hit him with a heavy iron pan, here." She pointed to her knee. "Better if I had aimed for his head."

"So now he follows you everywhere?"

"He is following you, not me. But he hates me, because I was the one who made sure Signore Greenwood met Julia. She had nothing after her husband was executed as the republic fell."

"If he is jealous he should hate Greenwood, not you."

Carmelita led the way up winding stone stairs. "He dares not hate Greenwood. Like so many others, he grows fat from the Englishman's money."

They climbed up to the top of the lower where there was a square room. Small windows pierced each wall. One faced the sea and another gave a clear view of the mountainside.