The Breadth of Heaven (9 page)

Kathy jumped out of bed, her pulses hammering, a constricted feeling in her throat. She was only too wide awake now ... She felt cold with fear, despite the presence in the room of three red-hot radiators, and was grateful for the comforting warmth of her old quilted dressing-gown, as she slipped it on and wrapped it about her. Outside in the corridors all the lights were burning, and as she and the maid hurried towards the Princess’s room, it was possible to hear sounds of activity far off on the other side of the villa. Somewhere a telephone rang shrilly, and almost immediately it was answered. What could be happening? Kathy, pale and slightly trembling, remembering
Leonid on the way to Rome, didn’t want to think.

When they reached the Princess’s room the maid knocked lightly on the door, and from inside a feminine voice instructed them to enter. Kathy stepped inside, and the maid, having done her duty, fled.

Natalia’s room was spacious and beautiful, and might have been designed expressly for her—as possibly it had been. The spreading cream-coloured carpet flowed like a pale sea into every tiny corner, and the curtains that hid the tall shuttered windows were golden, and made of shimmering silk. Everything in the room gave an impression of lightness and incomparable elegance, even to the antique French bed with its quilted headboard, and there were gilt
-
framed mirrors and Sevres ornaments, and on a low table a silver bowl filled with white hot-house roses.

All of this Kathy automatically noticed, as she stood, for a second or so, just inside the door. And then the stately elderly woman who had greeted her a few hours earlier rose from a chair and came towards her, and looking past her Kathy saw Natalia, seated on a low sofa.

Signora Albinhieri leaned a little towards Kathy, and her voice, as she spoke, was very soft. “She sent for you, my child ... You are a good friend to her, I think. You have heard the news?”

Wordlessly, Kathy shook her head, and the old lady sighed.

“Simply that which we have all feared. A rebel government has control of Tirhania.”

Bewildered, Kathy stared at the old lady, but she only gestured towards Natalia. “Remain with her ... I have much to do.”

And then she was gone, the door closing softly behind her, and Kathy stood still, savouring the knowledge that the news was nothing to do with Leonid, and feeling extraordinarily light-headed with relief. Then she looked at her employer. “Madame
...
” she began gently.

Natalia looked up. She was white and haggard
-
looking, and her hands shook. “You know...
?
” she asked. Her voice, from between colourless lips, was a pathetic thread of sound.

“Yes, I know.” Kathy sat down beside her, and covered one of the other woman’s hands with her own. “Are you all right, madame? Would you like something ... a cup of coffee ... some brandy?”

“No, thank you.” She smoothed her hair and moistened her lips. “It is so warm in here
—
could you open the window, please?”

Kathy pulled aside the heavy golden curtains, and then found herself obliged to struggle with what seemed to be several layers of white-painted shutters. But at last she succeeded in wrenching a window open, and the sweet, cool air of the last hour before dawn began to seep into the room.

Natalia joined her at the window. “I heard that you put the children to bed,” she said. “I am sorry. I did not wish that it should be necessary for you to do that.”

“That’s all right,” said Kathy. A faint, whispering breeze stirred her hair, and she wondered whether this fresh morning air could really be good for Natalia at the moment. “It’s a little cold, madame,” she ventured, “and you’ve had rather a shock. Don’t you think that perhaps—
”

“No, I will stay here. It is very good of you,
cherie
,
to be concerned for me, but I cannot bear the warmth of this room, and indeed I am quite all right now.”

She smiled at Kathy, and although the smile was a little taut, and strain showed in every line of her small white face, she really did seem calm. Kathy longed to ask questions, but she felt she had no right to, and so she fell uncomfortably silent. She felt chilled and numb and very slightly sick, as for the first time she began to appreciate the full meaning and implications of what the
signora
had said. Something terrible has happened in Tirhania ... A
coup d’etat
,
the sort of thing one normally only heard of in radio or television news bulletins, or saw blazoned across the front pages of the papers. It was not the sort of thing in which one ever imagined oneself becoming involved ... at least, not if one were a young Englishwoman, and had been born and brought up, as she had, in a country vicarage.

A week ago, it would have meant practically nothing to her. Today, it was vitally important, because it would almost certainly alter the whole lives of people like Natalia and Leonid
...
Leonid! Suddenly the cold, sick feeling increased. Would Leonid be safe? She swallowed. After all, she had been talking to him only last night—or had it been this morning?—and she didn’t—naturally she didn’t want to think that anything could have happened ... not to Leonid. He had been angry with her at one time, but he had also been kind. Surely ... surely he wouldn’t fly on to Tirhania despite reports of the
coup
?

The Princess broke into her thoughts. “Leonid will be coming back here. He did get as far as Rome, but apparently he was not able to travel farther. All the airfields in Tirhania have been closed.”

Kathy drew a long, sighing breath of relief. “I’m glad,” she said. “Then the Prince will be safe?”

“Yes, he will be safe.” The Princess’s face was smooth and curiously untroubled, and very beautiful, like a face carved in ivory. “Anton, he is safe also
.
With his wife, he escaped yesterday, I understand.
”

“Then all your family is safe madame?”

“Yes, I am fortunate.”

There was a light rap on the door, and Signora Albinhieri came into the room. She looked anxious, but at sight of Natalia’s unusually controlled features an expression of unmistakable relief passed across her own.

“Child,” she said, looking at Natalia, “go back to bed, and rest. There is nothing more to be said or done until Leonid returns from Rome.”

Rather to Kathy’s surprise, Natalia meekly allowed herself to be assisted back into bed, and agreed that if a cup of coffee were to be sent for she would drink it. She looked very small and frail when she was propped up against the enormous lace-edged pillows which seemed common to most of the bedrooms in the villa, but there was no doubt about it: she
was
calm. At least, she did not appear to be in the grip of any particularly violent distress.

Signora Albinhieri nodded at Kathy. “Come, Miss Grant.”

The Princess did not raise any objections to Kathy’s leaving the room, so she obeyed, but outside the door, in the softly carpeted corridor, she hesitated, and the
signora
looked at her piercingly.

“You are young,” she remarked, “and I do not think you are used to being involved in such situations as this. But then I am old, and for many years I have led a life so peaceful that I had forgotten what it is like to be close to a royal household. We shall both have to be courageous, Miss Grant. The next few days will be a strain upon all of us in this house.”

“
Yes, I realize that,
signora
,”
said Kathy quietly.

“Well, go to your room, and get what rest you can. If you are needed I will send for you. Otherwise I would suggest that at eight o’clock you join me for breakfast in the
sala da pranzo
.”

“Yes,
signora
.”

The old lady began to walk away, but at the last moment she hesitated, and turned back.

“By the way,
signorina
,
I am told that you are not a governess. Forgive me. This morning you will not trouble with the
bambini
.
The maids will attend to them.”

“Oh, but I don’t mind, really
...
”

“Nevertheless, your other duties will be quite sufficiently burdensome. The Princess will need you,
signorina
... all the time. There will be letters to be answered—practical work to be done. You will have little time for the children, believe me.”

Back in her own room, Kathy went across to one of the windows, and flung the heavy shutters wide, as she had done in Natalia’s room. Then she pushed the window open.

The darkness was just beginning to lift, and she realized that she could see the Mediterranean, pearl grey and luminous in the first glimmer of morning light. She could see that the villa was very high—as she had known it must be—and the slopes beneath
it seemed clothed with a dark and impenetrable jungle of trees. Here and there a tall, narrow cypress stood out like a shadowy pencil against the pale shimmer of the quiet sea, and a little way away, to the right, she glimpsed the top of a tower—perhaps a bell-tower. And even as she listened, she caught the faint, clear beckoning notes of the bell itself. Six o’clock
...
The Angelus. Far away in the distance there was a sound of roaring, hurrying traffic, and she guessed that it must come from the great coast road along which she had travelled the night before—the road which, she supposed, probably followed the entire length of the Italian Riviera.

It was strange and exciting and wonderful, to be here in Italy, but this morning Kathy’s heart felt heavy with sympathy for the Karanska family, and her mind was in a turmoil which even the hazy, silver-grey beauty of the Italian winter dawn could not smooth. Determinedly, she closed the windows, and went back to lie down on her bed. She was still very tired after the previous day, and she owed it to her employer to be as fresh as possible during the trying time that presumably lay ahead of them all.

At eight o’clock, Kathy breakfasted with the
signora
, i
n the
sala da pranzo
.
There was nobody else present, and the room was big and impressive, and rather cold—possibly because in the general excitement the central heating system had not been receiving sufficient attention.

The breakfast consisted of coffee and rolls ... a type of breakfast which Kathy could not remember ever having sampled in her life before, but which she found to be completely delectable. The coffee was very hot, and served with jugs of steaming milk, and the rolls, which were eaten with butter and a selection of excellent preserves, were fresh and delicious. She found herself enjoying the meal a good deal more than she could remember having enjoyed the dinner which had been served to her on the plane the night before, and by the time she had consumed three rolls, and refused a fourth cup of coffee, she felt considerably better.

Pale December sunshine slanted through the windows on to the grey marble of the floor, and at sight of it her spirits automatically lifted. She felt suddenly capable of coping with anything that might lie ahead of her.

At last the old lady consumed the last of her coffee, and stood up briskly. “It is quiet,” she observed. “I have instructed the telephone exchange that they are to put no more calls through to us at the moment. And it has been arranged that all the gates of the villa should be guarded by
carabinieri
,
so that if representatives of the Press should arrive in person, as they certainly will, they will be unable to gain entry.

Kathy’s eyes grew rather large. “I hadn’t thought
...
” she began. “I suppose this
...
will be in all the papers, won’t it?”

“My dear child,” said the
signora
,
walking over to one of the windows, “the entire world is talking of Tirhania this morning. Some, of course, are shocked by the news, other are pleased. It is a question of beliefs. Either one is a monarchist or one is not. Most people, however, feel some sort of interest in the plight of a young and beautiful widow who has been driven from her homeland, and I make no doubt that for the next few days
—
perhaps even for the next few weeks
—
we in this house will be under siege. And remember, Miss Grant”
—
the old eyes bright and penetrating as she swung round to look searchingly at Kathy
—
“whatever you may be told, by the Princess or anyone else in this house, whatever you may perhaps overhear, it is confidential, and must be repeated to nobody. You understand me?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t
—
I couldn’t
—
repeat anything,
signora
.”

“Good.” The eyes still hovered on Kathy’s face. “Good, my child.” And then there was the sound of a car drawing up somewhere close to the windows, and Signora Albinhieri looked out.

“It is Leonid,” she said, and the note of relief in her voice was quite unmistakable. “Go and rouse Natalia, my dear. The Prince will wish to see his sister-in-law
...
and no doubt she will wish to see him.”

Kathy obeyed, and she was just crossing the entrance hall when Leonid came through the front door, his beautifully cut grey suit a little creased, his face pale and his eyes appallingly haggard. As he caught sight of Kathy the furrow which the last few hours had etched deepened a little between his brows, but all he said was: “Good morning, Miss Grant.”

Kathy longed to say something
—
just something
—
to show him that she realized what a terrible thing it was that had happened, to make him understand what tremendous sympathy she felt for him just then. But the expression on his face frightened her in its grim remoteness, and she suddenly felt very small and insignificant and foolish ... an unimportant little English girl to whom Leonid of Tirhania was and would always be as remote as the planet Mars. How could she understand what a man of his type must be going through at such a time as this
...
how could she begin to enter in to his feelings. It was impossible—even to express sympathy would be an intrusion, an impertinence. So she whispered a hasty ‘good morning’ and hurried past him on her way to the Princess’s room.