Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (81 page)

“You mean it?”

“Um hum.”

“Well, then, I’d love to, of course.”

“Then come, let’s sit down here.” She led me over to the twisted pine where the dog, Paolo, had been buried. She settled herself on the grass, asked me if I was comfortable and then opened her basket. It was shaped like an inverted garden hat, with a snap closing, and she was very businesslike about it, parting the snaps with a small fingernail, and then putting the basket down on the ground.

After which, one by one, she lifted out her treasures. There was a pair of earrings, obviously filched from her mother’s vanity chest, a tiny teddy bear with one glass eye missing and a worn sticker that said JAPAN. There was also a variety of rings, cheap little trinkets made for a child’s small fingers, and some little glass beads in a clear plastic tube.

A tangle of gilt chain necklets, discarded perhaps by her mother, an empty matchbox with a colored picture of San Gimignano on one side and Siena on the other, a tiny address book with a fleur de lys cover. The basket was filled to overflowing. “Oh oh,” Eleanora said suddenly, and I saw a cookie like the one I had been given earlier in the day. She seemed quite embarrassed, but was mistress of the situation. “I
thought
I had given them all to Mama.”

“It’s all right, I won’t tell,” I said. “Give it to
me.
”

She handed it over, a trifle flushed, and I put it in my pocket. She was about to reload the basket again when I caught sight of something else.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s dirty, don’t touch it.”

“But what is it?”

“A handkerchief, that’s all.”

I don’t know why I did it, but I suddenly reached over and pulled it out. I thought, at first that it was only soiled, as the child had said, that the brown stain was dust, earth ground into it. But it was only for a moment, and then I knew what the brown discoloration was. It was a particular
kind
of brown stain.

It was, in fact, blood.

“Why do you keep this?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It was hers, that’s all. I liked her.
Capisco?
She was my friend.”

“Who?”

“The signora.”

And then I saw the raised initials, embroidered in the cambric handkerchief. M. d’A. In one of the corners. Fine linen, crumpled and stained, with hand embroidery.

M. d’A.

Mercedes d’Albiensi.

“Where did you find it?” I asked, careful not to sound alarmed.

“When she fell.”

“Fell?”

“Yes, from the ladder.”

“From the ladder? What was she doing on a ladder?”

“Cutting away the vines.” She pointed, indicating the top story of the house. “I was helping her. She said, ‘Nora, go in the house and get me the big shears.’ You know where they are, signorina? In the shed, in the courtyard. So I went there, and brought back the shears. But she was lying on the ground. I never saw someone like that, signorina. I thought her head was off. It looked like that. I thought — ”

There was a quiet horror in the child’s eyes.

“Then,” she said, “she was dead. Mama said she didn’t know it, that when you are dead you don’t know it, and I was not to grieve.”

My mind was whirling. I had assumed that my aunt had died of a heart attack. One always takes it for granted, with the aged, that it must have been a coronary.

But apparently it had been something quite different.

“Your mother was right,” I said. “You musn’t grieve. Just remember your friend with love and think only of the good times you had. And now I’d like to ask a favor of you.”

“Yes, signorina?”

“It would be very nice if you would let me take the handkerchief. I know she was your friend, but she was my aunt. Would you mind
very
much?”

There was an inward battle. Finally, sighing, she nodded. “If you wish, signorina,” she said, with some regret.

“Thank you very much. It’s kind of you. And thanks for letting me see your secrets. You have lovely things in that basket. And now I must go and talk to Elizabeth. She’ll be wondering where I am.”

We parted at the gate, she with her basket and I with my drawing by Gianni Monteverdi … and in my pocket a stale cookie and something else.

A bloody handkerchief. I felt as if it were burning a hole there.

I waited until that evening, when we were having
aperitivi
in the garden, to speak to Elizabeth Wadley about the accidental death of my aunt. I decided not to tell her what Eleanora had said, but rather to ask outright. In other words, I wanted to take her unawares.

I had slipped easily into calling her by her first name, and I said, abruptly perhaps, but wanting her first reaction, “Elizabeth, how did my aunt die?”

There wasn’t even a second’s hesitation. “Because of a total lack of sense,” she said crisply. “She simply declined to admit to the infirmities of age, and went on acting like a schoolgirl. Well, she was a narcissist, of course, anyone would tell you that. She was Queen of the May for so long that she thought herself indestructible. God wouldn’t
dare
let any harm come to her! She’d be alive today if she hadn’t been so bloody foolhardy.”

I waited, looking inquiringly at her, and she went on. “Well, I assumed, of course, that you knew,” she said. “She was on the ladder, pruning some parasite vines that were choking the trees round the house. Never mind having Pietro tend to it. Oh no, she had to do it herself. Pride goeth before a fall, my dear. At any rate, she was hacking away at a great rate and the ladder must have slipped. After all, she was nearly eighty. She fell a hundred feet to her death.”

She saw my face and hastened to add, “My dear, she didn’t suffer for a moment. You mustn’t think about it. She was never in pain. She died instantly.”

“Did she bleed much?”

“Bleed?”
Elizabeth looked astonished, and for a second narrowed her eyes with what seemed to me distaste. I didn’t want her to think I was looking for sensationalism, for goodness’ sake. But yet I didn’t want to mention the handkerchief Eleanora had found. I said carefully, “I suppose I want to be reassured … that she didn’t suffer, as you say.”

“Love, it was as quick a death as anyone could ask for. She broke her neck and aside from the quite horrible position she was in, there was no other outward sign. She certainly didn’t
bleed.
”

Well that, I thought, was puzzling indeed. No blood on the dead woman … but a hankie stained with it in Eleanora’s basket. What could one make of it?

I could hear, in the adjoining gardens, the voices of the Monteverdis, carried by the cool currents of clear air. A shriek of childish laughter, followed by Gianni’s voice, told me that uncle was teasing niece, and I had to smile. I must tell Gianni, I thought, that they made a charming couple, he and Eleanora. Looking up, I saw the Principe sitting at the window on the upper story of the villa: he was communing with some bird or other in the branches of a tree which was close enough to sweep the house. The bird would cheep and then the Principe would answer it. I thought it was very touching, that while the rest of his family was gathered for their
apertivi
down below he was playing a child’s game.

“Let’s move our chairs a bit,” Elizabeth said. “So we get the last of the sun. If you were raised in England, you’d appreciate the value of the sun. Let me help you.”

“No, let me do it.” I pulled the chairs out from under the sheltering umbrella and felt the sun scorching my face. I agreed with Elizabeth. If you were raised in smoggy Manhattan you also appreciated the value of the sun.

“Isn’t that lovely,” she said.

“Yes, wonderful.”

“Buona sera,”
I heard someone say next door, and recognized Benedetto’s voice. Evidently he had just returned from his daily stint at La Nazione and was joining his family. I heard answering greetings, and Eleanora’s delighted screech.

“Papa!”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said suddenly, turning to look at me. “I do so envy them. A close family.”

I thought of her, now that Mercedes was dead, sitting there night after night, listening to the sounds of affection, coveting the ties that bound lives together.

Oh, poor Elizabeth …

“Well, I must rouse myself,” she said, after a long, companionable silence. “I daresay you’re hungry and so am I.”

Eleanora, peering through the gate, waved a tentative hand. Elizabeth waved back. “Come say hello to us, Nora.”

Nothing loath, the little girl skipped across the grass. “I must go to bed soon,” she confided. “I wanted to say good night.”

“That was nice of you,” Elizabeth said. “Did you have a pleasant day?”

“Like all the other days,” she said, with an innocent wisdom. “Did you?”

Both Elizabeth and I agreed that our day had been fine, and then Gianni walked through the gate. He came toward us, looking splendid, lean and handsome in white pants, a shirt half unbuttoned and an orange handkerchief stuck in the pocket of his shirt. I thought he looked rather Neopolitan, or what I imagined to be Neopolitan. He looked me up and down, in my “little” dress that had cost a good bit of money at Saks, and smiled dazlingly.

I smiled back; a most attractive boy, I was thinking, and had to laugh at the designation. He was several years older than I. I wondered if I was being condescending … or defensive. Because I could feel a kind of pull toward him … and I didn’t want to do what so many American girls did when they went to Europe, namely, fall head over heels with some vagabond lover.

“I’ve come to take you home,” he said to Eleanora. He held out a hand and she took it. “Say good-night,” Gianni ordered.

“Good night, good night …”

“Remember me to your family,” Elizabeth said, her wiry hair tangling in the iron of the chair in which she was sitting. “
Buona notte
, children.”

And then they went off, swishing through the grass, and vanished through the dividing gate. Elizabeth looked over at me. “Gianni has eyes for you,” she said, as if she were telling me that two and two made four.

“He has eyes, I surmise, for lots of girls,” I answered.

“Well, why not, he’s young, and still fancy free.” She got up. “And now I must fix us something to eat.”

“I’ll help you.”

“No,
please.
” She made it plain that she was averse to anyone interfering with her “joy of cooking,” as she phrased it. “Don’t you see,” she said, in that clipped British voice, “now that I have freedom of choice I simply am so
fond
of planning meals and thinking up gourmet menus. It’s the only thing I really care about.”

There was an almost girlish smile on her seamed face. I sometimes feel like a child, making mudpies. And there’s no one to stop me.”

“It’s just that I wanted to do my part,” I said, and she smiled down at me.

“Don’t worry about
that
,” she said. “To have you here, someone to break bread with … well, I simply wish it could be forever.”

“So do I,” I said, knowing it was true. “It seems I don’t want to leave.”

“Like your aunt,” she said. “You’re very much like your aunt.”

And then she left me, making her way across the grass to the house. I sat there, dreaming, listening to the voices from across the way. I listened, and it seemed to me that Elizabeth and I were the freeloaders, that the Monteverdis, expansive and voluble, were the masters … and we the serfs, the tenants. The low-pitched voices of the men, the authoritative tones of the Principessa, Francesca’s fruity dulcet made
me
envious too, and I longed to share their camaraderie.

But there was something else. It made me faintly resentful, angry perhaps, and questioning. The property had been my aunt’s and was now that of Elizabeth Wadley. But on our side of the gate was only quiet, as Elizabeth cooked our lonely dinner.

A bird flew low and winged past me, settling down, fleetingly, on the grass. I called to it and it looked up, with bright, curious eyes. I remembered the Principe, sitting at that upstairs window, having an aviatic conversation with a wren or sparrow or whatever. Now I could hear his deep voice, like that of a
basso cantante
, mingling with the others, and the window in which I had seen him earlier was dark, untenanted.

Lucrezia appeared in the aperture of the french doors, waving to me.

“Buona notte,”
she called, and I got up.

“You’re going home?” I asked.

“Si,”
she said.

I followed her around the house, over the graveled path, and she climbed onto a little Vespa, straddling the motorcycle with solid, sturdy legs.
“Arrivaderci,”
she said, and revved the motor. Then she roared off, her coarse brown sweater ballooning behind her. The last I saw of her was a scarf at her neck billowing in the breeze.

• • •

When I went into the house again the cooking smells made me salivate. Garlic … the odor of meat fat sizzling. I was famished. I poked my head in the kitchen and said, honestly, couldn’t I do something?

She looked up, abstracted. “What? Oh no, I’m getting along famously,” she said, her face flushed from the range. “Would you care to play the piano again? I do so love music.”

I went to the Boesendorfer and started a Brahms Ballade. I don’t know precisely when it was that I saw the reflection in the glass of the many framed photographs on top of the piano. At first it was only a vague impression, that there was something wavering in front of my eyes. And then I saw the face, as in a mirror, Gianni’s face, hovering outside the french doors, not knowing I could see him reflected a dozen or so times, in the pictures spread over the embroidered silk scarf.

He was peering in at me, bent slightly forward, and a funny chill went up my back. What was he doing there? Why didn’t he come in, say something, make his presence known? He seemed to me to be lurking, to be spying on me …

I came to the end of the Ballade, with its final chord, and got up quickly from the piano stool. I turned and faced him, at which he straightened up, guiltily, and drew in his breath.