Authors: Roberta Latow
A waiter arrived to sweep away empty serving plates and place a bamboo steamer in the centre of the table. That broke into the storm of emotion each was silently experiencing. ‘I can’t be pregnant, John!’ exclaimed Eliza as soon as the waiter was gone from their table.
There were tears brimming in her eyes and her lower lip trembled.
‘I don’t think that’s an answer, Eliza. I think that’s more of an exclamation about something you don’t want to be true. Now calm down, no scenes, and answer me: are you pregnant?’ he asked her in his best bedside manner.
‘I honestly don’t know, John.’
‘Eliza, are there signs that it might be a possibility?’ he asked, while reaching across the table and taking her hand in his.
‘I have to think,’ she answered, still looking frightened and shocked at the mere possibility.
‘Then think, Eliza. It is not a difficult question.’
‘Don’t be angry with me, John. I couldn’t bear that.’
‘I’m not angry. Just answer me.’
Eliza lowered her head and placed a hand over her eyes. She remained like that for several minutes, and then when she took her hand away and looked across the table at him, she answered, ‘There are signs, but I
never thought anything of them. It never crossed my mind that such a thing could happen. There’s the coil … and I thought the delay was because of our having such an active sex life, and then the excitement and passion and being in love. Oh, tell me you don’t think it’s so, John? I’m too young, still a child myself. What if it’s true?
‘I can’t have it, if it’s true, you know. I’m not ready for such a commitment. I’m not good at commitment.’
John was very good with Eliza. He calmed her down and insisted she should put all thoughts of pregnancy out of her mind. He would take her to a doctor in the morning and they would soon know and then deal with the problem accordingly. He called for a bottle of champagne, insisting that a celebration was in order either way. John Hope-Quintin was a most charming seducer and managed to save the evening for them. By the time they were in bed and making love, all thoughts of what might be a monumental problem for Eliza had vanished from her mind. Not so from John’s. Taking a wife was not something he’d ever contemplated, but to have children had always been on the agenda. That night he made the most exquisite tender love to Eliza, a night of bliss to die for, to have a baby for. Before morning he was certain she would do whatever he decided for them.
His colleague told John that his ‘friend’ was thirteen weeks pregnant, and very healthy. He saw no complications. John actually laughed at that last statement because he knew that there may not be with the birth of his child but there would be for him for the rest of his life. But still he felt some excitement at having created a human being out of lust, pure pleasure, with
this enchanting girl whom he would now take for his wife. He was surprised by how delighted he was that a child was coming into his life. He knew he would make a good father, and of course he would mould Eliza into being the right kind of mother for his children, the right kind of wife for him.
As they left the hospital she asked, ‘John, what did the doctor say? Do I have anything to worry about? It’s not true that I am going to have a baby? Oh, please, let it not be true.’
‘Let’s wait and talk about it when we get home.’
‘Oh, no, it
is
true! I’m too young! My parents will be very shocked!’
He began to laugh, ‘You’re such a little hypocrite, such a bourgeoise.’ And he ushered her into his waiting car. After telling the chauffeur to take them home, he slid across the back seat to take her in his arms and kiss away her tears. He could not help but laugh at her distress, then said, ‘Now let’s talk about Christmas.’
‘I don’t think this is the time to talk about Christmas, John!’
‘What do you say about a Christmas wedding? Very small and discreet, in Barbados. I get the holiday I want and you get the husband you want. You do want to marry me, don’t you? I am a very good catch.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Yes will do,’ he told her, kissing her several times on her face and the side of her neck.
‘And what about my little problem? You’re not asking me to marry you only because of that, are you, John?’
‘No, not only because of that. But I would be less
than honest if I didn’t tell you it has everything to do with it.’
For the remainder of the day and all that evening Eliza tried in vain to make him understand that she had no maternal feelings for the child she was carrying; that it was not so much fear of having a baby as that she simply was not ready to be a mother when she hardly knew who and what she was herself. But by morning she had been seduced once more by John into believing that his happiness was her happiness, what he wanted was what she wanted. That evening he dominated her thoughts as he did her body, her very soul, with lust. Only one thing marred his decision to marry Eliza: she was such an innocent, so easily seduced, weak in character. She would take some looking after vis-à-vis people who might drift in and out of their lives: her family, his friends, men who would be attracted to her, those Tuscan relations she was always going on about, someone she might take a momentary fancy to as she had the scaffolder. The moment John asked Eliza to marry him, in his mind she became his possession and he was a possessive man.
The next few days were the happiest of Eliza’s life. John was magnificent with her: loving, generous, kindness itself. He bought her a diamond to celebrate their engagement and the family was told of the betrothal and invited to a dinner at his flat along with a few of his closest friends and several of his cousins the following week. Dulcima and Julian knew that Eliza was making an advantageous marriage, one that would give her wealth and status, but those things mattered little to them, her happiness everything. Was she happy? Deliriously so, she had assured them, and that was
enough for her parents. Dulcima did however suggest to Eliza that she should not rush into anything. Actually what she advised was that time was a leveller.
Eliza was too happy at the thought of being Mrs Hope-Quintin not to grant John a few wishes: her pregnancy would be kept a secret, as would their wedding plans. She was swept along as if floating off the ground on some magic carpet.
But then, in the midst of her euphoria, a most incredible thing happened to jolt her back to earth. Vittorio arrived in London only days after she had agreed to marry John. When the telephone call came through to Eliza at the flat, John was at the hospital. Initially it had been Eliza’s cousin getting in contact with her. He had discovered the telephone number from her father. Eliza was overjoyed to hear from him. Suddenly Tuscany, the Villa Monetcatini and the sweet bird of youth began singing for her again.
‘What are you doing here, Federico? I know how you dislike London,’ she said, laughter in her voice.
‘I’ve come as a second, so to speak. Hold the line, someone here very much wants to speak to you.’
Eliza sensed at once that it was Vittorio and her heart began to race. He had come after her. Just hearing his voice was enough to knock her off kilter. She hardly knew what to say. He was there but the pain of their separation was there too and it still hurt, more than she’d imagined it ever could now that she had John. She had difficulty listening to what he was saying because she could not get that woman, Janine le Donneur, out of her mind. Finally, numbed by surprise and intrigued that he should have left his beloved Italy for her, she agreed to see him and gave
Vittorio the address, saying he should come round as soon as he liked.
Once Eliza had put down the phone, she panicked. There was simply no other word for it. She began to hyper-ventilate and felt as if she wanted to be sick. She was afraid to see Vittorio, afraid to fall in love with him again or find out that she had never fallen out of love with him. She didn’t know which and it didn’t matter because all she wanted was not to feel the pain of losing a man or her happiness again. Her hands were trembling while she freshened her make-up and combed her hair. Looking in the mirror at herself, she suddenly let out a scream of anguish. What was the point of seeing him, loving him or not loving him? It was over for them now that she was pregnant. It suddenly seemed wrong that she should be carrying John’s child. ‘Vittorio,’ she said aloud.
Eliza heard the doorbell and Mrs Fanshaw ushered someone into the drawing room. She was actually trembling with the fear of seeing Vittorio again. What if their meeting was to prove to her that she loved him more than John? Was John an escape, someone she’d chosen on the rebound? The anguish she had suffered over loving Vittorio and wondering whether he was the right man for her suddenly returned. John had made all that go away. What bliss it had been not to feel that pain of loving Vittorio and not knowing what to do about it any more than he did. She gazed at the large diamond on her finger, placed the palms of her hands on her still flat tummy, and tears came into her eyes. She took a deep sigh and hardened herself to face Vittorio, who had come too late.
He was standing by the fireplace staring into the
leaping flames when she entered the room. He turned to face her and they gazed into each other’s eyes. Eliza felt quite sick with nervousness and was trembling. Vittorio looked handsome and young but so terribly nervous and tense, very out of place, dressed in his badly chosen and ill-fitting suit, standing in this elegant London drawing room.
‘You’ve taken me by surprise,’ she told him in Italian, and then sat down in the nearest chair, feeling too weak-kneed to remain standing. Her fragility was not so much from love but the anguish she felt at seeing Vittorio now, in this place, in her new circumstances.
He sat down next to her and told her, ‘You look lovely, so elegant, beautiful and grown up. I’ve come to take you home to Tuscany. I want to show you off to our friends, to the world. For us to wed and make each other happy again.’
Then they fell silent. The tension in the room seemed to swallow them up, put them on edge, to kill all the things in their hearts they might feel for each other. They were unable to express in words or by the smallest gesture their sentiments. Even to make mundane conversation became impossible for them. Vittorio’s eyes were filled with love for Eliza, she could see that and it unnerved her rather than drew her towards him. The former lovers did not fall into each other’s arms and weep with joy, though they were aware that that was what they should be doing. Instead the fear that was gripping them created an enormous chasm between them.
Finally Eliza could bear the silence no longer and broke it by telling him, ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Don’t say anything. I’ll go away and come back later to take you to dinner. We can talk then.’
She knew by the tone of his voice that he was as emotionally overwrought as she was. Did he understand that too much time had passed, she had been through too much without him, that he should have never let her go? For a moment she despised him for that and herself for having been too weak to listen to her heart and nothing else back then in Tuscany. He looked like a displaced person out of his environment, not so much lost as no longer belonging to her life, this new London life, a very English life where he would never fit in.
‘Eight o’clock. You’ll see, it will be better for us then. It’s as much of a shock for me, this meeting, as it is for you.’
‘Yes, eight o’clock.’
She rose to walk with him to the front door. His scent was familiar, his walk. She felt herself weakening, feeling the things for him now that she had felt for him in the past and that frightened her, traumatised her actually. It was too late, she had moved on. In the past she had always succumbed to Vittorio until the very day they had parted. Now that was no longer even a possibility. She was afraid that Vittorio and the love they had once had for each other might yank her away from the new life she was creating with John. Now, when fate had taken over their lives, he was here for her, trying to give her the life she had once wanted.
After Eliza had closed the front door she leaned back against it and was astonished at how very much afraid of Vittorio she was. His cruelty to Janine, his wanting her in his life, in his country, that he might discover
she was carrying another man’s child. She only just made it to John’s bathroom where she was violently sick. John … if only he had been there. She lay down on his bed and clung to a pillow, trying to calm herself. She would of course have to tell him she was going out to dinner with Vittorio.
It was very nearly half an hour before Eliza felt calm enough to call his rooms. She was astonished that John was available to speak with her. As soon as she heard his voice she felt undone again. It was clear to her that she was far more emotionally confused than she had thought she was, but she did manage to control her voice.
Quite calmly she told John, ‘Something unexpected has happened. My friend from Tuscany – Vittorio – he’s in London. He wants to have dinner with me, do you mind?’
It was the anguish in her voice that gave Eliza away and made John hesitate for not one second before he answered, ‘Of course not, we’ll take him somewhere nice. Obviously not Italian.’
Eliza’s anxiety did not vanish but it immediately subsided when John took over the situation. Like a knight in shining armour he had come to her aid. He would give her the strength to keep Vittorio at arm’s length. They could instead be together as friends until the end of their days. It was settled, there was only the evening to get through, and though Eliza was not looking forward to it, she was at least in control of herself, had a direction to follow now.
‘He will be here at eight. When will you be home?’
‘In time to answer the front door,’ was his answer.
When John did arrive home he behaved no differently from any other evening. He asked nothing about Vittorio, and made only one comment when she joined him in the drawing room for their evening drink before going out. ‘I think you look just a little underdressed. How about changing to your black crêpe-de-chine, the St Laurent we bought last week.’