As she ran up the steps of the tall terraced house that evening, her intention was to grab a hasty supper then go in search of him. Luc had agreed to see her tonight, and she meant to have it out with him once and for all. She would insist he name the day.
So it came as something of a shock to find Alec Hall seated in the Bertalone’s living room, engrossed in deep conversation with her father.
‘Ah,’ Papa said, as Carmina burst through the door, ‘the very person we want to see. Alec has been filling me in on some very interesting facts. Why don’t you sit down so that we can discuss them together.’
Mavis often popped downstairs for a loaf of brown bread or a couple of currant tea cakes, and would slip into the bakery at the back of the shop to talk to Chris. This particular afternoon she took great pleasure in asking him what Amy was up to today, knowing what she had witnessed with her own eyes earlier. The urge to see the expression on his face when he learned of his wife’s infidelity was overwhelming, but Mavis managed to hold herself in check. She had no wish to fall out with her own son, and there were more subtle ways of getting the information across. She had a letter tucked in the bottom of her basket, which would reveal all.
‘I haven’t seen your Amy for days. I suppose she’s too busy with that new job of hers to spare any time for friends and family. Is she ever home? Does she pay you any attention at all? I’m sorry, but I think she’s very neglectful, of you and the child. I really don’t know how you put up with it?’
‘Don’t start, Mother.’
Chris went over to check on the progress of the latest batch of bread in the big side flue oven. The blast of hot air as he opened the door would account for the angry flush on his cheeks. He certainly had no wish to discuss the state of his marriage with his own mother.
Mavis flounced out, calling at the post box on her way to Ramsay’s Butchers.
The next morning Chris found the letter among a pile of bills waiting for him at the bakery. He opened it without thinking and there it was in black and white, the shocking evidence of Amy’s betrayal.
‘Your wife has been seen entertaining her lover in your own house. She’s a shameless hussy! Are you really going to put up with that?’
Chris stared at the words in stunned disbelief, then he screwed up the letter, little more than a note, and threw it to the far side of the room.
He found that his legs would no longer support him and he sank down on to a chair, head in hands. He felt as if he were drowning in despair, as if everything he held dear was falling away from him. Chris thought of his beloved son, his efforts to provide a good home for his family, the responsibility of this business that had landed unasked on his shoulders, and of the future he’d dreamed of for them all, and silently wept.
Like all strong, caring men he didn’t cry easily. Hard, brittle sobs seemed to be torn out of him against his will, jerking his shoulders, bringing a grinding pain to his chest.
Then he crossed the room in three short strides, picked up the note again, smoothed it out and tucked it into his pocket. No, he certainly wasn’t going to put up with it. Something had to be done.
The vision of his wife’s lover in
his own house
, possibly in
his
lovely new bed
with his darling Amy haunted him for the rest of that day and night, and those following. Chris couldn’t think, couldn’t eat. He lost all interest in trying to ‘improve’ himself or chat up other women. Amy was his wife and he loved her. And if he lost her, if she no longer wanted him then he didn’t know what he would do. He wouldn’t have any reason to go on.
Carmina was incandescent with rage. The interview with her father had been the most difficult, the most shaming, that she could ever remember. Worse, Papa had largely ignored her protests of innocence. Now she and Alec were standing beneath the street lamp at the foot of the house steps and he was looking at her with that little smirking smile which irritated her so much.
‘Absolutely not! No, I will not marry you.
I will not
,’ she screamed. ‘Never! How dare you march in and talk to my father without my permission. How dare you attempt to interfere in my life and
ruin all my plans
!’
‘I don’t think you’re in any position to refuse, do you?’
‘I most certainly am.’
Alec shook his head, then moving closer he stroked Carmina’s softly rounded belly in a flagrantly intimate gesture. ‘Think about it, my love, you and I know for a fact that this child must be mine. Even if you did once have sexual intercourse with Luc Fabriani, that was a long time ago. Too long. And you admitted to me, if you recall, that it didn’t happen the night I saw the pair of you in his car. There’s no question but that you are carrying my son, and I mean to father it.’
His tone became brisk. ‘I’ve arranged the licence, as I was just explaining to your father, and we can be married Saturday week at the Register Office.’
Carmina gasped. ‘You’ll have to drag me there bound and gagged.’
‘If necessary, but I don’t think it will be, do you?’ He jerked her into his arms, pressing her body hard against his so that she could smell the onions and rice on his breath from one of those strange Korean meals he liked to cook.
‘You and I
also
know who the thief really is, don’t we? It certainly wasn’t pretty little Gina who rummaged through my records. I’ve fought in and survived two wars, do you really imagine that I sleep
that
soundly?’ He laughed, a coarse, bitter sound. ‘Sadly, I have too many dreams, too many nightmares, for that to be the case. Soldiers learn to sleep with one eye open, particularly when young girls are ransacking their room, or their shop. I didn’t greatly care, not until the full facts of this little game you’re playing became obvious. So if you don’t want to take your sister’s place in that miserable little prison cell, you’d better start considering a change of plan, such as a different groom to stand by your side on that happy day. Do you understand what I’m saying, Carmina?’
Sadly, she did, and although Carmina didn’t like what she heard one little bit, she was struck speechless. For once in her life her mind was a complete blank. She could see no way out.
And within ten days it was all settled. The marriage took place, as arranged, at the local Register Office. Carmina wore a pale blue suit since she could no longer squeeze into her ballerina length wedding gown. She carried white lilies for her bouquet although they looked rather stark and funereal rather than exotic, and there was no orange blossom available at this time of year. Nor did her sisters act as bridesmaids. Carlotta was too ashamed to even allow them to attend.
Worst of all, the groom standing by her side was not Luc Fabriani.
In order to secure her freedom, Carmina had been compelled to submit to Alec’s blackmail. Instead of marrying into one of the richest Italian families in the neighbourhood, to a man who had occupied every waking moment of her life for over a year, she became plain Mrs Hall. She was now the wife of a man nearly twice her age who owned nothing more exciting than a little music shop on Champion Street Market. A man she didn’t even love.
Chapter Forty-Three
Despite Patsy’s suspicions having been proved entirely correct, she hadn’t seen much of Marc lately. They’d attended the small civil ceremony together but relations between them had remained cool ever since, almost as if he blamed her for the situation. He certainly didn’t seem willing to apologise for disbelieving her.
This irritated Patsy, but at the same time she was sympathetic over his confused state of mind. They agreed on one thing at least, a refusal to accept Gina’s fate and he was entirely caught up in furious discussions over the possibility of an appeal.
She was surprised and pleased when, late one morning, he suddenly popped his head around the curtain of the hat stall, as he used to do so often in those blissful first months together. Patsy had been stitching a beaded silk ribbon around the rim of a velvet beret but happily set it aside to allow him to place a tender kiss on her brow and then full on her lips.
‘How’s my favourite girl?’
She smiled. ‘Do you have many?’
‘Only you.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. So, how did it go?’ she asked, referring to the latest meeting with Gina’s solicitor.
Marc rubbed the flat of his hands over his face. He looked tired, she thought, and desperately sad. ‘Not good. He sees no grounds for an appeal, claims she was given a fair trial. He can’t seem to see the disparity of a two year sentence when she is so clearly innocent.’
Patsy put a hand on his arm. ‘The problem is proving it.’
‘I know. I just wish I could get my hands on the real culprit. Do you think it could be one of that new family who’ve moved in below the fish market?’
She hadn’t planned to speak her mind. Patsy had already learned to her cost the result of interfering in Bertalone matters. They closed ranks, leaving her on the outside. Perhaps it was the pain in his tortured, beloved face, or her fondness for Gina that made her once again recklessly jump in with hob-nailed boots on, heedless of how they might muddy the water.
‘Of course, there is one way to get Gina released, and that is to persuade Carmina to confess she is really the guilty party.’ The words came out of her mouth quite of their own volition.
Jerked out of his gloomy thoughts Marc stared at her in silence for several terrifying moments. His eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Have I heard you correctly? Are you seriously suggesting that
Carmina
was in fact the thief?’
Patsy quailed before his steely gaze but desperately held on to her nerve. ‘Actually, I’ve been wanting to discuss this with you for a while, Marc. I backed down from saying what I thought the last time we talked about this, and perhaps that was a mistake. I should have gone for broke then. The fact is, I don’t believe for a minute that Gina stole those things, any more than you do. But I do suspect that Carmina did.’
Marc’s tone was glacial. ‘On the grounds that Carmina must be guilty of everything, is that it? You’re accusing her of deliberately getting her own sister locked up so that she could steal her boy friend? How many B-movies have you been watching lately?’
‘The plan very nearly worked, didn’t it? She almost succeeded in catching Luc. Would have done so had I not - interfered - and told Alec about the baby she was carrying. Okay, I should’ve kept my nose out of it, but I couldn’t sit back and see Gina’s heart broken for no reason, or Luc’s for that matter. And Alec certainly seemed to agree with my assessment of the situation, didn’t he?’
Marc was silent once more, his brow creasing into a deep frown.
Patsy let out a heavy sigh. ‘Maybe Carmina didn’t plan the shop lifting, maybe it all came about by chance, or accident. I accept that I could be wrong that it was deliberate, but Carmina is most definitely the guilty party.’
‘You certainly are wrong if you believe
my sister
capable of planning something so horrendous.’
Too late, Patsy recalled telling Clara how infuriating Marc could be for refusing to see any wrong in Carmina, or any of his sisters for that matter. Furious would be a more appropriate word now, Patsy thought, as she met his livid gaze.
Marc was on his feet, spitting out words as if he hated her. ‘How can she be guilty? I could just about come to terms with the fact Gina might, after all, be guilty. We all know how secretive she was, how she loves to squirrel things away and look at them in private, as she did with her china animal collection. And she’s been ill for a long time, so she might have become confused, obsessed.’
‘Gone wrong in the head you mean, because she once had polio? Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘Well, I won’t accept that it was Carmina. Do you think she’d stand back and do
nothing
while her innocent sister is arrested for something
she’d
done? For God’s sake, Patsy, what’s got into you? I know the pair of you don’t get on, but
you
must be sick in the head to even suggest such a thing.’
Patsy picked up her sewing with trembling fingers and made an effort to get on with it. ‘I found it hard to believe too, at first, but I think that’s exactly what she did.’
‘Why?’ The snap of ice in his tone should have warned her to say no more.
She let the sewing fall to her lap with a resigned sigh. ‘Because she’s manipulative. She’s certainly selfish, and wants everything she claps eyes on, whether it be boys, a pretty scarf, bag, trinkets, whatever. Particularly if it belongs to someone else. She’s a greedy little magpie. And she would love to get one over on me by stealing something from the stall right in front of my nose. She’d think it funny, I expect. I noticed she was wearing a blue chiffon scarf in church the other morning, and I remember now where I saw it before. Hanging on a clip on my stall, from where she must have stolen it. She certainly didn’t pay for it, and I didn’t give it to her.
‘The rest of it, the thieving from Alec Hall, well, she certainly had the opportunity if she and he were embroiled in an affair. And as for the goods found in Gina’s wardrobe? I’d say they were all carefully staged to implicate her. Oh, I’m quite certain that Carmina is the guilty party. It all adds up. She wanted Luc, and was prepared to do anything to get him. The girl is evil!’