The Fires of Torretta Page 10

  A maze of small streets where unexpectedly large and charming hotels rose on corners or were half hidden among shrubberies led to the Greek theatre. She came frequently to this vast arena, once the most dominant feature of the town. Rebuilt by the Romans with rose-brown brickwork incorporating the old pale stone columns, surely no open-air theatre could have been chosen with a more splendid setting with the wide curving bay below and an unbelievable backdrop of snow-tipped Mount Etna.

  She climbed up stone steps, gangways that sliced through the perfectly curved amphitheatre and sat on a stone seat near the top. What countless generations of spectators had sat on these same seats, watching the spectacle below in the arena! Even now there would be concerts and theatrical performances in May or June and she hoped to see some of them.

  Close by, a father at the top of the bowl gave instructions to his schoolboy son right down in the arena. There was no need to shout, for the acoustics were perfect. The boy wielded his camera in obedience to his father’s direction.

  Rosamund judged that it was time to go and the shops would now be open again after siesta.

  As she turned a corner near the Corso Umberto she met Seppi.

  “You have been working so hard that we have not seen you,” he accused after greeting her.

  “I haven’t even begun to work yet,” she contradicted. “All we’ve done is settle ourselves in the villa. Yesterday we went up Mount Etna, but that’s been the only outing.”

  “And you went there without telling us?” His face assumed a look of horrified misery. “Oh, that was very bad.”

  She laughed. “We can’t expect you and Niccolo to ferry us everywhere.”

  Seppi’s mood changed instantly. “Niccolo is delighted to drive you about, both you and Erica,” he added.

  “No doubt there’ll be plenty of opportunity in the future. Now, will you excuse me, Seppi, I have to collect some parcels.”

  “Then I will accompany you,” he suggested.

  The camera and all its equipment were quite ready and she was after all glad of Seppi’s help in carrying the packages to the place where she had parked the car in the Cathedral square.

  “You drive well?” he inquired, as she entered the car.

  “I don’t know how high your standards are. I’ve come back from Belpasso without incident.”

  “Then if you will allow, I will be glad to ride with you,” he decided.

  “Were you suspicious that I might be erratic?” she asked as she swung down the Via Roma.

  “What is that word?”

  “Erratic? Oh, not steady. Wavering or going zigzag or not giving signals.”

  “No, you are not like that. Perhaps Erica, but not you. No, no, forgive me, I did not mean to say—about Erica.”

  Rosamund smiled. “No damage done, Seppi. I shall not tell her, although she knows already that she is rather a madcap driver.”

  She dropped Seppi at the gates of his home, refusing his offer to help unload the parcels. “Signor Holford will do that—and if he drops them, then it won’t be your fault or mine.”

  “Come to the beach tomorrow in the afternoon,” he invited. “We can swim or sit in the sun, as you prefer.”

  “No promises. I might if I have time.”

  Indoors at the Villa Delfino, she found the professor in his study.

  “Ah, you’re back. Everything all right?”

  “Yes. All the camera stuff is in the car.”

  “Good. I’ll go out and bring it in.”

  As soon as he had gone out, Erica appeared from the hall. “Where have you been all the day? Brent telephoned.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  Erica shrugged. “He seemed concerned about you. Wanted to know if you’d arrived home yet—and in one piece.”

  Rosamund laughed. “How spiteful can he get? So doubtful about my driving ability. Or perhaps he thought I might be waylaid by a dashing Italian lorry-driver.”

  “You always seem to get the chance of going places with Brent,” Erica grumbled. “Why couldn’t I have driven him home this morning?”

  “You weren’t up.”

  “I’d have risen at dawn if I’d known.”

  Rosamund shook her head. “At any rate, he wouldn’t have let you drive. He took the wheel. He doesn’t trust women to drive him.”

  Erica laughed confidently. “Oh, we’ll see about that. The day will come when he’s glad to sit beside me as a passenger.” After a pause, she asked, “Is he coming here to the cottage this week-end?”

  “I didn’t ask,” replied Rosamund. “I think it’s more likely he’ll be here the following one, when it’s Easter.”

  “Then how about smartening up his cottage? It’s a dismal place.”

  Rosamund hesitated. “I’m not sure he’ll be pleased. Perhaps he likes living in semi-squalor for a limited time.”

  “Well, I shall ask Tomaso to help me,” declared Erica. Rosamund paid little attention to Erica’s vague plans. A few cobwebs and a scuttling spider or two would soon dim the girl’s energy.

  She was therefore surprised next day to find Erica hard at work scouring and scrubbing. Tomaso had moved most of the furniture outside into the yard and Erica was busy cleaning the stone floor of the bedroom.

  “If Brent comes today and catches you at this spring-cleaning, he’ll probably raise the roof,” Rosamund warned Erica.

  “Stop making scornful remarks and lend us a hand,” retorted Erica.

  “I’m actually working for your father, but I’ll put in some time this afternoon, perhaps.”

  Erica did not appear at lunch. She sent a message that she would eat with Tomaso and Maria in the kitchen.

  Stephen raised his eyebrows. “What is she up to?” he asked Rosamund.

  “She’s renovating Brent’s shack and doesn’t want to change her clothes twice over, I expect.”

  “Really? What’s caused this sudden surge of do-gooding, then? The desire to please Brent?”

  “Possibly,” answered Rosamund. “The place was in rather a sorry state. Not exactly dirty, for Maria attended to that, but very dismal as to decorations and comfort.”

  Stephen drank half a glass of wine. “I like Brent. He seems a steady sort of chap, not the flirtatious kind, I think. It would suit me if he broke off. “No, it’s too soon to think about it.”

  Rosamund looked across at him. “What’s too soon?”

  “Oh, just a vague idea that occurred to me. Probably won’t come to anything anyway.”

  She did not pursue the matter. Stephen could be extremely stubborn over disclosures, whether professional or personal concerns. He would tell her in his own way in due course. But her own heightened perceptions where Brent was concerned led her into alarming conjectures. Was Stephen already visualising Brent as a husband for Erica?

  Rosamund dismissed the frightening thought and in the late afternoon went to see how Erica was getting on. The transformation was already amazing. Tomaso had supplied a gallon or two of whitewash and now the walls of the bedroom were, if not exactly snow-white, then much nearer to whiteness than the dull dark grey stonework.

  “It will probably need two coats,” suggested Rosamund.

  “One will have to do for now.” Erica brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I never realised just swinging a brush backwards and forwards could be so tiring.”

  “Let me have a go.” Rosamund took the brush, having first wrapped herself in one of Maria’s capacious aprons. Erica flopped for a few minutes in one of the chairs outside in the yard. Suddenly there was the noise of a car and Rosamund dithered, dropping a laden brush on to the floor. Had Brent come? What on earth would he say?

  But the two who stepped out of the car were Niccolo and Seppi.

  “You promised to come down to the beach,” protested Seppi to Rosamund. “Now we see you doing painter’s work.” Niccolo had pulled Erica gently to her feet and was gazing down at her with that admiring Latin look that always touched a responsive chord in Erica and sh
rilled a warning to Rosamund.

  “Sorry, Seppi,” apologised Rosamund airily. “I didn’t really promise, though.”

  Niccolo and Erica were already moving away towards the. main door of the villa.

  “Give me time to shower and dress and I’ll join you,” Erica called to Niccolo.

  “So now you will also put away your painting, Rosamund?” suggested Seppi, “and come for swimming by the shore?”

  “Just let me finish this part of the wall. Then I’ll come.”

  Seppi leaned patiently against a table. About a quarter of an hour went by and then there was the sound of a car driving off.

  “Niccolo,” said Seppi briefly. The older brother had taken the car round to the main door of the villa when Erica went indoors to dress.

  “I’ve nearly finished,” muttered Rosamund, wondering where Erica had gone or how long she was likely to be out. She was also asking herself what she was to do with Seppi. While she enjoyed his company, his youth made her feel rather like a maiden aunt.

  “A car is coming, but not Niccolo’s,” he called out. Rosamund came to the door. In no time at all the car swerved into the paved yard and Brent stepped out and slammed the door. Rosamund stared almost hypnotised as he came menacingly towards her.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded, his angry glance taking in the stacked furniture, the chaotic litter of books, cooking pots, curtains and ornaments. “Who’s responsible for this? Who gave you leave to fling my things out here?”

  “We’re giving the shack a lick of paint and tidying up.” Her words came out boldly, but inwardly she felt anything but confident. Indeed, she considered the whole decoration scheme an untimely plan and an unwarrantable intrusion into Brent’s privacy.

  “Then you might have had the courtesy to let me know beforehand that you were so eager to play the little woman and make me a sweet little nest.”

  She could have said that the idea was Erica’s, but after that whiplash tone, she was determined not to try to shift the blame.

  “Perhaps I could remind you that the cottage is part of the Delfino property and that, strictly speaking, my employer has some control over it.”

  “Agreed, as long as none of you imagine you have control over me,” he snapped.

  Her mouth curved in a smile, but her eyes held contempt. “That would be a contingency quite impossible to imagine!” She saw the hard lines of his face soften a little and the ghost of a smile hover around his lips. Aware that for the moment she had scored a point that had at least caused him to hesitate over his next reprimand, she rammed her advantage home.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll finish the job.” She inclined her head graciously towards him with a mock-polite gesture. “Otherwise it will be dark, and it would be a pity if all your belongings were left out here all night.”

  “And I suppose you’re going to manhandle all this lot by yourself?” He indicated the heavier furniture piled in a stack.

  “Seppi can help me if necessary.” She turned her back on Brent and went inside the cottage.

  “Seppi’s gone! So you’re on your own!”

  Of course, she might have foreseen that the boy would unobtrusively disappear. Let the English fight each other, he had probably reflected.

  She put a few more dabs of whitewash on the wall and decided that would have to do for the time being. She put down her bucket and brush outside, restraining a wild idea to fling the remaining whitewash over Brent. He was leaning against his car and smoking a thin cigar.

  He watched her take several smaller pieces of furniture inside.

  “There’s not much point in planting bits and pieces in the room until you get the bed inside,” he pointed out critically.

  “Perhaps if I stand here and wave a magic wand the bed will float in of its own accord,” she retorted. Not for anything would she ask for his help. If she couldn’t lug the bed into the cottage, it would have to stay outside all night.

  Suddenly she began to laugh at this vision of Brent sleeping in a bed outside his own front door.

  “Is the joke worth sharing?” he demanded.

  “You wouldn’t think so.”

  “It’s dangerous to measure my sense of humour by your own standard.”

  “Sense of humour?” she echoed innocently. “Have you one?”

  He gave her a quick look. Then, “Come on,” he said roughly. “Take this end while I hold the other.”

  “In your present mood you’re quite likely to drop one end on my toe.”

  “You’ll have to risk that!”

  “I should have asked someone for danger money at this game,” she muttered.

  “Who started the game?”

  Before she could think up a suitably crushing reply, he had stumbled backwards into a small chair, kicked it out of the way and sent it crashing against another chair containing a pile of books. The books slid into a heap on the floor.

  He straightened up resignedly. “Of all the fool places to put a chair!”

  Then he saw that she was laughing uncontrollably, her hand against her mouth, her shoulders heaving.

  “How dare you laugh at me!”

  “Why shouldn’t I? You’re like a—a bull in a china shop—and—and in a comic film at that.” She laughed afresh.

  He was on the floor picking up the books.

  “Comic film it may be—and perhaps we’re a pair of comic furniture movers, but—” Then he suddenly laughed.

  “In any case you can’t sleep here tonight,” she pointed out when she was calmer. “The walls are too damp.”

  “Why shouldn’t I sleep where I please? I didn’t ask you to make my walls damp.”

  “Don’t be silly! You’d get pneumonia.”

  He stood there with an armful of books. “Surely that would please you. You could then try your skill at nursing me. Oh, for the touch of your cool hand on my fevered brow!”

  She leaned over the ornamental ironwork of the bedhead. “Don’t try me too far!” she threatened mildly. “I might find other uses for my hand at this moment.”

  “Really? Such as?”

  “Let’s get on with the job. I don’t want to be fumbling about here in the dark.”

  “Afraid? Of what?”

  “Hobgoblins—and things that go bump in the night. Look! The leg’s come off that chair, so it isn’t safe to put the books on it again.”

  Although the bits and pieces of furniture looked a formidable pile outside, it was not long before Brent and Rosamund had straightened the two rooms in the cottage.

  Rosamund put back the curtains at the window.

  “There! All it wants is a little rug in the bedroom. I’ll see if I can find a spare one in the villa.”

  Brent stood gazing at her. “I suppose you couldn’t work me a sweet little sampler to hang over my bed. Something with a homely message—say ‘Bless this House’.”

  “I can think of several sharper messages for those who show such ingratitude for good intentions,” she returned.

  “Good intentions!” he echoed. “You’ve upset all my books, broken a chair, made the place too damp to be habitable—and you boast of your virtues!”

  “I’ll ask Maria to prepare a room for you in the villa.”

  “No, you’d better let me ask her,” he cut in hastily. “Heaven knows what I shall get if she’s at the mercy of your Italian.”

  “Have it your own way, but don’t blame me for your accommodation.”

  He laughed. “Don’t fret. I’m the apple of Maria’s eye!”

  “Good for you. Let’s hope —”

  “Yes, yes,” he interrupted her. “I know what you’re going to say. How long would it take you to clean yourself up? To show my forgiveness of all the chaos you’ve caused, I’ll take you to dinner in Taormina and if you can be civil to me for an hour or so, to a Sicilian cafe where they play and sing their own genuine island tunes.”

  Rosamund stared at him open-mouthed. “Stephen might want me to do some wo
rk.” She grabbed at the first excuse that came into her mind.

  “Rubbish! He doesn’t expect you to do your shorthand or typing at the dinner-table, does he?”

  “Well, perhaps if you’re feeling at a low ebb, I’ll come.” She hovered between sounding too eager to accept his casual invitation or perhaps depriving herself of a really interesting evening of Sicilian music.

  “Don’t keep me waiting more than half an hour,” he cautioned her. “And wipe the dabs of whitewash off your nose.”

  She had already turned to go, but now she flung back over her shoulder, “Any further instructions?”

  He grinned and shook his head.

  Under the shower, then changing into a new trouser suit of sapphire blue with a frilly white blouse, peering at herself in the mirror as she finished her make-up, Rosamund asked questions in her mind. Was it wise to allow herself to be appropriated like this for the evening when it happened that apparently Brent had no one else available? She did not want to give him the impression that she was pining for his company. Yet, to be honest, she was delighted at his invitation, although she knew she must control her emotions so as not to alarm him. She must learn to accept his casual invitations in the same spirit as he gave them and not view them as special favours.

  She found Stephen in his study. “I’m going out to dinner with Brent,” she announced, and was appalled to hear a note of bold defiance in her voice as though Stephen had challenged her. “He came for the week-end after all,” she added more gently.

  “But I thought—wasn’t Erica painting up the place?”

  Rosamund smiled. “Yes, but she went off with Niccolo hours ago. I don’t know whether she’ll be in to dinner. Perhaps she’ll telephone.”

  “I see. So I’m to eat alone. Dear me! It hasn’t taken long for you two girls to acquire escorts for dining and wining.”

  “Would you rather I stayed?” she queried, knowing her employer’s reply in advance, yet aware of a desire to forgo the evening with Brent, to sacrifice pleasure for duty and then be miserable over the consequences.