Читать книгу The Man from Tuscany - Catherine Spencer - Страница 8

S OMETHING was definitely amiss. Anna Wexley was a creature of habit, and asking Carly to drop everything and visit her on a weekday morning was a marked departure from the usual. A critical care nurse, Carly knew how precariously balanced her grandmother’s health was, and how little it would take to tip the scales against her. For that reason alone, she wasted no time driving out to Allendale House, the elegant old mansion that was now a retirement residence, where Anna had lived for the past several years.

At first glance, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. No ambulance waited in the paved forecourt, and the French doors to her grandmother’s suite, directly above the building’s main entrance, stood ajar. A good sign, surely, on this warm June morning, because Anna loved sitting on her balcony, listening to the birds and enjoying the distant view of Block Island Sound.

Better yet, no sympathetic voices greeted Carly when she signed in at the front desk. Nor, when her grandmother answered her door, was there any overt hint of trouble. Anna had obviously visited the residence beauty salon earlier, and wore the pretty pleated skirt and white blouse Carly had given her the previous Christmas. With pearl studs in her ears and, as always, her gold filigree heart pendant, she looked remarkably well put-together for an eighty-three-year-old with a history of congestive heart failure. On closer examination, though, Carly saw that although her face lit up with pleasure at the sight of her granddaughter, Anna’s eyes glowed with a feverish agitation that was anything but normal.

Folding her in a careful hug, Carly said, “You seemed upset on the phone, Gran. Has something happened?”

“I suppose it has,” Anna replied tremulously. “Come sit on the balcony and have a glass of lemonade, while I try to explain.”

Following her outside, Carly urged her onto the wicker love seat, sat down next to her and pressed two fingers to her grandmother’s inner wrist. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain? Any difficulty breathing?”

“Not at all, darling girl. I’ve decided to go to Italy, that’s all, and I want you to make the travel arrangements.”

“Italy?” Subduing the impulse to blurt out At your age and in your state of health? Carly asked instead, “Why Italy, Gran?”

“There’s someone there I very much want to see.”

Instincts on high alert again, Carly inspected her critically. “Are you talking about a doctor?”

“No, no. Nothing like that.” Her grandmother indicated a leather-bound scrapbook lying open on the wicker coffee table in front of her. “I want to visit him. ”

Carly scooped the book onto her lap, frowning at the grainy photograph of a man in his twenties. “Who’s he?”

Anna sighed and traced her forefinger over his features. “It would be easy for me to lie and say he’s just an old family friend, but I can’t bring myself to belittle what we’ve always meant to each other, so I’ll tell you the truth. He’s the great love of my life, Carly.”

This time, Carly couldn’t hide her shock. “But he can’t be. He’s not Grandpa!”

“No, precious, he’s not.”

Although she seemed in complete command of her faculties, Carly wondered if her grandmother was losing it. Had the distant and more recent past merged into one gauzy memory in which neither people nor time were clearly defined anymore? “This is an old photograph, Gran,” she pointed out gently. “Do you remember when it was taken?”

“Of course I do. Right before the outbreak of World War Two.”

“Ah! So what you’re really saying is, this man was your first love, but Grandpa was your real love.”

“Your grandfather was my husband and I was devoted to him, but not even he could take Marco’s place in my heart.”

“That name rings a bell. Didn’t he visit you once in England, when Mom was little?”

“Yes. He came all the way from Italy to be with me at a time when I desperately needed him.”

“Italy?”

“Well, yes, dear,” her grandmother said. “Why else do you think I want to go there? Marco lives in Tuscany.”

“Oh, Tuscany!” Carly shrugged disparagingly. “It’s such a cliché. Everyone goes there.”

“Not when I first met him. It hadn’t been discovered then. And we were never a cliché.”

“What were you, then?” She knew she sounded as defiant as a child who’d just learned Santa Claus wasn’t real, but she couldn’t help herself.

“We were…magnificent.”

“Did you sleep with him?” Carly chose the word deliberately, intending it as a belittlement of what her grandmother and this man had shared.

Anna shot her a reproving look. “Yes, I did. And made glorious love with him, too.”

“I thought that sort of behavior was frowned on back then. That girls from good families like yours saved themselves for their husbands. If he was so wonderful, why didn’t he marry you?”

“He would have, if—”

“If he’d loved you as much as you loved him?”

“Oh, he loved me, Carly. He adored me.”

Hating how she felt inside—betrayed somehow, and almost angry with her grandmother for shattering her illusions of one big, happy family—Carly spread her hands helplessly. “Was he already married, then? Was that the problem?”

“No. I was the problem.” Anna’s voice broke. “I didn’t have enough faith in us, and by the time I learned my mistake, it was too late.”

“Oh, Gran! Is he dead? Is it his grave you want to visit?”

Her grandmother shook her head, making her thinning white hair float delicately over her scalp. “No. Not that death changes the things that matter…the eternal things. One day, I’ll be with him forever, and with your grandfather, too. But before that, I want to hold his hand and look in his eyes once more, and tell him again how much I’ve always loved him.”

Carly watched her in silence, then glanced away. “I’ve always sensed there was some deep, dark secret that no one in the family ever talked about,” she said hollowly, “but not in a million years would I have guessed it was something like this.”

“Are you disappointed in me, Carly?”

She shrugged. “In some ways, I guess I am. You and Grandpa always seemed so solid. Mostly, though, I’m confused. Once or twice I’ve thought I was in love, but it didn’t last. But you and this Marco—how many years has it been, Gran?”

“Going on sixty-five.”

“How could you bear to be apart from him?”

“Sometimes I didn’t think I could. But then I’d think of what I’d have to give up in order to be with him—my dear Brian, my daughter and you, my beautiful granddaughter. And I couldn’t bear that, either, because I loved you. You bring me such joy, Carly, and I am so proud to be your grandmother. From the day you were born, we’ve had a special connection, one I treasure beyond price.”

“If he loved you as much as you say, he must have resented me for that.”

“No. Marco understood that, for as long as they needed me, my family had to come first.”

“And he went on loving you anyway?”

“Yes. Neither of us ever had a moment’s doubt about the other.”

“How do you recognize love when it comes along, Gran?”

“When it consumes you,” Anna said.

Intrigued despite herself, Carly took her hand. “Tell me about him, Gran. Make me understand.”

A breeze drifted over the balcony, scented with thyme and oregano from the herb garden. Anna closed her eyes and smiled dreamily. “I met him the summer I turned eighteen….”

“I WISH I WAS COMING with you,” my mother said, layering tissue paper over the clothes in my travel trunk before closing the lid. “But you and Genevieve are such good friends that you won’t miss me too much, and with my sister chaperoning, I know you’ll be in safe hands.”

It was July 6, 1939. My cousin, my aunt and I would take the train to New York the next day, and on the eighth, set sail aboard the Queen Mary for Southampton. Originally my mother had planned to make the trip, as well, but ten days earlier, my father had undergone an emergency appendectomy. So she’d decided to stay home to supervise his recovery.

At first, I’d wanted to beg off traveling, too. Seeing my strong, active father confined to a wheelchair and looking so wan had frightened me. But neither he nor my mother would hear of it.

“Of course you must go,” they said. “It’s expected of girls like you.”

My father, you see, was Hugh Edward Leyden, a respected lawyer; my mother, the former Isabelle Jacqueline Fontaine, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, active on the board of directors of the Rhode Island Junior League and a prominent Newport society hostess.

As I was their only child, they had great hopes for me to marry well and make them proud. In the 1930s, not a great deal else was required of privileged daughters. If they’d attended the right schools, knew which fork to use, were mannerly, had traveled abroad, could speak a little French or Italian and gave of their time to worthy causes, they were considered a credit to their families.

So there I was, poised to leave on a limited version of the grand tour. Normally we’d have visited several countries, among them Germany and Spain, but Europe was in turmoil and it was decided we were safer to confine ourselves to Italy. We were to “do” Florence, Venice, Milan and Rome, and finish with a few days in Paris if the political climate allowed. At the end of August, I would return home, my enduring passion for great art at least partially satisfied, my exposure to the rich and varied culture of Italy an added bonus to my already sterling pedigree.

The morning we left, our good friends and next-door neighbors, John and Elaine Wexley and their son, Brian, joined my parents on the front terrace to wave us on our way. Brian was twenty-four and home from college for the summer, but despite the six-year age difference between us, we’d been as close as brother and sister since childhood.

“I’m going to miss you,” he said, giving me a hug. “Have a wonderful trip, Anna, and stay safe.”

Saying goodbye to my family was a tearful business. My mother and I wept unashamedly. My father composed his features into such stern lines that I knew he, too, was struggling to keep his emotions in check.

“Ye gods, Anna!” Genevieve exclaimed, at last managing to pry me away from them and stuff me in the car that was to take us to the railroad station. “Anyone would think you were never coming home again. I hope you’re not going to weep your way across the Atlantic. I’m told life on board the Queen Mary is one long, glamorous party and I shall take great exception if you’re being dreary the whole time.”

I smile in reminiscence….

“And were you?” Carly asked. “Dreary, I mean?”

H ER GRANDMOTHER laughed. “Oh, no! The minute we boarded the ship, excitement replaced homesickness. We’d heard about the kind of comfort the Cunard Line offered its first-class passengers, but nothing could have prepared us for the luxury. It was said that no two staterooms were alike, and I well believe it. Ours was fitted with inlaid wood paneling and the most wonderful art-deco furnishings. Next door, Aunt Patricia was surrounded by such a wealth of elegance that she hardly ever ventured from her quarters except for meals—which fell in perfectly with Genevieve’s plans.”

“Genevieve must’ve been fun. I wish I’d known her.”

“My cousin was a hellion!” Anna said with fond nostalgia. “You won’t remember her, Carly. She died twenty-one years and three husbands ago, when you were only three, but even all these years later, I smile when I think of her on that ship. Half the crew and most of the male passengers were in love with her before we sailed out of New York. Before we reached Southampton, she’d turned down five marriage proposals and broken more hearts than all the other women onboard put together.”

“And what about you, Gran? How many proposals did you receive?”

Anna laughed again. “Oh, Carly, no one noticed me! I was merely the quiet cousin, pleasant enough in my way, but not nearly as vivacious or memorable as Genevieve.”

“How unfair!”

“Not at all. I didn’t lack for escorts by day or for dance partners in the evening. I just didn’t inspire grand passion, that’s all—at least, not until we arrived in Florence and I met Marco.”

“What made him different?” Carly wondered aloud. “Was it that he noticed you and not her?”

“For a start, she wasn’t with me that day. I spent the morning roaming the halls of the Pitti Palace, but she had no interest in art galleries and wanted to go shopping. By then, Aunt Patricia realized that, left to her own devices, Genevieve was likely to run off with the first handsome Italian who caught her eye. I, on the other hand, was comme il faut, and could be relied upon to behave appropriately without being chaperoned every minute of the day. So, as much to preserve her own sanity as to protect her daughter’s reputation, wherever Genevieve went, Aunt Patricia went, too.”

The irony of the situation did not escape Carly, and she couldn’t resist a grin. “Leaving you, the good girl, free to have an illicit affair right under your aunt’s nose. Did she never suspect what you were up to?”

“Never. As far as she knew, I spent my days absorbing the history of the city and improving my Italian. I was always back at the hotel in time to change for dinner and always spent the evening with her and Genevieve.”

“And the nights?”

“Well…” A delicate flush tinted her grandmother’s cheeks.

Amused despite herself, Carly said, “Don’t tell me you snuck out every night as soon as poor old Aunt Patricia hit the sack, and Genevieve covered for you?”

“Not quite every night.”

But often enough for an unprincipled rat to put the moves on her naive and trusting grandmother! “So how did you meet this Marco? Was he trolling the halls of the Pitti Palace, looking for innocent young American girls to seduce?”

“He was doing nothing of the sort,” Anna said sharply. “I met him over lunch at an outdoor trattoria. He was at the table next to mine. I had trouble explaining to the waiter what I wanted to order, Marco overheard and stepped in to translate….”

T HE MENU overwhelmed me. Too much to choose from, and the plate of linguine covered with herb sauce the waiter set before me wasn’t what I thought I’d asked for. I hadn’t acquired a taste for pasta at that point. We never ate it at home. “No, grazie,” I told him, searching my little phrase book. “Voglio qualcosa…luce.”

“Luce?” He eyed me doubtfully.

“L…i…g…h…t,” I enunciated, slowly and very distinctly, the way English-speaking tourists tend to do when abroad and confronted by a foreign language. “I…want…something…light.”

“Ah, si! Capisco!” He reached into his vest pocket and produced a small box of matches. “Sigarette.”

“No!” I exclaimed, shocked by the very idea. “ Non sigarette. No fumo— I don’t smoke.”

The waiter threw up his hands, completely at a loss.

To my right, a chair scraped over the piazza’s ornately patterned paving stones, and another voice, deep and confident, joined the conversation. “ Per favore, signorina, may I help?”

I looked up and there he was—tall, dark, handsome and able to speak English. “Yes, please!” I replied fervently. “All I want is a light meal. But not a salad,” I was quick to add. I’d been warned to avoid any uncooked foods that had been washed in local water. “Just something…small.” I gestured at the linguine. “It’s too hot for a heavy meal like this.”

“I understand perfectly.” He engaged the waiter in discussion, and with nothing better to do, I simply stared at my gallant rescuer. He was perhaps five feet ten or eleven, with a slim, but powerful build, thick black hair that gleamed under the sun, and a face that left me dry-mouthed and reaching for my glass of acqua minerale ….

“A ND THE NEXT MOMENT , he asked if he could join you,” Carly observed dryly.

“Actually I asked him. It seemed the mannerly thing to do, considering how helpful he’d been. My Italian was obviously minimal, but his English was excellent. We struck up a conversation and when he discovered my interest in the historical buildings and churches of Florence, he offered to introduce me to his city.”

Carly rolled her eyes. “How original!”

“I thought he was very kind—not to mention knowledgeable. He was an architect, you see, and well qualified to give me a guided tour.”

“Right! And show you his etchings while he was at it.”

“Carly!”

“Well, you can’t blame me for wondering! So how long before you decided you were in love with him?”

“About five minutes.”

“Oh, come on, Gran! You don’t mean that.”

“I do. It really was love at first sight, for both of us. Parafulmine, Marco called it. A lightning bolt without the thunder. Fate’s way of letting us know we were meant to be.”

Unprincipled and smooth-talking, as well. Carly couldn’t repress the cynical thought. “Did he try to kiss you that first day?”

“He did better than that,” her grandmother said, fondling her gold heart pendant. “He proposed.”

“He did not!”

“He did. ‘Will you marry me, Anna?’ he said. And I said I would.”

Carly glanced again at the photograph. “Well, he was definitely attractive. I can see how you might’ve fallen for his good looks.”

“Oh, he was so much more than just a handsome face. He was beautiful on the inside, and he brought out the very best in me. That’s why I need to see him again, Carly. I need to tell him that, despite all the things that went wrong and all the tears we’ve both shed, I have never for a moment regretted loving him.”

“So it wasn’t all moonlight and roses, then?”

Her grandmother gazed off into the distance, seeming pursued by memories. “No,” she said slowly. “Sometimes it was pure hell, and I don’t know how we survived. But nothing could put a dent in my certainty that he was my other half and we would have our happy-ever-after ending.”

“So what happened?”

“The war,” Anna said. “Let’s go for a breath of fresh air in the garden, precious, and I’ll tell you all about it.”