Daughter of Silence Page 11

  His depression was increased by the fact that there was no message from Ninette. There were, however, two other messages: a telegram from Carlo in Florence and a request to call Valeria Rienzi at a Siena number before eight that evening.

  Carlo’s telegram was brief and cryptic: ‘It was a joke, but I apologize. Have made progress. Further interviews San Stefano tonight. With client tomorrow morning. Please contact me Hotel Continentale midday tomorrow.’ Landon stuffed the telegram in his pocket and rang for the maid to draw him a bath.

  As he soaked himself in the ornate marble tub, he took stock of his situation. For a man on his sabbatical year he had surrendered too much of his freedom, too much of his personal interest, to a group of people in whom he had no stake at all. If the case of Anna Albertini were what it seemed to be – a text-book history – it would add nothing to his experience or his reputation. He could discharge his promise to Carlo Rienzi by writing him a summary of his own and Galuzzi’s conclusions and then indicating lines of questioning for the defence. To Ascolini he owed nothing but the courtesies of a guest. A polite note and a graceful gift would discharge them adequately. To Valeria he owed as much or as little as a summer kiss was worth.

  To Ninette? This was a different question. He was in love with her. He had told her he wanted to marry her. She had shied away from an answer. She had told him he was free to wait or to go. So now the question took a different shape. What did Peter Landon want? How much was he prepared to pay? What road would he walk in double harness?

  He was still piqued by Ninette’s failure to call him. He knew himself unreasonable in demanding so much of her, but when a man had had women at his beck for so many years the habit of demand was hard to break. There were other fears, too. If the lute was rifted so early and so easily, what sort of music would it play after a couple of years of marriage? Perhaps, after all, it was better to pack and go, resigning oneself’ to the cash guarantee of contentment. Happiness was a doubtful credit in any ledger, and who should know it better than a doctor of sick souls?

  Then, by swift reaction, his mood changed from irritation to recklessness. To the devil with them all! He was still free, white and long past the age of consent. He had spent enough of himself; he deserved a night on the town. And if a maid or matron wanted to be kissed, then why not oblige her and himself at the same time? The comic thought came to him that Ascolini would probably approve him heartily at that moment. He stepped out of the tub, dried himself with brisk satisfaction, dressed himself with extra care, and then sat down to telephone Valeria Rienzi.

  After a discreet interval she answered, grateful but reserved: ‘Peter? It’s kind of you to call. Could you spare me a little time this evening?’

  ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘Could you take me to dinner?’

  ‘Certainly. Where shall we meet?’

  She told him she was having cocktails with friends in an apartment on the Via del Capitano. She suggested that he call for her at eight-thirty and then take her to dinner at a nearby restaurant. He liked the idea of company at their first meeting, so he agreed. She thanked him with disarming courtesy and hung up.

  Moved by a vague impulse of guilt, he tried to telephone Ninette, but there was no answer from her studio. He felt resentful and then decided, with masculine naivete, that a little separation would be good for both of them. It was still only seven-thirty, so, having an hour to kill, he decided to deal with some of his neglected correspondence.

  As he worked through the pile of letters, he found himself bathed in a rosy glow of righteousness. He was a sensible fellow who knew where he was going, a sane citizen in credit with his banker, a professional who did noble service to his fellows. The rest – Ninette Lachaise excepted – was a provincial excursion, a pastoral interlude which would be forgotten as soon as it was ended.

  Then, without any warning, he found himself projected into one of those moods in which the terror and the mystery of life became suddenly manifest, when the most trivial actions revealed themselves as matters of cosmic consequence.

  He had presented a letter of introduction in Rome and now he was acting as unwilling catalyst in a drama of family intrigue. He had been charmed by a fledgling lawyer and was now to counsel him on the fate of his client. He had dined with a new woman, as he had done a thousand times before, and now was committed to the resolution of marriage, to the promise of children and the unending chain of human continuity. Now he was to dine with another, reckless but not wholly unaware that this meeting, too, might start another chain of consequences.

  It was a curious experience, like standing on a high mountain looking into a valley flooded with darkness. The valley was empty and soundless. One was solitary in eminence, a creature thrust up from nowhere, going to no place. Then a light pricked out, another and another. The moon rose and the valley was abruptly alive with man and all his works and one must, perforce, go down to join the concourse or die, in the cold election of pride, empty and naked.

  It was not good for man to be alone. But there was a price to pay for joining the pilgrim train and a tax for every day of the journey. One must break bread with tears and drink thin wine with gratitude. One must submit to be envied and hated as much as to be loved. And if the caravan did not arrive where the master first promised, then one must wear out the sojourn in the desert with resignation, if not with joy. This was the real terror of the human condition, that men were yoked one to another in an ineluctable bondage so that a. sickness in one might be a plague upon the whole fraternity and the guilt of a few make scapegoats of all. The small compassion might be a great affirmation and a petty injustice spread to a whole corruption.

  A comfortless thought for a summer evening in Tuscany. So he thrust it away and took himself off to dine with Valeria Rienzi.

  Give the lady her due, she had a singular charm and could be generous with it when she chose. She flattered him to her friends, but gave him no time to be bored with them. Then she handed him the keys of her car and had him drive her out beyond the walls of the old city to a country restaurant where they ate under a lattice of vines and drank wine pressed in the local vineyard. The wine was potent, there was a trio of sentimental musicians and within twenty minutes Landon was more relaxed and less cautious than he had been for days.

  Valeria, too, seemed grateful for the occasion and began to tease him good-humouredly: ‘It seems, Peter, that you’re beginning at last to enjoy yourself – a little drama, a little comedy, a little romance.’

  ‘It’s about time, don’t you think?’

  ‘Of course. But until tonight I would never have dared to say it.’ She pouted and frowned in comic mime. ‘Every time I talked with you I felt like a girl going to her confessor.’

  ‘Not tonight, I hope.’ Landon laughed and stretched out a hand to her across the table. ‘Let’s dance, and I’ll make my confession to you.’

  It was said lightly, but she held him to it with the same light touch. As they danced close and harmonious, as they sat sipping wine in the pale lamplight, she drew him out so that he talked freely about himself, his family, his career, and of the situation which had brought about his withdrawal from the London scene. Valeria was a good listener, and when she was not playing coquette she dispensed a warmth and a simplicity which he would not have believed in her. Later they talked about Carlo, and she asked him: ‘Do you still think he’s doing the right thing, Peter?’

  ‘I think it’s right for him: though he may win less than he hopes, I think it’s good that you and your father have decided to support him.’

  She gave him a swift, sidelong glance. ‘Do you think he cares at this moment whether we support him or not?’

  ‘I think he cares greatly, though he would not admit it for fear of seeming weak.’

  ‘Have you seen his client – this Anna Albertini?’

  ‘Yes, I had a long session with her this afternoon.’

  ‘What is she like?’

  ‘Young, beautiful – and q
uite lost, I think.’

  She gave a dry little laugh. ‘It would be funny if Carlo fell in love with her. Lawyers and doctors do fall in love with their clients, don’t they?’

  ‘I think Carlo’s in love with you, Valeria.’

  She shook her head. ‘Not that way, Peter. If I were a lame puppy, perhaps he might be. I know he believes that what he feels for me is love, but I’m afraid it’s not my kind. And you, Peter, are you in love with Ninette Lachaise?’

  It was as neat as a conjurer’s trick. A flick of the silk handkerchief and a white rabbit pops out of the empty hat while the conjurer smiles at his innocent audience. And Landon, caught unawares, was as innocent as the moths fluttering around the shaded lamps. He sidled away from the question. ‘Don’t rush me, Valeria. As you say, I’m just beginning to enjoy myself.’

  She reached out and patted his hand with sisterly approval. ‘That’s good, Peter. And I’m glad for you. It’s always best with an experienced woman. If it doesn’t work there are no complications, no regrets. Dance with me again. Then we must go.’

  After that it was all too easy. The languor of the night took hold of them and when they drove back to Siena she dozed with her head on his shoulder, comfortable as a cat. When they reached the Pensione della Fontana he asked her in for a last drink. She accepted drowsily. But when they were closed in the old room with its high coffered ceiling and its shadows of former loves, passion lifted them like a wave and set them down in darkness and tumult on the tumbled sheets.

  In the small morning hours, Landon woke to find her sitting on the edge of the bed fully dressed. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him on the lips. Then she smiled, and her smile was full of the old wisdom of women. ‘I’m happy now, Peter. I wanted you first, you know, and you’ll never be able to despise me again…. No, don’t say anything. It was good for me, and I think it may be good for you. I wanted to hurt you very much. Now I can’t. You needn’t be afraid of me any more. Carlo will never know, nor Ninette. But you and I won’t forget. Goodnight, darling. Sleep well!’

  She kissed him again and left him, and he lay wakeful until dawn, fumbling through the dictionary of his trade for words to describe what had happened to him.

  He was too old to panic like a youth after his first lapse with a married woman, but he was too experienced not to be honest about its consequences. There was a guilt in what he had done: a personal guilt, an injustice to Ninette, a greater one to Carlo Rienzi. He could blame no one but himself – and he could not afford the luxury of confession. So, with a consummate irony, he was forced back to the prescription which he imposed on all his patients: accept the guilt, know yourself for what you are, wear the knowledge like a Nessus shirt on your own back and bear the pricks and the poison with as much dignity as you can muster.

  He wore it all the morning. He tramped the city aimlessly, through sun-parched squares and stinking lanes. He drank too much coffee and smoked too many cigarettes. He cursed himself for a fool but found that he could not curse Valeria. He ended an hour before midday sitting alone in a pavement cafe, exhausted and humbled by the knowledge that this was a crisis in his life and that he was ill-prepared to meet it.

  He had travelled too far and too long not to know that there were twenty agreeable substitutes for the grand passion. One could survive contentedly with any one of them, as most folks survived without truffles for breakfast or champagne for every supper. The parched traveller was happy with a mug of water from the village pump and asked no sweeter or more magical spring. His life could extend itself into a succession of episodes like the one with Valeria, each episode becoming a shade more inconsequent as vitality diminished with the years. And if there were no ecstasy, at least there would be none of the painful commitments of love.

  Love was an exotic state, close kin to agony, but when a man had once endured it he was plagued ever after by the memory and the bitter nostalgia for the lost paradise. How many times could the world blow up? And after the one wild splendour, who could clap hands for fireworks and sex in suburbia?

  A romantic might make of this moment a tale of spiritual insight and noble resolution. But Landon was deficient in these things as he felt himself to be in so many others. He simply waited, stiff and tired, until calm came over him and he felt ready to face Ninette Lachaise.

  His heart was pounding and his hands were clammy as he climbed the stairs and knocked on the door of her studio. Ten seconds later she was in his arms, anxious and reproachful.

  ‘Chéri! Where were you all day yesterday? Why didn’t you call? I telephoned a dozen times this morning, but nobody knew where you were. We mustn’t do these things to each other! Not ever again – promise me!’ Then, sensing a strangeness in him, she held him at arm’s length and looked into his face. ‘Something’s happened, Peter. What is it?’

  The lie came out more easily than he had hoped. ‘Nothing’s happened, except that I’ve been a fool. I’m sorry. I was busy all yesterday. I telephoned you in the evening, but you weren’t at home. I went out on the town. I was angry and 1 shouldn’t have been. Forgive me?’

  He took her in his arms to kiss her, but she drew away, pale and cold as a statue, and walked over to the window. When at last she spoke, her voice sounded strained and hollow across the big room. ‘This is what I have been afraid of, Peter, the moment when what we have been comes to threaten what we want to be. This is why I wanted to wait and give our loving time to grow.’

  ‘Do you still want that?’ Studiously, he held himself back from her, held his voice neutral and reserved.

  ‘Yes, Peter, I do, but only if you want it as much as I. And you mustn’t lie to me, not ever. If there’s something you don’t want to tell me, keep it to yourself, but don’t lie. I’ll make you the same promise.’

  ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘Yes. I still want time, Peter, before we make up our minds to marry.’

  ‘How much time?’

  ‘Until after the trial.’

  ‘I’d hoped we might leave before then.’

  For the first time she turned to face him and he saw that she was fighting to hold control of herself. Her answer was very firm.

  ‘No, Peter. Don’t ask me to read you the whole book. But I think you know by now that you owe Carlo a debt and you won’t be happy till you pay it. I know I won’t either.’

  To which he had nothing to say, and he stood, shamed and irresolute, until she came to him and put her arms about him and he felt for the first time the promise of an unspoken absolution.

  It was a quarter after noon when Landon reached the Continentale. He found Rienzi in his shirt-sleeves, working through a sheaf of notes at a desk piled high with text-books. His face was grey, his eyes heavy with fatigue, and he was driving himself through the work with brandy and black coffee – a poisonous combination for a man already half drugged with body-toxin. Landon himself was tired, embarrassed and in no carnival humour, so he decided to share the poison. He poured himself a cup of coffee and two fingers of brandy, then stretched out on the bed while Rienzi talked.

  ‘We make progress, Peter. It’s slow, but at least we’re going in the right direction. I went to Florence, as you know. I talked to Luigi Albertini. He’s an insignificant little character and he’d been well coached by the police. However, as you guessed, he opened up a little when I asked him why his wife was still a virgin after four years of marriage.’ Rienzi grinned and mimicked the back-alley dialect of Florence: ‘“She didn’t want to. She thought it would hurt her. I took her to a doctor but he couldn’t do anything. What’s a fellow to do with a wife like that?” After that he closed up like a shellfish. I had the feeling he was hiding something else, but I couldn’t spare the time to find what it was. However, I wanted to keep him worried, so I paid a private investigator to dig up some more information about him. He’ll write me if he gets anything.’

  ‘You told me in your telegram you were going to San Stefano. Did you get anything new there?’
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  ‘Again, some progress. Fra Bonifacio wanted to see me. One of his penitents had come to him with a trouble of conscience. He wouldn’t tell me his name, but apparently it was someone who had been associated with Belloni in the Partisans. Fra Bonifacio told him that he had an obligation in conscience to reveal anything that would help the girl. He wanted time to think about it. If he decides to open up, Fra Bonifacio will get in touch with me immediately. I tried again to talk to Sergeant Fiorello but got nowhere. I’ve appointed another private investigator to scout the villages and see what he can dig up about Belloni’s war-time history. A man like that must have had some enemies…. And this morning I saw Anna.’

  ‘I saw her myself yesterday,’ said Landon.

  ‘I know. She told me. She was grateful that you and Galuzzi were so gentle with her.’

  ‘Apparently she was more communicative with you than she was with us.’ Landon grinned and sipped his brandy. Rienzi came over and sat on the edge of the bed. He asked anxiously: ‘What do you think, Peter? What does Galuzzi think?’

  ‘You rule out insanity,’ said Landon definitely. ‘There is evidence of trauma, obsession and other psychotic symptoms. Galuzzi wants more time to determine how far her condition reduces legal responsibility. I agree with him.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘What more do you want?’

  Rienzi began to pace the floor, running his fingers through his hair, talking in sharp, hurried sentences. ‘I’m looking for a place to stand, Peter, a position from which to fight. I’m horrified by what has been done to this girl – much more than by what she herself has done. You know what she’s like? Like someone who has lived all her life in one room, looking out of the same window on the same small garden. You know what she said to me today? “Now I can make love. Now I can begin to make Luigi happy.” How could she have known what she was doing? She’s like someone dropped on to a new planet!’