Daughter of Silence Read online

  She screamed and hit the brakes as a shadowy mass scrambled out of the ditch and ambled across the road in front. Ninette screamed, too, and threw herself against Landon. The wheels locked and they skidded in a sickening circle while the bumpers ripped open against the trunk of a roadside poplar. They ended, bruised and shaken, facing in the direction from which they had come. Ninette was breathless and trembling and Valeria sat slumped and sobbing over the steering-wheel. Landon was the first to recover. He said harshly: ‘That’s enough for tonight! We’re going back to the villa!’

  Valeria made no protest when he thrust her roughly out of the driver’s seat and took over the wheel. They were all silent through the rattling, grinding drive up the hill, and when they reached the house Landon gave Ninette a curt order: ‘Get her up to bed. Stay with her until I come. I’m going to talk to the old man!’

  Ninette opened her mouth to protest, but, seeing his white, angry face and his tight trap mouth, she thought better of it and, taking Valeria’s arm, she led her, submissive as a hospital patient, up the stairs to the bedroom.

  Ascolini was still sitting in the library, slumped in his chair, staring into emptiness with a glass of brandy half-drunk at his elbow. Landon gave him no greeting but launched at once into a bitter tirade: ‘This has got to stop, Doctor – all of it – now! If it doesn’t there will be death in your house before the week is out. All three of us were damn near killed on the road ten minutes ago. Valeria’s desperate. Carlo’s a drunken mess. And you’re sitting here feeling sorry for yourself because the bill collectors are in at last and you don’t want to pay the score. If you want to destroy yourselves this is the way to do it!’

  The old man lifted his white, lion mane and fixed Landon with a vague but hostile eye. ‘And why should you care, Landon, what happens to us? Death, dishonour, damnation, what the hell does it matter to you?’

  Landon’s anger drove him on. He thrust an accusing finger in the old man’s face and blazed at him: ‘Because I’ve got debts to pay, that’s why! To you, to Carlo, to Valeria. This is the only way I can pay them, and it’s the last chance I’ve got. It’s your last chance, too – and you know it! This is where it began – with you. If there’s any hope at all it’s in your hands. The bailiffs are in, my dear Doctor, and if you don’t pay they’ll tumble the house down about your ears!’

  He broke off, splashed brandy into a glass and drank it at one swallow while the old man stared at him with cold, resentful eyes. Finally, with a hint of the old sardonic humour, Ascolini asked: ‘And what’s the payment, eh, my friend? What’s the penance from our confessor? I’m too old to scourge myself in the market place and crawl to mass on my knees!’

  ‘You’re old, Doctor,’ said Landon with soft malice, ‘and you’ll soon be dead. You’ll die hated and leave nothing behind but an unhappy memory. Your daughter will make herself a whore to spite you. And the man who could breed children for your house will die barren because there’s no love to teach him better.’ Swiftly as it had come, the anger died in him and he turned away with a gesture of despair. ‘Damn it all! What more’s to be said? Nothing is good enough for your gratitude, nothing can humble you enough to beg what the rest of us would give our eyes for!’

  There was a long silence while the mantel clock ticked off the seconds like a death-watch beetle in the woodwork. Then, slowly, Ascolini heaved himself out of his chair and took a pace towards Landon. In a shaky, old man’s voice that still had in it a note of dignity, he said: ‘All right, Landon! You win. The old bull surrenders. Where does he go from here?’

  Slowly, Landon turned to face him and saw in his aged face so much of ravaged pride, so much of pain long hidden, that he felt himself stifled by the sudden rush of pity. He gave the old man a pale, crooked smile. ‘The first step is the hardest. After that it gets simpler all the time. A little loving, Doctor: a little tenderness, a little pity, and the grace to say one is sorry.’

  ‘You think it’s as easy as that?’ A ghost of a grin twitched the lips of the old cynic. ‘You overrate me, Landon. Now go to bed like a good fellow. A man has a right to be private before the last surrender!’

  When he left the old man, Landon walked out on to the terrace and lit a cigarette. The moon was riding high and magical over the mountains and from the recesses of the garden he heard, for the first time, the sweet lament of the nightingales. He stood stock-still, one hand resting on the cold stone of the balustrade, while the plangent song rose and fell in the still air. It was a ghostly music, echoing the plaint of dead lovers and the ardour of passions long cold. It was a lament for lost hopes and vanished illusions and words unsaid but now never to be spoken. And yet there was a peace in it and the cool absolution of time. The moon would wane and the song would lapse into the sad silence of the cypresses, but in the morning the sun would rise and the scent of the garden would waken again, and so long as one was alive there was the hope of morning and maturity.

  Not so long ago, he had come to this place, obsessed by the conviction of futility, convinced that the jargon of his trade was like a shaman’s incantation – a passport to eminence in the tribe, but a fruitless remedy for the manifold ills of the soul. Now, for the first time, he began to see a virtue in their use, a virtue in the experience he had gathered, and perhaps a small promise of virtue in himself.

  With Ascolini he had won a battle and paid one debt. But there were others still to be fought and he was grateful for the restoration of this hour of moonlight and nightingales. He finished the cigarette and then walked slowly upstairs to Valeria’s room.

  She was in bed, propped against the pillows, her face pale, her eyes absorbed in the painful self-contemplation of the sick. Ninette was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing Valeria’s hair. Landon stood at the foot of the bed, looking from one to the other, and groping for the words he needed. To Ninette he said affectionately: ‘I want you to go to bed, sweetheart, Valeria and I have things to talk about. I’ll come in to see you before I go to sleep.’

  Ninette Lachaise nodded agreement, but he caught a swift flash of resentment in her eyes. She bent and kissed Valeria and then kissed Landon too. ‘Don’t be too late, chéri!’ There was a note of caution which belied the lightness of her tone. ‘I’ll be waiting up for you.’

  She left him then and Landon sat down on the side of the bed. Valeria Rienzi watched him, half curious, half afraid. Landon said, with professional casualness: ‘It’s been a rough day, hasn’t it?’

  Her eyes filled up with weak distressful tears, but she did not answer. Landon talked on, skirmishing round his theme, lest any injudicious word might destroy the relationship between them.

  ‘I know how you’re feeling, girl, because I feel with you. I know the danger you’re in, because I’ve been dealing a long time with hurt minds. You had a look at death tonight, but at the last minute you drew back. If you get reckless and take another look, you may wait a second too long. After that – kaput! There’s a cure for most things, but not for the kiss of the Dark Angel. You’re asking yourself why I care what you do. I’ll tell you. There was a night we had – and there was good in it, because there was some love. Not enough for a lifetime, perhaps, but enough for that little while. So I care! And there’s more. I’m a physician. People come to me with soul-sickness and heart-sickness, but most of them come too late when the sickness has a hold and won’t let go. You’re not sick, yet. You’re hurt and tired and lonely in a dark country. I’m offering you a hand to hold while you walk out of it.’

  He could see the war in her: need and defiance struggling for the first utterance. She closed her eyes and lay back, dumb on the piled pillows. Landon laid a firm hand on her wrist.

  ‘There are two ways you can have it. You can fill yourself with sleeping pills and wake in the morning with the ghosts still sitting on the bed. Or you can talk the troubles out and let someone else cut them down to size for you. Me, for instance. I know all the words – even the dirty ones.’ He laughed softly. ‘There’s
no fee. And if you want to cry, I can lend you a clean handkerchief.’

  She opened her eyes and looked at him in doleful wonderment. ‘You really mean that?’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘But what happens then? Do you gather me up and put me together again? Do you fill up all the empty places where there’s no me at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you pat me on the head and tell me I’m forgiven, provided I’m a good girl in future?’

  ‘Not that either.’

  ‘Do you teach my father to love me and Carlo to want me for a wife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what do you give, Peter? For God’s sake, what do you give me?’

  ‘Courage and a strong back! For the rest you need God Almighty. But without courage you won’t find Him either. Well…it’s the best offer I can make. Do you want to talk or do you want a sedative capsule?’

  She broke then, and began to pour herself out, in tears first and then in a flood of talk, sometimes wild and incoherent, sometimes tragically lucid. Landon listened, prompted, probed and wondered, as he always did, at the miscellany of faces one human being could wear. Bitch, lover, liar, mother, mistress and lady in a mirror, small girl sitting on a father’s knee and selling him the world for a kiss. In one night, or in a month of nights, there was no time to read even a single one of them. What he was attempting now was not a clinical analysis but the dispensation of a simple mercy: to conjure away grief for a few hours, to plant a hope that he knew might not survive the first dawn.

  Finally the torrent of talk spent itself, and Valeria lay back, exhausted but calm and ready for sleep. Landon bent and kissed her lightly on the lips and she responded with a sleepy murmur. Then, bone-weary, he went to his own room.

  Ninette Lachaise was sleeping fully dressed on his bed. He slipped off coat and shoes and tie and lay down beside her. She stirred and muttered and threw her arm across his breast, then he too lapsed into sleep with her lips brushing his cheek. When he woke, she was no longer there and it was, once again, high noon in Tuscany.

  When Landon came downstairs he found the villa bathed in a glow of triumph and familial unity. The maid-servant sang as she polished the furniture, the old gate-keeper whistled as he raked the gravelled drive, Ninette and Valeria were picking flowers in the garden, while Ascolini and Carlo Rienzi sat at coffee on the terrace working through a stack of newspapers and a pile of congratulatory telegrams.

  They greeted him smiling. Ascolini rang for fresh coffee and then launched himself into an enthusiastic tally of Rienzi’s successes. ‘It is magnificent, Landon – like a great night at the opera. Read for yourself what they say. “A forensic victory …”…“a vindication of the noblest principles of justice”…“a new star in the legal firmament”. I haven’t seen anything like it for twenty years. And these.’ He waved expansively at the pile of telegrams. ‘Our colleagues in Rome are delighted. From this moment Carlo can have his choice of a dozen major cases. I’m proud of him. He has made me eat my words but I’m proud of him.’

  Rienzi himself was flushed with pleasure. His face had lost its pinched and anxious look and he too launched into voluble compliments. ‘It’s your success, too, Peter. Without your counsel I should not have done half so well. I’m fortunate in my teachers, and, believe me, I know it.’ Then, with boyish awkwardness, he made his apology. ‘I’m sorry about last night. I hadn’t eaten all day and I was very drunk.’

  Ascolini laughed indulgently. ‘A bagatelle, my boy! Forget it. I’ve seen better men than you carried to bed after smaller occasions. Besides, it’s the future we have to think of. Before you came, Landon, we were discussing a partnership for Carlo. I’m not quite ready to pack up yet, but I will be soon. And then he can have the whole practice. But I still have a few lessons to give him, eh, my boy?’

  There was so much patent good will between them that Landon wondered for a moment whether he had not read too much drama into the events of the night. Then Carlo said, casually enough: ‘I had a call from Galuzzi this morning. They’re transferring Anna today to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. He says I can visit her this afternoon. I was wondering, Peter, if you’d like to come with me.’ He gave a deprecating smile and added: ‘I know how much I’ve asked of you, Peter, believe me. Valeria told me you and Ninette were getting married, and I know you want to be gone as soon as possible. But I would appreciate it if you’d take a last professional look at Anna.’

  ‘If you like, of course, though I think there’s nothing I can add to Galuzzi’s knowledge. He’s a good man. I would have great confidence in him.’

  ‘I know. But he is, after all, a government official. I’d appreciate a little private guidance.’

  ‘How would Galuzzi feel about my visit?’

  ‘He’s already approved it. Please come, Peter. We can leave about three o’clock and we’ll be back here by five.’

  ‘Valeria and I will look after Ninette,’ said Ascolini. ‘We shall all dine together tonight and then we shall send you away with our love.’

  It was all so simple and bland that Landon almost missed the point. Carlo needed a privacy with the girl. Ascolini needed Ninette as his ally with Valeria. Galuzzi was shrewd enough to want a monitor for this first crucial meeting between the advocate and the client whom he had started on the dubious road to freedom. They were still using him and there would be no freedom until Ninette and himself had left this home of troubled souls and made their own retreat in the green hills of Frascati.

  The first touch of autumn was in the air as Landon and Rienzi drove out along the Arezzo road to the Hospice of the Good Shepherd. Carlo’s good humour seemed to have deserted him and he was fretful and preoccupied. When they reached the first high ridges he swung the car off the road into a craggy indentation from which the land fell steeply away into a wild and sombre valley. When they stopped, he produced cigarettes, lit one for Landon and one for himself, and then began to talk in the nervous, staccato fashion of a man too long deprived of intimacy.

  ‘We have time to talk, Peter. There are things I want to discuss with you.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Valeria first. I’m sorry and ashamed for what happened last night, but in fact what I said was all true. I have no feeling for her any more. More than ever, at this time, I need a good marriage. I know what’s going to happen. My career’s going up like a balloon. You know what that means as well as I do. Pressure, demands, labour – from which there is no retreat. Without some kind of love in my life I shall be spending without renewal – a bankrupt’s course. An understanding mistress would help, but I have not that either. I’m lonely, Peter. I feel old and empty beyond my years.’

  His self-pity irritated Landon, but, remembering his debt, he tried still to be gentle. ‘Look, Carlo. This kind of reaction is the most natural thing in the world. You’ve just fought a tremendous case. The pendulum is bound to swing back from triumph to depression. Don’t be too hasty. Why don’t you and Valeria give it another try?’

  Rienzi’s face hardened and he shook his head. ‘We’ve forgotten the words, Peter. For me, too many nights in a cold bed. For her, too many other beds. Where do you start after that?’

  Landon gave him Ninette’s answer first. ‘Someone has to make the first step and say “Sorry”. I suggest it should be you.’

  ‘And after that? How do you wipe out the waste and the hurt and all the memories?’

  Landon gave him another answer to that, blunt and bawdy as anger could make it. ‘You live with them, brother! You live with them and learn to be grateful for what you’ve salvaged. Damn it, Carlo! You’re a big boy now! What do you want? A new book every night with the pages uncut and nothing written on them anyway? A new maidenhead every bedtime and people cheering when you hang out the sheets in the morning? Where’s the comfort in that, for God’s sake? It’s a twelve-hour wonder-and a tedious business at best!’

  To his surprise, Rienzi laughed. ‘At least you haven’t forgotte
n the words, Peter!’

  ‘Neither have you. Neither has Valeria.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll never understand.’ Rienzi smoked in silence for a few moments and then said, more calmly: ‘You give me small credit, Peter. I’m not going to toss my cap over the windmill. I’m not going to go chasing the little models on the Via Veneto. I’m not built that way. I wish I were. Believe it or not, I’ve almost resigned myself to the situation. Convenient marriage is a very old institution in this country. Valeria can do what she wants so long as she’s discreet about it. For myself, I can begin to see a kind of purpose in my life. Not wholly satisfactory, perhaps, but in part, yes.’