When Mary opened her eyes she saw Nina standing by her side.
"What is it?" she asked sleepily.
"It's very late, Signora. The Signora has to be in the Villa Bolognese at one and its twelve already."
Suddenly Mary remembered and a pang of anguish pierced her heart. Wide awake now, she looked at the maid. She was as usual smiling and friendly. Mary gathered her wits together.
"I couldn't get to sleep again after you woke me. I didn't want to lie awake the rest of the night, so I took a couple of my little tablets."
"I'm very sorry, Signora. I heard a sound and I thought I'd better come and see if anything was wrong."
"What sort of a sound?"
"Well, like a shot. I remembered the revolver that the Signore had left with you, and I was frightened."
"It must have been a car on the road. At night sound travels so far. Get me a cup of coffee and then I'll have my bath. I shall have to hurry."
As soon as Nina left the room Mary jumped up and went to the drawer in which she had hidden the revolver. For one moment she had been afraid that Nina had found it while she lay fast asleep and taken it away. Her husband Ciro could have told her at once that a chamber had been discharged. But the revolver was still there. While she waited for her coffee she reflected intently. She saw why Rowley had insisted that she should go to that luncheon party. There must be nothing in her behaviour that was not quite natural; for his sake now as well as for her own she trust be careful. She felt infinitely grateful to him. He had kept cool, be had thought of everything; who would have thought that that idle waster had so much grit in him! What would have happened to her if he hadn't kept his head when the drunken Italians in the car had come upon them at the most dangerous moment? She sighed. Perhaps he wasn't a very useful member of society, but he was a good friend; no one could deny that.
When Mary had had a cup of coffee and her bath, when she sat at her dressing-table and arranged her face, she began to feel much more herself. It was astonishing to see that notwithstanding what she bad gone through, she looked no different. All that terror, all those tears had left no trace. She looked alert and well. Her honey-coloured skin showed no sign of fatigue; her hair shone and her eyes were bright. She felt a certain excitement steal over her; it gave her a kick to look forward to that luncheon where she would have to give a performance of high spirits and careless gaiety which would lead them all to say when she left: Mary was in wonderful form today. She had forgotten to ask Rowley if he had accepted the invitation he had said he had got; she hoped he would be there, it would give her confidence.
At last she was ready to go. She took a last glance at herself in the mirror. Nina gave her a fond smile.
"The Signora is looking more beautiful than I've ever seen her."
"You mustn't flatter me so much, Nina."
"But it's true. A good sleep has done you good. You look like a girl."
The Atkinsons were middle-aged Americans who owned a large and sumptuous villa which had once belonged to the Medici, and they had spent twenty years collecting the furniture, pictures and statues which made it one of the show places of Florence. They were hospitable and they gave large parties. When Mary was shown into the drawing room, with its Renaissance cabinets, its Virgins by Desiderio de Settignano and Sansovino, and its Perugino and Filippino Lippi, most of the guests were already there. Two footmen in livery were walking about, one with a tray of cocktails and one with a tray of things to eat. The women were pretty in the summer dresses they had been to Paris to buy, and the men, in light suits, looked cool and easy. The tall windows were open on a formal garden of clipped box, with great stone vases of flowers symmetrically placed and weather-beaten statues of the Baroque period. On that warm day of early June there was an animation in the air which put everyone in a good humour. You had a sensation that no one there was affected by anxiety; everyone seemed to have plenty of money, everyone seemed ready to enjoy himself. It was impossible to believe that anywhere in the world there could be people who hadn't enough to eat. On such a day it was very good to be alive.
Coming into the room Mary was acutely sensitive to the general spirit of cheerful goodwill that greeted her, but just that, that heedless pleasure in the moment, shocking her like the sudden furnace heat when you came out of the cool shade of a narrow Florentine street on to a sun-baked square, gave her a sharp, cruel pang of dismay. That poor boy was even now lying under the open sky on a hillside over the Arno with a bullet in his heart. But she caught sight of Rowley at the other end of the room, his eyes upon her, and she remembered what he had said. He was making his way towards her. Harold Atkinson, her host, was a fine, handsome, grey-haired man, plethoric and somewhat corpulent, with an eye for a pretty woman, and he was fond of flirting in a heavy, fatherly way with Mary. He was holding her hand now longer than was necessary. Rowley came up.
"I've just been telling this girl she's as pretty as a picture," said Atkinson, turning to him.
"You're wasting your time, dear boy," drawled Rowley, with his engaging smile. "You might as well pay compliments to the Statue of Liberty."
"Turned you down flat, has she?"
"Flat."
"I don't blame her."
"The fact is, Mr Atkinson, that I don't like boys," said Mary, her eyes dancing. "My experience is that no man's worth talking to till he's fifty."
"We must get together some time and go into this matter," answered Atkinson. "I believe we've got a lot in common."
He turned away to shake hands with a guest who had just arrived.
"You're grand," said Rowley in an undertone.
The approving look in his eyes encouraged her, but notwithstanding she could not help giving him a frightened, harassed glance.
"Don't let up. Think of yourself as an actress playing a part."
"I always told you I had no talent for the stage," she answered, but with a smile.
"If you're a woman you can act," he retorted.
And that is what she did during the luncheon to which they soon sat down. On her right was her host, and she carried on with him a laughing flirtation, which amused and flattered him; and with her neighbour on the other side, who was an expert on Italian art, she talked of the Sienese painters. Society in Florence is not very large and several of the people were there who had been at the dinner the night before. Princess San Ferdinando, who had been her hostess, was on Atkinson's right This occasioned an incident which nearly robbed Mary of her composure. The old lady leant across the table to address Mary.
"I was just telling the Count about last night ." She turned to Atkinson. "I'd asked them to come and dine at Peppino's to hear a man who's got a marvellous voice and, would you believe it, he wasn't there!"
"I've heard him," said Atkinson. "Mrs Atkinson wants me to pay for his training. She thinks he ought to sing in opera."
"Instead they had the most awful fiddler. I talked to Peppino. He says he's a German refugee and he only gave him a chance out of charity. He said he wouldn't have him again. You remember him, Mary, don't you? He was quite impossible."
"He didn't play very well."
She wondered if her voice sounded as unnatural to the others as it did to herself.
"That's putting it mildly," said the Princess. "If I played the fiddle like that I'd shoot myself."
Mary felt she must say something. She gave her shoulders a little shrug.
"It must be very difficult for people like that to find anything to do."
"It's a bad business," said Atkinson. "Young chap, was he?"
"Yes, hardly more than a boy," returned the Princess. "He had quite an interesting head, hadn't he, Mary?"
"I didn't pay very much attention to him," she replied. "I suppose they have to dress them up in those absurd clothes. I didn't know he was a refugee. You know, now I feel rather badly about it. I suppose it's because I made such a fuss that Peppino said he'd fire him. I wonder if I could get hold of him, I might give him two or three hundred lire to carry on with till he finds another job."
They went on talking about him interminably. Mary shot a distressed glance at Rowley, but he was at the other end of the table and did not see her. She had to cope with the situation , alone. At last, mercifully, the conversation changed. Mary felt exhausted. She continued to talk of one thing and another, to laugh at her neighbour's jokes, to feign interest, to seem to enjoy herself; and all the time at the back of her mind, so vividly that it was like seeing a play on the stage, all the events of the previous night, from beginning to end, unfolded themselves before her tortured memory. She was thankful when she was at last able to get away.
"Thank you so much; it's been a lovely party. I don't know when I've enjoyed myself more."
Mrs Atkinson, white-haired, kind, shrewd and with a dry humour, held her hand.
"Thank you my dear. You're so beautiful, you make any party a success; and Harold's had a grand time. He's a terrible old flirt."
"He was very nice to me."
"And so he should be. Is it true that we're going to lose you soon?"
Mrs Atkinson's tone showed Mary that she was referring to Edgar. Perhaps the Princess had told her something.
"Who can tell?" she smiled.
"Well, I hope what I hear is true. You know, I look upon myself as a great judge of character. And you're not only beautiful, you're good and sweet and natural; I should like you to be very happy."
Mary could not help the tears filling her eyes. She gave the kind lady a wan smile and quickly left.
+-mymaughamcollection.blogspot.com-+ | | | | \|/ | | \~|~/ | | ,#####\/ | ,\/§§§§ | | # #\./#__|_§_\./ | | # \./ # _|_§ \./ | | # #/ # | § \ | | # # # | `~§§§§§ | +--------mmccl.blogspot.com--------+