“What d’you suppose that means?” asked Bessie.
“My guess is that Tito is taking Laura to be inspected by his old man, and if he approves he’s going to ask her to marry him.”
“And will he approve?”
“Not on your life.”
But Charley was wrong. After the two women had been shown over the house they were taken for a walk round the garden. Without exactly knowing how it had happened Mrs Clayton found herself alone in an alley with the old count. She spoke no Italian, but he had been an attache in London and his English was tolerable.
“Your daughter is charming, Mrs Clayton,” he said. “I am not surprised that my Tito has fallen in love with her.”
Mrs Clayton was no fool and it may be that she too had guessed why the young man had asked them to go and see the ancestral villa.
“Young Italians are very impressionable. Laura is sensible enough not to take their attention too seriously.”
“I was hoping she was not quite indifferent to the boy.”
“I have no reason to believe that she likes him any more than any other of the young men who dance with her,” Mrs Clayton answered somewhat coldly. “I think I should tell you at once that my daughter has a very moderate income and she will have no more till I die.”
“I will be frank with you. I have nothing in the world but this house and the few acres that surround it. My son could not afford to marry a penniless girl, but he is not a fortune-hunter and he loves your daughter.”
The count had not only the grand manner, but a great deal of charm and Mrs Clayton was not insensible to it. She softened a little.
“All that is neither here nor there. We don’t arrange our children’s marriages in America. If Tito wants to marry her, let him ask her, and if she’s prepared to marry him she’ll presumably say so.”
“Unless I am greatly mistaken that is just what he is doing now. I hope with all my heart that he will be successful.”
They strolled on and presently saw walking towards them the two young people hand in hand. It was not difficult to guess what had passed. Tito kissed Mrs Clayton’s hand and his father on both cheeks.
“Mrs Clayton, Papa, Laura has consented to be my wife.”
The engagement made something of a stir in Florentine society and a number of parties were given for the young couple. It was quite evident that Tito was very much in love, but less so that Laura was. He was good-looking, adoring, high-spirited, and gay; it was likely enough that she loved him; but she was a girl who did not display emotion and she remained what she had always been, somewhat placid, amiable, serious but friendly, and easy to talk to. I wondered to what extent she had been influenced to accept Tito’s offer by his great name, with its historical associations, and the sight of that beautiful house with its lovely view and the romantic garden.
“Anyhow there’s no doubt about its being a love match on his side,” said Bessie Harding, when we were talking it over. “Mrs Clayton tells me that neither Tito nor his father has shown any desire to know how much Laura has.”
“I’d bet a million dollars that they know to the last cent what she’s got and they’ve calculated exactly how much it comes to in lire,” said Harding with a grunt.
“You’re a beastly old man, darling,” she answered.
He gave another grunt.
Shortly after that I left Florence. The marriage took place from the Hardings’ house and a vast crowd came to it, ate their food and drank their champagne. Tito and his wife took an apartment on the Lungarno and the old count returned to his lonely villa in the hills. I did not go to Florence again for three years and then only for a week. I was staying once more with the Hardings. I asked about my old friends and then remembered Laura and her mother.
“Mrs Clayton went back to San Francisco,” said Bessie, “and Laura and Tito live at the villa with the count. They’re very happy.”
“Any babies?”
“No.”
“Go on,” said Harding.
Bessie gave her husband a look.
“I cannot imagine why I’ve lived thirty years with a man I dislike so much,” she said. “They gave up the apartment on the Lungarno. Laura spent a good deal of money doing things to the villa, there wasn’t a bathroom in it, she put in central heating, and she had to buy a lot of furniture to make it habitable, and then Tito lost a small fortune playing poker and poor Laura had to pay up.”
“Hadn’t he got a job?”
“It didn’t amount to anything and it came to an end.”
“What Bessie means by that is that he was fired,” Harding put in.
“Well, to cut a long story short, they thought it would be more economical to live at the villa and Laura had the idea that it would keep Tito out of mischief. She loves the garden and she’s made it lovely. Tito simply worships her and the old count’s taken quite a fancy to her. So really it’s all turned out very well.”
“It may interest you to know that Tito was in last Thursday,” said Harding. “He played like a madman and I don’t know how much he lost.”
“Oh, Charley. He promised Laura he’d never play again.”
“As if a gambler ever kept a promise like that. It’ll be like last time. He’ll burst into tears and say he loves her and it’s a debt of honour and unless he can get the money he’ll blow his brains out. And Laura will pay as she paid before.”
“He’s weak, poor dear, but that’s his only fault. Unlike most Italian husbands he’s absolutely faithful to her and he’s kindness itself.” She looked at Harding with a sort of humorous grimness. “I’ve yet to find a husband who was perfect.”
“You’d better start looking around pretty soon, dear, or it’ll be too late,” he retorted with a grin.
I left the Hardings and returned to London. Charley Harding and I corresponded in a desultory sort of way, and about a year later I got a letter from him. He told me as usual what he had been doing in the interval, and mentioned that he had been to Montecatini for the baths and had gone with Bessie to visit friends in Rome; he spoke of the various people I knew in Florence, So-and-so had just bought a Bellini and Mrs Such-and-such had gone to America to divorce her husband. Then he went on: “I suppose you’ve heard about the San Pietros. It’s shaken us all and we can talk of nothing else. Laura’s terribly upset, poor thing, and she’s going to have a baby. The police keep on questioning her and that doesn’t make it any easier for her. Of course we brought her to stay here. Tito comes up for trial in another month.”
I hadn’t the faintest notion what all this was about. So I wrote at once to Harding asking him what it meant. He answered with a long letter. What he had to tell me was terrible. I will relate the bare and brutal facts as shortly as I can. I learned them partly from Harding’s letter and partly from what he and Bessie told me when two years later I was with them once more.
The count and Laura took to one another at once and Tito was pleased to see how quickly they had formed an affectionate friendship, for he was as devoted to his father as he was in love with his wife. He was glad that the count began to come more often to Florence than he had been used to. They had a spare room in the apartment and on occasion he spent two or three nights with them. He and Laura would go bargain-hunting in the antique shops and buy old pieces to put in the villa. He had tact and knowledge and little by little the house, with its spacious rooms and marble floors, lost its forlorn air and became a friendly place to live in. Laura had a passion for gardening and she and the count spent long hours together planning and then supervising the workmen who were restoring the gardens to their ancient, rather stately, beauty.
Laura made light of it when Tito’s financial difficulties forced them to give up the apartment in Florence; she had had enough of Florentine society by then and was not displeased to live altogether in the grand house that had belonged to his ancestors. Tito liked city life and the prospect dismayed him, but he could not complain since it was his own folly that had made it necessary for
them to cut down expenses. They still had the car and he amused himself by taking long drives while his father and Laura were busy, and if they knew that now and then he went into Florence to have a flutter at the club they shut their eyes to it. So a year passed. Then, he hardly knew why, he was seized with a vague misgiving. He couldn’t put his finger on anything; he had an uneasy feeling that perhaps Laura didn’t care for him so much as she had at first; sometimes it seemed to him that his father was inclined to be impatient with him; they appeared to have a great deal to say to one another, but he got the impression that he was being edged out of their conversation, as though he were a child who was expected to sit still and not interrupt while his elders talked of things over his head; he had a notion that often his presence was unwelcome to them and that they were more at their ease when he was not there. He knew his father, and his reputation, but the suspicion that rose in him was so horrible that he refused to entertain it. And yet sometimes he caught a look passing between them that disconcerted him, there was a tender possessiveness in his father’s eyes, a sensual complacency in Laura’s, which, if he had seen it in others, would have convinced him that they were lovers. But he couldn’t, he wouldn’t believe that there was anything between them. The count couldn’t help making love to a woman and it was likely enough that Laura felt his extraordinary fascination, but it was shameful to suppose for a moment that they, these two people he loved, had formed a criminal, almost an incestuous, connexion. He was sure that Laura had no idea that there was anything more in her feeling than the natural affection of a young, happily married woman for her father-in-law. Notwithstanding he thought it better that she should not remain in everyday contact with his father, and one day he suggested that they should go back to live in Florence. Laura and the count were astonished that he should propose such a thing and would not hear of it. Laura said that, having spent so much money on the villa, she couldn’t afford to leave it, now that Laura had made it so comfortable, to live in a wretched apartment in the city. An argument started and Tito got rather excited. He took some remark of Laura’s to mean that if she lived at the villa it was to keep him out of temptation. This reference to his losses at the poker-table angered him.
“You always throw your money in my face,” he said passionately. “If I’d wanted to marry money I’d have had the sense to marry someone who had a great deal more than you.”
Laura went very pale and glanced at the count.
“You have no right to speak to Laura like that,” he said. “You are an ill-mannered oaf.”
“I shall speak to my wife exactly as I choose.”
“You are mistaken. So long as you are in my house you will treat her with the respect which is her right and your duty.”
“When I want lessons in behaviour from you, Father, I will let you know.”
“You are very impertinent, Tito. You will kindly leave the room.”
He looked very stern and dignified, and Tito, furious and yet slightly intimidated, leapt to his feet and stalked out slamming the door behind him. He took the car and drove in to Florence. He won quite a lot of money that day (lucky at cards, unlucky in love) and to celebrate his winnings got more than a little drunk. He did not go back to the villa till the following morning. Laura was as friendly and placid as ever, but his father was somewhat cool. No reference was made to the scene. But from then on things went from bad to worse. Tito was sullen and moody, the count critical and on occasion sharp words passed between them. Laura did not interfere, but Tito gained the impression that after a dispute that had been more than acrimonious Laura interceded with his father, for the count thenceforward, refusing to be annoyed, began to treat him with the tolerant patience with which you would treat a wayward child. He convinced himself that they were acting in concert and his suspicions grew formidable. They even increased when Laura in her good-natured way, saying that it must be very dull for him to remain so much in the country, encouraged him to go more often to Florence to see his friends.
He jumped to the conclusion that she said this only to be rid of him. He began to watch them. He would enter suddenly a room in which he knew they were, expecting to catch them in a compromising position, or silently follow them to a secluded part of the garden. They were chatting unconcernedly of trivial things. Laura greeted him with a pleasant smile. He could put his finger on nothing to confirm his torturing suspicions. He started to drink. He grew nervous and irritable. He had no proof, no proof whatever, that there was anything between them, and yet in his bones he was certain that they were grossly, shockingly deceiving him. He brooded till he felt he was going mad. A dark aching fire within him consumed his being. On one of his visits to Florence he bought a pistol. He made up his mind that if he could have proof of what in his heart he was certain of, he would kill them both.
I don’t know what brought on the final catastrophe. All that came out at the trial was that, driven beyond endurance, Tito had gone one night to his father’s room to have it out with him. His father mocked and laughed at him. They had a furious quarrel and Tito took out his pistol and shot the count dead. Then he collapsed and fell, weeping hysterically, on his father’s body; the repeated shots brought Laura and the servants rushing in. He jumped up and grabbed the pistol, to shoot himself he said afterwards, but he hesitated or they were too quick for him, and they snatched it out of his hand. The police were sent for. He spent most of his time in prison weeping; he would not eat and had to be forcibly fed; he told the examining magistrate that he had killed his father because he was his wife’s lover. Laura, examined and examined again, swore that there had never been anything between the count and herself but a natural affection. The murder filled the Florentine public with horror. The Italians were convinced of her guilt, but her friends, English and American, felt that she was incapable of the crime of which she was accused. They went about saying that Tito was neurotic and insanely jealous and in his stupid way had mistaken her American freedom of behaviour for a criminal passion. On the face of it Tito’s charge was absurd. Carlo di San Pietro was nearly thirty years older than she, an elderly man with white hair; who could suppose that there would have been anything between her and her father-in-law, when her husband was young, handsome, and in love with her?
It was in Harding’s presence that she saw the examining magistrate and the lawyers who had been engaged to defend Tito. They had decided to plead insanity. Experts for the defence examined him and decided that he was insane, experts for the prosecution examined him and decided that he was sane. The fact that he had bought a pistol three months before he committed the dreadful crime went to prove that it was premeditated. It was discovered that he was deeply in debt and his creditors were pressing him; the only means he had of settling with them was by selling the villa, and his father’s death put him in possession of it. There is no capital punishment in Italy, but murder with premeditation is punished by solitary confinement for life. On the approach of the trial the lawyers came to Laura and told her that the only way in which Tito could be saved from this was for her to admit in court that the count had been her lover. Laura went very pale. Harding protested violently. He said they had no right to ask her to perjure herself and ruin her reputation to save that shiftless, drunken gambler whom she had been so unfortunate as to marry. Laura remained silent for a while.
“Very well,” she said at last, “if that’s the only way to save him I’ll do it.”
Harding tried to dissuade her, but she was decided.
“I should never have a moment’s peace if I knew that Tito had to spend the rest of his life alone in a prison cell.”
And that is what happened. The trial opened. She was called and under oath stated that for more than a year her father-in-law had been her lover. Tito was declared insane and sent to an asylum. Laura wanted to leave Florence at once, but in Italy the preliminaries to a trial are endless and by then she was near her time. The Hardings insisted on her remaining with them till she was confined. She had a child
, a boy, but it only lived twenty-four hours. Her plan was to go back to San Francisco and live with her mother till she could find a job, for Tito’s extravagance, the money she had spent on the villa, and then the cost of the trial had seriously impoverished her.
It was Harding who told me most of this; but one day when he was at the club and I was having a cup of tea with Bessie and we were again talking over these tragic happenings she said to me:
“You know, Charley hasn’t told you the whole story because he doesn’t know it. I never told him. Men are funny in some ways; they’re much more easily shocked than women.”
I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing.
“Just before Laura went away we had a talk. She was very low and I thought she was grieving over the loss of her baby. I wanted to say something to help her. ‘You mustn’t take the baby’s death too hardly,’ I said. ‘As things are, perhaps it’s better it died.’ ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Think what the poor little thing’s future would have been with a murderer for his father.’ She looked at me for a moment in that strange quiet way of hers. And then what d’you think she said?”
“I haven’t a notion,” said I.
“She said: ‘What makes you think his father was a murderer?’
“I felt myself grow as red as a turkey-cock. I could hardly believe my ears. ‘Laura, what do you mean?’ I said. ‘You were in court,’ she said. ‘You heard me say Carlo was my lover.’”
Bessie Harding stared at me as she must have stared at Laura.
“What did you say then?” I asked.
“What was there for me to say? I said nothing. I wasn’t so much horrified, I was bewildered. Laura looked at me and, believe it or not, I’m convinced there was a twinkle in her eyes. I felt a perfect fool.”
“Poor Bessie,” I smiled.
Poor Bessie, I repeated to myself now as I thought of this strange story. She and Charley were long since dead and by their death I had lost good friends. I went to sleep then, and next day Wyman Holt took me for a long drive.