You say that I have a duty to be with my wife, but I see it differently. I now have a bigger duty to be with you.
Please, I beg you, write to say that you have not given up on me. Or on us.
With all my love,
Matteo
With tears in her eyes once more, Romily carefully refolded the letter, and slid it back inside its envelope. She was about to return it to the wooden box when there was a ring at the doorbell. With nobody else in the house, she went to answer it.
Nothing could have prepared her for the bewildering shock of who was standing there on the doorstep.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Island House, Melstead St Mary
December 1962
Red
‘Red! What on earth are you doing here?’
‘I was just passing through and thought I’d say hi,’ Red replied, cranking up the tone of his most light-hearted voice.
The stunned expression on Romily’s face was definitely worth every minute of the time and effort it had taken for him to make the journey. Even that taxi ride from the station when he was worried to death what kind of reception awaited him. At every twist and turn in the road, he’d been ready to abandon the enterprise and head for home. But here he was, and who knew how it would play out?
‘I don’t remember it being this cold when I was last in merry old England,’ he remarked, when she’d let him over the threshold and was shutting the door against the sub-zero air outside.
‘Apparently there’s a lot worse to come,’ she said, still staring at him as though she couldn’t quite believe her eyes.
‘Hey, that’s the story of my life,’ he quipped, expecting Romily to smile. When she didn’t, but continued to regard him steadily, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. Would turning up like this – a grand gesture if ever there was! – be considered just another example of crass behaviour for which she would condemn him?
With an imperceptible shake of her head, she said, ‘I’m so sorry. I seem to have completely forgotten my manners. Please, let me take your coat.’
Okay, so he wasn’t being thrown out into the cold of the night straight off the bat. That was a good sign. Putting his suitcase on the floor and shrugging off the big woollen overcoat he’d had the sense to bring with him, along with a scarf, he passed it to her.
‘Nice house,’ he commented, when she showed him through to a large and very English-style drawing room. He watched her switching on a collection of silk-shaded lamps; at the same time he took in the tasteful décor of pretty rugs and chintz-covered sofas and armchairs. There was a large Christmas tree in one corner of the room, decorated with coloured glass balls and tinsel. Nothing in the room jarred. Apart from him, that was. He was a mass of jangling nerves.
‘Thank you,’ she replied, drawing the curtains across and blocking out the darkness. ‘I’m afraid you’ve caught me on the hop somewhat, I was busy in my library and haven’t lit a fire in here yet.’
The room was indeed on the chilly side. ‘I could do that for you, if you like?’ he offered.
‘There’s no need, I can manage.’
I’m sure you can, was on the tip of his tongue. But with great restraint he held his tongue. He had not come all this way to blow it within the first few minutes of his arrival. He also had the sense to realise that having a task to do gave Romily time to assemble her wits and self-possession. Something he guessed she would value highly.
He watched her strike a match and put it to the screwed-up balls of newspaper and kindling already placed in the grate. With her back to him, he took the opportunity to take in some more of the room. There was a console table behind a sofa that was home to an array of framed photographs, and he was tempted to go over and study them closely, to see if he could learn anything new about the extraordinary Romily Devereux-Temple.
For safety’s sake – his own safety – he fixed his attention on a painting on the wall nearest to him. It was illuminated by a lamp positioned beneath it and, bending in for a closer look, he could see the strong fluid strokes the artist had employed to capture a group of men gathering in the harvest. The sun was low in the sky, casting a fiery glow of light across the field in which they toiled under the watchful eye of a man in a soldier’s uniform. The men themselves were all similarly dressed in khaki-coloured trousers and shirts with the sleeves rolled up. On the backs of their shirts and trouser legs were large red circles. Prisoners of war, he guessed, put to work to ease the shortage of labour. He thought it an unusual choice of painting for an English drawing room. But remembering Romily telling him about the Italian POW who had rescued her from the burning wreckage of her crashed Walrus, he leaned in closer still to locate the artist’s signature. He failed to find it though.
‘There,’ said Romily behind him, ‘the room should soon start to warm up. May I offer you something to drink? And I expect you’re hungry too.’
She had completely recovered her composure, he could see and was now the perfect hostess, graciously at ease with an unexpected guest. ‘A drink would be great,’ he said, ‘thank you. But I don’t want to put you to any unnecessary trouble.’
‘It’s the least I can do. What would you like, tea or coffee? Or perhaps something stronger?’
He’d sworn to go easy on the hooch, determined to keep a cool head on his shoulders while here. His sister had been right to say he’d started drinking too much. She had told him that the time before when it had got out of hand. ‘I’ll have some of your famous British tea, please,’ he said. ‘When in Rome and all that.’ He winced at the cliché, but she merely smiled politely.
‘Make yourself comfortable by the fire,’ she said, ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on.’
In front of the fire that was satisfyingly ablaze now, the logs popping and crackling like a barrel of firecrackers, Red inspected the objects on the mantelpiece. There was an elegant carriage clock, two expensive-looking porcelain vases, and a number of Christmas ornaments. One of which was a glass snow globe with a wintry scene of trees and a snowman. He couldn’t resist picking it up and giving it a shake, sending glittery snowflakes fluttering. It made a faint chiming sound and he realised it was a musical snow globe. A couple of twists of the metal winder underneath produced a tinkling rendition of ‘Silent Night’.
Listening to it was like having a thousand tiny hammers tapping tacks into his skull. He could never hear the carol without thinking of hiding in a cold, damp cellar and hearing it sung in its original language, German. He promptly returned the globe to its position on the mantelpiece, the unwelcome tune playing on to its tinny and mawkish end.
Stille Nacht . . .
For as long as he lived, he would never fathom how soldiers could have sung the carol with such mellifluous harmony and feeling, but two days later carry out such inhuman acts of barbarism. Lining up the courageous men and women who had helped the Resistance, they had shot them in a torrent of gunfire, while forcing the rest of the villagers to watch.