'Yes.'
'Very well.' She turned to face me. Two candles shone from behind her, casting a subtle corona round her from the shadows. I'd never seen such beauty in a woman in all my life, not since Helen, or maybe Lydia or maybe Sally the nosh queen.
Entranced, I mumbled weakly, 'Very well what?'
'We must knuckle down.' She spoke so full of sadness that for an instant I misunderstood and thought she'd spotted a way out for me. Then it dawned she meant working, and my bitterness returned. I was trapped between Arcellano, that non-smiling smiler, and this gloomy optimist. 'You sold your Italian grammar text—'
'I did no such thing!'
'I saw you,' she said calmly. 'In the junk shop on the Hythe. So I bought it back.' And she brought it out of her handbag, the treacherous bitch. 'It's no good glaring, Lovejoy.
Your signature's on the flyleaf.'
'You have no right following me—'
She smiled over my protest. 'And on the rare occasions you do pay attention in open class, Lovejoy, it's to Joan Culpepper.'
I asked innocently. 'Is she one of our group?'
'She's the lady next to whom you sit, Lovejoy. You started the week in the opposite corner.'
'Oh, her!' I'd obviously hardly noticed her, but Maria was not dissuaded, as usual suspicious without a single cause. 'The one with the Justinian period Roman quartz intaglio ring, modern setting in garnets on gold with raised platinum shoulder mounts?'
'Yes, her.' She tapped my knee with a finger, not knowing Arcellano's lunatic serfs had kicked it to a balloon size. I nearly screamed. 'From now on, Lovejoy, your Friday reports will be superb.'
'They will?' I brightened. Not only was this luscious woman delectable, but she'd obviously fallen head over heels for me. With Arcellano away for weeks and my bonus money rolling in… It was my trillionth mistake of the week. I asked, 'How'll we fiddle Miss McKim's reports?'
'You mean cheat?'
I saw her face. 'Well, er, no. Not exactly—'
She went cold as charity. 'There's only one way, Lovejoy, and that's to earn a good report.' She collected her coat and gloves. 'Don't worry, I'll see you'll get the right sort of help.'
'Erm…'
She walked towards the small hallway, rabbitting on. I had the idea she was smiling deep down. 'From now on, Lovejoy, you eat regularly. None of this heroic starving for the sake of old pots and ramshackle furniture—' I gasped, outraged at this heresy. It only goes to show how boneheaded women actually are. 'And from tomorrow your electricity bill will be paid. Light and warmth.' She smiled, adding sweetly, 'And distractions will be minimized. I shall see to that first thing tomorrow.'
She meant Mrs Culpepper. My head was spinning with all this. Or maybe it was the unusual sensation of not being hungry.
'Er, look,' I mumbled, 'can't we discuss this?'
'Yes. In Italian.'
'Eh?'
'You heard, Lovejoy.' Now her smile was open and visible, a beautiful warm silent laughter. 'From now on, ask for anything in English and the answer's no. But ask in Italian and the answer's…'
'… And the answer's yes?'
For one instant her smile intensified to a dazzling radiance. 'The answer's… quite possibly.' She stepped into the darkness, leaving me in the candlelight. I heard the cottage door go.
'Good night, Lovejoy,' she called from the winter midnight.
'Good night.' I was trying to say thanks as well but the latch went and she had gone.
You can't teach women anything about timing an exit. I've always noticed that.
CHAPTER 3
From then on it was hell—but a peculiar kind of hell, with torment interspersed with a haunting promise of ecstasy. For a time. Under the white-hot attentions of Maria, I quite forgot about Arcellano.
Unaccountably, the attractive Joan Culpepper attended no further classes, apart from one hour's collective conjugation, so to speak, I got the full teaching blast. 'Incentive teaching,' she often reminded me with hardly a trace of her secret hilarity.
By Tuesday of the following week I was showing withdrawal symptoms which caused a bit of upset. Maria had kept me at it twelve and fifteen hours at a stretch. Apart from that glimpse of Mrs Culpepper's 'tassie', as we call such incised semi-precious carvings, the only antique I'd seen was a Newhall painted cream jug with a 'clip' handle—these are always pre-1790 and still a bargain. It had somehow crept from its place of honour in the little dining-room and was found on our table. I honestly had nothing to do with it, but a poisonous epsilon-minus cretin called Hyacinth reckoned I'd moved it nearer and blew the gaff on me. A tight-lipped Maria came across and restored it to its place on the sideboard. I was heartbroken. Newhall porcelain's enough to melt the hardest heart —Maria's excepted.
I was really peeved. 'Why d'you believe Hyacinth and not me?' Hyacinth's only twelve but she always came top in Italian at the end-of-day test.
Maria let the tea-lady pass with a loaded tray before accusing, 'It's antiques, isn't it, Lovejoy?'
