Wife By Arrangement

There was one moment’s total, thunderstruck silence. Heather tried to speak but couldn’t. The control she’d struggled for was slipping away, releasing the crazy laughter that had been fighting to get out. She gave a choke and turned aside swiftly with her hand over her mouth. But it was useless. A bubble was rising inside her, shooting up until it reached the outside world in peal after peal of mirth. The whole thing was mad. It could only have been imagined in this society that followed its own rules and cared for no other.

‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped at last, ‘but that’s the funniest thing you could have said. Me? Marry Renato? A man I can’t endure the sight of? Oh, heavens!’ She went off into another paroxysm.

Renato regarded her with hard eyes. Then he began to speak in a low, outraged voice. He spoke in Sicilian and Heather couldn’t follow it, but she managed to pick out the words for ‘crazy’, ‘unbelievable’ and something that she guessed meant ‘not in a million years’.

‘That’s just how I feel, too,’ she told him. ‘Oh, dear! Don’t get me started again.’

‘In my day a young woman knew better than to laugh at an eligible match,’ Baptista said with haughty disapproval.

‘But Renato isn’t an eligible match,’ Heather pointed out when she’d managed to calm down a little. ‘One, he doesn’t want to marry anyone. Two, he doesn’t want to marry me. Three, hell will freeze over before I marry him. It’s out of the question.’

‘It’s good sense. You came here to marry a son of this house, and that’s what you must do. Then things will be right again.’

‘They’d be very far from right,’ Heather said desperately. ‘I don’t know how you can have thought of such a thing-the last man in the world I’d ever-’

‘The feeling is mutual,’ Renato said coldly. ‘Mamma, I have the greatest respect for you, but you must forget this idea.’

‘Your feelings don’t enter into it,’ Baptista told him firmly. ‘You have injured a decent young woman, and must make reparation.’

‘One phone call to Gossways will do that very nicely, thank you,’ Heather said crisply.

‘I’ll make it at once,’ Renato declared. ‘Plus I’ll pay all your expenses for your trip here and-’

‘Renato, I’m warning you, if you dare offer me money you’ll be very sorry.’

‘I’m already sorry: sorry I ever met you, sorry my brother met you, sorry we welcomed you into our home-’

‘Then it’s a pity you took so much trouble to get me here, isn’t it? When I got up to walk out of the restaurant in London you should have let me go.’

‘If I had, you’d have gone under that car.’

‘If I hadn’t been running away from you I’d have been in no danger from the car.’

‘If you’d been a more reasonable woman you wouldn’t have been running away.’

‘I-? If I’d been-? You have a very selective memory. You looked me up and down like a piece of merchandise, decided that I’d just about do, and awarded me your brand of approval. For which you had the nerve to expect me to be grateful. As for poor Lorenzo-remember Lorenzo? The groom?-he didn’t know whether he was coming or going.’

‘I understood that he proposed to you in the hospital.’

‘Only after your majesty made your wishes known. Then we were all supposed to fall into line, weren’t we? The way everybody always has for you. The way I’m supposed to today. Only you’ve miscalculated now, just as you did then. I won’t marry you, Renato, and you know why? Because after the way you’ve behaved you’re not good enough. And if the angel Gabriel came down off a cloud with a signed testimonial I would still say you’re not good enough.’

‘Indeed!’ Renato snapped. ‘Then allow me to remind you that in Sicily, as, I believe, in other parts of the world, it’s normal for a woman to wait until she’s received a proposal of marriage before rejecting it.’

‘I was simply trying to save time.’

‘You shouldn’t have bothered. Then I wouldn’t have needed to say that I would rather swim the Straits of Messina in lead weights than link my life to a woman who is nothing but trouble.’

‘Then we’re agreed and everything’s-oh, Mamma, I’m sorry!’

Shocked, Heather had just remembered Baptista’s frail condition, but the old woman was watching them both, bright-eyed, with something that might almost have been enjoyment.

‘Yes, I’m sorry too,’ Renato said. ‘We had no right to lose our tempers-your heart-’

‘My heart is well, but you are both being very foolish. I advise you to reconsider.’

‘Never.’ They spoke with one voice.

‘Very well. Perhaps I raised the subject in the wrong way.’

‘Mamma, there’s no way you could raise this subject that would make Renato acceptable,’ Heather pleaded. ‘I don’t want to marry him, I want to kick his shins.’

‘You’re perfectly right,’ Baptista said at once. ‘I never saw a man who needed it more. When you’re his wife you can do it every day.’

‘This is my mother talking?’ Renato enquired grimly.

‘I’m not blind to your faults, my son,’ Baptista retorted. ‘I’ve found you the perfect wife, someone who won’t hurry to agree with you and say, “Yes dear, no dear!” In short, someone who sees right through you to the other side, and isn’t impressed by what she sees.’

‘That’s certainly true,’ Heather observed. ‘But while I’m reforming Renato’s character-and, heaven knows, he needs it-how do I benefit?’

‘You get to stay here,’ Baptista told her. ‘You become part of this family, and a Sicilian, both of which nature meant you to be.’

‘That’s the most tempting thing you’ve said to me so far,’ Heather said. She was recovering her poise and even a touch of humour. ‘If you could fix the last two without my having to burden myself with Renato, I’d be delighted.’

‘No pleasure comes without pain, my dear. You’ll learn to put up with him.’

Heather leaned over and kissed Baptista’s cheek. ‘Sorry, Mamma. The price is too high.’

‘Much too high,’ Renato agreed. ‘Let us forget it was ever mentioned.’ He too had calmed down, although anger still lurked far back in his dark eyes.

‘In that case, go away,’ Baptista said, seeming to tire of the subject. ‘But before you leave, Renato, you can pour me a large brandy.’

Later that day Bernardo returned and went straight to see Baptista. He was calm but very pale, and he politely declined the chance to discuss his troubles. She knew better than to press him.

‘Never mind,’ she said kindly. ‘Things will work out. They usually do. And there’s one thing to look forward to. Heather and Renato are going to get married.’

Midnight in the garden. Here, at least, there was the chance for Heather to be at peace, wandering along winding paths, breathing in the scents of a hundred flowers. Here were the rose bushes, created from cuttings from the original garden at Bella Rosaria. She understood so much better now, a symbol of a love that had never died, despite the contentment of an arranged marriage. That was the kind of love she’d wanted, the kind she’d believed she had. And Baptista wanted her to settle for less. She’d thought she’d come to terms with the sadness, but this was a new sadness, showing her the bleak path her life might yet take.

She sat on the stone edge of the fountain and looked down into the water, seeing the dark shadow of her own head and the silver moon behind. She trailed her fingers, shattering the moon to a thousand fragments, and when the water grew still again, there was another head beside hers.

‘You shouldn’t have been put through that,’ Renato said. ‘Mamma gets carried away sometimes. I’m sorry for the things I said-’

‘I suppose I was just as bad. There’s no point in having a go at you anyway. It’s over and done with. I said you were too ready to arrange people’s lives, but now I see where you get it from.’

‘Don’t be angry with her.’

‘I’m not. I think she’s sweet. But, honestly, what an absurd idea!’ She gave a small choke.

‘Yes, you’ve made it clear that you find it funny,’ he said with a slight edge in his voice.

‘I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just-everything-all at once-’