To Marry a Tiger (11 page)

“I can zip you up,” he persuaded her.

She sat down in front of the dressing table and did her best to make up her face as Luigi’s beautician had taught her. If her hands trembled a little, it was not surprising, she thought with a touch of indignation. She leaned back and looked at herself, noting with satisfaction that she had really managed very well. Her eyes caught Mario’s in the glance and she blushed to see the warm amusement in his.

“I’m afraid whatever I do everybody’s eyes will be on Pearl rather
than me!” she sighed.

“Perhaps,” he grunted.

“Well, they will!” she went on, getting more and more heated as she thought about the sheer injustice of it all. “They’re bound to!”

“I don’t know,” he answered, carefully considering the matter. “It’s true that she catches the eye like a
flame in the dark, but she is not my wife. That too is of importance to the village. Tonight, at least, you will not be ignored,
carissima
,
for your sister!”

The endearment caught her by surprise. It was so difficult to tell what he meant by it. If it were translated straight-into English, she supposed it would mean ‘dearest’, but it had to be a much looser term in Italian or he wouldn’t have used it at all.

“I don’t
mind
,”
she told him with dignity.

He laughed. “You are one of the few women of whom that might be true!” He held up her dress. “Are you going to put it on?”

She did so, blushing as she felt his fingers on the zip that ran up the back. When he had fastened it to his own satisfaction, he turned her round to face him and studied her carefully.

“Does it look nice?” she asked him anxiously.

“You look—beautiful
,
” he said.

She blushed in earnest at that. “It’s nice of you to say so,” she said happily, “even if it isn’t true.”

He looked amused. “But of course it is true!” he teased her. “My judgement in these matters is never at fault! And didn’t I tell you that you would be beautiful if you made up your eyes?”

She was confused and more than a little embarrassed. “You are very experienced, of course!” she rallied him.

“Do you doubt it?” he drawled.

“N-no,” she admitted. “Do you think Lucia will approve?”

He smiled slowly. “Shall we go downstairs and find out?” he suggested.

It would have been hard to have felt anything else but rather special, Ruth thought, with him standing beside her. He wore his immaculate dinner jacket with an air that any man would envy. She supposed that his clothes were exceedingly expensive, for she was almost
sure that the shirt he was wearing was made of silk, but even if he had hired them for the night, she couldn’t imagine him looking less distinguished. Of course he was arrogant, but it was comfortable too to be with someone who was so much at home with himself and so completely sure that everything was going to work out his way.

“Don’t be too sorry, my dear,” he said in her ear. She managed a tremulous smile. “Oh, but I’m not!” she assured him. “I’m even beginning to
like
knowing that I’m being discussed the length and breadth of Sicily! I assure you, life was positively
dull
,
when I was quiet and respectable and I didn’t know I had any honour to lose!”

He laughed. “I thought I detected something complacent about you this evening!”

She bit her lip to stop herself laughing. “Why not? Not even Sicilian bandits hold any terror for me now
!
”

“Did they ever?” he asked with interest.

“When I had some honour to lose!”

“Perhaps you have—” he observed, watching the colour fly up into her cheeks.

“But,” she stammered, “that doesn’t have anything to do with it! We—we’re married—”

“I wondered when it would occur to you!”

“I think you are singularly ungallant to remind me!” she complained. To her great annoyance she saw that Mario was looking remarkably pleased with himself. “And I don’t find it in the least bit funny either!” she added crossly.

His eyes lit with laughter. “You disappoint me,” he said. “I was beginning to think that your spirits could rise to anything!”

“Then you must think me very stupid!” she retorted,
unaccountably
flattered.

“No, only rather brave,” he amended. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her lightly on the fingers. “Well, madame wife, shall we go down and show your dress off to the others?”

Ruth was very conscious that every eye was on her as she came slowly down the stairs, her hand lightly resting on Mario’s arm. She could tell from Pearl’s wide-eyed astonishment and Lucia’s smothered laugh of triumph that she had never looked so well in her life before.

“Ruth!” Pearl addressed her, unable to hide her chagrin. “Would you believe that she is always lecturing
me
about wearing too much make-up!”

“It is a question of how you use it, not how much you use,” Lucia explained to her kindly.

Pearl turned her back on her, looking downright sulky. Ruth thought she looked small and hurt and her heart was wrung on her behalf. She hurried down the last few stairs and went straight to her sister.

“Are you coming
with
us into the village?”
she
asked her gaily. “I think Henry Brett is bringing his jeep to take
those who
can’t get in to Mario’s car.”

Pearl’s attention was immediately caught. “Who is Henry Brett?” she asked.

“He is an Englishman,” Mario answered her. “He is putting in a new irrigation system in the village.”

Pearl’s eyes fastened on him earnestly. “You are so good, Mario! I suppose you are paying for it?”

Mario was frankly embarrassed. “I have more land than anyone else which will benefit from the scheme,” he said abruptly.

“I want to go in your car,” Pearl pleaded with him. “You promised me that I would see your village in your company! Don’t you remember?”

Ruth
tried not to listen to his answer.
She
was helped by Henry’s arrival, looking Strange and uncomfortable in evening dress. He came across
to
her immediately,
blatantly pleased to see someone else of his own nationality on what promised to be a very Italian occasion.

“You should see the traffic outside!” he told her. “They’ve put up lights in all the streets, and even the saints from the churches have been brought out to greet you
!”

“What?” Ruth said in disbelief.

“The statues! You should see them all in their party dresses!”

Ruth laughed. “I do hope they will like me,” she said, betraying her nervousness with a wry grimace.

Henry looked her up and down. “They’ll like you!”

“And what about me?” Neither of them had seen Pearl come dancing up behind Henry’s back, but at the sound of her voice, he turned sharply and stared at her. “I’m Ruth’s sister,” Pearl went on. “I don’t suppose anyone has mentioned me, because I am
quite
unimportant—”

“You’re the Pearl Beyond Price!” Henry muttered in a strangled voice.

“How nice of you to say so!” Pearl said coolly.

Henry grinned. “But how did you get here?”

She opened her blue eyes very wide. “Mario came to Naples last night to get me,” she told him.

Henry blinked nervously. “I shouldn’t tell anyone else that!” he advised her.

“Why not?” she riposted. “It’s the truth!”

Henry cleared his throat thoughtfully. “I daresay Ruth was worried about you,” he managed.

Pearl patted his arm affectionately. “How
nice
you are!” she said with warm approval. “Do you always think the best of everyone?”

One look at Lucia’s furious face made Ruth take a quick step forward. She was touched that Mario’s aunt should fee
l
so fiercely loyal to her and grateful too, but that volatile lady was highly unlikely to guard her tongue and Ruth knew from long experience how Pearl could colour anything in her own mind to suit herself. For a second
,
Ruth wished earnestly that she would never have to feel responsible for her young sister ever again, but then the moment passed and she remembered that Pearl had always been flattered and the centre of everyone’s attention. It was too much to expect her to resign her position to anyone as ordinary and undemanding as Ruth was without something of a struggle.

“Do let’s go!” Ruth said urgently.

To her relief, Mario began to collect the party together, packing them in to the cars to be taken into the centre of the village.

“I am sorry,” he said to Pearl, “but you will have to go with Henry. Lucia is afraid for her dress in such a vehicle, and we must also take Giulia and her husband with us.”

Pearl was prepared to argue the point. “But Giulia is the maid!” she exclaimed.

Mario’s face became stiff and unyielding. It was a look Ruth felt that she was beginning to know well and she was glad that, this time, it was nothing she had done which had inspired it.

“Giulia is one of my people,” he said, his voice totally devoid of any expression. “She has a right to my consideration.”

Pearl flounced out of the front door. “I am beginning to feel quite sorry for Ruth!” she muttered darkly.

“You need not!” Mario retorted sharply. “She is my wife!”

Pearl pouted her dislike of the idea. “Not yet she isn’t! Besides, you didn’t want to marry her!”

“Pear
l
!” Ruth exclaimed, shocked.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” Pearl returned, trying hard to look indifferent to the consternation she had raided.

Mario laughed, thus successfully puncturing the highly charged atmosphere. “No, it is not true!” he said firmly. “And if it were, I hope you wouldn’t be so vulgar as to dwell on it?”

“No, of course not!” Pearl said quickly,

The whole party hurried into the waiting cars. Mario handed Ruth into the front seat of his own car, but Ruth could not bring herself to look at him as she thanked him. She wondered if anyone else had noticed that he had practically accused Pearl of vulgarity, and hoped not. Ruth felt slightly sick. She had thought of Pearl as being young and helpless, even rather naive, for so long that she found it painful to see her through other eyes.

“Pearl doesn’t mean half that she says,” she told him nervously as he got into the driving seat beside her.

He gave her a quick look. “As long as
you
realise that!” he said.

“She—she doesn’t think
!
” Ruth rushed on.

“No,” he agreed briefly.

“But she isn’t
vulgar
!
” she protested.

Mario laughed. “I find her inexpressibly vulgar,” he said with calm certainty. “But she’s none the worse for that! ’

Ruth sighed. “I wish I could believe that,” she said. “I mean, I wish I could believe that you didn’t—didn’t—”

“I don’t!” Mario answered, irritated. “One does not marry vulgarity, however,” he added crushingly.

Ruth was hurt on Pearl’s behalf. She wished she understood better, but Mario was an enigma to her. How could he insist on going to Naples to bring Pearl to his home on the one hand, when he didn’t respect her at all, or so it seemed to Ruth, on the other? Ruth couldn’t imagine liking anyone that she didn’t respect, and yet he seemed to find it the easiest thing in the world!

The village was indeed
en fete
.
Lucia eyed the coloured lights and the bonfires with intense satisfaction from the back of the car.

“What a pity it is,” she said, “that we couldn’t make all the old ceremonies for you!”

“It depends—” Ruth began.

“Nonsense!” Lucia said firmly. “They were very pretty customs! You will find out tonight!”

Ruth looked at Mario, her anxiety clear in her eyes. “You will stay close, won’t you?” she pleaded.

“As much as I can,” he assured her. “But tonight everyone will want to dance with the bride!”

Ruth was silent. It would leave him free to dance with Pearl, she thought, and wondered why she disliked the idea so much.

“But there are other things!” Lucia put in quickly. “There is the wedding dinner, many things!”

It seemed to Ruth that there was hardly room for them to push their way into the central square. The church was lit up on the one side and the fountain was playing with gay abandon on the other, while the children splashed in and out of it, dyeing the water bright red as an emblem of marriage. Somehow, the people were pushed back to make room for the cars and the priest himself opened the door for Ruth to alight. She hesitated for a minute, waiting for Mario as he came round the car and took her firmly by the hand. The buzz of excited noise in the crowd came to an abrupt end as one old woman, and then another, stepped forward and threw a handful of co
rn
over their heads. Because Mario stood there with his head proudly held aloft, Ruth did so too, though the dust from the chaff got into her eyes and she began to wonder whether they weren’t going to be buried in the stuff.