The Mermaid Garden(40)
The following day the girls arrived with Graziella, but the day after that they came alone. By now the countess felt they were familiar enough with the lady of the house to go unaccompanied. From then on they came most days, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, but they were never a burden to Dante and Damiana, who liked having them around, like a couple more strays to add to the menagerie that had already taken up residence at La Magdalena. They wandered around without needing to be entertained. They played in the gardens and never tired of their games. They explored, spied on the others when they were lying by the pool unaware, and asked the gardeners to tell them the names of all the flowers and trees. Floriana played with Good-Night and draped the cat over her arms as she carried him with her everywhere. Michelangelo was too arrogant to show his growing affection for the little girl who stroked his tummy, and followed them at a distance, pretending not to care.
The days rolled on in a blissful haze. Floriana stopped minding about her father’s drunken evenings at Luigi’s, and when she wasn’t at La Magdalena she played with Costanza at her house, beneath the disapproving gaze of the countess.
“Do you have to take Floriana with you every time you go to the Bonfantis’?” she asked her daughter one evening after Floriana had gone home.
“Why?”
“Because, my love, she’s not of your class. It’s inappropriate. It’s very kind of them to tolerate her but …”
“If I don’t take her, I’ll have no one to play with.”
“What about the younger daughter? What’s she called?”
“Giovanna. But she’s in Mexico. I don’t think she’s coming at all this summer.”
“All right, then. You may take Floriana, if they really don’t mind, until Giovanna returns. Then you must leave her behind and make friends with Giovanna. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mamma.”
“It’s for your own good, my love. It’s all very well you having a little friend from the town to play with, but now you’re getting bigger you should mix with your own class. It’s your father’s fault, I know, that you had to be brought up here and go to the local school. If he hadn’t made such stupid business decisions, we’d be living in Rome and you’d have friends like yourself.”
“I like Floriana.”
“She’s very sweet, I agree, and it’s unfortunate to say the least that her mother ran off and left her with that hopeless Elio. But you mustn’t forget who you are, my dear. One day you’ll marry and live in a place like La Magdalena, I promise you. I’ll see that it happens, mark my words. If you constantly hang around girls like Floriana, you’ll end up like her, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“Floriana wants to marry Dante,” Costanza said disloyally.
The countess laughed at the absurdity of such a notion. “It costs nothing to dream, I suppose,” she said, wiping her eye. “She thinks she is like you, Costanza. You see, your friendship is damaging for both of you, in different ways. That sort of dream can only end in disappointment. Poor child.” She sighed and wandered off to sit in the shade and read a magazine. But she didn’t read the words; she was too busy thinking about Dante and whether it wasn’t completely improbable that when her daughter was a little older, she might catch his eye. After all, they were the perfect match: she had the pedigree, he had the money.
Floriana wished the summer holidays would never end. She loved spending her days at La Magdalena, breathing the same rarefied air as Dante. He treated her like a younger sister, pulling her onto his knee and hugging her, chasing her in the swimming pool, throwing her into the water like a rag doll, grinning at her across the table as if they had a special secret. She sat on the bench beside the tennis court and watched him play in white shorts and shirt, whacking the ball at his sister, who complained all the time that he was hitting it too hard. Sometimes he asked Floriana to be ball girl, and she and Costanza would scurry around picking up the balls. She always threw hers to Dante, while Costanza was left to retrieve for his sister.
Damiana looked effortlessly glamorous in a little white skirt with pleats around the back, and white socks with bobbles at the ankles to match her white tennis shoes, and Floriana longed to be like her. Damiana was a gracious loser, but sometimes, when she played with Dante against her friends, she won. Then she was a gracious winner, laughing carelessly as if winning didn’t matter, and Floriana thought her the most beautifully mannered woman she had ever seen.
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