Read Online The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales by Elizabeth Spencer - Free Book Online Page A

to my son. But when you come back, they say to me, ‘But if she leaves again?’ But I say, ‘The signora is a woman who is without caprice. She will not leave again.’”
“I do not intend to leave again,” said Mrs. Johnson, “until Clara and Fabrizio are married.”
As if on signal, at the mention of his name, Fabrizio himself stepped before her eyes, but at some distance away, outside the archway of the salon, which he had evidently had the intention of entering if something had not distracted him. His moment of distraction itself was pure grace, as if a creature in nature, gentle to one word only, had heard that word. There was no need to see that Clara was somewhere within his gaze.
Signor Naccarelli and Mrs. Johnson rose and approached the door. They were soon able to see Clara above stairs—she had promised to go no farther—leaning over, her hair falling softly past her happy face. “Ciao ,” she said finally, “come stai?”
“Bene. E tu?”
“Bene.”
Fabrizio stood looking up at her for so long a moment that Mrs. Johnsons heart had time almost to break. Gilt, wavy mirrors and plush decor seemed washed clean, and all the wrong, hurt years of her daughter’s affliction were not proof against the miracle she saw now.
Fabrizio was made aware of the two in the doorway. He had seen his father’s car and stopped by. A cousin kept his shop for him almost constantly nowadays. It was such a little shop, while he—he wished to be everywhere at once. Signor Naccarelli turned back to Mrs. Johnson before he followed his son from the lobby. There were tears in her eyes; she thought perhaps she observed something of the same in his own. At any rate, he was moved. He grasped her hand tightly, and his kiss upon it as he left her said to her more plainly than words, she believed, that they had shared together a beautiful and touching moment.
    9
    Letters, indeed, had been flying; the air above the Atlantic was thick with them. Margaret Johnson sat up nights over them. A shawl drawn round her, she worked at her desk near the window overlooking the Arno, her low night-light glowing on the tablet of thin air-mail stationery. High diplomacy in the olden days perhaps proceeded thus, through long cramped hours of weighing one word against another, striving for just the measure of language that would sway, persuade, convince.
She did not underestimate her task. In a forest of question marks, the largest one was her husband. With painstaking care, she tried to consider everything in choosing her tone: Noel’s humor, the season, their distance apart, how busy he was, how loudly she would have to speak to be heard.
Frankly, she recalled the time she had forced Clara into school; she admitted her grave error. Point at a time, she contrasted that disastroussequence with Clara’s present happiness. One had been a plan, deliberately contrived, she made clear; whereas here in Florence, events had happened of their own accord.
“The thing that impresses me most, Noel,” she wrote, “is that nothing beyond Clara ever seems to be required of her here. I do wonder if anything beyond her would ever be required of her. Young married girls her age, with one or two children, always seem to have a nurse for them; a maid does all the cooking. There are mothers and mothers-in-law competing to keep the little ones at odd hours. I doubt if these young wives ever plan a single meal.
“Clara is able to pass every day here, as she does at home, doing simple things that please her. But the difference is that here, instead of being always alone or with the family, she has all of Florence for company, and seems no different from the rest. Every afternoon she dresses in her pretty clothes and we walk to an outdoor café to meet with some young friends of the Naccarellis. You would be amazed how like them she has become. She looks more Italian every day. They prattle. About what? Well, as far as I can follow—Clara’s Italian is so much better