Page 69 of Under a Dancing Star

Leo looks a little uneasy and begins clearing his throat noisily. Filomena rises and comes forward, graceful as always.

“I will stay behind and see that the house is closed up properly. Then I will join Leo.”

“Exactly,” Leo wheezes gratefully. “Exactly right, join us later, once things are a bit more settled.” He beams at me and at Frances. I look at Hero again. She hasn’t said a word since I arrived. I don’t think she’s even moved.

She’s not surprised, I realize. She looks sad, yes, but resigned. I think back to her behaviour over the summer – her restlessness and frustration, her urgent need to take in all this loveliness, as though it might all be over too soon. As though she expected something like this.

“So,” Filomena says brightly, as she moves across to the door, “I think I will go and begin the preparations.”

“More tea, Frances?” Leo asks.

“Certainly, thank you,” she replies. They return to their chit-chat as though nothing has happened. I remain, stunned and unmoving, where I stand. Then, through all the noise in my brain, one thought crystallizes.

I need to find Ben.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

I spend hours combing the grounds, starting with the fountain, but I can’t find Ben anywhere. When I finally track him down, he is in about the last place that I expect him to be.

He is in Filomena’s room, and though his back is to me I can tell from his rigid posture that he is angry.

Filomena is folding clothes and packing them carefully into a set of suitcases laid out on the large four-poster bed.

“You can’t go with him,” Ben says firmly. “You can’t.”

“What’s going on?” I ask, my voice low. I shut the door carefully behind me.

Ben swings around to face me, his eyes blazing. “She’s leaving. She’s going with Hugh,” he says.

I freeze, unable to take it in. “Filomena – why? I don’t understand.”

“Yes,” Filomena says. “I will go with Hugh, because he has offered to take me with him.” She gives me a small smile. “And because I have nowhere else to go. I am fortunate that Hugh is here to offer at all.”

“But I don’t understand!” I exclaim. “You’re going to join my uncle and Hero in England.”

Filomena sits on the bed. “I said that because it is what Leo wanted me to say.” She shrugs. “He is not a man who likes disharmony. So I give him this: a peaceful separation at the end of our time together. I know he would not like a scene. But I also know what he means, when he says that he is going back to England. It means that my time is up.”

“But not Hugh,” Ben pleads. “Please, Fil. You know what kind of a man he is.”

“Yes,” she says and her eyes spark. “I know what kind of a man he is, Ben. And I can take care of myself.”

“Like my mother did?” Ben asks. “Women are objects to him, that’s all. Disposable objects.”

“I know you are only trying to help,” Filomena says gently, so gently. “And I loved your mother… Despite what you might think I love you, too. I am grateful that you care. But I know who he is and I know who I am. And I am not her.”

There is a silence and then, without another word, Ben turns and leaves the room. I go to follow him.

“No.” Filomena’s voice stops me. “Leave him, just for a minute. He will want you, but not now.”

“How can you be so calm?” I ask her, rage rising inside me. “How can you stand this?”

She shrugs again, that shrug of world-weary resignation. “It is not a surprise to me. I knew that my relationship with Leo would come to an end; it was only a question of when.”

“Because you didn’t love him?” I say, thinking back to her detachment around Leo, her refusal to discuss a date for the wedding.

Filomena gives me a look full of pity. “Because he didn’t love me,” she says quietly. “Only the idea of me, for a while.”

I understand, then, what has been just out of sight for me this summer, the thing that wouldn’t sit smoothly. I thought Filomena’s feelings were not as strong as my uncle’s. Now, I realize, she was simply bracing herself for this moment.