Lucy Gordon - The Italian’s Baby

When at last Luca managed to speak, it was to say huskily, ‘Thank you for thinking of this, my dearest.’

Rebecca rested her head on his shoulder and at once his hand came up to stroke her hair.

After a while they went out again into the churchyard and made their way quietly to the place where the little grave lay. Luca dropped to one knee, and laid his hand on the ground, looking intently at the spot.

Rebecca stayed back a little, guessing that what Luca wanted to say to his child was for themselves alone. Nor did she need to hear the words, for they echoed in her own heart.

‘Be patient awhile longer, little one. Your mother and father are taking you home at last. And you will never be lonely again.’

When Luca had mentioned the grounds of his house Rebecca had somehow formed the impression of a very large garden. What she found was an extensive estate, partly covered with woodland.

It stood just outside Rome, on the Appian Way, a mansion, with more rooms than one man could possibly need. She didn’t need his confirmation to know that it had been bought as a status symbol and chosen by Drusilla.

Despite this, there was no hint of Drusilla’s presence, partly because she had stripped the place of all she could carry, and partly because, as Luca explained,

‘We called it our home for lack of anything else to call it. But it was never a true home. We did not love each other, and there are no regrets.’

She knew instinctively that this was true, believing that a house where there had been love always carried traces of that love. Here there were no such traces. She and Luca could make of this home whatever they pleased.

He chose the brightest, sunniest room for the nursery, and decorated it himself in white and yellow.

‘I’ll paint pictures on the wall after the baby’s born,’ he said. ‘When we know if it’s a boy or a girl.’

‘Have you thought about names?’ she asked.

‘Not really. At one time, if it was a girl I’d have wanted to call her Rebecca, after her mother. But now…’

‘Now?’ she urged. She wanted to hear him say it.

‘We already have one daughter of that name. To have two would be like saying the first one didn’t count, and I don’t want to do that.’

She nodded, smiling at him tenderly. If there was one thing above all others that made her heart reach out to Luca it was his way of recognising their child as a real person, who had lived, even if only for a short time, and died with an identity.

‘What was your mother’s name?’ she asked.

‘Louisa.’

‘Louisa if it’s a girl, Bernardo if it’s a boy.’

He did not reply in words, but his look showed his gratitude.

‘I think Bernardo Montese sounds good,’ she mused.

But he shook his head. ‘Bernardo Hanley.’

‘What?’

He hesitated slightly before saying, ‘Where the mother is unmarried, the child takes her surname.’

‘I don’t like that idea.’

Luca took her hand and spoke gently. ‘Neither do I, Rebecca. But the decision is yours.’

They were married quietly, in the tiny local church. Luca held her hand as though unwilling to risk letting her go for a moment, and there was a calm intensity in his manner that told her, better than any words, what this day meant to him.

When the birth began he refused to leave her. It was harder and longer than last time, but at last their son lay in her arms, and she and her husband were closer than they had ever been.

‘You have your heir,’ she told him, smiling.

But he shook his head.

‘Labourers don’t have heirs,’ he said, as he had said once before. ‘It was a child that I wanted. Your child, and nobody else’s.’ He touched her face. ‘Now I have everything I want-well, except perhaps for one thing more.’

He had his wish in the spring when their daughter came home at last, and was laid in the spot he had chosen.

‘I thought it would be nice here, surrounded by the trees,’ he said to Rebecca when the service was over and they were alone. ‘And there’s plenty of room, do you see?’

She nodded, understanding.

‘You don’t mind?’ he asked, a little anxiously.

‘No, I’m glad you thought of it. But I want many years together first. We were apart for too long, and we have so much to make up.’

He kissed her hands and spoke with the same calm fervour as at their wedding.

‘Years ago,’ he said, ‘two nights before we were to be married, I promised you that my heart, my love and my whole life belonged to you, and always would.

‘Now I say it again. I will spend all my days making up to you for the suffering I couldn’t prevent. And when life is over, nothing will change. Do you understand that? Nothing. For then I shall be with you forever, and that is all the world can hold for me.’