Lucy Gordon - Rinaldo’s Inherited Bride

‘Talking about me?’ came Rinaldo’s voice from just inside the house.

He came out and pulled up another chair, acknowledging Alex with only a brief nod, but sitting close to her. It was the first time she had seen him all day.

‘I was just explaining to Alex how you value your taste buds above the achievements of science.’

‘What has science got to do with it?’ Alex wanted to know.

‘Nothing,’ Rinaldo said. ‘Judging grapes is an art. You either have it or you haven’t. And my little brother hasn’t, so he tries to pretend that science is the next best thing.’

‘No, it’s the very best thing,’ Gino said stubbornly.

‘But what science?’ Alex asked, baffled.

From his pocket Gino pulled a narrow metal tube, about six inches long. It reminded Alex of a small telescope, except that at one end was a piece of yellow glass that lifted, revealing a small box beneath.

Into this Gino inserted a grape and closed the lid, squashing the grape so that the juice flowed.

‘Now look,’ he said, holding it up.

Alex squinted from the other end and saw a tiny dial. The needle was hovering back and forth, almost near the red area, but not quite settling there.

‘It tells you the sugar content,’ Gino explained. ‘When that’s right, you know it’s time to pick.’

Rinaldo gave a snort of contempt.

‘I’ve known you use it,’ Gino protested. ‘When it suited you.’

‘I’ve occasionally demonstrated that it backs me up,’ Rinaldo agreed.

‘And when it doesn’t, you ignore it.’

‘Yes, because I know grapes better than any machine. That’s enough talk. I’m going to bed. If you’re wise, you will too. We have a long, hard haul ahead of us.’

Just how hard a haul Alex was to discover. Both Rinaldo and Gino played their full part in the harvest, often picking with their own hands. Alex plunged in, determined to earn her place here by hard work as well as money.

Even she, inexperienced, knew that this would be a good harvest. The long, hot summer had brought the crops to perfection at exactly the right moment, until at last only the grapes were left.

‘And we start on those tomorrow,’ Rinaldo said.

The three of them were sitting on the veranda, in various stages of exhaustion. Gino was sprawled in his chair, his head right back. But he lifted it when he heard this.

‘Tomorrow?’ he echoed. ‘You can’t mean that.’

‘I do mean it. The grapes are ready.’

‘Not according to this.’ Gino lifted the instrument that was used for testing the grapes, which was lying on the low table.

‘I don’t need a machine to tell me the grapes are ready,’ Rinaldo said stubbornly.

‘Rinaldo be sensible.’

‘Machines don’t drink wine. People do. The grapes are ready.’

‘But nobody else is harvesting now. They’re all waiting another week.’

‘Great. We’ll be ahead of the market and our grapes will be the best. We’ll get the highest price. I’m going to bed.’

Gino’s shocked eyes followed him until he was out of sight.

‘He’s taken leave of his senses,’ he said. ‘I’ve never known him like this before.’

‘But you said he’s the real expert,’ Alex reminded him. ‘Has this never happened in the past?’

‘Only by the odd day or two. But a week? He’s never been out on that much of a limb before. What’s got into him to take such a risk?’

‘Is it really a great risk?’

‘Being wrong by a day can take the edge of perfection off the harvest. He’s risking everything.’

Risking everything. Yes, Alex thought, Rinaldo had had the air of a man leaping into the unknown, ready to chance all he had on one reckless throw of the dice.

Next day, as he’d said, the grape harvest began. The work was long and laborious, for grape picking was another task Rinaldo wouldn’t entrust to machines, saying they damaged the plants.

Alex piled in, picking until her hands were sore. If she tried to talk to Rinaldo he replied automatically. Sometimes she wondered if he really knew that she was there. She had the odd sensation that he was looking beyond her.

‘Pick,’ he said fiercely. ‘Just pick.’

She never knew how she got through that week. Somehow she’d been swept up by his own intensity, driving herself on to some unknown goal. When the last grape was in she felt drained and futile, as though the purpose of her whole life had been taken away.

The Farneses were not wine makers, but sold their grapes to a company. When Signor Valli, the company representative who always dealt with them, received their summons, he gave a yell of pleasure.

‘That’s great. I know we can always trust Rinaldo’s palate. I’ll be right over.’

Alex had meant to be there for his visit, but at the last moment she had to make one of her trips to Florence for a long talk with the accountant, Andansio. What she heard from him was absorbing, but it was still hard to concentrate when her mind was with Rinaldo, learning the result of his life or death gamble.

She wasn’t sure how she knew that it was life and death. But she had no doubt of it.

It was dark when she drove home, and hurried into the house. She found the two brothers standing in silence and her heart sank.

‘What is it?’ she asked, looking from one to the other.

‘I got it wrong,’ Rinaldo said bluntly. ‘The wine was harvested too soon. It needed another week. I got it wrong.’

Her heart almost stopped. His face was ravaged, as though he were dying inside. And she could feel it with him, the pain of failure and defeat, almost beyond bearing.

‘But how-?’ she whispered.

‘Because I believed what I wanted to believe,’ he said heavily. ‘People do that every day, but I’ve cost us the best of the wine harvest.’

‘You mean it’s all unusable?’ Alex asked, shocked.

‘Oh, no, it’s not unusable,’ Rinaldo said with ironic self-condemnation. ‘Valli will buy the grapes, not at top prices for Chianti, but as second grade to bulk out some inferior wine.’

‘That’s never happened to us before,’ Gino said.

He spoke softly, but Rinaldo’s lacerated sensibilities made every word pierce him.

‘No, it’s never happened before, and it wouldn’t have happened this time if I hadn’t been such a blind fool. Say it.’

‘You made one mistake,’ Gino said kindly. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

Rinaldo walked to the tall window that opened onto the veranda, and looked back. Suddenly his voice was almost that of an old man.

‘You’re being generous my brother, as always,’ he said. ‘But it is the end of the world. I can’t explain that, but take my word for it. I need time to think. Don’t follow me either of you.’

He walked out into the darkness.

I T WASwarn for October and Alex slept with the window open to catch any hint of breeze. Even so her sleep was restless, and at last she awoke.

Climbing out of bed she went to the open window, not troubling to cover her nakedness as there would be nobody out there to see her.

She recalled how she had looked out of this window once before and seen Rinaldo burying Brutus. That was when she had known that he had a heart. It was awkward and prickly, and would never be given easily. But it felt deeply, powerfully. Perhaps it was then she’d begun to suspect that she wanted it.

She knew it now with total certainty. It would have been an understatement to say that she loved Rinaldo. Falling in love did not begin to express the way he’d taken possession of her heart, her mind, her hopes, dreams, instincts.

The only thing he hadn’t possessed was her body, and now more than ever she felt the need to lie with him, taking him into herself so that they could be one in the complete surrender of love. Then perhaps she might find the means to comfort him for the wretched failure he had brought upon himself, for reasons that she still did not understand.