Free The Runaway Visitors by Eleanor Farnes

Giorgio looked quickly at Vitoria.
    ‘It wasn’t I,’ she said. ‘Mr. Duncan won’t allow it.’
    ‘He says you go much too fast,’ said Amanda.
    ‘He saw us the other day coming back from Firenze,’ added Sebastien.
    ‘He did say you were going like a streak of lightning; and he feels responsible, you see.’ That was Victoria.
    ‘Ah.’ Giorgio had the grace to look guilty. ‘Yes, I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. So it is not permitted at all?’
    Victoria shook her head. They were all silent as Giorgio finished his coffee. Then he stood up, looking at Sebastien.
    ‘You can still come down to the farm, Sebastien?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘And your sisters? I wouldn’t like to think they are not coming anymore because I was stupid. ’
    ‘We’d love to come,’ said Amanda eagerly, ‘and I think you ought to come and have lunch with us one day. We had lunch with you. Please invite him, Victoria.’
    Victoria smiled at Giorgio, and he was dazzled as he had been dazzled at first.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We invite you here and now, Giorgio. When can you come?’
    A day was arranged; and as he went away, waving to them, Victoria thought they would arrange their own social life. Giorgio first; and Giorgio must have friends too. They would have a party of their own perhaps, seeing that they were excluded from Charles’s parties. They sat back, finished their breakfast, once again basking in the happy atmosphere that Giorgio seemed to bring with him—except perhaps for Sebastien, who was following his friend in imagination on the way to Poggibonsi and was inclined to be morose.
    ‘That was a good idea of yours, Amanda, having Giorgio to lunch. After the first time, we’ll see if he has friends he would like to bring along too; though I suppose I’d better see if it’s all right with Miss Jameson and Mr. Duncan. I don’t quite know how we stand.’
    Victoria paused for a moment, then went on: ‘You could ask the Rimini girls too. They’re the right age for you, and you’re beginning to speak Italian. It would be good practice for you. ’ ‘Oh, Vicki, they’re not the right age for me,’ protested Amanda. ‘And it’s just too difficult, trying to keep up a conversation in a foreign language. ’ (Though she often attempted it with Giorgio, Victoria noticed.) ‘We don’t want a lot of children. After all, I’ll be fourteen next week.’
    A very young fourteen up to now, Victoria thought. It would be easier for everybody concerned if Amanda stayed that way, at least until they went back to England.
    That afternoon, Victoria went for a walk by herself. Amanda had re-started her bird embroidery and did not want to leave it, and Sebastien had slipped out alone, probably to the farm, not wanting his sisters with him. So Victoria set out, round the side of the house, intending to climb the hill above it and walk on the olive-clad, cypress-scattered, cystus-sweet slopes where there was usually a welcome breeze. She had not gone far, however, when a voice hailed her: a voice she could never possibly mistake for anybody else’s.
    ‘Hi there, Victoria,’ it called, ‘hi! ’ and as she turned round, Charles called: ‘Can you spare me a minute?’ He was standing outside the wide double doors of his studio, wearing the same old clay-smeared smock with the large pocket across the front. She walked slowly back to him, noticing that there were faint smudges of clay on his brown hair also, giving it a fascinating effect of going grey.
    ‘Come in,’ he said, indicating the studio with a wave of his arm, and she went in by the unfamiliar way, with the wrought-iron railing now facing her. She saw that he was still working on the clay-daubed armature, but now it was beginning to take a form recognisable as the maquette of the miners which stood on a table nearby.
    ‘Well now, Victoria,’ he said, and his voice was noticeably less brusque than formerly. She realised that he was trying to be kind, and