Free The Glass Butterfly by Louise Marley Page A

She tried to push him away at the same time that she struggled to pull her skirts down to her ankles. Bica, the bitch, galloped up the path behind Buoso, and the two dogs quarreled, forcing their heads into Doria’s lap as she groped beneath the bench for her shoes and stockings. She dropped one shoe, and Bica grabbed it in her teeth and shook it fiercely, as she might an unlucky mole that crawled into her path.
    â€œBuoso, Bica, down!” Puccini called as he paused to latch the gate.
    Doria leaped to her feet, laughing. She had stockings in one hand, a shoe in the other. The hounds had knocked her book to the ground, and she bent hastily to pick it up and brush bits of grass and dirt from its cover. Clutching her possessions in front of her, she tried to regain her dignity by bobbing a swift curtsy.
    â€œThat’s a good way to stay cool,” the maestro said, nodding toward her bare feet.
    Doria tried to twitch her skirt so it would cover her toes, but her dress was too short for that. Her feet embarrassed her. They were like bird feet, with long, narrow toes and high arches. Worse, they were dirty now, smudged with dust and grass stains. She sidled away, hoping to escape to her room to set herself to rights.
    â€œYou’re reading Il Fuoco !” the maestro said cheerfully. He was wearing his broad-brimmed hat, but he was in shirtsleeves, and he had dropped his braces so he could wear his shirt loose outside his trousers. Now he took off the hat, and slapped dust from it against his knee. He had a bag with a couple of fat birds in it, and he looked happy, dark hair falling across his sunburned brow, a rime of dust on his thick mustache. Why, she wondered, had such a man married Elvira? The signora was old and sour in comparison with her husband’s boyish charm. Even at the great age of fifty, Giacomo Puccini was a handsome man.
    Doria took another sidelong step toward the kitchen door. “I’m halfway through,” she said. “I mean—” She held it up. “I mean the book.”
    He said, “I didn’t like it all that much. His plays are better.”
    Doria said, “I think they must be, signore. This book, it’s all about sex and not about—” She closed her mouth abruptly, and ducked her head. Her mother was right. She should learn to keep silent about things she knew nothing about.
    He said, “You’re quite right, Doria! Sex isn’t the least bit interesting unless the characters are interesting.”
    In fact, it was just what she had been thinking, and his agreement gave her a little glow of pleasure. She took another step, her head down, watching the impression her bare feet made in the grass, little claw marks like those of a hen scratching for ants. The dogs pressed close to her, nuzzling her legs, asking for tidbits. She slipped them treats from time to time, when Elvira wasn’t looking, and she saw by Puccini’s grin that he knew that. He couldn’t know, of course, how she nestled with them sometimes on the grass. They were her only source of physical affection, and she adored both of them, despite their antics.
    She patted the dogs, and muttered, “Go on with you, now. I don’t have anything!”
    Puccini fell into step beside her, and at that moment, with a talent for timing only Elvira Puccini seemed to possess, the shutters of the second-floor bedroom window flew open, clacking against the outside of the house, and the lady’s head appeared.
    â€œDoria!” she shouted. “You haven’t touched the ironing!”
    Doria lifted her head. “Signora.” Sudden anxiety made her voice rise, and it sounded plaintive. “Signora Puccini, it’s my half day.”
    â€œYour half day?” Elvira exclaimed. “And you spend it gallivanting in the garden?”
    Puccini said, “Elvira, let her be. She can spend her half day as she likes.”
    Doria drew a small, dismayed breath.