The letter came on a Monday, and Florentyna immediately recognized Scott’s handwriting. She tore the envelope open in happy anticipation, but it contained only a short note saying that because of a change in his family plans he would have to postpone her trip to Marblehead. Florentyna read the letter again and again, looking for some hidden message. Remembering only how happily they had parted, she decided to call his home.
‘The Roberts residence,’ said a voice that sounded like the butler’s.
‘May I speak to Mr. Scott Roberts?’ Florentyna could hear her voice quiver as she said his name.
‘Who is calling him, ma’am?’
‘Florentyna Rosnovski.’
‘I’ll see if he’s in, ma’am.’
Florentyna clutched on to the phone and waited impatiently for Scott’s reassuring voice.
‘He’s not at home at the moment, ma’am, but I will leave a message saying that you called.’
Florentyna didn’t believe him and an hour later called again.
The voice said, ‘He is still not back, ma’am,’ so she waited until eight that evening, when the same voice announced that he was at dinner.
‘Then please tell him I’m calling.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
The voice returned a few moments later and said perceptibly less politely, ‘He cannot be disturbed.’
‘I don’t believe it. I don’t believe you’ve told him who it is.’
‘Madam, I can assure you—’ Another voice came on the line, a lady’s, with the ring of habitual authority.
‘Who is this calling?’
‘My name is Florentyna Rosnovski. I was hoping to speak to Scott as—’
‘Miss Ros-en-ovski, Scott is having dinner with his fiancée at the moment and cannot be disturbed.’
‘His fiancée?’ whispered Florentyna, her nails drawing blood from the palm of her hand.
‘Yes, Miss Ros-en-ovski.’ The phone went dead. It took several seconds for the news to sink in; then Florentyna said out loud, ‘Oh, my God, I think I’ll die,’ and fainted.
She woke to find her mother by the side of her bed.
‘Why?’ was Florentyna’s first word.
‘Because he wasn’t good enough for you. The right man won’t allow his mother to select the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with.’
When Florentyna returned to Cambridge, matters did not improve. She was unable to concentrate on any serious work and often spent hours on her bed in tears. Nothing Bella could do or say seemed to help and she could devise no better tactic than belittlement. ‘Not the sort of man I would want on my team.’ Other men asked Florentyna for dates, but she didn’t accept any of them. Her father and mother became so worried about her that they even discussed the problem with each other.
Finally, Florentyna came close to failing a course, and her advisor, Miss Rose, warned her that she had a lot of work to do if she still hoped to win her Phi Beta Kappa key. Florentyna remained indifferent. At the beginning of the summer vacation she stayed at home in Chicago accepting no invitations to parties or dinners. She helped her mother choose some new clothes but bought none for herself. She read the details of the ‘society wedding of the year,’ as the Boston Globe referred to the marriage of Scott Roberts to Cynthia Knowles, but it only made her cry again. The arrival of a wedding invitation from Edward Winchester did not help. Later, she tried to remove Scott from her thoughts by going to New York and working unheard-of-hours for her father at the New York Baron. As the vacation drew to a close she dreaded returning to Radcliffe for her final year. No amount of advice from her father or sympathy from her mother seemed to improve matters. They both began to despair when she showed no interest in the preparations for her twenty-first birthday.
It was a few days before Florentyna was due to return to Radcliffe that she saw Edward across Lake Shore Drive. He looked as unhappy as she felt. Florentyna waved and smiled. He waved back but didn’t smile. They stood and stared at each other until Edward crossed the road.
‘How’s Danielle?’ she asked.
He stared at her. ‘Haven’t you heard?’
‘Heard what?’ said Florentyna.
He continued to stare at her as if he couldn’t get out the words. ‘She’s dead.’
Florentyna gazed back at him in disbelief.
‘She was driving too fast, showing off in my new Austin-Healey, and she turned the car over. I lived, she died.’
‘Oh, my God,’ Florentyna said, putting her arms around him. ‘How selfish I’ve been.’
‘No, I knew you had your own troubles,’ said Edward.
‘Nothing compared with yours. Are you going back to Harvard?’
‘I have to. Danielle’s father insisted that I complete my studies. Said he would never forgive me if I didn’t. So now I have something to work for. Don’t cry, Florentyna, because once I start I can’t stop.’
Florentyna shuddered. ‘Oh, my God, how selfish I’ve been,’ she repeated.
‘Come over to Harvard sometime. We’ll play tennis and you can help me with my French verbs. It will be like old times.’
‘Will it?’ she said, wistfully. ‘I wonder.’
Chapter twelve
When Florentyna returned to Radcliffe, she was greeted by a two-hundred-page course catalogue that took her three evenings to digest. From the catalogue she could choose one elective course outside her major area of study. Miss Rose suggested she take up something new, something she might never have another chance to study in depth.
Florentyna had heard, as every other member of the university had, that Professor Luigi Ferpozzi would be spending a year as guest lecturer at Harvard and conducting a seminar once a week. Since winning his Nobel Peace Prize he had roamed the world receiving accolades, and when he was awarded an honorary degree from Oxford the citation described him as the only man whom the Pope and the President were in total agreement with, other than God. The world’s leading authority on Italian architecture had chosen Baroque Rome for his overall subject. ‘City of the Eye and the Mind’ was to be the title of his first lecture. The synopsis in the course catalogue was tempting: Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the artist aristocrat, and Francesco Borromini, the stonecutter’s son, transformed the Eternal City of the Caesars and the Popes into the most recognizable capital in the world. Prerequisites: knowledge of Latin and Italian, with German and French highly recommended. Limited to thirty students.
Miss Rose was not optimistic about Florentyna’s chances of being among the chosen few. ‘They tell me there is already a line from the Widener Library to Boston Common just to see him, not to mention the fact that he is a well-known misogynist.’
‘So was Julius Caesar.’
‘When I was in the common room last night he didn’t treat me like Cleopatra,’ said Miss Rose. ‘But I do admire the fact that he flew with Bomber Command during the Second World War. He was personally responsible for saving half the churches in Italy by seeing that the planes made detours around important buildings.’
‘Well, I want to be one of his chosen disciples,’ said Florentyna.
‘Do you?’ said Miss Rose dryly. ‘Well, if you fail,’ she added, laughing as she scribbled a note for Professor Ferpozzi, ‘you can always sign up for one of those survey courses. They seem to have no limit on numbers.’
‘Rocks for Jocks,’ said Florentyna disparagingly. ‘Not me. I’m off to ensnare Professor Ferpozzi.’
The next morning at eight-thirty, a full hour before the professor was officially available to see anyone that day, Florentyna climbed the marble steps of the Widener Library. Once in the building, she took the elevator — large enough to hold herself and one book — to the top floor, where the senior professors had offices under the eaves. An earlier generation had obviously decided that being far removed from zealous students more than made up for the long climb or the inconvenience of an always occupied elevator.