Welner had just arrived and wished to see her, she was standing before a triple mirror in the dressing room of the master suite in the main house, wearing a simple black silk dress and holding a cross on a chain in each hand. "Where is he?"
"On the veranda, Senora."
"Offer him coffee, or something to drink, and tell him I will be with him in a moment."
"Si, Senora."
Claudia dropped her eyes to the crosses she was holding.
The simple gold cross on its delicate chain in her left hand was quietly elegant, and was entirely appropriate for lunch eon. The cross in her right hand was maybe three times the size of the other. Its heavy gold chain looked sturdy enough to hold an anchor. There were four rubies on the horizontal bar of the cross and six on the vertical. At their junction was an emerald-cut 1.5-carat diamond.
It looks like costume jewelry, Claudia thought. Of the type worn by a successful brothel madam.
But it's real. The best that money could buy-if taste doesn 't enter the equation.
I can't even remember any more what Jorge did, just that I had every right to be angry with him, and he knew it, and this was his peace offering.
She had imagined then, and imagined now, Jorge standing in the jewelry store off the lobby of the Alvear Plaza Hotel, being shown their entire collection of crosses and picking this one because it was the most expensive.
Anything to make peace. He couldn 't stand it when I was angry with him. He really loved me.
Oh, Jorge!
Her eyes watered, and she closed them, and then she put the simple cross back in her jewelry box and fastened
Jorge's cross around her neck.
Padre Welner will understand.
Senora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano and el Coronel
Jorge Frade had been lovers-in fact, all but married-for many years. Though both of their spouses had died, for var ious reasons marriage had been out of the question.
She had just finished repairing the tear-caused damage to her mascara when Sarita returned.
"Father is on the left veranda, Senora."
"Thank you."
"You are going to wear that cross, Senora?"
"Obviously, wouldn't you say, Sarita?"
Claudia went into her bedroom, then passed through a
French door to the walled private garden just outside, and then through a gate in the wall, and then walked to the veranda on the left side of the sprawling house.
The Reverend Kurt Welner, S.J., was a slim, bespectacled, fair-skinned, and elegantly tailored man of forty-four with thinning light brown hair. Claudia found him leaning against the wall. His legs were crossed, and he was holding a crystal
Champagne glass by its stem.
As she approached, he raised it to his mouth and drained it. Then, stooping slightly, he set the glass on a small table beside him, took the bottle of Bodega San Felipe Extra Brut from its resting place in a silver cooler, refilled his glass, straightened up, and had another sip.
"A little early for that, isn't it, Father?" Claudia chal lenged.
"My dear Claudia," he said, smiling at her. "Certainly a good Christian like you is familiar with Saint Paul's words in his letter to Saint Timothy? 'Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine other infirmities'? And besides, we have something to celebrate. The Cardinal Archbishop has come down, if not very firmly, on the side of indulging our Anglican brothers and sisters."
"Well, that's good news," she said. "When did you find out?"
"He called me to the chancellery about ten last night and told me. I decided it was too late to drive out then."
She smiled at him.
"There are two glasses," he said. "May I?"
"I shouldn't," she said.
"But you will?"
For answer she picked up the glass on the table and filled it herself. "To your amazing diplomatic skills," she said, raising the glass. "Thank you."
"No thanks required," he said. "I am but a simple priest doing what he can to ease the problems of the sheep of his flock."
She laughed.
"That's Jorge's cross, isn't it?" he asked.
"Jorge's peace offering cross," she said. "I don't even remember what he did, but to judge by this, it must have been something awful."
"They were doing The Flying Dutchman at the Colon," he said, smiling, referring to Buenos Aires' opera house. "You gave a dinner, at which he failed to appear. He showed up at the Colon during intermission, deep in the arms of Bacchus, and took improper liberties with your person."
"He was as drunk as an owl," she said, now remembering, without rancor. "He'd been playing vingt-et-un at the Jockey
Club. And he'd won. A lot. Enough to buy this incredibly vulgar cross!"
"Which you have chosen to wear on the day we can schedule his son's wedding," Welner said. "How appropriate,
Claudia! Good for you!"
"Oh, Father, I wish he was here."
"I was just thinking the same thing," Welner said. "I think he would be delighted with this union."
"That would make three of us," she said. "You, me, and
Jorge."
"I think you must add the bride's mother, the groom's aunt, and even, believe it or not, Senor Howell to your short list. You may be right about the others, unfortunately."
"I thought the groom's grandfather hated all things Argen tine," she said. "You really mean that?"
"Now that he is about to become the great-grandfather of another Argentine, I think he has been reevaluating his feelings vis-a-vis all of us."
She laughed. "When can we have the wedding?"
"Whenever we want," he said. "I was going to suggest that you schedule the date and present it as a fait accompli."
"That's really the bride's mother's business."
"Not, I would suggest, under these circumstances."
She chuckled.
"If I started right now," Claudia said, "and gave up the luxury of sleep, we could have it next Saturday. That would give me a week. There are so many people to invite…"
"I gave the Cardinal the impression it would be a small ceremony, just the immediate families and the closest of friends."
"That's simply impossible, and you know it," she said.
"That's also the impression Cletus has," Welner pursued.
"Cletus better begin to understand who he is, and his obli gations," she said. "He is not in a position to insult people who believe they are the closest of friends."
"Of his? Or of Jorge's?"
"You know what I mean," she said. "Stop being difficult."
"Cletus has inherited from his father a great capacity to make himself difficult."
"Why do I think you have something in mind?"
"Someone, actually. What are you going to do about
Coronel Peron?"
"If you mean am I going to invite him. of course I am."
"When you showed Cletus your first rough draft of the guest list, he crossed the Coronel's name off with… what shall I say? A certain emphasis."
"Juan Peron is Cletus's godfather," Claudia said. "He was
Jorge's best friend. I don't know what's happened between them, but Cletus is just going to have to work it out."
Welner didn't reply.
"You did call him and tell him the Cardinal granted the dispensation?" Claudia asked.
"I called Senor Mallm," he said. "I wanted to tell Cletus in person. After I told you."
"If you called Enrico, then I had better get onto the tele phone with Pamela," she said, as much to herself as to him.
Pamela Mallin was the mother of the bride. "Can you find something to occupy you until luncheon?"
"I thought I would go see Cletus-and his aunt and grandfather-now."
She met his eyes.
"There will be others at luncheon," she said. "Humberto and Beatrice Frade. And her doctor."
"Oh, really?" he said noncommittally.
"She called to tell me that they would be spending the weekend at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. And I didn't know how not to suggest they have lunch here on their way."
He smiled. "Be sure to give them my best regards."
"I suppose I can deal with Beatrice by not telling her about the Cardinal's dispensation. All I need is her taking charge."
"I think that's a very good idea," he said. "She'll learn at
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, but Mrs. Howell can tell her Pamela Mallin is handling everything. I'll have a word with Mrs. Howell."
"I'd be grateful," Claudia said, then added, "For other good news, Alicia's young diplomat friend will be here for the weekend. I didn't know how to tell her no, either. My cup runneth over."
"There's nothing you can do about that, Claudia, except be grateful that he seems to be a fine young man. I like him."
"If he were an Argentine, I think I would, too," she said, then asked, "You wouldn't be willing to talk to her?"
"It would do absolutely no good," he said. "Haven't you seen the way she looks at him?"
"I don't want to have to arrange another hurried wed ding," she said.
"You think it's gone that far?"
"Haven't you seen the way she looks at him?" she quoted him, bitterly.
"If you like, Claudia, I will talk with her," Welner said.
"Now?"
"Let me deal with Cletus first. Am I invited to spend the night?"