Love Over Scotland - Alexander Hanchett Smith [115]
It’s extraordinary how the level of a good wine in the bottle sinks so quickly, he said to himself as he lifted the bottle to the light.
Oh well, that was a gorgeous piece of early Florentine music playing: Ecco la Primavera, a favourite song of his. Spring has arrived. At last, at last. And here, Cyril my boy, is a toast to spring! La Primavera!
Cyril gazed at his master. There was much that he did not understand.
77. Angus Impresses Antonia
Antonia Collie, bound for dinner in Angus Lordie’s Drummond Place flat, but none too enthusiastic about the prospect, left Domenica’s flat shortly before twenty-to-eight that evening. She imagined that it would take her not much more than five minutes to walk up the street and round the corner, which would mean that she would arrive at about the right time for a seven-thirty invitation. In the event, it took her only two minutes to reach the top of Scotland Street, from which point the walk to Angus Lordie’s front door would require only another forty-five seconds. So, rather than arrive too early, she decided to walk round the square once before ringing his doorbell. These things might not seem important, but Antonia thought that they were, and she was right, and Immanuel Kant, famous for the utter regularity of his walks around Königsberg, would doubtlessly have agreed with her.
Unknown to Antonia, her host was at that moment peering out of the window of his drawing room, which looked over the gardens in the middle of the square. He had finished his preparations in the kitchen, and had moved into the drawing room, taking with him Cyril and the second bottle of Brunello di Montalcino. Angus had not intended to have more than one or two glasses of wine while cooking the dinner, but he had found that the sheer quality of the Brunello had dictated otherwise. The contents of the first bottle had slipped down almost unnoticed, and now the second bottle was seriously broached.
He was now in an extremely good mood. The sinking feeling which he had experienced earlier on at the thought of entertaining Antonia had been replaced by a rather more positive attitude. In fact, now he was looking forward to her arrival, as he hoped to show her a recently-acquired Alberto Morrocco still-life, a present from an old friend. It had been a handsome gift, and Angus had given the painting pride of place on his walls. Antonia, he thought, was bound to like it, just as he imagined that she would in due course approve of the portrait he Angus Impresses Antonia 241
was planning of the retired lawyer Ramsey Dunbarton. Angus Lordie knew Ramsey Dunbarton from the Scottish Arts Club, where they occasionally had lunch at the same table. He found Ramsey’s conversation somewhat dull – in fact, extremely dull, for most of the time – but he was a tolerant man and was prepared to put up with long-winded stories about Morningside as he ate his lunch, provided that the subject could be changed by the time they went upstairs for coffee. In a rash moment, Angus had offered to paint Ramsey’s portrait, and the offer had been immediately accepted. Ramsey had taken out his diary and said:
“When? Will next week do? Monday morning?”
Now, looking out of his window, he saw the figure of a woman come up from the top of Scotland Street and hesitate. He thought that it might be Antonia, but then his long vision was not very good at night and he could not make out the woman’s features. He saw her hesitate, look about her, and then start to stroll around the square. That was interesting, he thought. “That woman has an agenda,” he said to Cyril, who was sitting on the carpet in the middle of the room looking up at the light. Cyril cocked his head in his master’s direction in acknowledgement of the comment addressed to him, and then resumed his contemplation of the light. Angus poured himself another glass of Brunello.
Angus was still at his window