They meet and fall in love in Palermo during World War II. She’s an English nurse, the daughter of a Sussex country doctor. He’s a wounded Sicilian-American soldier. When they marry, Angela Drummond is pregnant, but Steven Falconi will not be with her the day their son is born.
Believing Angela to be the tragic victim of a German bomb, Steven returns to New York to take his place as heir apparent of his Mafia family. But he never stops mourning the loss of his love, even when he marries Clara Fabrizzi in a practical union of dynasties. The pampered, wildly jealous daughter of a powerful don, Clara will let nothing stand in the way of her uncontrollable passion for her husband.
Then one day, Steven sees a ghost.
Reminiscent of the works of Mario Puzo, The Scarlet Thread journeys across three continents and two decades to tell a story about the terrible price of power and the incalculable cost of love.
They meet and fall in love in Palermo during World War II. She’s an English nurse, the daughter of a Sussex country doctor. He’s a wounded Sicilian-American soldier. When they marry, Angela Drummond is pregnant, but Steven Falconi will not be with her the day their son is born.
Believing Angela to be the tragic victim of a German bomb, Steven returns to New York to take his place as heir apparent of his Mafia family. But he never stops mourning the loss of his love, even when he marries Clara Fabrizzi in a practical union of dynasties. The pampered, wildly jealous daughter of a powerful don, Clara will let nothing stand in the way of her uncontrollable passion for her husband.
Then one day, Steven sees a ghost.
Reminiscent of the works of Mario Puzo, The Scarlet Thread journeys across three continents and two decades to tell a story about the terrible price of power and the incalculable cost of love.
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Overview
They meet and fall in love in Palermo during World War II. She’s an English nurse, the daughter of a Sussex country doctor. He’s a wounded Sicilian-American soldier. When they marry, Angela Drummond is pregnant, but Steven Falconi will not be with her the day their son is born.
Believing Angela to be the tragic victim of a German bomb, Steven returns to New York to take his place as heir apparent of his Mafia family. But he never stops mourning the loss of his love, even when he marries Clara Fabrizzi in a practical union of dynasties. The pampered, wildly jealous daughter of a powerful don, Clara will let nothing stand in the way of her uncontrollable passion for her husband.
Then one day, Steven sees a ghost.
Reminiscent of the works of Mario Puzo, The Scarlet Thread journeys across three continents and two decades to tell a story about the terrible price of power and the incalculable cost of love.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504024280 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 12/15/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 521 |
| Sales rank: | 528,275 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Evelyn Anthony is the pen name of Evelyn Ward-Thomas (1926–2108), a female British author who began writing in 1949. She gained considerable success with her historical novels—two of which were selected for the American Literary Guild—before winning huge acclaim for her espionage thrillers. Her book, The Occupying Power, won the Yorkshire Post Fiction Prize, and her 1971 novel, The Tamarind Seed, was made into a film starring Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif. Anthony’s books have been translated into nineteen languages.
Read an Excerpt
The Scarlet Thread
By Evelyn Anthony
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1990 Evelyn AnthonyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2428-0
CHAPTER 1
It was dark and cool inside the church. It smelled of incense and candle grease; there were statues of the Virgin with the Christ Child nestling in her arms, and of saints in ecstasy. The images were painted and gilded, with crowns and paste jewels glimmering in the dim light. It was the last place in the world she would have imagined in picturing her wedding day.
She held on to his arm as they walked up a side aisle, close to the altar. Marble and gilding surrounded a writhing Savior on his cross.
He said, "Sit down and wait here, sweetheart. I'll go find the priest."
She sat on a rickety wooden chair. There were no pews.
A woman was on her knees, polishing the floor.
They had driven up the steep hillside, over the narrow, rutted tracks that led to the village. It clung to the hill as if it had grown out of the rock. They left the jeep in the tiny piazza close to the church, and he had taken her by the hand and walked up cobbled streets to show her the house where his grandfather had been born. It was poor and mean, with tiny windows and a low door that no full-grown man could have passed through without stooping. Geraniums bloomed blood red from little pots and cracks in the walls. Someone's wash hung limply from an upper window.
It was blindingly hot, and the red Sicilian dust was in the air they breathed. "His name was Stefano too," he told her. "That's what we'll call our boy. Let's go to the church now."
The woman who had been polishing the floor straightened up, rubbing the small of her back to ease an old ache. As she turned and stared at Angela for a moment, her expressionless face was sallow and wrinkled like an old map. Picking up the tin of polish and stuffing her rags into it, she painfully went down on one knee before the altar and crossed herself with her free hand. It seemed a strange pantomime to Angela Drummond. She wondered whether Steven had found the priest. The old woman went out, and the door closed behind her. She ought to pray, Angela thought suddenly. Even in this alien place with its sickly smells and guttering candles, she should remember her upbringing and pray for God's blessing on her wedding day.
It was all so different from what she had imagined. She had thought the ceremony would be in the church at home in Sussex, where her mother helped with the flowers and her father dutifully read the lesson once a month. The vicar who had baptized her would marry her to some faceless young man, with a ribbon of bridesmaids behind them and the pews full of friends and relatives in neat suits and flowered hats, whom her brother had ushered in.
But that was before the war had broken out and all their lives had been changed. Her brother was dead, killed on a bombing raid over Germany in 1942. She'd done her nurse's training and gone overseas, and she'd seen a lot of other young men die.
She closed her eyes and tried to formulate some kind of prayer from her thoughts. I love him; please let us be happy was all that echoed in her mind.
The priest was seated. He had a spreading bald patch on the top of his head. His cassock was dusty and stained. He looked up at the American captain and said slowly, "Why do you come here? We're at peace now. We don't want you."
"That's not why I've come," was the answer. "I've come for myself."
"You've come to bring back the men of blood," the priest said. He removed his spectacles and wiped them on his sleeve. "There's nothing for the Falconis here," he said. "Nothing."
"You don't understand. You're not listening to me. Listen to me, Father."
"The word comes even to Altodonte," the priest said. "The Americans are bringing you back to prey on us, to bleed us, as you did in all the years before we drove you out. Altodonte is poor. You can't squeeze anything from us. You can't bleed a corpse. Tell your people that."
"I was born here." Steven Falconi spoke quietly. "I've come here to be married. You can't deny me that. That's all I want from you. Nothing else. I've brought my woman; she's waiting outside."
"No." The priest got up, and the rickety chair creaked with relief. "I won't marry you. There's blood on your hands."
"She is carrying my child," Steven Falconi said. "For the sake of honor I ask you to marry us."
"No," the priest repeated. He opened the sacristy door into the church. A young woman in a nurse's uniform was sitting in the shadows at the back. "I won't pardon your sin. Take your woman and leave my church."
Steven Falconi didn't move. "If you marry us, Father, we will forget Altodonte. You'll be left in peace. I guarantee you won't be troubled. Ever." He crossed to the door and closed it quietly. "You'll never see or hear from us again."
It was the tried and proved negotiating term. Do this favor, and I promise a favor in return. Refuse me ... There was never any choice then. The priest knew there was no choice now.
"You swear this?"
"On my family's honor," was the answer, and the priest knew that oath was never broken. Like the oath of silence.
He sighed. "God forgive you. And me."
"I will wait outside for you," Steven Falconi said. "You've made a wise decision. You won't regret it."
"I remember your grandfather," the priest mumbled, not looking at him. "I was only a boy, but I remember him. He was a murderer."
"I'll wait five minutes, Father," Steven Falconi said. He went out of the sacristy into the nave of the church.
There had been nothing to warn Angela Drummond when she went on duty that day. It seemed a day like all the other days. The base hospital was set up after the Americans captured Palermo; Angela had joined it from Tripoli. Casualties were still coming in from the fighting around Messina, where the British were. American losses had been less light. The American boy she was tending had lost both legs when his tank hit a mine. He was unconscious, and from experience Angela knew that he was going to die. He lay as bloodless and still as if he were already dead. As she bent over, checking the failing pulse, she heard a voice say, "Nurse, is this Lieutenant Scipio?"
Angela straightened. "Yes, it is. I'm sorry, but you can't come in here. You'll have to go."
He was tall and very dark, with an infantry captain's bars on his uniform collar. "We grew up together," he said. "I heard he was brought in. How bad is it?"
"Very bad," Angela answered, her voice low. "He's lost both legs. Please, Captain, you shouldn't have been let in."
"I'll come back," he said. He stood staring down at the dying boy. "I'll come tomorrow. Take care of him."
"We take care of them all. Now, please ..."
He nodded and turned away. She could see he was moved. If they had grown up together ... She bent closer to the bed to see his chart: Alfred Scipio, Lieutenant, Tenth Armored Corps, age 23.
What a waste, Angela thought, as she had thought so often at so many deathbeds. A waste like her brother, blown to oblivion over a blazing German city.
"Nurse Drummond!" The head nurse's voice was sharp. "What are you supposed to be doing?"
"I'm sorry, Sister. I was just checking the patient's pulse. It's very weak."
"It doesn't take five minutes, Nurse, and that's how long you've been dawdling. Over here, please. Help me change this dressing."
When the American infantry captain came the next morning, there was another man in Scipio's place. He had shrapnel wounds, second-degree burns to the chest and arms. He would recover.
He came into the ward and straight toward her. "He's gone," he said. "Lieutenant Scipio's gone. Where is he?"
Angela had forgotten the captain would return. After a long day, she was always too tired to think of anything. Then she said, as she had many times before, "He died last night. I'm so sorry."
He looked over to the bed where Scipio had lain, and he said, "It's better for him. I knew him. He wouldn't want to live like that. Thank you, Nurse. Thank you for taking care of him."
"I only wish I could have done more...." Suddenly she was overwhelmingly tired, saddened by the futile words. Her eyes filled with tears, which overflowed. "Poor boy," she said, and turned away. "Please go. I'll get in trouble if the ward Sister comes and finds you here."
"When do you come off duty?"
She answered without thinking, wiping the tears away. It was unforgivable to give way and cry. She was an experienced nurse, with the North African campaign behind her. "Seven-thirty." Then, collecting herself, she added, "Why?"
"I'll wait outside," he said quietly. "My name is Steven Falconi. I'd like to thank you for taking care of my friend."
She didn't mean to let him drive her into Palermo to have dinner. He seemed to know exactly where to get good Sicilian food.
"Where did you and that poor boy grow up?" she asked. "Where do you live in America?"
"New York City," he answered. "Scipio was two grades behind me in school, but his family knew my family. I graduated from college and joined the army. He'd already enlisted. His mother was crying to my mother for weeks. She didn't want him to go. Have some wine — it's good. Do you like the food?"
He spoke fluent Italian. The owner of the little café was never far away. It seemed to Angela that he was always watching Falconi.
Steven talked a lot about Scipio and how he'd promised his friend's mother to look out for him when they were overseas. Not that he'd expected ever to see him once they embarked, but the promise was a comfort to the family.
"We all grew up in the same neighborhood," he elaborated, in answer to a question of hers. "We come from the same background. That's important to us."
He leaned over and poured some wine for her.
"He was only a boy," he said. "No time to know what life was all about. After seeing him like that — both legs gone — I said to you it was better he died."
"I understand," Angela responded. "But I always hope against hope they'll get better, no matter what. I suppose it's part of being a nurse. You want to heal. Every time someone dies, it's a defeat."
He looked at her. "You feel things, don't you? You feel from the heart."
She smiled at him. "I think you do too. You were so upset this morning. It was hell when I first started nursing. I joined the hospital in North Africa, and there were so many casualties. ... I used to cry myself to sleep. In the end, I just had to make myself accept it. Otherwise I couldn't have gone on. But you must have seen worse." She felt guilty about complaining.
"I haven't been in combat," he said quietly. "But before I'm through with my job here, I'm going to do my share. I've learned a lot since I joined the army. I learned to like some of the guys I trained with, to respect them. My family's very close. We weren't encouraged to make friends outside. Even at college I didn't get involved."
Angela said, "What about girls?"
He grinned slightly. "The girls I went with, you didn't bring home to your family. But the army was different. You had to mix in, you were part of something bigger than your neighborhood or your city. I found it hard at first. Now I think it was good for me."
"Are you from a big family?" she asked him.
He shook his head. "Just two of us. I have a brother, younger than me."
"Your parents?" She hoped he didn't mind the questions. She wanted to know about him. They hadn't made small talk from the first moment they met.
"My father's a strong man. We love him, but even now, if he says something, we don't argue. Everyone respects him. He's done well for us all." His expression softened. "My mother — she's very special. She's a good woman. She couldn't do a bad thing or a mean one. I don't know how I'm going to write her about Scipio. And then there's his own mother. ... I promised to take care of him, but what could I do? Maybe if I wasn't stuck with this goddamned job ..." He looked down, frowning.
On an impulse, Angela reached over and briefly touched his hand. "You weren't even in the same unit. Nobody could blame you. His family will understand."
"Of course they will," he said. "A man is born to die. We're brought up to accept that. Now why don't we talk about something else? I'm going to have some Strega. Will you try some?"
"Thank you, but I have to be on duty first thing in the morning. I have to have a clear head. But isn't it impossible to get?"
Steven half turned from her and signaled the proprietor. "I think he'll have a bottle somewhere," he said. And he was right.
They talked on, and the candle on the table burned down and had to be replaced. There was no sense of time. She told him silly incidents in her nursing career to make him smile. He didn't laugh much. He was a very intense man. He had the darkest eyes she'd ever seen, but they were fine and expressive, set well apart. His face was striking, with a handsome high-bridged nose. It was an arresting face, not easily forgotten.
He spoke softly, in a measured way, as if American was a language he had taken pains to learn properly. And sitting opposite him in the dimly lighted café, Angela felt a strange power coming from him, a power of personality and, above all, an overwhelming sensuality that made her tremble.
She hadn't meant to stay so late, but they went on talking, and the time passed quickly. It was close to midnight when he drove her back.
"I'll come tomorrow," he said. "The same time?"
"I get off at three tomorrow," Angela said. "It's my rest day."
"We could go into the country if you like," he said.
They stood by the jeep, not touching, the air vibrating between them.
For something to say, she asked, "What about petrol?"
"I can get enough," he said. "I'd like to show you this part of the island. It's very beautiful. Do you like mountains?"
"I don't know," Angela answered.
"We can take a drive," he went on. "I'll bring some food and a bottle of wine. Would you like that?"
"It sounds wonderful," she answered. She held out her hand. He took it and came closer to her. "Thank you for dinner," she said.
"Thank you for coming. See you tomorrow."
"Yes." He still held on to her hand. "Good night," Angela said, and he let go. She glanced back as she turned the corner of the nurses' quarters, and he was standing there, watching her. She waved, and he made a gesture in return. The back door had been left unlocked by Christine, Angela's roommate. Angela closed and locked it. She hoped Christine would be asleep. For some reason, she didn't feel like answering questions about the evening.
But Christine was awake. She was a professional nurse, three years older than Angela. Theirs was an odd friendship, for they were opposites. Christine made no secret of her liking for men and her enjoyment of sex, and it had been a long time since she cried over a death in the ward. She thought of Angela as sweet-natured and in need of someone to look out for her. It was time she had a boyfriend. She took life much too seriously.
"You must have had a good time," she said. "It's after twelve. What did you do?"
"We had dinner and we talked." Angela undressed quickly. "Thanks for leaving the door unlocked."
"What's he like?" Christine persisted. "Typical Yank? Make a pass at you?"
"No." Angela smiled at her. "Not typical at all. We shook hands, believe it or not. It was rather old-fashioned."
"But you enjoyed it," her friend insisted. "You look as if you did. Seeing him again?"
"Tomorrow," Angela answered. She got into bed and settled down.
"That's quick," Christine remarked. "What's his name?"
"Steven Falconi," she murmured. "We've got to be up at five-thirty, and I'm dead tired. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."
"I'm seeing my new fellow tomorrow," Christine said. She switched the light off. "I'll ask him if he knows him." Christine tended to mother her younger friends.
Angela had met Christine's latest boyfriend the month before. He was married, but all the nice ones were, Christine maintained. A lieutenant colonel, no less. Very generous and good fun. There were nylon stockings in her drawer and supplies of chocolate and whiskey for the asking.
His name was Walter McKie, and he was some big wheel in the military administration in Palermo. Details like that didn't interest Christine. She was intent on squeezing what fun she could out of the war, and one day, when it was all over, she might hook someone and settle down. But until then she played it strictly for laughs. Naturally, Christine was a very popular girl and never lacked admirers.
She wondered about this American. Christine tried to imagine any of the Americans she knew behaving in an "old-fashioned" way. There had been a distinctly star-struck look in Angela's eye when she came in. Christine had never seen it before, and there had been several young officers in Tripoli who had taken her out and one who had obviously fallen for her.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Scarlet Thread by Evelyn Anthony. Copyright © 1990 Evelyn Anthony. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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