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‘Good morning, Susie. Why has Miss Jay sent it up to me unopened? What’s got into her?’
‘Dunno. She just told me to bring it up. Looks important, string and sealing wax.’
Susie lingered, curious, as Miss Hawkins snipped the string and unwrapped the parcel. Inside was a manuscript, and on top a covering letter.
Olivia Hawkins read the letter swiftly, and then put it down. She said nothing, but looked out of the long, elegant sash window, not seeing the raindrops dribbling down the panes, or the dingy light of a bleak spring morning, but instead, brilliant sunlight on an Italian landscape; in her mind, she was in Italy, sitting under the colonnades, laughing, drinking a toast with a woman no longer young, yet every bit as full of life as young Susie.
She blinked, and reached down into her handbag for a handkerchief.
‘Is something the matter? Is it a book?’
‘Yes, it’s a book. The memoirs of Beatrice Malaspina.’
‘What a lovely name.’
‘The letter is from a firm of lawyers, who had instructions to deliver the book to me after Beatrice Malaspina died.’
‘Is she dead? Was she a friend of yours? I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I shall miss her, but she was born in 1870, so she had a long life. And a very full one.’
‘Eighteen seventy, goodness, so she lived to be eighty-seven.’ Susie tried to add seventy years of life to her own seventeen; she couldn’t imagine it. ‘Was she an Italian?’
‘No, she was English, but she married an Italian. Her own family had Italian connections, they owned a house in Italy called the Villa Dante, which she inherited. It is the most beautiful house, magical, a place of enchantment.’
‘How did you know her?’
‘We met during the war. She was a compelling personality, and she’d led a fascinating life. Rather a bohemian in her way; you would have liked her. She moved in artistic circles and knew most of the great painters and writers of her time. Many of them were her friends, and came to stay with her at the Villa Dante. She was a complex woman, and a great organiser. It annoyed her that people’s lives were so muddled; she used to say, “It only takes clear thinking and energy to change a life for the better, to set it off in a new direction.” ’
‘She sounds fun.’
‘She was.’
‘And these are her memoirs? Are we going to publish them?’
‘Oh, yes. What she’ll have to say about all those artists will make good reading, quite apart from the story of her own adventurous life.’
Susie was standing by the window, looking down at the dismal street, slick with rain. A rag and bone cart was going by, the horse’s back covered with an old sack to protect it from the wet, the driver shouting out his incomprehensible Londoner’s cry.
‘Oh, I meant to tell you, there were a couple of shifty-looking men hanging around when I came in. They’re still there, look, lurking outside number nine. Do you think they might be casing the joint?’
Olivia got up from her desk and joined Susie at the window. One glance was enough. She laughed. ‘You read too many thrillers, Susie. Those aren’t crooks—well, not the kind you were thinking of. Those are reporters. The man in the tweed coat is Giles Slattery of the Sketch. The one in the grubby mac with a camera is a photographer.’
‘Giles Slattery, the gossip columnist?’
‘Yes. I wonder who they’re waiting for.’
‘Somebody famous, do you think?’
‘What, here in Bloomsbury? I doubt it. Not the kind of famous Slattery goes for, at any rate.’
The Journey (#ulink_6fdc28a4-8442-5e6e-8a39-d4c290897417)
ONE (#ulink_f52ba37f-ad9e-56b2-954a-4a28c6e8ef06)
Delia Vaughan was hanging on to the steering wheel as if to loosen her grip would be to admit defeat. The wind had risen to a deafening shriek, coming in wild gusts that made the canvas top of the car bang and flap as though at any moment it would fly off.
They had stopped two hours before, to put up the hood, when the wind had whipped Jessica’s hat off, and Delia had only just stopped her silk headscarf going the same way.
‘We should find a hotel,’ Jessica said. ‘The weather’s getting worse.’
Delia didn’t want to stay at a hotel. In her mind, the Villa Dante had come to represent a refuge, a haven from the storm, a destination that was more than journey’s end. It was irrational, but she was determined to press on, despite her exhaustion, her hacking cough and Jessica’s urgings for her to be sensible and get off the road and out of the storm.
‘We’re only about thirty miles away, let’s keep going.’
‘Let me find something to wrap round my head, then,’ said Jessica. ‘This car is full of draughts, and I can’t hear myself think with all the noise in my ears. When I get back to England, I’m going to sell it, and buy a saloon.’ She extracted a silk scarf from her bag and put it over her head, tying it under her chin. ‘Come on then, if you must.’
It was slow going, and Delia was as relieved as Jessica when they came to a sign that read San Silvestro. ‘We take the road going south, the lawyer said, and turn off immediately after we’ve gone under the railway bridge. Then it’s uphill, and we’ll see the gates and the villa.’
‘How can we see anything in all this?’ said Jessica.
Miraculously, as they went up the hill, the skies lightened for a moment, and they could see a pair of tall, wrought-iron gates silhouetted in the blazing wind.
‘It’s astonishing,’ yelled Delia, an unreasonable surge of excitement rising in her as she caught a glimpse of the classical façade of a large house. Then it was gone, and she pressed her foot hard down on the accelerator, hoping the strange noises the engine was making didn’t mean it was about to conk out.
They made it to the gates, and stopped the car, although Delia left the engine running, ‘Just in case,’ she shouted to Jessica.
The gates were shut, with a rusty chain looped round the bars to hold them together. The wind was rising by the minute, and now the air was full of flying sand: that was the sound like hail that had rattled against the hood of the car. ‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ Jessica said. ‘There’s no name anywhere.’
‘It’s where the lawyer said it would be, and we didn’t see a sign of any other house in the vicinity. Do you think this sand is blowing off a beach? I never asked how close the villa was to the sea.’
‘Do Italian beaches have red sand?’
‘I don’t know.’ Delia’s hair was whipping about her eyes, and she pushed it ineffectually back from her forehead, trying to wedge a strand behind her ears.
‘Is there a bell?’
‘Only this.’ Delia pointed to a brass bell attached to one of the stone gateposts. A frayed rope with a knot at its end swung from it in the wind.
‘Give it a tug,’ Jessica said.
They could hear a faint clang from the bell, but the sound was carried away by the wind.
‘It’s so hot,’ said Jessica. ‘Like a wind from the desert.’
‘Villa Dante or not,’ Delia said, ‘we’re going in. Or we’ll be flattened by this blasted tempest, and I hate to think what’ll happen if any more of it gets into the engine of your car. Stranded is what we’d be then.’
She gave the gates an impatient shake, and let out a cry of triumph, carried away in the wind, as the chain slithered to the ground. A sudden gust tore the gates apart, driving them inwards to land with a crash against the stones set alongside the driveway.
‘Watch out,’ cried Jessica, as the gates began to swing back towards them with squealing ferocity.
Delia flung herself against the left-hand one, and, hanging on to it, looked around for a stone to wedge it open.
‘There, on the grass,’ shouted Jessica, who had got back into the car and started to edge it forward.
Delia kicked the stone into place, then forced the other gate back and held it as Jessica drove the car through.
Jessica was gesturing at her to get into the car, but Delia first picked up the chain and waited for the moment when the gates clanged together to wrench it through and twist it round the bars.
‘It won’t hold,’ she yelled, as she got back into the car.
‘The gate’s the least of our worries,’ said Jessica. ‘I just hope there’s someone here to let us in.’
They drove up to the house, not noticing anything about it, intent only on getting the car and themselves under shelter, out of the terrifying, sand-laden wind.
‘This is the back of the house,’ yelled Delia. ‘Look for somewhere to put the car.’
‘There,’ Jessica said. ‘A stable, or is it a garage?’
‘It doesn’t matter, it’s shelter.’
The doors were banging to and fro in the wind and Delia struggled to hold them back while Jessica drove the car in.
Delia leant against the stone wall, blinking the sand out of her eyes. ‘What a relief to be out of that ghastly hot wind,’ she said.
‘We can’t stay here,’ Jessica said. ‘How do we get inside the house?’
In fact, Delia was perfectly happy to stay there, out of the wind, the engine switched off, every nerve in her body throbbing. Even a single step seemed beyond her, but Jessica was at her side, forcing her out once again into the maddening wind, so strong now that the sand stung her cheeks, and then, oh miracle, Jessica found a door, and opened it, and they were inside, out of the wind, and heat, and sand.
Wherever they were, it was blessedly cool, and the air was breathable.
Delia heard a crash and a muffled oath. ‘Are we in a kitchen, do you suppose?’ said Jessica, her voice seeming to Delia to come from a great distance. ‘There are shutters, but I shan’t open them, or everything will blow in from outside. Besides, there isn’t much light to let in. But I’ve found a sink, and I think I collided with a kitchen table. Can you see anything?’
Delia blinked. ‘I’ve still got sand in my eyes.’ She began to cough, a deep racking sound. ‘I think the sand’s got into my lungs, too, blast it.’
‘Hold on.’
The sound of running water, and then Jessica was beside her, wiping her face with a wet handkerchief. ‘Don’t you dare faint on me.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Delia untruthfully, her head spinning. ‘I never faint.’
‘Sit down.’ Jessica, miraculously, set a chair under Delia as her legs crumpled. ‘Put your head down between your knees. Go on. Blood to the head is what you need.’
The dizziness receded. ‘I can’t think what came over me.’
‘It’s that bronchitis,’ said Jessica. ‘It’s pulled you right down, and this wind and the blowing sand, it hardly makes it easy for anyone to breathe. You could do with a glass of water to drink, but I wouldn’t drink anything out of the tap. Feeling better? Then let’s see if anyone’s at home.’
No one was. They walked through shadowy rooms, accompanied by the sudden, distant roars of the wind. Shutters rattled; somewhere a door or window was banging.
‘Deserted,’ said Jessica.
‘Not for long,’ said Delia, running a finger over the surface of a marble-topped table and inspecting it by the meagre light filtering through the shutters.
‘Do you think it’s always windy like this?’
‘I think this is a sirocco,’ said Delia. ‘We did it at school, with Miss Pertinax, don’t you remember? She took us for geography, and was mad about the extremes of nature. Floods and tidal waves and hurricanes, and the wicked winds of Europe. The Föhn that drives you mad, and the mistral in the south of France, and the sirocco, a blinding southerly wind that blows up from the desert into Mediterranean Europe, bringing half the Sahara with it.’
‘How on earth do you remember all that?’
‘Winds are dramatic. You won’t remember it, because you never paid any attention in geography, and I used to do your homework for you.’
‘I did your maths,’ said Jessica. ‘Does this sirocco happen often?’
‘Quite rare, I think.’
‘Then why does it have to blow on the day we arrive?’
‘Fate,’ said Delia. ‘Angry gods.’
‘There is electricity, here are the light switches, but nothing happens when I press them.’
‘Switched off at the mains, or it could run on a generator.’
‘Now isn’t the time to investigate. There are bound to be oil lamps or candles somewhere. And if there’s been dusting done, perhaps there’s food in the house. And a wine cellar. Safer than water for drinking. You stay here; I’ll find a light.’
Delia could make out little of her surroundings, although she could dimly see a pillar, and judging by the smoothness of the stone under her hand, the bench she was sitting on was marble.
Jessica came back bearing a candle aloft, the small flame sending little shadows to and fro as it flickered in a draught. They were in a large marble-floored room, with fluted columns and enormous doors set in classical architraves.
Delia sat up, sudden alarm rising in her. Faces were looking out at her, a girl peeping round a door, a woman in flowing robes strumming at a lyre—was she hallucinating?
‘Good heavens,’ said Jessica, equally startled. ‘What the dickens …?’
Delia went over to take a closer look. ‘It’s all painting,’ she said. ‘The people, this door, the columns. Trompe l’oeil. It’s amazing!’
‘Thank God,’ said Jessica. ‘It gave me quite a fright, thinking the place was full of people. Anyway, good news—I found a mesh cupboard with some food, and a bottle of wine, and bottles of water on the floor. And there’s an oil lamp—see if I can get it to light.’
‘Do you know how to work an oil lamp? I do, so hand it over,’ said Delia. She sat down, with the oil lamp on the marble seat beside her, and removed the glass globe to get at the wick. ‘We used them at Saltford Hall when there were all those power cuts after the war.’
They retreated to the kitchen, where they sat at the scrubbed table and ate the bread, cheese and cold meat that had been left in the kitchen. Fortified with food and a glass of wine, Delia yawned. ‘What a day,’ she said. ‘I’m whacked. What we need is beds, which means upstairs.’
Jessica tidied the remains of the food away into the food safe. ‘Washing up can wait until the morning,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t there a staircase at the end of the hall with the wall paintings?’
They went up the stairs into a gallery and then came to a wide landing, with several large, polished doors leading off it. Opening them one after the other, they found four rooms ready for guests, with the beds made and clean towels hung over the rails at the washstands in the bathrooms.
‘They seem to be expecting us,’ Delia said.
‘Someone, anyhow.’ Jessica still wasn’t sure they were in the right place. ‘What if we wake up and find we’re at the Villa Ariosto, or the Villa Boccaccio?’
