The Villa in Italy

Voices were coming from the kitchen quarters. Delia pushed open the door, and there was the woman in black talking at great speed and at the top of her voice to a harassed-looking man with snow white hair and a wrinkled, deeply tanned face.

‘Buon giorno,’ Delia said.

The woman whirled round, startled, and then burst into smiles and more talk, of which Delia understood not one word.

‘Can’t you ask her to slow down?’ said Jessica.

Delia held up a hand. ‘Non capisco,’ she tried.

The flow of words slowed abruptly, and the woman made tutting noises before coming closer, and, jabbing her chest with a plump finger, said as one talking to idiots, ‘Benedetta.’

‘Signorina Vaughan,’ said Delia, pointing to herself.

That brought an immediate and delighted response. ‘La Signorina Vaughan, si, si.’

‘Looks like she was expecting you,’ Jessica said.

Delia touched Jessica’s arm. ‘Signora Meldon.’ And then, ‘Ch’e la Villa Dante?’

That brought more si, sis.

Delia was relieved. But the woman was off again, and, seeing their incomprehension, reached out and took their hands to lead them to the open door. ‘Scirocco!’ she said, pointing dramatically to the heap of red sand that had come to rest by the stone threshold.

‘I think she means sirocco,’ said Delia. ‘Si, scirocco,’ she said, and made a whooshing sound to indicate a mighty wind.

The woman nodded vehemently, and then, catching sight of the man standing by the table, flew at him, talking once more at the top of her voice. She paused for a second, to push him forward, saying, ‘Pietro, Pietro.’ Then she thrust a large broom into his hands and propelled him out of the door.

‘Looks like he’s on sweeping duty,’ Jessica said. ‘What’s the Italian for breakfast?’

‘Bother, I can’t remember,’ said Delia. She mimed putting food in her mouth; instant comprehension, and Benedetta was urging them out of the kitchen. She bustled past them, and led them along to the entrance hall. There she flung open a door and led the way into a room hardly visible in the semi-darkness. There was the sound of shutters opening, and light poured in from two sets of doors.

Delia stepped out through the doors. ‘It’s a colonnade,’ she called back to Jessica. ‘With a vaulted roof.’ She came back into the dining room. ‘It runs all along this side of the house and there are steps further along down into the garden. Necessary shade for hot summer days, I suppose, and there are plants weaving in and out of the balustrade. Clematis, for one, with masses of flowers, and wisteria.’

‘Prima collazione, subito!’ Benedetta said, setting down a basket of bread and a jug of coffee before whisking herself away.

It was a large, high room with faded frescoes on the panelled wall. A glass table, set on ornate wrought-iron supports, ran almost the length of the room. Four places were set at one end of the table. ‘For our fellow guests,’ Delia said. ‘We’re obviously the first to arrive.’

‘No one said anything to you about a host or hostess, did they?’ Jessica said. ‘I mean, there could be a horde of Malaspinas.’

‘I told you, there was nothing to be got out of Mr Winthrop, it was like talking to a deed box. But the French lawyer did say there was no one living at the villa now. Perhaps we’re all to gather here, for a formal reading of the will.’

‘Or to be bumped off, one by one, like in a detective story,’ Jessica said cheerfully. ‘In any case, they’ll have to lay an extra place, if four are expected, since they can’t have known I’d be coming as well.’

‘I suppose the others were held up by the wind. Or maybe they’ll arrive at the last minute. It’s not the end of the month yet; the others might not be able to get away as easily as us. Let’s hope they’ll know something about the mysterious Beatrice Malaspina. Or perhaps it will all turn out to be a dreadful mistake, and they’re the grieving heirs and will toss us out into the storm.’

‘Doesn’t look like there’s any storm in the offing just at present,’ Jessica said.

Delia stood beside the French window, restless, wanting Jessica to hurry and finish her breakfast.

Jessica poured more coffee. ‘Are we going to look round the house?’

‘Before anything, I’d like to go to the sea,’ said Delia, catching her breath after a sudden fit of coughing. ‘Sea air will do me the world of good.’

‘You and your fascination with water,’ said Jessica. ‘No, don’t fidget and fret. I’m hungry, and I’m going to finish my breakfast in my own good time. Then we’ll go and indulge your Neptune complex.’

Delia loved the sea, and water in all its forms, and the sight of the shining Mediterranean from her bedroom window had filled her with longing to go down to the shore. ‘Besides, it’s not as though we’d rented the house. It seems rather rude just to prowl around it,’ she said, sitting down again and trying not to look impatient.

‘Do you suppose there’s a private beach?’

‘Probably,’ said Delia, thumbing through her dictionary. ‘Spiaggia is the Italian for beach. I shall ask Benedetta.’

‘Can you manage that? When did you learn Italian? Didn’t you only do French and German at Cambridge?’

‘We musicians pick up quite a bit, and I bought a Hugo’s Italian in Three Months to study during rehearsals, there’s a terrific amount of sitting about. Crosswords get boring, and I can’t knit, so I decided to improve my mind and expand my horizons.’

Benedetta came in to offer more coffee and Delia enquired about the beach, which brought a volley of head-shaking and finger-wagging.

‘Can’t we go?’ Jessica asked.

‘I don’t think it’s territorial, more concern for our health.’

Benedetta was pointing at Delia’s chest and making hacking noises.

‘Especially for you. She’s noticed your cough.’

More Italian poured out of Benedetta, accompanied by much gesticulation.

Delia shrugged. ‘She’s lost me. We’ll just have to find our own way. Il giardino?’ she said to Benedetta.

Which brought more frowns from Benedetta, and a reluctant gesture towards the steps and the garden and, finally, a dramatic rendering of a person shivering, crossing her arms and slapping herself vigorously.

‘She wants you to put on a coat or jacket,’ Jessica said. ‘I don’t need Italian to understand that.’

‘Compared to England…Oh, all right, I can see you’re about to fuss as well.’

Once outside, Delia was glad of the jacket she’d thrown over her shoulders; the air was fresh and the light breeze had none of the heat of the southerly wind of the night before. Jessica had pulled a jumper on over her shirt and thrust her feet into a pair of disreputable plimsolls.

They went out through the dining room into the colonnade, blinking in the strong sunlight.

‘There are paintings on the walls,’ said Jessica, stopping to inspect them.

Delia was already running down the steps to the garden, eager to be moving, to get to the sea. How absurd, like a child full of excitement at the beginning of a summer holiday, longing for the first glimpse of the sea, wanting nothing except to be on the beach. She turned and gave the frescoes a cursory glance, then came back up the steps for a closer look. The colours had faded, but the graceful lines of three women in flowing robes set among a luxuriance of leaves and flowers delighted her.

‘They look old,’ said Jessica. ‘Or just faded by the sun, do you think? What are those words written in the curly banners above the figures? Is that Italian?’

‘Latin,’ said Delia. ‘Sapientia, Gloria Mundi and Amor.’ She pointed to each figure. ‘Wisdom. Glory of the world, which is power, and Love.’

‘Not the three graces, then. I must say, Wisdom looks pretty smug.’

‘Love even more so. Her expression is like a cat who got the cream.’

‘And Gloria Mundi reminds me of Mrs Radbert on speech day.’

Their headmistress had known all about power and possibly wisdom, but love had never tapped that severe woman on the shoulder, Delia was sure. She laughed. Jessica was right; Gloria Mundi only needed an MA gown to be Mrs Radbert’s double.

The garden to the front of the house was a formal one, a pattern edged with bedraggled box hedges, and a desolate, empty fountain in the centre.

Jessica stopped under a broad-leaved tree. ‘It’s a fig. Look at the leaves, did you ever see such a thing? Like in all those Bible paintings. You don’t realise how apt a fig leaf is until you see one, do you? I think if we follow this path, it’ll take us to the sea.’

‘Through the olive trees. Only think, this time last week we were in damp and foggy London, and now…’ Delia made a sweeping gesture. ‘All this. It’s heaven. And I can smell the sea.’

‘No Giles Slattery, no Richie.’

‘No one knows where I am except old button-mouth Winthrop,’ said Delia. ‘Not even my agent, who’ll be furious when he finds out I’ve vanished.’

They were walking through pine trees now, umbrella pines that cast a web of shadows around their feet. The ground was dusty and strewn with pine cones and needles, and a smell of resin lingered in the air. It was startling to come out of the darkness into bright sunlight and find the sea stretched out before them, a shimmering, radiant, turquoise blue under a blue heaven.

Delia stood and gazed, the light almost too much to bear, the beauty and the still perfection catching at her throat. In a tree just behind them, a bird was singing its heart out.

‘Perfect,’ said Jessica with a sigh. ‘A little beach, utterly private. With rocks. Isn’t it quite, quite perfect?’

‘Stone steps going down to the cove,’ said Delia, already on her way down. ‘Bit slippery, so watch your footing.’

She felt drunk with the colours and the light and the beauty of the place. ‘Trees for shelter, rocks to lean against, and this exquisite private place,’ she said. ‘Lucky old Beatrice Malaspina to have lived here. What a pity it’s too early in the year to bathe.’

‘We don’t know how long we’ll be here,’ Jessica pointed out. ‘Don’t Italians take their time about the law, like late trains and so on? The Mediterranean sense of time, or rather non-sense of time. For myself, looking at this, I feel I could stay here for ever.’ She paused. ‘Of course, you wouldn’t want to, not with your music to get back to.’

She perched herself on a rock and rolled up the legs of her trousers before dragging her plimsolls off and walking down to the sea.

‘I’ll worry about work when my chest’s better,’ Delia said. There was no point in fretting over her work; at the very thought of it, she began to cough. ‘Besides, in a house like the Villa Dante, I’d be surprised if there weren’t a piano. I’ve brought some music with me.’

‘It’s chilly,’ Jessica announced, dipping white toes into the tiny lapping waves. ‘About the same as Scarborough in July, though, and I’ve swum in that.’

‘You aren’t going to swim?’

‘I might, if the weather stays warm. Too cold for you, though, with that chest of yours, so don’t go getting any ideas. A paddle is your lot for the time being.’

‘I’ve got stockings on.’ Why hadn’t she put on slacks, like Jessica?

‘No one’s looking.’

True. Delia hitched up her skirt and undid her suspenders. She rolled down her stockings and took them off, laying them carefully on a smooth rock, and went down to the water’s edge.

‘We’ll be all sandy and gritty and we’ve nothing to dry our feet on,’ she said, coming alive as the chill water swirled about her ankles. ‘This is bliss.’

She looked down at her toes, distorted by the clear greenblue water, and wriggled them in the sandy shingle, disturbing a shoal of tiny fish as they fluttered past.

‘It’s odd,’ she said as they sat on a rock and dried their feet with Jessica’s handkerchief, ‘to be staying in a house with no hostess. I feel as though Beatrice Malaspina is going to come sweeping into the dining room, to ask if we slept all right and whether we have everything we need in our rooms.’

‘She’d better not. A ghost would be too much.’

‘I wonder who the house does belong to.’

‘You, perhaps. The mysterious Beatrice M might have left it to you in her will.’

‘Why should she?’

They sat in companionable silence, listening to the birds’ joyful song from the nearby trees, and the mew of gulls out at sea.

Delia lifted her face up to the sun. ‘I can’t believe how warm it is. So much for Benedetta and her shivers. Mind you, the guidebook is very doleful on the subject of Italian weather, which the author says is full of nasty surprises for unwary travellers. He advises warm underwear and thick coats until May, as the weather in most parts of Italy can be surprisingly inclement.’

‘Killjoy.’

‘He sounds like a man after my father’s heart—you know how he mistrusts warmth and sunshine, as leading to lax habits and taking the pep out of the muscles of mind and body. And also, they drink wine in Italy, how shocking!’

‘Felicity drinks. Last time I saw her, she was guzzling cocktails like nobody’s business. I suppose she caught the habit from Theo, he’s a great cocktail man.’

The spell was broken; the mere thought of Theo, the mention of his name, took the pleasure out of the day. Delia stood up. ‘Let’s go back to the house, and sit on the terrace and just do nothing at all.’

‘We could look round the house.’

‘Later. There’s plenty of time. I shall go upstairs to change into a sundress, you find Benedetta and ask what we can sit on. I’ll look up the word for deckchair in the dictionary.’

Benedetta was very doubtful about the deckchairs. It seemed that April was not only a month to go nowhere near the sea; it was also definitely not a month for sitting outside in the sun. Reluctantly, she instructed Pietro to bring out some comfortable chairs. She followed him with armfuls of cushions and several rugs.

‘I think she means us to swathe ourselves in these, like passengers on an Atlantic crossing,’ Delia said, taking a cushion and ignoring the rugs.

Jessica pushed her sunglasses up on her forehead and lay back, letting her mind drift. It was extraordinary how easy it was here just to be, to simply exist, free from the endless round of repetitive, tedious memories of a past she longed to forget, but which refused to go away.

‘The wardrobes in the bedrooms are full of clothes,’ Delia said. ‘Did you notice?’

‘Perhaps Beatrice Malaspina was a dressy woman.’

‘They can’t all be hers, because they aren’t the same size.’

‘Family clothes. Or maybe she had to watch her weight.’

‘She might grow fatter and thinner, but she can hardly have grown or shrunk several inches. Heavenly evening dresses from the thirties, do you remember how glamorous they were?’

‘Oh, yes, and didn’t you long for the time when you could dress every evening? And then, of course, when it was our turn, it was all post-war austerity and clothes rationing.’

‘You’ve some lovely frocks now. That’s what comes of marrying a rich husband.’

Jessica was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘Richie will have had to buy himself some new clothes. I never told you what I did before I left, did I?’

It had surprised her, the visceral rage she felt for Richie at that point. Opening his large wardrobe she had hauled out all twenty-three of the Savile Row suits that were hanging there. She looked at them, lying in a heap on the bed, and then ran downstairs to his study for the large pair of scissors he kept on his desk. She cut two inches off sleeves and hem of every jacket and every pair of trousers. Pleased with her efforts, she made all his shirts short-sleeved, and hacked pieces out of his stack of starched collars.

Getting into her stride, she threw away one of each pair of cufflinks, snipped the strings on his squash and tennis racquets and dented his golf clubs and skates with some hefty bangs of a hammer. More cutting work saw to his fishing rods and driving goggles, and then she carefully removed every photo he possessed of her—not that there were many of them, only the large studio shots in heavy silver frames designed to look good on the baby grand which no one ever played. The pictures and snapshots of them together she dealt with by removing herself from the photos, leaving him gazing at nothing but blank, jagged-edged shapes.

He was beside himself with rage when he discovered the extent of her destructive efforts.

‘Grounds for divorce, don’t you agree?’ she shouted at him down the telephone before slamming the receiver down and then, swiftly, picking it up again to ask the operator how she could change her number. ‘I’ve been getting nuisance calls, you see.’

‘Goodness, you must have been in a temper,’ said Delia. ‘How very unlike you. I wish I’d been there, I can’t imagine you laying into his things like that.’

‘It was surprising, wasn’t it? But I enjoyed doing it. Very Freudian, I dare say. I wonder how he explained the sudden need for new suits to his tailors.’

‘I expect they’ve seen it all before.’

‘I can’t believe I ever lived in that house with Richie. It all seems far away and unreal.’

‘The Villa Dante has a timeless quality,’ Delia said, closing her eyes. ‘As though nothing exists except the present moment.’

TWO

Which wasn’t, as it turned out, a very long moment, for barely half an hour later, when Delia was just drifting into a pleasant doze of warmth and sunshine and fresh air, and Jessica was well into her book, there were sounds of arrival, of a revving car, of voices: Benedetta’s, Pietro’s, another Italian man and then, unmistakably, people speaking in English.

‘Oh, Lord,’ said Jessica, laying down her book and swinging her legs to the ground. ‘I think your fellow legatees are here.’

Delia didn’t feel like greeting these people clad in a brief green sundress but Jessica, cheerful in the beige shorts she had put on when they came back from the sea, had no such qualms.

The Italian man, who had the slanting eyes and lively figure of a faun from the classical world, announced himself in a flurry of bows, eyeing Jessica’s legs with evident approval, seizing her hand and bending over it, crying out how glad he was to make the acquaintance of Miss Vaughan.

‘No doubt,’ said Jessica. ‘Only that’s not me. I’m Mrs Meldon. This is Miss Vaughan.’

Dark eyes glowing at the sight of Delia’s shapely form. ‘But there is no Mrs Meldon expected,’ he cried. ‘I know nothing of any Mrs Meldon.’

‘I drove here with Miss Vaughan,’ Jessica said. ‘The lawyers in Paris knew I was coming. Didn’t they tell you?’

‘No, the lawyer here, which is me, knows nothing about it; no one tells me anything. However,’ he said, brightening, ‘there is no problem, with the Villa Dante so large, and how pleasant for Dr Helsinger to have such charming feminine company.’

Delia was about to ask the faun what his name was when he recalled his manners, and with profuse apologies announced that he was Dottore Calderini, avvocato, legal adviser to the late Beatrice Malaspina, ‘Such a wonderful lady, such a loss.’

Delia turned her attention to her fellow legatees. A dark woman with a bony face and angular frame, too thin for herself, and a tall balding man with intelligent, tired eyes and those round spectacles that no one wore any more. A don, by the look of him. Probably not the most exciting company in the world, but one of them might turn out to be a mine of information about Beatrice Malaspina and the Villa Dante.

The woman held out her hand. ‘How do you do? I’m Marjorie Swift. This is George Helsinger. Are you here because of the will as well? The lawyers said there were four of us.’

‘Only I’m not one of them,’ said Jessica. ‘Just a friend.’

‘So there’s one more to come,’ said Marjorie, looking round as though she expected another legatee to leap out of a bush.

‘Indeed, indeed, but as to when that will be I cannot tell you,’ cried Dr Calderini. ‘For I do not know when he comes, although it must be before May begins. So I am afraid here you must stay until we know he is coming, until he arrives.’

‘What if he never comes?’ asked Delia.

‘People in wills always come,’ said the lawyer with a sudden air of worldly cynicism. ‘You may take my word for it.’

‘I think,’ said Delia, ‘that Benedetta should show Miss—Mrs?—Miss Swift and Dr Helsinger to their rooms. If they’ve had a long train journey…’

‘Long, but extremely comfortable,’ said Marjorie. ‘And I think first names, don’t you, given the circumstances? I’m Marjorie.’

‘My name’s Delia, and this is Jessica.’

George shook hands with Delia and Jessica. ‘I should be happy if you would call me George.’ In the distance a church bell was tolling a single note, the sound carrying in the still air. ‘The angelus,’ said George.

‘What?’ said Delia.

‘It is a bell rung every day at noon.’

They walked together towards the house and up the flight of shallow stone steps that led to the front door. At the threshold, Dr Calderini paused with a polite Permesso? before stepping inside.

Marjorie and George stood, amazed by the frescoes, exclaiming at the beauty of the marble-floored hall. ‘And do I see a garden beyond?’ said Marjorie.

‘Neglected, now,’ said Delia, ‘but it must have been lovely once. I don’t suppose they’ve had the staff to keep it up, not since the war, not if it’s the same as in England.’

‘Ah, the war,’ said Dr Calderini, who had been conversing in rapid Italian with Benedetta. ‘Everything was lovely before the war.’

Delia doubted it, remembering what she had heard and read about Mussolini and his fascist government, but certainly it would be true as far as gardens and houses went.

‘And what’s this?’ Marjorie said. She was standing in front of a column on which sat a glass box.

‘I didn’t notice that last night,’ said Delia, going to have a look.

‘I thought it was part of the painting, all that perspective and detail that deceives the eye,’ said Jessica.

‘It’s a thumping great ring,’ Delia said.

‘Ah, that is a cardinal’s ring,’ said Dr Calderini. ‘A great treasure—the Signora Malaspina was much attached to it. It belonged to Cardinal Saraceno, who built the villa. Although it has been much altered since his day, naturally. There is a fine portrait of him, also, in the house. It is a poisoner’s ring,’ he added casually. ‘Not the ring of his office.’

‘Poisoner’s ring?’ said Jessica. ‘Belonging to a cardinal?’

‘He was quite a wicked cardinal.’

That would confirm all her father’s long-held prejudices as to the untrustworthiness of any Catholic priest, let alone a cardinal, thought Delia. She laughed. ‘So the house belonged to a prince of the church who poisoned people. I knew the Villa Dante was extraordinary the moment we got here.’

‘You will be very comfortable here,’ said Dr Calderini. ‘People are always happy and comfortable at the Villa Dante, even in these troubled times, and Benedetta will look after you. She is to have help from the town if she needs it. Now, I shall take my leave.’

‘Hang on,’ said Delia. ‘Haven’t you forgotten something? I mean, we want to know why we’re here.’

Dr Calderini turned himself into a tragic mask of regret. ‘So sorry, so sad to have to be disobliging, but Signora Malaspina’s orders were laid down most strictly. I am not at liberty to tell you anything until all four of you are present at the Villa Dante, which will, I am sure, be very soon. Until then, my lips are sealed, I can say nothing. So,’ he finished, bowing and smiling as he headed for the steps, ‘enjoy the hospitality of the villa as Signora Malaspina wanted. You are to make yourselves completely at home. When the fourth man is here, then I will be back, and all will be made clear.’

And with a few parting words for Benedetta, he was gone.

Delia turned to Marjorie. ‘You and Dr Helsinger, I mean George, travelled together? Are you old friends?’