Читать книгу: «The Villa in Italy»

ONE

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?’

Delia said, ‘Then our hosts will be in for a surprise. It doesn’t matter; here we are, and here we stay, and if a claimant to my room turns up in the middle of the night, he or she can jolly well go and sleep somewhere else.’

‘I can’t see anyone being mad enough to be out in this wind.’

‘You have this room, and I’ll take the one next door. You have the oil lamp, I’ll have the candle.’

From what Delia could see by the light of her candle, she was in a large and grand room, the sort of room that would belong to the master or mistress of the house. Perhaps she shouldn’t be in here at all, but she was too sleepy to care.

The bed had an elaborate headboard, on which, in the flickering, shadowy light, Delia could make out the entwined initials, B M.

Beatrice Malaspina, she said aloud. Well, here I am at the Villa Dante. I do wonder what you want with me.