Elizabeth Edmondson - The Villa in Italy

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.’