The Tuscan Contessa

by Dinah Jefferies

  Then she blew him a kiss and made her escape. If she could just persuade him to give her a lift to Florence …

  28.

  Lorenzo was back in Rome again and Sofia was preparing for her trip to Florence. The night before her departure, she was surprised to find James at the back door. He was rubbing his hands and blowing on them at the same time. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he said, his lips blue with cold. ‘I know it’s late, but it’s damp and freezing at the farm and I daren’t light a fire.’

  She considered for a moment, glad the dogs were asleep in the kitchen for their barking would be loud enough to wake the dead. ‘It’s probably best if you come up to my room. I can light a fire. If anything happens, you’ll be able to quickly slip into the passage from there.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s important you don’t get ill again. Are you hungry?’

  He made it clear that he was by tapping his stomach.

  ‘We may have some leftover rabbit pie. I’ll look. You remember the way up?’

  He nodded. ‘Is Maxine here?’

  ‘No. She’s still in Montepulciano. Go on up now. Nobody will see.’

  As he headed towards the stairs, Sofia went to the kitchen where she found Carla still wiping down the table.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, surprised. ‘You’re still up.’

  ‘I’m happy to get you something.’

  ‘Ah … Yes. Do we have any rabbit pie left?’

  Carla went to the larder and returned with a slice of pie on a plate, which she placed on the table. ‘I’ll get you a fork.’

  She studied Sofia’s face with a concerned look. ‘Are you all right, Contessa?’

  ‘Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  Carla narrowed her eyes inquiringly. ‘You are a little pale and you never eat late at night.’

  ‘Nothing gets past you, does it, Carla? But, honestly, I’m fine. The pie is for James. He’s cold and he’s hungry.’

  She picked up the plate and fork Carla handed her. ‘I’ll take it to my room.’

  Back upstairs, a built fire used to always be at the ready. Giulia would prepare it every day, but now Sofia took care of it herself and, following Giulia’s example, she kept her supplies well stocked. She could employ another maid, of course, but with things as they were, she preferred not to have anyone new working in the household. She handed James the pie, then busied herself by crumpling the paper, adding the kindling and a few bone-dry smaller pieces of wood, all the while conscious of him watching her every move. It was an odd, rather awkward situation and she felt it keenly. When she struck the match, the fire blazed up quickly and she drew up both the bedroom chairs before it.

  She wasn’t looking at him, but she could sense he was still gazing at her. When she did glance up, she couldn’t quite read his expression – there was something a bit soulful about his eyes and she wondered if he was feeling homesick. She felt as if she were absorbing the sadness from the depths of those very blue eyes and found herself wanting to comfort him.

  He finished the pie and flashed her a smile. ‘Thank you. You’re very generous.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I’ve been looking for locations,’ he said.

  ‘Locations?’ She realized she must sound stupid.

  ‘New sites where we might be able to set up the radio, not just the farm I’m staying in.’

  ‘And did you find any?’

  ‘Yes, one or two. An abandoned church tower, a high-ceilinged barn at the top of a hill.’ He gave her a warm, familiar look and suddenly she felt prickly and exposed.

  ‘So … how are you?’ he asked.

  She stiffened, aware that she wasn’t usually as self-conscious as this. ‘I’m fine.’

  The conversation had already become stilted, a result of her growing unease at being alone in her bedroom so late at night with an attractive man who was not her husband.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, clearly sensing her discomfort. ‘I’d better go.’

  She didn’t reply at first. Should she send him away or simply brush his suggestion aside? She hadn’t the heart to send him straight back to a freezing house a considerable walk away so, trying to keep her tone neutral, she offered him some extra blankets.

  ‘Thank you.’ He began to rise.

  After a moment’s hesitation and wanting to rescue the situation, she added, ‘Look, really … you don’t have to go yet. Please warm yourself up properly first.’

  He sat back down. ‘You’re very kind.’

  There was a pause that soon turned into a long silence.

  ‘Can you tell me anything about your life?’ she eventually asked. ‘Back home, I mean.’

  He rubbed his chin and looked resigned. ‘I’m afraid we’re not allowed to share personal information.’

  ‘Of course not. Stupid question.’

  ‘Not stupid. Normal. Well … if things were normal, I mean.’

  They fell silent again and then, suddenly, both spoke at the same time. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘You first.’

  He smiled and she felt so disarmed by the light in his eyes that all manner of complicated responses rose up inside her.

  ‘Oh, to hell with it,’ he said. ‘It’s hardly going to lose us the war, is it? I’m from Gloucestershire. A place called Stroud. Well, one of the villages nearby, in fact.’

  ‘Won’t you tell me what it’s like? I’ve only ever been to London.’

  ‘It’s very different from London. Lovely Cotswold stone cottages dotted around the hills, and some very grand houses too,’ he said, warming to the topic.

  ‘It sounds delightful. You must miss it.’

  ‘I do. My parents live in Minchinhampton, near the common. It’s where I used to walk our Labrador.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Dead now, I’m afraid, but I called him Pluto.’

  She laughed. ‘Funny name for a dog.’

  They talked comfortably for an hour. He told her about England – his fiancée, Margaret, his home, his favourite food. Apparently, everyone in England talked about food, or dreamt about it, just like they did. He told her about bangers and mash, and cottage pie, roast dinners and apple crumble. She told him the food in London hadn’t been great.

  ‘Godawful,’ he said, pulling a face, and they both laughed.

  As they sat together by the fire, she felt cocooned in a precious oasis of peace.

  ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Where did you grow up?’

  ‘Rome. The walls of our apartment were lined with books and paintings.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘My father despaired because Mother was forever hunting for rare books or pictures and carting them home. They were thoughtful people and good parents. As a treat, I was sometimes allowed to stay up for their monthly musical evenings.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful.’

  As she thought about the past, a wave of sadness went through her. ‘Yes, it was. For a while. My parents’ friends were artists and writers, musicians, poets, actors. Not the kind to carry the Fascist card. But gradually they became fewer in number.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Mussolini happened. Some disappeared and were never heard of again. Others went abroad. America mainly. It broke my mother’s heart.’

  ‘I imagine your husband’s background was somewhat different.’

  ‘The nobility tended to support Mussolini.’

  ‘Your husband too?’

  She gave him a noncommittal shrug and sank into thoughts about Lorenzo. Although she’d been fully aware of his grave misgivings on the subject of Mussolini, he hadn’t been actively outspoken against the man. Few had, and when they did, they lived to regret it if they lived at all. But in any case, generally speaking, Lorenzo had never been as forthright as she. His personality was different and, as he’d been brought up to be less open, maybe it was natural for him to be a little more reticent.

  ‘He doesn’t support Mussolini, and he’s a good man, a really good man,’ she said. ‘But
he holds a lot in reserve.’

  ‘And you’re all right with that?’

  ‘Aren’t most men uncommunicative, at least some of the time?’

  He bent forward and gazed at her with a quizzical look, but she didn’t quite trust herself to add anything more, even if she had wanted to, and she wasn’t sure that she did. She felt he wanted to say something, something that was right on the tip of his tongue, but then he sat back and shook his head, turning his eyes away.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes and she became aware that her earlier discomfort had completely vanished; the companionship she felt being with him and the directness of the conversation had been comforting. There was a straightforwardness about him that she liked and it was clear a delicate bond had begun to spring up between them.

  It was as if they’d agreed to talk about everything but the war, until suddenly she couldn’t help herself. ‘Will the Allies win?’ she said and heard the tremble in her own voice.

  He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘I bloody well hope so.’

  ‘But it’s more complicated than winning or losing, isn’t it? The whole thing is insanity. It shouldn’t even be happening, should it?’

  He groaned at the truth of this. ‘None of us want it.’

  ‘My mother says that amid darkness there is always light.’

  ‘And you believe her?’

  ‘I want to … but I know the reverse is also true.’

  As the hour grew later, she was beginning to feel sleepy and couldn’t help yawning.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, instantly rising to his feet. ‘I’m keeping you up and you need your sleep.’

  She got up too and, feeling lonely and longing for further human contact, she only just stopped herself from suggesting he stay longer.

  He gazed at her as if he could read her mind. ‘Thank you,’ he said, taking her hand and putting it to his lips. She leant into him, felt his heart thump, and realized how warm he now was. A few moments passed, then she pulled away, suddenly wishing she hadn’t allowed this intimacy.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, looking crestfallen.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she replied. ‘But you’d better go now. I’ll come down and lock the door after you.’

  29.

  Florence

  Lorenzo had been right. When Sofia and Anna arrived in German-occupied central Florence, it wasn’t quite as cold as the Castello, but still the damp crept into their bones. Sofia recalled her very first visit to Lorenzo’s family palazzo, how stunned she had been by its beauty, with its arched windows right across the front and the huge main doorway. Their last visit here had been back in September, and they’d been lucky. There’d been no air-raid sirens when the Allied bombers targeted the city, and they’d been relaxing in the salon unaware of what was about to happen. When the awful whistling began, Sofia ran to Lorenzo and they held each other, listening as each shrill shriek was followed by a rumbling sound, ending in an explosion that made you feel you were going crazy. As the nightmare went on and the Allied bombs fell hard and fast, they waited, hardly breathing, not knowing if they would live. She prayed and prayed, and she meant it. And she tried very hard not to think about what might happen if they were unlucky. Miraculously they were left unscathed, with just a few of their palazzo windows shattered, but they found out several buildings had been destroyed and at least two hundred civilians killed. It was hard to stomach. The British and American forces had been their enemies but, overnight, became their friends. Now they were blowing up bridges and railway tracks to make life difficult for the Germans, but it was hurting the ordinary citizens too.

  This was the first time she had returned since then and the whole house echoed with Lorenzo’s absence. Nothing improper had really taken place, but perhaps spending time alone with James the night before had made her more aware of how much she needed her husband to be near her. Was that wrong? She could cope. She could cope perfectly well, but she longed for him to be there, in the dark, shuttered rooms and in her bed. She whipped off the muslin dust sheets covering the furniture in every room and that helped a bit. The four-storey palazzo was far too big for them and there had been an exciting plan to refurbish it into four apartments but when the war came along the project had ground to a halt.

  When they were first married, she’d had to build her confidence in the role of Contessa and, especially here, it had felt like a performance until, gradually, she’d fallen into step with the way of things. Before her death, Lorenzo’s mother had gone out of her way to be kind. Sofia had been visiting her parents in Rome when the terrible accident had struck Lorenzo and his family. As the only one to escape the car with his life, his guilt and sorrow had been devastating to see. She’d done everything she could to help him, until eventually the light had begun slowly to return to his eyes.

  Now, while the ever-practical Anna concocted something to eat, Sofia lit a fire in the drawing room and thought again of James. Loneliness and living in fear could lead you to a place you never would have imagined in peacetime. After the fire had caught and the room had filled with smoke, she longed to clear her head so decided to take a walk. She slipped into a long black coat with a thick fur collar and matching hat. Unsure how safe it was, she considered taking her gun but decided against it. Not a good idea if she were to be stopped and searched.

  It must have been raining heavily earlier because she had to pick her way over puddles in the cobbled streets and avoid water dripping from the deep eaves of the buildings. She passed very few locals but there were Germans, their lorries and their military vehicles in evidence everywhere. She headed along the Lungarno for the Ponte Vecchio, where it straddled the river Arno on low arches.

  When the Medici family transferred from their original palazzo to the Palazzo Pitti, they built a connecting passageway from the Uffizi to the Palazzo Pitti on the other side of the river so they could cross while remaining hidden from the ordinary people. She could see the row of small windows along the walls of the Corridoio Vasariano which ran above the jewellery shops on the bridge. When Lorenzo and she met all those years ago, this had been their favourite romantic spot. By day the sky had always seemed to be a clear azure blue while the sun lit the buildings so brightly, they shone as if made of palest gold. The memories tugged at her heart, especially from those early evenings, the magical hour when they sauntered arm in arm along the riverbank beneath a velvety violet sky. The hour when the surrounding hills softened to dusky blue, the golden reflections of ancient houses shimmered in the water and the scent of orange blossom hung in the air. She felt a stab of panic when it struck her that the German retreat from, or defence of, this beautiful city might mean the destruction of this ancient bridge. She knew she had to do her best to find out if any of her friends had heard rumours about where German weapons were being stockpiled. The partisans badly needed them if they were to assist the Allies in liberating Florence.

  As dusk approached, a diaphanous white mist rose up above the river. She reluctantly moved away and soon, hearing gunshots, began scurrying along, pulling her fur collar around her face as the bitterly cold wind drove her home. When she reached the palazzo, she glanced up at the two wrought-iron lanterns above the door fixed into the rusticated stone wall. No bulbs inside them now. Then, as she pushed open the great wooden front door and entered the fifteenth-century inner courtyard, the aroma of frying onions and garlic greeted her. Life must go on and, thank God, it did. She ignored the wide stone stairs leading up to her quarters and instead made her way to the tiled kitchen where Anna greeted her with a warm smile.

  ‘Are you happy to eat in here, Contessa?’

  Sofia agreed and straight away sat at the table where Anna had already poured two glasses of wine.

  Two days later, when Sofia opened her eyes in the morning, she saw bright light bouncing off the wall opposite her bed. This was the day. She’d had to phone the consulate office twice before she’d been able to speak to Gerhard Wolf, the German diplomat
currently serving as Consul. But she’d successfully made the appointment for today and was now feeling pleased with herself. Her heart lifted even further when, glancing out of the window, she saw the clouds had dispersed and she was greeted by a shimmering day. She was glad of the good weather for her meeting.

  As lovers of fine art, Wolf and Lorenzo had met before the war at an exhibition in the National Gallery in London during June 1935, and then again in Berlin a month later. There they had become friends and corresponded until war had broken out. Then, when Wolf was posted to Florence, Lorenzo had invited him to their house. So, as Lorenzo’s wife, it hadn’t been difficult for Sofia to arrange this meeting. She knew Wolf had been born in Dresden, and that he’d studied philosophy, art history and literature. As a cultured man he had resisted joining the Nazi party at first and only did so when it became evident that his diplomatic work could not continue otherwise. Among Sofia’s friends it was whispered he had helped Jews escape and was now doing his best to prevent significant artworks from being appropriated and shipped back to Berlin.

  As Sofia remembered the one occasion she had met Wolf, she looked down at their small garden now bright and shiny in the sunshine. She’d met him here in this house, one early summer, and they’d all enjoyed cocktails in the garden. Few of the houses had gardens, especially so close to the river, so theirs was precious despite being overlooked by the backs of other townhouses.

  She decided that after seeing Wolf she would call on friends, let them know she was there and find out how they were doing. Unsurprisingly, many had already fled or been forced out, their houses requisitioned along with the best hotels. Lorenzo had told her the Germans were using the synagogue on Via Farini as a warehouse and stables, so maybe there was a chance the armaments might be stored there too. She would do her best to find out what she could.

  30.

  Sofia was due to meet with Wolf in a café not far from the consulate. On the phone he’d told her the consulate itself was an inferior sort of a place, not at all what one would normally expect, and he preferred they meet in a café instead. She’d thought it a bit clandestine but had arrived early and chosen a table in a quiet corner at the back.