The Italian House

by Teresa Crane

  The Italian House

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Read More

  Copyright

  The Italian House

  Teresa Crane

  Prologue

  The storm had raged for a night and a day. A bitter wind gusted from the north, from the mountains of the Garfagnana. It shrieked about the treeless peaks above the house, buffeted the wooded hillsides, drove rain in drenching sheets against roof and wall and shuttered window. It shredded the ragged, fast-moving clouds that streamed about the hilltops and boiled down into the valleys; it whispered through the house like a chill breath, stirring a paper here, a silken fringe there. A shutter banged, monotonously, clattering back and forth with a manic, metronomic regularity. This was a gentle house, built for quiet sunshine and summer breezes; now it loomed dark upon the hillside grimly braving the onslaught, the single light that gleamed fitfully in an upstairs window the only sign of life.

  The figure at the window was so still he might have been carved from stone. The smoke from the cigarette that he held between slim, nicotine-stained fingers wreathed about him. He had been standing for some time now, his attention upon a donkey-cart that toiled up the winding track below in the half-light of the stormy evening, its small lamps glimmering through the streaming rain. Every so often it would disappear beneath the wildly tossing branches of a stand of chestnut trees, to emerge moments later, plodding at a dogged and dispirited pace, inching up the hillside, closer to that spot where the mountain track forked sharply to come up to the house. In the days that he had been here no one had turned at that fork — the hamlet of San Marco lay a half-mile or so further on, and it was to there that most traffic on this little-used way would be heading — but something held him now, watching, as the ancient vehicle struggled on. When, on reaching the fork, the driver swung the shambling donkey in an awkward, muddy arc and set him at the final climb to the house the man at the window stirred at last, the neat head lifting sharply, narrow eyes narrowing further. He stood for a single, suspended moment, poised and still, before turning swiftly, stubbing out his cigarette, reaching for the lamp that stood upon the table behind him and extinguishing its glow.

  The wind, that had eased for a moment, buffeted again, and somewhere within the dark house a door slammed in the sudden draught.

  Chapter One

  Hastings, England. December 1922

  Carrie Stowe, head down against the gale-driven rain, battled around the corner of Barrymore Walk, one hand grabbing at the flying skirts of her coat, the other awkwardly clamping her small hat to her head. Thank the Lord that number 11 was only a short way down the long, straight street that seemed to funnel the Channel winds and increase their strength fivefold. Street lamps glimmered in the dusk. The windows in the smart new brick facades of the houses of the Walk glared with garish and self-confident electric light, the neat, clean interiors glimpsed from the pavement appearing like a series of bright-lit pictures, almost clinical behind their glass, somehow safely set apart from the elements. Carrie’s cheeks stung with the cold. She was surprisingly tired. The train ride back from London had seemed interminable; the effort to contain her excitement, to prevent herself from hoping too much, had all but exhausted her.

  ‘You mean – the house is mine?’ she had asked, the thing so much beyond her grasp that the words had verged on the disbelieving. ‘Mine?’

  Mr Bagshaw of Bagshaw, Bagshaw and Stott, Solicitors, had nodded, patiently. ‘As I said. Yours, Mrs Stowe. Entirely yours, under the conditions which I hope I have made clear to you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ Far from making the conditions clear, Mr Bagshaw had given the distinct impression that the arcane workings of Italian law were as much beyond him as they were beyond Carrie herself. His every disapproving sniff had indicated just how low was his opinion of such alien if apparently legal skulduggery. But still – Yes, he had said. Yes, the house is yours.

  The Italian house. The Villa Castellini. Hers.

  She leaned into the wind, struggled the last few steps to the small wooden gate that was set in the low, clipped privet hedge of number 11. The concrete path led, neat and uncompromising, directly to the front door. She swung the gate behind her, then, realising that the latch had not caught, turned wearily back to secure it; she would not hear the last of it if Arthur came home to find the gate swinging on its hinges in the wind.

  She fumbled with cold fingers for the key. Even here in the small, relatively sheltered porch the December wind swirled, bone-chillingly cold.

  Inside at last she leaned against the front door, shutting out the noise and the spiteful weather; turned on the overhead light. The long, narrow hall with its oak coatstand, its small mirror, its polished brown lino was as cold as the grave. The light was bright and unforgiving. She stood for a moment, her arms wrapped across her body, narrow shoulders hunched.

  ‘You mean the house is mine? Mine?’

  ‘Yours, Mrs Stowe. Entirely yours.’

  She stood unmoving for a long time, a slight figure of medium height, muffled in woollen coat and little, nondescript felt hat. The weather sounds were muted now, the small house very still. Carrie reached for another switch. The landing light clicked on, throwing angular shadows down the steep and narrow stairway.

  Mine. Entirely mine.

  The third and the seventh stair creaked, as they always did, like new shoes, as she mounted them. Why did she always notice it? Would the day ever come when she didn’t?

  The boxroom door, at the end of the small, L-shaped landing, was closed. She pushed it open. She had never been able to fathom whether it was called a boxroom because it was a place only fit to store boxes, or because, in itself, it so much resembled a box. Other people, in other houses, she supposed might use it for babies, or for visitors; but since both were in exceptionally short supply at number 11, this one was used for nothing but storage.

  At least, that is what Arthur thought. The time that Carrie spent alone in this tiny, cheerless room was her own secret; she had always known that Arthur would be of the opinion that no rational woman, given the neat comfort and convenience of number 11 Barrymore Walk, would feel the need to escape to the furthest, smallest, coldest corner of the house to gaze at two old pictures and to dream.

  The room was icy. The curtains stirred in the draught from the windows. She pulled off her hat and tossed it onto the bed, extracted the clutch of hairpins with which she had half-heartedly attempted to secure her heavy, dark hair and rubbed ruefully at her aching scalp. It was ridiculous; if only Arthur would allow her to have it cut – to a bob perhaps, or even a shingle.

  Still wearing her coat she walked to the tiny, empty fireplace. Above it upon carelessly fixed nails hung two small oil paintings, side by side, quite spectacularly incongruous in this bleak little room. Carrie had known these pictures all of her life; until her mother’s death a couple of years before they had always held pride of place over the cluttered mantelpiece in her sitting room. On Carrie’s inheriting them Arthur had insisted – with nothing less than absolute good sense, Carrie herself would not dispute it – that they were entirely unsuited to the brisk and modern decor of number 11. And so they had been banished, with the broken tennis racquets and the silk cushions that Carrie had embroidered
with fanciful flowers, that Arthur had decreed too frivolous for use, to the boxroom. She stood now, as she had stood so often, absently picking up a cushion and hugging it to her for warmth, looking at them.

  The Villa Castellini – a large, square house with a small tower set into one corner, its ancient tiled roofs a series of slopes and angles – pictured perched within its tumbling gardens on a hillside in northern Tuscany, bathed in sunlight, golden and warm. She remembered it as an enchanted childhood dream. It had seemed huge on those joyous occasions before the war when she had been taken to visit her grandmother, the high ceilings vaulting above her, the dim, cool interiors of the rooms cluttered with a fascinating collection of the picturesque and the absurd; strange and wonderful artefacts collected by her grandfather on his travels side by side with the charming and whimsical treasures her eccentric grandmother had spent her life collecting, a few valuable, most – at least in the eyes of the world — worthless. But always interesting, always beautiful. She remembered a fragile, pearly shell, brought from a far island, in which a child could clearly hear the shifting roar of the sea. She remembered a shining brass box full of tiny heavy glass beads, jewel-coloured. She remembered books, and pictures and tiny figurines. She remembered the garden, the wonderful garden, full of steep twisting paths and secret corners; a paradise for the child that the young Carrie had been.

  The thought drew her attention to the other picture. It was of her favourite place in the garden of the villa. This it was that brought her so often to this room, to read, or to sew, or simply to daydream within sight of that magical, hidden arbour. There were times when she fancied she could feel the sun, hear the sound of the water splashing in the fountain, feel the smoothness of stone, warm almost as skin beneath her hand as she touched the statues that stood in the dappled shadows beside the water.

  She stirred a little. Her wet feet were so cold she could barely feel them, and despite her coat she was shivering. A gust of wind hit the window, rattling the panes. She tightened her grip on the cushion, burying her chin in it. She should go downstairs, light the fire, start the tea. Arthur would be put out if he came home to a cold house.

  She did not move.

  Arthur would make her sell the house, of course. She knew it. His only interest when the letter had arrived from the solicitor had been in how much this unexpected bequest might be worth. He had been extremely annoyed that at the last moment, owing to a suddenly arranged meeting at the bank, Carrie had had to make the trip to London on her own. Indeed, had there been time she knew he would have rearranged it; he had made it perfectly clear, as he always did, that in his firm opinion she was neither competent not capable enough to handle something like this on her own. He was probably right. His last instructions as he had left her at the station had been a set of comprehensive and intelligent questions that she should bring up in her meeting with Mr Bagshaw; questions, she realised now, that she had of course completely forgotten to ask. Yes, Arthur was undoubtedly right; she was hopeless at such things. And, no, he obviously had no intention of allowing her to keep the Italian house; indeed, Carrie herself was ready enough to admit that all that could be done, in the end, was to sell it. What good was an old house halfway up a mountainside in Tuscany to a very English bank clerk and his wife – wryly, hearing Arthur’s sharp, precise voice as clearly as if he had been standing beside her, she amended that thought — a very English chief bank clerk and his wife? She would have to sell it, she understood that. But first — she drew a sudden, sharp breath, fighting against the lifting of excitement, the stirring of hope – first, Mr Bagshaw had said, looking down a disapproving nose, first she must go to Italy. Until she did, the house could not be transferred into her name.

  Oddly, it had only been later, whilst she sat on the train staring sightlessly out at the drenched and dreary winter landscape that the thought had finally penetrated. She would have to go to Italy. Alone. The bank would surely never let Arthur go for that length of time? Three weeks, Mr Bagshaw had said. At least. Perhaps four – another repressive sniff — knowing these foreigners and their ways.

  Arthur, surely, would have to make the choice; to let her go, and to glean what profit they could make on the sale, or to refuse, and to lose it.

  She turned now and walked to the window, stood looking down into the long, narrow garden that matched side by side with the other long, narrow gardens of Barrymore Walk in neat, regimented, clearly defined plots. If the fence posts were your side, then the fence was yours and you maintained and mended it. If the fence posts were in your neighbour’s garden then the fence was his responsibility.

  When first they had moved to number 11 she had consoled herself with the thought that at least she might make something of the garden. A winding path, perhaps, with shrubs and trees and small drifts of colour to beguile the eye, to suggest that, small as the area was, something waited around the corner, just out of view. They were fortunate that there was already an old apple tree standing, legacy of the orchard that once had been here. It had been the only one in the length of the brand new street that had somehow survived the builders and their efficient machinery. At first, when diffidently she had suggested that she might take some interest in the garden Arthur had seemed pleased. Once he had seen her intentions, however, once the first tentative lines were in place he had changed his mind. Argument, as always, had served her ill. Within a month order had been restored and reason had reigned. Delphiniums, lupins, dahlias, all had been planted in acceptable rows, singly, staked out and straight as soldiers on parade. The apple tree had been cut down – very sensibly, since it had stood in the most inconvenient place possible, just where the washing line should be. A nice, straight, clean concrete path ran the length of the garden now, edged with square lawn and regular, tidy flower beds. It was very easy to maintain.

  The gale gusted, and for a moment she imagined the old tree, creaking and protesting, flinching against the salt wind.

  She turned back to the pictures.

  Mine. Entirely mine.

  So strange – almost surreal – had been the day that she could still think the words without entirely taking them in. And yet, somewhere, somewhere in the passive, subdued place that was her heart. something was stirring.

  He’ll have to let me go. just this once. He’ll have to.

  Downstairs a clock chimed, briskly and regularly. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

  She blinked. Five o’clock. Half an hour, just half an hour before Arthur came home. There was the fire to light, the tea to make – she felt a small, queasy twist of apprehension. Arthur hated to wait for his tea.

  —For goodness’ sake, Carrie, what have you been doing? Is it too much to ask that, occupied as I’m sure you must be, home all of the day and with this new and – I must say – highly efficient house to run, you manage to produce a meal on time? And please, please, do remember that we have separate knives and forks for fish. You can surely see, my dear, the sense in that? Fish – wholesome as I am certain it is — does taint things so.

  She could hear his voice, see the very expression on his face. She breathed a long, silent breath and turned. At the door she looked back, for the briefest of moments, before turning out the light.

  *

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ Arthur adjusted his angular frame to the small armchair beside the fire, ‘but you surely must see it’s quite out of the question? To travel to Italy, alone? Have you any idea – any idea at all – what such a journey would involve?’

  Carrie considered, briefly, pointing out that of the two of them she, as a child, had in fact made the journey several times with her disorganised scatterbrain of a mother and had somehow survived unscathed, whereas Arthur himself had never been out of the country. She remained silent.

  ‘No, no. Apart from anything else the political situation in Italy is still unstable. These Fascist chappies don’t do things by half measures by all accounts. Mind you, they’re just what the country needs, if you ask me. But for you t
o go there alone?’ Arthur shook his head, put his cup very precisely back on to the saucer, set it upon the cork mat that rested upon the small table beside him. ‘Quite out of the question. There must be some other way.’

  Carrie looked down into her own cup. The tea had cooled. It looked dark, and muddy and utterly unappetising. ‘No,’ she said. ‘There isn’t. Not according to Mr Bagshaw. And he mentioned the political situation too; he said the trouble had been almost entirely confined to the cities, and that anyway since the march on Rome and the defeat of the Socialists earlier this year everything had quietened down. The new government have everything under control, he said.’ She leaned forward and put her own cup on the table; it sat awkwardly half on and half off the mat. ‘I’m sure he said there was no other way except to go in person.’

  Arthur tutted, his thin mouth tightening in irritation, and reached with a long, bony hand to set her carelessly placed cup straight. ‘I’m sure that can’t be so, my dear. You must have got it wrong.’

  In face of Arthur’s relentless and dismissive certainties Carrie was coming to believe it herself. ‘Perhaps,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll go and see the man myself. Get some sense out of him. If the house is ours, it’s ours. It’s absolute nonsense to suggest that we cannot simply take possession of it from here.’

  She tried once more. ‘I’m sorry, Arthur, I don’t think I’ve explained very well. It’s the Italian law. It’s different from ours. Something to do with Napoleon,’ she blinked a little at the swift impatience of his movement, ‘you can’t just leave something to someone. Everyone in the family has a right to a part of it. I’m sure that’s what he said.’

  ‘But you don’t have any family since your mother and her brothers died.’

  ‘Yes I do. At least, I think I may have. My cousin, Leo, remember? Uncle John’s son.’

  ‘Him? You haven’t heard from him for years. Not since the war. He’s surely dead.’