The Temptation of Gracie

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘I won’t keep you. Bernard wants to get on,’ said Carina.

  ‘Pop over later for a cup of tea. I want to hear all about Italy. What a good daughter you are, and Anastasia is a lucky girl. Show her some culture. It’ll be good for her. Young people these days watch much too much television.’

  When Carina arrived at her front door she was feeling very pleased with herself. Diana’s praise had soothed her bruised morale and given her a welcome boost. She found Rufus in the kitchen in his dressing gown, reading the papers and drinking a cup of coffee on a stool at the island. He looked up when she entered. ‘Morning,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve decided to go with Mum to Italy and to take Anastasia with us,’ she said breezily.

  Rufus frowned and took off his reading glasses. ‘Good Lord, what’s come over you?’

  ‘I’ve had time to think about it—’

  ‘I didn’t think you had time for anything!’ he interrupted with a grin.

  Carina ignored him. ‘I’ve had time to think about it and have realised that you’re right. Mum can’t go on her own. It’s not fair to let her. Anastasia can come if she wants to. She might prefer to go somewhere with her friends, but I’ll ask her. Of course, you’re very welcome too.’

  Rufus put his glasses back on. ‘I think it’s a girls’ trip and when it comes to cooking, I’m unteachable.’

  ‘Okay, as you wish.’

  ‘You can come back and bring me my slippers and cook me pasta for dinner.’

  ‘As Anastasia would say, pigs might fly.’

  Rufus laughed. ‘You’d better call your mother before you tell Anastasia. Gracie might not want you to go with her.’

  That possibility had not occurred to Carina.

  Gracie had just returned from walking the dogs when the telephone rang. She sensed it might be Flappy and had a good mind not to answer. For some reason she had become Flappy’s latest cause. Having practically been ignored, or at least taken for granted, by Flappy for years, her sudden elevation in status was making Gracie uneasy. Was it really such an extraordinary thing to decide to go to Italy? Didn’t everyone choose to go somewhere at some point? Was she so very different? Before she announced her intention no one ever took any notice of her; now she couldn’t walk down the street without people smiling and saying hello and detaining her for a chat. It was as if she had become a celebrity overnight, and why? Because she had simply decided to take a trip. She wandered over to the telephone and reluctantly picked it up.

  ‘Mum, it’s me,’ said Carina. Her voice didn’t sound nearly as brisk as it had the other day, Gracie thought with relief.

  ‘Hello, dear,’ said Gracie.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, about you going to Italy.’

  ‘You’re not going to try and stop me, are you?’

  ‘Of course not. You must go. I think it’ll be good for you to get away. You haven’t been anywhere since Dad died and even then he only took you to the Lake District.’

  ‘I only ever wanted to go to the Lake District,’ said Gracie.

  ‘Would you mind terribly if Anastasia and I came with you?’

  Gracie didn’t know what to say. Having dreaded the caller being Flappy, she was now surprised that not only was it Carina, but her daughter and granddaughter wanted to accompany her to Italy. She sank into the armchair. ‘Of course I wouldn’t mind. But you’re not coming because you feel sorry for me, are you? I’d hate to be a burden.’

  ‘Mum, you’re not a burden. It’ll be fun. We could all do with a break in the sunshine and Tuscany is lovely in April.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Gracie wistfully and the longing that had gripped her heart since reading that article in the hairdresser’s tightened its hold.

  ‘Then that’s settled,’ said Carina decisively, defaulting to the officious tone she used in the office. ‘Send me the details and I’ll get Karen to book us all in.’

  ‘I’ve already booked and paid,’ said Gracie. ‘But I’ll give you the details so you and Anastasia can book as well.’ The magazine was on the table beside her. She glanced at it. ‘You won’t be disappointed, Carina. It’s a very beautiful place.’ She lifted it onto her knee and watched it fall open on the right page. ‘Truly beautiful,’ she emphasised with a sigh. She couldn’t believe that she was going to share Castello Montefosco with her daughter and granddaughter. She felt the sudden urge to tell Flappy, but then overcame it. She’d keep that information to herself. She was used to keeping secrets, after all, and habits are hard to change. It was deeply gratifying that Flappy, who thought she knew everything, knew absolutely nothing about this.

  And no one knew, not even Carina, that Gracie had been to Italy before. That Italy was embedded deep in her heart, like a pearl in an oyster. Only she knew that.

  Chapter 4

  London, 1955

  As a little girl, Gracie Robinson knew how to count to ten in Italian. She had been taught by her uncle Hans, who was Dutch but lived in Italy and came to visit his sister, Gracie’s mother, whenever he travelled to London on business. As a reward for her quick learning he had given her a box of paints, brushes and paper. Uncle Hans was a gifted painter and there was every chance that she would be too, for Gracie had shown a keen interest in drawing ever since she had first held a pencil. ‘It’s in your blood,’ her mother would tell her, ‘from Oma’s side.’ Oma meaning grandmother in Dutch. ‘The Dutch are the best painters in the world, along with the Italians,’ her mother added proudly, for although she had committed to a life in England, her blood would always be orange. Gracie dipped her brush into the paint and dabbed it gingerly on the paper. She wanted very much to be a gifted painter like Uncle Hans.

  Gracie wanted to be rich too, like Uncle Hans. He’d arrive in front of their modest house in Camden in a big shiny car, dressed in an expensive suit and tie, a thick coat draped over his wide shoulders, a hat set at a raffish angle on his head. He smelt of lemons and spice and sported a dashing moustache. He smoked Cuban cigars, drank Irish whiskey and wore a large gold signet ring on the little finger of his left hand. Like Gracie’s mother he spoke English with an accent and often slipped into Dutch when he was in the house, especially in the evenings when he was tired. He never arrived empty-handed. He brought presents for his sister, his elderly mother who lived with them, Gracie, and for Gracie’s older brother, Joseph. The children, who had lost their father in the war, loved Uncle Hans and looked forward to his visits in the same way that children look forward to Santa Claus at Christmas. In their eyes he was magical, larger-than-life and omnipotent.

  Greet, Gracie’s mother, was not rich like her brother so she depended on him for money to subsidise the small amount she earned from dressmaking. Hans and Greet’s father, who was English, had left their mother and run off with his secretary – the cliché would have been laughable had he not broken his wife’s heart and left her destitute – so Hans had to support her as well Greet and her children. But Oma Hollingsworth was no trouble. She helped Greet in her workroom in spite of being unable to thread a needle even with the help of spectacles, and was a splendid cook. Whenever Uncle Hans visited there was meat on the table and Oma’s famous stamppot, for which she claimed to add secret ingredients to the mashed potatoes and other vegetables, which set it apart from the traditional Dutch recipe and gave it a uniquely delicious flavour. She told them that even though people begged her for it, she would take the recipe to her grave, but Uncle Hans confided in the children, with a lopsided grin and a wink, that her stamppot was just the same as everybody else’s.

  Gracie knew more about Uncle Hans than she did about her own father, whose photograph was exhibited in a frame on the dresser in the parlour. A black-and-white photograph of a formal-looking young man in uniform who was a stranger to her, for Gracie had been born the year before he died. The little she knew about him was this: He had been called Frank Robinson and had met Greet, Gracie’s mother, when he was working in Amsterdam for her father, who ran an art gallery. They had married
in 1938 in Holland, but when war was declared he had insisted they return to England so that he could enlist. Greet had dutifully gone with him and set up home in the small house in Camden, north London, which he’d just been able to afford. Joseph had been born in 1940 and Gracie two years later. Frank had been killed in France in 1943. Greet kept his letters in a shoebox, but Gracie had never had the courage to ask if she could read them. Uncle Hans, albeit living far away in Italy, soon filled the void and became the father figure she could look up to. Her mother would read her brother’s letters aloud at the dinner table and then she and Oma would discuss him in excited tones for the rest of the meal. Gracie and her brother would devour every word, adding more glitter to the already dazzling image of Uncle Hans Hollingsworth.

  Uncle Hans took trouble with the children, encouraging them to paint and learn about art by gifting them big picture books of the world’s most famous painters, but it wasn’t until one visit in 1955, when Gracie was thirteen, that he saw something in her that he hadn’t noticed before. It all started with a discussion around the kitchen table when Oma commented on Gracie’s gift. ‘She’s a natural artist, just like you were at her age, Hans,’ she said in her slow Dutch drawl.

  A shadow of alarm swept across Greet’s face. ‘It is an entertaining hobby, nothing more,’ she cut in.

  Hans turned his sharp blue eyes onto Gracie and raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘Are you a natural artist, Gracie?’ he asked and Gracie nodded shyly.

  ‘Ever since you gave me paint I have practised,’ she replied, eager to please her uncle.

  Joseph, jealous of Uncle Hans’s attention being so intensely focused on his sister, interjected. ‘But copying doesn’t count,’ he scoffed. This seemed to darken the shadow of alarm on Greet’s face.

  Now Hans raised two bushy eyebrows. He looked at Greet. ‘You didn’t tell me that Gracie can paint.’

  ‘She wasn’t really any good until recently,’ Greet explained, flustered. ‘And Joseph is right, copying isn’t the same as painting with one’s own expression.’

  ‘There is a place for everything,’ Hans said, almost to himself. He turned back to Gracie, who was itching to be invited to show him. ‘May I see what you have painted?’ he asked, and Gracie was already off her chair and hurrying to her bedroom before he had finished the sentence. She was too eager to flaunt what she knew was a talent to notice the rising tension in the kitchen.

  Gracie had painted many pictures, all copied from the books her uncle had given her. She had a wide range of good examples, from Raphael, to Johannes Vermeer and Van Gogh. She knelt on the floor and went through them, anxious to choose the best examples to show her uncle. Sure, they were copies, she thought to herself, but they were excellent copies. As she bent over her work she suddenly sensed someone standing behind her and spun round. She expected Joseph and was ready to respond firmly to his derision, but to her surprise it was her uncle and the look on his face was one she had never seen before. She thought, at first, that he was angry, for his cheeks had gone the colour of red wine and his mouth had twisted into an unattractive grimace, quite unlike the humorous smile which usually hovered about his lips. But then he shook his head and muttered something inaudible under his breath. A second later he was kneeling beside her, carefully studying each painting. Gracie said nothing as he scrutinised her work, lifting the paper into the dim light coming through the window, moving it slightly this way and that to fully appraise the brushstrokes.

  At last he turned his incisive gaze on her. ‘You are a fine painter, Gracie,’ he said in a voice that was quiet and steady and full of intention, though Gracie didn’t know what that intention was. ‘These are very good. I am impressed.’

  ‘They are only copies,’ Gracie mumbled humbly, but her pale face flushed with pride.

  ‘They are exceptional copies.’

  At that, Gracie’s heart flooded with happiness. For her beloved Uncle Hans to praise her in this way was more wonderful than any other praise she had received. It lifted her as if she were a balloon filled with hot air. Inspired by his interest she pulled out her sketchbook from under the bed and showed him that too. They sat, the two of them, on the rug, going through every drawing Gracie had ever done, and Gracie wanted the moment to last for ever. She felt special, singled out in this way, and her love and respect for her uncle swelled.

  At length he stood up and smoothed the creases in his trousers and jacket. ‘Come downstairs. I want to talk to your mother.’

  Gracie followed him, excited that he was going to share his admiration with everyone, triumphant that Joseph would be proved wrong. Her mother, grandmother and brother were still in the kitchen. Her mother was washing up while Joseph dried with a tea towel. Oma had nodded off in her chair and was quietly snoring.

  ‘Greet, I am disappointed that you never told me what an accomplished artist my niece is.’ Greet glanced at her daughter warily. Joseph stopped what he was doing. Gracie now sensed the strain in the air and bit her lip anxiously. She didn’t understand the silent communication passing between her mother and her uncle. ‘She has a promising future as a restorer,’ he went on. ‘With training and experience she could be very good.’

  ‘She is only thirteen,’ said Greet and her voice trembled in spite of the effort she was making to keep it steady.

  ‘The perfect age to learn.’

  Greet’s throat grew tight and Gracie felt a chill ripple over her skin. She stared at her mother, trying to read her thoughts. Uncle Hans turned to Gracie and engaged her with his sharp blue eyes. His smile, now broad, held within it the promise of glamour and sunshine. ‘My dear child, how would you like to come and live in Italy? How would you like to learn to paint as well as the great masters?’ Gracie now realised why her mother was so upset. Greet knew what her brother was going to ask, and as he was supporting her financially she wasn’t in a position to refuse. Only Gracie could do that, but Gracie wasn’t sure she wanted to. She’d grown up on Uncle Hans’s stories and often imagined what his life must be like in Italy. She’d studied the paintings in the books he brought and longed to see pomegranates and lemons growing on trees and those comical umbrella pines that grew so tall. Everything about Uncle Hans was exotic. Everything about him was superior.

  ‘I would like to learn to be as accomplished as you, Uncle Hans,’ she said. ‘But perhaps Mother is right and I am too young.’ She hoped he would disagree.

  ‘You are nearly fourteen, are you not?’ he countered. She nodded. ‘It would be a terrible waste to remain here when you could be apprenticing the greatest picture restorer in Europe.’

  At this Gracie was unable to hide her enthusiasm. ‘Please, Mother,’ she begged. ‘Perhaps I could go for a short time, to see if I like it. You wouldn’t mind that, would you?’

  Joseph, who had said nothing and now didn’t need to dry the plate he was holding because it had dried all on its own, spoke up. ‘Can’t she learn to restore in London?’

  ‘Yes,’ Greet rejoined swiftly. ‘London has the best art galleries in the world.’

  ‘But I don’t live in London,’ said Uncle Hans and the undertone of impatience in his voice silenced both sister and nephew. ‘I live in Italy and it is there that I have my studio, my restorer and my materials. If Gracie is going to learn she has to do it under my supervision.’ He smiled then at Greet as if he understood a mother’s anguish. ‘I will take care of her, don’t you worry,’ he said gently. ‘She is a daughter to me. A precious daughter. No harm will come to her. But I will give her a trade, Greet. A means to earn a decent living. Do you want her to follow you into the business of making dresses which barely pays enough to put food on the table? Is that the future you want for your girl?’

  ‘No, I don’t want that for Gracie,’ she answered quietly.

  ‘Then give her this opportunity,’ he urged. ‘I’ll arrange her passport. Leave everything to me.’

  A long silence followed. Gracie gazed at her mother, watching her mind whirring as she weighed up the
advantages for her daughter against the disadvantages for her. At last she dropped her shoulders and Gracie knew that her uncle had won. That they had won, for she wanted to go to Italy with all her heart.

  ‘Very well, Hans. You have your way,’ Greet said softly. ‘I just hope I don’t live to regret it.’

  And so it was, on a drizzly day in May, that Gracie set off to start a new life in Italy. Dressed in her best Sunday frock and hat usually reserved for church, she said goodbye to her family, embracing her mother tightly and feeling only a momentary pinch of sorrow. Oma dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief and even though Joseph’s eyes shone, he didn’t cry. ‘It’s not for ever,’ Uncle Hans laughed as he put her small suitcase into the cab which would take them to London Airport. ‘I’ll bring her back soon enough, I promise, and you’ll see for yourselves that I have treated her like a princess.’

  Gracie had never been further than London. She had never travelled in a cab and she had never been anywhere near an aeroplane. Now she was heading out of the city into a new world, and everything she saw through the windows of the cab enthralled her. She didn’t feel nervous because she was with Uncle Hans. He, however, wasn’t in the least interested in the passing fields and hamlets and sat with his ankle on his knee, reading the newspaper.

  Gracie tried not to gawp as she followed her uncle through the airport to the check-in desk. Everything sparkled, from the shiny floor to the glass windows, even the lady in the blue suit and hat, who took their passports and tickets, glowed with an otherworldly glamour. Gracie watched her small suitcase disappear on a trolley loaded with luggage and wondered with a sudden lurch of panic whether she’d ever see it again. But she knew she’d sound gauche voicing her fears so she put her trust in her uncle and followed him through the terminal. It was very busy and everyone looked as if they had chosen their very best clothes for the occasion. She wondered, as she sat in front of a cup of tea and a slice of cake, whether the other travellers noticed that this was her first time or whether she looked just like them, sophisticated and insouciant. Uncle Hans sipped a large gin and tonic and opened his newspaper again. He had travelled so much as to be bored by all the things that excited Gracie. She watched him light a cigarette and then she noticed the waitresses giggling and whispering in the corner, and glancing in their direction. This was the first time she had ever appreciated her uncle’s good looks. He had always been dashing, of course, but now she knew he was handsome too. How proud she was to be with him.