The package from the lawyers arrived early one foggy April morning. It was wrapped in brown paper, tied with string and sealed with red wax.
The postman came whistling through the door to the offices of Hawkins & Hallett, bringing with him a gust of cold, damp air, and greeted the thin-lipped, middle-aged receptionist with a cheery, ‘Good morning.’
Miss Jay looked at him over the top of her half-moon spectacles, her eyes cold and disapproving. ‘What’s this?’ she said, as he handed her the package. Her mouth tightened as she saw the seal, complete with crest; really, these authors did give themselves airs. She turned it over, and saw the sender’s name: Winthrop, Winthrop & Jarvis.
‘Lawyers, I reckon,’ said the postman. ‘What have you lot been up to? Or maybe it’s the juicy memoirs of a judge. Anyhow, it’s to be signed for. The rest will be along later, same as usual.’
She signed the slip in neat, upright strokes, and handed it back to the postman. Then she drew the post book out of her drawer and made an entry. As she did so, the door opened again, letting in another blast of chilly air and a girl in a duffel coat.
‘Good morning, Miss Hallett,’ the receptionist said icily, and looked pointedly at the large clock. ‘Five minutes late again.’
The girl grinned and heaved herself out of her coat, which she hung on the hatstand behind the door. ‘What’s five minutes between friends, Miss Jay?’
‘Please take this package upstairs to Miss Hawkins. Right away.’
‘Okey-dokey,’ and the girl bounded up the brown lino stairs two at a time, her pony tail swinging as she went.
Miss Jay winced. Susie Hallett might be a partner’s daughter, but taking on a girl like that was a mistake, even if she only came in two mornings a week.
Susie swung herself round on the polished curve of the banister rail on the first floor and skidded to a halt outside a panelled door with ‘Miss Hawkins, Publishing Director’ written on the name board in bold gold letters. She knocked on the door, and went in without waiting for a reply. ‘Hello, Miss Hawkins. Post.’
‘Good morning, Susie. Why has Miss Jay sent it up to me unopened? What’s got into her?’
‘Dunno. She just told me to bring it up. Looks important, string and sealing wax.’
Susie lingered, curious, as Miss Hawkins snipped the string and unwrapped the parcel. Inside was a manuscript, and on top a covering letter.
Olivia Hawkins read the letter swiftly, and then put it down. She said nothing, but looked out of the long, elegant sash window, not seeing the raindrops dribbling down the panes, or the dingy light of a bleak spring morning, but instead, brilliant sunlight on an Italian landscape; in her mind, she was in Italy, sitting under the colonnades, laughing, drinking a toast with a woman no longer young, yet every bit as full of life as young Susie.
She blinked, and reached down into her handbag for a handkerchief.
‘Is something the matter? Is it a book?’
‘Yes, it’s a book. The memoirs of Beatrice Malaspina.’
‘What a lovely name.’
‘The letter is from a firm of lawyers, who had instructions to deliver the book to me after Beatrice Malaspina died.’
‘Is she dead? Was she a friend of yours? I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I shall miss her, but she was born in 1870, so she had a long life. And a very full one.’
‘Eighteen seventy, goodness, so she lived to be eighty-seven.’ Susie tried to add seventy years of life to her own seventeen; she couldn’t imagine it. ‘Was she an Italian?’
‘No, she was English, but she married an Italian. Her own family had Italian connections, they owned a house in Italy called the Villa Dante, which she inherited. It is the most beautiful house, magical, a place of enchantment.’
‘How did you know her?’
‘We met during the war. She was a compelling personality, and she’d led a fascinating life. Rather a bohemian in her way; you would have liked her. She moved in artistic circles and knew most of the great painters and writers of her time. Many of them were her friends, and came to stay with her at the Villa Dante. She was a complex woman, and a great organiser. It annoyed her that people’s lives were so muddled; she used to say, “It only takes clear thinking and energy to change a life for the better, to set it off in a new direction.” ’
‘She sounds fun.’
‘She was.’
‘And these are her memoirs? Are we going to publish them?’
‘Oh, yes. What she’ll have to say about all those artists will make good reading, quite apart from the story of her own adventurous life.’
Susie was standing by the window, looking down at the dismal street, slick with rain. A rag and bone cart was going by, the horse’s back covered with an old sack to protect it from the wet, the driver shouting out his incomprehensible Londoner’s cry.
‘Oh, I meant to tell you, there were a couple of shifty-looking men hanging around when I came in. They’re still there, look, lurking outside number nine. Do you think they might be casing the joint?’
Olivia got up from her desk and joined Susie