Wherever they were, it was blessedly cool, and the air was breathable.
Delia heard a crash and a muffled oath. ‘Are we in a kitchen, do you suppose?’ said Jessica, her voice seeming to Delia to come from a great distance. ‘There are shutters, but I shan’t open them, or everything will blow in from outside. Besides, there isn’t much light to let in. But I’ve found a sink, and I think I collided with a kitchen table. Can you see anything?’
Delia blinked. ‘I’ve still got sand in my eyes.’ She began to cough, a deep racking sound. ‘I think the sand’s got into my lungs, too, blast it.’
‘Hold on.’
The sound of running water, and then Jessica was beside her, wiping her face with a wet handkerchief. ‘Don’t you dare faint on me.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Delia untruthfully, her head spinning. ‘I never faint.’
‘Sit down.’ Jessica, miraculously, set a chair under Delia as her legs crumpled. ‘Put your head down between your knees. Go on. Blood to the head is what you need.’
The dizziness receded. ‘I can’t think what came over me.’
‘It’s that bronchitis,’ said Jessica. ‘It’s pulled you right down, and this wind and the blowing sand, it hardly makes it easy for anyone to breathe. You could do with a glass of water to drink, but I wouldn’t drink anything out of the tap. Feeling better? Then let’s see if anyone’s at home.’
No one was. They walked through shadowy rooms, accompanied by the sudden, distant roars of the wind. Shutters rattled; somewhere a door or window was banging.
‘Deserted,’ said Jessica.
‘Not for long,’ said Delia, running a finger over the surface of a marble-topped table and inspecting it by the meagre light filtering through the shutters.
‘Do you think it’s always windy like this?’
‘I think this is a sirocco,’ said Delia. ‘We did it at school, with Miss Pertinax, don’t you remember? She took us for geography, and was mad about the extremes of nature. Floods and tidal waves and hurricanes, and the wicked winds of Europe. The Föhn that drives you mad, and the mistral in the south of France, and the sirocco, a blinding southerly wind that blows up from the desert into Mediterranean Europe, bringing half the Sahara with it.’
‘How on earth do you remember all that?’
‘Winds are dramatic. You won’t remember it, because you never paid any attention in geography, and I used to do your homework for you.’
‘I did your maths,’ said Jessica. ‘Does this sirocco happen often?’
‘Quite rare, I think.’
‘Then why does it have to blow on the day we arrive?’
‘Fate,’ said Delia. ‘Angry gods.’
‘There is electricity, here are the light switches, but nothing happens when I press them.’
‘Switched off at the mains, or it could run on a generator.’
‘Now isn’t the time to investigate. There are bound to be oil lamps or candles somewhere. And if there’s been dusting done, perhaps there’s food in the house. And a wine cellar. Safer than water for drinking. You stay here; I’ll find a light.’
Delia could make out little of her surroundings, although she could dimly see a pillar, and judging by the smoothness of the stone under her hand, the bench she was sitting on was marble.
Jessica came back bearing a candle aloft, the small flame sending little shadows to and fro as it flickered in a draught. They were in a large marble-floored room, with fluted columns and enormous doors set in classical architraves.
Delia sat up, sudden alarm rising in her. Faces were looking out at her, a girl peeping round a door, a woman in flowing robes strumming at a lyre—was she hallucinating?
‘Good heavens,’ said Jessica, equally startled. ‘What the dickens …?’
Delia went over to take a closer look. ‘It’s all painting,’ she said. ‘The people, this door, the columns. Trompe l’oeil. It’s amazing!’
‘Thank God,’ said Jessica. ‘It gave me quite a fright, thinking the place was full of people. Anyway, good news—I found a mesh cupboard with some food, and a bottle of wine, and bottles of water on the floor. And there’s an oil lamp—see if I can get it to light.’
‘Do you know how to work an oil lamp? I do, so hand it over,’ said Delia. She sat down, with the oil lamp on the marble seat beside her, and removed the glass globe to get at the wick. ‘We used them at Saltford Hall when there were all those power cuts after the war.’
They retreated to the kitchen, where they sat at the scrubbed table and ate the bread, cheese and cold meat that had been left in the kitchen. Fortified with food and a glass of wine, Delia yawned. ‘What a day,’ she said. ‘I’m whacked. What we need is beds, which means upstairs.’
Jessica tidied the remains of the food away into the food safe. ‘Washing up can wait until the morning,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t there a staircase at the end of the hall with the wall paintings?’
They went up the stairs into a gallery and then came to a wide landing, with several large, polished doors leading off it. Opening them one after the other, they found four rooms ready for guests, with the beds made and clean towels hung over the rails at the washstands in the bathrooms.
‘They seem to be expecting us,’ Delia said.
‘Someone, anyhow.’ Jessica still wasn’t sure they were in the right place. ‘What if we wake up and find we’re at the Villa Ariosto, or the Villa Boccaccio?’
Delia said, ‘Then our hosts will be in for a surprise. It doesn’t matter; here we are, and here we stay, and if a claimant to my room turns up in the middle of the night, he or she can jolly well go and sleep somewhere else.’
‘I can’t see anyone being mad enough to be out in this wind.’
‘You have this room, and I’ll take the one next door. You have the oil lamp, I’ll have the candle.’
From what Delia could see by the light of her candle, she was in a large and grand room, the sort of room that would belong to the master or mistress of the house. Perhaps she shouldn’t be in here at all, but she was too sleepy to care.
The bed had an elaborate headboard, on which, in the flickering, shadowy light, Delia could make out the entwined initials, B M.
Beatrice Malaspina, she said aloud. Well, here I am at the Villa Dante. I do wonder what you want with me.
Until a week ago, Delia had never heard of Beatrice Malaspina, nor of the Villa Dante. She had been in her London flat when the postman’s whistle was followed by the bang of the letter flap and the thud as the post hit the doormat.
She went into the small hall and picked up the letters. A brown envelope from the electricity company. A white envelope, with a handwritten address. She knew who that was from, her agent Roger Stein’s wild scrawl was unmistakable. Her heart sank. He only wrote when he had something nasty to say, otherwise he’d be on the phone with a breezy, ‘Delia, dear girl …’
And what was this? She looked at the long envelope. It had to be a lawyer’s letter; why did lawyers feel the need to have different-sized stationery from everyone else? She turned it over. It was from Winthrop, Winthrop & Jarvis, the family solicitors—or at least, her father’s solicitors; they were nothing to do with her these days.
Was her father communicating with her now