The Villa in Italy. Elizabeth Edmondson
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Mrs Wolfson was no one’s idea of a typical American grandmother. She was sharp and bohemian, a townee to her fingertips, and she had never baked an apple pie in her life.
Lucius Wilde had always loved her and had always been in awe of her. It didn’t matter that he was a successful man in his thirties; Miffy, as she was known to friends and family alike, still provoked as much respect as affection in him.
‘I’ve come to say goodbye,’ he told her, after he’d kissed the beautifully made-up cheek offered to him.
‘I shall miss you,’ she said. ‘I’ll order martinis.’ She rang the bell and a maid appeared almost at once. ‘In the library,’ she said, and led the way up the beautiful curved staircase to the first floor.
Mrs Wolfson lived in a brownstone in Boston and had done so since she came to the house as the bride of Edgar Wolfson. Twenty years older than her, he had been a dealer in fine arts, had made a great deal of money, and had acquired for his own walls a large number of paintings, not to mention the sculptures and bronzes and porcelain and rugs that filled every available space.
Lucius loved this house. He loved the paintings, especially the twentieth-century ones, for his grandfather had had a progressive outlook and bought modern paintings long before the artists became fashionable or expensive.
The martinis came, and Miffy attacked hers with gusto. ‘I just love the first cocktail of the day,’ she said. ‘Paris, and then London?’
‘Paris for a couple of weeks, and then I’m going to visit some friends who live near Nice, before going on to England.’
‘Nice? To stay with the Forrests, I suppose. Will Elfrida be there? Wasn’t she staying with them in Long Island when you met her?’
‘Yes, and yes.’
‘I wonder why you didn’t bring her to meet me.’
‘You know why. We became engaged on the eve of her return to England.’
‘Bookings can be changed. You’ll bring her back to America for a visit as soon as you’re married? By which time, of course, it will be too late for you to discover whether I like her or consider her right for you.’
‘Come on, Miffy, a man in his thirties is allowed to choose his own wife.’
‘A man of any age can choose wrong. It alarms me that your parents are so pleased about the engagement. They say she’s just perfect for you.’
‘And so she is.’
‘You aren’t in love with her.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake…’ Exasperating woman, but of course she was right. She had always been able to see through him and out the other side. ‘You’ll like her. She’s lively and forthright…’
‘Organising, so I’ve heard. And determined. I’m sure she’ll be a great asset to your career, a woman like that can take a man even to the White House.’
That made him laugh. ‘I have no political ambitions.’
‘You have no ambitions of any kind, not of your own. All the ambition in your life is provided by other people. Have you ever thought about that?’
‘Miffy, do lay off.’
‘All right. Now, you’ve told me your plans, which I already knew: France, then a position in the English branch of the bank. That’s not why you’re here. Come clean, Lucius. What’s on your mind?’
‘Did you ever know someone called Beatrice Malaspina?’
The light was fading fast outside the windows, and Lucius didn’t notice the watchful light in his grandmother’s eyes. ‘Because I’ve had an extraordinary letter from a firm of lawyers. I went to see them, in New York. They told me I’m named in the will of this Beatrice Malaspina.’
‘Was she an American?’
Lucius shook his head. ‘An Italian, I should think, judging by the name. The firm here are acting for her Italian lawyers. She has—had, I should say—a house on the coast somewhere in the north of Italy. Liguria. The terms of the will state that I must go there, to her house, the Villa Dante, to be able to collect this legacy.’
‘Which is?’
‘Haven’t a clue. Could be a bundle of worthless lire, a set of spoons, her father’s stuffed tiger—your guess is as good as mine.’
‘How intriguing.’
‘So you don’t know her?’
‘I’ve never met a Beatrice Malaspina. Of course, you’re curious, and wills are wills, and if you’re going to be in the south of France it won’t be much of a detour—only you don’t want to go to Italy.’
She said this as a simple statement of fact; it wasn’t a question.
‘Not really, no.’
‘It was all more than ten years ago. And it was wartime.’
‘It was wartime,’ he agreed. ‘Even so…’
‘Don’t you think it might be time to lay that particular ghost to rest?’
‘How can I?’
‘By not dwelling on it. Wars happen. These things happen. And your parents have done you no favours by blotting it out of their consciousness and never talking about it.’
‘On the contrary, the last thing I want is for them to talk about it.’
‘You went to Dr Moreton, but he didn’t help.’
‘Yes, I did, and no, he didn’t.’
Which might be, Lucius reflected, because he didn’t tell him the truth. He never had told anyone the truth, not even Miffy, although he wouldn’t be surprised if she had guessed a good deal of it.
‘Dr Moreton always was a fool. Your mother thinks the world of him; she’s never been any kind of judge of character or professional competence. She hasn’t learned that a shiny brass plate and hair going grey at the temples don’t amount to a row of beans.’
‘So.’ Lucius leant forward, his hands dropped between his knees. He was looking at his feet, shod in shiny black Oxfords; how he hated polished laced-up shoes.
‘So, do I think you should go? I don’t deal in shoulds, Lucius, you know that. Have you asked your father if he knows anything about this departed person?’
‘No.’
‘And you don’t intend to. Very wise. Any hint of an inheritance, and he’ll want to take over.’
‘I did ask Dolores. Whether she knew anything about Beatrice Malaspina.’ Dolores had worked for his father’s firm for more than thirty years, and she knew all the company’s and partners’ secrets. ‘And drew a blank. She said it meant nothing to her.’
‘You’re going to Italy, in any case,’ said his grandmother. ‘You haven’t come for advice.’
‘No, not really. I thought at first that the lawyers had made a mistake, but no, correct down to the last detail, who I was, where I lived and worked.’
‘They wouldn’t tell you about Beatrice Malaspina?’
‘Clams could learn a thing or two from them. Just acting on instructions from Italy, that’s all they’d say. I asked if Beatrice Malaspina had lived to a ripe old age. I mean, she could have turned out to be my contemporary, who knows?’
‘And?’
‘They did tell me that she had lived to a very good age. And that was all they’d give away.’