The Villa in Italy. Elizabeth Edmondson

       ONE

      The mattresses of Delia’s girlhood had all been uncomfortable. Her austere father was a great believer in very firm mattresses; he slept with a sheet of wood beneath his own mattress; and urged the rest of his family and staff to do the same. ‘With a hard bed, the body relaxes, not the mattress.’

      The mattresses at her Yorkshire boarding school had been thin, lumpy and set on a sagging mesh of strings; those at Girton College, Cambridge, were likewise meagre and designed to keep your mind on higher things than bodily comforts.

      Which had left Delia a connoisseur of mattresses, and the one on Beatrice Malaspina’s bed was perfect, neither too hard nor too yielding; hooey to her father and his theories of relaxation. Nothing could be more relaxing or comfortable, and when she awoke to the sound of birdsong outside the windows, and saw sunlight filtering through the shutters, it was after a deep and untroubled night’s sleep, a rarity for her this winter, cursed as she was with bronchitis.

      She slid out of bed and padded across the smooth dark red tiles to the windows: long, double windows stretching almost from the ceiling to the floor. She pulled them open and struggled for a few moments with the shutters before she found the catch and pushed them back against the walls.

      Warm air drifted in as she stepped out on to a small terrace. The searing wind had gone, leaving only a slight breeze to make ripples on the red sand, warm and scrunchy under her bare feet.

      Delia blinked at the unaccustomed brightness. It was too early in the morning for the sun to be high or hot, but there was a dazzling quality to the light that made her catch her breath. She looked out over a garden, once formal, now sadly overgrown, and saw a silvery gleam in the distance. It took her a few seconds to realise what it was. The sea! So the villa was on the coast.

      Crashing sounds came from next door, and Jessica’s tousled head looked out of an adjacent window. ‘I say, you’ve got a balcony,’ she said.

      Her head vanished, and then she was calling out to Delia from the door of her room.

      ‘Come out here, quick,’ Delia said. ‘You don’t want to miss a minute of it.’

      They stood together, leaning on the stone balustrade and gazing out at the green and blue and silver vista.

      Jessica let out a long sigh. ‘Heaven,’ she said. ‘Pure heaven. And can you hear Chanticleer out there?’

      The vigorous cock crows mingled with the sonorous dong of a bell marking the hour.

      ‘Was that seven strokes? Oh, the air is so fresh it almost hurts to breathe.’

      ‘I do so hope this is the Villa Dante,’ Delia said. ‘We might find we have to decamp to a crumbling old house with no view and bedbugs in the mattresses.’

      ‘I hadn’t thought about bedbugs,’ Jessica said. ‘Still, no itchy bits this morning, and the bedrooms are quite up to date. It could have been all decayed fourposters with mouldering curtains, instead of which we get stylish art deco.’

      ‘The villa is old, though. Eighteenth-century, wouldn’t you think?’

      ‘Don’t ask me. Could be that, or older, or built fifty years ago. I think Italians, having found the kind of house they like, just go on building them. I’m going to get up, and let’s see what we can do about breakfast.’ Then, suddenly alert, ‘What’s that?’

      Delia, lost in the view, came to. ‘Did you hear something?’

      ‘I think it was the gate. Hang on, we should be able to see it from one of the other rooms.’ She vanished, then called across to Delia. ‘A stout party in black coming up towards the house. At a guess, I’d say a servant.’

      Delia didn’t want to greet the new arrival in her nightclothes, so she hurled herself into the bathroom that led off her bedroom, a huge and marbled affair, with, however, no more than a trickle of water coming out of the substantial taps. Five minutes later, she was washed and dressed and running down the stairs, clutching a red clothbound book. She caught up with Jessica, who was still in her pyjamas.

      Voices were coming from the kitchen quarters. Delia pushed open the door, and there was the woman in black talking at great speed and at the top of her voice to a harassed-looking man with snow white hair and a wrinkled, deeply tanned face.

      ‘Buon giorno,’ Delia said.

      The woman whirled round, startled, and then burst into smiles and more talk, of which Delia understood not one word.

      ‘Can’t you ask her to slow down?’ said Jessica.

      Delia held up a hand. ‘Non capisco,’ she tried.

      The flow of words slowed abruptly, and the woman made tutting noises before coming closer, and, jabbing her chest with a plump finger, said as one talking to idiots, ‘Benedetta.’

      ‘Signorina Vaughan,’ said Delia, pointing to herself.

      That brought an immediate and delighted response. ‘La Signorina Vaughan, si, si.’

      ‘Looks like she was expecting you,’ Jessica said.

      Delia touched Jessica’s arm. ‘Signora Meldon.’ And then, ‘Ch’e la Villa Dante?’

      That brought more si, sis.

      Delia was relieved. But the woman was off again, and, seeing their incomprehension, reached out and took their hands to lead them to the open door. ‘Scirocco!’ she said, pointing dramatically to the heap of red sand that had come to rest by the stone threshold.

      ‘I think she means sirocco,’ said Delia. ‘Si, scirocco,’ she said, and made a whooshing sound to indicate a mighty wind.

      The woman nodded vehemently, and then, catching sight of the man standing by the table, flew at him, talking once more at the top of her voice. She paused for a second, to push him forward, saying, ‘Pietro, Pietro.’ Then she thrust a large broom into his hands and propelled him out of the door.

      ‘Looks like he’s on sweeping duty,’ Jessica said. ‘What’s the Italian for breakfast?’

      ‘Bother, I can’t remember,’ said Delia. She mimed putting food in her mouth; instant comprehension, and Benedetta was urging them out of the kitchen. She bustled past them, and led them along to the entrance hall. There she flung open a door and led the way into a room hardly visible in the semi-darkness. There was the sound of shutters opening, and light poured in from two sets of doors.

      Delia stepped out through the doors. ‘It’s a colonnade,’ she called back to Jessica. ‘With a vaulted roof.’ She came back into the dining room. ‘It runs all along this side of the house and there are steps further along down into the garden. Necessary shade for hot summer days, I suppose, and there are plants weaving in and out of the balustrade. Clematis, for one, with masses of flowers, and wisteria.’

      ‘Prima collazione, subito!’ Benedetta said, setting down a basket of bread and a