by Rhys Bowen
“If you can’t raise it I’m afraid the estate will have to be sold.”
“But that is monstrous,” he snapped. “Unfair.”
“It’s the way the law works I’m afraid.”
“Could some of the land be sold off for building?”
“Possibly. Although I doubt it would bring in enough.”
“I’m going to make it work somehow,” Hugo said. “I’m not selling off a home that has been in our family for nearly four hundred years. I’ll see if I can get a loan to have houses built on the far field of the estate. People will need new homes after the war.”
But gradually he had to face reality. No bank was willing or able to lend him money to build houses, and no one wanted to buy part of the land so far from a train station. The regiment withdrew from Langley Hall, leaving damage throughout the house and estate. Hugo walked with Elsie Williams, the housekeeper, through the newly abandoned rooms. All around him was decay and destruction. Men had taken potshots at statues and ripped the wallpaper. They had even used dressing rooms as urinals—the floors were stained and rotting. The roof had leaked and allowed damp into upstairs ceilings. The main boiler had ceased to function. Good furniture had been piled willy-nilly into small bedrooms where the woodworm had found it.
“It’s hopeless, isn’t it?” he asked Elsie.
For once she couldn’t give him a cheerful answer. She looked as if she was fighting back tears herself. Instinctively he put a hand on her shoulder. She smiled up at him.
Later, the letter to Sofia was returned unopened—“Not known at this address. Return to sender” stamped on the envelope. He told himself that she had probably got news that her husband was alive and had gone to be with him. A happy ending for her. He tried to believe it. He wanted to go back to San Salvatore to find out for himself. It didn’t take him long to find out how impossible that would be. The war had officially ended in Europe with the German surrender on May 7, but Europe was in turmoil and no civilian travel was allowed. Hugo had been invalided out of service and thus was now a civilian. He appealed to old RAF friends to see if they could find out any more, but none of them was stationed anywhere near San Salvatore. Finally, he wrote to the mayor, and this time he received a short answer:
Signora Bartoli is no longer in this village. She was seen driving away with a German officer and since then nothing has been heard of her.
It was the final straw. He returned to his solicitor.
“Very well,” he said. “Put the house up for sale.”
Later that summer, Hugo stood outside Langley Hall looking up at it as the last items of furniture were carried out. The servants had already left. He felt horribly alone, almost as if he had died. In truth he wished he had died that spring. Why had he been discovered among the German dead if only for all this heartache? It made no sense.
Elsie Williams came out of the servant’s door carrying a suitcase. He watched her coming toward him, her face not cheerful at this moment but stoic and resolute, her chin held high. He thought how sad it was that she’d be going off to work somewhere else and he wouldn’t see her again. During the summer he had come to rely on her sensible countrywoman’s judgment, her sunny disposition.
“I’m so sorry this had to happen, Sir Hugo,” she said as she caught up with him. “It’s just not fair after all you’ve been through.”
“You’re right, Elsie,” he replied. “It’s not fair. But then nothing has been fair for a long time, has it? All those chaps I flew with who went down in flames. All those poor sods sitting at dinner in their houses who were blasted to pieces by doodlebugs. And the poor, damned wretches in the concentration camps. None of them deserved to die.”
She nodded. “You’re right.” There was a long pause, then she said, “I hear you’re planning to stay on.”
He sighed. “The school has offered me accommodation at the lodge if I become the art master. Since I have no other options at the moment, it seemed like the easiest thing to do. At least until I find my feet again.” He looked down at the pitifully small suitcase she was carrying. “What about you, Elsie? Where will you go? There isn’t really a Mr. Williams, is there?”
She laughed. “Oh no, sir. It’s just the convention, isn’t it? You know that. Housekeepers and cooks are always called ‘Mrs.’ out of respect. And as for where I’ll go, I’m not sure. I expect I’ll find another situation, although one hears that many of the big houses are going to be closed up or pulled down. I expect I’ll find something.”
“You have no family, do you? I seem to remember that you were an orphan when you came to us.”
“That’s right, sir. I have no family. I don’t even know who my family was.”
Hugo looked at her and felt immense pity. Here she was, cast out into the world with no place to go and she was not complaining, just facing it stoically. He opened his mouth and was surprised to hear himself say, “You know, Elsie, you could always stay on here.”
She looked surprised, then shook her head. “Stay on here? Oh no, sir. They made it quite clear they will be hiring their own staff for the school.”
“I meant with me,” he said.
“With you? At the lodge?” She gave a nervous little laugh. “I don’t think there would be room, for one thing, and you don’t need a servant.”
He felt himself turning red. “I’m putting this badly. What I meant was that you and I have always got along well. You’re a kind and decent person. And recently I’ve come to value having you around. You’ve been a great comfort to me. And you have nowhere to go and I have nobody. If we got married it might solve things for both of us.”
“Married, sir?” She opened her eyes wide in astonishment, then shook her head. “That would never work, would it? I’m a good deal older than you. You can’t be more than, what, thirty-four?”
“Thirty-five,” he said.
“And I’m already forty-two, sir.”
“Not an unsurmountable gap, surely.”
“I don’t think you should make a hasty decision on something as important as this, not when you’ve had so much thrown at you and you’re on the rebound after Mrs. Langley left you. And I wouldn’t want you to make such an offer because you felt sorry for me, either.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you, Elsie,” he said. “Actually I envy you. You seem to be able to make the best of the bleakest of situations. I think you’re just what I need right now. Of course you might not find me much of a catch . . .”
She blushed then. “I’ve always thought you were very handsome, Mr. Hugo. In fact, when I was younger I used to keep a picture of you in my room.” She paused, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. “But then there’s the matter of class. You’re a baronet, an aristocrat. I’m a servant. Think of the talk.”
Hugo put a hand on her shoulder. “I have a feeling the war will have changed things. No more class distinction. And anyway, who cares if there is talk? Let them talk. I think we might be happy enough, don’t you?”
“I’ve always been very fond of you, Mr. Hugo,” she said. “And the chance to have my own home, not living under someone else’s roof—well, it’s very appealing, I must say. But I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret later.”
He smiled at her then, putting his finger under her chin. “No regrets, Elsie, I promise you. And for God’s sake put down that damned suitcase so I can give you a kiss.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
JOANNA
June 1973
A week later I was reluctantly preparing to go home to attend the auction of my painting when the man from the post office came up to Renzo and me. “I have received a telephone call from the home where Father Filippo resides,” he said. “It seems he is failing fast and would like to talk to Signor Bartoli and the young lady from England.”
Mystified, we drove in Renzo’s Alfa Romeo to a nearby town. The home was a pleasant, modern building a little away from the town centre. We were escorted to Father Filippo’s room by a young, fresh
-faced nun. “He is very weak,” she said, “and in distress. His mind may be wandering, but I hope you can put him at peace before he goes.”
Indeed, the old man looked almost transparent as he lay under white sheets. His eyes were closed. Renzo said softly, “Father, it is I, Renzo Bartoli. I have come as you wished and brought the young lady from England with me.”
The old priest’s eyes fluttered open. “It is good,” he said. “I want you to hear my confession before I die—you and the young lady, since it concerns her. I am responsible for the deaths of your mother and the Englishman. I betrayed them, and it has been on my conscience all these years.”
“How could you have done that, Father?” Renzo asked gently.
“I had to weigh what was best,” he said, his breath coming raggedly. “The German commandant came to me. He said he suspected that someone in the town was hiding an English airman. He was going to execute us all, every man, woman, and child, unless someone confessed. Sofia had told me in confession about the Englishman. I know the seal of the confessional is sacred, but this was many lives, many innocent lives against her one. I told him what I knew, but I begged him to spare Sofia and take me instead. He wouldn’t agree. So with the heaviest of hearts I gave him your mother, Renzo, so that others could live. I have never known since whether I did the right thing or not.”
“You did what you thought was best, Father,” Renzo said. “There was no right answer.”
“This is true. But all the same . . . That sweet young woman. How I have wept for her all these years and prayed that she is now an angel in heaven.”
“I’m sure she is.” Renzo’s voice cracked.
“And the young English lady. The Germans took her father, too. I’m sorry.”
“But he escaped, Father,” I said. “He came home and married again and I am his daughter.”
“So that is good.” He gave a faint smile. “So something good happened.” His eyes fluttered closed.
Renzo leaned down and kissed his forehead. “Go in peace, Father. There is nothing that needs to be forgiven.”
A sweet smile came across the priest’s face. It took a while for us to realise he was no longer breathing.
That evening Renzo and I were sitting on the terrace. This time we were drinking a glass of limoncello after a meal that he had cooked for me—mussels and clams in a cream sauce, Florentine beef steak, and a rich almond cake with gelato for dessert. I was feeling content—more content than I had felt in years.
The distant hills were bathed in pink twilight. Somewhere far off, a bell was tolling. Otherwise there was silence.
“So this is all yours now,” I said, motioning toward the vineyards and olive groves. “You’ll be a rich man.”
He looked around. “Yes, I suppose I will. But now I know the truth, I think I must give back the land that my father took after the war—the land of those brave men who were killed in the massacre. It’s only right, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “I definitely think it’s right.”
“I’ll still have the vineyards and the olive press,” he said. “I won’t exactly be poor.” He looked directly at me. “Neither will you, so it seems.”
“No, you’re right. I still haven’t digested that fact.”
“You could buy back your family home. You could become mistress of Langley Hall.”
For a moment an image flashed into my mind. I saw myself saying to Miss Honeywell, “I’m sorry but I’ll need you out by the end of term. I’m coming back to live here.” Then I laughed. “It’s funny but all my life that was what I dreamed of doing. I was driven to succeed so that I could buy my father’s house back for him. And now he’s dead and I can’t see myself as lady of the manor. I don’t quite know what I want to do yet.”
“Joanna,” he said slowly. “You didn’t need to stay here. You could have gone home with the English lawyer. But you sent him away, saying you would be needed for inquests. I wondered if that meant that you didn’t want to go.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t want to go. I like it here. I like being with Paola and learning to cook and feeling that someone cares about me.”
“And me?” he asked. “Does part of your reason for staying mean that you do not want to leave me?”
“Yes,” I said carefully. “I think it does.”
He leaned toward me, put a hand under my chin, and pulled my face toward his. Then he kissed me hard and with longing. When we broke apart he laughed uneasily. “It is lucky we are on a terrace where we can be observed, or I don’t know where that would have led.”
“I’m a respectable young English lady,” I replied. “I expect to be courted properly.”
“Of course, my lady.” He laughed, his eyes flirting with me.
I looked at him, suddenly struck by a thought. “You could go back to London to finish your studies and then open your restaurant.”
“We could turn your Langley Hall into a hotel and restaurant,” he said.
“We?”
“Am I moving too fast? Maybe just as business partners, you know.”
“Why England? It’s rains too much. You could open your restaurant here as you once dreamed. You could turn this house into your dream restaurant. Imagine the diners sitting here on your terrace and feasting their eyes on the view before they feasted them on the food.”
“I would need to return to England first to finish my apprenticeship,” he said. “And you should pass your exam. And then, who knows?”
He reached across and took my hand. We sat there side by side on the terrace not saying a word while the sun sank behind the western hills and one by one lights twinkled on in the world spread out below us.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The village of San Salvatore cannot be found on any map. It exists only in my imagination, although it is based on Tuscan hill towns I have visited. The German Gothic Line, north of Lucca, was real.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Pier-Raimondo and Cajsa Baldini were wonderful hosts in Tuscany and were kind enough to read my manuscript and offer suggestions. Penny and Roger Fountain were perfect hosts in Lincolnshire and found WWII museums where I could check out a Blenheim bomber, as well as experts on the Blenheim to answer my questions. They even attended an air show to take pictures of a Blenheim actually flying for me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2016 John Quin-Harkin
Rhys Bowen is the New York Times bestselling author of the Royal Spyness, Molly Murphy, and Constable Evans mystery series, as well as the #1 Kindle bestseller In Farleigh Field. She has won the Agatha Award for Best Novel and has been nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel, among numerous other awards, nominations, and starred reviews. Bowen was born in Bath, England, studied at London University, married into a family with historic royal connections, and now divides her time between Northern California and Arizona.
