The Venice Sketchbook(105)

“You can say thank you.” The contessa smiled. “Luca is fond of you, you know. I haven’t seen him so animated since . . .” She looked up. “I hope something comes of it. I’d like a daughter-in-law I could chat to without worrying about making a grammatical error.”

After Luca’s mother had gone, Caroline stood in the window, thinking about what she had said. Luca was fond of her. Her hand moved idly over the desk. Such a beautiful piece—could she have it shipped back to England, or would she keep it here, to admire when she came on holiday? And how often would that be? Was she foolish to think that Luca’s interest was anything other than passing? But she would keep the flat, at least for now. It would be her escape, her bolthole and her little nest egg.

She examined the desk, wondering how big it was and whether it would fit into her room at Granny’s house. It was actually quite deep. She paused, frowning. That was interesting, because the sketchbooks had taken up most of a drawer. She pulled open the drawer and measured it. About eighteen inches, but the desk was definitely more than two feet.

“I wonder . . .” She tapped on the back of the desk and heard a hollow sound. Excited now, she took out the drawer, then removed the other drawers. And behind one of them was a panel that slid back and a tiny keyhole. She rushed to find the small silver key, placed it in the keyhole, turned it and the hidden section slid open. Trembling with excitement, she reached inside and pulled out a thick notebook and then a folder. The first, it seemed, was a diary. The second contained more of Juliet’s drawings. Why were these hidden away when so many others were in plain sight? She carried both items over to a chair, opened the diary and started to read.

It was several hours later when she telephoned Luca. “I’ve found my great-aunt’s diary,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “Can you come over? I want you to read it. It’s important. It concerns you, too.”

He came, an hour later.

“You’ve been crying.” He reached out to brush a tear from her cheek.

Caroline nodded. “It’s so sad, and the worst thing is that we don’t know what happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“The diary leaves off after Angelo is taken.”

“Taken?”

“By your family. Adopted, presumably. We know she wound up in Switzerland. But it doesn’t say when she went, whether she saw your grandfather again or whether he was dead by that time. You said he was killed in the war?” She poured him a glass of wine. “Don’t look like that. It’s the bottle you bought,” she said, “not the plonk.”

He sat in one of the armchairs and started to read. She perched on the arm beside him, no longer self-conscious of brushing against him, having to interpret when he couldn’t read a particular word or didn’t know what it meant. Occasionally he looked up, nodding. “Ah, she went to the accademia. Of course.”

Then came the mention of the Contessa Fiorito. “I know her villa,” he said. “It is now a museum of modern art. She left it to the city in her will.”

He read on. Caroline sat still and said nothing. When he came to a piece of special significance, he looked up at her. “So she wasn’t ever really his mistress. I mean, only that once. But he loved her, didn’t he?”

Caroline nodded. “Yes, he did.”

He read on. “And my father . . . ,” he said, pointing at the page, his voice cracking with emotion. “It’s all here.”

“Yes.”

When he came to the end, he closed the book and put a hand on her knee. “So that is all. We will never really know what happened. There are no more diaries?”

“Not that I have found. All we know is that she made it to Switzerland and he died.”

“I believe I was told that he was shot, trying to escape from a prison camp.”

Caroline looked up in horror. “An Allied prison camp?”

“No, a German one. It was after Italy changed sides. He was aiding the Allies.”

“Oh. How sad. I wonder if . . .” She turned away. “Never mind.”

“And all these years she never spoke about it,” Luca said.

“Not a word to anyone. We all believed she was the typical British spinster lady, refined, remote, who had never had a life of her own, outside her family.” She reached out a hand and laid it on his. “Will you come with me when I scatter her ashes?”

His fingers intertwined with hers. “Where will you do this?”

“I want to find their special tree. I thought I’d scatter the ashes around it.”

“All right.” He hesitated, then said, “Cara, I did something a little illegal.”

“Yes?” she asked nervously.

He grinned. “I bribed someone to get me my grandmother’s medical records.”

“How did you do that?”

“You don’t need to know. But I can tell you this. There is no mention of her giving birth to a child in 1940. Or at any other point.”

“I see.” She was silent for a while, and then she said, “So that proves it. It’s all true. My great-aunt was your grandmother.”

“It would appear that way.”

She gave a nervous little laugh. “We really are related.”

“How about that?” He chuckled. “But luckily not closely enough to cause a problem.” Then his face became sombre again. “My father should never know, don’t you think?”