The Mermaid Garden (2 page)

them to get a better look at the boy who was now walking towards her,

accompanied by a mongrel dog. She knew he was going to tell her to go

away, so she wanted to get a good look first, before running back down

the path that snaked its way to the beach.

The boy was handsome, much older than she, with fair hair brushed

off his forehead and a kind face. He appraised her with pale, smiling

eyes, and on closer inspection she could see that they were green. She

stood her ground, daring herself to remain until the very last moment.

Her fingers curled around the bars and she clenched her jaw in deter-

mination, but his grin disarmed her; it didn’t look like the expression of a person about to shoo her away. He put his hands in his pockets and

examined her through the gate.

“Hello there.”

She said nothing. Her head told her to flee, but her legs wouldn’t

listen. She remained staring at him, unable to tear her eyes away.

“Do you want to come in?” His invitation caught her off guard, and

she straightened up suspiciously. “You’re obviously curious.”

“I was just passing,” she replied.

“So you
can
speak.”

“Of course I can speak.”

“I wasn’t sure at first. You looked so frightened.”

“I’m not frightened of you, if that’s what you mean.”

“Good.”

“I was just on my way somewhere.”

“That’s funny, we’re rather isolated here.”

“I know that. I was on the beach.” Which was true, at least.

“So you just wandered up to have a look?”

“It’s so pretty. It caught my attention.” Her face brightened as she

mentioned the villa, and her eyes strayed longingly up the drive.

“Then come in and I’ll show you around the gardens. My family isn’t

here so I’m alone. It’ll be nice to have someone to talk to.”

“I don’t know . . .” Her eyes darkened again, but he opened the gate.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”

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“I’m not afraid,” she retorted. “I can look after myself, you know.”

“I’m sure you can.”

She stepped in, and he closed the gate behind her. She watched him

lock it, and her heart lurched a moment with anxiety; but then her gaze was drawn back to the villa, and she forgot her fear. “Do you live here?”

“Not all the time. I live in Milan mostly, but we summer here every

year.”

“Then I will have seen you.”

“Really?”

Her excitement at being in the grounds gave her courage. “Yes, I spy

from the wall.”

“You little devil.”

“I like to look at the gardens. The people don’t interest me so

much.”

“Then I’ll give you a better look so you won’t have to spy anymore.”

She walked beside him, her heart now swelling with pleasure. “Is all

this really yours?”

“Well, my father’s.”

“If this is your summer house, your house in Milan must be built for

a king.”

He laughed, tossing back his head. “It’s big, but not big enough for a

king. This is bigger. There’s more space in the countryside.”

“It’s old, isn’t it?”

“Fifteenth century. It was built by the Medici family, designed by

Leon Battista Alberti in 1452. Do you know who he was?”

“Of course I do.”

“How old are you?”

“Ten and ten months. My birthday’s in August. I suppose I’ll have

a big party.”

“I’m sure you will.”

She looked down at her feet. She had never had a party. Now her

mother had gone, no one would even remember her birthday. “What’s

your dog called?”

“Good-Night.”

“That’s a funny name.”

“He was a stray I found on the road in the middle of the night. We

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bonded immediately, so I called him Good-Night, because it was a

good night, finding him.”

She bent down to stroke him. “What is he?”

“I don’t know. A mixture of lots of different breeds.”

“He’s sweet.” She giggled as the dog licked her face. “Whoa, steady

there, doggie!”

“He likes you.”

“I know. Stray animals always like me.”

Because you look like a stray yourself
, he thought, watching her wrap her arms around Good-Night’s neck and rest her head against his fur.

“I’ve made a friend,” she said with a triumphant smile.

He laughed at her exuberance. “No, you’ve made two. Come on.”

They walked the full length of the drive side by side, her confidence

growing with each step. He explained the architecture, showing off his

knowledge, and she listened, enraptured by every detail, trying to re-

member in order to later tell her friend, Costanza. The villa was even

bigger than she had thought. She had seen only the central part be-

tween the trees at the end of the avenue. It had two other wings not

quite as tall as the bit in the middle but just as wide. Classically proportioned and unfussy, it had an understated grandeur, the yellow paint giving it a happy, complacent look, as if it knew it didn’t have to try at being beautiful. She longed to go inside, to walk through the rooms

and gaze at the paintings that hung on the walls. She was sure it was

even more wonderful than the outside. But he took her round to the

back, where a sweeping stone staircase descended from the villa into

a formal garden of statues, terra-cotta pots of topiary, and lofty pines.

It was as though she had died and now walked through paradise, for

surely only Heaven could be as beautiful as this?

He directed her through a small gate in the wall, into a pretty orna-

mental garden settled within a circular stone colonnade. The center-

piece was a glorious fountain of mermaids throwing water into the air.

Around the fountain a path was planted haphazardly with thyme, and

pretty iron benches were set on all four sides against low hedges that

boxed four neatly trimmed lawns and flower beds. She took a while to

take it all in, standing there in her sandals, clutching her heart because she had never before seen so much splendor.

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“This is my mother’s garden,” he told her. “She wanted a place where

she could read in private without being spied on.” He winked at her

and laughed again. “You’d have to be a very accomplished spy to get in

here.”

“I bet your mother’s pretty,” she said, thinking of her own mother

and trying to remember what she looked like.

“She is, I suppose. One doesn’t really think of one’s mother in

that way.”

“Where does she read?”

“I think she probably sits on one of these benches, by the fountain.

I don’t know. I’ve never bothered to notice.” He ambled over, suddenly

infected with the little girl’s awe. “It
is
rather lovely, isn’t it?”

“Imagine sitting here in the sunshine, listening to the trickling water and watching the birds washing themselves in it.”

“It’s very peaceful.”

“I love birds. I bet you have many birds here. Different ones, prob-

ably, from those we have in town.”

He laughed incredulously. “I think you’ll find the same old birds as

the ones you have in Herba.”

“No, you’ll have special ones in here.” She was so certain, he looked

around, half expecting to see parrots in the pine trees. “Do you ever sit here?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “What would I do?”

“Oh, there’s plenty to look at. I could sit in here for hours—days

even. I could sit in here forever and never want to leave.” She carefully lowered herself onto the bench as if it were a sacred thing she was

afraid might break. Once sitting, she watched the water and imagined

having a garden of her own where she could enjoy the changing light

from dawn till dusk. “God is in here,” she said softly, feeling a strange sense of wonder creep over her skin, like the warm breath of an angel.

He sat beside her and stretched out his legs, putting his hands be-

hind his head. “Do you think?”

“Oh, I know. I can feel Him.”

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and the doves contentedly cooing on the roof of the villa. Good-Night

sniffed the borders, cocking his leg against the hedge.

“This is the best day of my life,” she said after a while. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy.”

He looked at her curiously, a tender smile curling his lips. “What’s

your name,
piccolina
?”

She looked back at him, her eyes full of gratitude and trust. “Flori-

ana,” she replied. “And you?”

Somehow, they both knew that exchanging names
meant
something.

He hesitated, staring into her gaze, which was now open and no longer

afraid. He held out his hand. Tentatively, she took it. Hers looked small and dark in his big pale one.

“Dante Alberto Massimo,” he said softly. “But you can call me

Dante.”

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1.

Devon, 2009

artist wanted

to spend the summer

teaching residents to paint

at the hotel polzanze, devon

free board & lodging

telephone: 07972 859 301

The Morris Minor rattled down the narrow lane towards the village

of Shelton. The hedgerows were high and luxuriant, laced with pretty

white cow parsley and forget-me-nots. A spray of sparrows took to

the sky, where feathery clouds floated inland on a salty wind. The car

moved cautiously, swerving into a lay-by to avoid an oncoming lorry,

then continued through the quaint hamlet of whitewashed cottages

whose gray-tiled roofs shone like gold in the enthusiastic glare of dawn.

In the heart of Shelton a gray stone church huddled among a cluster

of magnificent plane trees, and below, a sleek black cat trotted lithely along the wall, returning home from a successful night’s hunting. At

the end of the village, as the lane turned sharply to the left before descending to the sea, a pair of imposing iron gates opened onto a narrow drive that swept in a graceful curve through banks of rhododendron

bushes, already in flower. The car turned in and made its way past fat

pink flowers to the gray stone mansion at the end, positioned in splen-

did seclusion overlooking the sea.

The Polzanze was a harmoniously proportioned mansion built in

1814 by the Duke of Somerland for his whimsical wife, Alice, whose

asthma benefited from the sea air. He demolished the old building,

an unsightly pile of bricks dating back to the sixteenth century, and

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Santa Montefiore

designed the present house with the help of his talented wife, who had

strong ideas of what she wanted. The result was a mansion that felt

like a large cottage on the inside, with wood-paneled walls, floral wallpapers, log fires, and big lead windows that looked onto the lawn and

the ocean beyond.

The duchess adored her garden and spent her summers cultivating

roses, planting exotic trees, and designing an intricate maze of walk-

ways through the lush woodland. She constructed a small garden for

her children outside her study, where they could grow vegetables and

flowers, and edged it with a miniature aqueduct so that they could float their boats in the water while she wrote her letters. Enamored of Italy, she decorated her terrace with heavy terra-cotta pots of rosemary and

lavender, and planted vines in the conservatory, training them to climb the trellises so that the grapes hung from the ceiling in dusty clusters.

Little had changed and much had been enhanced by her descen-

dants, who added to the beauty of the place with their own flair and

extravagance until they fell on hard times and were forced to sell in

the early 1990s. The Polzanze had been converted into a hotel, which

would have broken Alice’s heart had she lived to see it. But her legacy remained, as did much of the original hand-painted wallpaper of birds

and butterflies. The cedar tree that sheltered the east side was reputed to be over five hundred years old, and the grounds boasted an ancient

walled vegetable garden—built long before the duchess arrived to cul-

tivate rhubarb and raspberries—as well as an ancient gardener who had

been there longer than anyone could remember.

Marina heard a car draw up on the gravel outside and hurried to the

first-floor window. She peered through the glass to see a dirty old Morris Minor, stuffed with canvases and paint-stained dust sheets, stall in front of the hotel like an exhausted mule. Her heart accelerated with

anticipation and she hastily checked herself in the mirror on the land-

ing. A little over fifty, she was at the height of her beauty, as if time had danced lightly across her face, barely leaving a footprint. Her luscious honey-brown hair tumbled over her shoulders in waves, and her eyes

were deep set and engaging, the color of smoky quartz. Petite, with

small bones and a narrow waist, she was none the less curvaceous, with

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The Mermaid Garden