Tuscan Rose (3 page)

Rosa forgot the housekeeper’s hostility the moment she entered the house. The villa’s exterior was Renaissance in style with some Baroque additions, but the interior was ultra-modern and glittering. Flashes of light dazzled her eyes. The floor of the entrance hall was white marble and extended to a sweeping staircase. The walls were
amethyst purple with wall lights of rock crystals illuminated from within. There were mirrors of every shape, size and description: square mirrors with pearl-veneered frames; round ones with silver filigree trimmings; and dozens of oval ones that were shaped like eyes. Rosa cried out when she caught her reflection in a grand gilded mirror: she had never seen herself so clearly before. Mirrors were forbidden at the convent as symbols of vanity, and she had only glimpsed shadowy images of herself in window glass or in the rippled pool of the fountain. She was taken aback by her coal-black hair and oblong face, and her startled eyes. She was taller than the housekeeper and much longer-limbed. They looked like a deer and a hedgehog standing together.

‘Shh! Do you have to make such a noise?’ the housekeeper scolded her. The woman’s scowl transformed into a snigger. ‘Where do you come from? Haven’t you seen such fine things before?’

Rosa was too overcome by the sight of herself to answer.

‘Bellocchi. Is that your real name?’ the housekeeper persisted.

Rosa recovered herself and saw where the conversation was headed. The sight of her reflection had not only startled her but had awakened her too. She peered at herself again. No, on second glance she did not look like an innocent deer at all. That was only how she felt on the inside. Her outer appearance suggested the contrary. Although her dark eyes were large with long lashes, the blueness in them was savage. Her limbs were long and she was muscly with sloping shoulders, like a panther.

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Bellocchi is my family name.’

The housekeeper stiffened. ‘Bellocchi is my family name,
Signora Guerrini.’

‘Pardon?’

‘You must call me Signora Guerrini. Or didn’t they teach you manners wherever you came from?’ The housekeeper sniffed before fixing her eyes on the flute case Rosa held in her hand along with her bag. ‘And don’t think that you will be able to play that here. The Marchesa is sensitive to any kind of noise.’

Some of the older nuns at the convent had been crotchety and the Badessa had been stern, but Rosa had never before encountered anyone with such a bad temper as Signora Guerrini. No, the housekeeper’s not a cute hedgehog either, she thought. She’s quite something else.

Rosa followed Signora Guerrini to the grand staircase and then beyond it to a door. When the housekeeper opened it, Rosa saw a stairwell leading to the cellar. Was that where the scullery maid slept? Her skin prickled when Signora Guerrini led her down the stairs and into a dungeon-like space. The chilly stone floor bit through the soles of her shoes. Through the curtains of spider webs she could see hundreds of dusty bottles on the wrought-iron racks. Signora Guerrini reached a door that led to a corridor, which then opened into an enclave with a bed and a set of drawers. To Rosa’s relief the space was pleasant. The lemon-blossom-patterned wallpaper was bordered by a strip of sunflowers that matched the cover on the iron bed. The golden theme continued to the ceiling where it culminated in a star-shaped ceiling rose. The wallpaper disguised an inbuilt cupboard, which Signora Guerrini opened and indicated for Rosa to place her bag and flute on the shelf inside. She pulled a set of sheets from the cupboard and tossed them on the bed.

‘You can make it up yourself,’ she said. ‘I have things to do and you weren’t expected.’

‘Thank you, Signora Guerrini,’ Rosa said, noticing the charcoal bedwarmer the housekeeper took from the cupboard and placed under the bed. Perhaps she did not despise Rosa as much as Rosa thought. ‘The room is very pleasant.’

Signora Guerrini pulled aside a curtain to reveal a view of the kitchen garden. ‘Yes, they made it so, didn’t they?’ she said, a malicious grin forming on her face. ‘It used to be the hospital room. They brought servants here when they caught the plague. The scullery maid won’t stay here. She says it’s haunted.’

Signora Guerrini left Rosa alone to unpack her things, which were so few that the task was completed within minutes. She
tucked in the sheets and then sat on the bed, thinking over the day that had passed. That morning she had awoken in her cell at the convent, and now she was here in this room, which, while much prettier, put her ill at ease.

Behind a screen she found a sink and a bucket with a wooden seat. She turned on the tap. The water was freezing and smelled of slime. She let it run then rinsed her mouth and splashed her face before returning to sit on the bed. She longed to play her flute to quiet her mind but did not wish to arouse any further ill will in Signora Guerrini. She held an imaginary flute to her lips and lost herself in playing Bach’s Allemande and other pieces from memory.

The afternoon passed by this way and evening fell. Rosa waited for Signora Guerrini to return to call her to dinner or to show her around, but once the moon rose and the room turned cold she understood that this would not happen. She took the warmer from under the bed and held it in her lap. Without coals from a fire it was useless. She remembered the charcoal warmer that Suor Maddalena had given her in winter when she was a child. The gentle heat that emanated from it had filled her with happiness.

She took out the key from her sleeve and tucked it into her flute case. A shiver passed down her spine and she undressed with the light still burning. It was not so much the thought of ghosts that made her afraid but the rats she could hear scratching in the cellar. She knelt by her bed to pray but the words she had said before bedtime all her life, which had touched her with comfort and peace, felt empty and hollow. Climbing into bed, Rosa wondered if her inability to pray was because she had been so abruptly separated from Suor Maddalena, or if it was because she was now somewhere that God couldn’t hear her.

R
osa awoke the next morning with a jolt. She scanned the room, searching for something familiar. Where was the crucifix? Where was the chest of drawers? When the golden flowers on the wallpaper and the decorative ceiling came into focus she knew she was no longer at the convent. She climbed out of bed and pulled aside the curtain. The sun shone brightly. There was no clock in the room but Rosa realised that she had slept later than usual. She sat back down on the bed. Even the mattress was an anomaly. It was soft like a cloud, whereas her mattress at the convent had been filled with dried maize leaves that crackled whenever she moved.

Her life at the convent had been governed by bells: for prayer, for work, for meals and every other activity of the day. The quiet here was unnerving. Rosa hummed the Allemande to reassure herself but the sense of being cut adrift returned to her. She tried to conjure the image of herself as a panther again but she felt more like a scared kitten. She stopped, listening. Someone was walking in the room above her. They dragged something across the floor. The footsteps faded and silence returned.

Rosa quickly dressed. She’d had nothing to eat since breakfast the previous day and her mouth was dry. She opened the door to
the cellar. There was a shaft of light from a high window that allowed her to find her way. She was about to climb the staircase back to the entrance hall when she noticed another set of stairs next to a pantry service lift. There had been a similar device at the convent to transport dishes from the kitchen to the refectory. Rosa assumed the stairs led to the villa’s kitchen. Her instinct was right and at the top of them she found a door leading to a storeroom stocked with olives, dried tomatoes, artichokes in oil, eggs, almonds, chestnuts and pine nuts. There were bunches of rosemary and strings of garlic hanging from the ceiling and sacks of wheat, rice and saffron stacked on the floor. The door at the far end was open, revealing a kitchen with a double fireplace and terracotta tiles. Rosa was surprised to find that the kitchen was much larger than the one at the convent where Suor Maddalena had worked with her assistants. It was modern too, with a hot water tank and two large ceramic sinks. Light poured in from the floor-to-ceiling windows onto the massive table in the middle of the room. On the walls hung saucepans of every size and description. Near the door were shelves stacked with mortars and pestles, bowls and ceramic cooking pots. Rosa wondered how many people lived at the villa to justify such a large space; surely not more than the nuns and pupils at the convent?

‘Good morning,’ she called, hoping whoever she had heard earlier was still close by.

No-one answered.

There was a loaf of bread on a cutting board on the table along with a block of goat’s cheese. Rosa’s hunger overcame her timidity and she tore off a piece of the bread. The crust had a sweet flavour and, although she was famished, she chewed it slowly, letting the taste linger in her mouth. When she bit the creamy white interior, the flavour changed to a pleasant sourness on the back of her tongue. She found herself in the fields where the wheat used for the bread had grown. Her eyes drank in the crop’s golden heads shimmering in the breeze and ripe for harvest. Rosa looked at the bread on the table. She had sensed the origin of things all her life,
but this vision of the wheat field was more vivid. She had actually felt the sun on her back and smelt the grassy scent of the crop.

Growing in boldness, Rosa took another piece of bread along with a slice of goat’s cheese. The cheese’s velvety texture and the tangy flavour were a contrast to the bread and she relished the sensation in her mouth. Although the bread and cheese were satisfying, she explored the storeroom, grabbing a handful of almonds and losing herself in their sweet milkiness. If the Scarfiotti family had employed her, they should feed her too, she thought, reaching up for another handful of nuts. A shrill scream sounded from the garden, causing her to drop the nuts. They scattered over the floor. She rushed to the kitchen door but could see no-one in the kitchen garden. The scream came again. It sounded as though a woman was being murdered. Rosa ran along the path in the direction of the cry.

The grounds beyond the vegetable plot and terrace garden were wild and verdant. Box hedges held back a forest of scrub oak, pine and maple. Roses, not yet in bloom, clambered over a stone wall that led to a gravelled path into the woods. Rosa crept her way through the trees, her ears straining to every sound. She found a pool with a fountain and was startled to see a bride standing there with a long white veil hanging down her back. In a blink, she realised that the figure was not a woman but a white peacock perched on a stand with its tail feathers draping to the ground. It was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. It turned on her approach and uttered its blood-curdling call. Rosa laughed at how wrong her impression had been. The cry was not that of a woman being murdered, simply a bird calling for its mate.

Enchanted by the lush woods, Rosa continued along the path, which followed a slope bordered by birch trees. The dappled light was charming and she walked until she came upon a stone chapel with a cemetery next to it. Both were in a state of neglect, which surprised her given the grandeur of the rest of the villa. The cemetery garden was a jungle of periwinkles, irises and violets. Ivy grew over everything and even seemed to be creeping into the cracks of the graves as if it intended to break them apart. Assuming
that the cemetery must be ancient, Rosa pushed aside the ivy to read the headstones. Most of the plots belonged to ancestors of the Scarfiotti clan. The family seemed to have lived in the area for at least two centuries. There were other graves with less elaborate stones, which Rosa deduced belonged to servants.

At the far end of the cemetery she found a tomb with a tall surround that, from the thickness of the ivy that covered it, she supposed must be as old as the others. Pulling aside the vine she was surprised to see that the foliage had merely formed a loose blanket over the stone and had not damaged it. On top of the tomb was the sculptured life-size figure of a woman lying in repose. The monument was tall and so Rosa could only see the face in profile, but the details of the nose and chin and the folds of the figure’s dress were so realistic it looked as if the woman had been captured at the moment of her death and frozen into stone. There was no name or date on the grave, only the inscription:
Buona notte, mia cara sorella.
Goodnight, my dear sister.

Next to the woman knelt a statue of a babe with wings, her tiny hands clasped in desperate prayer. The angel’s grief tore at Rosa’s heart and she had to sit down by the grave and wipe away her tears. Never before had a statue so moved her. Her thoughts drifted to her own mother. Was she still alive? And if she was, why had she been forced to abandon her?

It took Rosa a few minutes to recover from her emotions. When she did, she tugged the ivy back over the grave as if she were covering an intimate scene she should not have laid eyes upon. Something brushed against her leg and she glanced down to see a tortoiseshell cat with one ear missing looking up at her.

‘Hello, pussy cat,’ she said, bending down to stroke the feline’s back. The cat purred when Rosa scratched her chin.

A chill ran down Rosa’s spine and she lifted her eyes. At first she could see nothing but the dark woods. Then she caught her breath. The gatekeeper was standing between two trees and staring at her. She sensed that she had done something forbidden in entering the cemetery.

‘Good morning,’ she called out to him, her voice hoarse with guilt.

The gatekeeper didn’t answer her. The shadows between the trees shifted. Rosa peered into the woods again. There was no-one there. She turned towards the cat. It was scampering away from her into some bushes. The blood thumped in Rosa’s ears and terror seized her. She hurried back in the direction of the house, sure that some presence was watching her. The gatekeeper? Or something else?

She took the wrong direction on the path and, instead of returning to the terrace garden, ran through a passageway of hedges and found herself in an orchard. The entrancing scent of the plum and peach blossoms washed over her and her fear vanished. Besides the fruit trees there were giant gnarled figs and blackberry bushes sent up their thorny shoots between the neatly planted rows. Although Rosa had eaten the bread and cheese, she found herself ravenous again. She picked an apple, admiring the intense crimson colour of its skin before biting the crisp, sweet flesh. What was it about the food at the Villa Scarfiotti? It put you under a spell. Rosa had been terrified a few moments ago but now she was filled by a sense of contentment.

Suddenly a hand seized her wrist and squeezed it like a tourniquet. She cried out in pain and dropped the apple. A face with pale eyes and red-veined cheeks loomed in front of her.

‘So you’re the thief who stole food from the kitchen!’ the woman hissed between clenched teeth.

Rosa could not make any sound. Not only did the woman frighten her but the words ‘thief’ and ‘stole’ cut her to the core. Suor Maddalena would be so ashamed.

‘No,’ stammered Rosa. ‘I’m the new governess…’

The woman released her grip and laughed. ‘Yes, I assumed so. I suppose that old hag Signora Guerrini didn’t take you the supper I prepared for you last night?’

Rosa was confused by the woman’s sudden change of mood. Despite her worn and scrubbed appearance there was something of
the joy and freshness of youth in her manner. She bent down to retrieve the apple she had knocked out of Rosa’s hand, rubbed it on her sleeve and took a bite.

‘Hmm, they must have ripened this morning,’ she said, her mouth full of fruit. ‘I can make an apple cake for the little girl.’ The woman chewed thoughtfully for a few moments before another idea crossed her mind. ‘We’d better return to the house,’ she said. ‘The Marchesa and her daughter are arriving at eleven. You’ve met them, haven’t you, in Florence?’

Rosa shook her head. ‘Only the Marchese Scarfiotti,’ she replied. ‘He collected me from the convent yesterday.’

The woman’s eyes widened. ‘Truly!’ she said, plucking another apple from the tree and handing it to Rosa. ‘This family is like no other.’ She shook her head. ‘The little girl, Clementina, is a wonder, but her mother…well, you’d best avoid her as much as you can, that would be my advice. Keep to your work and mind your own business—that’s how I’ve managed here. I’m Ada Mancini but only the Marchese calls me Signora Mancini. Everyone else calls me Ada.’

Rosa discerned the woman was the villa’s cook. Her clothes and apron smelled of rosemary and other herbs just as Suor Maddalena’s did. Rosa’s mind drifted back to the convent. Was it only yesterday she was there? It seemed like years ago that she was sitting in the chapel. She swallowed the last bite of her apple and walked beside Ada along the path back to the house, praying silently for Suor Maddalena’s return to good health.

Two swallows sped past the women, skimming so quickly over Rosa’s shoulder that she heard the whoosh of their wings in her ears. The birds swooped over the garden before ascending to the sky.

‘A sure sign of spring,’ said Ada, shading her eyes and following the birds’ path. She turned back to Rosa and a scrutinising look came to her face. ‘They are heading north,’ she said softly. ‘The gods of fate and chance are at work today.’

The villa, when Rosa and Ada approached it, was alive with activity. An army of maids was sweeping the terraces and wiping
down the garden furniture. Signora Guerrini was with them, barking out orders and tugging the maids’ ears when they didn’t obey quickly enough. Where had everyone appeared from, Rosa wondered. The maids heard the women’s footsteps on the gravel path and looked up briefly before returning to their work.

Rosa followed Ada into the kitchen where a woman in an apron was lighting the fire. ‘Come on,’ the woman muttered, crossing her bony arms. ‘No mischief today.’ She turned and caught herself when she saw Ada come in with Rosa.

‘This is Paolina, my assistant,’ Ada said to Rosa.

Paolina stood up and brushed her skirt, giving Rosa a nod before taking another poke at the fire. She was about twenty years of age with a lanky figure and prominent cheekbones.

Ada turned to Rosa. ‘Now, you’d best return to your room and prepare yourself for the Marchesa’s arrival. She’s particular so make sure your hair is tidy and your nails scrupulously clean. She’s also sensitive to noise—it brings on her tension headaches—so be careful to speak softly.’

Rosa thanked Ada for her advice and headed towards the storeroom.

Ada shrieked with laughter. ‘Where are you going? Are you still hungry?’

Rosa blushed. ‘My room is downstairs. In the cellar.’

Paolina looked up and exchanged a glance with Ada.

‘Signora Guerrini put you in the room downstairs?’ Paolina asked.

Before Rosa could answer, Ada strode to the kitchen door and called out to one of the maids. ‘Maria, take Signorina Bellocchi to the room set aside for her—the one opposite the schoolroom.’

A girl with wispy blonde hair tucked under her cap and pale, freckled skin rushed inside. She opened a door at the far end of the kitchen and indicated for Rosa to follow her.

‘Be careful,’ Ada told Rosa. ‘Remember what I said.’

Rosa nodded and followed Maria into the dark passageway.

‘So you are the governess?’ Maria asked, her baby-blue eyes settling on Rosa’s face. ‘You can’t be much older than me. Clementina will be thrilled. I think she’s expecting a crone.’

Rosa laughed. Maria giggled too before leading the way up the servants’ staircase. It was spiral shaped with a wrought-iron balustrade. The walls of the corridors that led off it were papered in brown damask and highlighted by pink glass wall sconces.

‘How long have you been here?’ Rosa asked Maria.

‘Six months. But it seems like years. There aren’t many of us young ones.’

‘The villa is much grander than anything I’m used to,’ Rosa confided. ‘I don’t know how I’ll fit in.’

Maria glanced over her shoulder and smiled. ‘It’s grander than what most of the world is used to—and a bit strange as well.’