At the Macauley Villa

I have returned to the gatehouse alone; Bill having stayed on in Tuscany with Lady Macauley and Belle for what has every appearance of being an indefinite period. How this came about – and how it came about moreover at Lady Macauley’s own insistence, she having sprung a bombshell upon us in the very first hour in the villa, which led to her protesting that ‘the lovebirds’ should remain in Italy for as long as possible, Italy itself being the only possible place in which to enjoy a prolonged, if somewhat premature honeymoon... how this rather remarkable state of affairs came about, I shall describe in detail later. Just as soon as I have absorbed the fact that in two weeks, everything has changed beyond recognition; and when I have adjusted to life in the gatehouse again, to shrunken rooms and contracted vistas, and the rough feel of carpet beneath my feet, instead of the cool smoothness of marble.

I should have known that, even without Lady Macauley’s bombshell, Italy would have rendered me unfit for ordinary life; that I should pine for sunken gardens and marble balustrades, and be incapable of looking at an ordinary painting again without distaste - or without, at least, recalling the faded frescoes of Giotto in Santa Croce, or the (to me) still more glorious ones of Fra Angelico, in the dim little monks’ cells of the Monastery of San Marco, in Florence.

I have been ruined, I fear, by the experience of spending two weeks in the Macauley villa. Nothing in real life will ever quite be able to measure up to that. The very act of travelling by scheduled flight with Lady Macauley should have alerted me to the fact that, as Scott Fitzgerald so succinctly put it, “the rich are different” – that they have ways and ways of making life as comfortable as possible; and that a very old lady with an imperious manner can always be assured of boarding an aeroplane first, by the simple expedient of calling ahead to order a wheelchair.

We reached Pisa in the heat of the afternoon, and not even Lady Macauley could do much to ease the tiresome wait for baggage to appear. But from the moment we emerged into sunlight again, with baggage intact, our way was eased by the smooth appearance of an air-conditioned limousine, and our journey north-eastwards into the hills above the walled city of Lucca, was serene and cool.

The Villa Madrigali (or the Villa Jack Macauley, as it is apparently known locally now - though Lady Macauley assured us we would hardly recognise the name, they pronounce it so charmingly) - the villa itself stands upon a high plateau and is visible everywhere for several miles as you approach it. Only when you come near to it does it disappear again, shrouded by the trees which cover the hillside from which it rises; so that its sudden re-emergence at the end of a poplar and cypress-lined avenue comes as a kind of shock, and you feel you are in the presence of something very old and quite magnificent. Vast, four-square, in perfect symmetry, it rises above you; its green-shuttered windows conferring an air of mystery, and the faded ochre of its walls bathed dappled gold in the afternoon sunshine.

That life was going to be be easy, tranquil, here, was evident from the first moment. A little army of chattering, welcoming men and women was at hand to take our bags, conducting us up the double flight of steps and through the echoing grand salon, to the cool chambers with the many-shuttered windows beyond, that had the immensity of ballrooms to my eyes, but that were apparently our appointed bedrooms, each with adjoining marble bathroom. I can conjure it still, that state of almost dream-like wonder with which I took the measure of my new abode; parting long white window curtains to open shutters one by one, for the sheer joy of letting in the light, and then of leaning far out, to look upon landscapes that might have been painted by Leonardo, and of hearing the drowsy sound of cicadas and distant dogs barking, which I now recognise as the characteristic, the unmistakeable sound of Tuscany.

This was never meant to be a travelogue though. Tuscany has a quality of enchantment that loosens the tongue and makes one want to rhapsodise - but I have a story to continue after all, and it was in fact scarcely more than half an hour before we were all gathered together again, in the shade of an open loggia of many handsome portals at the rear of the villa; and Lady Macauley was dropping her little bombshell, calling for glasses of chilled champagne before we took our tea, and asking us to drink the health of that new pair of lovers, Bill and Belle.

“Did you really think I hadn’t noticed?” she gaily cried. “Or that, having noticed, I wouldn’t be overjoyed at the development? How could you think me so blind or so foolish as to have been deceived? And how, come to that, could you have supposed that I wouldn’t welcome with open arms the glorious fact that my daughter has found for herself a man who need not be ashamed to tread in the footsteps of her father, and my own beloved Jack? Oh, I daresay Bill was feeling uncomfortable about the money aspect – and I like him all the better for it, I have to admit. But we have money enough heaven knows! And since the only thing we lack is the one that he supplies, which is to say a man who will carry Jack’s banner into the future – well, don’t you see how avidly we will grab him, and how we will refuse ever to let him go?”

She had known from the first moment, she then explained. A mother could guess such things just by looking, and feeling the little changes in the air. She had known, and she had gloried in the knowledge. But it had amused her to keep them in suspense a little longer; and she had wanted to wait, besides, for the perfectly right moment in which to reveal her knowledge. That moment had come, she said; and now that we were all together here, and the beautiful days stretched ahead of us indefinitely, she could see no reason on earth why the whole world should not be brought in to enjoy the secret. She meant to invite all her old Florentine and Lucchese friends over to join the celebrations. She had an elderly count and countess or two (or six) up her sleeve; who, though largely moth-balled now, would doubtless get their family jewels out again for a night, and bestow a certain faded grandeur upon the occasion.

Nor was there any conceivable reason that she could see why Bill and Belle should not live together as man and wife now, in the villa. She had arranged for the larger of the gatehouses to be prepared to just that effect, indeed - they would have to move their joint belongings over there, directly after tea. And in the meantime we should all have the pleasant occupation of plotting and planning together to dream up some kind of perfectly magnificent wedding for them. She only wondered if they’d like to have it here, at the villa - Jack would have loved that of course. Or whether they’d prefer to wait and have something on an altogether grander scale, in London ?

Bill and Belle were overwhelmed of course, by this sudden public acknowledgement of their situation. Bill took it as he takes everything, with a fairly robust enjoyment – it seemed to amuse him no end that Lady Macauley had been watching him ‘hide in cupboards’ all the while. He embraced her warmly for her words of welcome, however; then raised his own glass, asking us to drink the health of a remarkably astute and generous lady. Belle, on the other hand, seemed a little bewildered by it all. It had all happened too quickly for her; she could not adjust on the spot, as Bill had done, and she entreated her mother not to leap too far ahead in making wedding plans. I think she secretly feared that Bill would find all this just a little precipitate; I saw her glance rather anxiously in his direction once or twice.

We dined quietly beneath the stars on the terrace that evening, and retired early to our respective rooms. We were all weary from travelling, Lady Macauley said: the plans for celebration could wait a day or two. And it seemed, over breakfast in the loggia next morning, that one night in what Lady Macauley now smilingly referred to as ‘the married quarters’, had worked its magic in restoring Belle’s faith in herself, and Bill. She emerged looking happier than I had ever seen her, and no longer seemed to feel the least need to conceal the extent to which she liked to keep physically close to Bill. Lady Macauley too, came down to breakfast in buoyant spirits. And indeed the only member of our little party whose joy seemed in any way alloyed that morning, was Rose. Who had had little real part to play in these proceedings; who must have felt herself rather side-lined, and who perhaps saw in Belle’s sudden ascent into radiant happiness, some vague, unaccountable diminution of her own.

To be continued...