With one foot still in Tuscany

Early morning in the gatehouse, usually the most pleasant time of day for me; and I am doing my best to adjust to life at home again. But the hum of the refrigerator has the sound, to my ears, of the cicadas in Tuscany; the smell of coffee brewing reminds me that this will not be the coffee of Italy; and the idea that the sweet, charmed life of the villa goes on even in my absence – that breakfast will be in process of being laid out on white-clothed tables in the shade of the old loggia even as I sit here writing; that Bill and Belle will soon be walking together along rows of vines, or in the olive groves, making their plans for the future; and that somewhere must be the distant sound of farm dogs barking, and machinery starting up.... all these things have such a hold on my imagination still, that I am finding it hard to resist the impulse to phone an airline and book another flight to Pisa.

Bill’s vegetable garden has a melancholy look now, since I doubt that he will ever return to it. Oh, he will come home again of course, all in the fullness of time. But it is unlikely he will take up residence again in his side of the gatehouse. He has been taken up by the Macauleys now; he is their man, with all that it implies of being the overseer of grapevines, and of fields of olives, and the newly acknowledged Grand Seigneur of the Villa Jack Macauley.

I am filled with joy for him, of course. Doting sister that I am, I had feared a little, lately, for his future. It had seemed unlikely that he would find love again, after the deeply unpleasant collapse of his marriage; and I had suspected that, with the restoration of his health, and in the absence of anything better to do, he would inevitably drift back again, into the perilous, shifting life of the roving reporter. That he will do no such thing now; that he has found new directions and an absorbing new way of life, as well as lasting and fulfilling love – these things ought to be of the greatest possible sisterly satisfaction to me. And are indeed – or will be, just as soon as I have adjusted to the thought (and I acknowledge it as a selfish, an unworthy one) that in them is no real place that I can presently think of, for me.

Bill phoned last night to tell me that a new party of guests has arrived at the villa. David Porteous is there now, doing his best to look unperturbed by recent events. But failing a little in the attempt, Bill observes – since it cannot have escaped his notice that he has slipped sideways somewhat, in Lady Macauley’s regard; and that the position of acknowledged suitor to Belle he had hoped would be his own, is now very firmly occupied by Bill himself. His daughters are there too; and very pretty they look, Bill tells me, especially when reclining beside the pool in their bikinis.

Lady Macauley is evidently very fond of them; especially of pretty Amy, whom she seems to think will provide an interest for her grandson Will, Jack and Alice's boy, when he comes to visit her in London in the Autumn. For Imogen, her sentiments are evidently rather more mixed – though she likes the way the girl stands up to her in conversation, which shows a commendable spirit, she thinks. And she has already engaged her in another connection, to take up her painter’s palette, and see what she can do to restore the faded frescoes in the loggia. Bill seems to think she is making a rather good job of it, so far.

Pamela had something to say about all these things when I called on her yesterday. “Rose tells me that our dear David is smarting visibly over the failure of his plans” she informed me. “It can’t be easy for him, seeing another man slipping into the shoes he’d hoped would be his. He will require every bit of his practised urbanity to see him through. But I expect he’ll prove himself equal to it – he's equal to most things. And perhaps dear Lady Macauley will find something else for him out there after all? I’m told she has any number of distinguished Italian friends – perhaps she will produce some fascinating countess out of her hat, to compensate him for his loss?"

"Roland and I look forward to meeting some of these people ourselves in fact, when we go out there next week." Pamela went on almost without pause for breath; she was certainly not interested in any contribution I might have wished to make to the conversation. "Roland is Lady Macauley’s acknowledged solicitor now, you know. Such an unexpected distinction for him, late in life. He had thought himself retired, but has been very much involved, with drafting all kinds of new documents for her – he has hardly had a moment to spare in several weeks. But I daresay I shouldn’t be discussing this sort of thing with you - since it most of all pertains to Bill, and to Lady Macauley’s determination to make him joint heir with Belle - at least on the Italian side of things.... She had believed she would have to sell the villa and all its lands, you know, none of the men in her family having any interest in running it. But now here has come Bill, cast so in the mould of her own Jack, she says; so splendidly large, so reassuringly capable - and with such a taste for agriculture, that the villa's future seems assured again. ”

Pamela’s manner was lofty, arch almost, as she delivered herself of all this information. She is very much assured of her position at the Macauley court these days. It has enabled her to hold her head very high; she has dispensed entirely with any feelings of slight she might have suffered in the past - especially those involving David Porteous, whom she now sees as entirely yesterday’s man. She seems to think, too, that her new position gives her leave to be ever so faintly – oh, indiscernibly almost! - patronising towards me. She is at pains of course, to conceal the fact: she wouldn’t like me to think that she gives herself airs of any kind! And she does concede to me the distinction, at least, of being the sister of Bill; whom she evidently holds in the highest possible regard, as the real, and really rather glorious hero of the hour. She parted from me yesterday with the hope that I too, would have the happiness of being able to rejoin them all for another few days at the Macauley villa.

“Do think of coming out again dear, while we’re there!” she entreated. “I’m sure Lady Macauley would be delighted to receive you – and from all I hear, there’s room enough for all of us in that splendid house! “

But there is nothing that Pamela can tell me about that splendid house that I haven’t already seen, and experienced for myself. I yearn for it, in truth. I yearn for the splendour, and yet the simplicity of it. I believe that if the conditions were right, and Lady Macauley, or Bill and Belle, were to suggest it, I could easily shed every aspect of my present life; could close the door of the gatehouse and jump on a flight to Pisa tomorrow, with only a single suitcase in my hand, and with the idea of giving myself up to the charm of the Tuscan lifestyle forever.

That I have a special reason for feeling this way is a fact, yet no part of my brief as narrator of these events. Properly speaking, I am not expected to have a life, and still less any kind of a dream of my own. Yet sooner or later I believe I shall be impelled to reveal the astonishing truth – that there was one especially enchanted evening in which a stately fleet of old cars wound its way up the hill to the villa; that jewels and medals sparkled, and ancient bosoms were exposed to moonlight, as we dined at tables set up beneath a tremendous plane tree to celebrate the engagement of Bill and Belle; and that my own designated partner at table was a tall man with an elegant air, and the deep, deep, old Italian eyes for which I’ve always had a special weakness....

But now I'm being arch myself! An unforgiveable lapse on a narrator's part; I shall forswear it utterly, and go and visit Frances instead. I have other tales than my own to tell, after all, and have no business slipping off in inadmissable directions. Though I won’t pretend there isn’t something more than just Tuscany which haunts my thoughts at present. I have been touched by something else; I never expected it, and am not at all sure about how I shall handle it. But nor can I absolutely guarantee that I won’t be irresistibly drawn back to it, at some future, more appropriate moment.