a determined wipe with her napkin. ‘It sometimes does. Are you at a university, or do you work for a company? Or are you that mysterious thing, a government scientist?’
The habit of secrecy was so ingrained in George that he found this impossible to answer. ‘I do scientific research’ sounded lame, but it was the best he could manage. ‘And you, are you travelling for pleasure?’
‘Hardly likely or possible, with the sum the government allows us for travel. No, I, too, am here on personal business.’
‘Are you going to Rome?’
‘No, I shall leave the train at a place called La Spezia. Do you know Italy? Is it a pleasant town?’
‘A naval port, I believe. Heavily bombed during the war. I have never been there.’
Marjorie seemed to lose interest, her eyes focusing on the scenery outside the window. ‘It’s very pretty along here. The hills and the sea. Very dramatic. I’m not staying at La Spezia, so I’m not really interested in what it’s like. One just says these things, in a conversational way, does one not?’
She picked up her handbag from the seat where she had laid it. It was, he noticed, very shabby, but once it had been an expensive bag. Crocodile. He guessed that she wasn’t in comfortable circumstances; there was something of a child with its nose pressed against a shop window about her. She did not look as though she were accustomed to travel of this kind.
Well, she would get off the train at La Spezia, as would he, and vanish to catch her train or bus, or be met by an aunt or a friend, and he would not see her again.
She was holding out her hand. ‘Thank you for letting me share your table. Goodbye.’
She was walking away; too thin, and why didn’t she hold herself straighter? Then she stopped and looked back at him, a faintly puzzled look on her face.
‘Does the name Beatrice Malaspina mean anything to you?’
He was so surprised that he dropped his cup back on to its saucer with a crash that made heads swivel.
Marjorie came back to the table and sat down again. ‘I can see it does. Are you named in the will as well? Is that why you’re here, on the train? Because, like me, you’re on the way to the Villa Dante?’
Mrs Wolfson was no one’s idea of a typical American grandmother. She was sharp and bohemian, a townee to her fingertips, and she had never baked an apple pie in her life.
Lucius Wilde had always loved her and had always been in awe of her. It didn’t matter that he was a successful man in his thirties; Miffy, as she was known to friends and family alike, still provoked as much respect as affection in him.
‘I’ve come to say goodbye,’ he told her, after he’d kissed the beautifully made-up cheek offered to him.
‘I shall miss you,’ she said. ‘I’ll order martinis.’ She rang the bell and a maid appeared almost at once. ‘In the library,’ she said, and led the way up the beautiful curved staircase to the first floor.
Mrs Wolfson lived in a brownstone in Boston and had done so since she came to the house as the bride of Edgar Wolfson. Twenty years older than her, he had been a dealer in fine arts, had made a great deal of money, and had acquired for his own walls a large number of paintings, not to mention the sculptures and bronzes and porcelain and rugs that filled every available space.
Lucius loved this house. He loved the paintings, especially the twentieth-century ones, for his grandfather had had a progressive outlook and bought modern paintings long before the artists became fashionable or expensive.
The martinis came, and Miffy attacked hers with gusto. ‘I just love the first cocktail of the day,’ she said. ‘Paris, and then London?’
‘Paris for a couple of weeks, and then I’m going to visit some friends who live near Nice, before going on to England.’
‘Nice? To stay with the Forrests, I suppose. Will Elfrida be there? Wasn’t she staying with them in Long Island when you met her?’
‘Yes, and yes.’
‘I wonder why you didn’t bring her to meet me.’
‘You know why. We became engaged on the eve of her return to England.’
‘Bookings can be changed. You’ll bring her back to America for a visit as soon as you’re married? By which time, of course, it will be too late for you to discover whether I like her or consider her right for you.’
‘Come on, Miffy, a man in his thirties is allowed to choose his own wife.’
‘A man of any age can choose wrong. It alarms me that your parents are so pleased about the engagement. They say she’s just perfect for you.’
‘And so she is.’
‘You aren’t in love with her.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake…’ Exasperating woman, but of course she was right. She had always been able to see through him and out the other side. ‘You’ll like her. She’s lively and forthright…’
‘Organising, so I’ve heard. And determined. I’m sure she’ll be a great asset to your career, a woman like that can take a man even to the White House.’
That made him laugh. ‘I have no political ambitions.’
‘You have no ambitions of any kind, not of your own. All the ambition in your life is provided by other people. Have you ever thought about that?’
‘Miffy, do lay off.’
‘All right. Now, you’ve told me your plans, which I already knew: France, then a position in the English branch of the bank. That’s not why you’re here. Come clean, Lucius. What’s on your mind?’
‘Did you ever know someone called Beatrice Malaspina?’
The light was fading fast outside the windows, and Lucius didn’t notice the watchful light in his grandmother’s eyes. ‘Because I’ve had an extraordinary letter from a firm of lawyers. I went to see them, in New York. They told me I’m named in the will of this Beatrice Malaspina.’
‘Was she an American?’
Lucius shook his head. ‘An Italian, I should think, judging by the name. The firm here are acting for her Italian lawyers. She has—had, I should say—a house on the coast somewhere in the north of Italy. Liguria. The terms of the will state that I must go there, to her house, the Villa Dante, to be able to collect this legacy.’
‘Which is?’
‘Haven’t a clue. Could be a bundle of worthless lire, a set of spoons, her father’s stuffed tiger—your guess is as good as mine.’
‘How intriguing.’
‘So you don’t know her?’
