The Tuscan Contessa by Dinah Jefferies

The Tuscan Contessa by Dinah Jefferies

Author:Dinah Jefferies [Jefferies, Dinah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241987322
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2020-07-15T23:00:00+00:00


29.

Florence

Lorenzo had been right. When Sofia and Anna arrived in German-occupied central Florence, it wasn’t quite as cold as the Castello, but still the damp crept into their bones. Sofia recalled her very first visit to Lorenzo’s family palazzo, how stunned she had been by its beauty, with its arched windows right across the front and the huge main doorway. Their last visit here had been back in September, and they’d been lucky. There’d been no air-raid sirens when the Allied bombers targeted the city, and they’d been relaxing in the salon unaware of what was about to happen. When the awful whistling began, Sofia ran to Lorenzo and they held each other, listening as each shrill shriek was followed by a rumbling sound, ending in an explosion that made you feel you were going crazy. As the nightmare went on and the Allied bombs fell hard and fast, they waited, hardly breathing, not knowing if they would live. She prayed and prayed, and she meant it. And she tried very hard not to think about what might happen if they were unlucky. Miraculously they were left unscathed, with just a few of their palazzo windows shattered, but they found out several buildings had been destroyed and at least two hundred civilians killed. It was hard to stomach. The British and American forces had been their enemies but, overnight, became their friends. Now they were blowing up bridges and railway tracks to make life difficult for the Germans, but it was hurting the ordinary citizens too.

This was the first time she had returned since then and the whole house echoed with Lorenzo’s absence. Nothing improper had really taken place, but perhaps spending time alone with James the night before had made her more aware of how much she needed her husband to be near her. Was that wrong? She could cope. She could cope perfectly well, but she longed for him to be there, in the dark, shuttered rooms and in her bed. She whipped off the muslin dust sheets covering the furniture in every room and that helped a bit. The four-storey palazzo was far too big for them and there had been an exciting plan to refurbish it into four apartments but when the war came along the project had ground to a halt.

When they were first married, she’d had to build her confidence in the role of Contessa and, especially here, it had felt like a performance until, gradually, she’d fallen into step with the way of things. Before her death, Lorenzo’s mother had gone out of her way to be kind. Sofia had been visiting her parents in Rome when the terrible accident had struck Lorenzo and his family. As the only one to escape the car with his life, his guilt and sorrow had been devastating to see. She’d done everything she could to help him, until eventually the light had begun slowly to return to his eyes.

Now, while the ever-practical Anna concocted something to eat, Sofia lit a fire in the drawing room and thought again of James.



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