“Why was nothing done?” I said.
“The doctors, could they not ease the pain?
And Mrs. Ashley, did she just let him die?”
He looked puzzled.
“Please, signore?” he said.
“What was this illness, how long did it last?” I asked.
“I have told you, at the end, very sudden,” said the man, “but one, two attacks before then.
And all winter the signore not so well, sad somehow, not himself.
Very different from the year before.
When the signor Ashley first came to the villa, he was happy, gay.”
He threw open more windows as he spoke, and we walked outside onto a great terrace, spaced here and there with statues.
At the far end a long stone balustrade.
We crossed the terrace and stood by the balustrade, looking down upon a lower garden, clipped and formal, from which the scent of roses came, and summer jasmine, and in the distance was another fountain, and yet another, wide stone steps leading to each garden, the whole laid out, tier upon tier, until at the far end came that same high wall flanked with cypress trees, surrounding the whole property.
We looked westward towards the setting sun, and there was a glow upon the terrace and the hushed gardens; even the statues were held in the one rose-colored light, and it seemed to me, standing there with my hand upon the balustrade, that a strange serenity had come upon the place that was not there before.
The stone was still warm under my hand, and a lizard ran away from a crevice and wriggled down onto the wall below.
“On a still evening,” said the man, standing a pace or so behind me, as though in deference, “it is very beautiful, signore, here in the gardens of the villa Sangalletti.
Sometimes the contessa gave orders for the fountains to be played, and when the moon was full she and the signor Ashley used to come out onto the terrace here, after dinner.
Last year, before his illness.”
I went on standing there, looking down upon the fountains, and the pools beneath them with the water lilies.
“I think,” said the man slowly, “that the contessa will not come back again.
Too sad for her.
Too many memories.
Signor Rainaldi told us that the villa is to be let, possibly sold.” His words jerked me back into reality. The spell of the hushed garden had held me for a brief moment only, the scent of roses and the glow of the setting sun, but it was over now.
“Who is Signor Rainaldi?” I asked.
The man turned back with me towards the villa.
“The signor Rainaldi he arrange all things for the contessa,” he answered, “matters of business, matters of money, many things.
He knows the contessa a long time.”
He frowned, and waved his hand at his wife who with the child in her arms was walking on the terrace.
The sight offended him, it was not right for them to be there.
She disappeared within the villa, and began fastening the shutters.
“I want to see him, Signor Rainaldi,” I said.
“I give you his address,” he answered.
“He speak English very well.”
We went back into the villa, and as I passed through the rooms to the hall the shutters were closed, one by one, behind me.
I felt in my pockets for some money. I might have been anyone, a casual traveler upon the continent, visiting a villa from curiosity with a view to purchase.
Not myself. Not looking for the first and last time on the place where Ambrose had lived and died.
“Thank you for all you did for Mr. Ashley,” I said, putting the coins into the fellow’s hand.
Once again the tears came in his eyes.
“I am so sorry, signore,” he said, “so very sorry.”
The last shutters were closed.
The woman and the child stood beside us in the hall, and the archway to the empty rooms beyond and to the stairway grew dark again, like the entrance to a vault.
“What happened to his clothes,” I asked, “his belongings, his books, his papers?”
The man looked troubled. He turned to his wife, and they spoke to one another for a moment.
Questions and answers passed between them.
Her face went blank, she shrugged her shoulders.
“Signore,” said the man, “my wife gave some help to the contessa when she went away.
But she says the contessa took everything.
All the signor Ashley’s clothes were put in a big trunk, all his books, everything was packed.
Nothing left behind.”
I looked into both their eyes.