“I would like that very much,” I said.

“Tell your new friends they are also invited,” she said. “I will be hosting one this Sunday, as a matter of fact. Only a small affair in the summer, since so many people are at their properties in the hills to escape the heat. But it will give you a chance to see my villa.”

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“On the Lido, my dear. Have you been there yet?”

“Yes, I once took a party of schoolgirls to the Lido so that they could swim.”

“Ah, then you know how to take the vaporetto, and from the dock you walk in the direction of the beach. About halfway down that wide road, you come to my villa on your right. Behind tall wrought iron gates. Villa Fiorito. It says so beside the gate. When my husband was alive, we had a small palazzo in the city, but I gave it away. Too noisy.”

“How can one have a small palazzo?” I asked, and she laughed.

“Small by palazzo standards. Only eighteen rooms. But too dark and depressing for me. I gave it to my departed husband Maurizio’s nephew and his wife. Wasn’t that nice of me?”

“Very nice,” I said.

“I like making people happy,” she said. “Until Sunday, then. You will enjoy my friends.”

And so now I am sitting on my bed writing this with a smile on my face. Less than one week in Venice, and I have already been invited to the villa of a countess.

Today I learned to draw a face, a church and an orange, and I went to dinner with a priest and a countess. Not bad for a first day at the accademia. Just wait until I write to Mummy! Even Aunt Hortensia will be impressed.

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 17

Juliet, Venice, July 9, 1939

Sunday. In England a day of rest. No shops open. Church bells ringing in the morning (but not at an ungodly hour like here, and in an orderly fashion, not complete cacophony). On a fine day maybe a picnic, a cricket match on the village green. But here it is a day of loud celebration. Bells ring all over the city at different times, summoning the faithful to Mass. And almost everyone is a worshipper, it seems. Signora Martinelli went to eight o’clock Mass this morning. She asked me politely if I’d like to go and if I’d mind if breakfast was late. I said I wouldn’t mind at all about breakfast, but I declined her kind invitation to join her.

“There is an English church, you know. St George’s. It is next to your accademia. Not at all far. I believe they have a service later in the morning, as I understand that Anglicans are not early risers, and of course for them they do not have to fast before communion as they are not receiving the blessed sacrament anyway.” Another sniff.