“I’m sure I won’t be very late. Just maybe a little after ten. And I promise to be quiet.”

She sighed. She did a lot of sighing, I’d noticed. As if everything in this world was a great burden to her. In a way, she reminded me of my mother, who was not the most optimistic of souls.

She went to the hall table, pulled open a drawer and handed me a bunch of keys.

“The big one for the outside door,” she said. “And the smaller one for the apartment. Make sure you don’t lose them.”

“I’ll be careful,” I said. “And I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you about dinner.”

“It’s no matter,” she replied. “It was only going to be salami and a little salad anyway.”

I went to my room and debated what to wear. Last year I had been caught out when Leo had invited me to dine at the posh Danieli Hotel. Ladies in Venice dressed well. So I had brought my few items of respectable clothing with me. I examined my pale-blue silk evening dress. Too formal for a student gathering, surely. I wanted horribly to fit in, to belong to the group, not to stand out as an old frumpy female. I could picture Imelda eyeing me with distaste, while she looked stunning in a simple black dress, probably with a silk scarf tossed carelessly around her in the way that Continental women can do, and we Englishwomen can’t.

In the end I opted for a green and white polka-dot dress with a crossover white collar. It was more afternoon tea dress than evening gown, but I doubted that my fellow students would be wearing formal attire. And at least it had been made by the village dressmaker only a year ago, so the style was passably modern. Looking at myself in the mirror, I wished that I owned a simple black gown that could be dressed up for the occasion. I had shied away from black after my father died and Mummy had insisted on our wearing it for months. It really didn’t suit me with my fair complexion. I brushed my hair into a sleek bob, considered adding a jewelled comb, then decided against it. Then off I went.