The Visconti House (11 page)

Laura felt cross. Why didn’t he tell her that he would be away? She hesitated for a moment, then approached him. “So where were you?” she asked coldly.

“I went down to Melbourne to see my dad.”

“Oh.” Laura sat down, her anger suddenly gone. “Just like that. Didn’t he mind you missing school?”

Leon did not reply; he shrugged his shoulders and looked out the window.

“Well, could he translate the postcard?” she said impatiently.

“Yes, I told you he could.”

“And?”

Leon drew a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Laura.

“‘The sea is calm today,’” she read. “‘No more storms. I saw Alessandro yesterday, and he told me about the painted garden. I long to see it. I long to see you, but there is too much sea between us. When will you return? G.’”

“Gosh,” breathed Laura. “Who do you think
G
is?”

Leon shrugged his shoulders again. “Could be anybody.”

“It sounds like it was someone who knew Mr. Visconti well.”

“
If
the postcard was for Mr. Visconti.” Leon raised one eyebrow. “Who knows?”

“Of course it was for Mr. Visconti. Why else would it be in his house? In the
attic
of his house? And he had been away many years, so of course people would long to see him. And the garden, the
painted
garden.” Laura pointed to the words. “You are just being difficult.”

“Perhaps.” Leon grinned at her. “I admit that it probably was for him. My dad said that the picture
is
a photograph of Nice.”

“Maybe Alessandro is the person who painted the garden.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he was the singer who gave the concert.”

Laura’s face lit up. “Yes, that would be who he was. The singer’s initial was
A,
I’m sure. Where’s the article?” She started rummaging through the papers.

“Here,” said Leon.

He had been looking at it when she arrived.

Laura stared at him in disbelief. Leon had to be the most frustrating person she knew. “You might
have told me you’d already figured it out. Show me the clipping again.”

Laughing, Leon handed it to her, and Laura began to read. “‘A well-known singer, A. Bernascotti from Rome, has been staying with Mr. Visconti. On September 9, 1898, he gave a concert at Mr. Visconti’s charming residence. It was greatly enjoyed by all who attended. Items included . . .’” Laura looked up. “The songs sound like the sort of things Isabella used to sing.”

“Who was Isabella?”

“Is, not was. She’s a friend of my parents. She wants to be an opera singer.” Laura remembered all the arias and smiled. “She said our house was made to sing in.”

“Maybe it was.”

Laura returned to the browning newspaper clipping. “Do you think that
G
is a man or a woman?” she asked.

“I don’t think that
G
is the person in the love affair, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“Why not?”

“It just doesn’t sound like that to me. And I don’t think it would have been dropped on the floor for people to find one hundred years later if it was.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t know — but it’s what I think. I think that
G
was someone who knew Mr. Visconti well but was not his . . .” Leon blushed slightly. “Not the person he was in love with.”

“And who
was
he in love with?”

“The person he built the house for.”

Of course; how could she have been so blind? It was so obvious — Mr. Visconti had not built the house for himself. He had built it for someone else. For someone he loved.

“Maybe Miss McInnes knows who she is,” she suggested. “When do you think your grandmother will talk to her?”

“She said she was waiting until the time was right.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means she’s waiting until she feels up to it. She doesn’t like going out.”

Laura wrinkled her forehead. “It’s funny, isn’t it, to think of her and Miss McInnes playing in the school yard, being children?”

“It’s funny thinking of most adults being children,” agreed Leon. “What’s Miss McInnes like?”

“Very neat and ordered. An everything-in-its-place
sort of person, I think. And suspicious. Well, she was suspicious of me, anyway.”

Leon grinned again. “Maybe you looked shady.” he said. “Look at this description of the house. It says there was a cellar.”

“But there isn’t,” replied Laura. “I would have shown it to you if there was. When was that written?”

“In 1940, when the house was up for sale. It says that there had once been a well-stocked cellar.”

Laura slowly shook her head. “I’ve never seen it.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Or
wasn’t
there. It may have been covered over. We should look for it.”

“I guess we could try to find it.” Laura eyed the article skeptically. “Does it say where it was?”

“No.”

“Well, do you want to come over tomorrow after school? We could search for it then.”

“Sure.” Leon nodded, but as though he had not really heard. He turned toward her, a puzzled expression on his face. “Strange that the cellar’s not there anymore, isn’t it? Really, really strange.”

The following afternoon, Leon was sitting on the balustrade of Mrs. Murphy’s veranda, eating an apple, when Laura came over the hill. He leaped down as soon as he saw her, and she could tell immediately that he had some news.

“Your mom was right,” he blurted out as he reached her. “There
was
a romance. Mr. Visconti met this woman. He came out to Australia because he wanted to marry her. He built your house for her and everything, but something went wrong. She never married him. He went on living there, waiting, but she never came.”

Laura put down her bag, frowning as she tried to take it all in. “But why did he build it here?”

“She lived nearby. Her family had a property, a big property. Her father was very rich. She met Mr. Visconti when she was on the Grand Tour, traveling all over Europe, becoming a lady.”

“So why didn’t she marry him?”

“I don’t know. Miss McInnes didn’t say.”

“
Wouldn’t
say?”

“No, Grandma thinks she doesn’t know. Remember, she was only a little girl when she heard all this. Miss McInnes was related to the family, very distantly; that’s how she knew about it. But there was some sort of scandal and it was all hushed up. Maybe it was because the family didn’t approve of Mr. Visconti. Because he was Italian. Or because he was different.”

“Because he built houses with gardens painted on the walls.”

“Maybe.”

Laura was silent for a moment, then said, “People are so stupid.”

“Only some.” Leon took another bite of his apple. “Come on. Let’s get going.”

Laura bent to pick up her bag, but Leon seized it from her. “Here, I’ll carry that,” he said, and swung it over his shoulder as though it weighed nothing. Laura stared after him in surprise. She had read about boys carrying girls’ school books in some of her mother’s old novels, but she hadn’t imagined that they really did it. Not that this was like in the stories, she
reminded herself — he was just carrying it because it was heavy — but it was nice all the same. She hurried to catch up with him.

Laura’s mother was making coffee when they came into the kitchen. She smiled at Leon and asked how their research was going.

“Fine,” said Laura. “We’re going to look for a cellar.”

“A cellar! Why?”

“One of the articles said there was a cellar.”

Laura’s mother shook her head. “You can’t believe everything you read, you know. I haven’t seen any evidence of a cellar, honey bear.”

“Well, we’re going to see for ourselves.” Laura opened the fridge and then closed it again when she saw they were all out of juice. She didn’t think Leon was the sort of person who would mind about things like that, though. “Would you like some water?” she asked, but he shook his head.

“There’s some fresh bread,” suggested her mother. “Your father came back with a loaf when he went to get the paper. And there’s that delicious honey Harry brought. Why don’t you have some of that?”

The bread was so fresh, it was hard to cut. They ended up with huge wedges on which they slathered
butter and the sweet golden honey. It dribbled over the sides and stuck to their fingers and tasted incredible. Watching Leon as he licked the side of his hand where the honey was trickling down, Laura tried to imagine eating bread and honey with Kylie or Maddy. It was impossible to do.

“Where should we start?” she asked when they couldn’t eat any more.

“Are there any new floorboards?”

Laura thought hard. “I don’t think so.”

“Let’s look anyway. We’ll start here.”

The kitchen was tiled. The tiles were old and worn and looked very firmly set in place. Nevertheless, Leon insisted that they shift every bit of movable furniture to look under it. They found nothing.

Then they tried the two bedrooms, crawling over the floorboards to check every join. At one point, after he had been peering under her parents’ bed, Leon lifted his head, and he was covered in cobwebs and dust. Laura burst out laughing, and Leon, looking puzzled, reached up and felt the sticky threads caught in his hair.

“Look in the mirror.” Laura giggled. “You look like Samson when we found him in the attic.”

Leon started laughing too, and the more they
laughed, the more they could not stop. Laura clutched her stomach and gasped for air. When they finally managed to catch their breath, she realized she hadn’t laughed like that in a very, very long time. She thought of the last night with Harry and Isabella when she had felt so lonely and miserable; perhaps she was going to end up friends with Leon, after all.

The next room they searched was the room Isabella and Laura had turned into the dining room. Samson was asleep on the table among the gutted candlesticks and the remains of Isabella’s vegetable centerpiece. When they came in, he looked up sleepily and yawned, making them both start laughing again. Laura picked him up and he began to purr, rubbing his head against her neck.

Leon tickled Samson’s chin. “You’re so lucky to have a cat.”

“Do you . . . did you have any animals?” asked Laura.

“I had a dog once.” Leon turned away. “I couldn’t keep him,” he said in a voice that told Laura not to go any further. “Let’s start looking for the cellar here.”

As Laura watched him kneel down and begin to examine the boards, she wondered if he would ever tell her about himself. She put Samson down and
joined Leon on the floor. Samson followed them, puzzled by their odd behavior.

“This would be a good room for a cellar because it’s next to the kitchen,” said Leon.

“Maybe.” Laura sat back on her heels and looked around. “But I can’t see where it would be. I think Mom was right. I think they were just making it up in the article.” She pressed her lips together scornfully.

Leon glanced at her. “Let’s keep looking anyway.”

They tried the other empty rooms on the ground floor and then the hall and the grand entrance area with its marble tiles. It was getting dark by then, and the shadows were closing in. For a moment Laura almost heard the soft
tap, tap, tap
of Mr. Visconti’s stick on the stone as he crossed the hall and began to mount the stairs.

She shivered. “I think we should stop now,” she said. Then something caught her eye. It was glinting in the half light beside the staircase. “Look,” she cried. “What’s that?”

It was a key. A tiny silver key jammed beneath the baseboard.

The key did not seem to fit anything, but Laura and Leon put it away carefully in the Mr. Visconti box with all the other discoveries. It was so small that Laura had to find another box to keep it in. She lined this box with some silk ribbon, and when she had polished the tiny, delicately patterned key, it nestled in the folds like a jewel.

The discovery of the key convinced Laura that there was definitely more to find, and she responded enthusiastically when Leon suggested continuing their search for the cellar. “We’ll carry on tomorrow,” she said, but Leon shook his head.

“I can’t come back till Saturday.”