Deep and Silent Waters

‘No, of course not.’ It might be rather exciting to play at spying, to listen in on conversations, ask carefully phrased, innocent-sounding questions. She smiled to herself. She certainly wouldn’t tell a soul. She liked having secrets.

Two weeks later she left for Switzerland, taking with her a large trunk of clothes, sports equipment and books. She was met at the railway station and driven to the school, an eighteenth-century building in the classic style, creamy stucco and elegant proportions, with two wings of more modern design hidden behind it, and beyond that gardens going down to the lake.

The weather was hot, languorous, even though a cool breeze blew softly off the lake. As the taxi came up the drive to the portico-shaded front door, Vittoria saw other girls: playing tennis on grass courts, sitting reading in a rose garden, talking in groups on benches with a young woman who was clearly a teacher. A few girls looked curiously out of the long windows on the first floor. Was Olivia one of them?

Vittoria had written to say she was coming and had received a delighted reply. ‘You’ll love it here, we’ll have such fun! I’ll try to get Michie to let you share my room, then we can talk about home in bed at night. Although I love it here, I am homesick, now and then. Nowhere is as beautiful as Venice, is it? We’re supposed to be asleep by nine, which is hard when it’s still light outside!’

Madame Michelet – Michie to the girls – the headmistress, Swiss by nationality but French-speaking and of French descent, was a slender, chic woman in her late thirties, in clothes Vittoria recognised at once as the highest fashion, with cropped black hair and dark eyes and a face like a razor, smooth-skinned, with a golden tan, but all sharp angles and dangerous lines, warning that she was tough and difficult to manipulate.

She had Carlo’s letter spread open in front of her, on her green-leather-topped desk, and glanced at it after welcoming Vittoria politely.

‘So. You are here to learn English, French and German, firstly, and various other subjects your brother has requested – Cordon Bleu cooking, typing, fashion, how to drive a car. But I gather that, above all, he wants you to acquire social graces – how to walk, sit, dress, talk to people.’

‘Yes, Madame.’

Madame Michelet surveyed her appraisingly. ‘I understand you know Olivia d’Angeli?’

‘Yes, we met in Venice, when I lived there during the war.’

‘So I am told. She requested that you share her bedroom – you’re happy with that?’

Vittoria nodded, smiling.

‘Very well.’ Madame rang a small brass bell on her desk and the door opened immediately, to reveal the maid, in black and a white lace cap, who had admitted Vittoria at the front door of the school and led her to the headmistress’s study.

‘Jeanne, please show Mademoiselle Serrati to Mademoiselle d’Angeli’s room. Has her luggage been taken there?’

‘Yes, Madame.’

Vittoria got up. The headmistress sa

id, If you have any problems you are always welcome to come and talk to me.’

Vittoria couldn’t imagine herself doing so: Madame was not an approachable woman. Getting up, she gave the little curtsy she had been taught by the nuns, and Madame Michelet smiled approvingly.

‘I hope you will be happy here, Vittoria.’

‘Merci, Madame.’

The door closed on the comfortable study, the upright figure at the desk, and Vittoria sighed with relief, then followed the maid up the highly polished oak stairs, the walls lined with prints of famous French and Italian paintings.

She recognised Botticelli’s Primavera, Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks, a painting of Madame de Pompadour by François Boucher, a Fragonard, some early Impressionist paintings of landscapes.

Olivia’s room was on the first floor, right at the end of a corridor. To Vittoria’s disappointment, nobody was there. Jeanne helped her to unpack, hung clothes in a small white-painted wardrobe, filled a chest of drawers with underwear and nightdresses, told her which of the two beds would be hers, then left her alone. She sat on the window-seat and gazed out over the gleaming blue lake. The view was as good as Olivia had promised.

A few minutes later bells began to ring, followed by a stampede of feet on the creaking stairs. The door was flung open and Olivia rushed in, beaming. ‘I saw your taxi arrive – I knew you were here.’ She was in tennis whites and must have been one of the girls playing on the courts as Vittoria drove past.

They hugged, a little self-consciously because it was three years since they had met and letters hadn’t prepared them for the changes in each other.

Olivia was now sixteen, a willowy girl of five foot seven or so, tiny of waist, but with surprisingly large breasts and long legs. She had always been striking; Vittoria could see that she was turning into a beauty, with her family’s dark colouring and golden-olive skin.

Vittoria knew that she herself would never be a beauty: her own face was neat but plain, her body faintly dumpy, her hips too wide, her legs short.

‘Well, do you like the look of the place?’ asked Olivia, complacently, knowing what the answer must be.

‘I love it! Isn’t this room elegant? And I can’t stop staring at the view – the lake is much bigger than I expected. What are the other girls like?’

‘Most of them are okay. One or two can be vile, but there are a couple of American girls who are great fun. They think up some pretty wild things to do.’