Page 3 of Change of Heart
Alice put down her glass and studied the photo on the screen. This showed a very beautiful and quite obviously ancient fortress, complete with crenelated battlements, towers, a moat and arrow slit windows on the lower levels. The castle was situated on a little rise, partway up a bigger hill, surrounded by dense woodland and occasional green fields, and with two or three red-roofed buildings dotted about amid the trees. To her trained eye, however, the castle itself didn’t look totally medieval. Maybe it had been renovated more recently and, if so, that would make it a lot easier to bring it up to the standard necessary to open it to the public. The caption below it read:Castello di Varaldo, comune di Varaldo, Emilia-Romagna.
‘Emilia-Romagna is the name of the region, and Varaldo’s the name of the nearby village.’ Ronald leant over and pointed to the higher hills in the background. ‘It’s on the north-eastern flank of the Apennines – I’m sure you know they’re the mountains that form the spine of Italy – strategically positioned so as to guard what was one of the main mountain passes. According to the Internet, Varaldo was on a major trade and pilgrimage route that was used for centuries.’
Alice nodded, but barely took in what he was saying. Her attention was totally on the castle. From what she could see, the upper floors looked as if they were being lived in, so presumably the place couldn’t betoodilapidated. The building and its surroundings were very different from the Tyrolean-style houses and rocky Alpine peaks of the Dolomites, and it could almost have been in a different country. As for the castle itself, it looked like it might be possible to transform it into a tourist attraction, but she felt sure it was going to be a considerable challenge. She handed the computer back and looked across at the two of them.
‘It looks amazing but it won’t be easy. Thank you so much for going to all this trouble, but I have a feeling they’ll probably need somebody older and with more experience than me, probably an Italian. But I must admit it’s very tempting.’ She glanced across and caught Ronald’s eye, mustering a little smile. ‘And I suppose I really don’t have a choice.’
He shot her an encouraging smile in return. ‘I wouldn’t worry about your age if I were you. You have the experience and the qualifications, and you speak fluent Italian. Do think seriously about it. I’m sure it would suit you down to the ground.’
Alice shot him a grateful glance. ‘Iwillthink about it, I promise. If I do decide to go for it, how do I contact the people?’
Ronald answered. ‘Cyril – that’s my pal in London – says that his friend in Milan has spoken to the people in Parma about you and they say they’d be happy to arrange an interview with you. The only thing is that he said they’ve already interviewed a number of applicants, so you’d better make your mind up sooner rather than later. Could you take a bit of time off and pop over to see them? Maybe even as soon as this weekend? See how comfortable you feel back in Italy again. If you don’t like the place or the people, you can just say no if they offer you the job. And if they don’t, you’ll have had a day or two in Italy to see how you feel about the place again. But you need to make your mind up very quickly whether you want to go for it or not.’
Alice did a bit of quick thinking. The spring bank holiday in ten days’ time would be busy here at the manor, but she should be able to take a couple of days off before that. She normally worked on either Saturday or Sunday, but she felt sure Marjorie would allow her to get away for a day or two this weekend, considering it was for a job interview after all, if the people over there could see her. Ronald was right. Going over to Italy for a couple of days would be fun and a way of dipping her toe in the Italian water again. If something didn’t feel right, she could just say no. But if she did feel comfortable with the job and the idea of moving back to Italy, she had to admit that it sounded fascinating and tempting. She swallowed hard and made a quick decision.
Pulling out her phone, she called Marjorie to check if it might be possible to take Saturday, Sunday and maybe Monday off. For now, she didn’t go into any detail, just telling her boss that there was the chance of a job. As she had thought, the answer was yes, so she was able to tell Ronald and Fenella that she would be up for the interview.
Ronald immediately made a call to his friend in London and by the time Alice had finished her sherry and politely refused a top-up, she had been given the phone number and name of the contact at the castle. Although her instincts were telling her to go off somewhere quiet and private to make the call, she could see that Ronald and Fenella were bursting with curiosity, so she pulled out her phone again and made the call. It rang half a dozen times before she heard what sounded like a young woman’s voice.
‘Pronto.’
As Alice replied, she was pleased to hear her Italian sounding reasonably fluent after four years of very little use. ‘Hello, good evening, could I speak to Simonetta Varaldo, please?’
‘I’m Simonetta. How can I help you?’ The woman sounded friendly enough and Alice took heart.
‘My name’s Alice Sterling and I’m calling from England.’ She went on to explain that she’d been told about the family’s plans for the castle and asked if it might be possible to be considered for the position. To her surprise the reply was enthusiastic.
‘We’d be delighted to meet you. Count Romano called to tell us all about you. If you give me your e-mail address, I’ll send you over the information sheet we’ve prepared. The only thing is that we want to make a decision quickly. Is there any chance you could come over in the next few days?’
‘My friends here told me you wanted to get moving as soon as possible. Today’s Thursday. Would it be all right if I came to see you on Saturday or Sunday? I’ll have to check flights first, of course.’
‘Either day would be perfect; time to suit you. Call me back when you’ve made your travel plans.’
Alice thanked her and the call ended. She looked across at the other two, a feeling of excitement building inside her, alongside a hefty helping of apprehension. ‘Thank you both so much. They’ll see me this Saturday if I can find a flight. Who’s Count Romano? Simonetta said he’s already called her.’
‘That’ll be Cyril’s friend in Milan.’
‘Isn’t Italy a republic nowadays? I didn’t think they still had an aristocracy.’
Lord F-C smiled. ‘You can’t get rid of us that easily. Italy’s still got princes and counts and barons all over the place, but they just don’t use their titles so much. It’s the same in a lot of countries these days. Trust me: the old boy network still works well in our circles.’ He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially and his smile broadened. ‘I daresay I could put you in touch with a few members of the nobility in Russia if I put my mind to it.’ His smile turned into a grin. ‘Not so sure about the USA, though. So, the interview’s set for the day after tomorrow?’
‘The day after tomorrow…’ Alice struggled to dominate the feeling of apprehension rising up inside her at the realisation of what lay ahead for her. ‘Now all I’ve got to do is to find out how to get there. First things first, I need to take a look at a map of Italy.’
Chapter 3
It turned out to be remarkably easy to get to the castle. Alice got a really cheap seat on a Ryanair flight to Bologna on Saturday morning and rented an automatic Fiat at the airport. From there to Varaldo took little over an hour and a half, most of it on the very busy motorway with a never-ending series of cars zooming past her totally ignoring the speed limits, while the last twenty or thirty kilometres were on minor roads and much less stressful. These took her into the foothills of the Apennines, the mountain range that runs along the length of Italy and separates the plains of the north from the hills of Tuscany and the west coast. For the first part of the journey the terrain was almost completely flat and when she turned off the autostrada, the rounded, tree covered hills ahead of her were very different from and not as spectacular as the rugged Dolomites where she had worked before. It was all less harsh, less forbidding and more civilised. She had to admit that her first impression was very positive. So far, so good.
Now that she was on country roads and she didn’t have to concentrate so hard, she allowed herself to think about what awaited her. The accident had seriously dented her confidence and the nerves that had been building up over the last couple of days returned with a rush. Would they offer her the job? Would it be a job she would want to take? More importantly, would it be a job she could do? By the look of it, it was going to be a huge challenge and she just hoped she would be up to it. Before the accident she had always been a pretty organised, pragmatic sort of person, but she knew she would have to work on this if she did take on such a potentially massive project. Was she the right woman for the job? She took a few deep breaths and reminded herself of what her father had said to her the previous day. ‘There’s no point in worrying about things that might happen. Worry about the things that are happening now, and the future will take care of itself.’
She hoped he was going to be proved right.
Doing her best to quell the butterflies fluttering in her stomach, she concentrated on enjoying the changing scenery and appreciating the historic buildings she passed on the way. These varied from old brick-built farmsteads where multiple families must once have lived in a self-contained community – maybe still did – to smaller, simpler dwellings and villages where plain-looking houses clustered around old churches. Compared to the Dolomites it was undramatic, and she found it remarkably soothing. Maybe it was going to be okay after all. After following a river valley for a while, she spotted a sign to the right indicating that Varaldo was only nine kilometres away. She turned onto a narrower road that started to climb more seriously through a series of tortuous bends.
As she approached her destination, she found herself debating once again what she would do if the people here offered her the job. The information she had received by e-mail was fairly brief and, as far as the salary was concerned, it just indicated a possible range, depending on age and experience. The good news was that the bottom end of the range was roughly what she had been getting as assistant manager at the manor so, hopefully, she would find herself being paid a bit more. She had no idea about property rental prices in Italy or even about the cost of living after four years, so she would have to do her sums very carefully. Her other constant concern ever since hearing about the job had been her leg. Would she be up to the job, physically? Would she be able to climb all the stairs, walk up and down the steep slopes and would the cold mountain air cause her greater discomfort? And, in the first instance, would they employ her once they knew all about her? And she owed them full disclosure.
Two or three kilometres later, she set eyes on the castle for the first time. It was easy to see why the original builders had chosen this site. The massive stone fortress was situated in the perfect spot for its owners to be able to survey and police the whole valley in both directions. Even now, it still looked imposing, and back in the Middle Ages nobody travelling up or down could have got past without the very real risk of being seen and attacked or, more probably, made to pay a toll.
Directly below the castle lay the little town of Varaldo itself. This was bigger than Alice had imagined and probably numbered several thousand people. She was pleasantly surprised to find that it boasted a selection of shops and a pretty little central piazza in front of a charming old church with a slightly wonky spire. In the square was a hotel calledLa Casa Rosa. A sign indicated that it boasted a restaurant, and tables outside on the cobbles confirmed that it also had a bar. A road led off to the right and a sign attached to the side of one of the houses indicated that this was the way toIl Castello.
