Giotto's Hand

Even though it was not yet eleven o’clock, and they were in the shade of the trees it was already getting hot, and the time of year when the warmth is invigorating had long since passed. It was a blisteringly hot summer, and the worst was yet to come. Flavia reacted to the warmth quickly; and bit by bit, her chin was sinking lower, and her attention was wandering. She was beginning to sweat in the heat, and this vague discomfort was about the only thing stopping her from falling asleep entirely.

“I admit, I was looking for someone to marry,” the woman was saying, somewhere to the far left of Flavia’s diminishing consciousness. “People do not worry about that any more, but then, if you weren’t married by the time you were eighteen, it was assumed there was something wrong with you. People laughed at me all the time. The old maid. But I was romantic. I didn’t just want a husband; I wanted to be swept off my feet by someone exciting, and dashing.

“There was one man who used to hang around with the girls. Geoffrey, his name was. Geoffrey Forster. An Englishman. Very good-looking, very charming. Rich, or so he said. Constantly referring to famous people as though he was their best friend, spending money, driving fast cars.

“Naturally, when he turned his attention to me I was flattered, and got delusions. I thought he was in love with me; no one had ever treated me like that before. It was only a dream, of course; I soon found out the truth. But, before I did, he took me on holiday.”

Out of sheer politeness—the story was evidently costing the old lady a great deal to tell—Flavia nodded sagely, and told her to continue.

“He asked me one day if I wanted to go to Switzerland with him, for a romantic weekend. Naturally, I agreed, and it never crossed my mind that there might be anything wrong. I’d never even been out of Tuscany before; the prospect of going to Switzerland, staying in fancy hotels, was a dream beyond anything I had ever imagined. I assumed it was merely a preliminary, and then soon we’d be making those trips together. I already thought that I might be pregnant, you see.”

Flavia was more interested now, and jerked awake by the harshness and bitterness in the woman’s voice. With renewed attention, she watched Signora Fancelli carefully, still not saying a word to interrupt her narrative.

“He took a parcel with him,” she said, gesturing with her hands to indicate something less than half a meter square, then giving up as the effort was too much. “And he didn’t tell me what it was. He said it was a favour for a friend. I knew that was untrue, of course, and, foolish as I was, thought that lovers should have no secrets from each other. So, as the train went north, I opened it up. Just enough to peek inside.

“It was a painting of Our Lady. I recognized it because I’d seen it regularly in the Palazzo Straga and thought it so pretty. Not that I knew anything about it. Anyway, I sealed it back up again, and eventually Geoffrey went out with it under his arm, and came back without it.”

“What did he do with it?”

“I don’t know. We went to this lovely hotel—I felt as though I was really living the high life. I was too much in love to ask questions, or wonder.”

“And then?”

“Then we came back to Florence, and a week or so later I told Geoffrey I was pregnant.”

“I gather he wasn’t overjoyed?”

She shook her head. “It was terrible,” she said. “He ranted and raved. Then he denied that it had anything to do with him. Called me all sorts of names and told me to go away. My employers heard about it and I was fired. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of one of the girls there, I don’t know what I would have done.”

Flavia considered the story. It all fitted quite nicely; the Uccello stolen from the Palazzo had been a Madonna. It had been assumed that it had been spirited out of the country, and it had all taken place around this time. One or two details, however…

“Tell me, what made you think it was stolen?”

She looked puzzled for a moment, then her forehead cleared. “When I got back. Everybody knew,” she said. “All the girls at the school at various times visited the Palazzo. When it was broken into, everyone knew very quickly. I found out when I got back from Switzerland. There had been a ball at the Palazzo, you see. The signora always got her pupils invited every year. He must have taken it then.”

“And you said nothing? You didn’t feel like getting your revenge on this man?”

She managed an ironic and derisive look. “And that is what they would have assumed I was doing, wouldn’t they? Who would have believed me? I couldn’t say who had the picture, because I didn’t know. And I was terrified that I would be locked up as well. It would have been just like him, to do that to me. To say I was a conspirator.”

“And did you ever see this Forster again?”

“I left, and came to Rome to get another job. I had my baby and sent him to relations in America. It wasn’t easy, you know. Not like nowadays.”