‘How did you find her? Most people know her by another name and since her husband’s death she lives a very solitary life. She only allows me to come because we’re publishing a book together.’
‘Oh,’ Florence said, surprised. ‘Is she a writer?’
‘More of a collator. Would you mind waiting in the hall?’
He removed the key from the lock and then pushed open one side of the huge door. It was very dark inside and it took a while for Florence’s eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. He turned to go.
‘Please,’ Florence said. ‘Could you tell her that her sister Claudette sent me to find her? Claudette’s my mother and seriously ill. I have a message for Rosalie from her.’
He nodded, crossed the large hall, opened a door and disappeared behind it.
They waited for what felt like an absolute age, Florence pacing up and down, becoming more and more agitated but then, all of a sudden, he was there again.
‘Come through. She will see you.’
They entered a second hall, this one vaulted, full of shadows and odd shafts of sunlight.
‘We just need to cross the courtyard.’
They went along a corridor and an arched gallery and then outside into an internal courtyard surrounded by honey-coloured stone walls. Florence gazed at it in wonder, breathing in the delicious scents of flowering plants.
‘Beautiful, she said.
‘That’s a fig tree,’ he said. ‘And over there two orange trees.’
She saw water flowing from three decorative spouts and splashing into a large stone trough.
‘They’re wood sprites,’ he said, seeing her looking. ‘The spouts.’
‘I love that.’ She took a long breath and let it out slowly. ‘So,’ she said.
‘So,’ he replied. ‘Ready to meet Rosalie?’
She nodded.
They crossed the courtyard and climbed a stone staircase. Eventually the stairs opened onto a vaulted corridor lined with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side and paintings on the other side. Florence smelt beeswax and lemons.
She glanced out of one of the windows and looked across at another sumptuous palace with statues all along its stone balconies.
‘My goodness,’ she said. ‘These houses are all beautiful hidden palaces. You’d never know. From the front they look more forbidding, like fortresses.’
‘Wait until you see the view on the other side.’
They went through a hall and then he knocked on a door.
‘Thank you, Marie,’ he said as a woman wearing astarched white apron opened the door. ‘Marie is Rosalie’s housekeeper,’ he explained.
‘Does my aunt own the whole building or just this apartment?’
‘The whole thing.’
‘Who lives in the rest?’ she asked.
‘Nobody at present.’
She was about to reply but inhaled deeply when she saw they had been shown to a balustraded terrace with a view right across the island. Her mind felt sharp and clear but then a woman rose from where she’d been sitting with her back to them, and Florence felt suddenly dizzy. The woman was maybe in her forties, very thin, but there was something startlingly beautiful about her. She had tumbling auburn curls, deep blue eyes, and the same heart-shaped face as Florence herself. Everything Rosalie wore was black. The dress, the shoes, just her jewellery was gold, and the contrast of all that black with her red hair was incredible. Florence froze, unable to move or speak.
‘So, you are little Florence, all grown-up?’ the woman said. ‘I can hardly believe it.’
