How strange to think that the very first woman who had in any way impressed her in Cannes should now be employing her to nurse her husband! It was a good thing Lady Clifford had never recognised her; no doubt if she had done so she would have thought twice about engaging her services.
Ah, here it was, the Villa Firenze—a spacious, even imposing mansion of pinkish brick, the front covered in wistaria. Acacias shut off the well-kept garden from the road and bordered the drive, a circular one, the approach terminating in wide, shallow stone steps, flanked by carved stone baskets of fruit. While she was paying the taxi, the door opened and a manservant, English, with sparse grey hair and a pleasant wooden face, came out and took her bag and hat-box.
"I daresay you'll be wanting to go straight to your room, miss?" he suggested.
"Yes, thank you."
She found herself in a large, irregular entrance hall with a sweep of stairs facing her. On the left was a high Gothic chimney-piece of grey stone, the fireplace banked with azaleas, flame-coloured and rose. There were a few tall Stuart chairs and a carved oak coffer. The long windows were curtained with old needlework. She followed the butler up the carpeted stairs and from a broad upper hall along a passage towards the back of the house, meeting no one on the way but a housemaid.
The room into which she was shown had the charm of harmonious simplicity. The plain furniture was painted black, outlined in mauve; the curtains and covers were of Toile de Jouy in one of those delightful reproductions of an eighteenth-century pattern, showing a dozen scenes of pastoral life, mauve on a white ground. The carpet was black, and on the mantelpiece was a black Wedgwood bowl filled with anemones, placed between crystal candlesticks.
"Your box will be up directly, miss," the butler said as he left her.
She went to the window and looked out over wet green lawns with hedges and oleanders. Rain dripped from the shrubs, but a shaft of watery sunlight had broken through the clouds. She breathed in the fragrance of the garden for several moments, then, her trunk arriving, set herself to work to unpack the belongings so recently stowed away. This done, she quickly changed into one of her pale buff uniforms with its accompanying snowy apron, stiff cuffs and coif—an uncompromising costume at the best of times, yet she had managed to have hers well-cut and of a becoming colour, which was the most that one could do.
As she was putting the final touches to her attire there was a tap on the door and the maid she had seen in the passage entered. She was a wholesome-looking Scotch girl with a strong Glasgow accent, and she smiled on Esther in a friendly way.
"If you please, nurse, Miss Clifford is wanting to see you when you've done dressing. She said there was no pertickler hurry."