The Savage Garden Read Online Free PDF

wide-spaced.
        He extended his hand. "Pleased to meet you."
        They shook, her grip firm and bony.
        "Please." She indicated a high-backed chair near the bed. "I'm glad you're finally here. Maria has been fussing around for days, tidying and cleaning."
        It was hard to picture: stern, monosyllabic Maria preparing for his arrival.
        "She is a good person. She will let you see that when she's ready to."
        He was slightly unnerved that she'd read the thought in his face.
        "So, how was your trip?"
        "Good. Long."
        "Did you stop in Paris?"
        "No."
        "Milan?"
        "Just Florence. And only for a night."
        "One night in Florence," she mused. "It sounds like the title of a song."
        "Not a very good one."
        Signora Docci gave a short, sharp laugh. "No," she conceded. Adam took a letter from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to her. "From Professor Leonard."
        She laid the letter beside her on the bed. He noted that her hand remained resting on it.
        "And how is Crispin?" she asked.
        "He's in France at the moment, looking at some cave paintings." "Cave paintings?"
        "They're very old—lots of bison and deer."
        "A cave is no place for a man his age. It'll be the death of him."
        Adam smiled.
        "I'm serious," she said.
        "I know, it's just . . . your English."
        "What?"
        "It's very good. Very correct."
        "Nannies. Nannies and governesses. My father is to blame. He loved England." She shifted in the bed, removing her spectacles and placing them on the bedside table. "So tell me, how is the Pensione Amorini?"
        "Perfect. Thanks for arranging it." "How much is she charging you?" "Twenty-five hundred lire a day." "It's too much."
        "It's half what I paid in Florence."
        "Then you were had."
        "Oh."
        "You should pay no more than two thousand lire for half- board."
        "The room's large, clean."
        "Signora Fanelli knows the power of her looks, I'm afraid. She always has, even as a young girl. And now that she's a widow, well . . ."
        "What?"
        "Oh, nothing." She shrugged. "Men are as men are. Why should they change?"
        Adam's instinct was to defend his sex against the charge, but the news about Signora Fanelli's marital status was really quite agreeable. He chose silence and a grave nod of the head.
        "How long will you be with us?"
        "Two weeks."
        "Is it enough time?"
        "I don't know. I've never studied a garden before."
        "You'll find it's a little neglected, I'm afraid. Gaetano left last year. It was his responsibility. The other gardeners do what they can." She pointed to some French windows, which were open, although the louvered shutters remained closed. "There's a view behind those. You can't see the memorial garden from here, but I can point you in the right direction."
        Adam pushed open the shutters, squinting against the sunlight flooding past him into the room. He found himself in an arcaded loggia. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he made out the commanding view. Patchwork hills spilled away to the west, their folds cast by the lowering sun into varying grades of shade. There was a timeless, almost mythical quality to the panorama—like a Poussin landscape.
        "It's special, isn't it?" said Signora Docci.
        "If you like that kind of thing."
        This brought a laugh from her. Adam peered down onto the gardens at the rear of the villa, the formal arrangements of gravel walks and clipped hedges.
        "There are some umbrella pines at the edge of the lower terrace, on the left. If you walk through those and follow the path down, you'll come to it."
        Just beyond the knot of pines the land dropped away sharply into a wooded valley.
        "Yes, I see."
        He pulled the shutters closed behind him