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CHAPTER THREE

Allegra Three

In England I went back to school and my studies, but I didn’t forget Allegra. I wrote letters to her and sent some small presents. She didn’t answer my letters but I said to myself, ‘Well, she’s only five. Perhaps she can’t write letters yet.’ Then a year after our holiday in Italy a letter arrived from Margaret Henderson. First she thanked me for my letters and presents. Then she wrote:

I’m sorry that we didn’t write to you, but it has been a very bad year for us. It is difficult for me to write now, but today is April 21st and I want to tell you that something terrible happened on the same day last year. Chiara and I are still very sad, and Chiara has been ill. She doesn’t eat much and she doesn’t want to speak to anybody. Now I’ll tell you why. A week after your holiday our little Allegra got a fever. A few days later the fever was worse and we called the doctor. He said that he wasn’t sure what the fever was. ‘Perhaps she drank some bad water or ate food that was bad,’ he told us. He gave her some medicine and she was better, but then the fever returned very quickly. We couldn’t find the doctor and when he arrived, it was too late. Our dear little Allegra died on April 21st a year ago. Oh, it’s like a terrible dream! Our darling child was only five years and three months old. Now she has gone and she will never come back to us!

When I read this, I was shocked. Allegra dead! I felt very sad and I began to cry. For a long time I just couldn’t believe it. I remembered her face, her voice, and her child’s talk. I remembered our games and our conversations. Allegra came back to me like a ghost and I was very unhappy.

When I was eighteen, I went to university to study Italian, but I often remembered Allegra and that strange week at the Villa Henderson. How could I forget it? And I often thought about Allegro’s strange words: ‘I want to see my Daddy before I die?’ How did she know that she was going to die? And then there was the ghost Allegra in my room, saying, ‘I want to see my Mama before I die.’ What did it all mean? I wanted to find the answer to this mystery. But how?

In spring I went to Italy for my studies and I stayed in Florence with an Italian family. They had a little daughter. When they told me her name, I couldn’t believe my ears.

‘We wanted a different name,’ the mother told me, ‘a name that you don’t often find in Italy. Allegra came to me suddenly. It’s a beautiful name and we hoped that she would be a happy child. But she isn’t happy. She’s a strange girl.’

I looked at the child. She was tall; her face was pale and beautiful. She had long brown hair and brown eyes.

‘How old is she,’ I asked.

‘She’s five?’

‘Five? Are you sure - I mean, is she,’ I said, stupidly.

‘Yes, five.’ The mother looked at me strangely.

‘Can I ask you when she was five? I mean, when is her birthday?’

The mother looked surprised. ‘In January. Why?’

‘But please tell me the exact day. You see, I’d like to buy her a present next year.’

Now the mother was smiling. ‘She was born on January 21st.’

When I went to my room that night, I was afraid and I didn’t go to bed. I was thinking about Allegra Henderson. She died on April 21st when she was five years and three months old. So she was born on January 21st too! Was it possible that this Italian Allegra had the same name, the same birthday, the same age? I couldn’t sleep so I tried to read a book about some English poets in Italy. But I couldn’t. I was waiting, waiting…

She came at midnight. I looked at my watch and then she was there in a dark corner of the room. A beautiful, blond child, her skin like milk, her eyes like the blue of an Italian sky. She wore a long white nightdress. Allegra.

‘Will you take me to my Mama,’ she asked in her beautiful English. ‘She’s at Bagno a Ripoli. It isn’t far from here.’

I was very afraid now and I shouted, ‘Go away! Go away!’

But she came and stood by my armchair.

‘I want to see Mama before I die - Take me,’ she said angrily.

I ran out of that room very fast.

Next morning I decided to go to Bagno a Ripoli. I drove there in my small Fiat 500. There were only a few houses, and a small church called Santa Maria dell’Antella. I went into the church but there was nothing special about it. Then I walked around the small cemetery behind it. But I didn’t see anything different so I decided to go back to Florence. When I was going out of the cemetery, I saw a tombstone with some English words on it. I stopped and read:

Hear lies Claire Clairmonte

Died in Florence

March 19th 1879

Aged 81

The name Claire again! The name of the ghost Allegra’s mother! I was very surprised but I still didn’t understand anything.

In Florence that afternoon I decided to go to a bar and read the book about the English poets. And while I was reading about Byron and Shelley, I began to understand the mystery of Allegra.