"My parents were quite rich. My father was a baronet, the last one of the family since I was the only child. His name was Lord Hadfield and my mother was the daughter of a rich family of lawyers. So as you can guess, my mother was the lower class. My father didn't mind, he was caught up being in love with her but his family did of course. This was the forties and the war was going on and as you might know. Tragic times. London was bombed day and night and the rest of the country were pretty much in silent contemplation of it My grandparents were concerned about their children, especially my uncle who was very keen to be a pilot and fight the war. He was supposed to be a lawyer too, to take over when his father retired. My mother supported him in this decision. Without his parents' permission, he became a pilot in the Army."

"Did he die?" Sophie asked.

"What? Claire said with a quizzical look. Oh no! He did just fine. He even got a medal for bravery, which made him very big-headed. He kept on babbling about it all the time when I was a child. Anyway, my father's parents wanted him to marry a girl whose father was a Viscount or something. It is what their family had always done and according to them, would always do."

"Oh could anyone think like that in the forties?"

"Wait dear, I hear something."

They went silent and listened to the sound outside the door. Sophie recognized Charlie's energetic steps, followed by Lorenzo's. They were laughing, but they hushed each other to be silent but started to laugh again for no particular reason. The door to their bedrooms opened and closed silently and in a few minutes, the house was silent again.

"My poor husband. He is so depressed by the idea that I am leaving him that he drinks a lot more, even though he doesn't like alcohol that much. He will survive though, with your dear help Sophie, you and your boys. Anyway, we must not lose track. Claire sat up a little and she looked up at Sophie. Where was I? Oh yes.

My parents met when they were in the country, without knowing, they had lived a few miles from each other their entire life. It was love at first sight; my mother had told me that she had never seen anyone so handsome, so perfect. I don't know really what happened that afternoon, because my parents kept it for themselves but they concluded that they needed to marry and quite quickly."

"What did his parents say?"

"Well, Sophie, the strange thing is, he took her to meet his parents and they were actually charmed by the spot! She enchanted them and besides, her family was not out of money either. Apparently, my mother's grandfather had helped some ancestor from the Hadfield family so they owed much to them. My parents were so glad that his family had accepted her, of course. The big problem was her family. Somehow they didn't like the Hadfield, they despised the nobility and the gentry. Why I don't really know but they firmly opposed the match. My mother tried everything she could, she and my father really tried to show how rich the Hadfield family was. They launched big parties where the best food was ordered, the most expensive places, at least, the ones they could afford. After all, a baronet is below a baron, who is a little higher in rank."

"And they still opposed the match?" asked Sophie is disbelief.

"Yes Sophie, they did, said Claire nodding. It was until the point that my mother decided to do it anyway and she broke all contact with her family. They never came to her wedding and she never called them or anything. It was a mature decision for a person as young as twenty. The wedding was big and expensive and very, very happy.

Claire smiled broadly. If you look at the pictures of that day, you could see that my parents are smiling on every one and they look like they want to eat each other. I can only guess how the honeymoon must have been like. Don't laugh Sophie, they were passionately in love with each other, until the very end. Now, we come to the part where I step in. They were married in three years before the end of the war was announced. Two months after, before the Japan's surrender, I entered the world. Now, I don't want to tell my childhood in detail. I mean, you already know the about Tuscany and how I was afterwards. Sophie nodded in agreement. My parents were very liberal in their thinking, you see, compared to their own parents. My parents encouraged me to be open-minded and be very curious about anything. The Baronet and his wife did not really like it but they believed that education was something the parents were responsible off and if I grew up to be a "bad" child so to speak, it was my parents' fault."

"Did they still like you, your grandparents? It was not like they rejected you or anything?"

Claire laughed. "Oh no, they never rejected me for any second. I was so spoiled by them. I got dresses, expensive jewellery and anything girly you can imagine. I was never such a girl, I was more boyish in my manners and taste but I always accepted their gifts with polite affection. They were always very nice and patient with my manners. After all, I was never told how to behave ladylike or anything like you would learn in a Jane Austen novel. No, I loved to be in nature, to play that I was orphan and needed to survive in the wild. I was maybe nine when I discovered how much I liked to draw the nature, all the little wonders that it offered. I started to take a sketching pad everywhere I went and drew whatever I found interesting. Claire laughed mildly. Imagine a little blond girl who had been full of energy and would have played for hours outside was now sitting hours trying to draw a little ladybug! Sophie laughed at the description.

"Where did you go to school? Did you have to be in a top notch school?"

"No, not really. I was given the choice actually. Until I was twelve, I went to regular school, never really bothered about the remarks about my family. But a school opened then, which had a focus on art. It was a dream come true for me. It cost a little of course but my parents were willing to pay, because of my intense passion for drawing and painting. The thing is, it was really far away and I needed to live at the school to go there. Sorry, honey, I am bit thirsty, can you give me the glass of water over there? Thank you.

They were silent until Claire was done.

"So, I was really sad of course. I would leave my parents for several years, the school had also a high school so if I wanted I could go there until I was nineteen. Seven years at that time was an eternity for me! I spend many hours thinking and tossing around in my bed about it. I made the decision one night and my parents were really sad about it, of course, but they accepted that it was something that I wanted. They drove me to the train station and before I went on that train, I promised to write to them often, as often as I could. I am not boring you, am I?"

"Oh no, Claire, this is fascinating. But does Charlie know anything of this?"

"For some reason, I decided not to tell him. As you can see it so far, it is nothing really tragic or even particular but he never asked and I never told anyone. You remember that he didn't know about Lorenzo until you wrote the letter. Sophie and Claire smiled at the memory of it.

So back to the art school. I was terribly lost and scared at the beginning but I quickly adapted and learned to love the school. The teachers were really nice and for the first time, I was surrounded with people who had no idea of who I was and my family's history. I was with people who were exactly like me, whose passion was art. I made some real friends, even dated a guy a few times but it was never really serious. I wrote to my parents were often and I spent some vacations back home. The school became my second home, a place which was safe and nice. It was a place who was really modern, in their education as well as its design. My grandparents became very outdated in their thinking, I thought. They began to think I was too strange for them. Claire sighed heavily. It was sad, because they died both when I was fifteen. And during all this time, I have not had any contact with my mother's parents. My mother tried several times to contact them but they refused every time. My uncle, you know the one who was a pilot, kept contact though and I saw him often, even though he made perfectly clear that my mother has done wrong to rebel against her parents. He was very arrogant and smug with me but very different with my mother. I guess she was the only with whom he could be himself. He became a lawyer, as his father had wanted and a very good one too."

"Claire? How could you come to go to Italy then?"

"Ah, I was just getting to that. The school, after five years, started to be quite famous. Everyone knew about the art school in Plymouth. One day, I saw that there was an art course in Tuscany for anyone that wanted. I called my parents and they agreed to pay for the trip, which was a little expensive. How everything turned to be is in your knowledge."

"How did you meet Charlie's grandfather?"

"Ah, that is a funny story. As you already know, I thought at fifteen that my life was over since I would never meet Lorenzo again. To forget him, I focused on school and to graduate with good grades. At twenty, I had a high school diploma and all the insecurity of a young heart. I had really no clue about what I would do next; all I knew was that I could draw very well. This was 1965 and many things were happening. I was working part time in a restaurant to pay the rent. It was quite fancy and I had applied the job without really knowing if I would get it or not. You may know it; Charlie may have taken you there on your honeymoon."

"I remember it well. I loved every minute of it. Their salmon dish was exquisite." Sophie sighed happily and got lost in happy memories.

"Mmh, I know. Anyway, one evening, a man wan walked in and sat down at a table in the corner of the restaurant. I went forward to take his order and our eyes met. I didn't expect to be so taken aback. After all, I have had my heart broken a few years before and I didn't believe to love anyone else. I kept calm though and smiled politely to the man I loved."

"What happened then?" Sophie asked impatiently.

"Nothing happened that night."