Forcing down my sorrow, I follow the butler through the door. Inside, there is a large foyer, its floor checkered with black-and-white square tiles. Straight ahead, a staircase leads up into darkness. “Wait here,” Charles instructs firmly before disappearing through the doorway to the left. I stand in the middle of the foyer uneasily. Through a doorway to the right, a clock ticks, breaking the silence.

A moment later, I hear footsteps above me. A light goes on at the top of the stairs and an elderly woman appears. “Good evening,” she says as she descends the staircase. “I’m Delia LeMay.” Rose’s aunt looks nothing like I expected. Barely reaching my shoulder, she seems nearly as wide as she is tall. Her round face, dominated by full cheeks, is topped with an enormous shock of white hair that has been corralled into a bun that seems ready to burst from its trappings at any second. But her violet eyes are unmistakably Rose’s. She eyes me warily. “Charles tells me you are here about my niece.”

“Yes. My name is Marta Nedermann. I—”

“Marta!” Delia exclaims. Her face breaks into a wide smile, lifting her cheeks until they threaten to eclipse her eyes. “I had no idea it was you.” She waddles across the foyer more quickly than her girth would seem to permit, then reaches up and kisses me on both cheeks, her flowery perfume tickling my nose. “Rose wrote me all about you. I sent in the paperwork to extend her visa, and get you one, too.” So Dava was right. Rose had wanted me to come to England with her. “But I wasn’t expecting you girls for a few months yet. What are you doing here?”

I hesitate. “Do you suppose we could sit down?”

“Of course, how rude of me! You must be exhausted from your trip.” She ushers me through the door on the right into a parlor. The furniture, a couch and two chairs, is covered in matching pink-flowered silk slipcovers. Framed photographs cover the coffee table, windowsill and mantel. “Charles,” Delia calls loudly. The butler appears once more. “Two cups of tea, quickly, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After he leaves, Delia gestures to the sofa. I hesitate, not wanting to dirty the fine fabric. “Come sit,” she urges. “I’m sorry if Charles was rude. We’ve had so many people coming to the gate these recent months, beggars mostly. It’s a shame what this war has done to people’s lives. We try to help when we can, of course, but there have been some unsavory types, too. Hooligans who would just as soon cause trouble. We have to be careful.” As she sits down at one end of the sofa, a large gray cat appears and leaps into her lap. “This is Ruff,” she says, scratching behind the cat’s ears. “He’s nearly fifteen years old. Rosie named him. I tried telling her that the name was better suited to a dog, but she was quite a stubborn child.”

I try to imagine quiet, gentle Rose as stubborn. The war must have changed her so. Then I notice a painting above the mantel of a young girl with a delicate face and strawberry-blond hair. “Is that Rose?”

Delia smiles. “Yes. In the summers when Rose didn’t come here, we would meet at the family villa on the coast near Trieste. We had a local artist paint her portrait when she was nine. It’s always been my favorite.” Watching her eyes dance as she studies the painting, dread rises in me.

Charles reappears with the tea and pours two cups for us before leaving again. Delia hands one of the cups to me. “No sugar, I’m afraid. We’re all out of ration cards until next week and there doesn’t seem to be any to be had on the market.” She means the black market, I realize with surprise. It was hard to imagine a woman such as Delia procuring things illicitly, but her tone is matter-of-fact, as if doing so is a routine part of life since the war. “So how is my dear Rose? And what brings you here?” She stirs her tea. “I mean, Rose wrote that you were going to be coming with her. Is she not well enough to travel yet?”

I take a sip of tea, forcing myself to swallow over the lump that has formed in my throat. “Mrs. LeMay, you know that Rose was terribly ill.”

A grave look crosses her face. “Yes. She’s suffered from her blood affliction for many years. But she wrote me from Salzburg that she was getting much better, stronger every day. Thanks to you and a nurse, Dana or something.”

“Dava. She was very good to both of us.” I pause. “Rose was getting better.”

“Was?” Delia speaks slowly, a look of realization crossing her face.

“You don’t mean…?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Her face pales. “What happened?”

“She developed a terrible fever a few days ago. The doctors and nurses did everything they could for her, but the fever was too much, given her weakened state. I’m so sorry.” Delia stares straight ahead, not speaking. I reach out, take the teacup from her shaking hands and set it down. “Perhaps I should call Charles?” She does not answer but buries her face in her hands, sending the cat flying from her lap. Her back shakes as she sobs silently.

A few moments later, she looks up again. “I begged her to come here and live with me before the war. But her father was too sick to travel and she wouldn’t leave him. She said Amsterdam was their home, that everything would be fine.” We all thought that, before the war, I want to say. “I just can’t believe that she’s gone,” she sniffles. “She was like my own child.”

“I know.” I reach out and touch her hand. “She talked about you all the time. She was so excited about coming here and starting a life with you.”

“She was the only family I had left.” Delia wipes her eyes.

“Was…was she happy? At the end, I mean?”

“Very. She was in a beautiful place, with good care and friends.” I describe for her the palace and the grounds. Then I reach into my bag and pull out Rose’s belongings. “Here.” I show her a picture Rose had drawn of the view from the terrace of the mountains and the lake at sunset.

“It’s beautiful.” She reaches into the small pile of Rose’s belongings and pulls out a letter. “This is from me.”

“I know. She kept all of your letters. She loved you very much.”

She does not speak for several minutes. “And you came all the way here to give me these?”

“Yes. Dava suggested that I come. But I didn’t have a visa of my own so I used Rose’s. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course.” Delia wipes her eyes, managing a smile. “That was very kind of you. But what will you do now? Are you planning to go back to the continent, or will you stay in England?”

I hesitate. It feels strange to speak about my plans for the future so soon after informing her of Rose’s death. “Neither, actually,” I say at last. Quickly, I tell her about Paul.

“An American soldier!” Her eyes brighten slightly. “That’s terribly romantic.”

“He’s coming to meet me in London in just under two weeks,” I add. “Then we’ll travel to America together.”

“What will you do until then?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. I still have a little of the money that Dava gave me, but it isn’t enough to keep me for two weeks, even at the worst of boardinghouses.

“You’ll stay with me,” Delia says decisively. I look at her, surprised. “I have this big empty house all to myself. I can show you London before you go.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose…” But even as I say this, I feel myself melting into the comfort of the warm room.

“Not at all,” Delia insists. “I would love the company. And you can tell me all about your time with Rose. It would be a blessing, really.”

“Thank you. That would be lovely.”

“No, I should be thanking you, for bringing the news of my niece and her belongings home to me. Now, where are your bags? Are they on the porch or did you leave them at the station?”

I shift uncomfortably, then gesture to my small satchel. “This is everything.”

A look of surprise flashes across Delia’s face, then disappears again. “Of course, how silly of me. Don’t worry,” she adds, patting my hand. “We can get you whatever you need. Charles,” she calls, her voice rising. The butler appears in the doorway again, as if he’d been waiting to be summoned. “Miss Marta is a good friend of my niece’s.” The butler nods and I can tell from his somber expression that he heard our conversation and knows about Rose’s death. “She is going to be staying with us for a few weeks. Please show her to the guest room and see that she has everything she needs.” She turns back to me and pats my hand. “We’ll talk more in the morning.”