The Remedy: A Novel of London & Venice

by Michelle Lovric

  Now that I knew he meant, however hopelessly, to rescue me, I could not refrain from warming speculations that his feelings for me had survived the shock of what I had done and what I had dissembled. When I thought about it clearly, I knew that my own affection for him had remained untainted and that I cared as much about seeing him again as I did about saving my life and escaping this prison. Perhaps more. If he felt what I felt, or even a fraction of it, all was not lost.

  Diligently, I watered the bars with acid, as if they were precious orchids and I was sprinkling the Balm of Gilead about their roots. I fancied that I saw a discoloration at the base of the metal. I imagined that when I shook the bars myself a little tremor of looseness rewarded me. But it remained well beyond my strength to extract them from their wooden casings. These too I bored with dozens of tiny holes. Every night I awaited the idiots in such a high state of suspense that I felt as if I lay a full inch above my pallet.

  When they finally came, they leapt on the bars without ceremony, swinging all their weight, so that at last the groan of metal rent the air. A shuffle in the corridor announced the curiosity of a guard, and I motioned to them to disappear. When the guard peered into my cell I was giving a notable performance of sweet slumber. He stared at me for hateful moments, and finally disappeared. I waited until I had heard his footsteps turn a corner before I ran to the bars and whispered to the idiots: “Come back!”

  This time they were quieter but more determined. There was no doubt that the bars were starting to buckle, but try as they might, they could not bend them enough to allow me a clear passage out. Their contorted faces showed me they were close to tears, when they finally slid down the wall and fumbled away.

  I sank to my knees, retching dry, ugly sobs, nothing like the silent, decorous teardrops I had for years conjured up professionally.

  A few moments later they were back, and from the number of footsteps it seemed to me that they were reinforced in numbers. I hoped against hope that I might now see the dear face of Valentine Greatrakes. Instead a pale and ugly countenance was lifted up to the bars. It resembled that of Dizzom, except that the man was Venetian. He nodded to me and inspected the bars. Then he slipped below and consulted in whispers with the others.

  A new pair of hands appeared at the bars. And I knew those long fingers. I knew them by heart.

  • 4 •

  Restorative Caudle

  Take Tent Wine 2 quarts; White Sanders, Acorn Cups, each half an ounce; candy’d Eryngo Roots, Dates, Figs, each 4 ounces; Nutmegs sliced thin half an ounce; Archangel 2 handfuls; boil to 1 quart, strain it and while it is yet a little warm, add the Yolks of 4 Eggs, white Sugar Candy 1 ounce: mix all. To these may be added shavings of Harts-horn, Ivory, Priapus of the Sea-Horse, Calry, &c. give it warm for Breakfast every day.

  The wood supporting the bars, fatally weakened by the holes I had made, soon gave way with four of them at work. I was out of the cell in a very few minutes and then passed hand by hand over the barricade to a calle where a gondola waited to bear us away.

  The idiots and the Venetian Dizzom saw us safely into comfortable quarters at the back of a familiar noble palazzo at Rialto.

  Then our companions tactfully left us. A fire was tickling in the grate and on the table glowed a decanter of wine surrounded by fine glasses. But neither of us moved toward these comforts. We stood staring at each other. I did not dare to embrace him, though I starved for his touch. His face was iced with anger, and he made no tender motion toward me.

  Despite having risked his life to save mine, my lover seemed not much inclined to sweet reunions. I guessed that he required his pound of flesh still, the affront was too gross, that my letter had not proved sufficient to pacify him. How hard he seemed to me then, how much like a man grudgingly cut out of stone. His dry anger appeared unmitigated even by nostalgia for our time together or by simple kindness, such as he might show a dog he had rescued. Just for a moment, he reminded me of the man I must now learn to call “Tom.”

  It seemed too much, after the last months, after the past few hours, that I must still sing for my supper, grovel more for my deliverance. Stealing corner glances at his agate eyes, which roamed the room lighting on anything but me, I feared he had it in him to cast me aside even now. It seemed that he had taken me from my employers because I was his booty and not theirs. For him, the robbery of me was just one more act of free-trading, one more manifestation of the creed of that hard little kingdom of his, comprising the low life of both London and Venice. He would extract the information he required about Pevenche and then throw me friendless into the street, or deliver me back to my employers. Or hand me over to those two thugs who had contributed their brute force to my liberation. He might wish to do more than humiliate me. He might wish me hurt.

  I had asked too much of that single letter. I had also depended too much on the hope that his own feelings for me had some true depth. Instead, it seemed at that moment as if he had made use of me, perhaps even more than I had made use of him.

  So, having delivered me to his apartments, my lover did not wrap his arms around me or seek to blot out our individual and mutual alarms with a kiss that might at least have sapped the terrible tension from the room. Instead he now washed his hands, without offering me the same facility, and sat at his desk, where he lifted one paper after another. He did not quite keep his back to me, as if to show that he did not trust me, but neither did he show any interest in my presence or my welfare.

  I threw back my shoulders and took deep, professional breaths. Then, in the complete silence, I began to recite in my head the first lines from the first opera I ever performed. I recited not just my lines but also the responses of the other performers until I reached the end of the first act, and then the second. Still my lover kept me tangentially in his view, and did not offer me a seat, or a word.

  I felt my feet growing numb. I had begun to sway slightly. It had been hours since I had eaten or drunk anything, and the drama of the day was beginning to take its toll. My 1 over had risen, some time during the second act, and barked down the stairs for some food. The idiots had arrived soon after with a great plate of bread and cheese, which he fell upon and emptied, without offering me a morsel. He washed it down with unwatered red wine. While my own lips parched and my tongue grew furred, I still thought: Good, good, drink more. Drink is good for softening.

  An hour later I was reaching the end of the first act in the fourth opera I had performed. I was so tired now that I did not bother to infuse my silent recital with any feelings. I spoke the words inside my head as if I was reciting numbers. But I was feeling better. To exercise control over the time by choosing my work and the speed at which I performed it gave me a calming sense of power. To be engaged in an activity of which he knew nothing also helped salvage my sense of self.

  Two hours later I was not even mid-repertoire and he was still at his desk, nodding slightly from the wine.

  When he finally broke down, it was to say; “Why did you not tell me that you were expecting our child?”

  He stood up, pigeon-toed, grimacing with an effort not to burst into tears, and was pointing at my false belly with all the despair of a good man who has been comprehensively betrayed.

  And suddenly it was clear to me: This was the reason for all his sulking. He was angry that I had hidden the greatest news of all from him. It was his own supposed act of propagation that obsessed him. The other issues—Pevenche, my true identity Tom even—were minor, compared with the apparent genesis and burgeoning of an issue from his own seed!

  He clearly believed that he and no one else must be the father of the putative child. It had not occurred to him to doubt my fidelity.

  I must work with this, I thought.

  For the first time, I dared to approach him. I moved toward the desk and sat myself on its corner, as close to him as I could contrive without actually touching him.

  “My darling,” I said seriously, “I would give my own eyes for it to be true.
There is nothing that I would desire more than to bear your child. Nothing that would give me greater honour than that.”

  And my interior thoughts were even more fervent, for to them was added the piteous knowledge that, damaged as I was by the doctor’s instruments, I would never have his child.

  His eyes moistened now.

  I gestured toward the pregnancy apron and said, “But I confess that this belly is not my own. It is merely a disguise that I assumed to try to save me from discovery in Venice. Sadly it did not serve, and you know the rest.”

  His shock was entire. He moved his blanched lips silently.

  I was in agony. Was this the moment when I might touch him? Would this be the moment when he would surround me with his arms? Or must I still bear entire the burden of managing this scene, steering us through the dangers to a happy conclusion? I was sure that when he touched me, he would not be able to resist the pull of memory. His skin, if not his brain, would remember what pleasure was to be had in the holding of me. I was aching to feel his hands on me, to taste his breath, to touch his hair.

  I decided to trust that instinct.

  “Test it for yourself,” I whispered, knowing that he would not see this as a climbing down from his great height: After all, it would be a mere examination of the evidence and his dignity would lose nothing by it.

  I did not lift my skirt or show him where to find the ribbons. I lifted my arms and allowed him to fumble around the sash and mantle himself. I stood as if crucified while he put his hand first on the outer padding of the apron, and then inserted it underneath that he might feel my own flat stomach beneath the wads of linen.

  At the touch of his hand, tears exploded from my eyes. Then, at last, I raised my face to kiss him, letting him taste the genuine salt and know the truth and substance of my great regret.

  • 5 •

  A Pacific Foment

  Take Vine and Willow leaves. Lettuce, each 2 handfuls; whitewater Lily flowers, red Roses, each 1 handful; white Poppy heads (with the seeds) 2 ounces; boil in Water 1 gallon to 2 quarts; in the strain’d dissolve Opium 2 drams.

  Use it warm with a Sponge, to the Temples, Forehead, whole Head and the Feet. It deserves to be employ’d, where “tis not altogether safe to give Hypnotics; namely in Fevers that rage Impetuously, with Fervour, and pulsing pain of the Head, pertinacious Watchings, and danger of a Delirium: For by its soft Cherishment, kindly Warmth and temperate Humidity, it humects, mitigates and appeases acrious, boiling Juices, and drives them from the Head, either by Perspiration or Circulation, and so disposeth the weary, worn-out Spirits to rest and procureth placid Sleep.

  It was only two days later that I remembered Pevenche. My lover had not remembered her at all. How I envy men those strange membranes round their brains that make them impervious to anything that is not convenient!

  “What shall we do about your war … my daughter?” I asked him that morning, my bare thigh cosseting his.

  “My God! Pevenche!” He leapt up and paced naked in front of me, a most appealing picture of self-reproach. “How could I have forgotten about her?”

  I wanted to say, “Because it was such a pleasure to do so,” especially while my eyes roamed over the fine, firm tracts of his breast and limbs.

  But I answered, with equal sincerity, “I have been entirely lost in you. I was not able to think of anyone else. How selfish I have been!”

  “No, no!” He sat beside me and stroked my hair. I hoped his feet would not meet the bottle of gin I had ordered while he slept and had hidden under the bed. “Think of the shocks you have endured. And you are not accustomed to thinking of her as your daughter. It will take you some time to absorb your joy”

  “My joy?” I repeated faintly.

  “That your child survived and was not murdered by the doctor and the nuns! That Fate put her back in your hands. You know, I have long suspected that it was some kind of veiled maternal instinct that drew you to her.”

  “Yes, darling, perhaps it was like that. I did always have a strange feeling about her.”

  As I said these words I wished with all my heart to make them true. For the sake of Valentine Greatrakes, I wanted to learn to love Pevenche.

  “I knew it!” he said, elated. “And of course my unconscious eye realized the resemblance but my brain was not absorbent to it—that was why I caused Cecilia Cornaro to draw her face instead of yours!”

  If I had not loved Valentine Greatrakes for his shapely limbs and ideally creased face, I would have loved him for his optimism. Truly, to wake up beside that man was to feel every morning the first day of an exceptionally promising spring.

  Logically, my lover should now have been rushing to dress and to make for the convent of Sant Alvise to liberate his little ward. I saw that he did not do so. It was sad to watch the struggle in him, between duty and desire, and worse, to see him realize for himself that he did not crave her company or look forward to seeing her again. His eyes closed up and his shoulders hunched.

  It was then that I thought of a way to help both him and myself in this.

  “There is something about Pevenche that you should know,” I said quietly, toying with his fingers.

  “She is quite safe, yes, isn’t she?” he gabbled, in a panic at my tone.

  “Oh she is indeed safe and happy just as I told you. The point is that she is so happy at Sant’Alvise that I believe that we would be doing her a cruelty to take her away from the place where she is at last content.”

  My honest feelings were catching up with my words, even as I spoke them.

  “You and I must decide if we shall sacrifice our own happiness for hers. I mean our natural desire to have her with us always”—his eyes contracted with misery at this vision—“must be countered by the felicity she has unexpectedly found for herself.”

  He followed my words with a boundless eagerness, as I told him about her astonishing talent with the pastries, about her ease and indeed preeminence at Sant’Alvise. Some of her creations, I said, were destined to become famous. I had tasted them myself. They were causing a stir in Venice, bringing unsuspected wealth to Sant’Alvise.

  I declared, “If Pevenche were not a woman, she could command a ducal stipend. She would be sought after by any court. At last, her energies are channelled into their God-sent purpose. All that strange behavior of hers—why it was frustration that she could not express herself in sugar, as she does now.”

  My lover took this in, straining to believe me. My eye fell on the blue cake box, which had housed my letter to him. I rose from the bed and walked to it, not insensible of the effect of my naked form. I brought it back to the bed, and refocused his attention on it, by remarking, “Could we not involve Pevenche and the convent in a little quiet business, as couriers for some of your own items? We have seen that as a discreet method of transportation, it certainly functions. I was wondering about the Venetian Balsamick …?”

  He said nothing, but he fingered the box thoughtfully.

  He was already persuaded, really, but I wanted to make sure that he would never regret the decision we were taking.

  I had heard from the nuns and seen with my own eyes that Pevenche showed particular kindness to one of the younger girls.

  “It is a very delicate matter, and I barely know how to tell you.”

  His brows furrowed instantly. “Tell me what?”

  “You see, something a little unusual has come to my attention regarding your—my—Pevenche.”

  He leaned over toward me.

  “You know that I am very aware of the way that nuns live and conduct themselves? I of all people know that many nuns have no true vocation of their own. They are unwilling brides of Christ. If the sacrifice of chastity is not made willingly then … well, then there are ways around hated vows made under force.”

  “You mean the child has escaped, and taken a lover!” he exclaimed.

  My voice was a little steely when I said: “She is not a child. Nor did she escape. Pevenche did not n
eed to escape in order to find a lover.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She has all the lovers she needs around her. From what I hear, she has already made a selection.”

  “You mean …?” he gasped.

  “Yes, I believe that Pevenche prefers her own kind. That is what I meant by the felicity she has found. At the convent she may discreetly pursue her own nature. Outside it, she would be ostracized or misunderstood.”

  The Zany’s voice rattled my inner ear: “What a load of spiced brown trout!”

  And yet I wondered—Pevenche was without doubt superlatively comfortable in the company of women, and showed no interest in men except as objects of derision. I remembered how intimate she had seemed with the girl who accompanied her at the convent.

  My lover was striding about the room in an agony of indecision. I could see what he was thinking: Perhaps it was our responsibility to rescue her from the depravity of the nunnery and to take it upon ourselves to educate these tastes of hers that ran against nature. Kind as he was, he wished for her to sample some of the joys we two knew together. Thinking of Pevenche, I doubted if they would impress her.

  I did not feel guilty. She had shown me quite clearly that she was abundantly content where she was, as sole queen of her narrow kingdom, the object of reverence and fawning. And it was true, cooking made her happy on her own terms. She would not be willing to do what was necessary to obtain and keep a man in her life. And she would not find it easy to attract one in any case. Outside the convent, Pevenche would be only an object of mockery wherever she went for her vanity, corpulence and pretensions to juvenility Inside the convent she was safe from the sneers of the world. Her father’s blood made her competitive and aggressive. Her incarceration in Mistress Haggardoon’s Academy had already atrophied her emotional development. She would always have the maturity of a thirteen-year-old. She was a natural nun! Even if her God was sugar. None of this, of course, could I articulate to my lover, but I trusted his intelligence to draw the obvious conclusion.