Venice

by Lynne Connolly

  I had attended the theatre before, but never the opera. The great and the good filled the gold and crimson boxes. Richard scanned each one intently then he sighed and returned his gaze to within the box, shaking his head slightly to Nichols and myself. He had seen no one he knew, or who was likely to recognise him on sight.

  Light and glitter filled the building, smothered with figured brocade and velvet, silk and satin of every fashionable colour and style. Gentlemen attended their ladies and well-dressed young men filled the pit, all blatantly ogling the boxes for the sights. I loved it. I would find it intimidating without Richard, but I was conservatively dressed and I could enjoy the spectacle without being part of the show. My sister Lizzie would love it here and would flaunt herself shamelessly.

  “Do you know Venice well, my lady?” Richard enquired courteously.

  “Not as well as you do, I’ll wager, sir,” Mrs. Ravens replied.

  “I have been here for some years, it’s true, my lady, though my wife doesn’t always join me when I’m here.” He smiled carelessly at me, his expression wary, almost asking permission before I realised what he was silently asking me. He was going to flirt with her, I realised with a flash of excitement.

  I accepted a glass of wine from Mr. Ravens, sat back and watched, sipping my drink cautiously after the excesses of the previous night.

  Richard gave Mrs. Ravens delicate and polite treatment, but left his message unmistakeable. He helped her to stand when she left the box and held her chair for her when she sat down again. Once, forgetting the staid Mr. Locke, he flicked her fan open for her with a careless snap and twist of his wrist. I don’t think she noticed the casual elegance of the gesture, but her husband spotted the trick and just for a second his eyes narrowed. Fortunately at that moment the performance began and all eyes turned to the stage.

  The bright lights drew my attention. I hadn’t expected much of the performance, but I had forgotten two things; Venice is the home of Italian opera and I loved music.

  The libretto of the opera featured something mythological with gods and goddesses, but the story was a mere excuse, a chance for the composer and the performers to draw their collective breaths and let go. I loved every overblown moment. I tried not to let it affect me, but at one point the tears pricked the back of my eyes and I had to swallow hard to get rid of them.

  All through this most of the audience was lost in its own concerns. Many flirted, waved their hands at their friends or used their opera glasses to scan the rest of the audience, turning afterwards to chat to their companions. The performers played through it all and after a while I forgot everything else.

  I tried to analyse some of the music, but I gave up after a while and let it flow through me, take me where it would. I tried to remember some of it, so I could write it down later, but when I got home I found I couldn’t; it was the whole experience that remained with me, not the sum of its parts.

  After the first act, I blinked and slowly brought myself back down to reality. Richard wasn’t looking at me, but at Mrs. Ravens. Although I knew this was only playacting I still felt bereft. I chided myself for being foolish and got on with being Mrs. Locke.

  “Would your ladyship care for another glass of wine?”

  “That would be most acceptable.”

  Richard made great play of helping her to another glass and then put the bottle down, seeming to forget me. I sighed and let him get on with it.

  Mr. Ravens took it all in his stride, beaming unctuously, watching them both. His wife obviously took pleasure in Richard’s attention and I pretended indifference. I tried to take my part seriously, a married lady not particularly close to her husband.

  “Do you like Venice, Mrs. Locke?” Ravens offered me a plate loaded with sticky somethings that I refused unhesitatingly.

  I lowered my eyes. “It is certainly different. I haven’t seen much of it yet—I have been recovering from the journey, but I hope to see more next week.”

  “You have a house on the Grand Canal, I believe?”

  He was so very patronising that I had a strong desire to give him a set-down. I resisted. “Only an apartment, my lord, but the views are very fine.”

  “Our palazzo has a wonderful view of the Lagoon.” He refilled my glass. “We would be charmed if you could find the time to visit us again one day.”

  “That would be most pleasant.”

  The occupants of a box opposite to ours were only just arriving. To my horror, I spied Freddy, who accompanied a lady of certain years, so not the beauteous Miss Outridge. They couldn’t possibly fail to notice us. I assumed if the lady knew Freddy, then she probably knew Richard.

  Sure enough, the lady lifted her opera glasses and scanned the audience. Freddy had seen us and Richard had seen him, but we were as helpless as butterflies on pins as we waited on events. The lady spoke to Freddy who left the box, so Richard, evidently preferring to anticipate the inevitable, got to his feet and excused us both. “I see a client of mine wishes to make herself known to us. Would you excuse us for a few moments? I have no wish to impose her presence on this company and I fear she won’t rest until she has spoken to us.”

  The Ravens nodded graciously and we left, only to meet Freddy with his hand on the door of the box. “She’s summoned you.”

  Richard took my hand. “My great aunt. Freddy’s great aunt too. She lives in Italy, though I’d hoped she wouldn’t be in Venice.”

  We had reached the box. A footman opened the door for us and showed us to the front of the box, where the lady was waiting. “Lady Thurl, may I have the honour to present my wife, Lady Strang?” I curtseyed.

  The lady looked me up and down with her quizzing glass and then she chuckled. “So you’ve been netted at last, Strang! I congratulate you. Even in those clothes the girl has style.”

  I didn’t like being talked about quite so personally, or inspected so closely, but I knew many old ladies were deliberately rude. “Now.” Lady Thurl leaned forward and used her fan to trap Richard’s hand. “You’re up to something, aren’t you? I’ve never seen you looking quite so dowdy and I’m sure your wife has better taste.”

  Richard sighed. “You won’t let me lie to you, will you, Aunt Augusta?”

  “Not a hope!”

  He took a breath and stared across to the box we had just left. “Those people over there,” he said, bowing as they caught his attention, “Are Lord and Lady Strang, on their bride-trip.”

  “The devil they are!” The old lady lifted her fan from Richard’s hand and snapped it open.

  Richard smiled at her. “And we are humble wine merchants, plying our trade as best we can.”

  “Ha! You don’t even look like a wine merchant. Not oily enough.”

  Richard smiled. “I’ve done my best, Aunt. We’ve found out what they’re up to and we’ve decided to amuse ourselves for a while, to let them take us where they will for a day or two.”

  The lady studied the false Strangs through narrowed eyes. “They want to fleece you, don’t they? I’ve not reached my time of life without spotting tricksters when I see them.”

  “I rather believe they do,” Richard replied. “So please, Aunt Augusta, if you see any of our friends, ask them not to acknowledge us until we acknowledge them.”

  The lady fanned herself vigorously. “And who am I?”

  My love smiled coolly down at her. “Lady Thurl, a valued customer. And Freddy is someone else, too. He’s volunteered to help us in this enterprise.”

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?” she demanded. “It’s all very diverting, but you wouldn’t bother if there wasn’t something under it all. Why didn’t you come to Venice as Lord Strang, eh?”

  Richard face took on a mask-like quality, no trace of a smile now. “When it’s over, I promise to come and tell you the whole. Will that suffice?”

  “I suppose it will have to.” She turned and put a hand on mine. “And I want to talk to your wife, get to know her. Would you object to giving up
an afternoon of your bride-trip to gossip with an old woman, my dear?”

  Her expression was suddenly frail and fragile. Richard let out a crack of laughter. “You want to know it all, don’t you, Aunt? Well, my wife is the sister of Lord Hareton and you know there was an understanding between the Haretons and the Southwoods, don’t you?”

  It was the lady’s turn to laugh. “That will do for society, but I saw you look at her just now and the way she looks at you isn’t what one would normally expect in such arrangements. Very convenient she should be who she is, but I heard about it all from my friends at home and I knew there was more to it than they were saying.”

  Richard looked at her coldly. She was delving too far now.

  She saw it. “Very well. You shall have my help, on those conditions. But don’t let the deception go on too long. I’ve a reception in two week’s time and I fancy your presence will be looked upon with favour.” That was tantamount to a summons.

  Richard glanced at me, so I stood up and took his arm. “It’s a bargain,” he said to her. We left the box, leaving the hapless Freddy to entertain the formidable old lady for the rest of the evening.

  When he went with us to the back of the box, Richard asked him to call on us in the morning, which he promised to do. “And don’t give anyone else our direction,” warned Richard, glancing back at where her ladyship sat vigorously fanning herself. “We don’t need social calls at this stage.” Freddy smiled and undertook to keep our secret.

  We returned to the box in time for the next act and didn’t leave it again until the end. I loved the evening, would have loved it under any circumstances, but I knew Richard felt the lack of his consequence, although he would never have admitted it. He said it didn’t matter to him, he could manage perfectly well without it, but some of the privileges usually accorded to him weren’t there and I think he missed them. I’d never had them in the first place, so I was perfectly happy.

  The performance didn’t engross the Ravens, who scanned the audience eagerly. During the next interval, they asked Richard about the lady he had visited and he answered them readily enough. “Lady Thurl lives in Italy for her health and she has done me the honour of purchasing her wine from me for the last several years, my lord,” he said. He seemed eager to pass on what information he could about his noble acquaintances. “The gentleman is also known to me, her son, Lord Thurl of Thurl in Kent.” He used the formal appellation, only usually used on Parliamentary or other business, adding just the right air of pomposity to the information he was passing on. I wondered where Lord Thurl was. Richard told me later the present Lord Thurl was in the army and had only met him briefly, so it was a good alias for Freddy.

  I looked up while he talked and saw the three great chandeliers that adorned the elaborate roof of the Opera. I wondered aloud where they found men strong enough to lower them every day for the sconces to be refilled. “Why, they’re ten a penny in the country,” Mr. Ravens answered me, smiling indulgently, “though it is indeed a great undertaking to run an establishment such as this.”

  I looked up to the gods, seeing the people up there wreathed in the smoke which had risen from all the candles alight that evening, trapped, unable to go any further. “You’d need good lungs,” I remarked idly and saw Richard smile.

  “You should hear them when they dislike the performance, you can tell how the evening is going in Switzerland.” He caught my attention and we smiled at each other.

  Mr. Ravens broke it. “You appear to have some noble acquaintances, sir. It is surprising we have never met before.”

  Richard turned the smile on to our host, but it became blandly polite as he turned his head. “Yes, my lord, isn’t it strange? Perhaps you don’t come to Venice much?”

  “No, but this is a special occasion and my wife particularly requested it.” He patted his wife’s hand fondly.

  Richard’s gaze travelled down to the gesture, but he made no comment. Instead, he said, “I have the honour of supplying several of the English, especially when they visit Italy. The young gentlemen on the Grand Tour particularly.”

  I watched the gleam in Mr. Ravens’ eye grow to something like hunger. If Richard was pulling him in, it was working. If he could attract some of these young bloods to his house, Ravens would be rich.

  He drew out his snuffbox. “Perhaps. Would you care to come to our palazzo on Monday night? I have planned a small soirée, nothing grand, just supper and cards, with some music for the ladies, but we would welcome your presence.”

  He opened the box two-handed again, taking no chances this time and offered it to Richard. He remembered not to be quite so graceful in his acceptance, though I saw he had to stop himself, the habit was so natural. Mr. Ravens had evidently been practising, as he remembered to flick back his lace cuffs before he took a pinch, although it was nowhere near the work of art my husband made it.

  Richard turned to me, with the pretext of consulting with me and nodded infinitesimally. “Are you sure we won’t be in the way?” I asked Ravens.

  “Can you play piquet, ma’am?”

  I dropped my lashes over my eyes in a shy gesture. “Barely.”

  “Then you would be very welcome, my dear.” He smiled in an avuncular way.

  “It would be a great honour, my lord.” I lifted my head and met his gaze. The grey eyes were friendly and I hoped mine looked trusting.

  “We would be delighted, sir,” Richard said, bowing his head slightly.

  We settled down for the final act.

  When the opera had finished, I sat for a few minutes in silence, while I let the music circle inside my head, trying to remember the themes for later. I looked up to see Richard watching me, amused. “It was lovely,” I whispered. He took my hand and kissed it. The gesture, so public, startled me, but I supposed he felt freer in disguise as Mr. Locke, who presumably hadn’t married to please his family, since we had ruthlessly extinguished them all.

  I mentioned it to him later, in the safety of our own room and he sighed and smiled. “If Aunt Augusta, who hasn’t seen me for two years, can spot the way I feel about you across the opera house, what chance do I have of concealing it in London, where people watch me like hawks at a rabbit?”

  “When we met you had no emotions at all, you were so frozen and hidden.”

  He slipped an arm around my waist. “You, my love, have changed all that. I daresay I’d have more success if I went back to the heavy maquillage I used to wear, but I’ve lost the desire to use it. I can’t kiss you in all that face paint.” He bent his head to demonstrate.

  “So you’re resigned to Society knowing our secret?” I said when I could.

  “It seems I can’t prevent it knowing.” After that we lost interest in the subject.

  Chapter Eleven

  THE FOLLOWING DAY THE sound of bells woke me, myriad bells, commanding the faithful to attend church. If we had joined the British community here, no doubt they would have expected us to attend, but we had protected our privacy too well to let it slip now.

  I turned my head to look at my husband, but he was still asleep. I watched him, so vulnerable in sleep I could almost see the boy he had been, before his nightmares had begun.

  I slipped out of bed and went to the chair where I had thrown my dressing gown the night before. I threw it around my shoulders, thrust my arms into the sleeves and then went to the two long windows, withdrawing the bolts holding the shutters closed on the first one. I didn’t open the other window, because its light would have fallen directly on the bed and woken him.

  I stood by the window, looked out at the glow of Venice and listened to that glorious sound, from the deepest boom to the brightest, highest chime.

  How could I have got this far? Last year, a forgotten old maid, preparing to dwindle into a dependant spinster, this year the cherished wife of the man I was meant for. How close we came to not meeting at all! Or, if we had met and it had been in company, I doubt he would have noticed me. I never showed well in company
. He might even have been married already to Julia Cartwright. I might have married Tom, spent all my life in Devonshire, the wife of a country squire. Once I would have been happy with that but not after I’d met Richard.

  If Richard was a country squire, it was enough, more than enough. That he was not sometimes left me feeling inadequate, not up to the position I must now learn to take. I hadn’t been brought up to it, as the girls he’d been presented to year after year had—to be the eventual mistress of a great estate and a member of one of the first families in the country. It filled me with dread but I would do it for his sake. Here, in this paradise, I’d start to learn.

  The rustle of the sheet behind me told me he had woken, but I didn’t turn round. I heard him cross to the chair in his turn and fling on his gown and then felt him slip his arms around my waist and rest his cheek on my hair. We didn’t speak, but I put my hand over his and we stood, listening to the Sunday greetings outside.

  “I’m so afraid I’ll let you down when we go home.”

  “You won’t,” he assured me calmly. “If you’re reserved, everyone will assume you’re proud. Stand tall and always make sure they look away first.”

  His warm breath tickled my neck. “I love you very much,” I said.

  “I know. It’s all that matters. We’ll buy you some fine clothes, the sort that stand alone and you can inhabit them while they speak for you. Shall we buy an estate in Devonshire and go and live there, in seclusion?”

  I turned away from the window into his arms. He could have been reading my mind. If I had accepted his offer he would have gone through with it, but it wouldn’t make him happy. “No. You are what you are and as long as you’re here with me, I’ll do whatever’s required of me gladly. Will you come to my presentation at court?”

  “Of course. My mother will present you. It’s soon over and a dead bore. I don’t move in any royal set, so be assured that won’t come into our lives to any great extent. For the rest, we’ll please ourselves and if you’re not happy, you must promise to tell me.”