Empress Bianca

by Lady Colin Campbell

  Now the timing of Ferdie’s sighting of her could not have been more disastrous. Had he seen her standing outside Le Français en Mexico twelve months before, he would have thought something must have happened and that she was buying in dinner. Ferdie was not a suspicious man, but he was now convinced that his wife had never prepared any of the meals for which she had taken credit. That would certainly explain why the array of cuisine over which she seemed to possess absolute mastery was so impressive, having served superb Lebanese, Thai, Chinese, Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, English, Spanish, Portuguese and American meals all to gourmet standard.

  ‘Christ,’ Ferdie said to himself, ‘things have reached a sorry pass when I suspect that my wife goes around buying in food so that she can take credit for culinary accomplishments she does not possess. But who is at fault? Bianca or me?’

  Not being sure what the answer was, Ferdie took steps to preserve the element of surprise as Duarte turned into their street. ‘Drop me off just before you reach the gate. I’m feeling a bit tense and the walk up to the house will do me good. Also,’ he added, seeing a way to get Bianca’s man out of the way, ‘I want you to go to the pharmacy and buy some kaolin and morphine. My stomach’s killing me. If it’s Señora Verde on duty, tell her I want two bottles, but if it’s Señor Montero, just get me the one. I never trust his mixtures.’

  Durate slowed down and pulled the car up to the kerb.

  ‘Right here will do,’ Ferdie said, opening the door before the car had even come to a complete halt, thereby forcing the driver to stop well short of the gate.

  As soon as the car had actually stopped, Ferdie hopped out and tapped the roof with his open hand. ‘Now don’t let them keep you waiting,’ he said. ‘Tell them I’m in a bit of discomfort and want to take my medicine as quickly as possible.’ With that, he bounded up the driveway. As he approached his family home his golden retrievers, Spot and Dart, rushed up to him silently, their tails wagging furiously in greeting. He stroked them lovingly, and they turned around and ran off in front of him in the direction of the house.

  Upon reaching the house, Ferdie did not enter through the front door, as he normally would have done. He swung to the right side, where the swimming pool, pool house and tennis court were situated. Walking briskly past them, he turned to the left, cutting through the terrace where he had deprived Amanda of all hope of reconciliation.

  Up to this point, he had almost been enjoying himself. Certainly it was exhilarating to take charge and, hopefully, resolve his doubts. But, seeing the location where he had called time on his marriage to Amanda, he was suddenly deflated. The thought shot across his mind that Bianca was his retribution for having dealt too harshly - and rashly - with her predecessor. Pushing that thought aside, Ferdie squared his jaw and turned the corner. He mounted the three steps up to the veranda abutting the servant’s quarters. Walking past a series of bedrooms, he arrived only too soon at the doorway leading into the servant’s television room, where the set was blasting away loudly.

  Normally, Ferdie would have looked in and swapped a few companionable words with whomever was there. Instead he purposefully strode up to the pantry door. This led into the kitchen, and as he reached it, a rush of adrenalin enveloped him. There, on the table, were what seemed to be a plethora of boxes of varying sizes. All their lids were open, indicating that they had only recently been emptied. Beside them was a receipt, which he picked up, his heart beating wildly against his chest.

  Right there, neatly laid out before his eyes, were the chateaubriand, the gravy, the Béarnaise sauce, the stuffed quail, all ready to be heated up and passed off as the handiwork of the mistress of the house. A surge of blood hit his brain. He stormed out of the pantry into the kitchen in time to see Bianca departing through the swing doors, oblivious to his presence. He noticed she was wearing her apron. A coldness settled over him. Should he confront her now, or should he wait? ‘No,’ he decided, ‘I won’t confront her just yet. Let’s spin it out a little longer.’ With that, he turned around and retraced his steps until he reached the front of the house, whereupon he let himself in through the front door. ‘Anyone home?’ he shouted ‘I’m back.’

  Bianca materialized, just as Ferdie expected she would. But for the apron, she was the living embodiment of high-maintenance elegance: not a hair out of place, not a nail chipped. Images of Marie Antoinette playing at rustic simplicity in l’Hameau sprang to Ferdie’s mind.

  ‘Darling, you’re home early,’ Bianca said, wiping her hands in her apron as if they were slightly damp from all the cooking she had been doing.

  ‘I’m not feeling well.’

  ‘Oh, my poor sweetie,’ she said, pulling a sympathetic face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘My stomach’s acting up.’

  ‘Let me get you some kaolin and morphine.’

  ‘Don’t trouble yourself. You seem to have quite enough on your plate at the moment.’

  ‘You can say that again. Those stuffed quail are a nightmare to prepare. All those bones! I tell you, after this afternoon, I could get a job in any hospital as a surgeon. But you know how much I love clucking over my loved ones.’

  Just then Manolito came running into the room with his nanny, heading straight for his father, who scooped him up and threw him in the air at the last second: a ritual that both father and son adhered to every afternoon. This was definitely not the time to alter the established greeting in favour of a confrontation with a woman whom Ferdie now despised as comprehensively as he had once desired her, so he turned his attention to the dark-haired little boy.

  ‘Must leave my boys to their play while Mama does her cooking,’ Bianca said, smiling indulgently, then walked off towards the kitchen, while Ferdie and Manolito went up to the nursery.

  Ferdie was deeply immersed in a game of blind man’s buff when Clara telephoned from Geneva. ‘Mama left this morning for Genoa. She’s taking the Cesare Borgia and will be docking next week Saturday at Cartagena.’

  Ferdie smiled. His mother did enjoy crossing the Atlantic on passenger liners. He could picture her dining at the captain’s table every evening, outshining all the other old ladies with her droll, almost acerbic, take on life and her fabulous jewels, couture clothes and furs worn whenever she had the slightest excuse. ‘I’ll send the plane for her,’ he said then lowered his voice almost to a whisper. ‘You’ll be pleased to hear I’ve decided to divorce Bianca,’ he announced.

  ‘Oh darling,’ Clara said, empathizing with her emotional idealistic brother and how he must be feeling at the prospect of a third marital break-up. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?’

  ‘I won’t go into the whys and wherefores now. All I’ll say is that I’ve seen the light. You were right about Bianca. She’s not all she appears to be.’

  ‘I’m still sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘No, no. I’ll be fine. It’s not the end of the world. I mean, it’s not as if I’m losing anyone worth having. Bianca is no Amanda. Now that I’ve got her number, I can’t wait to see the back of her.’

  ‘What was her reaction?’

  ‘She doesn’t know yet.’

  ‘She doesn’t know yet?’

  ‘I haven’t told her.’

  ‘Ring me back when you do. I’d like to know how she takes it.’

  ‘It will be my pleasure,’ Ferdie said, and Clara could hear from the rancour in his voice that he meant it.

  Clara wanted to ask if he’d caught her with Philippe, but she was too sensitive to her brother’s feelings to do so unless he provided her with the right opening.

  ‘Can’t you give me a clue as to how this came about?’ she asked, hoping to start the ball rolling.

  ‘She’s been pretending to cook meals that she buys in from restaurants.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ferdie,’ she said, bursting out laughing, ‘but I’ve always wondered how you could possibly have fallen for that act.’

  ‘She’s an accomplished actress and very good in bed
.’

  ‘I never cease to be amazed by how a sexy woman can deceive the cleverest of men,’ Clara replied. ‘Still, the important thing is that you’ve now seen through her before she takes you for a bigger ride than she’s already been doing.’

  ‘She won’t get one penny out of me, of that you can be sure.’

  ‘She’ll still be substantially better off than when she entered the marriage…’

  ‘She’ll leave with only the jewellery I’ve given her as well as the clothes and furs. That’s not that much…’

  ‘It’s a hell of a lot compared to what she was used to before she smarmed her way into our lives…’

  ‘But it’s significantly less than she’ll want. Believe me, Clara, Bianca is the most ambitious and mercenary person I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Don’t gild the lily, Ferdie.’

  ‘No, I’m serious. Now that I can see through her, I have her measure better than you do. Remember, I know her better. I have almost two years of daily contact to call upon. I’m telling you, she is the most materialistic person I have ever encountered in the whole of my life.’

  ‘Fortunately you have good lawyers…’

  ‘I’m not worried. Money is the most eloquent force in a court of law, as you know only too well. She won’t stand a chance if she turns nasty, especially with our judges. Anyway, we have people coming for dinner this evening, and I’d better get dressed before they arrive. You take care, and I’ll ring you at the weekend to tell you about her reaction.’

  Ferdie hung up, went straight to his and Bianca’s bedroom and undressed by his side of the bed, dropping his clothes where he stood, as was his habit, knowing that one of the maids would pick them up for his valet to decide whether they need to be laundered, dry cleaned or merely pressed and hung up. This habit annoyed Bianca intensely for she could not endure the sight of a messy room. As he walked naked towards his bathroom, he smiled to himself at the thought of how upset his wife would become over his discarded clothes.

  Almost gaily Ferdie sauntered into the shower. When he had finished, he dried himself and dropped the towel on the floor, again for the maid to pick up. Then he crossed to the mirror, took out his Remington and shaved, looking at his reflection in the mirror in amazement; the glow caused by feelings of liberation at the idea of a divorce from Bianca was both palpable and discernible. Could it be, he asked himself, that he was getting used to divorce, or was he simply glad to be rid of a wife he now saw as being unutterably irredeemable? He decided he did not care what the reason was. All that mattered was that he did not care. That indifference was the liberating thing. Not caring whether Bianca lived or died, whether she sank or swam, whether she lived in penury or plenitude, was such a good feeling.

  Ferdie heard the bedroom door shut. Bianca had entered the room.

  Almost looking forward to plunging in the knife, he unplugged his Remington shaver and splashed cologne over his face. Then he brushed his teeth, combed his hair and stepped, stark naked, into the bedroom.

  Bianca was sitting at her dressing table, a solid silver intricately carved and supposedly ‘important’ piece once owned by the Maharani of Baroda.

  Just seeing it added to Ferdie’s resolve, for he had always loathed the flashiness of it, but his wife, whose taste had always inclined towards the elaborate, was not the sort of woman who could ever have enough opulence. She had bought it from Partridge’s in London, despite his objections, along with a solid silver armchair that now reposed in her study, resplendent with cushions especially commissioned from Valerian Rybar, the exotic interior designer in New York. As Ferdie thought of how ostentatious they were, antique cloth of gold embroidered in silver and studded with genuine ruby beads, he wondered how he could ever have been fool enough to stump up the $15,000 for them in the first place.

  Bianca looked up from her makeup mirror. This too was silver and enormous, measuring two feet in height and one foot in width, and it also came from the Maharani’s palace in India. One side of it had a magnifying glass, the other an ordinary mirror; and Bianca had been rotating between the two, looking at her image with the exactitude she brought to bear upon all areas of her life. She had just finished applying a set of false eyelashes to her bottom lids in keeping with the style of the day, and nothing less than precision would do for her.

  Realizing that she could see Ferdie in her mirror instead of having to turn around, she turned back to catch sight of his reflection, regretting - as she always did whenever she saw his magnificent body - how cruel nature had been to deprive her of the means to enjoy it. Catching his eye, she smiled lovingly and said: ‘Is your stomach feeling any better, darling?’

  ‘I want a divorce,’ Ferdie said lightly, hoping to avert a scene.

  ‘What?’ Bianca gasped, the colour draining from her face.

  ‘I want a divorce,’ Ferdie repeated lightly, a half-smile on his lips.

  Bianca started to laugh, initially out of nervousness, but then out of disbelief. Ferdie was joking. Of course, he had to be. If he’d been serious, he’d have been screaming at her the way he always did when he lost control. His sense of humour, it had to be said, was something she had never been quite able to fathom, but since she had to put up with it, she made the best of a bad deal, coping with jokes which, in her view, were never funny.

  Meanwhile Ferdie remained disconcertingly cool and contained, a half-smile still playing around the edges of his mouth. In his view, this was turning out better than he could ever have predicted. ‘I’m serious, you know,’ he said, still lightly enough for Bianca to continue clutching at the straw that this really was one of Ferdie’s dubious jokes.

  More from relief than anything else, she continued laughing, the underlying suspicion that Ferdie might be serious giving her voice a hysterical edge.

  Then, without saying another word, Ferdie turned on his heel and went to his dressing room, where the valet had laid out his clothes for the evening. He sat down on his stool that had once been owned by Napoleon, slipped on first his right sock and then his left, before stepping into his underwear. In that condition, he went back into the bedroom, where Bianca was applying blusher to her cheeks. He stood behind her the way he had before, once more establishing eye contact through the mirror.

  ‘In case you think I’m joking,’ he said, ‘I’m not. I want you out of this house by Sunday at the very latest.’ With that, Ferdie turned and walked back into his dressing room.

  Bianca jumped up, knocking her knee hard on the edge of the dressing table. She barely felt the blow in her rush to follow Ferdie into his dressing room. ‘What do you mean by that?’ she demanded, grabbing his arm.

  ‘Exactly what I said. I want a divorce, and I want you out of here by Sunday. If you want to go down to Sintra to collect your clothes, you can do so. Otherwise I’ll have them packed and sent to you.’

  ‘But why on earth would you want a divorce all of a sudden? This morning when your cock was in my mouth, you were full of what a wonderful woman I am.’

  ‘That was this morning,’ he replied, resolved not to give Bianca an opening she could exploit in her attempt to persuade him to reverse his decision. ‘This is now.’

  ‘But, Ferdie, this is crazy. This morning I was your beloved wife, and now you want a divorce? I think I deserve an explanation at the very least.’

  ‘My idea of what you deserve is not the same as yours,’ he answered levelly.

  ‘Are you telling me you want a divorce without even telling me why?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  ‘I don’t understand… What’s happened?’ Bianca said, breaking down and sobbing.

  ‘Dry your tears,’ Ferdie said. ‘You can’t move me the way you’ve done in the past. I’m on to you now.’

  But Bianca could not stop. ‘I don’t understand why,’ she said between sobs. ‘I’ve been an exemplary wife to you. I have to know what’s gone wrong.’

  ‘You, Bianca,’ Ferdie replied. ‘You’re what’s gone
wrong.’

  ‘Me? How have I gone wrong? I’ve been a loyal and loving wife to you…and I needn’t remind you that you can be a handful at the best of times.’

  ‘Well, you needn’t exert yourself on my behalf anymore.’

  ‘But I want to…’

  ‘Bianca, I can see through you. To me, you’re now as transparent as glass. Shall we leave it at that?’

  ‘What do you mean by that, Ferdie? Of course I’m as transparent as glass. I have nothing to hide.’

  ‘Here she goes,’ Ferdie said, almost amused and admiring, despite himself. Given an opening, Bianca was the sort of woman who could make a man believe the sun rose in the west and set in the east. ‘My decision is final,’ he continued, ‘and I will not countenance another word on the subject. I suggest we behave as normal for the benefit of our guests tonight, but from tomorrow, I’d prefer it if you didn’t address a single word to me until your departure. I want you out of my house and out of my life. Get your lawyers to contact mine. Now I’d be most grateful if you left my dressing room. Oh…and you can move into one of the guest bedrooms for the rest of your stay here.’

  Bianca looked at him, stunned. Hardly able to believe what she was hearing, she clutched Ferdie’s sleeve and opened her mouth. Before she could form the words, however, he looked down, plucked her hand off his sleeve as if it were repugnant to him and pointed towards the door. Realizing she had no choice but to accede to Ferdie’s demands, she walked towards her dressing table, still reeling from the shock.

  What she did understand, however, was that the impact of Ferdie’s words had been horrific. Her immediate instinct was to re-establish the norm - any norm - so she returned to her dressing table and tried to apply her lipstick. This simple task, however, was not as easy as it had hitherto been; her hand shook uncontrollably. Gritting her teeth, she willed it to greater stillness as she applied her lipstick, and even though she was unable to force it to stop the quivering entirely, she was gratified to see her self-possession returning.