She was not sure whether this could be true and hoped that it was. She knew how to deal with flirtatious talk at the Pietà receptions, but this was a new situation altogether. Never before had she been alone with a young man, and Alix was well used to the ways of this outside world in which she suddenly found herself again.
“It was clever of you to have found such a pleasant and private place for us to talk,” she commented lightly. “As you may have guessed, this is the very first time I’ve ever been in a coffeehouse. Whenever I’m out with the nuns and the choir I look in the windows as we go by, and I’ve always wondered what it would be like to sit at one of the tables and chat the time away. When I still lived at home there was no money for treats of any kind, and in any case the nearest coffeehouse was far away.”
“Tell me about your life.”
He sounded very serious, and she looked at him curiously. His eyes were intent, although his well-shaped mouth still held the hint of a smile as if to show his reason for asking was not to pry. Nevertheless she felt as if he had caught her with a silken ribbon such as those people used to take others captive in Carnival. If she talked too much about her own life she would find herself bound by a second ribbon, and should she begin confiding hopes and dreams she would become too entangled to enjoy the very freedom she had come to find.
“What is it you want to know?” she asked warily.
“Everything right up to the present day. To this very moment!”
“Since you know something about me already,” she said carefully, taking a sip of coffee, “you should be the one to talk about yourself first.”
“All I know of you is that you are a Pietà girl and that you sing like a lark.”
She jerked her head back involuntarily, feeling the ribbon tighten. “Nobody has used that comparison since I was a little girl.”
“Who said it? Your mother? Or your father? Maybe a brother or sister?”
“No. It was an old friend of the family. His name is Iseppo. He and his wife still call to see me on my birthday. It was he who brought me with my mother to Venice.”
“Tell me about that day. Was it summer or winter? Spring or autumn?”
A whirlwind of invisible ribbons, so vivid in her mind’s eye, were twirling all about her. It was no longer possible to escape them. Maybe he had begun to cast them in the mask-maker’s shop, ensnaring her from the moment of their first encounter. Why else should she have been so mad as to risk her whole future for this short tryst that had no past and no future?
“It was late summer.” She felt as if her will had melted away and her voice had taken over of its own accord. “We came down the River Brenta in Iseppo’s barge and I saw Venice first at sunset—it seemed a golden city floating on the water.” She paused and he saw by the pain in her eyes that the memory evoked nothing but distress.
“And then?” he said gently.
She took a deep breath and continued her story. He listened without interruption, his gaze never leaving her face as he observed the subtle changes in her expression, fleeting as the drift of clouds across the sky on a windy day. Neither did he miss the slightest nuance in her voice. She kept strictly to events and did not mention feelings until she had concluded the account of her years at home and at the Pietà. “It was only after a long time that I began to realize how merciful it was that my mother’s death came when it did. It spared us having to part in the knowledge that we would never see each other again. I don’t know how either of us could have borne it.”
“She must have been a most courageous woman,” he said with respect.
“That is what Iseppo said when he explained on the morning of her death that she’d never had any hope of a cure. When he had to leave and I was left alone with strangers, it was as if I had slipped down into a fathomless pit and would never emerge again. I’m haunted even as I speak of it,” she said uneasily. “But then, I should never have talked about myself in the first place.”
“I disagree. It is the only way I can get to know you or you to know me.”
“I’m with a stranger,” she countered almost accusingly.
“Not any longer.” He caught her hand across the table and held it tightly. “My life has been different in every way from yours and yet I already feel a bond between us.”
He leaned forward over the table. “I have to see you again!”
She sat back slightly, almost defensively. “It was to have been only this once.”
“Not for me!”
Inadvertently he had reminded her of how long she had been away from the Pietà. “I must go!” she said, moving restlessly. Those ribbons could be snapped if she left now.
“No, wait. A few minutes longer.” He covered her free hand with his own and this time felt her shiver at his touch. “That key! I could make an impression in one of these candles. Somehow I would get the duplicate to you. Then at least I would know there was a chance of being with you again.”
She hesitated. He waited anxiously, acutely afraid that she would shake her head. Then, to his huge relief, she turned to take up the little velvet purse that lay on the seat beside her. She pulled open the strings and took out the key to give to him. As his hand closed over it she felt herself possessed, and at the same time she knew a rush of happiness at the prospect of liberty.
Quickly, he made the impression and summoned the waiter to put it in the snow for a few minutes to harden. As they awaited his return, they devised a simple plan for Alix to give her the key. That settled, he spoke softly to her.
“I understand the great risk you took tonight and that everything connected with me is danger for you. All I can say is that seeing you again has meant more to me than anything I can remember in my whole life. I have fallen in love with you, Marietta.” In that moment when she made her decision about the key, he had recognized the emotion that had struck him at his first sight of her.
She did not doubt him. The truth shone in his eyes and in the timber of his voice. She did not dare to examine her own feelings in case she should discover that it was this same feeling that had seized her in the mask-shop and not simply a sudden desire for a taste of freedom.
“I do believe you,” she said gently, letting herself be wise, “but it is well known that Venice casts spells over travelers.”
He leaned toward her. “It is you alone who will hold me spellbound forever!” he declared passionately.
She thought to herself that as long as she lived she would never hear words more beautiful or loving. His declaration had sealed the bond between them, but she dared not let him know it yet. There were too many obstacles and too many pitfalls.
She was about to respond when the waiter coughed discreetly before parting the curtains. This coffeehouse was not a place of assignation, but when customers paid extra for a little harmless privacy the management respected their wishes.
Domenico turned in his chair to watch as the girl, again well hooded and in her mask, swept by him with her escort. Disappointingly, her identity remained a mystery.
Alix collected his lantern and then he and Marietta went back into the night. It had stopped snowing and she became anxious about leaving her footprints so clearly leading to the calle door, but he promised to obliterate them by scooping loose snow over the marks and stamping about himself.
“What subterfuges we are using!” He laughed quietly, setting down the lantern. Then he drew her to him and she went willingly to lean against him as his arms enfolded her. His lips, cool from the chill air, melted into warmth on hers in tenderness and desire. She clung to him. All time was suspended until with a little sigh she broke away. He unlocked the door for her and returned the key into her charge.
“Good night,” she whispered. Then she disappeared through the door and it closed after her.
THE NEXT DAY Alix returned to the Savoni mask-maker’s shop. Although Marietta looked enticing in her moretta mask it had its disadvantages since she could not remove it in public even to speak.
&nb
sp; “Good day, signore,” Signor Savoni greeted him warmly. “What is your pleasure today? Another mask, perhaps?”
“Yes, but not for myself. I want one of the best quality in that shape.” He pointed to the one Marietta had been wearing when he first entered the shop.
“That is a Columbina mask.” Leonardo took a selection of them from pegs and shelves to lay in a multicolored array on the counter. The Frenchman’s choice went unerringly to one of green velvet trimmed with minuscule golden beads. It was one of the most expensive in the shop. Leonardo nodded approvingly. “Splendid workmanship in that one. Do you wish a mantilla to go with it?”
Alix chose one of cobwebby Burano lace. Both items were packed into a beribboned box, which Alix tucked under his arm as he left. His next stop was at a locksmith’s shop on the Merceria where he had earlier left the wax impression. Two new keys were waiting for him. If ever the one for Marietta should be discovered and confiscated, he would still have the means to get in to see her.
IT WAS SUNDAY morning and Jules was about to leave for mass at the Santa Maria della Pietà when Alix appeared, dressed and barbered and in his cloak.
“I’m coming with you, Monsieur le Comte.”
Jules reminded himself that both Henri and Alix had been out until the early hours in their carnival costumes. “Are you sober?” he inquired gravely. “Otherwise you may not come.”
“Yes. I made up my mind last night to attend mass today.”
“Where is Henri?”
“Still asleep.”
Jules guessed that Henri had imbibed to excess whereas, somewhat surprisingly, Alix had not. They left the apartment together. No more snow had fallen and a thaw had turned what there was to slush underfoot. Church bells, so much a part of Venice’s own music, were chiming all over the city. Pigeons rose with a great flapping of wings as the two men crossed St. Mark’s Square, which was strewn with the jester litter of Carnival—scattered ribbons, broken eggshells, a number of trampled masks, and a single satin shoe with a pink rosette.
“Henri and I were here about two o’clock this morning,” Alix said as he avoided stepping on a pig-like gnaga mask lying in his path. “There was music and dancing and singing and drinking as if it were a summer’s night, colored lanterns everywhere. Henri was becoming amorously engaged with a masked woman in domino when he saw her hands and realized she was old!”
“Ah. Not all is pleasure at the Carnival,” Jules remarked drily. “How did you fare?”
“Well enough.” Alix let his tutor put his own interpretation on that comment. It could not be explained that everything about life lost its savor when Marietta was not with him. And in Venice of all places! He thought he must be mad. It was like being presented with the most enticing banquet in the world and having no appetite. But then love was a kind of madness. He had heard it described as a period of temporary insanity and so it had proved in the past. But although he had seen Marietta on only three occasions—in the shop, on the evening of the concert, and during their nighttime meeting—he knew that this love was different.
When they reached the Santa Maria della Pietà, Alix looked up at the ospedale on the other side of the calle where he and Marietta had met. He wondered which was her room. Then he bared his head and followed Jules into the church. While Jules’s appreciative gaze took in the fine altar painting and the magnificent work by Tiepolo overhead, Alix looked up at the grilled galleries encircling the interior, where a rustling indicated that the members of the Pietà choir were taking their places. Then the priest entered and mass began.
Marietta was behind one of the lower grilles set like windows on each side of the church and she could see Alix clearly as he bowed his head and knelt in prayer, his thoughts composed even if his heart, of its own volition, was seeking hers. When she sang solo he knew it was her.
When the service ended it was easy for Marietta to stay behind while the rest of the choir went back into the Pietà. She pretended to be searching for a very special sheet of music that she had mislaid, but which, in fact, she had tucked into her sash. It was Alix’s good fortune that Jules expressed a wish to look closer at the treasures of the church as the rest of the congregation were leaving. Casually Alix strolled to a long, high-backed wooden seat set into the wall and pushed the key behind a corner cushion as he and Marietta had arranged at the café. Not long afterward he was out of the church with his tutor. Only then did Marietta enter the main body of the church to retrieve the key.
On the Riva degli Schiavoni, as Jules and Alix ascended the steps of a bridge over a side canal, a well-dressed, white-wigged, amiable-looking gentleman was descending toward them. He and Jules recognized each other immediately as old acquaintances from Versailles in spite of the span of years since they had last seen each other.
“Can it be possible!” Jules exclaimed in astonishment. “Monsieur le Marquis de Guérard!”
“Monsieur le Comte de Marquet, I do declare!” Hearty greetings were exchanged and then the Marquis noticed Alix. “Who is this young man then? A nephew, or a son by another marriage?”
Jules had to swallow his pride. “Neither. The years have not been generous to me. Allow me to present Monsieur Desgrange, one of my two pupils whom I am escorting on the Grand Tour.”
To have made such an admittance at Versailles would have brought immediate ostracism and Jules was fully prepared for the marquis to nod curtly and walk on. But that did not happen. Instead his fellow aristocrat, after greeting Alix, revealed that he and his wife were living in Venice as voluntary exiles since he had also suffered reverses at Versailles and was out of favor with the King.
“You must come and dine with us this evening, messieurs,” the marquis said, concluding the conversation. “Bring the other young man with you. My wife will be delighted to see you again, Monsieur le Comte. And we have a bevy of granddaughters with us now who will welcome new dancing partners in Monsieur Desgrange and his friend. You will find we have created a little Paris far from home.”
The mention of dancing was the first indication to Alix that he might not be able to get away to meet Marietta that night. Perhaps if he returned to the church he would be just in time to let her know. He made a quick bow.
“Pardon me, messieurs. I seem to have left my cane in the church.” He turned on his heel and went back at a run, ignoring his tutor’s assurance that he had not taken one that morning. When he reached the church he whipped off his tricorne as he entered to find the place deserted and Marietta about to vanish through a side door.
“Marietta! Wait!” He hurried to her. “You have the key?”
She smiled to see him. “Yes.”
“Good.” He spoke quickly. “Unfortunately plans have been changed and I may not get to the calle tonight, but I will be there tomorrow at midnight.”
“So until then!” She gave a little wave as she closed the door after her. Hurrying up the narrow staircase into the Pietà, she placed her hand over the key that had replaced the music in her sash.
THE MARQUIS AND his wife were living very grandly in the Palazzo Cuccino, which they had rented on the Grand Canal. In the gondola on the way Jules assured Alix and Henri that they were about to enjoy the most civilized and elegant evening of their lives. “There will be no grotesque Venetian disguises this evening,” he assured them. “No spies for the Council of Three lurking in the shadows and no vinegary wine. No black garb to ensure anonymity and no—”
“Beautiful Venetian women,” Henri intercepted glumly.
“I was about to say no air of mystery and no secrets. All will be French!” Jules put the gathered fingertips of his right hand to his lips and threw a kiss of homage to France into the Venetian air.
Alix thought to himself that his tutor was wrong on one point—he did have a secret.
The evening proved to be exactly as Jules had anticipated. The great rooms and the rich furnishings were as sumptuous as anything in Paris. About fifty of their fellow countrymen and women were present and there w
as not a mantilla or mask to be seen. Neither was a word of Italian to be heard the whole evening. And the orchestra in the minstrel’s gallery played only French music.
The Marquis and Marquise de Guérard were a welcoming host and hostess to a score of young men besides Alix and Henri who were also on the Grand Tour, a number of older travelers, and two newly married couples on nuptial journeys. Among the Guérard family staying at the palace were the granddaughters the Marquis had mentioned. There were five in all—one married and accompanied by her husband, the other four ranging in age from sixteen to nineteen, including a widow—and all were attractive young women.
Alix was allotted the widow to take into dinner. He had heard already that she had been married at the age of sixteen to a much older man, who had died a year later. Her gown and her jewels showed that she had been left well provided for, but there was nothing flamboyant in her attire. She was also serious and demure with large questing hazel eyes shaded by light brown lashes under thin arched brows, her hair formally dressed and powdered. She wore a beauty patch shaped like a star by the corner of her firm little mouth. By chance he had one of the same shape on his right cheekbone and she commented with a twitch of a smile on their mutual good taste. Her name was Louise d’ Oinville.
At the long glittering table she engaged Alix in intelligent conversation. He found her to be ideal company at that time, for with his thoughts constantly drifting to Marietta he was in no mood for the foolish badinage that would have been expected of him by the other girls.
She in turn liked him precisely because he did not play up to her. So often, when they learned that she was a widow, men either considered her fair game or else—visualizing the money she had been left—immediately began to think of marriage. Her experience as a wife had not left her enamored of that state, simply because her late husband had had a closed mind, a gross body, and had treated her as if she were brainless. Why her late father, who had allowed her to be educated like a son, had arranged such a match for her, his only child, she would never comprehend, unless perhaps it was to see her financially secure. The relief of being able to talk to Alix as an equal was a treat in itself.
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