Venetian Mask

by Rosalind Laker

  Slowly she turned to survey the bedchamber. This had been Angela’s room. The fact that it had been completely refurbished for its new occupant at least made it her own domain, but what of the rest of the palace? Much of the decor would be to her predecessor’s taste. And the portraits of Angela? Where had they gone? She knew she would not rest until she found them. For the first time she realized that for a long while, perhaps to the end of her days, she would be living with the ghostly presence of another woman. It could not be easy for any woman to assert her own character and personality in a house her husband had shared with another, but it would be even harder when the woman whose place she was taking had been truly loved.

  Thoughtfully Marietta returned to the bed, where she tidied the sheets and plumped up the pillows. She settled herself and then tugged on the bell-pull.

  A maidservant peeped cautiously around the door before entering, as if she could not believe she had been summoned at such an early hour. Later Marietta would discover that Angela, following the routine of most Venetian noblewomen, had never risen from her bed before noon. On this first morning Marietta’s early request for breakfast created as much activity as a stick stirred in an ant’s nest.

  No less than three maidservants brought in the meal, the first carrying a tray with the food, the second the silver chocolate pot, and the third a crystal dish of peaches. Her lady’s maid, an older woman whose name was Anna, handed her a fan in case the room seemed too warm and then held forth a bowl of scented water in which to dabble her fingers before eating. Finally, she was left to enjoy her breakfast.

  Afterward, Anna wanted to send for the hairdresser, but Marietta liked to follow fashion in her own way. “My hair is very manageable. I’ve always done it myself,” she protested.

  “Just show me how you like it dressed, signora. Then I can do it for you. You will find I’m very skilled.”

  She was true to her word, and Marietta was pleased with the result. She also found it novel to have someone in attendance to put ready petticoats and shoes and the gown of her choice. At the Pietà there had always been a friend on hand to help with lacing or the back buttons on a bodice, but that was all.

  “Did you serve the late Signora Torrisi?” she asked warily.

  “No, signora. I was appointed ten days ago to have your gowns pressed and ready to wear and all your new garments put away.”

  Marietta was relieved. She would not have wanted split loyalties in her own quarters. As for her gowns, she had restricted the number for her trousseau, wanting to choose for her needs in a more leisurely fashion. It had been difficult to concentrate on milliners’ sketches and dressmakers’ swatches while half her mind was on the rehearsal she should have been attending or the score of music she wanted to finish. She had enough clothes on hand to take her into July and August, when they would be at the villa on the river as Domenico had planned. When she returned to Venice there would be ample time to extend her wardrobe to meet all social obligations. She intended to fulfill the role of Domenico’s wife in all its aspects. It had never been her way to do anything half-heartedly and she did not intend to start now.

  When she was dressed, she went down the stairs and made her way through the various salons, looking through the windows to set their location in her mind. In the sala del trono the steward of the palace was supervising the setting of everything to rights after the previous day.

  From there, she continued on to the kitchens where, at her unexpected appearance, some servants scattered while others stood as if frozen to the spot. A footman, shoving his arms into his coat, came forward swiftly.

  “Have you lost your way, signora? I can show you back again.”

  “No. I am on a tour of inspection.”

  She had made up her mind to follow Elena’s example and keep a firm finger on the pulse of the house. Now she peeped into pots and pans on the ranges and went into a cold room, where vast amounts of food left over from the wedding banquet filled the shelves. Taking one of the minor stewards in tow, she allotted what should be given generously to the poor and chose some of the still uncut cakes to be taken to the Pietà.

  When she emerged, the steward of the palace had just arrived and been informed by one of the maidservants where the signora was now. He was flustered and breathing heavily from running down the stairs.

  “Signora, how may I help you?”

  “Come with me,” she said.

  During the next two hours he showed her exactly how the palace was run, and the ledgers indicated that he was an honest man. She congratulated him on his management of the wedding reception on the previous day, which pleased him, and she had only one criticism to make.

  “At the Pietà we uphold kitchens being as spotless as those in a convent. That is not the case in this place. Please see that improvements are made at once.”

  “I will, signora.”

  When she left him, he shook his head that a bride should spend the morning after her wedding night concerning herself with such mundane matters. The late Signora Torrisi had never shown her pretty face near the kitchens, but that did not lessen his respect for the Signor’s new wife. She knew what she was about. He would serve her well and make sure she did not have cause to find fault with any part of the palace again.

  When Domenico returned from visiting one of the other Torrisi palaces in the early afternoon, he found Marietta sitting quietly in the salon of family portraits, studying each one in turn. Even as he entered, she moved her chair on a few paces to sit down and examine the next of his ancestors.

  “You should be having a siesta in this heat,” he said. It seemed to him that she had to force herself to turn and meet his eyes. He smiled to put her at her ease. In retrospect he had been extraordinarily passionate toward her in those night hours.

  “Maybe I should.” She folded her fan and stood up, turning automatically to set the chair back in its place, but he moved forward quickly.

  “Leave that.” He swung it up himself by its top rail and put it aside.

  Now that she had moved she was suddenly tired, for until coming to this room she had not paused in her tour of exploration. He opened the door for her, and when she had passed through he lifted her in his arms and carried her up the stairs to her room where he laid her on a couch in the re-shuttered gloom. Her eyes were closed. He removed her shoes and left her to sleep.

  She awoke two hours later and lay looking up at the plaster-swagged ceiling. There was a little gilded cherub directly overhead. Nowhere in the palace so far had she found those vanished portraits of Angela. Domenico must have had them removed to one of the other palaces, because she did not think they would be in any of the less important and smaller salons that she had yet to see. He had taken that action out of consideration for her feelings, but he might as well have left the portraits; the shadow of her predecessor was everywhere in small items and feminine touches throughout the palace. It was as if Angela had just left a room as she herself entered it. Most telling of all was a little ribboned satin cushion on a chair in one of the salons, a cushion that would have fit snugly into a pregnant woman’s back. And everywhere those porcelain bowls full of roses.

  Marietta sat up and put her feet on the floor. She would never want to take Angela’s place in Domenico’s affections, but she needed to throw off this sensation of being overshadowed if she was ever to feel at home under this or any other roof that had once sheltered her predecessor. At least she and Domenico would soon be going to the summer villa. Perhaps there she would find fewer reminders of another woman’s reign.

  IT WAS A larger vessel than a gondola that with the gentle splash of oars took Marietta and Domenico across the turquoise-hued lagoon on the first stage of their journey to the summer villa. Their baggage had gone on ahead and would be unpacked before they arrived. Marietta was as enthralled as if she were a child again as the vessel entered the lock she remembered so well. When they reached the Brenta river beyond she saw barges awaiting their turn to leave, and she
wondered if any of them belonged to Iseppo. He and his wife had been on her list of wedding guests, and although they had declined the invitation, they were outside the church to wave to her after the ceremony.

  Now, under a green velvet canopy and on cushions of silk, Marietta looked from one bank to another as the voyage upriver continued. At the wedding she had met many of the owners of the lovely villas that Domenico pointed out to her as they drifted by. When the vessel came alongside the steps that led up the bank in front of the Torrisi villa, Marietta alighted swiftly and ran up the steps to cross the lane that lay between her and the gates, which had been opened in readiness as had the door of the villa itself. When Domenico reached her side she gave him a sparkling glance.

  “Look at me!” she exclaimed playfully. “I am wearing a pretty gown and a fine plumed hat, I’ve a fan in my hand and jewels around my neck, and I have my ear bobs that you have given me. Nobody could tell me apart from those young women I once saw arriving here.”

  He was amused and threaded her arm through his to hold her hand. “There is one difference.”

  “What is that?”

  “You are coming home. They were not.”

  Suddenly overcome by this unexpected kindness, she looked down to recover herself before raising her head again. He had a gift for saying just the right thing and she was emotionally vulnerable because, despite her interest in the journey and the excitement of their arrival, she had not for one moment forgotten the voyage down-river with her dying mother all those years ago. “I am indeed,” she said huskily, letting him lead her up the drive.

  The villa, built by Palladio in the sixteenth century, had been designed asthetically for beauty of line and practically for coolness and the ease of summer living. Marble floors, pale walls, and elegant ceilings predominated, one perfectly proportioned room leading to another. Much of the old carved furniture dated from the same period, and what had been added since kept to the soft colors of the river and the surrounding countryside in upholstery, curtains, and bedhangings.

  Marietta loved it. Here she could be herself again. There was nothing to show that any one woman had had more influence on this house than another. It was as though the impossibility of exertion in the summer heat had prevented any individual stamp being set upon it. Antique statues on plinths and in niches were scattered throughout the house and the flowering garden outside. Somehow these helped to give the villa a curious timelessness, as if its foundations had been waiting in the earth for hundreds of years before Palladio had viewed the site and decided what he would raise up there.

  The days passed in leisurely fashion. Domenico taught Marietta to ride horseback, and when they accepted an invitation to take supper al fresco some little distance away, she experienced the novelty of her first carriage ride. They entertained, held and attended summer balls, shared picnics on river trips, and enjoyed informal meals with friends whom Domenico knew well and who immediately took Marietta into their fold. She had met many of them already at Pietà receptions and concerts in their residences. Sometimes she would sing for the company, accompanying herself on the harpsichord, and this was always the highlight of the event for those present.

  Only one visitor came to stay at the villa and that was her brother-in-law Antonio, who was summering at a second Torrisi villa. Marietta welcomed the chance to get to know him better, but the reason for his coming was disturbing.

  “I thought I ought to warn you,” he said to Domenico as the three of them sat with glasses of wine on the terrace in the warm, moonlit night. “Filippo Celano rode onto Torrisi land. I saw him from the villa but he was too far away then for me to see who it was. I thought I had a visitor and went out to the steps. Then I recognized him and was fully prepared for him to dismount and await my challenge, but he wheeled his horse about and rode away.”

  Marietta was puzzled. “Where is the warning in that? I see no harm in what he did. Perhaps he didn’t know he was on Torrisi property until he saw you.”

  Antonio and Domenico exchanged glances. “It is not as simple as that,” Domenico explained. “Signs are brewing that certain of the Celanos are spoiling for a fight. Their summer villas and lands are far from ours. The Celano came deliberately to warn and provoke.”

  “But are you and Antonio the only ones to stand against them?”

  Domenico shook his head. “I can call on half the men you saw at our wedding at any time.”

  She leaned forward anxiously and put her hand on his arm. “Don’t let it come to conflict, I beg you.”

  He looked at her gravely. “So long as there are trouble-makers in either family lusting for a fight, the vendetta will continue to take its toll.”

  She drew her hand away, knowing only too well that the feud had already cost him a much loved wife and that he and Antonio had also lost a brother and several cousins. “Must it be left to fester and destroy in the future as it has done in the past? Why not throw away your swords in the face of the enemy? None would cut down unarmed men.”

  Antonio looked grim. “I regret to say that once a Celano in the priesthood did try to mediate, and it is to the shame of our house that he was slain by one of our forebears. It happened over a hundred years ago, but to the Celanos it could have been yesterday. They would show no mercy.”

  She thought of the goal she shared with Elena, to mend this great rift, but what she had just heard did not offer much hope. “How soon do you expect a confrontation?”

  “That is impossible to say. It could be six months or a year or even longer. A volcano rumbles long before it erupts.”

  “Are any Torrisis making these same moves of warning?”

  Antonio shook his head. “This time it is the Celanos who are throwing down the gauntlet.” Then his tone became reassuring. “Don’t worry, Marietta. It may come to nothing more than a duel between two men. There is no way of knowing.”

  She was not consoled. Surely a duel would have to be between an important member of each family to provide sufficient blood-letting for this terrible feud in its present unsettled state. She dared not think it might be Domenico and Filippo, but everything pointed that way. “Must the outcome be death?” she asked tensely.

  Neither of the men answered her question. “This is too fine a night to talk of such matters any longer,” Domenico said, dismissing the subject on a deliberately careless note that did not escape her ear. “Antonio has said what he had to say. That is done. Now he shall refill our glasses for us.”

  Antonio obliged cheerfully, switching the conversation to the grape harvest that could be expected from the extensive Torrisi vineyards that year. Then, when it seemed as if he intended to leave in the morning, Marietta invited him to stay on for a picnic that had been planned farther up-river. There were to be three boats to take the invited company and plenty of room for him.

  “I accept with pleasure, Marietta.”

  He made the picnic very lively, flirting with the women and dancing Marietta around and around on the grass while someone played a merry tune on a lute. When the dance was over and everybody clapped, he kissed her. Surprise showed in her eyes and he grinned, giving her a wink and a squeeze about the waist. Later, as evening came, he took the lute himself and sang, with everybody joining in.

  In all he stayed five days and Marietta came to know him well. Much as she liked him she thought it was fortunate that it was Domenico and not Antonio who had been chosen to head the family. The facial likeness between the two brothers was misleading, for in character they were entirely different. Antonio was totally carefree, with little sense of responsibility, his eyes rarely free of laughter. He was a keen gambler and when they played cards, whether among the three of them or when other guests were present, he was at his happiest when the stakes were high. Marietta came to the conclusion that he would gamble as easily with his life if the occasion arose. When he left, it was to go to his villa and the courtesan awaiting his return.

  The rest of the summer rolled on peacefully. Now and agai
n business or political matters took Domenico away to Venice for a day or two, and Marietta found that each time she would eagerly await his return. A good companionship had formed between them, which she saw as the rock on which their lives together would stand. Sexually they were perfectly attuned. Many times they made love with moonlight slanting across their bed and often before a siesta when the bright afternoon sun pierced the shutters. More than once he had taken her in deep grass or in a shady, secluded glade. At these times he spoke intensely loving words, but not as Alix had expressed himself, for with Domenico these words conveyed only passion and not feelings of the heart. Yet his cherishing and his praise of her were unceasing. He was also a demanding lover, taking as well as giving, and she met all his wishes generously.

  It was to please Marietta that Domenico extended their stay well into September, but finally they had to return to the city for he could no longer control affairs from afar. On the morning of their departure he was at the stables, giving some last-minute instructions, while Marietta, in a cape ready to leave, took a last wander through the downstairs rooms. In a salon pale as ivory she paused by one of the windows, holding back a gauzy curtain to look out at the river on which she was soon to be borne away. The gates were open, as they had been upon her arrival and on many other occasions when company had flowed in and out.

  Suddenly she stiffened. A tall, burly man in riding clothes, wig, and tricorned hat was moving into the middle of the gateway, staring toward the window where she stood, the movement of the curtain having focused his attention. He was tapping his whip across the palm of his other hand menacingly. She knew him only too well, this Celano who had come again on Torrisi land. It was Filippo Celano.