Venetian Mask

by Rosalind Laker

  Marietta also rose to her feet. “Then if you have such faith in him, insist that he go against Elena’s wish to remain in seclusion and let you in to see her. It would be a privilege he has granted to nobody but the doctors and would enable you to make real contact with her. Test him! After all, you’re so confident you’ve come to mean so much to him. I think you expect to be the next Signora Celano! See what your chances are!”

  Bianca uttered a sharp cry and turned on her heel to rush from the room, slamming the door after her. Marietta remained standing where she was and pressed her fingertips to her closed eyes for a few minutes as she struggled to calm down. She had never before spoken angry words to Bianca, or struck her, but that final cruel taunt of hers had been deliberate. If Bianca could inveigle her way to see the impostor, or if Filippo made a switch to an ailing Elena, some good could be done.

  At the concert that evening Lucretia acquitted herself well and received an encore. Captain Zeno and his wife were present at the performance, and he made a special call at the shop the next morning to thank Marietta for having brought his daughter to such heights in a matter of months.

  “Lucretia has far to go yet.” Marietta was pleased with her pupil’s performance, but she was realistic about all the work yet to be done.

  “I have something to tell you that should please you,” he said with satisfaction. “I’ve had your husband transferred back to the palace cells. He has a window again, although the view is dull enough, and all the possessions he had there before have been restored to him.”

  She was overwhelmed. “How did you manage that?”

  “I pointed out to the Chief Inquisitor that it was the rightful place for a political prisoner and that Torrisi should have been returned there as soon as his cell was repaired and security tightened. He agreed with me. Unfortunately there is no relaxation on visiting. The Inquisitor was adamant on that.”

  “But there is one too young to be bound by rules and regulations, whom you could take to visit my husband.”

  “I can guess.” He grinned and sighed with mock resignation. “No wonder you’re doing so well in your business, signora. You have a keen way of managing a deal that I respect. Fetch your son and come with me now. I’ll introduce Danilo to his father.”

  Domenico was reading when his cell door was unlocked. He lowered the book and swiveled around in his chair to see who was about to enter, and saw Captain Zeno holding out a healthy-looking baby to him.

  “Danilo Torrisi has come to see you!”

  Domenico gave a surprised shout of laughter and sprang up to seize the baby from him. Exuberantly he held his son high, and Danilo, his fist in his mouth and dribble running from gums preparing for another tooth, chuckled with delight. The Captain grinned and left the two of them together. For ten minutes Domenico talked to his son, bounced him on a knee, and let Danilo grab at his hair, his watch, and his cravat. Then Captain Zeno returned. Domenico kissed the child on the brow and handed him back. As when Marietta had left his other cell, the prisoner watched through the window as his son went from his sight. Then, as before, he bowed his head and wept.

  WHEN BIANCA WENT next to the Palazzo Celano it was with Sister Giaccomina to begin the full cataloguing of the mass of books that had been moved there from Filippo’s late mother’s house as well as from his villa. She was nervous. Marietta’s challenge had stayed with her and she knew she had to meet it. To ignore it and let matters run their course would be to pass up the chance of seeing and speaking to Elena. She regretted her barbed remark to Marietta about Domenico. Bianca was like most placid people. Once roused to anger the hurt of harsh words lingered long after the person who spoke them had been forgiven. It was also painful to remember what she had said herself.

  Sister Giaccomina was so happy about the task ahead of her that she seemed almost to bounce from one stack of books to another, her plump little hands flying up in the air with delight when she discovered that most of the antique volumes were unforeseen treasures. Bianca’s stomach began to flutter as the time for her flute practice drew near. She hoped the nun would forget the hour, but matters of duty never slipped Sister Giaccomina’s mind.

  “It’s time for your practice, my dear,” she said when the clock struck. “Go along to your music.”

  It was not long after Bianca had begun her practice that Filippo appeared. She was sure he made a point of being in the palace at this time whenever possible. He greeted her with his handsome smile, and, as always, she felt as if her bones were melting. How could Marietta accuse him of those dreadful deeds!

  “So you are back, little swan, to fill my house with music every day.”

  She blushed at his pet name for her. “Not every day. I have my rehearsals and other duties at the Pietà.”

  “More’s the pity! You belong here, Bianca. The palace comes alive whenever you cross the threshold.”

  She could hear her own heart beating. “As it will again when Elena recovers.”

  A sad expression fell like a shadow across his face. “I’m resigned to the inevitable. That can never be.”

  She left her place behind the music stand to take a step toward him. “Take me to see her. You could let me in if you wished.”

  “It is no longer in my hands. She lives in the darkness of her curtained room and will tolerate only her maid’s presence.”

  “But I truly believe she would not turn from me. If you care anything for me, grant my request!”

  His expression did not change, but his mind was put on alert. Who had put Bianca up to this? He could not believe it was from her own initiative, as she had always accepted the need to obey Elena’s wishes and avoid upsetting her in any way. It was something of a piquant situation that this wisp of a girl should be the first and only one to challenge him on this extremely delicate ground. Yet he could turn it to his own advantage.

  “Very well. It shall be as you ask, but have you the stamina?”

  Stamina was a quality she would never have listed for herself, for she was quick enough to shy away from anything unpleasant or frightening. “What do you mean?” she asked warily.

  “The Elena you remember is not the Elena you will see. She has grown thin almost beyond recognition, that once lovely hair of hers is lank, and she is plagued by the most dreadful cough.” He was giving the description that Elena’s warden had given him, for he had requested a daily report now that the end was drawing near. He still could not comprehend why he had been unable to let Elena starve quickly, but had chosen a gradual decline to make death easier for her. “Above all she will resent the intrusion.”

  “What you have said only stirs my sympathy,” Bianca replied, full of compassion. She would put her arms around Elena and talk to her of the Pietà days and coax her back to living. She loved this woman who had always been sweet and good to her. The fact that she loved Filippo in a different way was a heavy weight on her conscience that she longed to erase.

  “Then when you have finished your practice and had your hot chocolate, ask Sister Giaccomina’s permission to come with me to Elena, but I can’t allow her to come as well. It would be too much.”

  Bianca nodded. “She will understand.”

  “You’re a courageous girl. I’m proud to know you.”

  As he left her he smiled to himself. He was always entertained by the effect such remarks had on her. To witness such quaint confusion was like glimpsing the world of the cloisters, so different from the highly sophisticated and cynical circles in which he moved. No wonder men fell in love on sight with the Pietà girls. That aura of pure virginity combined with youth and beauty was irresistible.

  As he went upstairs he thought what a relief it would be to get rid of the two women, Minerva and Giovanna, who had cluttered up Elena’s apartment during these many weeks. He had engaged them through his most trusted agent, who had taken them from a brothel. Neither of them liked men, but they cared deeply for each other and to be together for weeks in luxury, even if it meant one of them c
ould never go out of the apartment, was like a dream come true. As a bonus they had been promised what to them was a small fortune, which they would use to set up their own house of assignation at the end of their assignment. Anticipation of this benefit sustained them through endless hours of boredom, and they were often like two happy children as they planned how everything would be from the drapery to the chamber pots.

  But Filippo had no intention of depending on their silence in time to come. Once he had brought his wife up from the rose marble room and placed her in the bed, they would depart the way they had come. A boat would be ready to transport them, but they would never set foot on land again. When the woman who made deliveries to Elena had given her last report, she and her gondolier husband, who brought her on her nightly visits, would be disposed of by a Celano agent in a slightly different way.

  Opening the communicating door, Filippo found Minerva of the golden hair and Giovanna, who had been a maidservant before entering an older profession, playing cards by candlelight in the darkened room. Both women rose from their chairs to bob, showing him the respect that was his due.

  “I’m bringing you a visitor,” he said to Minerva.

  “But you said there’d be no more since the last of the doctors left,” she protested petulantly. She did not mind passing time in this apartment, for she was naturally lazy, but she had been terrified each time she had to appear in public. When a child’s hand caught hold of hers outside the Basilica she had been so panic-stricken she’d almost clouted the brat about the ears. The doctors had been easy for they were only stupid men puffed up with their own importance and her mumbling and vacant stares had deceived them so completely she could have laughed in their faces. “Who is it you are bringing here? If it’s another doctor I don’t mind.”

  “Whether you mind or not is of no interest to me,” he replied implacably. “You will be ready to receive the visitor in an hour’s time.”

  Giovanna, who was the practical one of the two, bobbed again. “Tell us what we are to do, signore. You may rely on us.”

  “You can put that casket of sweetmeats out of sight for a start and open a window.” He glanced with faint disgust about the untidy room. In Elena’s time it had always smelled fragrant in here, but there was an odor about these women and a fusty atmosphere in the room for they had the same reluctance to bathe themselves as they did toward letting in fresh air. It was a relief for him to leave them, putting his scented handkerchief to his nostrils. He would have the whole apartment redecorated and refurbished after the funeral, in good time for the new bride.

  Bianca finished her practice and drank her hot chocolate with Sister Giaccomina before Filippo reappeared to escort her upstairs. The nun was most anxious to be sent for if Elena should show the least sign of wishing to see her.

  “A servant shall come at a run to fetch you,” Filippo promised, his hand already cupped around Bianca’s elbow to lead her away.

  “Have you prepared Elena for my visit?” Bianca asked as they left the library.

  “No. I didn’t want to risk the usual refusal.” He smiled reassuringly at her. “I believe we might be about to make a breakthrough. Your determination to see her might be the solution to everything. I may have been wrong to follow the advice of the doctors so implicitly. As for Elena, a patient is never a good physician and she cannot know what is best for herself.”

  Bianca looked at him with shining eyes. “I’m full of hope! If I could help Elena back to recovery in any way, it still wouldn’t be repayment for all she’s done for me.”

  “What a charming little swan you are,” he said softly. “May you bring the same sunshine to my poor wife as you bring to me.”

  They had reached Elena’s door and he knocked imperatively. Bianca noted that the maidservant, who must have recognized his knock, still inquired who was there. When he replied and admittance was forthcoming, he ushered Bianca ahead of him into the elegant anteroom. The maidservant looked suitably surprised to see he was not alone.

  “There is no need to announce this visitor, Giovanna,” he said. “You may return to your duties in the sickroom when we leave.”

  “Yes, signore.” The woman went to the bedchamber door and opened it before drawing back. Again Filippo let Bianca precede him.

  Coming from the light into the curtained room made the gloom seem very dark at first, but everything inside was still visible, including the four-poster bed on its dais, its draperies and curtains shimmering with silver threads. A slight mound in the bed showed where Elena was lying. Bianca, overjoyed that at last she could approach her friend, went slowly to the foot of the bed. She thought that if she moved to the bedside too quickly it might give Elena a shock. Gaining confidence, Bianca cast a swift glance over her shoulder and saw that Filippo had remained near the door. She smiled and he nodded encouragement. She took another step nearer the bed.

  “Elena,” she said softly.

  There was a sudden little movement in the bed as the person lying there became alert to an alien presence. Bianca spoke Elena’s name again and knew that despite the dark shadows of the bed’s abundant drapery she was being heard.

  Filippo gave Bianca some support. “Someone dear to your heart has come to see you, Elena,” he said.

  “It is I, Bianca of the Pietà. Your adopted goddaughter.” Bianca began to sing softly the old Columbina song that she and Elena and Marietta had so often sung together. “Dance, Columbina, dance! See how Harlequin—”

  An ear-splitting shriek from the dark-shadowed bed shattered the song as the creature lying there raised herself up in a great billowing of covers to reveal the pale glimmer of a face masked by the long, tangled snarls of still golden hair. In shock, Bianca uttered an involuntary echoing scream while pressing her clenched hands to her cheeks. Then she heard Elena hiss the cruelest possible words.

  “Get out! I always hated you!”

  Bianca was hysterical. She turned and ran. Filippo caught her in his arms and hastened her out through the anteroom. She neither saw nor heard where she was being taken until suddenly they were in another room where all was quiet and he was holding her cupped head against his chest and soothing her with his voice. “Hush, my little swan. My little love. My sweet. Be calm.”

  Her sobbing was such that she could not get her breath, huge gasps scarcely seeming to reach her lungs. She clung to him, brokenhearted. To have seen Elena turned into such a distortion of what she had been was more than she could bear and the spitting cry of hatred had cut through her like a knife.

  Filippo maintained the same calm tone. “Elena’s sickness has turned her brain. It was inevitable. You have learned the secret I have kept from everyone else. My hope was that you would have reawakened the past for her.”

  “But I did!” She was still sobbing convulsively. “You heard what she said.”

  He took her tear-wet face between his hands and lowered his head to bring it closer to hers. “She didn’t know what she was saying. You must try to remember that.”

  Gently he kissed her tremulous lips. She closed her eyes. Wrapped in his protective arms, she felt as safe as if she had found some peaceful haven. Her tears would not cease, although he was trying to stem them by kissing her lids. His lips were traveling on to her temples, her cheeks, her ears, and her neck. He was unpinning her folded-back Pietà veil and she supposed he let it drift to the floor, for he was combing the fingers of one hand through her hair. How sweet his lips were.

  Shock had left her in a kind of trance and she did not want to emerge from it now that all was gentle and sensual and utter bliss. To come back into the real world that lay beyond these glorious sensations would be to remember what was ugly and stressful and heartbreaking. Her gown had been unlaced and she let her head fall back while her spine arched with the pleasure of his hands and lips on her breasts.

  She continued to keep her eyes shut, the better to stay locked inside herself. With a sense of floating through the air she was being lifted onto a bed. Her
petticoats were being folded back up to her waist and her legs parted at an angle. Now she did not dare to open her eyes because of what was being done to her and she let herself slip again into depths of pleasure from which she never wanted to escape.

  When everything became more dramatic and thrusting she knew a rise of fear and opened her eyes to Filippo’s passion-ridden face. But she heard herself cry out.

  “I love you!”

  Then his mouth clamped over hers and ecstasy shot her through and through.

  In the library, Sister Giaccomina began to look at the clock. Bianca had been absent almost an hour. It must be a good sign. She returned to her work but only for a few minutes before Bianca returned.

  “What happened, my dear?” she asked eagerly, thinking the girl looked a trifle distraught. “Did you see Elena?”

  “Yes. She’s very ill. I’ll not go again.”

  “Did you tell her I was here?” Sister Giaccomina was slightly piqued that she had not been sent for, considering how long a time Bianca had had at the bedside.

  “Elena is past knowing or understanding anything.”

  The nun wrung her hands in distress, her kind eyes filling with tears. “What sad news!” Her voice quavered. “I had such hopes.”

  “May we go back to the Pietà now?”

  “Yes. I’ve finished my work for today.”

  Bianca was silent on the way back to the Pietà. Usually she and the nun chatted together but this time Sister Giaccomina did not try to converse, misconstruing the reason for the girl’s abstractedness. When the gondola brought them within sight of the Pietà, Bianca thought to herself that she had left it as a girl and was returning as a woman. She recalled Marietta’s warning that Filippo was intent on her seduction, but she accepted with a curious resignation that it had been inevitable for her to surrender as she had. Her love for him had been mounting to a peak, and her natural yearnings had been undermining all the moral standards by which she had been raised. If Elena had not already been lost to this world—the sweet, laughing, buoyant Elena with kindness in her voice and her eyes, who was now changed beyond recognition—Bianca knew that her feelings at this moment would have been very different. But then she would not have been caught up in a state of anguish that had broken down all barriers. The whole incident with Filippo would never have happened.