“Where is he?” she cried, swinging around to face Adrianna, who had followed her into the room.
“Francesca was in Venice visiting her parents-in-law. She has taken Danilo home with her.” Adrianna put a consoling arm around Marietta’s shoulders. “It had to be.”
Marietta dropped her face into her hands.
KINFOLK FROM FAR afield began to arrive at the Palazzo Celano for the funeral. At first each new arrival was outraged to hear that a Torrisi woman was in charge of Filippo’s sick wife, but Alessandro soon quelled this open opposition, even though angry resentment continued to simmer. The general opinion was that when Pietro arrived he would soon send Signora Torrisi packing. In the meantime, although the gathering relatives wore mourning clothes, they enjoyed many lively reunions. Some were accommodated by Alvise, and a few of the more distant cousins were housed with Vitale, who had one of the best wine cellars in Venice, which compensated to a degree for his somewhat noisy and boisterous company.
Bianca was crossing the reception hall when servants appeared from the main staircase carrying baggage that denoted the arrival of yet another Celano relative. She paused in order not to present her departing back to the traveler. Then in the doorway she saw a tall young man of comparatively good looks, with alert hazel eyes under peaked brows, thick brown hair that would have rippled into waves if it had not been drawn back severely into the customary bow at the back of his neck, and a well-cut mouth. A general family likeness stamped him before he spoke.
“Good day, signorina. I’m Dr. Pietro Celano.”
He had guessed her identity even as she had his. This exquisite girl with the withdrawn look in her long-lashed eyes, her fair hair softly dressed, attired as she was in what he knew to be the scarlet gown of Pietà girls, was the indirect reason for Elena’s incarceration and his brother’s death.
“I’m Bianca,” she said coolly, wanting to distance herself from all Celanos, “a flutist at the Pietà. At present I’m helping to nurse Elena.”
He had come forward. “How is she?”
“Still very ill.”
“I hope I may be of some service to her.”
“She already has a good doctor attending her.” It was a rebuff.
“I’m sure she has.” He noticed that a manservant was waiting to show him to his room and he bowed to her. “We shall meet at dinner, no doubt.”
She did not trouble to tell him that she and Marietta and the nun took their meals in a small salon adjoining the sickroom.
Within a half hour of his arrival Pietro, bathed and changed from his journey, was at Elena’s bedside. Although she did not know him, for they had never met, she gave him a little smile.
“I’m Pietro, Elena.”
“You have come to see me,” she whispered, no strength in her voice. “How kind.” She closed her eyes again.
He glanced inquiringly across at Marietta, who sat by the opposite side of the bed with Bianca. Marietta shook her head to show that as yet Elena knew nothing of Filippo’s death. Dr. Grassi had advised against it.
At that moment a gathering rasping of breath that signaled the onset of a coughing bout began to convulse Elena, and although Marietta sprang to her Pietro was first, holding her in his arms until it was over. Then he asked Marietta to support Elena while he took a doctor’s listening device from his pocket and put his ear to one end as he placed the other to Elena’s chest and then her back. When she had been lowered back onto her pillows, he stood looking at her while Marietta drew the covers about her again.
“How long has Elena been plagued by this coughing?”
“Ever since she was brought out of captivity,” Marietta told him.
“In her condition her heart won’t stand the strain much longer. What is she taking?” He took the bottle of black liquid that Bianca handed to him, uncorked it and smelled the contents. “This is useless.”
He left the bedchamber only to return a few minutes later with a gold-colored physic of his own mixing. Elena received a small spoonful from him.
“Repeat the dose every three hours,” he instructed Marietta. Then to Bianca he added, “You are the expert at opening windows, I believe. Would you set one open now? It does a patient no good to be closeted in airless conditions.”
Bianca looked warily at him. “What do you mean by an expert?”
He strolled across to her. “Nobody seems to know how or why the key to the marble salon disappeared the night Filippo fell. Marietta had her hands full with Elena and my guess is that it was someone else who locked him in and threw away the key. If the Grand Canal could be dredged, do you think it might be found?”
Her eyes flashed. “You know it was me, don’t you! Yes, I did throw it away. I wanted him shut in where he could never harm anyone again!”
Anxiously Marietta took a step forward. “It all happened in the heat of the moment!”
“I’m sure it did,” he acknowledged evenly, his glance piercing. Then he turned to leave, saying that he would return later.
Bianca opened the window, wondering how much more he would guess.
Pietro came back after dinner. Both Marietta and Sister Giaccomina could see he was extremely anxious about Elena’s condition. He felt her pulse and asked that the cool damp cloths Bianca laid across her forehead be constantly changed. Before retiring to bed he appeared again.
“Call me in the night if Elena gets any worse,” he said to Marietta.
At two o’clock in the morning Bianca went for him at a run, bursting into his room and waking him up with a shake. “Please come!” she cried frantically. “We fear Elena is dying.”
He hurled himself from the bed, threw on a robe, snatched up his medical bag, and ran with her. For the rest of the night they all labored together to save Elena.
“She’s not fighting!” he exclaimed once.
Just before dawn Elena became weaker, as if finally ready to slip away. Marietta gathered the thin hands into hers. “No, Elena! No! Think of Elizabetta! Think of Nicolò! Don’t leave them never knowing each other!”
Sister Giaccomina and Bianca always declared afterward that Elena had heard Marietta’s appeal. Marietta had no doubts about it herself, and it was the moment when she knew what Elizabetta’s future must be. Pietro saw only that Marietta’s cry had coincided with the breaking of the fever, but whatever the cause, Elena turned the corner.
“It doesn’t mean that she is out of danger,” Pietro said to Marietta later in the day. “The possibility of a relapse is ever present. She must have absolute quiet and constant nursing.”
“I should like to reinstate Elena’s personal maid, who was dismissed when the imposture began.”
“Most certainly.”
“In that case Bianca could go back to the Pietà.”
He shook his head. “I want you to retain the team you have.”
Bianca’s feelings were mixed when she was told. She wanted to help nurse Elena, but she also longed to be away from the Palazzo Celano and never set foot in it again.
Immediately after the funeral Pietro made his presence felt throughout the palace. He never raised his voice or spoke sharply, but all respected his authority. Servants scuttled to obey his orders, seeing him at first as a younger Filippo, but it soon became clear to everyone that he was a very different man. Dr. Grassi, who had heard all about Pietro’s achievements, was willing to accept his tactful suggestions as to how Elena’s treatment might be improved. Her cough had eased with Pietro’s medicine and she slept better at night. Some other herbal concoction that Pietro gave her stimulated her appetite and gradually she was able to digest light meals. Sometimes Pietro went to the kitchen and produced something for her himself.
It had been Marietta’s conviction that Elena remembered nothing of her rescue, but the day came when the tell-tale question was asked.
“Where is Filippo?”
Marietta leaned over her. “He is not here anymore.”
“Did that fall kill him?”
“It is believe
d he struggled up the stairs and fell a second time.”
Elena closed her eyes frowningly. “How terrible!”
“Try not to think about it.”
Another day Elena asked where Domenico was. “Why hasn’t he come to see me?”
“He can’t,” Marietta replied sadly. “Domenico is still in prison. I sent a letter today telling him that I’m here nursing you.”
“But those papers!” Elena tried to sit up. “They told everything. I read them through until I knew every word. Take them to the Doge!”
Elena became so distressed that Marietta, despairing at what had been lost, had difficulty in calming her. “When you are well enough we shall put everything together again.”
That seemed to settle Elena, but Marietta could not see that her friend’s evidence would hold any weight in their present condition.
Alessandro stayed long enough to advise Pietro on many of the business and family matters that would now be his responsibility. Then, the day before he began his journey back to Rome, he had a talk with Lavinia. “As you know,” he began, “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
She nodded unhappily. “Are you taking me back to Mother on the way?”
He understood. “Your duties in that respect are at an end, Lavinia. Pietro has made a suggestion to me about your future. We know that when you were a girl you wanted to take the veil. It is not too late. There’s a convent on the outskirts of Rome that stands in beautiful and peaceful grounds. The nuns grow food for the hungry and flowers to sell in aid of the poor. Would you like to go there?”
Her face grew radiant and she clasped her hands together excitedly. “Could I, Alessandro? May I never go back to that hateful house?”
“You are free of it. We’ll leave for Rome together.”
“I have always loved to garden. Pietro knows that,” she exclaimed joyfully. “But Mother never approved of my soiling my hands and kept me from it.”
“Tell your maidservant to pack whatever you need.”
It was a relief to Alessandro when he delivered Lavinia to the convent. All along the journey she had chatted incessantly about the digging and planting and hoeing and sowing she would do, as well as the flowers she loved best and what vegetables gave the richest crops. He realized she must have been reading gardening books for years.
HAD DR. GRASSI still been in charge, Elena would have lain in bed for months, but one morning Pietro lifted her out of it and sat her by the fire in a cushioned chair. Bianca was quick to put a blanket over her legs.
Elena smiled at him. “How good this feels! I thought I would have to remain boxed in by the bed draperies for ages yet.”
“This will be only for ten minutes today,” he said, resting his hands on the arms of her chair as he grinned at her. “We’ll increase the time gradually if you don’t get too tired.”
“I won’t,” she promised. When he had gone, she rested her head back on the cushion. “What a dear man he is! It can’t be just that he was sent away from the rest of the Celano family when he was young, because Lavinia has the same kind nature.”
Bianca, who was the only one in the room with her, said nothing.
ADRIANNA HAD BEEN the only visitor allowed to see Elena to date. As the invalid grew a little stronger, Elizabetta began to visit her too in Adrianna’s company. It had been Marietta’s suggestion. She had explained to the child beforehand that it had not been Elena who treated her so roughly outside the Basilica, but the explanation had hardly been necessary. Upon entering the room and seeing Elena smiling at her, Elizabetta had run to her joyfully with outstretched arms.
“You’re back, Elena! Please don’t go away again!”
Between tears and laughter, Elena, in her chair, had embraced and kissed her daughter for the first time since she was newborn.
It did not take Elena long to discover that much had been happening politically during her illness and that the situation was accelerating during her convalescence. The French had signed an armistice with the Austrians, and General Bonaparte’s attitude toward the Venetian Republic was becoming decidedly more aggressive. Elena expected to hear more from Pietro when he returned from taking his place for the first time in the Hall of the Great Council. Bianca, who was attending her, withdrew when he entered, leaving them alone together.
“How did everything go?” Elena inquired eagerly.
Pietro smiled ruefully and shook his head. “I was far from impressed by the Doge in council. He’s nervous and worried and indecisive. Venice should have a strong leader at this vital time.”
“He is voted in for life,” she pointed out.
“More’s the pity. La Serenissima is in great danger. I can see it coming nearer all the time.”
“Marietta’s husband warned of that.”
“Thus fell the House of Torrisi,” he remarked drily.
She leaned forward. “Domenico was a true patriot and never a traitor! Filippo plotted and connived and even bribed false witnesses to get him thrown into prison. I found papers to prove it, but Marietta told me only a few days ago that the dampness has obliterated the evidence.”
Pietro regarded her steadily for a few moments before he spoke. “Tell me what you know.” When she had concluded, he asked if Marietta would let him have the papers.
“Yes, I think she would. But her friend Sebastiano has just returned them to her as being quite useless even with all I was able to remember from reading them. What more could you do?”
“I’ve a friend in Padua who is an expert at deciphering writing believed to be lost. Naturally his work is on ancient manuscripts, but I see no reason why he should not try his luck with the papers you took from Filippo’s cupboard. I suppose those you put in their place are still there.”
Before Pietro went to bed he followed Elena’s instructions and discovered that Filippo had never checked the papers again. One of those that had been switched had the beginnings of a letter by Elena to someone called Nicolò.
MARIETTA FETCHED THE bundle of papers for Pietro, but before she handed them over she asked him a very direct question. “What is your ultimate purpose in letting these papers be studied? Are you genuinely interested in clearing the name of Torrisi, which has always been anathema to the Celanos, or do you want to convince yourself of your late brother’s guilt and then destroy the findings?”
He was not offended by her directness. On the contrary he welcomed it. “If your husband has been unjustly imprisoned through the action of a Celano, it is my moral duty to put the matter right, whatever the cost.”
She believed him. Since first meeting Pietro she had felt he was his own man, not bound in any way by Celano traditions. “You will have my everlasting gratitude if you can prove Domenico’s innocence. What if I told you the vendetta still lives?”
“Then I would say you had a son. I trust you have him somewhere safe.”
She nodded. “Can you not ensure his safety for me?”
Pietro tapped the papers that he held. “If the truth can be coaxed from these, I will be in an unassailable position to denounce the vendetta on grounds of the shame brought down on the name of Celano by Filippo’s actions, and by the need to make amends to Domenico Torrisi. Only then can harmony be ensured and all threat removed from your son’s life.”
“You’re a good man,” she said huskily.
Pietro dispatched the papers in the charge of a special messenger, and Elena was delighted to hear they were on their way.
“Who is Nicolò?” he asked her one day during a lull in their conversation.
She flushed. “Someone I loved once. I used to write him letters that I never sent.”
“The one I glimpsed was dated shortly before your incarceration. Is he the father of Elizabetta?”
Her eyes widened. “Why should you think that?”
“On the night we almost lost you, Marietta urged you not to die and prevent Elizabetta and Nicolò ever knowing each other.” He leaned his arms on the back of a chair as he stood watching he
r. “I’ve also seen the child several times. Elizabetta bears a certain likeness to you now that I think about it. Yesterday Marietta asked if the child might stay at the palace for the time being. I thought then that she wanted one of her children with her. Now I realize it is to let you have more time with your own daughter.”
“I gave her to Marietta,” Elena said brokenly. “I shouldn’t be seeing her.”
“Maybe Marietta is giving her back to you now that Filippo has gone.”
Elena bowed her head and spread a hand over her face. “It’s a gift I can’t accept.”
Pietro, giving her time to recover herself, took the chair by its top-rail and swung it forward to sit down close to her. “Was Nicolò married?”
She let her hand drop. “No, but he will be by now. It’s been a long time.”
He listened as she told him the whole story. His expression was that of a listener who had paid close attention to many revelations. When she finished by revealing that Nicolò had extracted a final promise that she would contact him if ever she were free to do so, he gave an encouraging nod.
“Then why not write to him in friendship when you feel able? I will see that the letter is sent.”
If Pietro had judged that it had been no more than a fleeting affair between Elena and Nicolò he would never have given her that advice. She had endured so much, this woman who had been a young and innocent Pietà girl tossed like a parcel from one man to the next and used most cruelly in her marriage. She had been forced to part with her newborn infant and then had not been spared seeing her grow up with no knowledge of their relationship. If some shred of happiness could be salvaged for Elena it would be no more than her due. Marietta’s unselfish wish to share Elizabetta fully with her real mother showed that she also felt the time had come for Elena to be compensated for fate’s hard turns against her.
Pietro’s suggestion remained with Elena, although she did nothing about it. She had lost her looks and her figure and was no longer the woman Nicolò had loved. Her incarceration had changed her. Inwardly she was stronger than she had ever been, even if her physical weakness denied it. Her thoughts went to Domenico. If his innocence should be proved through the papers that Marietta had handed over to Pietro, how would Domenico and Marietta pick up the pieces of their lives and begin again? He too would be changed, even as Marietta had become a new person with a developed business sense and the ability to support herself and her family.
Venetian Mask Page 45
