Venetian Mask

by Rosalind Laker

  “Paris?” she queried. “What of your silk mill in Lyon?”

  “That is still in full and expanding operation under my wife’s management. She is an excellent businesswoman, but our marriage did not turn out for the best.” He shook his head at the thought of it. “Eventually I left Louise in charge, which was what she wanted, and made the army my career. Paris became my headquarters and my home. Whenever the opportunity permits I go back to Lyon to oversee matters and to visit my children and my mother.”

  “I remember how important silk was to you. It must have been hard for you to give it all up.”

  His eyes held hers. “Nothing was as hard as losing you.”

  She replied stiffly. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Was it? Sitting here with you makes it feel like yesterday to me. Tell me about yourself. How long have you been married to Torrisi?”

  “Thirteen years, but for eight of them he and I have been separated by his wrongful imprisonment.”

  He made no comment. “Did you never make singing your career?”

  “No. I was considering touring on the concert stage whem my marriage to Domenico came about. We have a daughter and twins, a boy and a girl. And you?”

  “A son, who is already determined to enter the silk business, and two daughters.”

  “How did your family fare in the Terror? That was a horrific time for France.”

  “It is a bloodstain on our noble history.” There flashed through his mind’s eye the sight of the guillotine in his own city of Lyon, set up on a cobbled site where he and his friends had played as boys. “There were silk-mill owners who went to the blade, but those who had always striven for better working conditions were spared along with their families. Fortunately Louise had maintained the standards I had set and none of my kin were taken.”

  “I included you in my prayers during that time.”

  “It was forgiving of you to be concerned for me in spite of everything.”

  “I learned in childhood that our lives are often changed by events beyond our control.” She regarded him steadily. “We should have known the outcome from the start. We were Harlequin and Columbina. There never has been a happy ending for them.”

  He shrugged. “I doubt if I would ever have considered that notion at the time. Afterward I didn’t attempt to forget you. Maybe that was unfair to Louise, although I doubt she ever cared. She became devoted to business and money-making.”

  “Do you like army life?”

  “I’ve taken to it, but not to this command here in Venice. I’m a soldier, not an organized looter of treasures that should never be removed from their present site. I find that abhorrent!” He leaned forward, resting an arm across his thigh as he brought his face nearer hers. “I follow Bonaparte because I see him as the one leader who can raise my country up from the dregs of the Directory and the crimes that were perpetrated in the name of liberty. He will make France a true center of freedom and an example to the world!”

  “I trust you are right, but at the present time he is a despoiler of every state he enters.”

  “At the Directory’s orders! In Venice it is a matter of removing the best of everything in order not to leave it to the Austrians. Our recent treaty permits their taking over the city from us in a few months’ time.”

  She threw back her head in angry frustration. “So Venice has become no more than a pawn between foreign governments! It seems to me there’s no justice left anywhere. Domenico has been imprisoned all these years through a plot against him and although his innocence has now been proved beyond doubt, you and your predecessor have refused to listen. Here is the proof!” She thrust the papers toward him. “I demand his release in the name of your own revolutionary cry of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!”

  He raised his hand, the palm toward her. “I don’t need those. There are copies in a file I came across when I was going through my predecessor’s papers.”

  “Have you studied them?”

  “No. They did not have priority, but that doesn’t mean they would not have had my attention eventually. When I glanced through the file it struck me as an interesting case.”

  “Please read it through now.”

  He smiled at her. “I have at least twelve appointments today, including meetings with two important foreign envoys and a Swiss diplomat. Tell me, Marietta, did you have a good marriage with this Torrisi?”

  “I did and I will again when you set him free.”

  “Was it a love-match?”

  She answered him straightforwardly. “No, but it came to that, and on my side sooner than his.”

  He nodded approvingly. “We were always honest with each other. Now I’ll tell you with equal frankness that I’ve never loved another woman as I loved you. When I heard I was being posted to Venice I had a foolish, boyish dream that I might still find you at the Pietà and everything would be as it was then.” His hand moved to cup her face tenderly. “The day after I arrived here I walked along that calle to the door in the wall where I used to meet you. Then I went to stare up at the windows as if you might come to one of them and see me as I saw you from this palace today.”

  “Did you ask for me there?”

  “Yes. I met a gimlet-eyed nun who took one look at my uniform and buttoned up her mouth lest she forget her calling and tell me what she thought of my presence and that of my troops in her city. All she would say was that you had left the Pietà a long time ago.”

  She knew from his description that it had been Sister Sylvia he had met. “So your dream dissolved,” she said quietly.

  “It belonged to the past.”

  “That is how it should be, but on the strength of what we once felt for each other, I implore you to read the papers about Domenico’s case now! I want to take him home with me when you have finished.”

  He looked deeply into her eyes. “You are asking me to throw away this second chance that fate has given us.”

  Fear of him, which had been quelled during their conversation, seemed to rise up and grip her by the throat. “What do you mean?” she asked huskily.

  “I think you know,” he replied evenly. “I’m not suggesting that we could recapture what we felt in the past, but on its foundation we could build a far more rewarding relationship.”

  Slowly she rose to her feet, not taking her eyes from him. She had been willing to submit briefly to a stranger in order to gain Domenico’s freedom, but Alix was demanding a far higher price, all the more dangerous because the old look of love for her was back in his gaze. “No, Alix. That’s impossible!”

  He stood to take both her hands into his. “Forget the man who has been out of your life for eight years!” he urged. “I’ll have him transferred to house arrest somewhere, with anything he wants except freedom! He’s an enemy of France, Marietta. I cannot release him, but I can give you happiness again!”

  She faced him fiercely, keeping her head at this dire moment, aware of taking the greatest gamble of her life. “Read the papers first, Alix!”

  “It will make no difference,” he replied inflexibly. “Torrisi must stay in prison until the end of his days.”

  “Read them!”

  His brow gathered in a deep frown and his whole face tightened in controlled anger at her foolish persistence. Minutes seemed to tick away before he answered her. “Very well! But it will be a waste of my time and yours.”

  He moved sharply to summon his sergeant and told him to cancel all appointments until mid-afternoon. Then, impatiently, he took the Torrisi file from a cupboard and slapped it down on his desk. Drawing up a chair he sat down and began to read.

  Marietta sank down into her seat on the sofa again, despairing that she had goaded him into this hostile mood. Domenico’s chances were slim enough and she had made everything worse. How Alix had changed! Gone was the malleable youth who would have done anything for her. This was a man disillusioned with life, who was pinning his hopes for the future on a greedy conqueror. Apparently she had g
iven him the only true happiness he had ever known, and now he hoped to find it in her arms again.

  Anxiously she watched him as he read, seeking any glimpse of change in his inexorable expression. There was no sound in the room except for the turn of a page or the scratch of his nib as he made some note for himself. Now and again he would look up with a flinty glance to ask her a question, and in her high state of stress her voice quavered as she answered him. Then he would read on. An orderly brought hot chocolate in a silver pot with porcelain cups and a dish of little cakes. Alix took no more than a sip or two from his cup and then let it go cold as he continued his task. Marietta drank hers, for she was shivering as she fought against diminishing hope, almost as if the blood in her veins had turned to ice. The chocolate pot and cups had been removed again for a considerable while before Alix finally tossed down his quill and closed the file.

  Instinctively Marietta rose from the sofa to face him. He looked at her soberly from where he sat.

  “There has been a grave miscarriage of justice. Your husband shall be released immediately and his properties and possessions restored to him. There is an inventory in the file of the goods taken from the Palazzo Torrisi and I daresay these can be traced.”

  He sprang from his chair as she swayed, and caught her before she collapsed in her relief, holding her close as tears of joy choked her. Her head came to rest on his shoulder and she seemed unaware that he pressed his lips to her brow. But then, all too soon for him, she raised her grateful face to his and drew away.

  “You’ve given Domenico back to me, Alix. I’ll remember all my life what you have done for us and our children. Let Domenico know now, I beg you. He should not spend another minute as a prisoner.”

  “I agree.” Once again Alix summoned the sergeant and spoke out of Marietta’s hearing. Then he returned to her. “Domenico will be brought to a salon in what was formerly the Doge’s private apartment. It is not right that you and he should meet again in grim surroundings.”

  “I’d like to be waiting there for him.”

  “I’ll take you to the apartment myself.”

  She went at his side to the door, but before opening it he turned to her once more. It was their private moment of parting. They would not meet again.

  “I wish you well, Alix,” she said softly. Then she took the spray of pomegranate blossom from her cleavage and held it out to him.

  He took it with a little smile. “A memento from my Pietà Columbina.”

  “For old times’ sake.”

  He understood. The girl had almost been his, but never the woman, whose heart was elsewhere. Bending his head, he kissed her hand in final farewell. Then they went from the room.

  IN THE ORNATE salon of the Doge’s former apartment Marietta waited alone. It was quiet there except for the ticking of a magnificent gilded clock. Although she knew it would take a while before Domenico could arrive, with a maze of staircases, corridors, salons, and halls to be traversed on the way, she did not sit but wandered restlessly about the room. In her thoughts she planned how they should begin their lives together again. Now that the villa was theirs once more, the two of them would go there and spend some weeks on their own. The peace and charm of the river and countryside would help Domenico adjust to freedom again. Later the children could join them and they would become a family again.

  At last she heard voices and footsteps approaching. She stayed where she was near the window as if suddenly unable to move. The door was swung open and Domenico came alone into the room, tall and gaunt, with a prison pallor on his handsome features. At the sight of her he smiled like a man newly born, holding out his arms as he crossed the floor.

  “Beloved!”

  With a cry she flung herself into his embrace. He crushed her to him and as they kissed wildly and hungrily and lovingly she clung to him, this man who meant more to her than life itself.

  ONE EVENING SEVERAL years later Marietta went out onto the balcony of the Palazzo Torrisi to gaze at the view along the Grand Canal. It was the hour of the day and the time of year when the setting sun tinted the Doge’s Palace to amber and the domes of the Basilica to blazing copper before turning Venice into a city of gold. This was how she had first seen it from the barge bringing her to the Ospedale della Pietà. There was still a Pietà choir and orchestra, but the standard had fallen miserably. The other ospedali, whose choirs had contributed so much to the music of Venice, were closed.

  The years since the fall of the Most Serene Republic had not been kind to Venice. After a matter of months the French had moved out to let the Austrians take their place. Then, after a while, the French took Venice back again. Whenever Bonaparte, now Emperor of France, visited the city he could look out from the windows of the palace built for him opposite the Basilica at the far west end of St. Mark’s Square, which he still declared to be the finest drawing-room in Europe.

  Marietta was glad that Domenico had resolved to stay on at the Palazzo Torrisi. It was one of the very few palaces on the Grand Canal still lived in by a patrician family. The nobility had melted away, unable or unwilling to conform to all the changes, and many ordinary citizens had packed up and moved elsewhere, for there was now little trade in Venice and heavy taxes had been imposed by the French. Even the sea, which had been the friend and protector of Venice ever since its first settlers had taken refuge there to escape the barbarians, had turned against her. The treacherous water lapped higher at her ancient walls and sent creeping ripples over stone steps that had once stood dry and proud.

  The Palazzo Celano had suffered quite severe flooding some weeks before. Marietta wondered if the rose-red marble floor of that hidden room had been aswirl. Pietro had been the first to sell his palace. With the proceeds he had converted a former great residence in Padua into a much needed hospital. Since his marriage to Bianca, she had devoted herself with him to caring for the sick.

  It was to be hoped that they would be able to spare the time to attend Elizabetta’s wedding to a young Florentine banker. After many visits to Elena and Nicolò, who had had no other children, she had stayed a whole year, during which time she had become betrothed. Marietta was looking forward to traveling to Florence for the ceremony and seeing Elizabetta and Elena again. In the years since Domenico’s release she had had two more daughters and another son, who would be traveling to Florence with them.

  Her thoughts turned to Alix, to whom she owed so much. She had not seen him again after that day at the Doge’s Palace, for when she and Domenico returned from the villa to reside once more at the Palazzo Torrisi, he had already been posted elsewhere. She had grieved deeply when she heard that he had been killed leading a charge at the Battle of Marengo. Domenico had comforted her, expressing his own sorrow at the tragic death of their benefactor.

  The sound of a step made Marietta turn. Chandeliers had been lit within the salon facing the balcony and the glow fell full upon her. Domenico had come out to join her. No matter what animosity the French aroused throughout Europe, Paris still set the fashion for both sexes, and Domenico was like most men in wearing his hair short and brushed forward. His coat collar was cut high and long, and he wore slimly cut trousers instead of the now outmoded knee breeches. Company was expected for a card party and he was exceptionally well dressed for the occasion.

  “What a perfect evening,” he remarked appreciatively, resting both hands on the balustrade. After those years of being shut away he appreciated freedom as never before. It saddened him that all he had warned against had come about, but he was not without hope for the future. There was a spirit of independence rising again among Venetians and mentally he carried a banner toward the day when the insurgents were finally driven out of the city. He had a vision of handing on that banner to his sons when younger men were needed to secure the final triumph.

  He glanced with a smile at Marietta as she slipped an arm through his. “Our guests will soon be arriving,” he reminded her.

  She nodded. “Let’s wait here a little lo
nger. Do you think Carnival will ever be restored to Venice?”

  “I’m sure of it, although never for so long as it was before, because that could stir up old evils from the past. Whatever made you think of that?”

  “I’ve been reminiscing while standing here.”

  There came a sudden chatter of voices from the salon behind them. Adrianna and Leonardo had arrived with several other guests. Domenico moved away from the balustrade to go to them.

  For a few moments Marietta lingered on, watching as the sunset faded. In spite of all that Venice had been through in recent years, its old magic was still there. The Serene City would always cast its spell over those seeing it for the first time and hold them in thrall for the rest of their lives, as it did her. Venice had laid claim to her before she’d ever seen it—on the day she had raised the lid of the box that held the golden mask.

  Then she saw that Domenico was waiting for her, his hand extended and his eyes smiling. She responded, putting her fingers into his firm clasp, and re-entered the palace at his side. He was all Venice to her.

  About the Author

  ROSALIND LAKER’s previous novels include The Golden Tulip and To Dance with Kings, both reissued by Three Rivers Press. She lives in Sussex, England.

  Also from Rosalind Laker

  An epic generational tale of loves lost, promises kept, dreams broken, and monarchies shattered, To Dance with Kings is a story of passion and privilege, humble beginnings and limitless ambition.

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  A Novel

  $14.95 paper (Canada: $19.95)

  978-0-307-35255-2

  The Golden Tulip brings one of the most exciting periods of Dutch history to life, creating a page-turning novel that is as vivid and unforgettable as a Vermeer painting.