The Viceroys

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by Federico De Roberto


  Now Don Blasco, who had already set himself against the marchese for his marriage to Chiara and against Chiara for her sudden conversion from hatred to love of her husband, had blamed both of them for the fiction to which they had lent themselves in order to obey that mad sister-in-law of his who ought to be in an asylum. What he blamed them for even more, and found even more unforgivable, was their not insisting on their rights to the paternal inheritance.

  In fact, according to the Benedictine, the Uzeda fortunes were not entirely destroyed when Donna Teresa entered the family; and in any case, as the income from the properties had been paid even in the very worst times, the princess should have taken them into account, as she could scarcely pretend they all went in daily expenses. They had helped, on the other hand, to pay off the debts and save the estates, then had all been fused with the newly reconstructed family fortune and were put down in the general assets of Prince Consalvo VII. The latter, like the idiot he had always been, had gone and crowned his short and stupid life with that clownish Will, imposed and dictated by his wife; by this, in declaring the whole of his family fortune as destroyed from ‘family disasters’ he had left his children ‘enough to make a dog retch …’, their mother’s affection; but now the children—if they weren’t even more idiotic than their father—ought to demand accounts down to the very last cent.

  With this aim the monk had gone assiduously round his nieces and nephews, except for Raimondo, to whom he had not said a word for years and years just because he had been his mother’s favourite, and incited them to stand up for their rights; but no one, in the princess’s lifetime, had dared breathe a word; and he had reluctantly excused them in view of the pressure to which she had subjected them. But this marchese who was only a son-in-law and so should not be afraid of her, and who had already been tricked once in that matter of the capital, was considered by Don Blasco the worst of cowards for deciding not to speak out. Why? Please why? Because of his declaring he had married Chiara for the love he bore her and not for the money that she could bring him …! Such was the monk’s fury that it brought on an attack of bile, but in time he had shut his mouth and waited for his sister-in-law’s death before sallying into battle again. Now she had finally died and that bestial Will of hers had been read out, the furious monk forgot Federico and Chiara’s stupidity and attacked them once again to get them to take action. The dead woman, instead of declaring ‘honestly’ how much was her husband’s part and dividing it ‘equally’ among all her children, was now disposing of the entire family fortune as if it was her own! Not content with that, she was defrauding the legitimate heirs by pretending to assign them a quota higher than the law, but in reality giving them ‘nothing at all’. Chiara in particular had been ‘stripped like a wood’, as the Will never mentioned Canon Risà’s legacy. This was another of Donna Teresa’s little arrangements some time before.

  Among other arguments used to conquer Chiara’s resistance and induce her to marry the marchesc, the princess had used money too, but in order not to open her own purse strings she had recourse to an uncle of hers, Canon Risà of Caltagirone, who promised a legacy of five thousand onze to his grandniecc if the girl would marry the Marchese of Villardita. Donna Teresa had countersigned the document to guarantee this payment on condition that this sum really existed in the property left by the Canon, who promised to leave everything to her. Instead of which when the Canon died two years before leaving his property half to his old housekeeper and half to the princess, she had refused to recognise the pact made; nor did the marchese, from respect and disinterest, think of asking for it to be carried out.

  Don Blasco now, as his sister-in-law had not even remembered that obligation in her Will and even arranged ‘with her infernal art’ that other little matter of the four thousand onze which Chiara had never received, and which she was to contribute as if she had already received them, visited the marchese every day to turn him against the dead woman and the co-heirs, inciting him to demand: firstly the legal division; secondly the money of the marriage contract with all its back interest; thirdly the part due to Chiara from her father; fourthly the Canon’s legacy: and he would show in a flash that not only ten thousand onze assigned her in the Will was due to her, but three times as much at least. The marchese, though he listened and nodded to all that the monk said, for discussion was impossible with this blessed Benedictine, told his wife that he had no wish to cause any family quarrel and would wait and see what the others did. And Chiara fell in with that as with all her husband’s other opinions. In her heart though she agreed with her uncle, and wanted to be given what was due to her, for in her vying devotion she was sorry that Federico should have to sustain the whole weight of their household expenses alone; but the marchese, on his side, protested, ‘I took you for yourself and not for your money! Even if you had nothing it wouldn’t matter to me … And anyway it doesn’t mean we’ll renounce our rights. Let’s leave it to Lucrezia and Ferdinanda to act first. I don’t want to be the one to start a law case in your family …’

  This disinterest and respect which he showed for the Uzeda family increased Chiara’s devotion and admiration and she agreed with him the more eagerly, as in those very days, after making a vow, by the Abbess of San Placido’s advice, to the miraculous San Francesco di Paola, she had new hope of being pregnant. And so in order to defend her husband from that horse-fly of a Don Blasco she faced her uncle herself and said to him:

  ‘Yes, indeed; your Excellency’s right, and only talking from love of us; but our respect for the wishes of our mother …”

  ‘Your mother was an animal,’ shouted the monk. ‘Even more than you are!… What was it your mother wanted? To ruin you all for love of Raimondo and hatred of Giacomo! You’re as mad as she was! A bunch of madmen, the lot of you …’ And more and more enraged by the endless love-play between husband and wife, particularly during mealtimes when they would serve each other as if in mid-honeymoon and coo away like two doves, the monk burst out, ‘I don’t really know which of you two is more of an animal …’

  At this Chiara once took him aside and protested:

  ‘Your Excellency can say what you like to me, but don’t touch on Federico. I won’t allow you to speak badly of him …’

  ‘What the hell do I care what you allow!’ burst out the monk in reply. ‘Or d’you think people have forgotten that first you didn’t even want him as pigs’ food and threatened to let yourself die rather than marry that water melon …?’

  The niece turned her back on her uncle; the latter sent his niece to stew in her own juice, vowing never to set foot in her home again, and loudly calling himself a triple-dyed idiot for the stupid interest he had taken in that pair of animals. But those were mere sailors’ vows; he could not resign himself to being silent and was set on preventing the dead woman’s Will being carried out. And so, while awaiting a chance to return to the charge, he began to work on Ferdinando.

  Whatever hour he went to see him, up at Pietra dell’Ovo, he found him always alone, with plane or saw or hoe in hand, intent on working as carpenter or gardener, in his shirtsleeves, like a workman or peasant. He had been like that since childhood, had Ferdinando; taciturn, timid, half-wild because of the little care his mother had taken of him, forced to amuse himself as best he could, for he never got a present even of the poorest toy. He had more or less brought himself up, used his own ingenuity to get what he needed and to look after himself. When others went out for amusement he stayed in the house, tearing up wooden or cardboard boxes to make little theatres or altars or huts which he would then give to whoever asked for them, particularly to Lucrezia, of whom he felt very fond as his companion in destiny; and if at times they came to look for him because he had visitors, or some relation wanted to see him, he would run off and hide in holes where no one could manage to find him, or take refuge in the shop of a watchmaker, a close friend who was teaching him his craft.

  One day, on St Ferdinand’s Day, Don Cono Canalà gave him a copy o
f Robinson Crusoe. He devoured it from cover to cover and was overwhelmed as if by a revelation. From that moment his taste for the savage life grew; his one and constant desire was to be shipwrecked on a desert island and sustain himself. Then he began to try out experiments in the garden and terrace of the villa, and acquired a taste for country life which the princess encouraged. She had given him the nickname of ‘The Booby’, because of his crazy manias, but, realising that these favoured her own plans, she let him run wild at the Pietra dell’Ovo, first amid the shrubbery and cacti, then in time, maturing her plan for general spoilage in favour of her eldest son and of Raimondo, over the whole estate, insisting, however, on a contract in full legal order, by which her son had to pay her five hundred onze a year on the takings with the residue to him.

  The contract was a bargain to Donna Teresa, for it saved her thirty-six onze a year for the agent, as Ferdinando went straight off to settle there so as to cultivate on his own the island which he had acquired; and then it ensured her an income which the estate did not yield. The Booby relied on improvements to pay the five hundred onze for his mother, leaving the rest for himself, and as soon as he entered into possession he began digging, scooping out wells, tearing down almond trees to plant lemons, stripping vineyards to replant almond trees, going his own sweet way, in a word, as he had dreamt. His pleasure, actually, would have been far greater had he been able to do all by himself; but, forced to call in labourers and gardeners, he himself worked with them, tearing out weeds, carrying off basketfuls of stones, lopping trees, and acting as carpenter, builder and decorator too, for one of his first occupations had been to enlarge and embellish the agent’s old house. He was happy leading the life of the hero who had excited his imagination as if he really were on a desert island a thousand miles from the world. He slept on a kind of sailor’s bunk, made tables and chairs by himself, and the house was like a workshop, littered with saws, planes, drills, pulleys, spades and picks; there was also an assortment of stakes and beams, and sacks of flour to make bread, and supplies of gunpowder, a shelf of books, all the things which a wrecked man would save from a ship before it broke up.

  From the very first year, though, he had been unable to pay the whole of the rent promised to his mother; there still remained a good half to give her which the princess noted regularly as a debt from him. Then by changing plantations, putting into action novelties he heard talk of or read about in treatises on agriculture or thought up for himself, he succeeded in diminishing the yield from the estate each year. It was the fault of hired labourers who did not carry his orders out properly, he would say, or of the confused weather, but his mother would jeer at him on purpose to encourage him in his mania, and succeeded wonderfully well. And the yield got less and less, and did not even reach a hundred onze, in spite of the fact that apart from his tools and a book or two he never spent a thing on himself and subsisted frugally on the products of his garden and shooting; and the few times when he did appear at the palace he scandalised even the servants, he was so ragged and dirty and down at heel in very old clothes.

  But the princess, though deriding him, let him be, and noted down one after the other in her book of rents all the money which he failed to give her every year. This already amounted to quite a considerable sum which the Booby did not know where to lay hands on. His continual fear was that his mother, tired of finding she was never paid, would take the estate away from him; and indeed the princess did threaten this more than once. Thus a master-stroke in her Will was assigning the property at Pietra dell’Ovo to Ferdinando. That property was worth more to him than a great estate: if he were to exchange it for the whole of his elder brother’s heritage he feared to lose on the deal. As if that was not enough there was also the condonation of past rents which now totalled nearly one thousand five hundred onze; so that, quite beside himself with delight, he thought himself very well treated indeed, beyond his every hope, and to Don Blasco trying to induce him to rebel he would say, candidly, stopping work, his digging or his pruning:

  ‘What? Isn’t what I’ve got enough?’

  ‘But you should have had at least three times as much! You’ve been tricked with all the others! Your father’s part is due to you in equal proportion to all the others, and now’s the moment to claim it! And don’t you know that Giacomo didn’t even send for you on the day of your mother’s death?’

  ‘That’s impossible!’ replied Ferdinando scandalised. ‘But why?’

  ‘So he could lay hands on certain papers and valuables! He rushed up there and began turning the whole villa upside down. That’s known! And then he went through all that act of putting on seals! You’ll realise that when you see the inventory, my little virgin soul!’

  The monk was in a frenzy of impatience for this inventory, but the prince on the other hand seemed in no hurry to know what there was in the house, never spoke of business to any of his brothers or sisters, not even to his co-heir Raimondo, to whom it never even occurred to ask for any account. In spite of mourning the latter was always out at the Nobles’ Club, chatting about Florence to old friends, having his game of cards, or commenting on the carriages that filed past at the evening parade. And Don Blasco made Ferdinando’s ears hum with his invective against his brother. ‘A scandal, a lack of respect to the dead woman whose body is still warm,’ was the conduct of this good-for-nothing who thought only of amusement, who had not come to ‘close his mother’s eyes’ even for love of the money which she wanted to give him brevi manu, ‘stolen from the others!…’ Then on the day when the inventory was finally made out and it showed that cash in hand had been only five onze and two tarì in ready money, and a security of a hundred ducats, the monk rushed off to Ferdinando like a madman.

  ‘D’you see? D’you see? D’you see?… What did I say? Five onze! Your mother never had less than a thousand! And securities! Securities! I knew of up to five thousand ducats’ worth!… D’you understand now? D’you see how your dear brother has robbed you? That thief of a Signor Marco there held the sack open for him! Robbed! Robbed! If you don’t complain, if you don’t make yourself heard, you deserve to have ’em spitting in your face!’

  On and on he went about this new deception to his nephew, who was stunned by all the shouting. Why, for instance, had Giacomo left Signor Marco in his job, when he had thrown out all the servants whom his mother had protected, the head coachman, the cook, all those to whom she had left something? That ‘pig’ Signor Marco, ‘the evil genius’ of the dead woman, should have got a ‘kick in the backside’ as soon as his protectress had closed her eyes; instead of which why ever was he still in service after two months? Just because as soon as his former mistress died he had flung himself ‘vilely’ at the new master’s feet, handed everything over to him, let him ‘steal’ the valuables which were to go ‘to all’ or at least ‘to the co-heir …’

  And here was this fool Ferdinando acting the simpleton, refusing to believe all this chicanery and declaring himself grateful to his mother for letting him off that fifteen hundred onze! As if that contract between mother and son had not been all wrong in itself, as if the princess had not on purpose settled for a sum higher than the yield from the property so as to get him into her clutches all the more …! Yet by dint of preaching to him that he should have more money, that he could be more than twice, more than three times as rich, the monk might have managed to shake his nephew, had he not, as he had with Chiara by speaking ill of her husband, committed a grave imprudence with Ferdinando too. Ferdinando feared that if he refused the Will and asked for the legal division, Pietra dell’Ovo might pass into the hands of others, or that at least he would have to divide it with his brothers. One day Don Blasco, when showing him the chance of keeping all for himself, cried out:

  ‘And anyway if you do lose this place, you’ll get another in exchange worth a hundred times more …’

  ‘No, Excellency,’ replied Ferdinando. ‘There’s no other place like this in our family.’

  ‘Like this?�
� the monk burst out then. ‘Just about good enough to fling a herd of pigs on? What’s there here apart from acorns? Particularly now that you’ve completely ruined it with your mad experiments?’

  Ferdinando, hearing his own land and work run down, was struck dumb and flushed like a tomato. Then, recovering his voice, he declared:

  ‘Excellency, you know the proverb? “A madman knows more of his own home than a wise man of others”.’

  Then the monk, gurking curses at this ill-mannered nephew, never went up to his ‘pigsty’ again and was reduced to laying siege to Lucrezia. He had kept her to the last because, with all his instinctive loathing for each of his nieces and nephews, it was her he loathed most.

  Like Chiara and Ferdinando, Lucrezia could not remember her mother ever giving her a caress; but whereas Chiara from the beginning had the relative merit in the monk’s eyes of resisting the princess in the matter of her marriage, and Ferdinando that of having been sent away from home, his youngest niece had nothing but demerits, one worse than the other. Under Donna Teresa’s lash, treated with particular harshness for having been born when her mother expected no more children, considered an intruder come to steal part of the money destined to the two males, Lucrezia had grown up, said the Benedictine, like a ‘marmot’: backward, taciturn, savage as Ferdinando, and always so distracted that her answers aroused laughter from everyone except her uncle Blasco, who could have eaten her alive.

  In her subjugation and ill-treatment of her daughter, the princess never forgot her principal aim; that of keeping her at home, a spinster. So, assiduously, daily she had shown Lucrezia that marriage was not for her; firstly because of her bad health—but the girl was perfectly well; then because the good of the family required it—and she pointed to the example of Donna Ferdinanda; then because with no money she would never be able to find a suitable match—and the exception of the Marchese Federico confirmed the rule; and finally, in case all this was not enough, because she was ugly too—and there she told the truth. When the mother saw her looking in a mirror, or on the rare occasions when the girl was present at visits Donna Teresa would exclaim, ‘How ugly you are, my girl!… What a misfortune it is to have such an ugly daughter, is it not?’ The most persuasive argument even so was that of poverty; the money belonged to the ‘males’. When her agents brought in sackloads of coin she would say to Lucrezia, ‘D’you see these? They’re all for the men …’ And if the girl raised her eyes to the maps of their estates hanging in the antechambers, her mother would repeat, ‘What are you looking at? They’re all property of the men!’

 

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