‘Keep calm now!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t let’s exaggerate on either side. The papers are there …’
‘No one’ll touch them!’
‘They want to make up the accounts, you’re ready to hand them over …’
‘Now, this very minute …’
‘Then you’re bound to come to an agreement. Make up these accounts, see if your mother’s division is just or not; arrange everything in a friendly way.’
‘Now, this instant!’ repeated the prince, following his uncle, who was moving off. ‘Why didn’t they talk before? I’m not the Holy Ghost to guess what’s milling in those unbalanced heads of theirs!’
‘There’s time! There’s time!’ repeated the duke in a conciliatory tone, without pointing out to his nephew the contradiction into which he was now falling after asserting before that he knew of their plots. ‘Don’t get so excited about it! I’ll talk to Raimondo, then to the others; the papers are there; there won’t be any questions, you’ll see … Oh, by the by,’ he exclaimed, turning back at the door, ‘what about that matter of the convent?’
‘What matter?…’ replied the prince in surprise.
‘The legacy for Masses … The thousand onze that you won’t give Angiolina …’
‘Thousand onze? I won’t give her them?…’ exclaimed Giacomo then. ‘Can’t Your Excellency see what cheats and liars they all are? I won’t give her them? Why, our mother’s legacy is null as it means the institution of a benefice, and no institution of a benefice is valid without royal approval!’
In the Yellow Drawing-room Don Blasco was chewing his nails, knowing that brother of his was in confabulation with his nephew and not being able to hear what they were discussing. In his frustration he was snorting and pacing up and down, not even listening to what was being said around him.
Cousin Graziella had arrived and was chatting with the princess, Lucrezia and Donna Ferdinanda; less with Matilde, in order to show she participated in the feelings of the Uzeda towards the intruder. Once she had thought that she herself, Cousin Graziella, could enter the Francalanza family too, could take first place there in fact, as Prince Giacomo’s wife, but her Aunt Teresa’s opposition had triumphed over both her and the young man. Instead of ‘Princess’ she was now called simply ‘Signora Carvano’. But although her cousin had taken the wife his mother chose for him, put his heart at rest and even seemed to have forgotten that there had once been tender words between the two of them, she had continued to make love, if not with him, with his family. She came to the house assiduously, made close friends with Princess Margherita, induced her husband to go and pay court to the Uzeda too, held Teresina at the baptismal font, and showed in every way and on all occasions that her old failed hopes could not weaken her affection for all her cousins.
During Donna Teresa’s illness, and particularly after her death, Donna Graziella had almost become a member of the family; every day and evening she came to get news, lavish sympathy, suggest advice, and make herself useful in word and deed. The princess had no reason for being jealous of her, as Giacomo appeared so indifferent towards his cousin that at certain times he scarcely said a word to her, dropped the tu and called her by the cold voi. But Margherita was incapable of jealousy or any other feeling for her or anyone else, so much did her natural listlessness and need of isolation and the subjection in which she was held by her husband render her indifferent to everyone and everything apart from her own children.
That afternoon in fact, after dinner, the nurse had come to tell her that the baby was coughing a little. Nothing serious, of course, but she had been worried, and her cousin on hearing the news made much show of medical knowledge, advised decoctions for her goddaughter, assuring her, however, that the illness was not serious, yet scolding even so the nurse who must have left the balcony window open.
Raimondo, who usually escaped as soon as he had snatched a mouthful to eat, seemed to want to stay at home for his own pleasure, and Matilde, reassured, suddenly forgot her sadness of an hour before and followed him round with radiant looks. She was so made that a word, a mere nothing, could disturb or reassure her, and she asked so little to be happy! If only he were always like that, if he dedicated a part of his time to his family, if he were as prodigal of caresses to his own baby as he was that evening to little Prince Consalvo … The latter, amid the group of men, was repeating his declensions to the Cavaliere Don Eugenio, who had appointed himself tutor, amid the applause of the parasites, who were dazzled by his every reply; but he was beginning to get confused and make mistakes.
‘Don’t torment him any more, poor child!…’ exclaimed Donna Ferdinanda. ‘Here, come to auntie … They’re making your head fuzzy with all these stories, eh? You just reply, “I’m not going to be a writing-master, am I?” ’
Don Eugenio, hearing belles-lettres despised, replied:
‘He must study, though!… A man’s worth as much as he knows. And then you must also honour the name you bear; among your ancestors is Don Ferrante Uzeda, glory of Sicily!’
‘Don Ferrante?’ exclaimed the old spinster, ‘what did Don Ferrante do?’
‘What did he do? Why, he translated Ovid from Latin, he wrote a commentary on Plutarch, he described our island antiquities: temples, coins, medals …’
‘Ha, ha … ha! ha!…’ Donna Ferdinanda broke into roars of laughter, which spattered everyone around with saliva. The cavaliere was open-mouthed, Don Cono did not know where to look.
‘Ha, ha!… aha!…’ Donna Ferdinanda went on laughing. ‘Don Ferrante! Ha, ha!… Ferrante, d’you know what he did?…’ she explained eventually, turning to her nephew. ‘He had four writing-masters, paid at the rate of two tarì a day, working for him. Then when they’d written his books for him, Don Ferrante had his own name printed on them!… Ha, ha!… I’ve grave doubts if he even knew how to read!…’
Then a great discussion started up. Don Cono and the cavaliere each sustained on his own that if this ancestor had not in fact written his own books, he had at least dictated the contents; so much so that the academies of Palermo, Naples and Rome had enrolled him among their members. But the old spinster interrupted, ‘Oh, come on now …’ while Cousin Graziella, shaking her head, affirmed that in truth study had not been a strong point with the old nobility.
‘Strong point?’ exclaimed the old spinster. ‘But till my own times learning to read and write was considered shameful. People only studied to become priests. Our mother couldn’t write her own signature …’
‘And was that a good thing?’ objected Don Eugenio.
‘Now don’t you begin talking to me about progress too!’ burst out Donna Ferdinanda. ‘Progress means the boy has to fuzz his head with books like a notary! In my day young men learnt fencing and went out riding and shooting as their fathers and grandfathers had done!’
As Don Mariano approved with a nod of the head, the spinster went into a paean of praise of her grandfather, Prince Consalvo VI, the most accomplished cavalier of his day. He had had such a passion for horses that every winter he had a covered passage built down the middle of the public streets, so that his noble animals should always keep dry.
‘Could other people go along it too?’ asked the little prince.
‘They could when it wasn’t the time for the prince’s ride,’ replied Donna Ferdinanda. ‘If he came out, all drew aside!… Once when the Captain of Justice dared to pass with his own carriage, d’you know what my grandfather did? He waited for his return, ordered his coachman to set the horses at him, broke up his carriage and horse-whipped him!… Ah, the gentry made themselves respected in those days … Not like now, when they agree with every ragamuffin!…’
This shaft was directed at the duke, who was at that moment re-entering the Yellow Drawing-room together with the prince. Don Blasco, ceasing at last to pace up and down, stared at his brother and nephew.
‘What the devil have you been up to?’ he said to the prince.
‘Nothing … there were some things I
wanted to ask our uncle …’
At that moment Chiara and the marchese appeared. Lucrezia, still sulky, saluted her sister coldly, but the latter noticed nothing, being on tenterhooks and full of a secret idea.
‘Margherita,’ she whispered to her sister-in-law confidentially, ‘this time I think it really is …!’ Were those the symptoms? Could she be making a mistake? So often had she hoped and celebrated the event in vain, that now she did not dare announce her pregnancy openly if it was not confirmed first. Then, leaving the princess, she took Matilde aside and began saying to her, ‘The midwife is certain! What d’you feel?… How did you realise?…’
Matilde did not hear her. Now that Don Blasco was no longer marching from one end of the room to the other, Raimondo had caught his uncle’s restlessness and was not still a moment, continually asking what time it was. Did he want to go out? Was he waiting for someone? His restlessness made her restless … Meanwhile new visitors arrived: the Duchess Radalì and the Prince of Roccasciano, Donna Isabella Fersa with her husband. The latter’s entry put the whole company topsy-turvy; the prince, not usually very gallant with ladies, went to meet her in the antechamber; Raimondo too was one of the first to greet her. As always, she wore a brand-new dress, which Lucrezia examined from the corner of her eye, and the princess, Chiara, all the other women, judged in one voice to be of the highest elegance.
‘Made in Florence, isn’t it, Donna Isabella?’ asked Raimondo.
‘One can see your husband understands these things, countess!’ she replied indirectly, turning to Matilde.
Don Mariano was talking of the parade for the Queen’s birthday that day, Fersa of the cholera, the ten days’ quarantine just decreed against anyone arriving from Malta, about the putting-off of the Noto Fair, and the danger to Sicily again; and Don Blasco’s boom replied:
‘It’s all due to the Crimea! A present from our Piedmontese brethren, d’you see?’
The duke, as if not realising that the allusion was aimed at him, went on with his speech on the war interrupted at table, saying that Cavour had made a mistake. The right way was different: to keep quiet and calm, lick the wounds of ’48. With the State in debt to the eyes how could it make new debts? ‘It’s a principle of political economy …’ And then, in the tone of authority he had brought from Palermo, he began a long speech which made Don Blasco positively swallow barrel-loads of poison, larded as it was with quotations from newspapers and parliament, and tainted with liberalising theories. The prince, hearing Fersa express once more a great fear of the cholera, shook his head.
‘If they’ve ordered it to be distributed from Naples again …’
Just as he believed in the Evil Eye so he was unshakable in his opinion that the cholera was an evil spell, an expedient on the Government’s part to scatter the population and inculcate a healthy fear in the survivors. Before his uncle the duke, who he knew had a contrary and more ‘progressive’ opinion (that the plague came through atmospheric currents), he was prudently silent, but with Fersa he could let himself go, deride the quarantine and all the other petty restrictions put on to throw dust in people’s eyes.
‘Don’t listen to all this gloom!’ Raimondo was meanwhile saying to Donna Isabella, beside whom he had taken a seat. ‘Are you going to the gala night?’
‘Yes, count; we have a box.’
‘What are they doing?’ asked the princess.
‘Holbein’s Elvira, and Dumanoir’s An Inheritance in Corsica. A pity you can’t hear Domeniconi, princess. What an artist! And what a company!’
Don Eugenio too was expressing his regret at not being able to go to the Muncipal Theatre and so show that in his capacity as Gentleman of the Bedchamber he had been invited to the Intendant’s box. But he had some business to do that night; the sale of some ‘very important’ terra-cottas on which he would make a fine profit. In fact he was waiting to talk about it to the Prince of Roccasciano, also a knowledgeable amateur of antiquities.
‘It’s all very well, fifteen thousand men,’ the duke was making his peroration in his turn. ‘But suppose the war lasts another year? another two, another three years? It means more troops being sent, more expenses made, the growth of the deficit …’
‘At Messina they’re expecting the Archduke Maximilian.’
‘Will he come to us here?’
At this question of Don Mariano’s, Raimondo jumped up as if stung by a wasp.
‘What d’you expect him to come and do here? Visit the elephant in the cathedral square? You people have got it into your heads that this is a city, and you won’t understand that it’s just a wretched little place ignored by the rest of the world. Donna Isabella, you say. Have you ever heard it even named outside here?’
‘It’s true, it’s true!’
She was waving a mother-of-pearl and lace fan in a gracefully languid manner and agreeing with Raimondo’s opinions against his native town. And the Countess Matilde did not know why the sight of that woman, her words, her gestures, inspired her with secret antipathy. Was it maybe because she heard her approving of a sentiment by Raimondo that she forgave in her husband but blamed in others? Or because she noted in all Donna Isabella’s person, in the showy richness of her clothes, the affected elegance of her attitudes, something studied and false? Or because all the men gathered round her and she looked at them in a certain way, over-boldly, almost provocatively? Or maybe because once Raimondo was beside her he never moved, seemed no longer to want to leave or to be waiting for anyone?…
Once launched on his favourite theme, he was now steaming along, enumerating all the advantages of life in big cities, interrupting himself every now and again to ask Donna Isabella, ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ or, ‘You tell them; you’ve been there!’ And describing again the high society, the sumptuous shows, the rich and noble pleasures. Donna Isabella was nodding her head and adding other arguments:
‘When shall we see any races here, for example?’
Just at that moment Don Giacinto entered the room. He was looking so flustered and was so obviously the bearer of bad news that everyone was silenced.
‘D’you know what?’
‘What? Tell us …’
‘Cholera’s broken out in Syracuse …’
All surrounded him.
‘What? Who told you?’
‘Half an hour ago, at Dimenza the chemist’s … Sure news, it comes from the Intendant’s … Real cholera this time; like lightning!’
All at once, as if the announcer had the disease himself, the gathering broke up amid terrified comments and laments; Raimondo accompanied Donna Isabella down to her carriage, giving her his arm; half-way down the stairs, under the nose of the duke going to verify the story, Don Blasco boomed:
‘It’s a present from the brethren!… Ah, Radetsky, where art thou!… Ah, for another ’49 …’
BEFORE the universal disquiet about public health all other interests faded as if by magic; for the news brought by Don Giacinto, denied at first, then confirmed, could no longer be doubted when, a few days later, it was not just a matter of suspected cases in Syracuse, but of the disease breaking out in Noto.
The duke, who was considering a return to Palermo before things got worse and the roads were closed, obstinately resisted the invitations of the prince, who was preparing to leave for the Belvedere at the first case announced in the city. The year before, as in ’37, the Uzeda had escaped to their villa on the slopes of Etna where cholera never reached. Suddenly the prince put aside his scowl and talked of accord and union, wanted the whole family safe with him, all aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. Although it was no time for business, yet to show his nephew that he had taken his interest to heart, the duke before leaving repeated to Raimondo the conversation about the I.O.U.’s and exhorted him to come to an agreement with his brother. Raimondo listened distractedly and replied almost irritably, ‘All right, all right; we’ll see about it later …’
He too had changed, but, contrary to Giacomo, for the wors
e; he had become nervous, irascible and verbose, and was good-humoured only when Donna Isabella came to the palace. The two Fersa did not know yet where to flee the cholera. The prince advised them to take a house at the Belvedere, and be near them. This idea much attracted Donna Isabella, though her mother-in-law preferred to take refuge at Leonforte like the year before.
‘And you, where are you going?’ she asked Raimondo. And the young man, who was always by her side, said:
‘Wherever you go yourself!’
She lowered her eyes with a severe look of censure, as if offended.
‘And what about your wife and daughter?’
‘Let’s change the subject!’
In spite of alarm at the epidemic, relations between the two families became even closer in those days. Fersa, who had always been proud and glad to come to the Francalanza palace, now enjoyed being received there with signs of particular approval; not only Raimondo, but also and perhaps more Giacomo, seemed much to enjoy his company and that of Donna Isabella. When the princess went out for the first time after their mourning, he told her to pay them a visit; the countess, by her husband’s wish, accompanied her sister-in-law.
By herself Matilde might never have gone to that woman’s house. She did not want to call it jealousy, the feeling with which the other inspired her. If Raimondo, gallant with all the ladies, was for ever hanging around this one who was surrounded by every man in sight, that was no surprise; did she herself not receive continual protestations of warm friendship? And yet every time that Donna Isabella embraced and kissed her she had to make an effort not to shrink from those demonstrations of affection. She did not know how to account for the almost instinctive revulsion which she felt more strongly every day. When she tried to explain it to herself she attributed it mainly to a radical difference in character, to the lightness, affectation, lack of simplicity which she seemed to notice in the other. Had she not even heard her complain, in veiled hints, about her husband’s relatives and her husband himself? Yet Matilde could observe, and almost envied, Fersa’s devotion for her, and heard people say that her mother-in-law treated her better than a daughter! When she went to pay her a visit with the princess, had she not noticed this with her own eyes?
The Viceroys Page 16
