‘Actually our agents haven’t paid us yet. We’ve had a lot of expenses, but if you like I can lend you whatever you need …’ and Raimondo would take the money as an advance or a loan. His one preoccupation, in fact, was to spend money, with a blind faith in his brother which made Don Blasco furious. Already the monk, on hearing of the I.O.U.’s, had spat fire and flames at the prince, declaring him capable of forging his mother’s signature, as ‘that bitch of a sister-in-law of mine was a numbskull I know, but not to the point of making debts on one side and hoarding money on the other’. And he now began to rouse the other nieces and nephews against ‘that crook’, urging them to impugn the validity of those I.O.U.’s, for if they were not entirely false they must have been old I.O.U.’s paid up by the princess, found by Giacomo among her papers, and tinkered up to look new! But since those silly creatures Chiara and the marchese and Ferdinando and Lucrezia refused to listen—as if it were not all in their own interests!—the monk almost got to the point of forgetting his former aversion for Raimondo and going to open his eyes to the secret malpractices of his co-heir and brother, to shout at him:
‘Open your eyes, if not he’ll truss you up and devour you!…’
Now, seeing that they were all the same about this, he was grinding his teeth night and day. Then another fact had come to enrage him and make him inveigh against those ‘mad swine’, in the monastery, around chemist-shops, even in the street with the first person he ran into. In their Oleastro sulphur mines the Uzeda had dug so far that they had passed underground beyond the boundaries of their property on the surface; so the owners of this surface sued them.
Raimondo, bored even by putting a simple signature on receipts and contracts, on that occasion showed Signor Marco, who came to read him out documents of the case, his annoyance at all this continual ‘bother’. Then Signor Marco suggested, ‘Why doesn’t Your Excellency make a power-of-attorney with the prince? Then you’ll avoid a lot of bother and things will go much faster until the time comes when, after Your Excellency’s sisters have been paid, we can get on to the division …’ Raimondo accepted this at once, and signed a deed giving the prince power-of-attorney to administer the inheritance in the name of the co-heir too.
Matilde, having heard of this accord, asked herself why Raimondo still wanted to stay in Sicily now? If he no longer took part in business affairs, what other interest held him there? And she began again to torture herself with jealousy, seeing him with that woman once more, unable to endure having to treat her as a friend while warned by an inner voice not to trust her. Sick in heart and mind, her nerves agitated by her constant sorrows, she now had gloomy presentiments and feared and suspected everything. In the happy simplicity of other days she would never have entertained the suspicion that the prince was letting Raimondo do what he liked most, almost encouraging his vices, inciting him to gamble and finding him occasions to see that woman, so as to distract him from business matters and get the sole management of them into his own hands. Such a suspicion would never even have passed through her head when she thought them all good and sincere. Now, terrified by others and by herself, she could not put it out of her mind … How could she, as the prince seemed to be making every effort to get Donna Isabella to the palace while her mother-in-law, Donna Mara Fersa, was beginning to show some fear that this relationship might become too intimate?
Donna Mara Fersa had tolerated much in her daughter-in-law from Palermo; the upset household, the ill-concealed condescension with which she was treated, the costly tastes and bold opinions; and although she closed both eyes on her own suffering she did not intend to close one if her son was involved. This friendship with the Uzeda was fine and she was greatly pleased about it, but why should Raimondo always be at Isabella’s side, at his own home or hers, in church, at the play or the parade? It might be a smart custom in Florence, but one which she, in her old-fashioned way, could not understand. Anyway she did not like it and did not intend that it should continue. Without giving reasons, lest she put the cart before the horse, she hinted to her son and daughter-in-law that they could be good friends with the Uzeda without sharing every moment of the day and night with them. But she preached to deaf ears; Mario Fersa was more infatuated than ever by the prince and the count, Donna Isabella was always with the princess, Lucrezia and Donna Ferdinanda.
Then, on seeing her exhortations disregarded, and being unused to finding herself disobeyed and unheeded in a matter which a daughter-in-law should be first to understand, Donna Mara, incapable of hiding what was in her mind, became acrid and ironical towards her daughter-in-law, while at the same time telling her son openly the reason for her disquiet. Even so she was not too precise and kept to generalities, saying that leading a life in common like that was dangerous, and that the Uzeda house was not only frequented by numbers of men but also had two young men, the prince and the count, with whom Isabella should not be so continuously seen … But her son cut her short. ‘The prince? Raimondo? My best friends?…’ From indignation he went to laughter. ‘Suspect them? Two excellent family men?…’ Nor did his mother’s insistent reasoning draw any other reply.
Meanwhile, Donna Isabella, at her mother-in-law’s sudden change to severe looks and brusque ways from a former attitude of prudent but pained resignation, now assumed the airs of a real victim. To Raimondo, when he chattered of the boredom and misery of provincial life, she would nod her head approvingly, but add that one could be happy in country or desert as long as one felt surrounded by care and affection … and saw around people dear to one … who were capable of understanding and appreciating one … Donna Mara, seeing none of her moves succeed, finally decided to try more energetic means of putting an end to this ‘comedy’.
Fersa on his side still noticed nothing, for he would have denied the light of day before suspecting his wife and Raimondo, with whom he shared most of his life and spent all day and every evening chatting or gambling at the club or in a stage-box at the opera. He was more than ever proud of the friendship shown him by the prince, the long monologues the latter made him while Raimondo and Isabella chattered in a corner; and it was a shock to him when his mother came up and said brusquely, ‘Let’s go, it’s late!…’
One fine day Raimondo, on going to pay a visit to the Fersas’ and after seeing Donna Isabella behind the shutters, heard the servant reply that there was no one in. At first he was amazed; he very nearly gave the door a push to get in by force, but he just managed to contain himself, and went downstairs and out into the street scarlet in the face as if he had caught sunstroke. He at once realised whence the blow came, having already noticed Donna Mara’s coldness, and at the idea of obstacle and opposition the blood boiled in his veins, mounted to his head, dimmed his sight.
Till that moment he had sought Donna Isabella’s company because she seemed one of the few women he could talk to, because she reminded him of society outside, and also because he liked her personally, not greatly though, not enough to set his heart on conquering her. It was not the chance of ruining her, not her husband’s friendship, that deterred him; Fersa in fact, with his adoration for his wife and his blind faith in her and in him, seemed fated for the usual disaster; and Donna Isabella, with that martyred air of hers, with her instinctive coquetry, with her eternal talks about soul-mates, was presumably yearning to be understood. He had always laughed at love and passion, which was just why his wife bored him, and he had never sought anything but easy pleasures, ready and safe; a presentiment of the trouble which an affair with Donna Isabella could bring had prevented him pushing things too far. At the Belvedere, during the cholera, when Donna Isabella was to come and failed to do so, he had been almost pleased at their not meeting as arranged, and amused himself with Agatina Galano as if forgetting the distant Donna Isabella. When he saw her again, temptation had revived; then his wife’s moping made it stronger, and Donna Mara’s opposition put new fuel on the fire. He had the sort of character that is excited by obstacles, which made him frenzied and res
tive as a foal at a bit. Even so he had contained himself still, thinking of the future, of sure troubles and possible dangers. Now finding himself forbidden to set foot in her house suddenly gave him a great longing to break down that front door and bear the woman off. The bloodthirsty instinct of the old predatory Uzeda threw him into a passion; had he been able he would have done something wild, like his grandfather driving his horses at the Captain of Justice. Now not so much times as circumstances were different; he could not make a scandal, so he had to dissimulate and fall back on craft …
On reaching home, he wrote to Donna Isabella to say that he had realised what were ‘the unjust suspicions’ of her relations, and went on to complain that ‘in this hateful city’ it was impossible to make and keep ‘friendly associations’. The letter was sent by means of Pasqualino Riso, the prince’s coachman, to Donna Isabella’s coachman, who was a crony of his. Donna Isabella replied at once by the same means, complaining of the ‘slavery’ in which she was held, of the evil suspicion with which she was treated, thanking him meanwhile for his ‘delicate’ sentiments, for the ‘friendship’ of which he gave proof and which she returned ‘with all her heart’, but begging him to ‘renounce ever seeing her again’ lest she hurt the susceptibilities of ‘certain persons’. This was the same as saying ‘do your best to triumph over their opposition.’
The two coachmen cronies saw each other again every day to pass on verbal messages. Pasqualino, on the look-out at a corner by the Fersas’ home, would hurry off to the Nobles’ Club to warn his master, who had set up headquarters there, when Donna Isabella left the house.
Meanwhile Raimondo followed her about everywhere just the same. He even went up to her carriage still and visited her box at the theatre, on the rare occasions when the mother-in-law was not there. And the husband, deaf to maternal warnings, smarting at unjust suspicions, behaved the same to him as before, in fact made an even greater show of friendship, as if excusing himself for his mother’s conduct, and was an assiduous visitor to the palace.
The Uzeda all seemed to have passed some mutual message about protecting and shielding the pair. As they spoke to each other in a corner the prince or Donna Ferdinanda would be chattering to Fersa, and leading him into another room; the spinster drove around with Donna Isabella, and when she met her nephew stopped the carriage to give him a chance of being with her; or she invited her to her home more often, and Raimondo would soon arrive. They also saw each other at the houses of other Francalanza relatives, the Duchess Radalì’s, the Grazzeri’s, most often at Cousin Graziella’s, who had become a great friend of Donna Isabella.
All conspired to prevent Matilde noticing anything, but she was warned by a kind of sixth sense, realised that her husband was slipping away from her, and wept with the agony of it. Now that her child was better and she should have been able to breathe calmly, that thought tortured her all the time. She knew that if anyone opposed him Raimondo had a habit of sticking all the more to his whims, and that the only way, if any, of getting him back, was to let him have his head. But how could she resign herself to knowing that head was full of another woman, to being looked at by the part-curious and part-pitying eye of Lucrezia, the marchese, strangers, even servants? So she would sidle up to him timidly and imploringly, tell him of her jealousy, beg him not to make her suffer if he was really not thinking of that woman …
‘This cursed country!’ exclaimed her husband excitedly. ‘Who ever invented such foul nonsense? You yourself? You’ve been putting round your silly suspicions, now tell the truth, haven’t you?’
‘Me?… Me?…’
‘D’you want to ruin her, d’you want to get me killed by her husband?’
Then another terror froze her; suppose Fersa had noticed something too? And wanted revenge?… Suddenly she saw her husband lying dead in the middle of a road, with a bullet in his forehead or a dagger in his side. Every time he was late in coming home she wrung her hands and pressed her heart, almost hearing the cries of terrified servants at the sudden arrival of his lifeless corpse; then she would caress her children and sob over them as if they were already orphans. What particularly distressed her was having no one with whom to let herself go, no one to comfort her at least with a kind word. She could say nothing to her father, and the Uzeda seemed to protect that other woman; those of them who did not go as far as that in their rancour against the ‘intruder’ remained neutral and did not even notice her.
Don Eugenio had now finished and despatched to Naples his memorandum on Massa Annunziata. Its title was: ‘Anent the propriety—of excavating—the Sicilian Pompeii—otherwise called Massa Annunziata—in the ancient Mongibello—buried in the year of Grace 1669—by the belching lava of that fiery volcano—together with all the riches it contained—Memorandum submitted to the Royal Government of the Two Sicilies—by Don Eugenio Uzeda of Francalanza and Mirabella—Gentleman of the Bedchamber of His Majesty (with functions).’ In the evening he would read out to the assembled company from his rough copy. This was written in a strange style which was the fruit of grammatical reforms thought up by him, with his own emphasis and expressions.
Don Cono was the only one to listen to these verbal reforms and solemnly discussed whether ‘solemn’ should have one or two ‘l’s’; everyone else turned their backs on this idiot, who after losing two appointments by his own idiocy now expected to be appointed a director of excavations; Don Blasco and Donna Ferdinanda, among others, though each on his own, jeered mercilessly at him to his face, but they were singing to the deaf, as the cavaliere was quite sure that this time he had seized fortune by the forelock.
The marchese and Chiara, who came to the palace every day, might not have been there at all, for while people spoke of one thing or another they thought of nothing but their own progeny. At a certain period every month Chiara really seemed in the clouds; she did not reply or replied vaguely to questions she was asked; then she drew all the ladies apart one after another and muttered certain questions in their ears. So when Don Blasco went to her house and inveighed again against the prince and Raimondo, she did not bother to listen, so rapt was she in constant and intense expectation.
As for Ferdinando, he let his uncle the monk say what he liked. Delighted to be absolute master at Pietra dell’Ovo, he had indulged his whims to his heart’s content. Gradually however the place was falling into ruin, and he realised it. He had tried all the things that he found in books of agriculture; having read, for instance, that in every tree branches can act as roots and roots as branches, he began trying out the truth of this by pulling up the tall flourishing orange trees to replant them upside down. One by one all the trees died. But this would not have made him decide to stop these experiments had he not thought of others of a different kind. Among the many books he bought were some on mechanics; then, remembering his former love for watchmaking he hired a bailiff to take over the estate, and begun to make wheels and springs. Why did water in suction pumps never rise farther than five canne? Because of atmospheric pressure. Was there no way of counter-balancing it? So he had built a machine with a gadget worked by a handle whereby the water did not rise even an inch, far less five canne. This was all the fault of the workmen, who had not understood his orders. Now he was studying a much vaster problem: perpetual motion …
What happened in the house, what others did never bothered him, and his visits to the palace became rarer and rarer; had it not been for Lucrezia, he would never have gone at all. But his sister was busy making signals to Benedetto Giulente, and only seldom came down into the drawing-rooms. The flirtation was going stronger than ever; in each letter the young man told her that the time for him to ask the question was drawing nearer and that in a year they would plight their vows. Even now that the little devil Consalvo was no longer there to search about amid her things, Lucrezia would still lock up her room when she went down to the floor below, and the prince said nothing to her about the resulting inconvenience.
And so none of the legatees bothere
d about the division of property. As for Raimondo, he was more than ever intent on his gay life and on following Donna Isabella over sky and sea. Pasqualino Riso scarcely did any other service nowadays, busy as he was in watching Donna Isabella’s movements and carrying letters and messages. There was even jealousy of him among the other servants, the under-coachman particularly, who was now left all the work, and the footman Matteo. They spoke through set teeth of their colleague’s good luck, saying that they could not understand how the prince could go on paying him just like before and leaving him at his brother’s disposal. So disgusted were they that they nearly changed allegiance, for from being against the Countess Matilde before, now they felt sorry for her and said she did not deserve such unfaithfulness and ill-treatment …
The Uzedas’ harshness towards Donna Matilde was really becoming excessive, particularly towards her daughters, for ill-treatment of them hurt Matilde more than any directed personally at herself. There were terrible days, when Donna Ferdinanda had raised her hand to Teresina, which Matilde spent sobbing like a child, drinking in her tears so they should not fall on the letters that she wrote to her father to hide her sorrow from him and give him to understand that she was happy.
At the beginning of September, when the time drew near for going to the country, the baron arrived from Milazzo to see his little grand-daughters and take them all with him to his estates, where Carlotta’s fiancé had gone too; the wedding was to take place in a year. The prince asked the baron to stay at the palace, and all the others who were so harsh to his daughter greeted him with politeness, as if to prevent him suspecting their ill—grace towards her … Nor did he read her long sufferings in her face; proud of the kinship and of the family’s nobility, he even felt confirmed in his idea of having ensured Matilde’s happiness. She, on her father’s arrival, at the announcement that he had come to take them all away, began trembling again for another reason, the old fear of a quarrel breaking out between her father and her husband. Would not Raimondo refuse to follow his father-in-law?… Instead of which a ray of sun shone suddenly in her long sadness; Raimondo replied to the baron’s invitation by ordering preparations for a journey. That consent was nothing really; it could not reassure her, as no one would be staying in town at that season and Donna Isabella Fersa was leaving as in other years for Leonforte. And yet, in the anguish to which she was reduced, the idea of leaving the Uzeda household, of returning to her father’s by consent and in company of Raimondo, made her breathe freely.
The Viceroys Page 23
