When she thought over those two years spent in Tuscany, of all she had suffered watching the building up of final ruin, unable to do anything to prevent it, she felt a need to kneel down and thank God, so miraculous seemed Raimondo’s reform. Could she now hope it would last? How often had he seemed to recover his senses, and then behaved worse than ever? Two years ago, before the Fersa scandal broke, had she not thought all was over for her? At the news of that woman being thrust out by her own mother-in-law she had sensed that the apparent break between her and Raimondo was mere play-acting and foresaw quite lucidly what was to happen later … Even so the departure for the mainland had deceived her again. Distance, time, worldly pleasures for which he was always avid, would they not destroy the memory of that other woman in Raimondo’s heart? But she, that other one, must have sworn to steal him from her at all costs, for she had followed him to Florence, and appeared far and near, in streets and in society, everywhere, tempting him, even in front of Matilde herself! She did not blame Raimondo now, did not suspect that he was in collusion with that other, that he had pretended to run away so as to find her the more surely. Matilde’s suspicions and jealous accusations only fell on that woman; to Raimondo she merely addressed indulgent requests, humble petitions to spare her new sorrows. He grew furious, denied it all as at other times, blamed her for wanting to create embarrassments and dangers, and reduced her to silence with words which still rang in her ears: ‘That woman is the very last person in my thoughts; but if you don’t stop vexing me I’ll do something mad, you’ll see!’ She had not been able to tell then how far he was sincere …
Raimondo’s fancy for Donna Isabella, in truth, had been calmed as soon as satisfied. The fuss about separation, the fear of finding some heavy material responsibility on his shoulders, had flung a good deal of water on the flame of his desires. In Florence, where they had arranged to meet, he wondered how to break in some way the chain he felt growing tighter; what he longed for was a gay and varied life which was above all free. But as news spread of the domestic drama in which he had been the hero he found himself higher in the estimation of his reckless Tuscan friends, whose judgment meant more to him than anything else; the conquest of a genuine lady of quality like Donna Isabella Fersa brought smiles of rather envious pleasure from the dare-devils he took as models. So he became a little less indifferent to Donna Isabella. But his wife’s jealousy eventually tightened this link to a point which he found almost burdensome.
Every time Matilde made a begging remonstrance to him he felt it his duty, as a kind of compensation, to increase his demonstrations of affection to his mistress; the more submissively his wife begged him not to leave her too much to herself, the stronger was his craving to rush out of the house. She knew what he was like, how intolerant he was of every obstacle, of any contradiction, of any comment by her; but could she keep silent, pretend to ignore what was happening? Could she, without a sob at least, allow him to leave her alone for long days and longer nights, to abandon his children, so as to go off with that other woman, to show himself publicly in her company, to take his friends to the other’s house as if it were another of his homes? And when she had once burst out not against him but against that other woman, Raimondo ordered her to be silent, in a loud voice, with an evil look and raised hand …
This wretched scene had taken place on the day before her father was to pass through Florence on his way to Turin. Terror of the two men clashing had made her be silent, and as her father, who was beginning to suspect Raimondo again, had suddenly switched with his usual violence from warm affection for his son-in-law to suspicion and watchful coldness, she had to gulp down her own tears, cancel traces of them, and look gay and pleased, to prevent the two attacking each other. So she had consumed herself, suffering in silence, forcing down bitter draft after bitter draft, invoking God for strength to continue pretending, deluding herself to believe that no serious danger was threatening.
But it was already too late. All that his wife in her jealousy said against his mistress urged Raimondo more and more into the latter’s arms; as Matilde spoke badly of her, she must be the very first among women. This idea became the deeper rooted in his head since Donna Isabella on her side never said a word against the countess; at most she hinted a mild complaint at his wife’s dislike for her.
‘When she meets me she turns her back on me … She talks against me. What have I done to her?’ Or she would suggest they break off their relationship, offering herself in sacrifice to ensure peace in his family.
‘Don’t worry about me! I’ll go off, I’ll live alone, as God wills … I’ll go and fling myself at my husband’s feet; maybe he’ll forgive me …’ Then in return he would insist on doing things which she herself did not want him to do; if he had not hidden their friendship before, he now made an open display of it; if he had been seldom enough at home before, he now would let whole weeks go by without setting foot in his home, without seeing his own children; at the theatre he spent the entire evening, from beginning to end of the show, in his mistress’s box; at the parade, if he was with friends, he would not answer his wife’s greeting when they met; and while the countess dissolved in tears at the back of her carriage, he would go and lounge at Donna Isabella’s carriage door.
Early that summer, at Livorno, the scandal had grown to such a point that a few good friends of Raimondo, his landlord Count Rossi among them, had advised him to be less imprudent. In these days Matilde, whose heart had been so long in torture, had a new affliction. Her little daughter Lauretta, whose health was always uncertain, fell ill as soon as they left Florence. One night when the child was moaning in fever she stayed up till dawn watching over her, terrified at how quickly she had got worse and waiting anxiously for Raimondo’s return. At daybreak he came back. He must have been drunk. For just because, tortured by anxiety and exhaustion, alarmed by her child’s illness and terrified at its danger, she dared to say:
‘What a life you’re leading …’ He stared in her face, with bloodshot eyes, tightened his fists and swore at her. What did he do next? Or say? She did not know. All she remembered was that on coming round from her swoon, Stefana her maid told her that the master had gone off, in the same evening clothes in which he had come, taking only a small grip in which he had thrown a few things haphazard. She remembered what torture it had been to be unable to hurry after him, to be unable to leave her poor daughter in that state; how she had sent Stefana to Florence, thinking he had gone back there; how she heard next day that after going first to a hotel in Livorno itself he had taken ship for Sicily.
The baron arrived like lightning from Turin before she had given him any news of what had happened. Then another torment was added to the many already tearing at her. Her father’s rancour against his son-in-law suddenly burst out, in all its terror.
‘He’s gone off, has he? So much the better!’ he said at first. But as she burst into tears, not knowing what to do and seeing her very existence destroyed, a violent gust of rage thrust all the blood into his head.
‘So you’re regretting him, are you? You’d like to defend him, would you? You’d even go running after him, would you?’
Terrified, her hands joined in entreaty, she brought out between sobs, ‘What about my children … my little orphans?’ But he interrupted with an even more savage outburst:
‘Ah, his paternal love, eh?, his love for his children, eh?, the blood he poisoned on that innocent creature …’ and in a flood of crude, rending, rushing words he told her of Raimondo’s unworthy life, of what she did not know, what he himself had not known for a long time, lulled by vanity, by silly pride at connection with one of the ‘Viceroys’
‘You want to implore him as well, now, do you …? Want me to go and ask pardon on your behalf, on mine, on those innocents’! Isn’t this ten years’ experience enough for you, silly girl? D’you want to begin trembling before him again? D’you think I don’t know what you’ve suffered?’ And as her shoulders hunched and she gave a shi
ver he shouted, ‘Doesn’t all that matter to you? Could you still love him?…’
Yes, it was true. She was not weeping for her children’s future, she was not indignant at the memory of her own agonies; if she had suffered in silence, if she had done no more than accuse her rival, if she had never said a word in reproval of Raimondo, the one and only reason was her love for him.
‘After what he’s done to you?… Can’t you realise that he’s never returned your love? That he’d ask for nothing better than get rid of you, you fool. Yet you love him like a dog licking the hand that hits it?’
Yes, yes, just like that! The love of a dog for its master, the devotion of a slave for a being of another race, stronger, taller, rarer. Yes, the submission of a dog to its master; for even after the extreme shame he had inflicted on her, in spite of his brutal revelations, in spite of her father’s righteous anger, she still thought she could not live away from Raimondo, could not leave him to that other woman.
So she spent long, endless days of inner anguish; the baron treated her with open coldness, seemed not to notice her tears. But she was waiting, yearning and praying for something; not Raimondo’s return, which would have been too great a joy, but at least a letter of regret from him, or a message from one of his family … The child had recovered; at the Madonna’s feet she implored pardon for an abominable thought: had Lauretta got worse she could have called him …
Instead of which she herself fell ill. Seeing her weeping in her fever too, the baron burst into the railing tone he put on when yielding:
‘So you won’t put an end to it? He’s even to have the pleasure of being begged as well? Take heed though …’ he added threateningly, ‘from the day you return together you’ll have to consider me as no longer existing … Choose between us two. Don’t imagine I can have anything in common with him!’ Poor father! Rough, unbending and hot-tempered with all, yet he had always given way to his daughters, trying to put a bold face on it, making decisions dictated by his violent character but prevented by his inexhaustible goodness of heart from carrying them out in the long run. So he wrote to the duke, and after accompanying her to Milazzo, went with him to join Raimondo, whom he then led back to her.
Not a word passed between her and her husband in connection with the past; if he did go back to live with her would she ever be able to remind him of the wrong he had done? On his part he never asked pardon or said a good word to her; he came to meet her as indifferently as if he had left her the day before. Nor did she hope for more than this. What had once been a dream of love and happiness had melted from day to day; now, resigned to the sadness of reality, she asked for nothing but quiet. As long as Raimondo loved his children, as long as he did not leave them again, she was ready to endure anything.
Now, at the prince’s, where they had then come for Lucrezia’s marriage, leaving the children at Milazzo, his relatives were treating her better. The bride, beside herself with delight at the marriage being so near, was full of demonstrations of affection for her, asked her advice exclusively about wedding clothes and final details of the trousseau. The princess, always timid and detached, showed her more sympathy than before. Even Don Blasco and Donna Ferdinanda, who had begun coming to the palace again every day, also seemed a little subdued, for instead of picking at her they took no notice of her at all. What did that matter! They were like that; they had to be taken as they were. As long as Raimondo did not leave her once again! As long as those ghastly days of his desertion never returned! She even became almost resigned to being so far from her children!
Her little niece Teresa’s company made things more tolerable. How like the prince’s daughter was to her own Teresa! The same fine blonde beauty, the same grace, the same sweetness of voice and of look. Their characters were also like each other really, though her own child showed an almost restless vivacity while her little cousin was quieter and more obedient. How much of this was due to her father’s authority? While Raimondo took no notice of his daughter, Giacomo watched almost too heavily over the little princess. He was educating her to mortify her desires, to repress her wishes. He made her spend whole days with the nuns of San Placido so that she should get used to obedience and monastic discipline. Poor little girl! Every time they put her on the wheel which passed her into the convent through the impenetrable walls segregating the nuns from the world, she stretched out her arms to her mother and to her aunt with a look of terror in her wide-set eyes. But the princess had orders from her husband, who considered the child as a kind of mute ambassadress to soothe the Abbess’s and Sister Maria’s discontent, so she would persuade her daughter to be good and not to be frightened. The little girl would say ‘Yes’ again and again, sending her mother kisses as the wheel turned deep in the wall and passed her through on to the other side, into the big cold grey room with a great, black, bleeding, Crucifix taking up an entire wall. Her mother, the nuns, all and everyone praised the wisdom she showed; to gain this praise, not to displease her father, she did what they wanted. The countess felt that her own Teresa, in spite of her apparent vivacity, was sweet and good at heart too. Was Lauretta not even quieter and more obedient than her own cousin? And as she thought of her little angels she longed for Lucrezia’s marriage to be over so that she could get back to them soon.
All was ready. In the bride and groom’s future home, an apartment next to Don Paolo Giulente’s but separate from it, the last touches were being given to arrangement of furniture; all had been done with great expense and much taste. The family notary had already drafted the marriage settlement, on the basis of the prince’s transactions and under his dictation. Benedetto, to ingratiate himself with his brother-in-law, had let him do what he liked and been content with five thousand onze for the moment instead of eight thousand, as the prince said that he had not the whole sum to hand. Gradually from that first meeting with the monk and the old spinster he had succeeded in getting them to take a little more notice of him every day, by continuing to nod like a puppet at everything they said.
As to politics, Don Blasco and his sister worked themselves up more than ever, shouting outrages and insults against the Liberals; then the young man would pretend not to hear and turn away, letting them say what they liked, as if their waves of abuse did not crash over him too. But in all other circumstances, in every other discussion, he would take their part and agree with them at all costs, watching for a look, a nod or a word.
Just at that time one of Donna Ferdinanda’s debtors, a certain Calafoti, had declared himself bankrupt and let it be understood that his property had been either sold or mortgaged. The spinster was screeching like a hen plucked alive against the ‘thief’, the broker who had proposed the affair, and the Prince of Roccasciano, who had approved it. But Benedetto, hearing her talking, said:
‘I know this man Calafoti. If Your Excellency cares I can go and have a word with him. The laws he is adducing are all null and void; by threatening to sue him we can bring him to heel.’
She did not wait to be asked again for the required permission. After a week of discussing and dealing Benedetto obtained a special mortgage. In exchange Donna Ferdinanda did not come to the palace on the wedding day. Nor did Don Blasco. Business was one thing; so was talk!; to approve, by their presence, the alliance of an Uzeda with the Affocato Giulente was quite another. But apart from those two not a single one of the other relations was absent, either at the Town Hall in the morning or at the cathedral in the afternoon.
The Marchesa Chiara accompanied the pair wherever they went. She was exhausted but went on moving up and down stairs and refused to call anyone in. On the afternoon of the wedding, tired by constant coming and going, she flung herself fainting on to a chair next to Donna Eleonora Giulente. Perhaps it was just over-tiredness, but she really did not feel at all well, had dull aches and sharp twinges of pain. With her elbows propped on the chair arms to keep her womb free and erect, she was pressing her lips together a little at each spasm, but when her husband came hurrying up an
d asked her anxiously what was the matter, she replied:
‘Nothing, I am all right,’ lest he called in midwives.
She got up and went round the room. There were great numbers of guests, all the relations, all the nobility, and then the duke’s new friends the authorities, the Mayor, the Prefect whom he had invited to show the Liberal character of the alliance. And while the pro-Bourbon nobility was grouped in the hall or in the Red and Yellow Drawing-rooms, the Deputy held a democratic circle in the portrait gallery, where he was being complimented on arranging this fine marriage, and discussing public business. Don Paolo Giulente, finding no chance of getting into conversation with the nobles, came in to listen, open-mouthed, almost beside himself with joy at becoming a relative of the great man. His brother Don Lorenzo was wearing for the occasion the green cravat of an Order which his friend the Deputy had arranged for the Turin Government to grant, together with some substantial contracts for posts and military transport.
A good number of lesser requests to him were actually beginning to be carried out; the Honourable Member had got jobs, subsidies and Orders of St Maurice granted to patriots of ’48 and ’60, seen that the pension rights of old veterans of the Sicilian revolution were recognised and that Garibaldi volunteers were admitted into the regular army, and had urged on cases of damage by Bourbon troops to those noted for patriotism. Such clients, satisfied or about to be satisfied, stood listening to him as if he were an oracle, proud of having him as a friend and of being admitted into the home of the Viceroys, of finding themselves served by footmen in sumptuous liveries.
The Viceroys Page 33
