Suddenly the priest watching over the dying man raised his arms. A sound of sobs came from the princess, of groans from the serving women, of sighs from the marchesa and Lucrezia.
Teresa did not weep; nor did the Duchess Radalì or Donna Ferdinanda in truth. All filed before the body, kissing the hands. Then the women were led away, except for daughter and wife. In the Red Drawing-room the old duchess kept repeating that perhaps it was best the poor man had died: his was no life recently. The Duke of Oragua with the major-domo and Benedetto Giulente were making the necessary arrangements, while the servants put up all the shutters, closed all the gates. Michele came up to Consalvo, shook his hand and murmured, ‘Courage!…’ The other was about to reply when he heard a voice say:
‘Excellency …’
It was the porter making a sign that he must speak to him.
‘Excuse me,’ he said to his cousin, and went up to the servant thinking some order was wanted.
‘Excellency … come here …’ whispered the other, drawing him into the next room with an air of mystery which Consalvo, in spite of the sad moment, considered faintly absurd. ‘Excellency!’ he suddenly exclaimed, when they were alone, in a voice of horror which caused the young man a quiver of apprehension, ‘Excellency … A tragedy!… Your cousin the baron … the young duchess’s brother-in-law …’
‘Giovannino?’ he exclaimed, not understanding.
‘He’s killed himself, he’s dead!… Just now—yes, just now, the duchess’s man came … I’ve left him down below … Dead from a pistol shot. To warn Your Excellency first … Someone should be sent …’
A gasp of panic and horror escaped from Consalvo. ‘The madman’s son’, madness, violent death!… Then all of a sudden he shook himself and gripped the servant’s arm.
‘Not a word to anyone, d’you understand? I’ll go myself. Wait for my return. Don’t say I’ve left …’
He felt a need for action. And that urge, the clarity of his perception, the speed of his decision, gave him a real sense of relief, of confidence, as if he had come out of an unpleasant dream and just that second realised himself to be awake and safe … Yes; in his cousin’s madness and suicide Teresa was somehow involved; he did not know how far, but he was sure it was not just heredity, not just illness that had overwhelmed Giovannino’s brain. So the suicide must be hidden from Teresa, the family, from the people. And as soon as he reached the Radalì palace, as soon as he entered the room where the corpse lay on the floor beside a sofa beneath a trophy of weapons, he exclaimed to the consternated servants:
‘Oh these accursed weapons! He thought the revolver wasn’t loaded … Poor Giovannino! What a tragedy!…’
No-one dared reply. Before representatives of the law arrived he took away the weapon gripped in the dead man’s fist, extracted the five remaining cartridges, and put it back into the corpse’s hand. And to the magistrate, who had heard of Prince Giacomo’s death and was saying in sorrowful tones:
‘Your Lordship the Prince!… What tragedies!… Two at once!… It seems incredible.’
‘It does indeed …’ he agreed in a clear and completely steady voice.
That ‘Your Lordship the Prince’, which the magistrate was the first to call him, was a reminder of a new era opening for him. The firmness he had shown, the promptness with which he had seen what must be done reassured him. He had no fear of falling into the Uzeda madness: all he had inherited from his family were its riches and its power. And this deception of justice by him was another reason for self-congratulation. He said to the police magistrate:
‘My poor cousin was alone in the house. He had a passion for firearms … And thought this revolver was unloaded. Instead of which, look, there was just one forgotten cartridge …’
FOR a month the two duchesses lay between life and death. The mother’s sorrow was terrible, for in the ghastly tragedy she saw the hand of God. That death had been permitted in order that she should realise her own error and measure the sin she had committed by not loving, not caring for, that poor boy. She had almost calculated on his death, for the other brother to enjoy the fruits! She had not even heeded the first threat, when the poor wretch had been on the brink of the abyss! So before the bleeding body she collapsed as if a hand had felled her. On recovering her senses she wept on and on, and at the sight of her other son’s mute, inconsolable sorrow, she was almost suffocated by sobs.
As for Teresa, all were amazed at the extraordinary strength she showed in the first moments. The two disasters which threw two families into mourning hit her more than anyone, as she was part of both. And yet in the first hours, when the others lost their heads, she showed incredible fortitude. That she should seem untouched by the baron’s death was thought almost natural, as she had just closed her father’s eyes and so was under an even greater sorrow. Consalvo alone could not understand how the new disaster, which affected the others by its tragic coincidence with the first and even more by its unpredictable suddenness, had neither shaken his sister nor caused her to show any sign of surprise, as if she had foreseen it. Torn herself from the prince’s deathbed, she alone was able to tear her husband and mother-in-law from Giovannino’s corpse, she alone induced them to leave their house and move with the children to the Francalanza palace. She was up all night with never a tear, drying the tears of others, moving from stepmother to mother-in-law, children to husband. Only with the new day, when the sound of the deathbell rang from San Martino de’ Bianchi, did she put her hand to her heart and fall to the floor.
Pity for her was immense. ‘Only God could give her such strength,’ said priests, ‘another would have been burnt out on the spot.’ And womenfolk, servants, the humble exclaimed, ‘To think that she saw the dead bodies of her father and her brother-in-law all within two hours!… It’s a wonder she didn’t go mad!’ Donna Ferdinanda, Lucrezia, and Chiara with perfect calm took turns at the bedside of the three sick ladies, for the princess too had to take to her bed. Consalvo was often with his sister, keeping Michele company. At night, he had the register open to the public at the porter’s lodge brought upstairs, counted the hundreds of signatures arranged in columns, and looked at the hundreds of visiting-cards heaped on two large salvers. He read the obituary notices all ending with ‘our deepest condolences to the inconsolable son’, the motions of sympathy passed by the Town Council, the Chamber of Commerce, political groups. Those were all a documentation and measure of his popularity and credit, for big and small, known and unknown, the whole population of the town passed through the palace gates.
After the funeral, celebrated with extraordinary pomp, he began to receive visitors. From two till six in the afternoon, from eight till eleven at night, the drawing-rooms were crowded. Assessors, Town Councillors, municipal officials, the Prefect, the General, the Questor, relatives, friends, acquaintances, admirers and partisans of every kind, representatives of all parties and of all dependants filed continually by. All talked ceaselessly with an air proper to the circumstances about the incredible double tragedy. He would discourse a little on his father’s illness and his cousin’s ‘accident’, then to save people embarrassment change the subject, ask the Assessors and the Prefect for news of affairs, comment with others on the results of the general elections and on his uncle the duke’s renewed success. A fortnight after the two deaths he was back in the Town Hall; now he could not live away from it, feared things might get into a mess without him, being in the hands of Giulente, who, as senior Assessor, had taken over control.
Engulfed anew in the sea of public affairs, when he returned to the palace, when he dined, when he went to bed, he thought of nothing else. Anyway there was no one to disturb him. The sick women were slowly recovering, tended by the widowed princess, by Lucrezia (delighted at the chance of acting as mistress of the house once again), by the other relations, and by the usual monsignori. The dowager was the first up; she was little over fifty and looked like a decrepit crone. It was Teresa who worried the doctors most; her illness clun
g on stubbornly, as if fed by some mysterious poison sapping all her strength. Gradually she too grew better, but on the first day she tried to rise she fell back, senseless. Then she came to again. One morning when Consalvo, before going out, visited his sister to ask if she needed anything, he found her with her stepmother, her mother-in-law and Michele. As soon as he entered they all turned towards him, silent and grave. Teresa, her head raised on a heap of pillows whose whiteness made her emaciated face look waxen, said in a slow faint voice, as if tired:
‘Listen, Consalvo; sit down a moment … We have to talk to you.’
He sat down and waited.
‘Listen; we have been discussing a matter that concerns you. Our father … our father, as you know, in a moment of anger … tried … tried to put me before you … I do not believe that could have been his real wish. Had God not taken him, he would certainly have changed it. I have told Michele and our mother that in all conscience I cannot accept … what was given me in such conditions …’ she was silent a moment then added, ‘You say it … I can’t.’
A moment of silence. The old duchess’s eyes were full of tears, and she shook her head bitterly. Consalvo said:
‘Why talk of these things now?’
His sister’s words, this renunciation of her inheritance, left him quite indifferent. He had now become used to the idea of getting nothing from his father but his legal portion. But he was rather surprised for a time at Teresa’s magnanimous disinterest, approved by his brother-in-law and aunt.
‘One day or another,’ said Michele, ‘we must talk it over. My mother and I are in full agreement with Teresa. We do not wish to profit by that Will to take from you what is yours. We are rich enough … too rich … and will give …’
He turned his head to hide eyes red with tears. His mother was sobbing.
‘But why now?’ replied Consalvo. ‘There would have been time. Aunt, do calm yourself! All right, all right; I thank you … You know that I don’t have certain prejudices … I mean that for me all children, male and female, eldest sons or …’ then noticing the old woman’s humble almost supplicating attitude, he did not finish the phrase. Instead he said, ‘Anyway, if Teresa renounces the Will, we’ll divide everything equally. Will that be all right?’
‘Yes, as you like …’
Teresa, who had remained motionless with eyes shut, now seemed to wake up.
‘Another thing,’ she went on, ‘our late father in the same moment of crisis … decided to leave our mother this house … It is not right that you … the heir of the name … the only one of our name, should have to move …’
He felt an indefinable emotion; it was pleasure at triumphing over his father’s wishes, pride at being able to stay in the home of his ancestors, fear of owing something to his stepmother in exchange. But Teresa was continuing:
‘Our mother renounces the house … she’ll take another property instead … or compensation in money …’
‘For myself,’ exclaimed princess Graziella, ‘it’s all the same! I want all to be done by agreement, so that the family is always united …’
‘But,’ went on Teresa, ‘she should not have to leave her husband’s home herself … You will grant her an apartment for as long as she lives … Its ownership will be yours.’
She was silent a second time. She might have been on the point of death, with a soul already detached from the world, dictating, last dispositions to ensure the peace, well-being, and happiness of those remaining behind.
Donna Graziella, under the influence of the generosity and disinterest shown by all, in order not to do less than others, in case it were said that she alone was putting obstacles to the general accord, had agreed to the exchange, but nothing would have induced her to move out of the palace.
‘That’s only right … Fine …’ said Consalvo. ‘Thank you. We’ll settle it all.’
From that day Teresa got rapidly better. On every side rose a chorus of praise for what she had done, for the noble renunciation in which she had taken the initiative and that she induced all the others to accept. The Bishop in person came to visit her as soon as she was in a fit state to receive him. While she kissed his ring with tears in her eyes he said to her, ‘My daughter, I have heard. May you be blessed now and for ever for the good you do.’ She shook her head, murmuring, ‘It’s so little …’ Then in her mother-in-law’s and husband’s name as well as her own she begged him to distribute ten thousand lire in alms. Already other prelates had been given stipends for Masses to be said for the repose of the prince’s and the baron’s souls.
The Radalì family had arranged to leave the Francalanza palace and move to Tardarìa as soon as Teresa was in a fit state to travel. Since that ghastly day only Michele had set foot in the house marked by his brother’s blood, but in connection with preparations for departure one or other of the women would have to go there. As this would have been a harsher trial for the mother, Teresa went with her husband. She climbed the stairs leaning on his arm, but on entering the antechamber she was forced to sit down and sniff her smelling-salts. When she recovered strength she did what had to be done with her old firmness. The dead man’s rooms were all locked up.
Next day they left for the country and stayed there the whole summer and autumn.
Meanwhile Consalvo established himself in his ancestral home. He left to the princess the apartments looking south and reserved for himself the main reception-rooms, but only for seeing guests, as his own living-rooms he fixed on the second floor. With his stepmother he had very little in common. They ate separately because they had different meal-times. Each had separate servants and carriages. They would meet from time to time about matters of administration. Consalvo knew nothing of the state of the house while the princess was well informed, and so if the administrator wanted orders or explanations he left word for his stepmother. Not only did he feel more drawn by public affairs than by his own, but he considered that the latter were not worth bothering about as long as the family property remained undivided.
This division began on the Radalìs’ return. The two women had entirely recovered their health. The mother-in-law seemed even older, and the daughter-in-law was pregnant. All articles of the contract were settled by mutual consent, with the same disinterest of which everyone had given proof at the start. Teresa wished all the historic estates to remain with her brother, contenting herself with recently acquired property and odd bits of income, capital and credits. In exchange, Consalvo asked for this wholly moral difference to be taken into account in the valuation of the lands. The princess renounced the palace in exchange for the estate of Gibilfemi and the farm of Oleastro, which were worth twice as much.
During these negotiations, Consalvo had been to see his sister nearly every day. Having got into this habit he continued it. After all he ought to show gratitude for her renunciation, which had doubled his part of the inheritance from a quarter to a half. But in spite of this duty of his, in spite of the sorrow of mourning, he found it difficult to avoid needling his sister for her fervent, growing piety.
Now the Vicar-General, her confessor, Sisters of Charity, seemed to have taken up residence in her home. With these the new churches of Our Lady of La Salette and Mercè, the miracles of Lourdes and of Valle di Pompei, and missionary work were the usual topics of conversation. The disbanded Capuchin friars had reunited in spite of the law and bought a house with the offerings of the faithful.
Consalvo learnt that his sister had contributed to this purchase. Had she not formerly considered the law dispersing the same community to be quite a proper one? How could she go every Friday to pray in the Blessed Ximena’s chapel, where burnt the lamp lit for the health of Giovannino, of whose madness and suicide she had been partly the cause? Did she know that the young man had killed himself and not died by accident?… This stubborn faith of hers, so resistant to disillusion, was it sincere or was it maybe a form of the family’s hereditary mania? Consalvo inclined to this last hypothesis, partly because he h
ad no faith at all himself. But never an act or a word revealed what was in his sister’s heart. When he began making ironic allusions she said:
‘Listen, Consalvo; each of us is responsible to God for our own actions. Your scepticism may make me suffer, but I don’t reprove you for it. So I should like you to respect my beliefs, or if you like to call them so, my superstitions. Am I asking too much?’
He bowed his head, first because the argument was valid, but also because Teresa’s connections in the clerical world could be useful.
In fact the time so long awaited was rapidly nearing. Electoral reform was the order of the day; after voting on it the Chamber would dissolve. And he now realised that his own election was not as certain as it had seemed that first day in Rome during his conversation with the Honourable Deputy Mazzarini, and later at the start of his term as Mayor. Because of the broadening of the franchise and the scrutinising of the lists, it was no longer his uncle’s few hundred votes which could send him to the Chamber; now it needed thousands. And though he felt sure of the city, he did not know how much he could rely on the rural wards.
Already the old duke had sniffed the wind and told his intimates that he would accept a seat in the Senate. Sure of being swept away like a dry leaf he was finally retiring in good order, pretending to renounce spontaneously so as to avoid the shame of a defeat. And while Consalvo was thinking of his own situation, worried by this change and by the ‘moral revolution’ invoked by himself but come rather too soon, Giulente saw nothing, noticed nothing. He still hung round the old duke’s feet as if the latter were the oracle of twenty years before, waiting to gather his inheritance, still swearing by the Right and by Cavour, sure that the new electors would throw out the Government of Reparation and restore the principle of moderation. And, thinking over such matters day and night, he left control of his household more and more to his wife, who had got into such a muddle that she too was now waiting for his election—without saying a thing to him, in fact still deriding him about it—to avoid giving him the accounts, until he made money like her uncle Gaspare …
The Viceroys Page 64
