Italian Sonata: Noire - Volume Two

by de Maupassant, Emmanuelle

  She always vowed not to be like the ballerina. Each time the lid is lifted, she’s obliged to perform, to display the elegance of her pirouette. How often beauty conceals pain…

  Of her father, Maud remembers less: his moustache brushing her cheek; the smell of pipe tobacco; her pressing of her palm against his, stretching her fingers in a childish attempt to align with that larger hand, warm against her own.

  She was staying here when they set off, into the mountains; it was here she remained, since they didn’t return. The desire to seek out danger must be in her blood. Climbing, after all, is a hazardous pursuit.

  The pillowcase on the bed might be the very one upon which she shed her nightly tears.

  She leans forward and mists the mirror with her breath. How quickly it lifts, and vanishes.

  Folding back the shutters, Maud sits on the window seat. Henry has almost reached the cliff steps.

  She raises her hand to wave, although his head is turned away, and he’s too far away to see.

  Someone else is close by though, someone whose back and arms are strong, and whose skin is dark from the scorch of the sun. Someone with soil beneath his fingernails.

  He looks up, and she smiles.

  Piety Above and Devilry Below

  The Conte, having consumed the last sliver of his crisped breakfast ham, dabs his lips.

  ‘We should begin today by giving our guest a tour of the castello, should we not?’

  Lucrezia inclines her head.

  ‘Of course, brother. Though I hope you’ll spare us from climbing every staircase. Cecile will better enjoy the sun and the open spaces of the garden than these gloomy corridors.’

  ‘We shall see,’ says the Conte. ‘Too much sunshine is not good for the soul.’

  They commence in the library, the windows of which face the open sea, illuminating books ranged from floor to ceiling.

  Such strange titles, muses Cecile. The shelves in Henry’s library are heavy with illustrated editions on birds, and collections of maps, beside works by the great poets and playwrights, and volumes of the ancient classics: Sophocles and Plato, Livy and Cicero. Here, the spines reveal English and Italian publications, and on such peculiar topics: The Extraction of Toxins from Botanicals; Madness: a study in hereditary affliction; and The Art of Trepanation.

  Her eyes seek out what’s familiar to her. There will be some poetry perhaps. Tennyson or Browning? Rossetti or Arnold? She finds them, at last, beside works by Manzoni and Carducci.

  ‘Goblin Market, I think,’ says Lorenzo, reaching above, to hand her a slim volume.

  ‘Like pretty Laura, in the poem, you have gold enough upon your head. Enough to purchase whatever your heart desires.’

  Standing close, he bends, lifting a stray lock of her hair, as if to inhale the scent. Blushing, Cecile steps to one side, tucking the errant curl behind her ear.

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmurs. ‘Ms. Rossetti’s verse is beautiful. I won a prize, long ago, for its recitation, at the Beaulieu Academy for Ladies. Sadly, I’ve mislaid my own copy. The illustrations in this edition are enchanting.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ says Lorenzo, ‘They are by the great lady’s brother, the infamous Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Such lips he draws, such eyes…’

  The drawings are, indeed, sensual, causing Cecile to bow her head in modesty.

  ‘I make a gift of this to you, fair Cecile. It will give me pleasure to think of it in your possession.’

  To refuse would be discourteous, so Cecile accepts with a shy smile.

  ‘You are too generous, but I thank you for it.’

  Clutching the volume to her chest she walks on, stopping at a large, leather-bound edition, which lies open upon the desk.

  ‘My Goodness! What are they doing? It looks dreadfully awkward!’ remarks Cecile.

  Lucrezia’s hand moves to close the pages, and she glares at her brother.

  ‘Don’t be a prude, Lucrezia,’ admonishes Lorenzo. ‘Cecile is no schoolgirl. She may look if she wishes. My collection is at your disposal, Signorina McCaulay.’

  ‘That’s… very kind.’ Cecile is determined not to betray her discomfort but is at a loss as to how best to respond.

  The Conte’s eyes follow where hers linger, as if to gauge her daring.

  ‘Ignore my brother,’ interrupts Lucrezia, folding Cecile’s hand over her arm. ‘He takes delight in provocation.’

  ‘As you please,’ he answers to their retreating backs. ‘I judge no man, nor woman’s, curiosity. Too many waste a lifetime justifying their own sins, while condemning those of others. An exhausting occupation.’

  The carvings within the dark wood of the shelves are even more surprising to Cecile. Each narrow section depicts creatures she recognizes from mythology: the gorgon Medusa, and the multi-headed hydra, Cerberus guarding the gates of Hell, leaping satyrs and rearing centaurs. Twisting, eyes ablaze, hooves and hands and necks reach forward, as if to escape the confines of the wood. So many monsters and demons, and angels too, entwined in a Bacchanal, frozen in their macabre dance.

  The ceiling, too, is intriguing: Cecile has never seen so much naked flesh, hands clutching, grasping, claiming. In the frescos of Florence’s churches, and those of Rome and Venice, the faces of saints and sinners were contorted in similar states of agony and ecstasy. However, these are different; there’s violence in them, and lascivious hunger.

  ‘The theme is Zeus’ seductions,’ explains Lucrezia, seeing Cecile’s upward gaze. ‘Leda with the swan, and Europa carried off by Zeus as a white bull. So predictable! Men always the ravishers and we the ravished!’

  Cecile opens her mouth to speak, but no words emerge.

  * * *

  They come next to a long corridor, portraits spaced evenly along either side. Here is something more familiar: an extended acreage of ancestors, lined up for inspection. Or, perhaps, to inspect; faces stern and formidable look down from the frames. Cecile feels the lingering presence of those long-gone.

  ‘This is our father,’ says Lucrezia, indicating a handsome man, the very image of Lorenzo, with the same air of disdain and pride.

  ‘Don’t be fooled by his good looks, Cecile. Our eyes are not always to be trusted in leading our heart on the wisest path.’

  ‘Nor, always, our ears,’ adds Lorenzo, pointedly, coming to stand behind Cecile, so close that she feels his breath upon her neck. It’s most uncomfortably disturbing, and yet she cannot bring herself to move. Lorenzo’s hand touches briefly upon her waist and he moves past them, leading them onwards, along the passageway.

  There is a series of the young Lorenzo: with his dogs, with his first horse, on Isabella’s knee.

  ‘And who’s this?’ asks Cecile, stopping at another portrait, recessed into an alcove. ‘Is it you Lucrezia? But, it can’t be. The expression is too sad, I suppose…’

  Lucrezia eyebrows arch.

  ‘My father sent money to the orphanage in which I was raised, but he never visited me. Sons born far from the marriage bed may find a place, but rarely daughters. I doubt he had any image of me, not even a sketch in a forgotten drawer.’

  ‘We should remedy that,’ says Lorenzo, appearing again at their side. ‘A reclining nude, I think. You have a body worthy of immortalization, mia sorella… or so I would imagine…’

  Lorenzo presses his finger to his lips, as if to still his laughter.

  ‘Diavolo!’ reprimands Lucrezia, giving him a forceful pinch upon the back of his hand. Cecile observes that it makes him wince, but he returns her look of concern with a wink.

  ‘Have you any other siblings?’ Cecile asks, thinking to divert the conversation.

  ‘Probably, many.’ Lorenzo shrugs. ‘But I am the only legitimate heir.’

  * * *

  The tour takes them next into the courtyard, within which stands a tiny chapel.

  ‘How beautiful,’ remarks Cecile, as they enter to a view of marble saints, clasp-handed. Above the altar, in stained-glass, Jesus stands in the desert, tempted
by Satan, his face turned away in steadfast repose.

  ‘It’s remarkably tranquil. There’s no sound of the sea here,’ says Cecile. ‘I suppose it must be the thickness of the walls.’

  ‘Indeed,’ says Lorenzo. ‘There are many places in the Castello where all is not as it seems. As in life, piety above and devilry below!’

  Cecile doesn’t know what to make of Lorenzo’s comment. Really, he says so many strange things.

  Smiling at her puzzled expression, he moves to a heavy door, studded in iron, turning the key. It opens near silently, the hinges well-oiled for an ancient egress surely seldom used.

  He makes a sweeping gesture.

  ‘Follow me…’

  A lantern sits nearby, and a box of long-stemmed matches. Lucrezia lights the wick.

  Steps spiral down, taking them beneath the chapel, the flame casting a dull glow, swallowed by the darkness. Even with her hem lifted, Cecile fears she may trip and tumble. The air becomes still, subterranean dank, while the walls are damp to the touch. Her heels scrape stone, step by step, until they emerge into a space too large to be lit by the puny lamp. From somewhere beyond, there is a subdued, rushing sound, as of water moving.

  The cold creeps over Cecile, in her flimsy muslin gown.

  ‘We’re almost level with the sea,’ explains Lucrezia. ‘The tide is coming in.’

  There are other sounds too. Squeaks in the shadows, and the scratching scamper of small feet.

  ‘Our crypt,’ declares Lorenzo, his voice resonating. He leads onwards, his lamp illuminating the hard edges of tombs, until the room narrows, and ends at solid wall.

  Lorenzo raises the lantern, passing it slowly over what hangs there: iron hooks and tethers, leather straps and chains.

  ‘And what do you think happened here, sweet Cecile?’

  He lifts her palm to the dank wall, holding it there with his own, his skin warm and dry, pressed to the back of her hand. She stands immobile, as if her arm and hand were no longer part of her, and she were only observing them. And then, her hand is passed through cold metal, a circlet closed about her wrist. Her breath stops with the heavy clunk of the bolt through the cuff’s clasp.

  ‘You’re a captive of the crypt, now,’ says Lorenzo. ‘No one will find you.’

  His words drop, one by one. ‘Scream… and no one… will hear you.’

  In the velvet dark, Cecile feels his fingertips brush her collarbone, and quivers, in the uncertain space between fear and yearning.

  Would his single hand span my throat? What if his fingers were to move lower? How quickly would he reach beneath the bodice of my dress? His hands on my skin, his mouth, his tongue…

  Cecile’s head is spinning. She has entertained such thoughts, reading to candlelight, covers clutched to her chin. Never before have they come to life so vividly in the presence of a man.

  Can he tell what I’m thinking? It’s as if he sees to some secret place, thinks Cecile. And has God seen my thoughts? Doesn’t he see everything?

  Lorenzo’s voice is no more than a murmur, so that Cecile almost wonders if her own mind is conjuring the words.

  ‘Can you hear them? Those who were manacled?’

  His breath is on her cheek.

  ‘…and stripped?’

  His lips brush her ear.

  ‘…and beaten?’

  ‘Really, brother!’ declares Lucrezia, her voice awakening Cecile from her strange reverie.

  Lorenzo’s face, shadow-flung by the dim light, smiles, thin-lipped, eyes half-closed, as if in his own trance.

  ‘What fierce horrors! Have I frightened you? Do you strain and protest to be freed? Perhaps you’re less reluctant than you imagine.’

  ‘Pure wishful thinking!’ says Lucrezia, freeing the weight from Cecile’s wrist and rubbing where the metal has left its mark. ‘Poor Cecile will pack her bags and leave us!’

  She leads Cecile back, past the mouldering remains of ancestors, and spiders scuttering, until their eyes see the staircase once more.

  Lucrezia has not thought to see Cecile so easily brought under her brother’s spell. She will, she realizes, need a more direct approach in claiming Cecile’s affections, and allegiance, for her own.

  Secrets

  Cecile closes her book.

  She still thrills to read of Dracula’s visitation of Lucy, making her, night by night, his blood-bride, visiting her bedroom while mortals sleep, to suck forth her soul. And, at last, transformed, his willing victim rises from her grave, beautiful in her undead state, driven by lusts no living woman may speak of.

  It’s the fourth time she has read the tale but, tonight, she cannot concentrate.

  Her thoughts are not here, on the page, but deep beneath the castle. Her body is warm beneath the covers, while the di Cavours lie in cold splendour, in their ancestral tomb.

  All must die, of course, but Cecile is too young, and her pulse too strong, to envision her own end. How can flesh so alive imagine itself dead. Impossible!

  * * *

  There is a creak beyond the door, and a gentle knock, as of one who does not wish to disturb the sleeping house.

  Cecile pulls the covers a little tighter to her chin.

  The knock comes again, louder this time.

  ‘Mia cara,’ whispers a soft voice. ‘It’s me! Are you awake?’

  Cecile watches as the handle turns, and the door inches open.

  A white-gowned figure enters, hair dark about her face. Not Lucy or Mina, nor Dracula himself, but Lucrezia!

  ‘You are awake!’ she says, closing the door behind her. ‘Quickly, make room for me, it’s too chilly to stand about.’

  She pulls the drapes around the bed, against the draught, and wriggles beneath the embroidered quilt. Her icy toes touch those of Cecile, making her start.

  ‘How jumpy you are!’ declares Lucrezia.

  She sees the closed book, still upon the coverlet.

  ‘Ah! No wonder!’

  Lucrezia gives Cecile a smile.

  ‘Are you not glad to see me?’

  Cecile shuffles a little closer.

  ‘Of course,’ she answers. ‘I wasn’t expecting you, but I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘I knew you would be,’ asserts Lucrezia. ‘We’re sisters now, and sisters share everything.’

  She picks up the book and settles it on the night-stand, smoothing the quilt, and nudging closer to Cecile.

  ‘You remember, in the garden, I told you I’d share my secrets… ,’ says Lucrezia.

  Her fingers steal to find Cecile’s.

  ‘Earlier today, you thought the portrait in the long gallery might be me.’

  ‘And who is it?’ asks Cecile. ‘Not your mother?’

  ‘No, not her,’ concedes Lucrezia. ‘Another, whose story is more tragic by far than that of my mother… though her story is sad enough.’

  Cecile gives Lucrezia’s hand an encouraging squeeze.

  ‘A girl was born to the family before Lorenzo: Livia, older than him by two years. You recall the handkerchief you gave me? It was one she’d embroidered, with her own initial.’

  Cecile’s face displays every bit of the curiosity Lucrezia has anticipated.

  ‘This was once her chamber.’

  Cecile sits up in alarm.

  ‘She slept here… in this bed?’

  Lucrezia nods.

  Cecile draws back, as if the mysterious Livia might appear suddenly, her head on the pillows, beside them.

  ‘I hope she won’t mind, wherever she is now, that I’m occupying her room.’

  ‘She’s in a place where I doubt she minds much about anything,’ whispers Lucrezia, dropping her voice to a more confiding whisper.

  ‘She was never happy… I’m told. Never a happy child.’

  Lucrezia hesitates.

  ‘She became unwell, increasingly subject to fits of violence, her mind distracted.’

  ‘How awful!’

  ‘Awful, as you say, but some people are not born to happiness
.’

  ‘She was troubled from an early age?’ says Cecile.

  Lucrezia lowers her eyes.

  ‘Trouble visited her in the night, and she was unable to escape it, until her own mind chose to escape through a tangled garden of madness.’

  The hairs upon Cecile’s arms prickle with horror.

  ‘She’s a warning to us,’ says Lucrezia. ‘That the act of love is not always sacred, and not always desirable.’

  Her voice is barely a murmur.

  ‘She was sent away… to an asylum, Lorenzo tells me. They discovered, soon after her arrival, that she was with child.’

  ‘Oh!’ exclaims Cecile. ‘But, but…’ Her modesty makes her reluctant to form the words. ‘She wasn’t married!’

  ‘Indeed not,’ says Lucrezia.

  ‘What happened?’ asks Cecile, her eyes wide.

  ‘Apparently, she lost the child, and her own death followed soon after. A blessing, we might say.’

  The two fall into reflective silence, but Lucrezia glances up through her lashes, to look at Cecile.

  Such an innocent, she thinks.

  ‘We’d never wish to fall into trouble, would we?’ asserts Lucrezia, her voice firmer now.

  ‘Never,’ agrees Cecile.

  ‘Men see our virginity as a prize, and they wish to conquer it. So, we must resist,’ adds Lucrezia.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Cecile agrees.

  Even to Lucrezia, she dares not reveal the thoughts which come to her by night, as she dreams, and those which bear down upon her as she reads.

  ‘Do you want to know what happens? When a man and woman lie together?’ asks Lucrezia. ‘I’ve been talking with Magdalena, and she’s told me everything…’

  ‘Really?’ asks Cecile.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ answers Lucrezia. ‘And it’s most shocking! Close your eyes, and I’ll tell you, as best I can, of what happens to brides on their wedding night. Then, you shall know, and be prepared, and if a man who is not your husband attempts to seduce you, you shall know straight away, and be armed to rebuff him.’