A Venetian Affair (8 page)

I’ve never seen Smith so sprightly. He made me walk with him
all morning and climbed the stairs, skipping the steps to show his
agility and strength. [The children] were playing in the garden
at who could throw stones the furthest. And Memmo, would you
believe it? Smith turned to me and said, “Do you want to see me
throw a stone further than anyone else?” I thought he was kidding, but no: he asked [the children] to hand him two rocks and
threw them toward the target. He didn’t even reach it, so he
blamed the stones, saying they were too light. He then threw more
stones. By that time I was bursting with laughter and kept biting
my lip.

The visit to Mogliano left everyone satisfied, and even Giustiniana returned in a good mood. Smith was by now apparently quite smitten and intended to continue his courtship during the course of the summer. As this would have been impossible if the Wynnes stayed in Venice, he suggested to Mrs. Anna that she rent from the Mocenigo family a pleasant villa called Le Scalette in the fashionable village of Dolo on the banks of the Brenta, a couple of hours down the road from Mogliano. Smith himself handled all the financial transactions, and since the rental cost would have been high for Mrs. Anna it is possible that he also covered part of the expenses.

Needless to say, Giustiniana was not happy about the arrangement. It was one thing to spend a few days at Mogliano, quite another to have Smith hovering around her throughout the summer. Meanwhile, where would Andrea be? When would they be able to see each other? She could not stand the idea of being separated from her lover for so long. Andrea again tried to reassure her. There was nothing to worry about: it would probably be simpler to arrange clandestine meetings in the country than it was in town. He would come out as often as possible and stay with trusted friends—the Tiepolos had a villa nearby. He would visit her often. It would be easy.

In the meantime Andrea decided he needed to spend as much time as possible with the consul in order to humor him, allay his suspicions, and steer him ever closer toward a decision about Giustiniana. It soon became apparent that the consul, too, wished to keep his young friend close to him. He said he wanted Andrea at his side to deal with his legal and financial affairs but he was probably putting him to the test, observing him closely to see if he still loved Giustiniana. Never before had he seemed so dependent on him. The two of them became inseparable—an unusual couple traveling back and forth between Venice and Mogliano, where Smith’s staff was preparing the house for the summer season, and making frequent business trips to Padua.

Giustiniana was left to brood over her future alone. She complained about Andrea’s absences from Venice and dreaded the uncertainty of her situation. She did not understand his need to spend so much time with that “damned old man.” She felt they were “wasting precious time” that they could be spending together. Yet her reproaches always gave way to words of great tenderness. During one of Andrea’s overnight trips to the mainland with the consul, she wrote:

You are far away, dear Memmo, and I am not well at all. I am
happier when you are here in town even when I know we won’t
be speaking because I always bear in mind that if by happy accident I am suddenly free to see you, I can always find a way to tell
you. You might run over to see me; I might see you at the window. . . . And so the time I spend away from you passes less
painfully. . . . But days like this one are very long indeed and
seem never to end. . . . Though I must say there have been some
happy moments too, as when I woke up this morning and found
two letters from you that I read over and over all day. They gave
me so much pleasure. . . . I still have other letters from you, which
I fortunately have not yet returned to you—those too were
brought out and given a “tour” today. And your portrait—oh,
how sweetly it occupied me! I spoke to it, I told it all the things
that I feel when I see you and I am unable to express to you when
I am near you. . . . My mother took me out with her to take some
fresh air, and we went for a ride ever so lazily down the canal.
And as by chance she was as quiet as I was, I let myself go
entirely to my thoughts. Then, emerging from those thoughts, I
looked around eagerly, as if I were about to run into you. Every
time I saw a boat that seemed to me not unlike yours, I couldn’t
stop believing that you might be in it. The same thing happened
when we got back home—a sudden movement outside brought me
several times to the window where I always sit when I hope to see
you. . . . The evening hours were very uncomfortable. We had
several visitors, and I could not leave the company. But in the end
they did not bother my heart and thoughts so much because I went
to sit in a corner of the room. Now, thank God, I have retired and
I am with you with all my heart and spirit. This is always the
happiest moment of the evening for me. And you, my soul, what
are you doing in the country? Are you always with me? Tonnina
now torments me because she wants to sleep and is calling me to
bed. Oh, the fussy girl! But I guess I must please her. I will write
to you tomorrow. Wouldn’t it be sweet if I could dream I was with
you? Farewell, my Memmo, farewell. I adore you. . . . Memmo, I
always, always think of you, always, my soul, yes, always.

As the
villeggiatura
approached, Giustiniana’s anxiety increased. Andrea still spent most of his time with the consul, working for their future happiness, as he put it. But there was no sign that the consul was any closer to a decision. Furthermore, the idea of spending the summer in the countryside deceiving the old man disconcerted her. She grew pessimistic and began to fear that nothing good would ever come of their cockamamie scheme. Andrea was being unrealistic, she felt, and it was madness to press on: “Believe me, we have nothing to gain and much to lose. . . . We are bound to commit many imprudent acts. He will surely become aware of them and will be disgusted with both you and me. You will have a very dangerous enemy instead of a friend. As for my mother, she will blame us as never before for having disrupted what she believes to be the best plan she ever conceived.” The two of them carried on regardless, Giustiniana complained—she by ingratiating herself to the consul every time she saw him “as if I were really keen to marry him,” thereby pleasing her mother to no end, and Andrea by “lecturing me all day that I should take him as a husband.” But even if she did, even if the consul, at the end of their machinations, asked her to marry him and she consented, did Andrea really think things would suddenly become easier for them or that the consul would come to accept their relationship? “For heaven’s sake, don’t even contemplate such a crazy idea. Do you believe he would even stand to have you in his house or see you next to me? God only knows the scenes that would take place and how miserable my life would become, and his and yours too.”

In June, as Giustiniana waited for the dreaded departure to the countryside, Andrea’s trips out of town increased. There was more to attend to than the consul’s demands: his own family expected him to pay closer attention to the Memmo estates on the mainland now that his uncle was dead. As soon as he was back in Venice, though, he immediately tried to comfort Giustiniana by reiterating the logic behind their undertaking. He insisted that there was no alternative: the consul was their only chance. He argued for patience and was usually persuasive enough that Giustiniana, by her own admission and despite all her reservations, would melt “into a state of complete contentment” just listening to him speak.

Little by little she was beginning to accept the notion that deception was a necessary tool in the pursuit of her own happiness. But the art of deceit did not come naturally to her. When she was not in Andrea’s arms, enthralled by his reassuring words, her own, more innocent way of thinking quickly took over again, and she would panic: “Oh God, Memmo, you paint a picture of my present and my future that makes me tremble. You say Smith is my only chance. Yet if he doesn’t take me, I lose you, and if he does take me, I can’t see you. And you wish me to be wise. . . . Memmo, what should I do? I cannot go on like this.”

“Ah, Memmo, I am here now and there is no turning back.”

In early July, after weeks of preparations, the Wynnes had finally traveled across the lagoon and up the Brenta Canal and had arrived at Le Scalette, the villa the consul had arranged for them to rent. The memory of her tearful separation from Andrea in Venice that very morning—the Wynnes and their small retinue piling onto their boat on the Grand Canal while Andrea waved to her from his gondola, apparently unseen by Mrs. Anna—had filled Giustiniana’s mind during the entire boat ride. She had lain on the couch inside the cabin, pretending to sleep so as not to interrupt even for an instant the flow of images that kept her enraptured by sweet thoughts of Andrea. Once they arrived at the villa and had settled in, she cast a glance around her new surroundings and had discovered that the house and the garden were actually very nice and the setting on the Brenta could not have been more pleasant. “Oh, if only you were here, how delightful this place would be. How sweetly we could spend our time,” she wrote to him before going to bed the first night.

The daily rituals of the
villeggiatura
began every morning with a cup of hot chocolate that sweetened the palate after a long night’s sleep and provided a quick boost of energy. It was usually served in an intimate setting—breakfast in the boudoir. The host and hostess and their guests would exchange greetings and the first few tidbits of gossip before the morning mail was brought in. Plans for the day would be laid out. After the toilette, much of which was taken up by elaborate hairdressing in the case of the ladies, the members of the household would reassemble outdoors for a brief walk around the perimeter of the garden. Upon their return they might gather in the drawing room to play cards until it was time for lunch, a rather elaborate meal that in the grander houses was usually prepared under the supervision of a French cook. Afternoons were taken up by social visits or a more formal promenade along the banks of the Brenta, an exercise the Venetians had dubbed
la trottata.
Often the final destination of this afternoon stroll was the
bottega,
the village coffeehouse where summer residents caught up with the latest news from Venice. After dinner, the evening was taken up by conversation and society games. Blindman’s bluff was a favorite. In the larger villas there were also small concerts and recitals and the occasional dancing party.

Giustiniana did not really look forward to any of this. As soon as she arrived at Le Scalette she was seized by worries of a logistical nature, wondering whether it would really be easier for her to meet Andrea secretly in the country than it had been in Venice. She looked around the premises for a suitable place where they could see each other and immediately reported to her lover that there was an empty guest room next to her bedroom. More important: “There is a door not far from the bed that opens onto a secret, narrow staircase that leads to the garden. Thus we are free to go in and out without being seen.” She promised Andrea to explore the surroundings more thoroughly: “I will play the spy and check every corner of the house, and look closely at the garden as well as the caretaker’s quarters—everywhere. And I will give you a detailed report.”

The villa next door belonged to Andrea Tron, a shrewd politician who never became doge but was known to be the most powerful man in Venice (he would play an important role in launching Andrea’s career). Tron took a keen interest in his new neighbors. As an old friend of Consul Smith, he was aware that the death of Smith’s wife had created quite an upheaval among the English residents. Like all well-informed Venetians, he also knew about Andrea and Giustiniana’s past relationship and was curious to know whether it might still be simmering under the surface. He came for lunch and invited the Wynnes over to his villa. Mrs. Anna was pleased; it was good policy to be on friendly terms with such an influential man as Tron. She encouraged Giustiniana to be sociable and ingratiating toward their important neighbor. In the afternoon, Giustiniana took to sitting at the end of the garden, near the little gate that opened onto the main thoroughfare, enjoying the coolness and gazing dreamily at the passersby. Tron would often stroll past and stop for a little conversation with her.

Initially Giustiniana thought his large estate might prove useful for her nightly escapades. She had noticed that there were several
casini
on his property where she and Andrea could meet under cover of darkness. But thanks to her frequent trips to the servants’ quarters, where she was already forming useful alliances, she had found out that Tron’s
casini
were “always full of people and even if there should be an empty one, the crowds next door might make it too dangerous” for them to plan a tryst there.

In the end it seemed to her more convenient and prudent to make arrangements with their trusted friends, the Tiepolos: their villa was a little further down the road, but Andrea could certainly stay there and a secret rendezvous might be engineered more safely. Giustiniana even went so far as to express the hope that they might be able to replicate in the countryside “another Ca’ Tiepolo,” which had served them so well back in Venice. She added—her mind was racing ahead—that when Andrea came out to visit it would be best “if we meet in the morning because it is easy for me to get up before everyone else while in the evening the house is always full of people and I am constantly observed.”