The Viceroys (32 page)

Had Donna Ferdinanda been given any property? She had some now, yes, but that was because, gifted with that spirit of shrewd prudence traditional to the family, she had multiplied the capital left by her father by investing it later in houses and land. But apart from that, who among all those sons had married? None of them! Don Blasco, with his ‘exemplary' vocation, had renounced the lures of the world to take the habit. The eldest daughter had shut herself up in San Placido, neither the duke nor Don Eugenio had taken wives, nor had Donna Ferdinanda a husband. Why? Because they considered themselves as mere depositories of their part of the family fortune! In the present generation there had been two exceptions to this rule: the count, who had married Donna Matilde, Chiara who had become Marchesa of Villardita. But here there shone the princess's zealous maternal love. Not everyone is made in the same way; what may seem redundant or useless to one is convenient for others; some are content with the single state and others suffer from it. But the late lamented princess had realised that marriage was necessary to Raimondo's happiness, so she had given him a wife without looking to the sacrifice involved.

As for Chiara, a propitious occasion had presented itself and in order to ensure this daughter's happiness the princess had even forced her hand; time now showed who had been right! As for her, Lucrezia, God had allowed her mother to die before the time for thinking of her future, but disaster though this was, her future was just as close to her elder brother's heart. It was strange for him to talk to a girl about certain matters, but necessity forced him. Her late lamented mother's wish, a reasonable wish, founded on positive arguments and not on whims, was that she should remain at home, but if on the contrary she had
decided for her own good to do otherwise, had it ever been suggested that if she did want to marry, the prince would oppose her? When a chance came of her marrying well, with the decorum suitable to her name, the prince would not let it pass. But she must trust him and be sure that he wished only his sister's good and considered himself invested with a kind of moral tutelage. And she must not give an example of family dissension, a scandal in this world and a cause of great bitterness to her late lamented mother in the next …

While the confessor was making this speech to Lucrezia, the prince was making a slightly different one to Donna Ferdinanda. The spinster, though inveighing against the Giulente, had in time resigned herself to their pretensions; with that pig of a duke no longer there to help on the love affair, she had thought it entirely over. But one day, when they were talking about the responsibility of heads of families with marriageable girls at home, Giacomo told his aunt that Lucrezia should get married too and that he for his part would leave her free to choose whom she liked best, particularly as she seemed to have made her choice already …

The spinster turned on him like an asp:

‘Chosen? Chosen? And who's she chosen?'

‘Who? Oh, Giulente of course …'

She went scarlet as if about to suffocate.

‘Ah, yes?… Still?… And you let it go on?'

‘Your Excellency knows our family,' replied the prince with a smile. ‘When we get something into our heads it's difficult to induce us to change our minds …'

‘Ah, it's difficult, is it? I'll show you if it's difficult or easy!…'

From that moment the spinster became viper-like to her niece. Her railing, for any reason or excuse, could be heard even down in the stables; her ironical allusions to petty love affairs poured out acidly and pungently. Insults against the Giulente family followed in endless variety. She said terrible things about them, accused them of every kind of filth, even crimes. She no longer merely said they were common, but affirmed that old Giulente's grandfather had first made his money as a vintner at Syracuse, his son had robbed the municipality, his grandson the Government,
and all the women of the family had been so many strumpets …

Lucrezia let her have her say. They did not realise that the more they abused Giulente the better she thought of him, that all talk intended to loosen her intention merely drew it tighter. ‘I'll marry Benedetto or no-one,' she would say to the maid after those outbursts. ‘Let them go on shouting; when the time comes I'll marry him.'

Meanwhile the prince, having decided to let up on this particular matter, treated her less harshly. One day when the woman was bringing a letter to her young mistress from Giulente, he took the missive from her hand, read the address and handed it back. Donna Vanna rushed to Lucrezia and said, panting:

‘Be of good heart, Your Excellency! This means that he's pleased, he's finally agreed …' He had also achieved his aim of breaking up the league against him, for the Marchese Federico, as fanatical about nobility as any Uzeda, on hearing that his young sister-in-law had got it into her head to marry Giulente, showed his own disapproval of this match. Then his wife took sides with her aunt against her sister, calling her eccentric and accusing her of madness. Lucrezia, on the other hand, when she let herself go with Vanna, would remember the frenzies, sobs, swoonings of Chiara when forced to marry the marchese. ‘And now she's with those who want to force me! I don't care about her opposition! A mad-woman like her! A rag in the wind! Now she's all one with the husband whom she wouldn't even hear mentioned before. She'll change once again tomorrow; you'll see!'

In the midst of this strife Raimondo returned from Milazzo without his family. He did not even spend a quarter of an hour with his relations; as soon as he arrived he shut himself up with Pasqualino and next day was seen following Donna Isabella Fersa into church. Once again began murmurs by servants, by the curious, by idlers at the Nobles' Club. He had told his wife that he would be away a week on business, but two months later he had not yet announced his return. To her letters he either replied asking for time or did not reply at all. At carnival-time
Matilde joined him, with her father. He greeted her with four words, pronounced icily:

‘Why did you come?'

He had arranged a series of entertainments with the help of friends; on Shrove Tuesday he passed and repassed beneath Donna Isabella's house, in a cart rigged as a ship with all on it dressed as sailors, each time throwing flowers and confetti for a quarter of an hour up at her balconies; on Saturday, at a subscription ball in the Town Hall, he danced with her the whole evening; and again on Monday at the Opera ball.

And Matilde, all alone, as her father had gone to rejoin the children, would repeat to herself his question, the only words with which he had answered her solicitude, ‘Why did I come?' To watch this!… So he was still pretending, lying, deceiving her, or rather not even bothering to do that! Soon after his arrival at Milazzo he had railed like one demented against life in that ‘hole of a place', tortured her with complaints, rebukes, with daily discontent and constant ill-humour, until he managed to escape. Injustice, rudeness, violence, she would have forgiven all, so much did she still love him; she even forgave him his indifference to his daughters, innocent creatures of his own flesh and blood! But to find him escaping far away, to know him given over to another woman, to smell on him the scent of that other woman's dresses, hands, and hair. No, that she could not endure!

‘You aren't at it again, are you? You haven't come to bother me again?' he would answer her attempts at remonstrance, her timid reproval. ‘Why didn't you stay with your father, then?'

‘Because I ought to be with you, because my place is by your side, because you should not leave me either!'

‘Who's leaving you? If I wanted to leave you, d'you think it would be difficult? I'd have already packed my bags by now and gone off to Florence, Paris or the Devil!'

‘Let's go away together! Why don't we return to Florence? We have our house there.'

‘Just now I'm busy here!'

‘But now you've given to your brother that power-of-attorney …'

‘I gave the power-of-attorney for day-to-day business administration!
Now we must get to the division and to paying my sisters, as the three years are now up since the succession. D'you see that? Or would you like me to add it up? My mother died in May '55 and it's now March '58 … That's three years, isn't it? Is there anything else you want to know?'

‘Why d'you talk to me like that? I've said nothing wrong, have I?'

‘Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! But d'you think it's fun for me to hear these continual complaints and suspicions of yours?'

‘No, no. I won't do it any more … I won't say another thing to you …'

He was capable of putting his threat into practice, of leaving her, of leaving his daughters! So she hid her own sorrow, seeing that he was worse than before, as if her every remonstrance was an incitement. But she said to herself that Fersa was finally listening to his mother, opening his eyes and showing the count that he did not like all that assiduity. And in fact he no longer brought his wife to the Uzeda palace, nor was Raimondo seen with Donna Isabella in public any more, though he still followed the Fersa carriage with his own everywhere, as if in pursuit. In church, at the theatre, he would sit right opposite and not take his eyes off her.

One day Cousin Graziella came to the palace to ask for the prince, and shut herself up with him to say:

‘Cousin, there's something very serious I must talk to you about.' For many years, since Giacomo had married, they had used the formal
voi
to each other. ‘Donna Mara Fersa sent me a message through a friend, about this matter of Raimondo!'

‘What matter?' asked the prince, as if he did not understand.

‘Don't you know what people are saying?… Raimondo has got it into his head to pester Donna Isabella. And everyone has noticed, to tell the truth …'

‘I have noticed nothing.'

‘Well, it's true, cousin, I can assure you … The thing is not right and I don't like it … At one time they used often to meet at my home, and I received them with open arms. How could I have suspected any harm in it? Or I would never have lent myself to such a thing! Raimondo is a father, Donna
Isabella has a husband too; what do they want to do?… An open quarrel has broken out in the Fersa family between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law. Cousin Raimondo must really be persuaded to stop it once and for all.'

‘And why do you tell it to me?' replied Giacomo, with a shrug.

‘Why? Because I'm not on very close terms with Raimondo … and anyway it would be better if you talked to him; you are head of the family and can …'

‘You're mistaken. I can do nothing; here each one of us does just what he or she likes. Head indeed! Try and realise that I'm very nearly the tail!'

Cousin Graziella went on invoking Giacomo's authority and the prince complaining about the lack of accord in the family whereas he would have liked to see them all united, mutually affectionate, disposed to help and advise each other.

‘You want me to talk to my brother, do you? He's quite capable of replying, “What are you putting your nose into?” It wouldn't be the first reply of the kind … My dear cousin, you know how obstinate we all are!… No, no, believe me, it would be useless, if not worse.'

His cousin, delighted at having a finger in the pie, began on the same subject with the princess.

‘Can it really be true?…' exclaimed Donna Margherita, who had noticed nothing. ‘Poor Matilde!… She doesn't deserve such treatment!'

‘That's what I say! With such a charming wife I can't understand why Raimondo looks for distractions elsewhere … But who can understand men? I'm really sorry, I am indeed! Two families disturbed while they could have been together in peace and harmony! Anyway, my cousin should be persuaded to leave Donna Isabella in peace. As for me, I'd have no difficulty in saying so to his face; I'm not afraid of his eating me up! But you know how these things are. We're cousins, it's true. But I'd not like it said that I was trying to put my nose into other people's business and stirring up strife! While God alone knows how sorry I am!'

The princess nodded, sincerely sorry, all the more as she could do nothing. Had her husband not warned her to mind her
own business, under pain of his displeasure?… And now Cousin Graziella began to manœuvre around Matilde herself, having decided to say everything to her. Was she not the wife? Who more than she had a right to talk to Raimondo and an interest in detaching him from that intrigue?… One evening she happened to meet her alone in the Red Drawing-room and began to ask news of the baron, of her sister's marriage, and of the children's health.

‘Will they be coming here, or will you go and join them?'

‘I don't know,' replied Matilde in embarrassment. ‘I don't know what Raimondo will decide.'

‘I understand!' replied Graziella with a sigh. ‘Men want to do whatever they get into their heads … One thing today, another tomorrow … You, of course, would like to go to your family home with your father. It's all very well, a husband's family, yes, yes, but one never forgets one's own! Cousin Raimondo should also decide to leave here … it would be much better … for him too …'

Matilde bowed her head and avoided looking at her, pressing her hands together. Graziella went on:

‘For him too … He'd get away from temptations … and have only his family to think of!… You're right to be restless, you poor thing, I do understand … You don't deserve to be treated like this … But you ought to tell him so!… You're his wife after all, and mother of his children … You can talk out … Make him stop it once and for all.'

The blood had rushed to Matilde's forehead, and her eyes were shut. Then she felt herself go icy. Suddenly she brought both hands up to her face and burst into sobs.