The Viceroys (42 page)

‘Better still … They must have exaggerated, misinformed me. All the better! Can your father-in-law come tomorrow?'

‘Tomorrow or whenever he feels like it! What I want to know is why he went and stayed at the hotel? He could have stayed at home instead of putting on this silly act, causing all this gossip by behaving so idiotically!' He was talking harshly now, between set teeth, with red eyes. And the duke also changed his tone and exclaimed in agreement:

‘Yes, indeed … How right you are … I did all I could to dissuade him! But the dear man is made like that. Anyway it doesn't matter; we can say he didn't want to bother Giacomo … we'll find a reason. And you, do try to realise that one must take people as they are, be a bit circumspect. Have your fun,' he added with a meaning little smile, ‘but without making it obvious, saving appearances. It's unfortunate enough there was that bit of trouble earlier …'

‘Has Your Excellency anything else to tell me?' asked Raimondo, interrupting him brusquely. ‘If not, I'll bid you good night.'

Next day towards midday when the baron was expected and a palace carriage had gone to fetch him, suddenly Donna Ferdinanda appeared. It was over six months since she had been up the palace stairs, since in fact the day when Giulente entered. Till the last moment she had hoped to prevent the monstrous thing, but since slaps and pinches no longer had an effect on Lucrezia, as if she had been turned to stucco, and Giacomo was defending himself by throwing the blame on his uncle the duke, the Booby and on his own sister, the old spinster had finally gone off with a great banging of doors, shouting, ‘He'll laugh best who'll laugh last!' As soon as she reached home she called her maid, cook and stable boy, taken a piece of paper from a cupboard and torn it into little pieces ‘Not one cent …'

She expected her nieces and nephews to obey and submit to her because of the money which, having no children, she would be leaving them. The punishment for their rebellion was destruction of her Will in the presence of servants. The prince had been silent at first, to let the storm blow over, then he sent Fra' Carmelo with his son to visit his aunt, so that the sight of her favourite grand-nephew would placate her fury. Then he had gone to visit her himself and accepted, humble and mute,
the hail of reproval flung at him by the old spinster. And gradually, from a need to feel courted, from being unable to renounce putting her nose into her nephews' and nieces' affairs, she had been placated, though without going to visit them; the home of her ancestors was profaned, contaminated by the presence of that beggar, that bandit, that assassin who called himself Benedetto Giulente,
lawyer
,
LAWYER
!

Not even Raimondo's arrival had changed her determination; anyway her nephew came assiduously to her for advice. In her hatred for ‘the Palma woman' and in order to destroy that marriage which had taken place against her own wish, she urged the young man to make a definite break. Like Giulente, ‘the Palma woman' was a blot on the Uzeda house; she did not want her to set foot in there again. And she defended Donna Isabella against the accusations made against her; she too had been sacrificed to that ignoble
Fersa
, that farce of a man; nothing more natural than for that ill-assorted marriage to end badly; had they given the Pinto girl to Raimondo, ah, then!

Suddenly, close on each other, had come the news of the duke and baron's arrival, and of an imminent reconciliation between her nephew and his father-in-law. Raimondo had not put in an appearance; the thing was about to happen unknown to her! It was time to get her horses harnessed and go straight off to the palace.

When she entered the Yellow Drawing-room she found there the prince and princess, Don Eugenio, the duke, Lucrezia with her fiancé, Chiara with her marchese, and Raimondo walking up and down like a caged lion. As soon as Benedetto Giulente saw her enter, he got up respectfully. She passed him by as if he were one of the pieces of furniture scattered round the room. She answered no one's greeting except that of Raimondo, whom she drew apart towards a window.

‘Mad old bitch!' said Lucrezia to her fiancé, her face suddenly flushing.

He shook his head with an indulgent smile, but the duke now came up to the couple, as if to make up for his sister's rudeness.

‘The baron should be here by now,' he said, looking at his watch. ‘I'd have gone to fetch him myself if I hadn't feared
giving too much importance to something which should have none …'

‘Your Excellency did very well,' replied Benedetto. ‘There'd have been more gossip than ever … Not,' he added, ‘that it in any way reduces Your Excellency's merit for having brought peace back to a family which …'

‘Petty misunderstandings! Young folk have hot heads!' exclaimed the Honourable Member with a smile partly of indulgence and partly of pleasure.

Meanwhile Raimondo had stopped talking to his aunt and begun walking up and down again. He was green in the face and chewing his moustaches, twisting his lips, with hands in pockets.

Donna Ferdinanda now sat down next to the marchesa, who was in seventh heaven at being seven months with child. After two miscarriages in spite of following all the doctors' prescriptions, all the midwives' suggestions and all the old wives' tales she could find, she had at last changed her system completely and was doing just whatever she liked, going out driving or walking, running up and down stairs, swallowing all the mixtures which she imagined must help her. She was declaring to her sister-in-law that never had she been so well as now.

‘Those idiots! Those impostors … And the midwives are no better. Why the other day Donna Anna had the courage to come and see me. I took her by the shoulders and said, “My dear Donna Anna, if you'd like you can come and see me three months after I've had the child. It'd be a pleasure, but for the moment you can go, for I don't need you …” '

Everyone around was talking in whispers as if in a sick room, but at the sound of a carriage entering the courtyard all speech ceased. The duke moved into the antechamber to meet his friend; but there instead was Cousin Graziella.

‘How is Your Excellency? I heard of your arrival and said to myself—I must go and kiss my uncle's hand. My husband wanted to come too, but he's been suddenly called to the Courts about some boring case. He'll be coming later to do his duty …'

At sight of her, Raimondo sniffed louder than ever and exclaimed to his uncle, ‘Now this gossiping bitch too? Must the
whole city be here?… Can't Your Excellency see what a ridiculous scene …'

‘Patience … patience …' began the duke. But now another carriage was entering the courtyard. He passed out of the room and shortly afterwards reappeared with the senator. The latter was very pale and his jaws could be seen nervously clenching under his cheeks.

‘Raimondo,' exclaimed the deputy in a carelees and conciliating tone, ‘here's your father-in-law …'

The count stopped. Without taking his hands from his pockets he gave a nod of greeting and said:

‘How are you?'

Palmi replied, ‘Well, and you?' and turned to greet the others.

No-one breathed a word, every eye was on the baron. His hands too were trembling a little and he did not look his son-in-law in the face.

‘Please be seated, Don Gaetano,' went on the duke, taking him by the arm and urging him in a friendly way. Then Palmi sat down between the princess and the marchesa. Donna Ferdinanda sat stiffly upright, her chin in her neck like an old chicken.

‘Is Matilde well?' asked the princess.

‘Well, thank you.'

‘And the children?'

‘Very well.'

Raimondo was standing in the middle of the room, nervously snapping his fingers. The duke coughed a little, as if he were starting a sore throat, then asked him:

‘When are you going back to your wife?'

He replied shortly and briefly: ‘Tomorrow if need be.'

‘We'd like to have Matilde here a little,' went on his uncle, looking at the other relations as if asking for their assent; but no one said a word. ‘Well,' he went on then, ‘why not do this; go and fetch her and then you can all return together. What d'you think of that, baron?'

‘As you think best,' replied Palmi.

Suddenly for the third time there was the sound of a carriage entering the courtyard, and all eyes turned towards the door. Who could it be? Ferdinando? The duchess?

In bounced Don Blasco.

Like his sister, the monk had not set foot inside the palace since the day of Lucrezia's engagement; like Donna Ferdinanda he had blamed it all on the prince, and had been so stubbornly deaf to all justifications that the latter had finally tired of insisting, having no legacy to hope for from him as he had from the other. Then, finding himself isolated, unable to take part in family affairs, forced to hear news of them at second or third hand through the Marchese Federico or strangers, the monk felt quite lost. Squabbles at the monastery kept him busy up to a point, but shouts and curses at Liberals, though redoubled as the new order became more established, were not enough, had no flavour unless made to his own relations in the very place where that renegade brother of his had his triumph, where that adventurer Giulente was sure to be spewing heresies. So, puffing frenziedly, he had been on the point more than once of going to visit the prince, but on getting half-way he had thought better of it, not wanting to give his nephew the satisfaction of seeing him yield first. At the news of the duke's and the baron's arrival, of the peace about to be made between father-in-law and son-in-law, he felt it was time for him to come to a decision.

The prince went towards him to kiss his hand. Lucrezia and Giulente, sitting together, were nearest the entrance doors. As the monk passed the young man got up as he had for the spinster, but Don Blasco went straight on towards the middle of the room. At this second affront Lucrezia became redder than ever and made her fiancé sit down.

‘They'll pay for it, you'll see!' she said. ‘They'll pay for it … Never will I set foot in this house again!… Never so much as look them in the face!…'

The duke did not seem to notice his brother's arrival. To revive the languishing conversation and overcome the chill entrammelling all, and make herself useful, Cousin Graziella began asking about his journey through Italy, and the deputy now talked away at top speed:

‘What a confusion in Naples, eh? Such a place! You'd think that once the Court and Ministers and all the movement of a capital had gone it ought to lose population, reduce itself to a provincial town; instead of which every day it grows more
animated than before. Turin is full of life too, but in a different way …'

‘In a different way …' repeated the baron in a condescending tone, as if to avoid being silent.

‘Is it true that it's rather like Catania?' asked the marchese.

Raimondo broke out of his dumbness to say ironically:

‘Exactly like it! Two drops of water …'

‘The streets are said to be designed in the same way.'

‘Yes! Yes, indeed … Why not admit it! Turin is uglier, smaller, poorer, dirtier.'

Chiara then leapt to her husband's defence:

‘This mania for criticising one's own home town I've never understood.'

‘Excuse me,' protested the duke, ‘no-one's criticising here.'

‘One can't really compare them,' said Benedetto conciliatingly.

Donna Ferdinanda slowly raised her eyes and turned them in the direction whence the voice had come, but when she had them half-way there she switched them over to the window where Don Blasco was listening to his nephew's account of developments.

‘He says he'll join his wife and then they'll both come here. Our uncle the duke arranged everything. As far as I'm concerned they can do just whatever they like. But they'll begin all over again, you'll see. I hope I'm mistaken, but We're only at the start …'

‘Why did that old swine do it? Hasn't he enough bees in his bonnet? Must he put his nose into this too? But I know the reason … Yes, I know … I know the reason …'

He was about to go on and have his full say when Baldassarre entered, grave and dignified as the solemnity of the occasion demanded.

‘Excellency,' he said to the duke, ‘the representatives of various organisations are asking to pay Your Excellency their respects.'

Before the deputy had time to reply the baron had got to his feet.

‘Duke, do go, I leave you free.'

‘But no, stay, do … I'll be back in a moment …'

‘I have a lot to do too. Many thanks!'

‘Won't you at least come back to lunch with us?'

‘Thank you, no; I'm leaving today. I've arranged a special coach.'

It was useless to insist; the baron always put up a polite but cold refusal. He said goodbye to everyone and left accompanied by the duke, who was going downstairs to see his electors, while Raimondo went off to his own rooms. The three had scarcely vanished when a general murmur went up in the Yellow Drawing-room.

‘What a way of behaving!' exclaimed Donna Ferdinanda. ‘He's not said a dozen words in half an hour!' said Cousin Graziella. ‘What's wrong with him? What have they done to him?' And the marchese said:

‘If one's in that sort of mood one shouldn't visit people.' ‘And how haughty he was!' added his wife.

From his place Benedetto Giulente observed:

‘His departure seems an excuse … to refuse …'

Then Don Blasco, without turning to the young man, as if answering the idea just put forward by him, boomed out:

‘The swine, idiot, and buffoon in this case is the one who invited him here!'

Benedetto, though the monk was not looking at him, made a gesture of the head that seemed part assent at what was said and part excuse of the duke's insistence.