The Viceroys (76 page)

Some weeks later, in spite of the heat of the season, the
princess went out with her daughter and bought quantities of house-linen. Then she called seamstresses to sew and embroider sets of all kinds. ‘We're working for the young princess!', they would say in positive tones aimed really at eliciting some confirmation. But the princess said nothing, though she embraced her stepdaughter more often than usual, and looked at her with an air as if to say ‘Wait and see!…' Teresa asked no questions, but realised that the day of her happiness was near. Baldassarre was beside himself with delight and announcing the wedding without reticence; it was almost certain now; wasn't the prince going to the duchess's every day to discuss settlements? It might be only a matter of weeks before all the relations received news of the happy event.

In fact, one day, in connection with some bed covers which she found it difficult to choose, Teresa said to her stepmother, ‘Let Your Excellency choose, to me they're all pretty …'

‘Why, d'you think I'm to use them? Don't you realise they're for you?' replied the princess.

Teresa's forehead went scarlet. She held her breath and lowered her lashes.

‘Come here!…' and drawing her to her heart, Donna Graziella began, ‘It's for you, for your marriage. The moment has come to make you happy … D'you think your father hasn't been thinking of you? He has so much business, so many cares! But now we'll do everything quickly, you'll see …' And imprinting a kiss on her forehead, while holding her head in both hands, she exclaimed, ‘Are you pleased to become a duchess?'

For a moment Teresa thought she had misunderstood. She fluttered her lashes, looked her stepmother in the eyes, and repeated like an echo:

‘Duchess?…'

‘Duchess Radalì, of course, and also Baroness of Filici, as your second son will bear that title! Duchess, and with lots of ducats too! One of the richest! Your father will treat you well, as Consalvo has behaved so badly. He's already arranged everything with your aunt … and in time my things will go to you too, won't they? Well? Are you pretending not to know?… Why are you looking at me like that?… What's the matter?'

‘Mamma … Mamma …'

Ever paler as her stepmother said those words, more and more shaky and trembly, as if at a glimpse of some horror, she now put one hand to her forehead and with the other seized the princess.

‘Mamma, no … I didn't think …'

‘What?… My dear girl! Confide in me!… You didn't think what?… But I was sure though … He's been coming, here almost every day! Anyway you know now … Don't you … No?… You say “no”?… Why? For what reason? Isn't your father making sacrifices to ensure this match for you!… 30,000
onze
, d'you understand? He'll give you 30,000
onze!
… And Michele has four times that again. And you say no?… Why?…'

‘Because I thought … I didn't think … that it was him …'

‘Who then?… Another?…' and the princess seemed to be searching about in her mind. Then suddenly, as if it had that moment occurred to her, ‘His brother maybe?' she added.

Dropping on to a chair, Teresa hid her face in her hands and burst into tears. From the first moment she had realised, with a tightening of the heart, that all her refusals would be vain; they had decided to give her to the elder son, she had at all costs to accept him. And her stepmother's honeyed words as she said with clasped hands, ‘If I'd known!… Why didn't you speak?… Now that your father's arranged everything …' confirmed her in that wretched certainty and made the tears flow more than ever. Speak? To whom? With what purpose? In a family where there was no trust, where all were quarrelling with everyone else, caring only for their own interests? As they had first made her used to giving way about everything and then lulled her into confidence that they would make her happy. Could she ever suppose they would have chosen by themselves without consulting her, and one day come and say ‘Well, you must marry someone you don't like …?' But why? Why did they want to give her to the other one and not the one who had her heart?

‘For your own sake!' exclaimed the stepmother. ‘We've decided this way for your own sake! He's the elder son, you'll be a duchess, your sons will have two titles to choose from, while with the other there won't be a single one left … And he's also
richer; not by much, it's true, but there's still a difference! And a daughter of the Prince of Francalanza can't marry an obscure younger brother as if she were a nobody!'

What did that matter? As she had given her heart to Giovannino? As it had never crossed her mind that the other brother, so gross and ugly, could be her husband?

‘But don't you know,' went on the princess, ‘that your aunt the duchess won't ever agree to Giovannino's marrying even if we did, as I'd like to in order to please you? Don't you know our aunt wants only her elder son to marry? Such is the rule in our families; in fact if times hadn't changed it would not even occur to Giovannino to approach a girl like you, knowing he could not marry her!'

‘No, no!…' broke out Teresa then amid her tears. ‘Don't blame him; it was me too … I love him too …'

‘Oh come!' exclaimed her stepmother with a smile full of indulgence. ‘Just passing children's fancies … aren't they?' she went on in another tone, seeing Teresa's mute sobbing beginning again. ‘Are you determined to cause your father pain? With all the other troubles he has? Then go and tell him you don't want to!'

‘Me, mamma?…'

‘Why d'you expect me to tell him this
pleasant
news? Come now! I'm upset by your refusal too, you know, but, but … I'm not your mother … And it's not as if you, or your brother, care whether I'm upset or not …'

‘Oh, mamma!… Why do you say that? Don't you know I've always respected you and loved you as if you were my own mother?'

‘All right!… all right!…'

Oh, why did she not have her real mother by her in that sad hour when her need of sincere affection, of true protection was more necessary than ever! Her mother would never have left her alone, sobbing, as her stepmother did, with only these words for comfort:

‘All right; I'll tell your father. After all, it's he who'll have to deal with it!…'

The princess never mentioned the marriage again to Teresa, just as if they had not discussed it in the first place. Nor did
the prince say anything to her. But from her father's changed bearing she realised he knew all, and what he wanted from her. From one day to another he never said a word to her, never called her by name, never seemed to notice her presence. The air of content which had come over his face at the good news of the court decision vanished again, and he went round frowning worse than ever and losing his temper again about the slightest thing.

The news began to filter out among the family. Most of them thought Teresa silly to prefer the baron to the duke; some supported her, Consalvo among them. About his sister he did not care a fig, and he took her part to show off his culture and democracy. ‘You see the force of prejudice?' he would exclaim. ‘They want to give my sister to a cousin,' and then came a long lesson on marriage between close relatives. ‘But of the two, they give her the one she doesn't want, not the one she wants. Why? For a difference of words! Duke or baron!… It would be different if behind these titles there was a real duchy or a real barony!'

Aunt Ferdinanda's and Lucrezia's aversion now had new fuel. So that silly girl preferred the younger son to the elder! Opposed her father's will! And to think the father had been unable to educate her to blind obedience!… Her uncle the duke, with a foot in both camps as always, leant a little this way and a little that, but in his heart he was for the match chosen by the prince as more worthy of the family; and anyway the duchess herself did not want her younger son to get married, did she?

The duchess, in fact, was in a great state. After sacrificing her whole life for love of her elder son to ensure great riches for him and his descendants, after waiting so long to get him a wife, as there was no one she considered worthy, now that she had found him his cousin Teresa and was on the eve of crowning the work of thirty long years along came a love-affair with Giovannino to destroy all her plans at one blow. She had never suspected such a thing, so obvious had it seemed to her that Giovannino must feel obliged to remain a bachelor in order that only the eldest son should continue the family. ‘When Michele gets married … When Michele has children …' Giovannino himself had talked of nothing else but Michele's, the duke's marriage.

The two brothers were fond of each other, and had always been close, so if now Giovannino seemed to be putting a spoke in the wheel it was her fault for not having told him of the match she had in mind. The fault was also Michele's. Lymphatic, incapable of excitement, fond only of shooting and good food, when his mother let years pass without finding him a wife, he had never asked for one. Now that his cousin Teresa was suggested, he was prepared to marry her, without any desire, without any urge, as he would have married any other girl. He treated his cousin with the familiarity justified by their relationship, joked with her as he joked with all, rather grossly; he was incapable of saying a tender word to her. How could anyone suspect then that he was the girl's future husband? It was not even suspected by Baldassarre, who was astounded at hearing that the bridegroom was not to be his favourite but the other brother. What? The prince wanted to give that other one to the young mistress? Suppose the signorina didn't want him! Hadn't he himself, Baldassarre, announced to all that the bridegroom was the young baron Giovannino? ‘Oh, come on! The prince doesn't know that the young mistress loves the younger! When he sees she's really in earnest he'll come round …' Instead of which Teresa's eyes were always red with tears because of the aversion her father showed her and the coldness with which her stepmother also treated her, because of this new quarrel broken out in the family which she longed to see at peace. And one day the princess said to her:

‘Well, can you tell us what's the matter with you?'

‘Nothing, mamma, there's nothing the matter with me.'

‘Then why all this continual gloom? You're holding stubbornly to your idea, are you? Well, now it's time to speak frankly. Your father has declared that you'll either marry Michele or no-one. I didn't want to tell you before, thinking he might change, but you know him better than I do … D'you want to cause him great pain just at this moment? Don't you know he's ill, much more seriously than he seems? And not only your father but the duchess too? Two families! You've disturbed two families!… Now that you know how things are, persist if you wish. Of course nowadays parents' wishes have not the effect of law on children. If you want him at any cost
you can even elope, as girls do who have no respect or shame …'

When she used these arguments Donna Graziella's voice sweetened, as if she could not believe in the hypothesis she was enunciating. ‘You can marry him too, but on other conditions, of course, and without your parents' blessing. If you think you could be happy like that, go ahead.'

Teresa wept no more now; she had poured out so many tears in secret, soaking her pillow every night. She looked ahead of her fixedly, seeing nothing, with a nervous trembling of her jaw, an infinitely bitter twist on her lips. The princess now stopped being severe and reverted to quiet persuasion, saying lovingly that the best judges of what suited her were her own parents, and that by herself she could make a mistake, as had for example her aunt Lucrezia, who had wanted to marry Giulente at all costs, and how did she speak of him now? Certainly the cases were not the same, for there was not so much difference between Michele and Giovannino to make one worthy of her and the other not. But there was a serious reason which had decided them to give her the elder, a reason she should be told.

‘If Michele isn't as handsome as Giovannino, he has iron health, while his brother is delicate, sickly. Apart from another even more serious thing: his overwhelming restlessness … Don't you know his father was mad when he was born? May God disprove the prophecy, but suppose one day his brain went too? That would be nice for you!… So you see your father has reasons and not just fancies. To flout him means giving him pain which can be fatal to him, particularly as we are not sure what his illness is. I cried so much a few days ago when the doctor confided to me that his health has to be taken very seriously. I didn't want to say anything to you but you should know what your responsibility would be if you oppose his wishes, which are only for your own good.'

She began again the next day and then the one after, on and on, cajoling, producing reasons against which Teresa would never pronounce the opposing reasons crowding to her mind. For example hadn't her aunt Lucrezia just changed her mind from sheer caprice, as everyone said?… And if they were so afraid for Giovannino's mental health, why were they urging her to
give him such a heavy blow as this, by refusing to allow her to marry him after he had told her that he loved only her? No, she did not say either these or any other things she thought, for had she done so she would have had to say that her father wanted to sacrifice her to a stupid prejudice, that her stepmother was pretending all that fondness in order to induce her to do what the prince wanted; she would have had to say that in no other family was a father's illness a reason for making his daughters unhappy; she would have also had to say that Consalvo's rebellion now seemed justified and that she should rebel herself … But this was sin! The confessor had warned her, recommended prudence, obedience, self-denial, all the Christian virtues of which she had such luminous examples in her family: Sister Maria of the Cross, who had been at San Placido since childhood, who had renounced with exemplary vocation this sad world to give herself to her Celestial Spouse and was now, as just reward for her Christian virtues, Abbess of her convent; Monsignor Lodovico, who had also spurned the rank awaiting him in secular life in order to embrace the monastic state. And Blessed Ximena in the past. That very year occurred the third anniversary of her exaltation among the Elect; would her descendant show herself degenerate just as that saint was looking down from paradise with particular love and fervour? The same arguments were repeated by her aunt the Abbess, at San Placido, where the princess now took her every Sunday by her husband's order.