The Remedy: A Novel of London & Venice

by Michelle Lovric

  It was only a question of time now, until the letter reached him and until he came to me. Until then, all I had to do was shelter from the cold and snow, and from Mazziolini and my employers.

  But they found me anyway.

  One night, crossing the snow-muffled Piazza, I felt myself shadowed.

  They have come for me, I thought. I’ll not make it easy for them.

  I walked swiftly into the middle of the square, where the crowd was densest, knowing that if they wanted to take me, they would need to do so discreetly. But my captors were thick among the costumed crowds. A feathered Indian was soon jostling me north across the Piazza, and I found two tall white birds at my shoulders, each with a claw gripping my upper arm. When I turned my head, I saw a Queen of Diamonds, implacably masked, blocking any rear exit.

  In my cordon of outlandish creatures I was borne out of the Piazza and into the narrow streets behind. To my horror, I realized that I was being taken toward San Zaccaria. Then I began to scream.

  They were too quick for me: a bitter liquid was thrown against my open mouth and, to rid my palate of its vile smack, I had swallowed it before I could stop myself. In a few moments my lips were numb and I was sagging to the ground. I have a dim memory of being carried through the gates of San Zaccaria but the drug had paralyzed me. I could not fight. I looked up into the face of the old abbess, horribly aged by the last sixteen years. She said, grimly, “Yes, it is her.” Then all went dark in a blaze of nausea. I thought I heard the Zany’s voice cry out, “Purr wee gurlie, she’s wrackt orf to the lees, now!”

  When I woke up again it was because someone was holding a nodule to my nose that stank fulsomely of amber oil and asafoetida. I was no longer in San Zaccaria. Sixteen years had dissolved and I was again in the chamber of the dark palazzo where I had lam in the bath and received my original commission.

  My old interlocutor again appeared, his head grayer, his eyes harder.

  “You have become inconvenient for us,” he said. And once more the other men filed into the room. No one was interested in putting me in the bath. I lay on a vast table, a bitter crust of vomit on my unwiped lips.

  “We have some questions to ask you,” he stated, with icy formality, when all were seated.

  The first one was: “Catarina Venier, why did you kidnap your own daughter?”

  Part Six

  Poterius’s Electuary

  Take Poterius’s Antihectic half an ounce; Haly’s powder fresh made 1 ounce and a half; Syrup of Jujubes as much as suffices, mix.

  It destroys all manner of exotic, corruptive Sharpness and Asperities of the Blood and Juices; and induces a Balsamic, Soft and Oleose disposition. It’s second to none in an Hectic Fever, and may be taken to two or three drams twice a day, with a draught of Asses’ Milk.

  She did not strike me as a governess. But it so happened that her plans for me fell in with my own.

  I never intended to squander my youth and prettiness incarcerated at Mistress Haggardoon’s. I knew that the only way out of there was on someone’s arm. I had always assumed that arm would be Uncle Valentine’s, so it seemed to me that one of his minions would serve just as well.

  Said I to myself, “I must fulfil the divine franchise of this opportunity.”

  The journey was tedious—with the poor foolish woman staring at me so fearfully all the way. I could have denounced her at any point: She did not seem to understand that I desired the journey as much as she did. When her nerves fretted her almost to convulsions I tried to calm her with gentle conversation on tranquil subjects. But as the gin sank, so her wits began to swim. Once or twice she lost command of herself and tried to frighten me with bizarre tricks. It was piteous, really. The rest of the time I myself felt strangely drowsy, and the time passed as if in a dream.

  When she stopped coming to see me at Sant’ Alvise it was a relief. The wretch looked so unbecoming, trussed up like a roasting fowl in those shabby clothes, that I was embarrassed to receive her as my guest. Low blood gives off a certain smell: Venetians can always tell, so I hoped that none of the Mocenigo girls would see her and associate me with this portionless person who had degraded herself to the extent that you could smell the gin on her breath, and see her need for it written all over her face.

  And the shame lay not merely in her offences against elegance. One of the nuns explained to me the nature of that swollen belly, and another wicked girl, supplementing her giggles with diagrammatic hand motions, made me aware of the squeamish details of the ghastly belly-swelling activity that I intend to avoid all my days.

  I believe the poor deluded Jaune-Fleur is irretrievably in love with my guardian. No doubt Uncle Valentine was the begetter of the belly, a horrid thought. And clearly Jaune-Fleur has no idea that he is up to his ears in another lady, the Mimosina Dolcezza of the ICE certificate.

  Said I to myself: “She’d weep a headful of tears if she did!”

  I’m sorry for her. Mimosina Dolcezza, whoever she may be, is nothing to me, except that she once stole my Christmas dinner. And Madame Jaune-Fleur is to be thanked for my present, delightful existence at Sant’ Alvise, a far superior establishment to Mistress Haggardoon’s in every respect.

  I feel vastly at home, not just in the convent but on the streets of Venice, where now I go whenever errands to the sugar and spice merchants bring me forth from the beloved portal of the convent. No one but myself can be trusted to evaluate the quality of the merchandise or to haggle a nun’s bargain for it. And none but me can tell true Asses’ Milk from counterfeit.

  I love to walk around this city, which seems strangely familiar. The sight of it soothes every asperity in my blood. The canals run pure sugar syrup in the light of the morning, burnished chocolate in the afternoon, crème de menthe in the evenings. There’s always something in the air, sweet and sanative as the breath of a pastry shop and the quality of light, even when the snow falls or evening presses against the window, comforts my eyes. I am ravished with contentment to be here. Of course, for all these excursions I veil myself carefully for I don’t want to be happened upon by Madame Jaune-Fleur. It would put her in a dreadful pucker to find me out and about enjoying the liberty of the town.

  Uncle Valentine would shortly come to visit me, poor Jaune-Fleur kept babbling.

  I rather hope he won’t. I have found what I wanted, though a supplemental allowance might sweeten my way a little. This is not one of those sackcloth convents. One may dress a little here.

  I imagine I’ll be hearing that quick step of his on the threshold any day now.

  Then I will give him the little gold ring, which I have carefully wrapped in a handkerchief to preserve, shall we say, all the evidence. I mean it as a tangible warning, to show him that the woman is capable of violence and he should keep his wits about him if he intends to make a life with her instead of, or as well as, with Mimosina Dolcezza. You know how men are.

  There is something about Madame Jaune-Fleur that makes me a little uneasy. I cannot put my finger on it. I am not impatient. I’ll work it out at my leisure. Sometimes the truth comes upon one like crime in the night; sometimes it is there smiling when one wakes up in the morning.

  London… and Venice, February 1786

  • 1 •

  An Hemoptoic Draught

  Take Plantain water 4 ounces; Wine Vinegar, Syrup of Comfrey, each half an ounce; the white of one Egg beat up, mix.

  This is in truth, a Noble, Experimented, and easily parable Remedy. It mightily Refrigerates, Incrassates and puts a restraint on the vehement hot, bubbling, leaping Blood; constringes, purses up, closes and consolidates the apertures of the Vessels.

  Back in London, of course his first thought is for Pevenche, safe and bedfast at Mistress Haggardoon’s but no doubt morose with neglect.

  Dizzom, unusually, is away from the depository when Valentine returns and no one can tell him where the man is. His staff jitter like sparrows and, for some reason that he cannot fathom, not one of them will meet his eye. They do n
ot even seem pleased to see him. They look afraid. He assumes that there has been a little unpleasantness in the borough during his absence—Dizzom is probably off somewhere sorting it out.

  This is what happens when a man neglects his business.

  Meanwhile, Valentine can use this time to catch up with his ward. He strips, washes, and dresses in fresh clothes, happy to feel his skin reunited with the unmistakable fragrance of the Blackfriars laundresses’ soap.

  He hurries along Marylebone High Street on foot, having dispatched the coachman at Oxford Street to buy flowers and comfits for the girl.

  At the Academy he fidgets on the doorstep, waiting an unconscionably long time for the maid to answer the bell. Eyes wide, she ushers him into the empty study of the headmistress where he faces another unacceptable hiatus. Twice he moves toward the door, with the object of going to find the girl himself. But something stops him, and he closes his eyelids, and thinks he hears the clatter of carriage wheels and even feels the ground rolling beneath him again. Hastily he reopens his eyes. No, he has really finished his arduous journey. He is truly back in London. Awaiting a headmistress who has no business, given his generosity, to discommode him for the merest second with her tardiness.

  You may be sure she’ll be hearing about this fact, after I’ve seen Pevenche.

  And when Mistress Haggardoon bustles forth, blinking at him as if to exorcise the vision, what news does he hear? He can scarcely take it in.

  “… and Paris, and St Petersburg. And Venice,” the headmistress is warbling, through fast-welling tears, as if this mantra will hold off his rage. Clearly she has guessed from the first news of his arrival at the premises that she is the author of a grave error.

  Venice.

  What was her name again?

  “I wrote it down. Look. Oh, not there. Here. Perhaps not, after all. I can find it in an instant. I always put important things in this drawer, and of course anything to do with dearest Pevenche is most important,” the headmistress gabbles with terror; her hands tremble so violently that she cannot insert a finger in the hollow of its tiny handle. Three times she drops the key, dipping her head and shoulders like a manic bird to pick it up from the carpet. The refined odor of her civet perfume is cut through with unladylike sweat.

  Valentine strides across the room and rips the drawer out of her desk, scattering its contents in a wide arc and throwing the drawer itself at the mantelpiece. It crashes down into the fire and commences to burn.

  Then the headmistress is on her knees, raking through the ruins of gewgaws and trinkets confiscated from various girls over the decades, love-letters to past students, and even an anonymous pornographic billet-doux to herself (which she would hardly have kept if she had known that it was sent by the coalman on a dare some fifteen years back). She pauses over it for a heartbeat, wishing her life had turned out otherwise, and that it had not brought her to this moment.

  As she scrabbles on the floor, Valentine stands over her, his arms folded, barely holding back the lava of the anger seething in his breast. He does not trust himself to say anything. Once he starts, he will break her in half with the savagery of his words. But meanwhile, he needs the name.

  At last she finds it, holds up a blouzy sheet of simpering pink paper on which she herself has written “Madame Jaune-Fleur Kindness.” Valentine stands stupefied. What does this doggerel mean? “Fleur,” he knows is flower. “Jaune?” Does it mean “young?”

  It’s a nidget lam with foreign lingos. I never con fix ’em in my head.

  The headmistress is whittering, “I did observe to the maids that it was a most unusual name, particularly in a governess.” “Yellow Flower.” Very whimsical, no? But then of course the lady was a foreigner, and they are apt to be picturesque sometimes in their namings, don’t you think? Why, I have a young lady student here, from Portugal even, and she is called…”

  Valentine silences her with a look. He crumples the paper in his hand, smearing his fingers with ink. The headmistress edges forward with a dabbing handkerchief and an abject expression, but he throws the ball of paper at her, not with force but with contempt. It strikes her perspiring cheekbone and then her left breast before it lands on the floor. Both of them watch it roll toward the grate. Valentine assists its passage with a dextrous kick into the inferno raging round the corpse of the drawer. He knows he should apologize to the headmistress, make amends for the damage, but his tiredness and his humiliation send him trudging out of the room and into the street, head down in ignominy.

  His own coach stands in front of him and the coachman is jumping down with a velvet box of comfits in one hand and in the other a plump bouquet of hothouse blooms.

  “For the young lady,” he says jovially. “I hope she likes ’em, sir. They smell so sweet. And the color!”

  But Valentine is ripping the bouquet apart, discarding the roses and the carnations and the baby-breath, until all that is left is a core of little yellow tufts nodding on dark wood. He stares at them for a moment and flings them into the path of an oncoming carriage.

  He feels stupid as a brute, his tongue dozed to slurry. A mew of outrage spills from between his clenched teeth. From the corner of his eye he sees the clammy forehead of the headmistress pressed against her parlor window pane.

  “You’re not the only one, madam!” he shouts. “The world is stuffed with fools she’s made.”

  In terror, the headmistress retracts her head and the window clatters with the swing and slap of her retreating jet earrings.

  The coachman knits his nervous fingers in the horse’s mane for comfort. Staring at his employer, he whispers in a broken voice:

  “You don’t like mimosa-flower, sir? You should have said.”

  • 2 •

  A Balsam called Mirabile

  Take Frankincense 2 ounces; Mastick, Cloves, Gallingale, Mace, Cubebs, each half an ounce; Aloes Wood 1 ounce; powder and mix them with Honey half a pound; Venice Turpentine 1 pound, and Brandy, as much as is usually required to extract a Tincture. Distill them in Balneo; and when you have got all the clear Water, shift your Receiver, and then you’ll have next a noble red Balsam, which rectifies…

  Valentine Greatrakes is incapable of speech, so his driver sets off on a circuitous route that he hopes will cool his master’s hot head. After half an hour’s fruitless perambulations, without any orders from the dumbfounded carriage, the driver is struck with inspiration and takes him to The Man Loaded with Mischief in Oxford Street. At the sight of its painted sign—a man carrying a magpie, a monkey, and a woman with a glass of gin—Valentine disgorges himself from the carriage without a word and slides into the familiar tavern, where he finds a companionless corner and an engaging armchair, and sits down to think.

  What does she want, herself?

  This is the only thing that Valentine wishes to know.

  He must force his mind to enter into the deep waters and false channels of her own.

  The actress has gulled him. She has raked up a great dunghill of lies for him. She has taken the girl—why? To extort money? Was it all about that, in the end? Or is it to punish him for neglecting to marry her? Has she found out about the murder of Gervase Stintleigh? Did she in fact love the political fop, and is it that she now wishes to avenge him?

  Valentine recalls how they had argued about Pevenche. How the actress had accused him of being twiddled by the wiles of a little girl.

  A little girl! He grimaces to realize how his white lie has been exposed. Mimosina Dolcezza has now seen with her own eyes that “Baby P.” is somewhat mature for her epithet. In fact, he reflects, Pevenche is considerably larger than her kidnapper, longways and widthways.

  He takes comfort from the fact that he surely has not long to wait for an explanation. The one thing he knows—better than anyone—is that kidnappers soon reveal their requirements, and that they are usually of an urgent and financial nature.

  He returns to the depository, where he is not sparing of the lights and livers in his conve
rsations. A tremulous Dizzom, still besuited in his gray travel furs, fusses over his master until the latter sends him flying with a brusque gesture and then apologizes, again and again, in an absentminded way. He asks repeatedly emphasizing each of the five words in sequence: “There is no ransom letter?”

  Dizzom tells him of the inquiries launched, the embassies made, the messages dispatched to contacts all over London and the Continent since he discovered the abduction two days after it happened.

  “I was so sure,” sniffs Dizzom, “that we would find them that I did not trouble you with the news. I hoped to tell you the problem and the solution at the same time.”

  It is unlike Dizzom to put a false gloss upon things.

  He is so sincere in his abjection that Valentine has no desire to punish him further. Dizzom has been doing everything that he himself would have done. He has even taken the packet to Calais to investigate all possible inns: This is where he had been on his master’s return. They had missed one another by a few hapless hours.

  But nothing has emerged. Nothing at all.

  He tries to lose himself in work. That should sustain him until Dizzom’s researches begin to bring forth results. Without Pevenche and her caprices, he has more time on his hands and he finds them full. The Venetian nostrum is making its demands: What he set in motion before his departure has now acquired an imperious momentum. Estimates of costs are starting to arrive from the bottlers and the distilleries in Venice. He needs more items to trade for the bottles.