A Dancer in Darkness

by David Stacton

  She opened her eyes and he stood before her.

  Cariola looked down at her, shook her head, and left the room. The Duchess shrank away.

  “It didn’t work,” she said.

  He made an indefinite gesture. “There are other ways.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m glad. I want to have it.”

  “So do I. But the matter cannot be hidden long.”

  “I do not want it hidden.”

  “We have no choice.” He was grave, and his voice soothed her. But she was irritated and rebellious, too. He could not know what she had been through. He could not force her to go through the same again, or worse.

  “I am ruler here,” she said. “Why did I marry that senile old man, if he had no power?”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. “We have no army. We cannot defend ourselves. Your brother the Cardinal covets your estate, and your brother Ferdinand is mad.”

  “Why should we not have a son?”

  “You know why.” He hesitated. “You have an heir. He could never inherit. So this child would be snuffed out and murdered.”

  “I have not forgotten the boy,” she said. “They took him from me.”

  “Then what would they not do to this child? Even if they did not use you in the same manner.”

  “None the less. I am glad to have it, and I mean to have it. Why should we not live as other people do? We can conceal it somehow. I can transfer you funds and estates, and they can be settled on him. You can acknowledge a bastard. I cannot.”

  “As soon as you show me favour, the world will know. Only the poor can live anonymously and do as they wish.”

  “It can be done secretly,” she screamed. She was pushed to the limits of endurance.

  He looked down at her poor frail body under the coverlet, and had not the courage to tell her that nothing could be done secretly. And besides, it was true, it was his child and hers. Why should it not live? The Cardinal might fall from power. Many things might happen. And Cariola had said that she had almost died. “Very well,” he said. “We will manage the matter somehow. The old woman is discreet. She will help us at the proper time.”

  But he was apprehensive, more for her even than for himself, and as he entered the courtyard of the palace at Amalfi late that night, tired and dusty and depressed, it seemed to him that someone loitered in the shadows. He was deeply disturbed, and cried out to the man to step forward, but it was only Bosola. Try as he would, he could not quite conceal his relief, and took the man to have a drink with him.

  IV

  On their side they had nothing but prudence, the loyalty of Cariola, which seemed secure, and the heavy dresses of the period. Great ladies are expected to have their whims, and if there were no fashion, women would have nothing to do. The court dressmakers therefore saw nothing strange in greater yards of stuff to a skirt and a plumper stomacher. These stomachers Cariola privately thinned down herself. The ladies of the court at first grumbled, but were delighted to have the excuse to purchase something new, and since difference is a kind of distinction, it was no great trouble to put the whole palace into camouflage. Indeed it was agreed that if one were young enough, the new matronly look was flattering.

  Cariola had taken a great fright, all the same, and so Bosola was more than ever a comfort to her. There comes an age when we are even more grateful for the imitation of love, than for the real thing, for at forty passion would merely be a nuisance. Women who have reached that age must take care of their appearance, and have no time for a lover every day. Their only danger is not to have one at all.

  Yet Bosola bothered her. She had nothing to complain of, but she was afraid of losing him. She was that sort of woman who longs to be a mother. It may be an admirable quality in a wife, but is no way to win a fiancé. She had to find some other way to fit into life, so through the years she made a parody of herself, the way nurses do. She was good-humoured, so she did not mind doing that, but buried inside her somewhere was the little girl who had always wanted to be able to love somebody, and the little girl starved. She took it out in mothering her mistress and tyrannizing the household maids.

  Then she had seen Bosola again. Few of us get a second chance at what we want, and she had always liked him, even when he deserted her years ago. Now, her heart had gone out to him against her will, for remembering what he had been, she could see the ruins of what he was. Where once he had been gentle, now he was importunate. Where once he had been sarcastic, now he was sour. Instinctively she knew what was wrong with him: he despised himself.

  But though she had grown used to him again, she still did not trust him. And now that she had something beyond her own pride to conceal, she could not help it, her heart sank even when she realized how glad she was to see him.

  She did the worst thing she could have done. She avoided him. It hurt her to do so, but she was afraid she might give the Duchess away. She did not realize that to leave a man like that neglected is as dangerous as to go away and leave an unwatched fire.

  Meanwhile she sewed him shirts, for he scarcely had a shirt to his back, and she liked to sew, for alone in her own room she could be as domestic about him as she pleased. As the months went by, and nothing seemed to happen, she began to relax. She thought she could trust herself to see him again.

  But if suspicion is smoothed away on one side, then it will fasten on another. Bosola had received no preferment, and therefore had sharp eyes for another man’s rise. Besides, the Cardinal was beginning to press him, and if he could rise in one place, then certainly he did not dare to fall in another. The Cardinal’s prodding had made him alert. He began to notice things he had been a fool not to notice before.

  First of all there was the difference in Antonio. He seemed worried and sombre. His light had vanished. He dressed like a married man, and went through his duties mechanically. And though it was true he saw more of the Duchess, there was now nothing in the attitude of either of them to suggest that they were lovers. The Duchess, too, was often unwell, and sometimes apprehensive. Bosola could only assume that there were other agents at court, undermining her in other ways.

  The thought that he himself might be spied on frightened him. His reports to the Cardinal became more detailed, and he must have Cariola come to him more privately.

  It was at this time that he was transferred from the Purse to the Household proper. Though it meant he saw less of Antonio, he was not displeased, for he had no head for figures. It was only with the arrival of the two bankers from Salerno that he began to wonder why the Duchess had ordered the change, and why no clerk had been appointed in his place.

  There was nothing remarkable about these two men, but their appearance. They were Germans, and had all the tactless ostentation of that commercial race. Their clothes were trimmed with fur, and they moved with the hushed reverent self-respect of the recently rich. No doubt money was that regal in the north, but here they would have done better to begin with a title. They spoke to no one, and were often closeted with the Duchess. As Gentleman of the Household, Bosola could not help but notice the disappearance of certain jewels. It made him thoughtful.

  Nor was he without sources of information of his own. Bribe a man’s servants, and you know more about him than he knows himself. Titles and deeds had to be registered with the town council. Since favour does not always show itself publicly, Bosola had made friends with the custodian, on the pretence of interesting himself in confiscated property. The Duchess occasionally distributed lands to court favourites. It was in this way, accidentally, that he learned that the Fief of Arosa had been transferred to Antonio, with the right to fill the living of the church, and a gift to restore the manor-house there. Bosola was startled. The matter had not been mentioned publicly. Nor was it easy to believe that Arosa, in a small poverty-stricken district, was worth fourteen hundred crowns.

  Bosola slipped away privately from the court, and took a ride in the hills. It was dusk when he came down over Arosa and drew rein on a
ledge. Below him the reconstruction of a small house was going forward. The thin, spindly scaffolding of stripped poles stood around a half-decayed structure. Bosola turned back towards Amalfi. No orders for such work had come through the Household. He decided to become friendlier with Antonio. He rightly guessed that both the deed of gift and the construction were a blind.

  Even then matters might have run smoothly, had not the Duchess unconsciously made a grave mistake, a thing so little she did not even notice it.

  Because pregnancy is supposed to alter the complexion, she seldom appeared to the court now except by artificial light. At dusk it was her habit to walk in the cloisters between the palace and the cathedral, in a black dress, attended by the nobility and such of her household as she still dared to keep around her. She had grown accustomed to Bosola, but she still instinctively disliked him. Yet through Cariola, he had been able to join her intimate circle, and this meant much to him, for she was a beautiful and powerful woman, and he liked to be seen associating with such.

  He almost began to bask in her favour, and if she had shown him favour, who knows, she might have gained a partisan. But whatever he might think he was, to her he was only a servant. The idea of favour never entered her head.

  The Duchess had a small white and grey lapdog of the pattering kind, who ran back and forth like a spider. Usually it nestled in the crook of her arm, but now, at the end of the cloister, it squirmed, jumped down, and began its inane race among the courtiers’ feet. Bosola had just gained the Duchess’s attention, and to tell the truth he was showing off. Accidentally he stepped on the wretched thing and it screamed.

  “Out of the way, you clumsy lout,” snapped the Duchess. Her nerves were frayed. But the whole court was there, and heard her. It was the one sort of shame Bosola could not abide.

  By the time Cariola came to him that night, he had brooded about the insult for hours. And something about the way the Duchess had started to bend over, and then thought better of it, lingered in his mind.

  He launched into a tirade, but Cariola only laughed at him.

  “She meant nothing by it. She was only irritable.”

  “She disgraced me before everyone.”

  “She meant nothing by it,” said Cariola. “She was not feeling well.”

  “She is often ill these days,” said Bosola. The look on Cariola’s face stopped him. But it did not stop his thoughts.

  He said nothing, but he turned over every glimpse he had had of the Duchess for months, and he knew that she had dismissed all of her attendants and would be waited upon only by Cariola. The rumour was that she feared poisoning. It occurred to him now that she might fear something else far more.

  Cariola and the laziness of the court had lulled him into a false security. But now he learned that he was being spied upon as efficiently as he spied upon others. It would be useless to find out who the informer was. The mischief was done. The Cardinal forgot nothing. He wrote to complain of Bosola’s reports. “You know the Duchess’s serving woman,” he said. “Now it is said you know her better. Use her.”

  The concealed threat made him mortally afraid. He would have used her, had not the letter arrived on the day that Cariola delivered her bundle of embroidered shirts. They stood now in a pile on his table, a crisp, freshly laundered testimony of her devotion. People gave him things so seldom that he knew the value of a gift. He had not the heart to use her, unless he had to. But there were other ways, and the shadow of the Cardinal drove him on. Besides, the Duchess had insulted him. He got his idea from the apricot trees which were now in fruit.

  V

  Antonio and the duchess had laid their plans with care, or so they thought. In ten days she would depart for Ravello with Cariola. From there she would go on alone to Arosa, where the gipsies had installed a midwife and servants loyal to Antonio in the rebuilt house. Cariola would remain at Ravello. Should anyone come inquiring for her mistress, which was unlikely, she would say she was riding in the hills. As soon as possible the Duchess would return to Ravello, to be nursed by Cariola for a few days, and then reappear at court. The child would be handed over to a wet-nurse, and since the gipsies chosen spoke only Romany, there was little likelihood that gossip would reach those avid for it. Later, if all went well, they might re-claim the child. The money settled on Antonio would be paid for its keep, and for this, if for no other reason, the gipsies would treat it well. It could be brought to Ravello, from time to time, for the Duchess to see, in the gipsy caravan. At the very worst it would live: and privately Antonio was pleased to think that it might become a gipsy bravo.

  It had been a strain on both of them. Now it was almost over. With the child born, perhaps they could be young and lovers again. That, at any rate, was the way the Duchess thought of it. She was almost gay, and she saw no reason why she should not see Antonio.

  There was not much land at Amalfi, so the palace garden was at some distance from the palace, and was less a garden than a reconverted orchard, with herbal knots and shell paths underneath the trees, which were in late fruit, and a small fountain splashing against the orchard wall.

  The Duchess was impatient. She could not understand why Antonio seemed to grieve. He might have been a mourner.

  She wanted to have the child quickly. She wanted to have Antonio with her again, instead of standing forlornly in front of her like a petitioner. She hated to walk gravely and carefully, rolling along like a heavily burdened litter. She wanted to dance, for when Antonio danced, he was himself again, and everything she loved most in him became visible. She could have screamed at him sometimes, had she not longed to touch his cheek. She was weary of all this nervous gravity.

  At dusk they walked in this arbour habitually, with Cariola as duenna. It had become understood that, as chief officer of her household, Antonio should wait upon her there. It was the one sad pleasure of her day.

  That was where Bosola knew where he would find them, and he had come prepared for his experiment, so overwhelmed by the cleverness of it that he did not bother to think that it was also cruel. He had brought a gift for the Duchess. It would not harm her much. Nor would anyone think the proceeding extraordinary. It would be assumed that he was merely trying to seek favour again, after her rudeness to him in the cloister, about the dog.

  It was Cariola who noticed him, pattering across the arbour in the dusk, and spoke to the Duchess. He had taken the precaution of telling her what he was about to do, and since she could see no harm in it, and knew about the scene in the cloister, she had agreed to pave a way. She spoke to her mistress, and the Duchess and Antonio instinctively drew apart.

  The trees in the orchard were by now somewhat wan, and what fruit remained hung on the almost leafless branches like withered lanterns. The herbal knots were dry with too much summer, and even the fountain splashed dustily. The Duchess and Antonio stood there to receive him. To tell the truth they stood a little guiltily, like conspirators demonstrating that they did not know each other.

  Bosola had taken some care to look amiable. He made a speech about his clumsiness with the dog. The Duchess was touched. She had regretted her sharp words to him. She would have been glad to show him favour, by way of making amends.

  Even Cariola looked on approvingly. He held forth a wicker basket covered with a napkin. The Duchess smiled, took it, and laid back the cloth. When she saw what was inside she gave a little sound of pleasure.

  Against the napkin nestled a dozen and a half plump apricots. They had been hard to find at this season, but the Duchess doted on fruits, and on apricots most of all. The fuzz on them was delicate, they were of a rich, coppery orange, and were as covered with freckles as a country girl. They glowed.

  She reached for one instinctively.

  Antonio made a motion forward. “You should not,” he began, and then stopped.

  The Duchess paused, and Cariola gave her a warning glance. Any hint of her condition would be dangerous, Bosola was watching, and besides she felt fretful. She bit into the
fruit. It was delicious. The apricots were of that stage of ripeness when the juice runs over the fingers. It is then they are most disrupting to the bowels, but she could not resist.

  “Walk with us for a while,” she said to Bosola. The fruit freshened her mouth. It was what she had been longing for. “These are very good. The gesture was kind.” Apricots vanish rapidly. She took another.

  She had a nature that took a greedy pleasure in very little things, and liked them better than anything ostentatious. Bosola watched anxiously. He did not altogether like what he had done, but it was done now. He had not counted on Cariola being there, and though the fruit was harmless, and the effect he hoped it would produce only natural, still he knew she would blame him. He shrank from that, but it could not be helped.

  By the time they reached the end of the orchard, there were two apricots left in the basket. It was there, by the wall, that the Duchess turned pale and sat down on the rim of the fountain.

  Bosola looked at her with a mixture of interest and clinical pity in which there was no compassion. She had been rude to him. She looked up at them like a fox trapped in a burrow. Bosola saw something milky in her eyes as they held his for an instant before they flickered on. The instant was enough. He knew, and she knew he knew.

  He waited reluctantly to see how she would get out of it. He had forgotten that he could not very well leave at once, and indeed her appearance alarmed him. He had not meant to bring on labour pangs.

  The basket fell from her lap into the fountain. The apricots separated out and bobbled near the jet. The napkin sank.

  Cariola put her arms round the Duchess, and she and Antonio helped her rise. The Duchess could not withstand pain. Her head lolled sightlessly like that of a snake. Bosola made no attempt to follow them, and was jealous of how rapidly they had shut him out. He had found out what he wanted to know. That was enough.