by Megan Chance
But my father’s instructions had been very clear, and I could not afford to fail. I went in search of the storage room and the bathtub.
It didn’t take long. The storage room’s door was open; within were barrels and small wine kegs, hanging garlic and onions, a few pumpkins. The smell of fish was strong; no doubt one of the barrels held anchovies or some fermenting something. There, in the corner, was the bathtub I’d been searching for.
I had no expectation that I would be able to lift it, but this wasn’t like the heavy tubs at Glen Echo. This had been made to move about, and so it was lighter. Not liftable by me, but with a combination of pushing and shoving, I could move it. I pushed and tugged it, scraping over the floor, down the hall, and into the courtyard. I had to pause now and then to move the fallen stones out of the way; it was astonishing that no one had done this before now. At the bottom of the stairs, I paused to catch my breath. I saw movement at a window on the second floor—Madame Basilio—and felt a wash of relief. No doubt she would see my difficulty and summon help. But as I raised my hand to wave to her, she disappeared.
I waited a moment, expecting her to come out, but as the minutes passed, and she didn’t, I began to wonder if seeing her had only been wishful thinking. Or perhaps she had merely been heeding my request for no interference. Resignedly, I looked up the stairs. They looked too narrow, the cast-iron railing in the way. And even if I managed it, there would be the water to bring. Buckets and buckets of it.
I cursed Giulia, Zuan, Samuel Farber, and the rest of the world as I lugged that miserable, godforsaken tub up those stairs. It fell upon my foot, cracked my shin, pinched my fingers between it and the cast-iron rail. Bits of plaster came off as the tub smashed into the wall—just let them try to complain about it! It would serve them all right if I destroyed the entire palazzo. And then, as if to emphasize the point, I lost my grip and the tub smacked hard enough on a step to crack it before I got hold of it again.
I never thought I would get it to the top, and when I did, I stood there disbelieving. And sore. With swollen fingers and a throbbing shin, and sweating so hard my bodice was sticking to me. But I had done it.
I scraped it over the floor to the middle of the sala, out of the way of a rat-bitten settee scattered with fraying pillows and a chair whose upholstery had split in the damp.
I heard a pattering sound from the doorway, and turned to see Samuel Farber standing there, holding on to the white marble pillar of the entry as if it were keeping him upright. He was barefoot, wearing only his nightshirt. “What the hell?”
I straightened. “I am fetching you a bath.”
“So I heard. Probably all of Cannaregio heard as well.”
“Your lovely Giulia declined to help.”
“You brought that up by yourself?” He looked vaguely impressed when I nodded. “You’re stronger than you look.”
“You’ll catch your death, standing barefoot on this floor.” It radiated cold; I felt it even through the soles of my boots. I moved past him to the hall. “It might take me a while to bring the water.”
He nodded, limping to the settee, where he sank as if the journey had exhausted him. I left him there, irritated all over again that he hadn’t offered his help either, though of course he was weak as a babe and just as incapable of hauling water up those stairs.
It took me another hour to draw water from the well and bring it up, two barrels at a time. Samuel Farber only watched impassively as I poured it into the bathtub. When it was nearly full, I brought up hot water from the kitchen—there was plenty of it, as I’d suspected—so the water was cool, but not cold. Then I stood back, took a deep breath, and gestured at it.
He eyed it dubiously. “It’s not steaming.”
“No. It’s supposed to be cool.”
“Cool?” Incredulously. “There’s no heat in here.”
“I’m not cold at all.”
“You’ve just lugged a bathtub and buckets of water up three flights,” he pointed out.
“Get in.”
“I’ll freeze.”
“You’re supposed to. It’s part of the treatment. You know this. You took cold baths at Glen Echo.”
“I hated them.”
“It quiets your raging humors.”
“There will be more than my humors raging if I get into a freezing bath in a cold room.”
“I’ll put coal on,” I said, glancing to the plaster stove, no doubt as decoratively ineffective as the one in his room. “Now get in.”
“No.”
I glared at him. “Mr. Farber, I have had a very trying morning. I have just spent two hours drawing you a bath. I have a bruise on my shin, and my fingers are crushed. If you don’t get in of your own accord, believe me, I shall make you.” A strand of hair fell over my forehead and into my eye, ruining whatever semithreatening stance I’d managed. I let it lie, still glaring at him, while he glared back at me. Truly, I was angry enough to try to make him get into the bath, though I had no real idea if I could budge him.
Thankfully, he rose and stepped over to the tub. He didn’t take his gaze from mine. And then, before I realized what he meant to do, he lifted his nightshirt over his head and pulled it off, dropping it to the floor.
I had never seen a fully naked man before. My charges at Glen Echo had all been women. My gaze moved involuntarily to the part of him I was curious about before I jerked my gaze upward again in embarrassment, and noticed the mottled brown bruises and contusions crisscrossing his ribs, a deep purple one wrapping around his hip—and then I realized his knee was so rainbow colored and swollen it did not look like a knee at all. Even after a month, the bruises were livid, deep-tissue tears and hematomas. I had not suspected such damage.
“Most women don’t look so horrified when I undress,” he said.
“Oh dear God,” I breathed. “What did they do to you?”
“Well, they wanted my money, and no witnesses, and I was in no state to stop them, as you know.” He swayed, grabbing the lip of the tub, and I realized his knee would not hold him for so long. I hurried over.
“Let me help you.” I put his arm over my shoulders, taking most of his weight as he got into the tub, forgetting my embarrassment in compassion. He lowered himself into the water, splashing over the marblelike floor.
He shuddered. “Damn, this is cold.”
“It will help—”
“Calm my raging humors. Yes, I know.” His skin was covered with gooseflesh.
“And it will help with the swelling too. And quite possibly the pain.”
“Do you know what would really help with the pain?”
“Mr. Farber—”
“I think you should call me Samuel. Now that you’ve seen me in my natural state.”
“I had no idea they’d hurt you so badly.”
“Please tell me that means you’ve changed your mind about the laudanum.”
I shook my head. He was shivering. I felt bad about that too. “I’m sorry. I am.”
“This is only punishment.”
“It’s beneficial—”
“It’s torture. Bring me some goddamned laudanum!” He slapped his hand in the water, splashing more onto the floor, onto my gown.
“No. And acting like a child is not going to help.”
“You said yourself it looks horrific. Imagine how it feels.”
“I do. I can.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again. He said, slowly and with great restraint, “I can’t sleep for the pain. I can’t bear it when I’m awake.”
“The laudanum only makes you more sensitive. Ten more minutes in the bath. Then I’ll bring arnica. I think we’ll forget about rubefacients today.”
“Rube—what?”
“Liniment. And rubbing. You should be familiar enough with it.”
“The burning salve, you mean.” His chin dipped to his chest, his hair coming forward to hide his face. “Please God, not that. Not today.”
The pain in his voice, the resignation . . . it made me want to do whatever he asked. How was it possible to look at such pain and not be moved?
But I’d been so moved before, and look how that had ended up.
“Not today,” I agreed. “We’ll try the arnica. What was it that made such a mess of you anyway? Did they use clubs?”
He tried to ease his bloated knee below the water, but the tub was small, and he couldn’t stretch out completely. The motion brought a rush of pained breath. “I don’t know. The seizures . . . I never remember them. Sometimes I don’t remember the time before they happen. Sometimes it’s after I don’t remember. Hours sometimes. I lost a day once.”
He was not unusual in that. “What do you remember about that night?”
“Well . . . that’s the question, isn’t it? That’s what my father wants to know. Who I was with. What they saw.”
“Have you any answers?”
“I’d been on a binge for at least a week,” he said. “Let’s just say everything’s a bit hazy.”
“A binge?”
“Drinking. Opium. Women.” A challenging gaze. “From the moment I got the letter from my father about my imminent wedding.”
“I see.”
“The last thing I remember is a brothel in Rome. A woman with hair the same color as yours and breasts like heaven.” He smiled at my discomposure. “I’d gone with a few friends. Nero and I shared the girl.”
“Nero?”
“Nerone Basilio. The owner of this palatial residence. A name that goes back five centuries, and money that disappeared a hundred years ago. Rather like my bride. A good pedigree and little else.”
“Did he see your seizure?”
“I don’t think so, but I was very drunk. I remember leaving the brothel. Nero dodged down an alley to take a piss. After that . . . nothing but a few bits and pieces until I woke up in the hospital. I could have had the seizure then or an hour later. Sometimes I hallucinate before one. I could have been seeing things that weren’t there and not know it.”
“Mr. Basilio never said anything to you about it?”
“He never mentioned it,” he said. “Or maybe he did. I was in and out of consciousness when he visited me at the hospital. I hardly remember it. He telegraphed my parents and sent for Zuan to bring me here. I suppose you’ll be able to ask Nero yourself. He’ll be here soon. He’s just tying up some loose ends we left in Rome.”
“Is he the one who brought you to the hospital?”
Samuel shook his head. “They told me I’d been found on the street.” His voice turned bitter. “None of my other friends came to see me, so . . . perhaps they did witness it.”
I heard again that resignation that told me it was no more than he expected. I wondered what it would be like, a lifetime of facing such repulsion, of friends turning away. But then, the secret had been successfully kept so far, or so the Farbers had told my father, and part of my task was to discover if it remained so. None of his friends supposedly knew, and there was no gossip of his condition in New York. But I’d seen even attendants turn in revulsion from epileptics more than once, and I wondered what Samuel had endured from his own family.
“Or perhaps they didn’t see, and they didn’t know you’d been attacked,” I suggested.
His smile was thin. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those idiots who believes the best of people.”
“Hardly that,” I said.
“Yes, I suppose it would be hard to be so optimistic when you look at madmen like me every day.”
“You’re an epileptic,” I said. “Not a madman.”
“Of course you’re right.”
I’d meant to comfort him, but I saw I’d done exactly the opposite. I picked up his nightshirt from the floor and held it out. “You can get out now. I looked for towels, but I couldn’t find them. Just put this on and go back to your room. I’ll come with the arnica.”
He rose, water sluicing off, and I kept my eyes firmly on his face, offering my shoulder for him to lean on as he came out of the tub. He stumbled, his knee giving way for one moment, falling into me, which made him gasp in pain. I grasped his arm to steady him, helping him slip the nightshirt over his head. It clung damply, doing almost nothing to conceal him. I helped him into his room, and onto the bed, and then I left him to get the arnica in my medicine case.
I had to move the bottle of laudanum to get to the ointment, and for a moment I stood there, holding the bottle in my hand, thinking of those bruises and the pain on his face. “I can’t sleep for the pain, and I can’t bear it when I’m awake.” What could it hurt, really? A few drops so he might sleep.
But then I remembered. Pleading blue eyes. “You would not want me to be in such pain, would you? I can see you’re not like the others here . . .”
I put the laudanum back. I took up the arnica and closed the case with a definitive click, and then I started back to him.
I was halfway down the hall when I heard voices coming from his room. I stopped short, listening. Giulia again, damn her. I marched down the hall, furious, pushing open the door with such force it cracked against the wall. He was still sitting on the bed, exactly where I’d left him. He was alone.
“Was someone here?” I asked.
“Why would you think that?”
“I heard voices. Were you speaking to someone? Is Giulia here? Is she hiding?”
“Giulia isn’t here.” He looked pale and sick, his eyes haunted. Pain, I realized. The bath had been more rigorous than I’d thought.
I faltered. “I . . . I heard someone.”
“There’s no one here,” he said, but there was something in his voice that made me look at him more closely. “Only me.”
I didn’t quite believe him. But I saw no sign of Giulia or anyone else. I must have been imagining things.
I looked at the jar of ointment in my hands and said, “Take off your nightshirt and lie on your stomach.”
He hesitated, measuring, as if he had a question he wanted to ask but was waiting for some sign that it was safe to ask it. “It won’t work, you know. I can’t be cured, and it’s getting worse. Whatever it is you want from me . . . I can’t give it to you.”
Oh, but he could. If he only knew.
“I am just your nurse,” I said carefully. “Now, please. This will relieve some of the pain.”
Chapter 4
The next morning, when I came into his room with his bromide and more arnica, he was sitting in the chair by the windowed doors. I was pleased to see him up until I realized the air was strongly perfumed with garlic and piquant spice. He held a bowl of some kind of stew, already half-eaten. On the tea table was a cup holding what was unmistakably coffee.
In dismay, I said, “What is that? Where did you get it?”
“Good morning to you too.”
I swooped down on the coffee. “Who brought you this?”
“Wait! For God’s sake, don’t take it away.”
“You aren’t supposed to have it. I gave strict instructions. No coffee. And what’s that you’re eating?”
“Sguassetto,” he said. “It’s very good. Would you like a bite?”
“I don’t need a bite to know you shouldn’t have it. I can smell it. You were to eat nothing without my permission. Who gave you this?”
Calmly, he took a bite. “Giulia.”
Of course. I’d known before I asked the question. I cursed.
Samuel raised a brow.
“I told her to stay away! I told you to keep her away!”
“Well, she came bearing gifts. Which, as it happened, I wanted.” He set the bowl aside, swiping his hand through his hair wearily, and I saw what I hadn’t seen bef
ore, shadows that spoke of a sleepless night. I had an idea who had caused it, and I bit back another curse of pure frustration.
“I’ll move a bed in here,” I said. “As it seems I must watch over you every moment.”
His head jerked up. I was not imagining the fear in his eyes. “That’s not necessary.”
“It seems it is.” I mixed the bromide salts into a glass of water and set it before him. “How else am I to keep Giulia from this room? How often must I tell you how dangerous it is for you to indulge in such things?”
He looked at me as if he had no idea what I was talking about. “Indulging in sguassetto is that dangerous?”
“Yes, probably. But I was speaking of your . . . carnal . . . appetites. You know as well as I do that overindulging will only lead to more seizures.”
He laughed, stopping in the midst of it and putting a hand to his ribs with a moan. “I wasn’t indulging any carnal appetite, much less overindulging.”
“Don’t lie to me. You look as if you didn’t sleep at all.”
“I didn’t. But not because of Giulia.”
Then it dawned on me that his sleeplessness was because of pain. “I’ve brought more arnica.”
“It won’t help enough. What can I do to convince you to forget all this? To let me drown myself in oblivion? How much are my parents paying? I’ll double it. What is it you want? Tell me what I can give you in return for walking away and leaving me to myself.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” I said.
“Come, there must be something. Why torment yourself with this? I’m not going to get well; we both know it. I assure you that even my parents wouldn’t blame you for walking away. God knows they’ve done so often enough. I’ll send you wherever you want to go. Rome? Paris? London? Vienna’s lovely in the snow. Wouldn’t you like a life away from that cursed asylum? Just agree, and I’ll give it to you.”
My longing bloomed, just that quickly. “No,” I said, trying to pretend I wasn’t tempted.