by G A Dazio
Three days she had, then. Three days to see Dídac and heal the wound she had dealt him. Three days to prove to herself that her creation need not fall apart on account of a moment’s indecision.
She was resolute to still be at the helm of her world.
* * *
It had taken no small effort to bring him to her townhouse again. He had refused the invitation to discuss his course of action. He’d refused to see her at all. His refusal had poisoned the Marquesa with hesitation, but she chanced that this obstacle was not nearly so impossible.
Her coachman pulled up to the townhouse carrying the young man who held a letter from her requesting that he accept, in person, the return of his engagement ring. Marcelina did not have this ring, naturally, but from the moment he was escorted into her salon, she was certain that possession of it was quite unnecessary.
“I suppose I should be grateful that I was not expected to deliver my niece’s symbol of holy union through the common post,” she said venomously, choosing at the final moment not to deprive herself of at least one more blow for all these trials he had suffered her.
Dídac had expected this remark, hoped for it perhaps. He was so very prepared for it that he did not bother to learn the words of her statement, but simply ingested the tone of her poison. He had felt it would grant him leave to dispense with any allowances he might have been inclined to pay her out of sentiment. He loved her to the point of pain, and all might be made simpler if he adopted a tone that might prevent even a solitary word of affection from passing her lips.
“There will be no need of such measures, my lady, I am here to receive the ring in person.”
The Marquesa studied him intensely as his response came bitterly. His words set a game before her that was unmistakable. She was more confident than ever that her words would lead him from his dramatic foolishness.
She now rose from the seat that she had not bothered to depart from when he’d entered, realizing her simple psychological insult was truly her first injection of venom and quite unnecessary now that she was again sure of herself.
“I will be more than expedient in returning your charm, as you have prescribed in your letter of withdrawal, but I am afraid I simply must require from you a satisfactory reason for this outrage against my niece. I should think you would be aware of just how necessary a woman in my position would find this last strained act of respect.”
He was truly devastated by this, just as he had been in those moments days ago before he’d left her embrace. The agony was again beginning to race through his blood, but he summoned the composure to speak in his defense.
“I should think you are quite needless of such an explanation, Marquesa. You are, after all, quite aware of your involvement in the events that led to my decision. I have been as honorable as could be expected in this sad affair. I had hoped you would be, at the very least, receptive to my intent. I am trying to make this as painless as possible for your niece. It’s in poor taste for you to stand now and pretend innocence. There is no call for you to mock us both.”
And there it is, she thought, he will force me to resort to the pageantry that requires my humiliation. I have injured him past the point of simple affection and apology, he must have the drama of his tragedy played out with full emotion. He will not settle for less.
She assumed the position she had relied on countless times in the past, that certain collapse of body, affecting the appearance of her soul dislodging from her flesh. And then her head was lowered with a dignified look of shame as she summoned the tears, the only apology he would accept. And without fail, the tears came to her face now and flushed her cheeks as they fell in their slow dramatic time. And once that grievance had been executed, she concentrated on her breathing, the slowly building tremble that would soon translate into frame-shaking sobs. And when she was satisfied that he could not perceive her breakdown as anything but genuine, she began her true performance, the words which would need to mend and flatter the boy in order to win him back.
“This is my fault, you are right, señor,” she began. “I have done this to the both of us.”
Marcelina looked up at him now, holding him in her tears, confidant that her eyes would reveal nothing she would not have him see.
“And you are perfectly valid in seeking to withdraw from this engagement. Oh, but I fear for you, señor, fear that you are casting away your future because of my mistake. My niece, señor, she is still true to you and in love with you. She will not fail you as a wife as I have failed you as a lover. I beg you not to hurt her in hopes of enacting your revenge upon me; my punishment was felt when you left. Hurting Veronica will only serve to injure yourself.”
“You may stop there, my lady, there is no need to continue. I have come to a decision that is best for us all. I will not be deterred from it.”
“But don’t you see that it’s not best for you, or her, señor?” she cried, approaching him, closing the room’s length between them. “You know that it’s true she would be accepted by any house in the country, and her mother had asked of me that very thing, caring only that she be married off to the finest house possible. It was I who made it conceivable for her to choose whom she would marry. It was I who allowed her to be courted so intimately by someone who was not even of age, silencing her mother’s outrage only with the knowledge that your family’s wealth would compensate for your lack of ambition. It was I who taught her to value love, señor, to value the love between a man and woman as an essential component of marriage.
“Do not think my behavior with you was anything but my wish that your physical compatibility with her be a settled issue by the time you were to be wed. I am not proud of what we have done in these months, I am simply resolute that I have accomplished an assurance of my niece’s happiness, which I deem crucial. She has never been aware of our arrangement, señor. If I had felt the slightest measure of pride in my sacrifices, I can promise you I would not have hesitated to make her informed of my accomplishments on her behalf.”
Dídac shook his head slowly, stumbling over his thoughts, incapable of grasping the fatal point of his negation.
“That is not true,” he muttered. “What you say is a lie. You are lying to me, yes, lying, and I will not believe you. You did not have me here every week for half a year to endure some sort of motherly chore. You did not! You had me here because you wanted me, wanted me from the first day we met. And you started it because you knew you would never have me in a better position than when I was when engaged to your niece and powerless to resist your demands. That is why I am not allowed to speak when I am in this house. You will not suffer the slightest word of love from me, you will not risk my admission that I am not here out of fear but desire. You will not forsake your power over me because you know that you love me! And I will not stand for it even one more day!”
Why does he say this? she wondered. What does he mean to accomplish by putting this statement to me? Can he honestly believe this nonsense?
“I do not understand you or what you hope to receive from me by this,” she cried.
“I want you to tell me that your motivation for having me here in your arms all these months was that you loved me; loved me and wanted me. That you had me here not because you were concerned with some absurd notion of your niece’s happiness, but for your own! Tell me that you had me here out of selfishness and lust. There is no sin I cannot forgive us of, but don’t tell me you had me here like a dog breeder who coldly prepares whelps for collectors. I will not stand for such a lie!”
“It is not a lie!” she screamed at him. “That is precisely why you are here. You are a whelp, one I would prepare to be a champion, one which any woman would pay a fortune for! What did you think I would say, that I had chosen some stupid little boy to be my lover, one who had to be instructed minute by minute on how to please me? You have turned out fine, dear, but I did not choose you for your achievements as a man!”
“So just when did I turn out fine? You have
had me here all this time and haven’t given me any new instruction for several weeks, not really. You simply have me, enjoy me, if I’m not mistaken, then send me off unaffected, or so you would want me to believe. But if you kept me here only for instruction, certainly I’d have graduated long ago. Why have I still been fetched in your carriage for the past month? Would you have me believe you’re polishing me up to a brighter shine? Just how hard do I have to make you come?”
“Stop it! You will not be vulgar to me now, and I will hear no more of this!” She was crying more intensely now, not entirely certain if it was still by her choice. She felt it was going too far. If she alienated him anymore, she might lose him all together. Perhaps, it would be better simply to tell him what he wanted to hear. How bad a thing could that be, she thought?
“Very well,” she began after a long silence, “I will tell you what you want to hear.”
“No, please, don’t make this more difficult than it already is.”
“Hush, dear, this isn’t easy for me.” She walked to him now and put her hands softly to his mouth. He tried once to recede, but it was an act of dramatic pride rather than a desire not to be touched by her.
“Stop, please,” he whispered, tears were demanding to be released, but he exerted all his will to keep that from happening. The wound became a fissure in his very soul.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “you know why I have had to lie to you. This cannot be. If I allow you to love me in this way, you will not have the strength to give me up in two years. No, don’t, you know it’s true.”
“You don’t know what you say,” he replied, crying soundlessly. “I will not give you up, but I will not give her up either. I must have you both or nothing.”
She stared at him in fear, his warm breath close to her, and she saw that he meant this, meant every word of it. Marcelina understood, at last, that she had discovered the end of the argument for the boy: he would have her as his lover and Veronica as his bride. His bride! There was no way beyond his reason, no way now, and she saw her only hope was to carry him to marriage and somehow find a way to tempt him into finishing this game and become a husband in his heart. She had damaged him. She could see it so plainly on his face, in the timbre of his cry. She would have to spend twice as much effort in repairing what she had done. There was no other way.
He kissed her then, seeing that he had defeated her, slowly allowing his lips to bring back the warm love he knew to be resentful in the woman.
I am powerless against him once again, she thought. The sweet sensation of his arms was a drug she could not resist.
“Very well. It will be as you wish,” she whispered her cry.
It was over, she could no longer turn back. She gave over her body to him, as if it were he who had become the instructor.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Veronica heard in passing that the Marquesa had returned when one of the footman spread the knowledge to the staff loud enough for her to hear it, unmistakably. Veronica had long grown accustomed to her aunt’s weekly ritual, her reliable journey fifteen miles downtown to meet with her representatives, and then the night spent at her townhouse only to return the next day. But Marcelina had not returned in three days, and no word had been sent to the house as to when they might expect her. That she would arrive so late in the evening was also odd.
She gathered herself to descend to meet her aunt but was cut off by the sight of the woman landing at the top of the third floor, just as Veronica exited her room.
“Come with me,” Marcelina said, hurrying up the stairs past the girl.
Words were not shared for several moments as Veronica found her usual place on the sofa in her aunt’s drawing room and watched her settle in. From an armoire, Marcelina selected a very large bottle of Caribbean rum and set it out with small crystal glasses, lighting some candles in seconds and thoughtfully observing their glow before taking her first sip of the drink.
“Everything went well in town?” the girl enquired.
“Yes, everything is fine. I simply stayed longer to please my lawyer. He is in the process of executing a major security that required my presence in his office for days. And as such, I don’t wish to have his staff of insects crawling around this house.”
“So then? To what do we drink?
Marcelina took notice of the glasses now, as if she hadn't entirely been aware of having put them out. She brought the rum to her mouth savagely. Fine, sweet and hot, the way she preferred it. There was no distance she would not travel for this special drink, though so much of it was available here in Spain and Portugal that was not imported from the other side of the world.
“I want to talk about you. You have been on my mind for some time and I wonder if I haven’t failed you, fallen off in my parental duties. I realize you are so close to me now that I take it for granted you cannot hear my very thoughts. Is there anything you wish to talk about that we haven’t examined yet? You will soon have been here almost a year. Certainly, there are things that you have observed in all that time you wish to discuss?”
Marcelina waited for her response now with a fairly wide-eyed stare, the blonde wisps of her journeyed hair attempting to break free of her hairdresser’s vision. Veronica loved her aunt most at times like these, when her attentions became ripped away, it seemed, to focus on matters that were perpetually in plain sight, but that were rarely noticed by the woman. In fact, she had nothing on her mind to speak of, but this was not important. It was a given that whatever the subject, both of them would wind up with an overwhelming exasperation that they had uncovered some unturned stone, bringing them closer to each other. It was fantastic, she thought.
“Nothing terribly important, I’m afraid. I’ve been doing nothing but reading lately.”
“Just lately?” the Marquesa eyed her playfully, evincing a posture which she rarely displayed to people other than her niece. “It seems to me there is little else you have done in months. Just how many books are there under this roof?”
“You’d be impressed to know!” Veronica declared, mimicking the woman's wide eyes. “There are ancient texts of all sorts here, fingerprints of de Amontoní ancestors long since gone from this earth.”
Marcelina relaxed into a beautiful laugh that seemed to have overwhelmed some sort of underlying tension she had brought home with her. It was a simple and profound pleasure for the Marquesa that her new daughter did not submit herself to the mind-numbing chatter of other young women, those she had only months ago flocked to with religious devotion. Marcelina was more than satisfied that the girl was already such an intelligent outcast and celebrated consort. Let the house go deaf with the sound of screaming bindings being pulled apart, the literati be damned!
“Tell me something that pleases you from one of these books. What keeps you so enthralled?”
“Julius Caesar and his empire! The stories in those books, you wouldn’t believe it. The whole continent and beyond, they say. Even Barcelona, before the Moors. The Romans had developed the city for centuries, infusing it with their culture so that it took on a distinct flavor from the entire empire. The stories of the emperors and their battles and their women. You wouldn’t believe it all.”
“I’ve been there, in Rome,” Marcelina rolled her eyes slightly. “It’s you who wouldn’t believe it. What a different breed they are. Such an aggressive mindset.”
“I would love to go there someday, just to walk the streets. To sit inside the arena. That would make it all seem real to me.”
“It was full of weeds when I was there, but it still managed to make an impression on my young mind. But you should certainly go there, dear. Take a long journey after you are married, before you must consider children.”
It was a question Veronica had been waiting to be led to for as long as she could remember.
“Why did you never...?”
“Children?” Marcelina filled the dead air. “It was not possible. The forces driving against it couldn’t be overcome. He
left so very soon after we were married and returned only once for a month in the years before he passed. And he was so very old, as well. Truthfully, it was not an easy proposition for us. And during the few times when I did conceive, I suffered miscarriages. I was so young.” She looked at the girl’s eyes suspiciously now. “Why, how long have you wanted to ask me that?”
Veronica averted her eyes from the reproach, though it was but merely a caring question. She immediately felt as if the knowledge was something she could have carried on without knowing.
“I’m sorry, Tia. I didn’t mean to wander through such memories.”
“No, no, dear, it was so very long ago. I don’t ever think of it anymore, really. But in a way, I guess it’s always been a part of my driving will in seeing you settled with someone of your age. I did not really know Augustí. He was well into his fifties when he married me at seventeen. Thinking back, I believe he cared for me more as a victory, rather than as a wife. He had outlived my predecessor, who had borne him five sons. They all tragically met the same fate in the Navy. I believe he saw me as his last hope of outsmarting the dark cloud that had consumed his family. But in the end, all that was left was a young girl who found herself taken in and adored by the women of the old families.
“It was an incredible freedom to have been reared by so many loving people. And then, overnight, I came to understand that I was the only de Amontoní left, that this house was mine alone, that I had no need in the world. But most importantly, there was no one who would oppose the life I set out to live, not even his relatives, who all thought the title should’ve gone to them. There were the endless suitors; the old ladies felt so very obliged to find someone to ensure my respectability. But I had observed much of the world by then and knew well enough that I would never just marry anyone for the sake of marriage again. And to escape the suitors I fled; to Paris and Venice, to Amsterdam and London, to everywhere, even New York. I landed in your lovely Rome somewhere along the way and admitted myself to every house my name or reputation would allow for. And even there, I faced suitors in every corner. But this did not matter. I had long learned what to make of the world, and what its possibilities and dynamics were.