I smiled. “Do not worry. I would never allow you to go unrewarded.” I placed two gold florins in his palm. “As you said, money is of little consequence to me. Arrange this little matter without difficulty, and I shall not forget you. You can call at my rented villa tomorrow or the next day, when you have settled everything. Here is the address.” I handed him my card. “But remember, in order to protect my friend, this voyage and her presence on his ship must be kept in the strictest confidence. I will rely on you to explain it as such to your friend who commands the brig going to Civita Vecchia. He must ask no questions of his passenger. The more silence, the more discretion. Then, when he has safely landed the passenger at her destination, he must forget all about her. Do you understand?”
Enrico nodded and winked. “Si, si, contessa. He has a very bad memory, and it shall only become worse. Believe it!”
I laughed and then we parted. As I walked away, an open carriage coming swiftly toward me attracted my attention. As it drew nearer I recognized the prancing steeds and the familiar livery. An elegant man clad in olive velvets and a cloak trimmed in Russian sables looked out, smiling and waving at the dancers.
Dario! My husband, my betrothed. Beside him sat the Doge’s Grand Equerry, Giovanni Gabaldi, a most upstanding and irreproachable men, famous for his honorable conduct not only in Vicenza but throughout the Veneto region. He was so virtuous and unimpeachable, that it was difficult to imagine him even daring to be affectionate with his righteous, well-dressed wife. Yet I recalled a rumour about him; an old tale that came from Padua, of how a young and handsome nobleman had been found dead at his villa’s doors, stabbed to the heart. Some say Gabaldi killed him, but nothing could be proved, so nothing was certain. On the matter, the Equerry remained silent, and so did his wife. Scandal seemed to elude this stately couple, whose behavior toward each other when out in society was a lesson in perfect etiquette. If dissension existed behind the scenes, no one knew, for they kept it well hidden from the world. I ducked behind a column as the carriage containing the two hypocrites dashed by.
I was in a reflective mood, and when I reached the market, the distracting noises of venders selling their wares of chestnuts and confetti, the nasal singing of the street-rhymers, the yells of Punchinello marionettes, and people’s laughter frayed my nerves and tried my endurance.
To indulge a sudden impulse that took hold of me, I made my way into some crowded alleys, trying to find the street where I had purchased the clothes on the day I had escaped from the crypt. I took several wrong turns, but at last I found it.
The old rag-dealer’s shop was still there, and in the same filthy condition of utter disorder. Like before, a woman sat at the door mending, but she was not the same brusque, warped old hag of before. This was a much younger and stouter individual, with a Jewish face and dark, ferocious eyes. I approached her. When she noticed my fancy dress and refined manner, she rose courteously and smiled with a respectful, yet suspicious air.
“Are you the owner?” I asked.
“Si, signora!”
“What became of the old woman who used to own the shop before you?”
She laughed, shrugged her shoulders, and drew her finger across her throat. “She killed herself with a sharp knife! She left behind a great deal of blood, too, for so withered a body. To kill herself in that fashion was stupid. She spoiled a rare Indian shawl that was on her bed, worth more than a thousand lire. One would not have thought she had so much blood in her.”
I listened in sickened silence. “Was she mad?” I asked.
“Mad? Well, everyone certainly seems to think so, but I think she was sane, all except for the matter of that shawl. She should have taken that off her bed first before she killed herself. Yet, she was wise enough to know that she was of no use to anybody. She did the best she could. Did you know her, signora?”
“I gave her money once,” I replied, evasively; then taking out a few silver coins, I handed them to this evil-eyed, furtive-looking daughter of Israel, who received the gift with overenthusiastic gratitude. “Thank you for your information,” I said coldly. “Good-day.”
“Good-day to you, signora,” she replied, resuming her mending and watching me curiously as I turned away.
I walked down the dirty street feeling faint and giddy. The death of the miserable rag-dealer had been relayed to me in a callous manner, yet I was moved by a sense of regret and pity. Poor, half crazy, and utterly friendless, the old woman had suffered betrayal and had wallowed in the same bitterness and sorrow as me. I shuddered and wondered if my death would be as violent as hers. When my vendetta was complete, would I grow old, shrunken, and mad? On a lurid day, would I also draw a sharp knife across my throat to end my life? I walked more rapidly to shake off the morbid thoughts that crept insidiously into my mind.
Earlier, the chaotic noise of the market had became unbearable. Now, I found it both a relief and a distraction. Two men in carnivale masks dressed in violet and gold costumes whizzed past me. A man leaned out of a colorfully decorated balcony and dropped a bunch of roses at my feet. I stooped to pick them up, and then raising my eyes, I waved to him in gratitude. A few paces on, I gave them away to a ragged child. Of all flowers in the world, they were, and still are, the ones I most detest. Dario had given Beatrice a rose on that night when I had seen her clasped in his arms. The red rose on her breast had been crushed in their embrace—a rose whose withered leaves I still possess.
In my rented villa there are no roses, and I am much relieved. The trees are very tall, the tangle of bramble and coarse brushwood far too dense. Nothing grows there but a few herbs and field flowers, unsuitable for picking, wearing or decorating. Yet to me, they are preferable than roses whose vibrant colors and lush aromas are forever spoiled to me. I may be harsh in judging such beautiful flowers, but their perfume now provokes a terrible memory I yearn to forget.
When I returned home, I discovered I was late for dinner. The worried expressions on Paolo’s and Santina’s faces faded moments after I walked through the door. Both had been watching over me anxiously. My brooding, long, solitary walks, and all the hours I spent locked in my room writing, worried them. Paolo helped me remove my gloves and mantle, biting his tongue as if to keep from asking me any questions.
I hurried through my dinner and then rushed to my room to change. I was to meet Dario and two of his friends at the theatre, and knew I would be late. I found him already seated in his box, looking refined and elegant in his golden embroidered waistcoat and white silk shirt with ruffles sleeves. His breeches were black brocade above white stockings and black shoes with gold buckles. On his wrists and fingers he wore the rings and bracelets I had asked Beatrice to give him from the stolen hoard. The jewels flared against the flaming sconces around us.
When he saw me enter, he and his friends rose simultaneously to greet me. Dario kissed me on the cheek with his usual enthusiasm, and handed me a gift of an expensive bouquet of gardenias set within a mother-of-pearl handle studded with garnets. I acknowledged his friends with a nod; both of whom I was acquainted with from long ago, and then took my seat next to Dario just as the comedy was about to begin.
The play was about a young wife, her old doting husband, and her noble lover. The husband was played the fool, of course. The climax of the comedy occurred when the husband found himself locked out of his own house in his nightclothes during a pelting rainstorm while his virtuous spouse enjoyed a luxurious supper with her admirer. My husband laughed heartily at all the poor jokes and stale adages. He especially seemed taken by the actress who played the wife; a cheeky, hotheaded liar who flagrantly flashed her dark eyes, tossed her head, and heaved her abundant bosom flamboyantly whenever she hissed out the words vecchiaccio maladetto, accursed villainous old monster, at her husband’s humiliation. What shocked me the most, was how the audience sympathized with her, even though she was in the wrong.
I watched Dario with scorn as he smiled, nodded, and tapped his extravagantly shoed foot to the l
ively music. I leaned over. “Are you enjoying the play?”
His expression was jovial. “It’s hilarious isn’t it? The husband is so funny!”
“The betrayed spouse is always made fun of,” I remarked, smiling coldly. “Why bother to get married if one knows they will be held in contempt and made a fool of?”
He glanced at me. “Surely you cannot be angry. This sort of thing happens only in theatre, not in real life.”
“Plays, carissimo, are intended to mimic real life, but I hope there are exceptions, and that all spouses are not fools.”
He smiled and returned his attention back to the antics of the actors on the stage.
I toyed with the flowers he had given me and said no more as my mood turned sullen.
“You seem awfully bored or unhappy, or both,” one of Dario’s friends commented to me as we left the theatre. “Is something the matter?”
I forced a smile. “Me? If I seemed bored in your company, I apologize, for it would be most ungrateful of me.”
He sighed. Although he was young and naive, he seemed to be an intellectual and more thoughtful than most men were. “That sounded almost like a compliment,” he said, looking straight at me with his clear, candid eyes. “Yet I think your courtesy is contrived.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Contrived? Forgive me. I do not understand.”
He regarded me steadily. “What I mean to say is that you do not seem to like men. Certainly, you compliment us and try to be sociable, but I sense you bear an inherent dislike for us and are skeptical of our motives. Why, I suspect you even think we are all hypocrites.”
I laughed a little coldly. “You assume much about me. Your words place me in a very awkward position. Were I to tell you my real feelings—”
He interrupted me with a touch of his hand on my arm. “You would say we are all guilty of treachery. Ah, contessa, we men have indeed many faults.” He paused, and his brilliant eyes softened. “You have my sincerest wishes that your marriage will be a very long and happy one.”
I did not know how to respond and did not even thank him for the wish. Rather, it angered me that he had successfully scoured my innermost thoughts with such accuracy. Was my acting that terrible? I glanced at him as we walked on, gathering my thoughts.
“Marriage itself is a farce,” I said harshly. “The play has shown us how it will be. In a few days, Dario shall play the part of the chief buffoon; in other words, the husband.” And at this, I burst out laughing.
My companion’s mouth fell open and he looked aghast, almost frightened. An expression of aversion turned his face bitter. I did not care. Why should I?
Our conversation suddenly ended for we had reached the theatre’s outer vestibule. My carriage was already drawn up at the entrance and Dario helped me step into it. Once I was seated, he stood next to his two friends at the door, and wished me a felicissima notte, a most happy night. I put my jeweled hand through the open carriage window. He stooped to kiss it lightly. Withdrawing it quickly, I selected a white gardenia from my bouquet and handed it to him with a bewitching smile.
Then my glittering carriage dashed away in a whirl and clatter of prancing hoofs and rapid wheels. I looked back. Dario stood alone beneath the theatre’s portico, a press of people still pouring out, holding the gardenia in his hand.
After a moment, I turned back around, recollected myself, and pitched the bouquet at my feet, savagely crushing it beneath the heal of my embroidered slipper. A nauseating, penetrating odor rose from the slain petals. Where had I inhaled such a cloying aroma before? And then I remembered. Beatrice Cardano had worn a gardenia in her corsage at the dinner party. It had been pinned to her gown when she lay dying. I hurled the thrashed bouquet out of the window.
As the carriage brought me closer to home, the streets were full of festivity and music, but I paid little attention to it. Rather, I looked out my window up at the quiet sky dotted with its countless luminous stars. I was vaguely aware of mandolins resounding from somewhere nearby, but my spirit was numb to enjoy the delicate tones. My mind, always heightened, always alert, was now completely exhausted. My body ached, and when I arrived home, all I could do was change into my night clothes, and fling myself on my bed. I fell into the deep sleep of a woman weary unto death.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
All things come to those who wait. This, I knew well, and I had waited for a very long time. The time for vengeance finally arrived. The slow wheel of time had finally brought me to this day – the day before my strange wedding - the eve of my remarriage to my own husband.
All the preparations were made and nothing was left undone. The marriage ceremony was to be quiet and private, but it would be followed by a grand supper and a masked ball with one hundred and fifty friends, acquaintances, and members of the nobility. I spared no expense for this, my last performance in my brilliant career as the successful Contessa Giulia Corona. Everything that art, taste, and luxury could buy was included for this dazzling ball. After this, the dark curtain would fall on my completed drama, never to rise again.
And now, in the afternoon of this, my final act, I sat alone with my husband in the drawing-room of Villa Mancini, discussing several issues pertaining to the festivities the next day. The long windows were open. The warm spring sunlight lay like a veil of gold on the tender green grass. Birds sung for joy and flitted from branch to branch, hovering above their nests then soaring with perfect liberty into the high heaven of cloudless blue. Great creamy magnolia buds looked ready to burst into wide splendid flowers among the trees’ dark shining leaves. The aroma of violets and primroses floated on every delicious breath of air, and around the wide veranda, climbing white roses had already unfurled their little blossoms to the balmy wind.
It was spring in Vicenza, a land where spring is lovely, sudden and brilliant in its beauty like angels from Heaven. And talk about angels! Had I not a veritable angel for my companion at that moment? No man could outshine Dario’s charms; his dark eyes, rippling golden hair, a dazzling perfect face, and a physique to rival that of Hercules.
I glanced at him secretively from time to time when he was not aware of my gaze; an act made easy by the sheltering protection of the dark glasses I wore, for I knew that there was a terrible look in my eyes—the look of a half-famished tiger ready to spring on long-desired prey.
Dario was exceptionally cheery, and his happy expression and agile movements reminded me of some gorgeous tropical bird swaying to and fro on an equally gorgeous branch.
“You are like a princess in a fairy tale,” he said. “Everything you do, you do superbly and with perfection. How satisfying it is to be so rich. There is nothing better in all the world.”
“Except love!” I returned, with a grim attempt to be sentimental.
His large eyes softened.
“Si!” He smiled with expressive tenderness. “Except love. But when one has both love and wealth, life is truly a paradise!”
“So great a paradise that it is hardly worthwhile trying to get into heaven at all. Will you make earth a heaven for me, Dario, or will you only love me as much, or as little, as you loved your late wife?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Why are you always so fond of talking about my late wife?” he asked, irritably. “I am so tired of hearing her name spoken. I do not care to be reminded of dead people, and she died so horribly too. I have told you often enough that I never loved her. Certainly, I liked her a little, and I was quite shocked and upsent when that dreadful monk, who looked like a ghost himself, came and told me she was dead. You can’t imagine how horrible it was to hear such a piece of news suddenly, while I was actually at luncheon with Bea—Signorina Cardano. We were both stunned, of course, but my heart did not break over it. Now, you, I really do love—”
I drew nearer to him on the couch where he sat, and put one hand on his shoulder. “You really do love me?” I asked, in a half-incredulous tone. “You are quite sure?”
He laughed as I nestled
my head on his shoulder. “I am quite sure! How many times have you asked me that absurd question? What can I say, what can I do, to make you believe me?”
“Nothing.” In truth, nothing he could say or do would make me believe him for a moment. “But how do you love me? For myself or for my wealth?”
He raised his head with a proud, graceful gesture. “For yourself, of course! Do you think mere wealth could win my affection? No, I love you for your own sake. Your fine qualities, your virtues, have made me love you with all my heart.”
I smiled bitterly. With me head still resting against him, he could not see the smile. I slowly caressed the back of his neck. “For that sweet answer, carissimo, you shall have your reward. You called me a princess just now. Perhaps I deserve that title more than you know. You remember the jewels I sent you before we met?”
“Remember them!” he exclaimed. “They are my favorites in all my collection. Such finery is fit for an emperor.”
“And an emperor wears them!” I said, lightly. “But they are mere trifles compared to other items of jewelery I possess, and which I intend to give you.”
His eyes glistened with greed.
“If they are more elaborate than those I already have, they must be indeed magnificent! And they are all for me?”
“All for you!” I replied, nestling closer to him, and playing with the hand on which the ring I had placed there sparkled so bravely. “All for my groom. A hoard of treasures; rubies as red as blood, sapphires as blue as the sky, emeralds as green as the lushest forest, diamonds brighter than the stars. What is the matter?” He had shifted restlessly. “All my treasures and wealth will be yours when we marry. All you need do is take them. I hope they bring you much joy!”
A momentary pallor had stolen over his face while I was speaking in my customary harsh voice, which I strove to render even harsher than usual. But he soon recovered from whatever passing emotion he may have felt, and gave himself up to the joys of vanity and greed, the overriding passions of his dreadful character.
The Contessa's Vendetta Page 26