Now, too, he could see that his work had kept step with his growing faith; now the light of devotion shone from within the figures, not without. Bernardino felt that he addressed a learned colloquy of Holy figures that had gathered to hear him. The long-dead and the living convened together: Alessandro Bentivoglio, Sister Bianca’s father, knelt in his splendid robe of white and grey, black and gold, and behind him, Saint Stephen stood with the rocks that had killed him scattered at his feet. The Abbess’s dead mother Ippolita knelt over Saints Agatha and Lucy, all three wearing the face and form of Simonetta di Saronno. And there too, were Bianca and her brother Anselmo, portrayed as Saint Scholastica and her twin Saint Benedict, smiling beatitude from the pilasters. In their raiments of glorious colour, precious pigments of lapis lazuli, periwinkle and malachite, the past and the present shone down from the arches and spandrels, the oculi and lunettes. The colours and drapery of the fabrics were spectacular; the sottinsù or perspective of the figures was so marvellous that it seemed that they bent down to bestow their grace on the world below. Bernardino had created reality from illusion – the fictive marble and niches he had painted looked as real as if they had been carved by a mason, rendered with shadows and forms that were not their own. He knew this was his master work. ‘But it is no longer admiration that I crave,’ he said, almost to himself, as if answering a question that had not been asked. ‘I want only her, and we will live in sin, if sin it is, if she will have me. I will live on her doorstep and plague her every day if I must.’
The Abbess thought for a moment before she spoke. ‘My dear Bernardino. Had you never thought that such a pass may not be necessary? You have become God’s friend, so you say. He does indeed love you, despite your faults, as he loves all his children. Might it not be possible to proceed in His path?’
‘What can you mean?’
‘I mean marriage. It is one of the sacraments, a state most beloved of God.’
‘Marriage?’ Bernardino said the word as if for the first time.
‘Of course.’ The Abbess smiled her half-smile. ‘Had you not thought of it before?’
‘Never…how is it possible?’
Sister Bianca laughed. ‘I know little of the world, it is true, but I think it is usual to ask the lady and wait for her to say yes.’ She mocked him gently.
‘But…’
‘You have been here for close on two years. Her husband died when?’
‘At Pavia. A year before I came here.’
‘Then the poor soul has been gone three years, God rest him. She has had time enough to mourn. Respect is due to the dead but the young should live their lives, not spend them in bereavement. The Church and Canon law allow a widow to remarry after a certain time, and that time is now past. She is yours if she will have you.’
Bernardino’s heart began to beat strong, and his eyes burned. Marriage. He had never thought that Simonetta and he could be together legitimately in the eyes of God. But if her scruples would allow it, if he had done penance enough, it was possible. There was no impediment in Church or law, only the scandal that had plagued them at the start, and all scandals must die at last.
‘But I know nothing of her life since I left. I had given her up for lost. I do not even know if she still resides in Castello. Or even if she has met another.’
‘Do either of these events seem likely? Did she seem attached to her home?’
‘Very much so. In fact she came to work for me to preserve her home for the honour of her dead husband.’
The Abbess nodded with approval. ‘And did she seem fickle? One that would form another attachment?’
‘No. I am sure she loved me, and it tortured her because she felt the same disrespect to her first love.’
‘Then go and seek her. Why not? You can but try.’ The Abbess stood before Bernardino could protest. ‘There is but one more thing needful before you may marry. And it can be achieved this evening at Vespers.’
As the Vespers bells tolled on Bernardino’s last night in the monastery of San Maurizio, he stood, bareheaded at the font. He wore a white shirt and held a candle. The chapel was filled with the sisters that had favoured him with friendship these past years in the cloister, herbarium or library. He knew but a handful of names, yet they were all his friends. And before him, one among their number that he had come to love as a blood sister. She poured the Holy water over his head and he gasped at the shock, the purity of the cold. As he drank from his first communion cup, and looked into the dark carnelian red depths of the chalice, he looked up to the panel he had painted of the Man of Sorrows. Jesus lay prone, spurting lifeblood into the Grail cup, the very blood that Bernardino now drank, and he found it passing strange that in all his growing knowledge of the lives of the Saints he had never till now thought of the ultimate suffering of the lonely and sorrowing Christ. ‘Noli me Tangere’ indeed, ‘Touch me Not’ – Bernardino had painted him thus too, here in this hall. He raised his eyes to the painted lunette, and then a great revelation, a realisation, burst in upon him. There on the panel a hand reached out between loved ones, one to touch the other, but Bernardino had painted the opposite of the traditional tableau of the Noli me Tangere. Here, now, the Risen Christ reached his hand out to the Magdalene in welcome, just as Simonetta had once reached out to Bernardino in pity and been spurned. Bernardino was ready to touch and be touched, and he knew why; the Son of God’s body was supported by those who loved him; the Magdalene, Mary his mother and Saint John bent close at his end – he was not alone in his awful fate. At that moment Bernardino resolved he would not die alone. He wanted a wife and the children of his body to be with him. Unshed tears stood in his eyes at the notion, but they spilled soon enough as the sisters sang ‘Gloria, Gloria!’ in a crescendo of exultation. He looked up as the angels – his angels soared above his head, wheeling and revolving in their heavenly measure. For that moment they were not the seraphim that he had painted but were real. They had come to bear witness to his Baptism, to his communion, to his acceptance of God at last, here in the Hall of the Believers where this lost sheep at last belonged, before they returned to their niches in the dark blue sky with the golden stars.
As he took his leave from the circus gate Bernardino bent and kissed the Abbess’s hands. He did not look at the jewels of her ring as he had when they met but closed his eyes and kissed the rough skin with real affection. She, too, noticed the difference and said, ‘You have given me a great compliment. For when we close our eyes when we kiss, be it the head of a child, the feet of a Saint or the lips of a loved one, that kiss means everything. For only then do we shut out the world and remember to feel.’
As Bernardino raised his face to the eyes that were so like Anselmo’s he had a sudden moment of resolve. Yesterday they had both been changed, they had both lost their innocence, and she had professed a wish to know more of the world. They had both professed a desire to seize each day of their lives in different ways. He did not wish her to leave the world without knowing that her brother lived in it.
‘I must go,’ he said. ‘But you should come with me. There is a man, a good man…the best friend that the world holds. He would be glad to know you, for though he is not yet your brother, he is your father’s son.’
CHAPTER 39
A Wedding
Selvaggio and Amaria were married in Pavia in the church of Saint Peter of the Golden Sky. The gilded ceiling arched overhead and the priest’s solemn Latin rolled around the golden firmament and back to its children on earth. Never were two happier than those joined here, and the icon of Sant’Ambrogio witnessed the scene, and was glad.
Nonna sat at the front of the church, black lace on white hair. She leaned her forehead on her clasped hands as she prayed. She had known that Father Matteo would oblige with this ceremony, for he knew Amaria well as he had come to know Selvaggio. The priest had no hesitation to join two of the same name – Selvaggio was married under the name Sant’ Ambrogio too – for it was not the first time the priest had joine
d two of the Saint’s orphans. He knew the groom’s story and was comfortable that there could be no consanguinity in the case.
As the kind old man intoned the lesson that groom and bride had chosen for their own special reasons, Nonna found the words imbued with new meaning as she saw her two dear children lock eyes and clasp hands.
‘Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. For you will eat the labour of your hands. You will be happy, and it will be well with you. Your wife will be as a fruitful vine, in the innermost parts of your house; your children like olive plants, around your table. Behold, thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord. May the Lord bless you out of Zion, and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. May you see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel.’
The words seemed to be written for them, and the family they had become, the family they might one day have. During the prayers Nonna shut her ears to the words and thanked God in her own way, sincerely and reverently. She had ever been devout, even through the dark days of Filippo’s death. But today Nonna had been moved to cut a measure in the square where Filippo had burned. For God had given her Amaria, and now Selvaggio, and their children would grow like olive plants around her table. Her heart was full.
The bride and groom looked as shining as the Saints that observed from the walls. Amaria was in the new green of spring leaves, her dark hair twisted with seed pearls that Nonna had prised from the mouths of their suppertime oysters. Amaria’s erstwhile friend, Silvana, stood by as a handmaid, with an expression as sour as the bride’s was joyful. Who would have thought that an orphan of the woods would have preceded her to the altar?
Selvaggio was in the dark red feast-day doublet of Filippo himself, and though it was a mite tight, no-one would notice, so handsome did he look with his beard trimmed and his hair slick. Yes, Amaria looked like the queen of May and Selvaggio was her king. Nothing, not the handfasting of the two with silver ribbons, nor the laying of hands on the Holy Book, nor even the Latin cadences of the lesson that the priest read regularly at marriage services, penetrated the groom’s memory; to prompt him, gently, that he had done all this before.
CHAPTER 40
Phyllis and Demophon
It was a peerless summer day when the Abbess and the artist reached Castello. Sister Bianca recognised the place from the fresco of the dedication of Saint Maurice, for Bernardino had painted this very house in San Maurizio down to the last window and gateway, the last tile and stone. The rose honey of the brick, the shady arches of the loggia, all were there before her eyes; just as they appeared on the great panel in the Hall of the Believers, providing an exquisite background for the story of Saint Maurice. Square, elegant and intensely separate; the house was at once welcoming and forbidding.
Bernardino, who had been in a jitter along the road these past few hours, stood at the gates almost exactly two years since he had been there last, the day Simonetta had turned away from him with his drawing in her hand. He found the place much changed.
The winter rose hedge from whence he had taken his leave of Simonetta was now green with glossy leaves and bursting with coral buds. The almond groves were pollarded and ordered in their neat lines, the fruit trees now espaliered neatly on the garden walls. The pleasure gardens of old were restored, new trout ponds reflected the sky and even the little conical dovecot had been washed and whitened. The house itself had been improved, the arches of the loggia were repaired, the old ivy stripped and the faded lilac of wisteria twisted up the frontage. There were new gates on the new columns, and glass quarrels in the casements. Bernardino noted this new prosperity and his heart sank. Was it a new husband who brought new life to this place? Sister Bianca laid a hand on his arm to quiet him but he shook it off and strode up the path, unable to bear the suspense for a moment longer. He must see her, even if it were for the last time.
Sister Bianca followed and saw her at the same time that Bernardino did. Miracle of miracles; she wore the red dress of his picture, crossed with golden thread and fretted with seed pearls. Her hair was bound with a pearl cincture and glowed the red of carnelians. But she was so alive, so animate! She was no painting. Her white face was flushed with laughter, and her red curls escaped from their binding to wind about her neck and ears. Her skirts were kirtled to her waist as she ran round the largest tree in the grove in a scene of domestic felicity. But there was no husband in the case; just a pair of golden children, laughing, and tumbling, both holding a switch of green and white almond blossom, chasing the lady. Cutting and thrusting with their harmless swords. At length she would catch one or other of them and kiss their little cheeks or necks in a picture of maternal love.
Bernardino was deeply moved – she could have been their mother, were it not for two things; their ages made the thing impossible, and the older one he recognised. Could it be true? It was Elijah, the Jewish boy for whom he had painted the dove, and bought the marble. Evangelista, the candle angel with the red wings that lived forever on the walls of San Maurizio.
Bernardino marvelled at this new Simonetta, the laughing, smiling living woman, not racked by the pains of love or bereavement, of disloyalty and disgrace. Not penurious, or proud, as she came to him for help in her husband’s clothes. Not chilly and remote as she sat for him posing as the Queen of Heaven, as far above mortal passions as the cold moon itself. She too had changed, and he had never wanted her more. Sister Bianca saw too – her good heart thrilled at the scene and she recognised Saint Ursula playing with the candle angel, but she feared for Bernardino – how could he forget a woman like this? This was not the distant, proud lady she had envisaged; the cold chatelaine who tortured her lover. Here was a warm lovely creature who could make a man’s life an earthly paradise. What would her friend do if she would not have him?
At last Simonetta tired of the game and fell in the groin of the roots of Rebecca’s tree, on the green grass above Manodorata’s grave. She leaned back, exhausted, on the trunk where her friend had breathed his last as his sons fell in her lap. She had seen to it that they played here, she had banished superstition and made it their playground, and she spoke openly of their father and mother until they did too.
She held the boys tight with one head on each shoulder and closed her eyes. The sun was so bright she could still see the almond leaves shifting above her like dark fishes that switch back and forth with the tide. When she opened them again she thought she had the sunblindness, for there stood Bernardino Luini.
Sister Bianca’s doubts vanished as Simonetta stood wonderingly and took him in her arms, both laughing and crying. Both said the other’s name over and over, and both thanked the God that they had each separately come to know in the dark days of their separation. Their mouths met in a long hard kiss, their eyes closed as they drank each other in; thankful, profoundly thankful, that all that had been wrong was now right. The Abbess, only human after all, strained to hear what they said, but could not understand what came next. For between kisses, Bernardino called Simonetta ‘Phyllis’, and she laughing, as if completing a password, replied, ‘Demophon’. The Abbess might have been shocked to learn that the two invoked a pagan myth from ancient Greece, where a woman who thought she had lost her love was turned into an almond tree, but was saved by his return, and blossomed in his arms as he brought her back to life and to love again. But the Abbess did not understand the reference, nor was she in the mood for censure. Instead she took a little boy’s hand in each of hers, and drew them to her. ‘Could you show me the game you were playing just now?’ she said. ‘I would very much like to learn it.’
So as Bernardino and Simonetta plighted their troth under the almond trees as the blossom drifted across their lips and lashes, the Abbess of San Maurizio hoisted her habit above her knees, exposing her pale hairy legs to the sun for the first time in years, and ran round an almond tree chased by two little Jewish boys, laughing like a parrot and whirling like a dervish.
Simonetta di Saronno and Bernardin
o Luini married in the Sanctuary of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Saronno, the church of the Miracles. Simonetta decided that she must look the past in the face and be churched publicly in order to begin her new life in the open. In a change to her first marriage though, they married not at the main altar but in the Lady Chapel where the bride watched herself from the walls – peering down from the frescoes painted by the groom. They were attended by a brother and sister in Christ, and a brother and sister in blood, for Alessandra and Anselmo Bentivoglio met and forged a friendship at once; the bond of the same character and the same father more than outweighed the division of a different mother and upbringing.
Even the townsfolk blessed the match – the Amaretto liquor had brought great prosperity to the area, and the mistress of Castello was a wealthy patroness of the vintner, the butcher and every other victualler in the town. Not the baker though – he had died mysteriously some weeks past; and only Father Anselmo, administering the last rites, had noticed a wicked dagger in the shape of a Maltese cross buried deep in the man’s chestspoon. The priest kept his peace though, and so did Simonetta; and if she knew that a large part of her popularity stemmed from her being a known anti-semite who had personally dispatched the vile Jew Manodorata, she did not question it. Better to be reputed as such and keep her little family safe.
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