Empress Bianca

by Lady Colin Campbell

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s always a way,’ Bianca replied, her laughter tinkling. ‘Believe me, any woman can get anything she wants out of any man, as long as he lusts after her.’ Even so, after last night’s little scene, Bianca wondered if Ferdie might not be the exception to the rule.

  They had now reached Magdalena’s cabin. Bianca opened the door and stepped aside to let the younger woman in first. ‘Hydrangeas!’

  Magdalena exclaimed. ‘I don’t believe it. My favourite flowers.’

  ‘I know,’ Bianca said, quietly capturing her prize. ‘You let that slip at the wedding…remember? When we were discussing my bouquet?’

  Magdalena moved towards her new aunt and hugged her. ‘Words can’t convey how touched I am,’ she said, already well on the way to falling completely under Biacna’s spell.

  ‘It’s my pleasure,’ Bianca said. ‘I like nothing better than seeing my loved ones happy.’

  ‘Then life must be an uphill struggle for you when Uncle Ferdie gets in one of his moods.’

  In the family, Ferdie’s depressive periods were always euphemistically referred to as ‘moods’.

  ‘You can say that again,’ Bianca replied demurely. ‘And your grandmother doesn’t help. In fact, she makes things much, much worse.’

  ‘Grandma’s very possessive of Uncle Ferdie. She’s never really wanted to share him with anyone. Mummy would go further and say that she’s never wanted to share herself with anyone but Uncle Ferdie…and Grandpa, of course, when he was alive.’

  ‘I know what your mother means. I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I actually sympathize with your poor mother. I’ve seen your grandmother in action. It’s always Ferdie who’s wonderful, while Clara can’t do anything right, even though your mother is far more reliable than your uncle. To a newcomer like me, it just doesn’t make sense. It’s as if she doesn’t see either of her children as they really are. Ferdie is seen as possessing every virtue, Clara possessing none…though, I have to tell you, I’ve seen your grandmother change tack when she wants something out of your mother.’

  ‘It’s been very difficult for Mummy having a mother like Grandma, but she’s come to terms with it and, it doesn’t bother her anymore.’

  ‘I must ask her the secret, for I have to tell you: your grandmother makes my blood boil. She’s always putting me down to your father. She’s a real troublemaker. I can tell she’d like nothing better than to break us up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far. She’d much rather have you there so that she can snipe at you. It’s all part of her game.’

  ‘Horrid old bat…spreading poison every time she flaps her wings. No wonder your uncle has his moods. In fact, it’s a wonder he doesn’t have more of them, with a mother like that.’

  The steward arrived with Magdalena’s luggage. ‘You may unpack, thank you very much,’ Bianca said, once more taking Magdalena by the arm and steering her towards the deck where lunch was about to be served.

  As they walked, Bianca brushed her hand gently over Magdalena’s cheek. ‘I’m so glad we can be friends,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it’s a bit daunting entering a family like this, especially after having come from such a united family as my own and having had such a serene family life with my first husband.’

  Magdalena’s heart went out to Bianca. She put herself in the older woman’s shoes and could easily imagine how vulnerable she must be at times. She decided she must put in a word on Bianca’s behalf with her mother and Uncle Ferdie. This was, of course, precisely what Bianca wanted her to do, although it has to be said in fairness to Bianca that she would have behaved exactly the same way towards Magdalena had she lacked an ulterior motive, for she genuinely liked her.

  Magdalena’s opportunity to speak out on behalf of her ally came the following day. Bianca had just slipped down to her stateroom to change into a new swimsuit after her morning swim, and she seized her chance.

  ‘I have to tell you, Uncle Ferdie,’ she said, ‘the more I know Bianca, the more I like her. She really is one of the kindest, most considerate people I have ever met in the whole of my life.’

  ‘Your life hasn’t been long enough for you to have much basis for comparison,’ Clara replied sharply. ‘Calculation often presents itself as thoughtfulness. I’d say the jury should remain out on dear Bianca until we have definitive proof of what her motives are.’

  Ferdie looked from his sister to his niece. They could almost see the wheels of his mind turning. He seemed to be thinking that both women were speaking the truth, but only one could be right. Then he turned to his brother-in-law, shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘What can a man do when he’s caught between two stools, Rodolfo?’

  ‘Seems to me it’s more like being caught between three stools, Ferdie,’ quipped Rodolfo.

  ‘Or four, if you include Mama,’ Clara added.

  ‘Quite enough to send a man stark staring mad,’ Ferdie replied jokingly. Five days later the family left the Cote d’Azure, Ferdie and Bianca dropping off Clara, Rodolfo and Magdalena in Geneva before flying back to London on their private jet.

  For Bianca, the first real awareness of her change in lifestyle had come when she was asked which was her favourite airline. ‘I don’t fly commercial anymore,’ she had replied. Her new husband owned a Lear jet fully equipped as if it were a flying apartment, with a sitting area with sofas, a bed and a bathroom with shower, elevating Bianca beyond first class. The Lear was actually less of an indulgence than it appeared to be.

  With his boundless energy and the needs of his business empire, Ferdie and Bianca were constantly on the go. As the jet hurtled through the skies, Ferdie rested while Bianca took stock of her life.

  Superficially relations between man and wife had returned to normal, and each was ostensibly leading the other to believe that satisfaction reigned. Bianca, however, was now dangerously disaffected. Ferdie’s outburst had put her on her guard in a way she would never forget, and as far as she could see, his capriciousness and tempestuousness made an intolerable level of circumspection an imperative for survival as his wife.

  She was now painfully aware of how badly she had miscalculated her ability to ‘encourage’ Ferdie into giving her jewels when he did not want to. Bianca suspected that she had come perilously close to stepping over the line just as Amanda had done. Clearly the waters she had to navigate to keep her marital vessel safely afloat were treacherous. For the first time she understood how Amanda - whom she had secretly dismissed as a silly woman - came to misread the signs and miscalculated the outcome, thereby unwittingly destroying her marriage. Ferdie, Bianca decided, was too inclined to blow small things out of all proportion. He was also too intolerant. He found it impossible to accept anything he did not wish to, and that made living with him difficult.

  For the first time since she had married Ferdie, Bianca felt regret. Even worse, she felt insecure and expendable: sensations that were new to her. She asked herself if this marriage was really worth the price she had paid in giving up a husband whose love was firm, constant and reciprocal for a husband whose love was predicated upon a wife’s willingness to obey.

  One part of Bianca wished she could turn the clock back, but she also knew that whatever Ferdie’s faults might be, the marriage had been worth it. If she was honest with herself - and she was - her ideal would be to fuse Bernardo and Ferdie into one man. To have the lifestyle and stature that being Ferdie’s wife brought her, but to sleep with Bernardo and have Bernardo’s companionship. Or, to put it another way: to have the public face of Ferdie and the private side of Bernardo.

  ‘But,’ Bianca asked herself, surrendering to her reverie, ‘even if I could return to Bernardo, would I really want to do so?’ The answer, she knew, was a resounding yet painful ‘no’. Not after having been married to someone as dynamic and cosmopolitan as Ferdie. Comforting and comfortable though Bernardo was, the Piedraplata way of life was something entirely different, and one moreover which had infinitely
greater appeal.

  Bianca sipped her glass of champagne as she looked at her sleeping husband, sprawled across a sofa in the Lear, which was now high over France heading towards London. She took another sip and let her eyes take in every aspect of this private aircraft: this rich man’s toy, this affirmation of her status. It was, as the saying goes, ‘beautifully appointed’: all pale blues, beiges and shades of taupe. The two stewards hovering in the galley behind a drawn curtain, waiting to spring into action at the touch of a button, were the best that money could buy.

  Bianca could not deny that this was more than just the way to travel: it was also the way to live. This was truly being on top of the world, and she would not give it up voluntarily. ‘Even if I put the capricious and volatile aspects of Ferdie’s nature to one side, the prospect of leading the rest of my life with someone who is as personally unfulfilling as Ferdie Piedraplata is anything but tempting. Not when you’ve spent your whole adult life being loved and indulged, as I have, first by Bernardo, then by Philippe. I am being called upon to pay too heavy a price if I continue living this emotionally barren life.’

  As she looked into the future, Bianca could see the strain of being on tenterhooks lest she say or do something which would precipitate Ferdie’s fury and cause him to cast her out increasing with the passage of time. Unless she could find some way of relieving the pressure, her life would become progressively intolerable. Already, the emotional cost of living with Ferdie had been so high that her feeling of well-being had diminished to a previously unknown low. If this degeneration continued, it would only destroy her capacity for happiness: something she had entered into this marriage to increase, not decrease. Moreover, she was sure Ferdie was not the sort of man who would want an unhappy wife around him, so she would lose everything unless she found a way to remain happy.

  ‘All these very rich men only want women who complement them and add to their lives,’ she reminded herself. ‘Nothing is more of a turnoff for them than a needy or insecure woman. As soon as a woman starts to cause them trouble, they replace her with a less troublesome model. With them, there’s always a trade-off. They give us the lifestyle, but we must fizz in return, adding sparkle to their domestic environment. And a woman who isn’t happy and fulfilled and satisfied quickly loses her effervescence and, with it, her attractiveness. Then it’s only a matter of time before some more obliging woman steps into their shoes.’

  There was, Bianca could tell, an even more dangerous aspect to her relationship with Ferdie. He was not your typical Latin American husband who would privately dispense with the personal services of a wife who no longer pleased him, seeking his pleasures elsewhere - usually with a succession of mistresses - but without actually divorcing the spurned spouse. Typically, the woman in question might find it galling that she had been put into a humiliating position, but at least wives whose husbands had mistresses were still wives and therefore enjoyed the social and material benefits accorded their marital status. However, as Ferdie had pointed out to her that day when he first took her to Sintra and proposed to her, he did not believe in extramarital affairs. That could therefore mean only one thing. His wife either had to keep him happy or face being cast upon the heap as another ex-wife. And that, Bianca concluded, was a fate akin to death.

  The very thought of being the former Mrs Piedraplata induced such a profound sense of emptiness in her that Bianca suddenly felt the need to fill the void with food. She pressed the buzzer beside her chair. The chief steward appeared, padding in silently. Bianca motioned to him to bend down so that she could whisper. ‘Some caviar please,’ she breathed softly in his ear, not needing to tell him how she liked it. Madame invariably had three heaping tablespoons of Beluga on each of the four slices of freshly toasted and buttered white bread she customarily required.

  While waiting for the caviar, Bianca sipped her champagne, still caught up in her thoughts. ‘I have to function under the premise that, no matter how much money I spend or how many boats I cruise upon or how many times I fly in this Lear, I still need to be nurtured the way Bernardo and Philippe nurtured me. That sort of love is beyond Ferdie, and I don’t see why I should go without it. I still need to go to bed with a man who genuinely appeals to me. I still need to have that man make love to me, instead of having him puffing and heaving upon me and using me as a sperm bank the way Ferdie does. I will not live without the joy that good lovemaking brings…not for one day longer than I have to. The sensual and emotional sterility to which Ferdie is subjecting me are just too high a price to pay for life’s goodies and, unless I remedy the situation, I’ll end up without the goodies and without the satisfaction that a good relationship brings.’

  The solution, Bianca could see, was that she must resume her affair with Philippe. In an ideal world, of course, she would have had Bernardo as her lover, but he would never have gone for playing second fiddle to the man who had replaced him, and she would not have returned to him as his wife, even if she could have done so. That left Philippe, whom she knew she could trust. Although he was not as accomplished a lover as Bernardo, and although she desired him less than Bernardo, she did at least find him genuinely appealing and truly enjoyed going to bed with him. Moreover, he had the merit of being as comfortable as a pair of well-worn slippers. Thus, she could always address any technical imperfections that remained with his lovemaking while at the same time having the emotional benefits of familiarity. ‘The best lover,’ Bianca had always been fond of saying to her girlfriends, ‘is the man you want to go to bed with.’

  As Bianca contemplated resuming her affair with Philippe, she saw that, if he had a fault, it was that he achieved satisfaction too readily. This failing had been tolerable while she was married to Bernardo, who could always supply the leisureliness she did not get from Philippe. Now that the situation had changed, Philippe’s propensity for over-enthusiasm would have to be remedied. And this time she would conduct the affair right in Mexico as she intended from now on to have regular and frequent supplements to her marital diet.

  Having made up her mind, Bianca immediately felt better. Being someone who acted upon decisions, she wasted not a moment when her husband woke up.

  ‘Did you have a nice rest, darling?’ she asked, munching on the third slice of caviar-laden toast.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know, while you were sleeping, I looked at you and thought how lucky I am to have such a handsome and adorable husband.’

  ‘Sometimes you are almost embarrassingly effusive,’ Ferdie said, his pleasure evident despite this almost gruff disclaimer.

  Bianca smiled sweetly, only too aware that few men could resist a compliment, no matter how extravagant or undeserved it might be. ‘It’s only what you deserve,’ she said. ‘I just wish all our friends could be as happy as we are. Especially Philippe. Poor solitary Philippe. How’s he doing?’

  ‘He’s fine. Looking forward to our return to Mexico next week, he says.’

  ‘It will be so good to see him,’ she said, the conversation going exactly the way she had hoped it would. ‘I’ve missed my old friend, as I’m sure you have. When we return, I must put on my thinking cap and come up with a nice girl for him. He’s just like a pair of old furry slippers, isn’t he? So warm and cosy and dependable. He’ll make some nice girl a great husband.’

  ‘I suppose that’s one way of putting it,’ Ferdie laughed. ‘Though it would be a brave woman who took him on. He must be the ugliest man I’ve ever seen. Positively simian.’

  ‘He is very unattractive,’ Bianca said, grateful for the protection Ferdie’s comment provided. ‘But not all women are like me. Most are attracted to what a man can give them, while all that’s ever interested me is the man himself. But you mustn’t get too big-headed just because you have the looks of a matinée idol and are a tiger where it counts.’

  Ferdie positively glowed.

  Shifting her bottom and congratulating herself on a job well done, Bianca gave a final push. ‘We’ve seen so little of
Philippe since we married. I suspect he’s nervous that you’re wondering if there was ever anything between us, the way Bernardo used to do. As if a handsome devil like you would ever have to worry about a monkey like him. Poor deluded Philippe. He must be so lonely without the family life we used to supply him with.’

  ‘You know, Bianca, you never fail to surprise me. You really are so considerate. You’re right. The poor guy must be very lonely indeed. I’ve never considered him a threat. It’s ridiculous,’ Ferdie grunted disparagingly, ‘that any woman who wanted me could want Philippe Mahfud. When we get back home, I’ll make a point of asking him to dinner.’

  ‘Maybe we can ask him around once a week or so, in keeping with the ritual we had when I was married to Bernardo. And maybe he can come to stay at Sintra for the odd weekend. It will be our act of mercy,’ Bianca said sweetly.

  ‘I don’t want to encourage him to become an appendage to our marriage the way he was to yours and Bernardo’s. All that dropping in night after night isn’t my style.’

  ‘You could’ve fooled me,’ she ribbed him gently. ‘But for Philippe’s propensity for dropping in, we wouldn’t be married now. I’d say we have a lot to be grateful to Philippe for. But you’re right. We don’t want him overdoing his visits. That’s why I’ve suggested asking him for dinner once or twice a week, with the odd weekend at Sintra. That way we establish a formula whereby he is asked enough so that he won’t feel the need to exceed his ration.’

  ‘I hope the traffic isn’t too bad,’ said Ferdie, who had no reservations about changing topics of conversation when they ceased to interest him. ‘I don’t want to be late for dinner.’