Venetian Mask

by Rosalind Laker

  Although she had never met Domenico, his safety had become vitally important to her on two counts, for he was both the man who Marietta loved and the foster father of her own daughter.

  During this time Filippo had fully recovered his health and strength. His exasperation at Elena’s continuing failure to become pregnant was fueled by a visit from his mother. She was not the woman she had been, but although she had grown frail in appearance, her tongue had not lost its viperish edge and her eyes still flashed spite.

  “Elena is never going to bear children,” she snapped at Filippo when they were on their own. “Free yourself and marry again.”

  He lowered his head and studied her warily under his lids. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Use your wits! Your ancestors weren’t averse to ridding themselves of a barren wife or anyone else who stood in their way. What’s the matter with you? You couldn’t even kill that Torrisi when you had the chance.”

  His outrage caused him to quiver with anger. Her derision was her own undoing. “We have come to a parting of the ways, Mother!” he declared savagely, springing from his chair. “This time when you leave you shall never return!”

  He went striding away from her as she screeched after him. “Fool! You’ll bring the House of Celano down about your ears!” Shakily she grabbed her cane to try to follow him. She bitterly regretted not poisoning Elena when she had had the strength and the opportunity, which would have prevented this final confrontation. “The Torrisis will prevail!”

  In the corridor he met Lavinia. “Take that old hag back to her abode and never bring her here again!”

  He did not turn even when he heard Lavinia cry out upon reaching the door of the salon that their mother was lying on the floor. When he was informed that the Signora had suffered another seizure he simply asked if she was still alive. Upon being told that she was, he did not retract his instructions to his sister. The Signora was borne away from the Palazzo Celano for the last time, her speech slurred and the whole of her left side paralyzed, but her eyes were as vindictive as ever as she lay on the soft pillows her son’s wife had placed under her head in the gondola. Elena, returning to the palace, shivered and rubbed her arms. Curiously, the gleam in the Signora’s eyes had been one of malevolent triumph.

  MARIETTA WAS DISTRESSED by the invisible barrier that had arisen between her and Domenico since his return. She knew he had become aware of it, and several times he had asked her what was wrong, but she still could not speak out as she would have wished.

  In his own mind Domenico believed that the change in Marietta had come about through childbirth, unlikely though that seemed. She was as loving and passionate as before, but now, he knew, she had withdrawn from him. Maybe something had happened in Adrianna’s house that would never have occurred if Marietta had been at home with proper medical care. When he had thanked Adrianna for all she had done, the woman looked embarrassed and shook her head that he should thank her. What had gone wrong that he did not know about? Whatever it was, he had a right to be told. The next time Adrianna came to the house he would question her alone. She was an honest, sensible woman and should answer him as Marietta had failed to do.

  His chance came on Adrianna’s next visit. Marietta, carrying Elizabetta and holding the hand of Adrianna’s youngest, went into another salon where she kept a bowl of sweetmeats. The other three children followed, and he was left alone with Adrianna. Experience in cross-questioning enabled him to catch her off guard with a direct and unexpected query.

  “What exactly happened when Elizabetta was born?”

  Her hands jerked involuntarily and a flush rose up from her neck to her cheeks. “As I told you before, there was a point when a doctor, had we been able to contact one, would probably have used forceps, but then all went well.”

  There was no mistaking the ring of truth in her voice or the directness of her eyes, even though that flush had looked remarkably like a guilty one. “Did Marietta come close to death? Please tell me.”

  “Not at all. Surely Marietta has told you that?”

  He nodded. “She reassured me, but then she knows what it would mean to me to lose her.”

  “Have no fear on that score, Domenico.”

  He had to be content with what she said, for Marietta and the children could already be heard returning. Yet doubt persisted. There was something wrong, and until it was cleared up his relationship with Marietta could not be restored to what it was in those minutes before his departure for St. Petersburg. Leaving her then had been harder than he could ever have believed possible.

  Gradually Marietta came to realize that in the imminence of childbirth and its tragic aftermath she had allowed her anger over the file to soar out of all proportion. She could see that Domenico was worried about her and she finally decided that must end. When they were next at the villa, which was always a place where she felt at peace, she found herself able to speak to him at last about Angela and the file. They were sitting side by side on the terrace, and he held her hand as he answered her honestly, explaining how it had all come about.

  “Angela was always intrigued by any romantic situation,” he said gently, “and after seeing you and the Frenchman at the ridotto she became extremely curious as to how a Pietà girl had managed to slip out of the ospedale on her own. That was why she wanted you watched. Never for one moment did she wish you ill. On the contrary, when she learned that the young man had left Venice she became very anxious, fearing you were deeply distressed. So now you know the whole truth. As for the letter she left me,” he said in conclusion, “she wished only good for you and for me. Never suppose she would have wanted her memory to come between us even through her portraits, which is why I had them removed to my office.”

  “You did that for me?”

  “Did you suppose otherwise? My grief had healed before I married you, even as I hoped the past had become a private memory for you too.”

  “It had,” she said frankly, relieved and reassured by his openness. “If you wish, the portraits of Angela could be restored to their original places.”

  “That would have pleased her, but I leave the decision entirely to you.”

  She wished she could have told him the truth about Elizabetta, but that was a secret she would have to keep until her life’s end. Her consolation was that he loved Elizabetta as if she were his own child.

  It was for him that Elizabetta took her first steps some months later. Domenico’s excited shout brought Marietta running to the scene. Laughing and happy together, they praised the child’s achievement. Obligingly Elizabetta managed to toddle another two paces under the gaze of Angela’s portrait, which had been restored to its place on the wall.

  ELENA HAD COLLECTED quite a dossier of overheard scraps of conversation when she warned Marietta that a plot was being hatched against Domenico.

  “I don’t know what is in the wind, but Maurizio has been here more often in the past three weeks than he has previously in many months. It must be something important to drag him away from his home. Maybe the others need him because he has the brains of the family. I haven’t a single definite clue to offer, but I know when I catch the name Torrisi it can only be Domenico they are talking about.”

  “Unless Antonio’s whereabouts have been discovered. But he is on guard in any case. Domenico knows from his letters that he is well aware of the danger.”

  “But could you find some way of telling Domenico to be more alert than ever?”

  “I will,” Marietta promised, “as soon as he returns. He’s away again on one of his short trips.”

  “If ever I have something truly important to pass on I would address the whole file to him and leave it at the Pietà, marking it urgent. Then I could be sure of its reaching him without your being implicated.”

  Marietta decided to use Elena’s warning as a means to draw still closer to Domenico. She chose a time when they were having a quiet supper together at the table under the sky-blue taffeta silk drapery of
the baldachin where she had first dined with him. They had eaten a pretty green salad topped with tartufo bianchi and he was about to serve her with thin green pasta in a rich sauce. He liked to dine and talk alone with her after one of his absences.

  The footman having been dismissed, she was able to speak freely. “On the way to the opera that evening before we were married,” she said, “you spoke of your work for reform and of your many enemies. How can you be sure Filippo isn’t plotting some vengeance by that route?”

  “Why should you think of that now?”

  “It isn’t just at this minute,” she said, her anxiety causing her to speak more sharply than she had intended. “I’ve often thought about your work. If I can be of help with it, do allow me. I might even be an extra ear to listen for danger.”

  “Perhaps you have been already just by suggesting I might watch in other directions for the Celanos’ next move, but I think that is unlikely. There’s nothing subtle about Filippo. He thinks fastest when he has a rapier and a stiletto in his hands.”

  “But Maurizio is so often at the Palazzo Celano these days! He is the clever one of the family and could devise a cunning plan.”

  Domenico narrowed his eyes at her. “How would you know about those visits?” he asked, his voice dangerously soft. The food on their plates remained untouched and steaming gently.

  She kept her head. “I’ve heard,” she replied evenly, “in women’s talk. There is always gossip. Rumors fly.”

  “I would say the source of such information could only be the young Signora Celano. Am I right?”

  She stared at him defiantly. “You are!”

  He leaned forward and smashed his fist down on the table with such force that everything on it jumped and rattled, a wine glass tipping to pour its contents into a crimson pool. His eyes were blazing. “You profess concern for me and yet you confer with my enemies!”

  “Elena bears you no malice!” she cried back. “She has only good will toward us both!”

  He was out of his chair instantly and came to seize her by the shoulders and hoist her swiftly to her feet. “Where do you meet her? At the Pietà? At Adrianna’s? A coffeehouse?”

  She almost screamed at him. “I’m not telling you! Find out! You have spies everywhere. Let them tell you!”

  “All I asked of you when we married was that you end your friendship with Elena, because it was dangerous to me and to my house!”

  “If I remember correctly,” she countered caustically, “you ordered me. It was not a request.”

  “Then if needs must, I ask you now not to see her again.”

  “I will! You can’t stop me!”

  “Yes, I can.” He released her and stepped back, breathing heavily. “I have only to inform Filippo that our wives are meeting and he will take sterner measures than I’m prepared to take with you.”

  “No! You don’t understand!” she cried. As he turned away she threw herself at his feet in a tumble of carnation satin and lace, holding him about the leg with her arms so that he dragged her a step before he stopped. “He ill-treats her already. Her life is a misery. He might kill her in his rage!”

  He looked down at her sobbing at his feet and his anger faded. Stooping, he raised her up and she leaned against him, her face buried in his shoulder while he stroked her hair. “Don’t weep, my darling. I won’t give the young Signora away. I have heard that Filippo has a brutal way with women. But you must realize that Celano name taints everything for me, even your friend, however well-meaning you believe her to be.”

  She thought of the child he loved, who was sleeping upstairs in her cradle. “You don’t know what you are saying,” she exclaimed desolately, her voice muffled against his silver damask coat.

  “Indeed I do.”

  “But Elena wants to protect you.” She raised her tear-wet face. “She is keeping a file of everything she can find out that might be of use in saving your life.”

  He looked disbelieving. “Why should she switch her loyalties?”

  “She has none to the present Celanos. It was Marco whom she wanted to marry, never Filippo.”

  “Then it’s possible that whatever she felt for Marco still binds her to his family. I don’t doubt her good will toward you, but I find it impossible to believe she has any toward me.”

  “Is there nothing I can say to convince you?” she appealed.

  He stroked the back of his fingers down the side of her face and under her chin, which he tilted as he kissed her lightly on the lips. “Nothing, Marietta.” Looking into his implacable face, she knew she would willingly die to prevent his ever knowing the truth of Elizabetta’s birth.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE DEATH OF THE DOGE PLUNGED VENICE INTO AN ELABORATE display of mourning and a funeral so spectacular that vast crowds, including hundreds of foreigners, gathered to witness it. It was as if the whole city were draped in black velvets and brocades. Then, almost instantly, everybody began preparing for the coronation of the new Doge. The city seemed to light up again in the glitter and gleam of rich tapestries thrown over balconies, many in cloth of gold. New masks were bought for the celebrations, sumptuous clothes ordered, and palatial salons made ready for banquets and balls.

  Marietta had enough of her father’s Venetian blood in her veins to be swept along by the excitement of the festivities and she marveled at the splendor of the procession when the new Doge arrived formally on the Bucintoro while bells rang and choirs sang. She had met him previously on social occasions, for he was of the Manin family, long acquainted with the Torrisis, and in government Domenico had had much to do with him. Yet she knew that his appointment did not meet with her husband’s approval.

  “Maybe as Doge this man will do better than you suppose,” she said to Domenico after the coronation.

  He shook his head grimly. “Lodovico Manin is too malleable for such a responsible position. Pleasant, but weak. Venice needs a doge far different at this time.”

  She thought to herself that if Domenico, as a senator, could become the Doge’s adviser, he might lead him in the proper direction.

  MARIETTA STILL MET Elena from time to time and made no pretense to Domenico about it. She had promised him she would never mention where he was or who he saw or what his next travel arrangements might be. He was still opposed to these meetings but resigned himself to them, trusting in Marietta’s good sense and her ability to keep her word. Yet she knew that by not deserting Elena she had lost whatever chance she might have had of gaining his complete confidence and knowing what he was about.

  Elizabetta continued to thrive. She was a happy child, full of laughter, her hair grown into pale copper curls. By the time she was two she had begun talking well and whenever Domenico was in the palace she would trot after him, sometimes laboriously climbing one of the great staircases when she heard his voice on an upper floor. She was the only one allowed in his office when he was working. Her tantrums were saved for her nurse and Marietta, neither of whom spoiled her as he did. She was showing signs of becoming vain, for one of his games with her was to hold her up to a mirror and she had become enchanted with her own reflection. But he could see no fault in her. On her third birthday at the villa she received a pony.

  Domenico had never returned from a journey, whether long or short, without bringing Marietta a gift, and now there was always one for Elizabetta as well. From St. Petersburg he had brought Marietta a golden casket, enameled and bejeweled, in which she had found, lying on a bed of crimson velvet, a parure of emeralds and diamonds made by the Empress’s own jeweler. This superb set of jewels was his birthgift to her, but since she felt that she had acquired it under false pretenses, no matter how dear Elizabetta might be to him, she never wore it unless he prompted her.

  “Don’t you care for it?” he had asked her once.

  “Of course I do. It’s magnificent,” she had declared. If he had caught the brittleness in her voice he made no sign. To ease his mind she had worn it to the opera that night, but aft
erward it had lain untouched in its casket for weeks.

  It was at the opera that Marietta and Domenico came face to face with Elena and several of her friends as they passed on the main staircase. Normally this would never have happened, but Elena had discovered she had dropped her fan and two of the men in her party were descending the flight again to look for it. As Elena turned to look after them, she saw Domenico and Marietta ascending almost on her heels. She should have averted her gaze, which was the customary procedure on such occasions, but she had never been as near to Domenico before and she stared hard at him for a matter of seconds. Marietta knew instantly what was passing through her friend’s mind. Elena was looking her fill at this man who all unknowingly was fostering her child. Then Domenico and even Marietta were taken completely by surprise as she inclined her head to each of them, giving her sweet smile.

  “I bid you good evening, Signor and Signora Torrisi.”

  Marietta held her breath, and seemingly so did everyone else aware of this cameo of an encounter in the midst of an otherwise busy scene. Then Domenico, after a matter of seconds that marked his deliberation, and with his eyes hard on Elena, bowed to her as courtesy required.

  “I offer our salutations to you, Signora Celano.”

  Then her fan was being returned to her. The incident was over and they went their separate ways along branching corridors. As soon as Marietta reached the Torrisi box she turned gladly to Domenico.

  “I thank you for your tolerance on the stairs. Nobody could have appreciated your kindly acknowledgement more than Elena.”

  “I don’t want to discuss it,” he replied sharply.

  Marietta bit her lip as she sat down in her chair. If Domenico knew what ordeals Elena had to suffer he would not begrudge the few words he had been obliged to speak to her. Filippo was treating her abominably. He went to her bed as a matter of routine, gratifying his own desires and, afterward, taunting and deriding her for her barrenness. More than once he had almost strangled her in a rage, and she had had to disguise the bruises on her neck with layers of gossamer scarves. Ironically, the mode had been copied by other women, who considered Elena a leader of fashion.