Another time she said to him, “Do you have someone special, a sweetheart, Giovanni?”
“No, madonna. If I had, I would not be here.”
She absorbed that a moment. “Perhaps you should find a nice young girl and settle down?”
He met her gaze with a soft glint in his eyes and a meaningful tilt to his head. “It’s very easy to find a nice young girl, madonna; it’s much harder to find a beautiful woman.”
Such devotion was pleasant to a woman growing larger every passing week with child. Violet felt some guilt for allowing it to continue when she had nothing to offer in return, but at the same time she was grateful for whatever prompted it. It soothed the feelings of desertion that sometimes crept in upon her and helped make the days pass.
Then came the winter rains.
The ocher and rust of the Tuscan hills turned gray, as gray as Violet’s spirits. She stood one morning at the window of a small back bedchamber that she intended as a nursery, one that overlooked the path leading alongside the outside wall of the garden and down to the kitchen garden and stables. The rain had stopped, though the eaves of the house still dripped and the wind whipped fat drops from the tree limbs. Below her, Giovanni left the stable with a wheelbarrow loaded with stable straw that he was spreading under the roses in the garden. She lifted a hand to wave as he inclined his head in greeting. He turned to push open the gate in the garden wall and disappeared inside.
Behind her, Giovanni’s mother, who was helping clean out the room, said, “He’s a good boy, a hard worker, but he has a head full of nonsense and big ideas.”
“I don’t know what I would have done without him these last weeks.”
Maria fluffed the feather pillow she was holding with more violence than seemed necessary. “Yes, you have much need. But I beg of you, take care. My Giovanni knows with his head that you belong to the Signor Massari, but not, perhaps, with his heart.”
“Maria,” Violet said in surprise, turning to face the other woman, “only look at me. I’m in no shape to appeal to a man.”
“You have not grown ugly just because you are with child, my lady, and you are much alone and in need of protection. Giovanni sees these things.”
Her voice low, Violet said, “I don’t mean to encourage him.”
“You do that by remaining here without your man.”
“I would rather not be here alone, but I have no place else to go.” Violet hesitated before she went on. “What am I going to do, Maria, if he doesn’t return?”
“I don’t know, my lady. There is money, that is — you have means to live?”
“Oh, yes,” Violet said tightly, “only nothing to live for.”
“Don’t say that!” Maria put her hands on her ample hips. “You have the bambino, and that is something very great. You must not make noises about not living, about death, or your baby will be marked by these terrible thoughts. You must be serene so the little one will be well and content.”
“That’s easy to say. Suppose — suppose Allain hasn’t come back because he’s hurt? Or worse? Suppose he has been dead for weeks, but there is no one to tell me, no one who knows I am waiting here?”
“There’s time enough to think of such things if they happen, and no need to waste your strength fretting over them if they don’t.”
“I have to think of them. I have to decide what I’ll do.”
“You will do nothing until the bambino comes; that much is only wise. The signor was so excited, so proud to be a father; surely he will return for the birth if he has breath in his body.”
“And if he doesn’t, what will I do? Where will I go for help?”
“You will go nowhere, my lady, for I will come to you. You will send Giovanni for me; that is why he is here. And you are not to worry, I have had six children of my own and brought many more into the world. All will be well.”
The autumn wore on. Reports from the Battle of Alma in the far-off Crimea claimed an allied victory. As more news trickled in, however, it became plain that it had been a costly and bungled fight.
The allies began a bombardment of Sevastopol, Russia’s main port on the Black Sea, in mid-October. However, the French magazine blew up, and a final assault was postponed. This allowed time for increased defenses by the Russians. As a result the allies settled in for the prolonged siege that appeared necessary to take the city.
The Russians counterattacked at the main supply depot of the allies at Balaklava. During this engagement confusion in the relaying of orders given by the English high command resulted in a suicide charge led by Lord Cardigan’s Light Brigade. The carnage was horrendous, but the incredible display of courage, aided by reinforcements of French cavalry, carried the day.
Some ten days later, in the midst of morning fog and rain, the Russians attacked the Anglo-French forces besieging Sevastopol. When the retreat was finally sounded, thirteen thousand men were dead.
Shortly afterward, the British supply ships, bringing not only arms and ammunition but food and medicine and winter uniforms, foundered in a storm in the Black Sea. The allied army went into winter quarters, waiting for springtime to resume active hostilities.
In the midst of the early Pyrrhic victories, a dispatch was sent by the war correspondent of the London Times detailing the horrible conditions prevailing in the British military hospitals. A woman named Nightingale was sent, along with thirty-eight female nurses and a commission from the secretary of war, to improve matters. She arrived in the Crimea just in time to set to work receiving the accumulated wounded from the fall battle, and to become a heroine in the press for her efforts toward saving lives.
So it went, bad news and good, as the season advanced and the long gray chill of winter closed in. The villa took on the smoke smell of wood fires, also the scent of drying herbs and curing garlic from the loose bundles and strings hanging from the kitchen rafters. These scents combined with the rich aroma of meat broth and pasta from Maria’s huge iron stove. Maria taught Violet to knit, and together they made dainty little blankets and booties that Violet embroidered with tiny flowers. And she and Giovanni also made perfume.
He came across the formula one day where it was lying in Violet’s chair in the salon. Violet had used the back of the piece of paper to write down the pattern for the baby blanket she was making. Giovanni picked it up and began to read it aloud.
“This is the perfume you wear?” he asked after a moment, glancing at her from under his curling lashes.
“The one I had been wearing. There are only a few drops left, and I’m saving them.”
He nodded in perfect understanding. “For when the signor returns. But it would not be hard to make more.”
“Wouldn’t it?”
“The rose oil, I have. The others can be found at the shop of the apothecary in Florence, most of them. One, perhaps two, may have to come from Rome, but that would not take long.”
“You are sure?” she said, an arrested expression on her face.
“Yes, certainly.” He looked up at her, his gaze warm.
“Do you think I could do it?” There was suddenly nothing she wanted so much as to mix together the scents that would mingle to produce the lovely fragrance in the jeweled bottle.
“It would be my pleasure to show you,” he said simply.
One night when Maria had gone to bed, they assembled the various precious oil essences and the pure aqua vitae whose alcohol content would bring out the fragrance. They took them into Violet’s bedchamber, as far away as it was possible to get from the distracting food and herb smells of the kitchen. On a small table drawn near the fire, they set out everything they would use, including a glass beaker with a pouring lip and a small glass pipe that would be used to pick up the minute amounts of the oils and add them drop by drop to the beaker.
Giovanni, his manner serious and faintly superior, explained the process. He himself made the first mixture as Violet read out the ingredients and their proportions. After stirring it gently, he reach
ed for Violet’s wrist.
She pulled back instinctively.
He smiled at her as he retained his grasp, rubbing a thumb across the vein on the inside of her wrist. “It must go on your skin,” he said, “for that is where it belongs.”
As she ceased to resist he put a little of the volatile oil on her wrist, waited a few minutes, then inhaled the scent.
A frown of dissatisfaction creased his brow. “It isn’t the same.”
“Are you sure?” Violet breathed in the skin-warmed perfume herself, closing her eyes as she concentrated on it. Finally she shook her head. “You’re right. What’s wrong?”
“A little too much of this, not enough of that. I thought I was being careful, but somehow I made a mistake.”
She breathed deeply again. Abruptly, she smiled. She said, “I think — I’m almost sure it’s too much of the narcissus.”
“Yes?” He repeated her actions. “Ah, madonna,” he said, “you have a wonderful nose.”
She laughed; she couldn’t help it. It was such a strange compliment to give her so much pleasure. “You think so?”
“I know it. Quickly, now. You must mix.”
The batch she put together was perfect. She knew it even before she placed it on her wrist. The fumes rising from the stoneware beaker filled her head with their perfect bouquet, one resonant with spring narcissus and summer roses, of softly blowing orange blossoms and exotic musk and many other things, but also with power and beauty and, yes, with love.
Giovanni caught her wrist the moment the perfume had settled upon it, snuffling noisily of the warm, rich scent. A look of bliss smoothed his features and his lips curved at the corners.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes.”
He stepped close to take her in his arms. It was a spontaneous embrace of triumph and satisfaction and pure joy. There was nothing carnal in it, nothing of deviousness or guile. It might have been easier for Violet if it had been, easier for her to refuse, simpler for her to resist.
As it was, she leaned into his hard, young strength, accepting it and the support he gave without thinking, savoring the warm security and the sense of being at rest. Then she felt his lips on the soft wave of hair at her temple. And the child inside her shifted, as if in protest.
She released herself without haste, but with finality. Giovanni was sweet and dear, and seemed all too ready to allow himself to be used; still, it was unfair to encourage him by clinging to him. She felt a gentle affection for him. If things had been different — but they were not. Her love had been given to Allain and could never be retracted.
She knew then, as she stepped away from Giovanni, that the time had come for her to do something other than wait.
The letter of credit left in her name with a Florentine banker seemed to have no limit. She drew upon it heavily for traveling expenses for two.
She thought long and deep about asking Giovanni to accompany her. It was one thing to have him sleeping in the same house with her in the midst of a village where everyone knew him and the house of his mother was only a few yards beyond the garden, but quite another to be staying with him in inns and pensions, even when he would have his own small room at a distance from her own. It was not her reputation that concerned her, however; she was sure she no longer had such a thing. She was only doubtful about her continued reliance upon the young Italian and the ideas he might garner from such dependence.
Nevertheless, it would be foolish of her to start out on her travels without some support. She was not quite six months along, according to her best calculations, but she was already growing clumsy, and carrying heavy luggage would not be wise.
The problem, as it turned out, was not whether to permit Giovanni to go, but how to keep him from it once he discovered what she meant to do. His delight at the prospect was so transparent, his determination so steadfast, that she did not try too hard.
They went first to Venice, to the house of Signora da Allori. There was no one there; it was locked up and the knocker taken from the door. They inquired for Allain at every hotel and other place that took paying guests they could find, but no one had seen him; he was certainly not among the registered guests.
His house in Paris was the next destination. It, too, was shuttered and still. None of his friends had caught so much as a glimpse of him since the summer. They wondered where he had been keeping himself; he was much missed.
There was bright speculation in their eyes as they watched her. If any asked themselves why she was inquiring, however, or why she was accompanied by a handsome Italian with a pugnacious and jealous look in his eye, they kept their curiosity well hidden.
London was the last possibility on her list, one added only because it was where she had met Allain. Yet Violet had no idea where he had been staying while he was there, or if he had a permanent or even semi-permanent address. In any case, she could conceive of no purpose he might have in crossing the channel. After having so little luck discovering anyone who had seen him elsewhere, it seemed useless to pursue so vague a possibility.
With nowhere else to turn, Violet began to think of finding Gilbert. She wondered if he was still in Europe, if he was holding to his original schedule, and what he had told their families in New Orleans. She wondered, too, if Gilbert was still trying to locate her. Most of all she wanted to know if he had seen Allain, by accident or design.
That last question troubled her increasingly, especially as she remembered Allain’s suggestion made in Venice that she should, for her own safety, resume her place with her husband. Just over a week after her return to the villa, as soon as she had rested from her travels, Violet sat down and wrote a series of letters, directing them to the places she could remember that Gilbert had meant to visit in the first year of his grand tour. She was by no means sure he would take the trouble to reply, even if a letter of hers chanced to find him; still, she had to try. She did not give her own direction, beyond the letter office in Florence. She wished any contact between them that might come from her writing to be at a time and place of her own choosing.
Her answer came from Rome, where he was spending the winter. She was urged to travel there and discuss the questions posed in her letter at great length.
To go, or not to go?
The visit promised to be an uncomfortable one. She had thought the old guilt for profaning her marriage vows and forsaking the man she had promised to honor until death was forgotten, only to discover that it revived with the prospect ahead of her. However, the memory of the treatment she had received at his hands had faded, and she no longer feared him. She had also ceased to consider that he was responsible for the attack upon Allain at the train station.
If it was not for an opportunity to find out if Allain had contacted him concerning her, then why had she written him, after all? She had to go. It was her last hope.
Still, she put it off until after Christmas, and then again because she thought she was getting a cold. Finally, near the middle of January, she and Giovanni set out.
Gilbert was staying in a pension, a dreary place near the Forum that smelled of cats but was redeemed by a view of the Coliseum. He did not open the door to them himself. A pert young woman wearing a low-necked blouse and a skirt with no sign of petticoats under it let them in. When they had been seated and served cups of barely warm tea, the woman departed. Calling out a farewell that was far too casual for a mere maid, she clattered away down the stairs.
Giovanni looked at Violet with a wry smile and the quick, backward jerk of the head that showed his opinion of Gilbert’s taste in women. Violet wondered if the presence of the young woman had been for her benefit, to show her that she was not the only one who could indulge in carnal behavior, or perhaps to arouse her jealous instincts. If so, it had missed its mark. She felt sorry for her husband that he would need to bolster his male pride by doing such a thing, and also glad that he had found consolation.
Gilbert appeared thinner. His face was more drawn and lined, so that he seemed
to have aged ten years. There was a noticeable tremor in his hands, and the collection of silver-tagged liquor decanters sitting on the side table were all nearly empty.
He gave Giovanni a hard stare as Violet introduced him, then ignored him as if he did not exist. “So,” he said, his voice rasping and his attention centered conspicuously on her belly, “I see you are well.”
“Yes, and you also,” Violet said politely. At the same time she sent a warning glance to Giovanni, who had shifted forward on his chair seat with his fists clenched on his knees.
“Since you have not until now seen fit to let me know you were still aboveground, I assume you want something very badly if it brings you here,” he went on, his tone less than agreeable.
“News,” she answered, “only news.”
“Explain to me why I should give it to you.”
Hope leaped inside her. “You have something to tell me?”
His voice grated as he went on with no regard for her question. “Did you never consider my feelings, my dear Violet? Did you never think that I would be worried about you? Did it never occur to you, leaving in that way, that I might wonder if you had been carried off by kidnappers or criminal fiends? Could you have not sent me at least a small message which said simply that you lived?”
Before he would attend to her, he must first castigate her for the anxiety and embarrassment she had caused him. He had not changed at all.
“I’m sorry if you were hurt,” she said slowly, “but so was I.”
“Were you? That’s something, at any rate.”
His concern was quite obviously with his own feelings, his own loss, with little left over for what she might think and feel. For an instant she could sense again the emptiness of her marriage, of knowing that she was loved, if at all, as an image in Gilbert’s mind, an extension of himself, a possession, rather than as the flesh-and-blood woman she really was inside herself.
She said, “Have you heard from home?”
Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) Page 34