The Viceroys (49 page)

Pasqualino's story went round from mouth to mouth, was repeated by coachmen to their families, by scullions to cooks, by porters to landladies, each of whom embroidered something of their own on it, until by the time it reached the general public, opinion was prepared and sympathy gained for the count's cause.

Many however shook their heads and did not let themselves be carried away; and gradually, without anyone knowing its origin, on information from Florence and Milazzo, from some words let out by Pasqualino himself when alone with intimates after a drink or two, the truth began coming to the surface.

Raimondo had sworn to break off relations with his wife at the very moment when his uncle the duke forced him to take them up again. As happened every time that people tried to dissuade him from some course of action, he became more stubborn than ever. Away from both Matilde and Donna Isabella he enjoyed an illusion of that liberty which meant more to him than anything else; forced to renounce it, he promised himself to regain it at all costs, and his easy submission to the duke's advice was aimed entirely at putting his wife in the wrong by his own concessions, the only point on which Pasqualino's version was not entirely false. His master's ideal was to free himself from wife and mistress at the same time, but he had not taken sufficient account of one party concerned, Donna Isabella.

Since the very beginning of her relations with Raimondo,
since resisting the young man's courtship in her husband's house and showing she was attracted but prevented by duty to her state, she had often repeated to him with a bitterness which should have shown him her feelings, ‘If only we'd met before when we were both free! How happy we could have been …' Those words which he did not believe had chilled him to the bone, or rather would have had he thought them at all sincere. Just as his wife's great mistake was loving him so much, wanting to have him all to herself and unite with him, so any such aspiration on his mistress's part would have been a mistake equally serious. Yet, determined to overcome her resistance, he too had repeated, ‘How happy we could have been!' and sworn that his one dream was to live with her, for her. Afterwards he tried to draw back. But Donna Isabella, who for him had lost all family and protection, had no intention of letting him escape. To draw on this tepid lover, whose character she was beginning to realise to her own cost, all she had to do was blame his coldness on his relatives' opposition and his wife's wishes. Each of these allusions was like a spur plunged in the young man's side; in his determination to show her that he was free to do what he wanted, he did what he did not want …

And so the Countess Matilde's agony began all over again, more atrocious than before, increased by this new deceit and by being unable now to have recourse to her father, not from any belief in this threat of abandoning her but from a vow with herself not to confess her mistake and from her old fear of a clash between those two violent natures …

When she felt herself most alone and lost, her father came to join her. His blind love for his daughter and no less blind hatred for his son-in-law made all his avowals of indifference vain. He followed developments, step by step, from a distance, waiting to intervene and when things were boiling over he appeared. Pasqualino himself had heard the interview between father-in-law and son-in-law, after a few days of apparent calm. The final scene took place in the stables of Palazzo Rossi, to prevent Matilde and the children from hearing. To the baron's blunt and threatening questions:

‘Don't you want to put an end to it? Don't you want to?' Raimondo had replied in his usual tone of contemptuous
superiority, ‘What are you talking about? Mind your own business!…' Yes, replied the baron, it was his own business, his daughter's peace which he cared about more than all else, which he wanted assured at any cost, even at the cost of taking her away and breaking her heart for ever … ‘Well, what's keeping you? Go away then!' Pasqualino was crouching in a stall near by and could hear but not see his master; but that reply of the count's and the short silence which followed it, sent a chill through his bones. ‘All right, we'll go … But before we do …' Then Pasqualino realised what was happening. With bloodshot eyes and raised fist, the baron had already seized hold of his son-in-law; but, even if the coachman had not flung himself between them, one word of Raimondo's, ‘Carter!', would have been enough for his father-in-law to start back.

Of course the count had said that word, Pasqualino was not just imagining it; and the effect on the baron had to be seen to be believed! That great hulk of a man who could have flung his slim jaded son-in-law to the ground with a wave, broken him in his big hairy hands like a cane, seemed a boy facing his master. Young Uzeda, elegant and soft, descendant of Viceroys, had struck the peasant baron like a thunderbolt by that word, by that insult which showed the distance separating a vicious but well-bred noble from a jumped-up brutal peasant.

Yes, a carter, approved Pasqualino; among people of birth quarrels are not settled by blows. And by that word the count reminded his father-in-law of the honour done him by marrying his daughter; if the baron stood there motionless as a statue it was because he at once realised he was in the wrong. Had his connection with the Uzeda not seemed wonderful to him? Had pride at entering the Viceroys' family not blinded him for years to his daughter's sacrifice? Had a confused and almost instinctive sense of his own inferiority to his son-in-law not hampered him every time that, once his eyes were opened, he decided to reproach him with his conduct, his vices, his hardness, the blood of an innocent child? A carter, yes; the man deserved the insult for letting himself be carried away by anger and trying to settle the quarrel as if it were between coachmen. And he had openly acknowledged this out loud, in front of his son-in-law, before turning his back. For in fact the scene had not finished just
then; it had had a little sequel which Pasqualino only related in strict privacy.

‘I may be a carter … yes …' had stuttered the baron, ‘but you're a …' And suddenly he spat in the other's face a word which the coachman whispered, very faintly, in one or two people's ears. Raimondo left his home straight away, rushed to his mistress, made her pack her bags, and took her off with him to Sicily.

She had needed some persuading, for in point of fact Donna Isabella was not at all sure such a journey was opportune. She saw that Raimondo wanted to take her with him to his home town so as to make an open, definite break with the Palmi family; but she also realised that it was only a reaction to insults and an impulse of hatred aroused by that stormy interview which had brought her lover to this decision, and not devotion to her. And she also felt that making a public show of their relationship down there in a provincial town would do them both harm and scandalise the more-or-less strict local morality. But as it was already too late for any comments from her to have any effect but excite Raimondo the more, and having no choice but, if she wanted to win him, to entrust herself to this very excitement, she came. The Uzeda, at any rate, would be on her side.

In fact as soon as she arrived Donna Ferdinanda, who in spite of the scarce-stilled public unrest was in town for a law-case against some debtors in arrears, came to visit them at the hotel, asked what had happened, approved of Raimondo's decision with a single but very expressive word: ‘Finally …'

In town too were Benedetto and Lucrezia, who had at last gathered up courage to return. Raimondo paid them a visit the day after his arrival. Lucrezia repaid his visit the same evening, in spite of her husband's opposition. The latter judged his brother-in-law's conduct very severely and had he dared would have prevented his wife from making that visit; but Lucrezia declared that she could see nothing wrong in going to see her own brother; did she have to know that he was ‘accompanied' by a lady?

At the hotel Raimondo received them alone. After some chatter
about the journey and the weather he went and knocked at the door of the next room, and in came Donna Isabella, who shook Giulente's hand and kissed Lucrezia. No introductions, or explanations, nothing. At first Benedetto was most embarrassed, not knowing how to treat or what to call Donna Isabella. She herself gave the conversation its tone, and talked very much at her ease, as with three old friends, in fact three real relations. For the moment they were at a hotel, but of course they could not stay there long. Raimondo intended to take an apartment in the town, though Donna Isabella would have preferred a villa, thinking also of how to avoid gossip.

Giulente was about to say this was a good idea when Lucrezia exclaimed:

‘What does gossip matter? If you hide they'll only say you're afraid! Let's be frank; lots of people will play the prude!' Donna Isabella lowered her eyes. ‘If you yourselves begin showing they're right then that's the end of it!'

Raimondo said nothing, as he was waiting to see Giacomo, who was at the Belvedere, and he had that morning sent Pasqualino to warn of his arrival. But the coachman returned looking confused and could not get a word out.

‘So he's come, has he?' the prince had said. ‘And what does he want …?' as if someone had appeared asking for money.

‘Nothing, Excellency … he sends to ask Your Excellency … he wonders when Your Excellency will be back in town …' The prince replied in the same tone of voice:

‘I've only just come to the country, I'll be back in November …' and he had turned away. When the scene was narrated to Raimondo he chewed his lips. Donna Isabella exclaimed:

‘See what we've done!… Your brother disapproves of us!' And blaming only herself, she went on, ‘I've put you on bad terms with your family …'

‘We'll see,' replied Raimondo briefly.

Her forebodings were justified. Most people, without accepting or rejecting the excuses and accusations about Raimondo's second and decisive abandonment of his family, blamed him for coming with his mistress, staying at a hotel, and making such open show of their relationship, as if challenging public opinion. He might be right or wrong in his complaints about his wife; his
passion for Donna Isabella could be excused; but moralists, fathers of families, ladies of varying degrees of respectability, wanted appearances saved; and although there were few people in town, public opinion was nevertheless shown by cold greetings to Raimondo, by ambiguous talk among servants.

In the country, in villas where news of the scandal reached, all discussed how to behave towards the couple on return to town. Many declared they would refuse to see them at all; others, on more intimate terms and so more embarrassed, made their own decision depend on how the family behaved.

Now the prince's unexpected severity to Pasqualino clearly showed that he was suddenly withdrawing his support. Faced with this obstacle Raimondo grew obstinate, set his teeth to win through; but when Donna Ferdinanda suggested that he should visit Giacomo, he became very agitated. He was ready to do everything except apply to that knave, who after giving him a free hand was now siding against him for some end of his own. He would not humiliate himself to a brother who he felt had hated him for years while their mother was alive. Then the thought of hostile demonstrations being prepared for himself and his mistress made him fly into a passion, making the blood rush to his head once again. And one day he took a carriage and drove up to the Belvedere. On seeing him arrive, Giacomo said, not in colloquial terms but formally, ‘Good day, how are you?' without holding out his hand.

‘Well, and you?' replied Raimondo.

‘Very well.' And the prince stroked his whiskers.

The princess, who was busy embroidering with little Teresa beside her, replied to her brother-in-law's questions in monosyllables, feeling her husband's eye heavy upon her.

‘Are you staying up here long?' asked Raimondo, red as a poppy.

‘Yes, till November. I sent to tell you so, I think.'

And he let the conversation drop again. The child turned and looked at this uncle of hers whose appearance she could not remember well, who did not caress her, whom her father was treating, as a stranger.

‘I wanted to ask you something,' went on Raimondo hesitatingly, almost timidly, and getting angrier with himself the more
his embarrassment grew. ‘I wanted to ask you if there's some villa I might take … a little place would do … it doesn't matter its being small as long as it's clean …'

The prince seemed to search his memory.

‘No,' he replied. ‘Everything's taken since Garibaldi came.'

Raimondo, nervously twiddling his moustaches, went on:

‘Anyway, I'll look round.'

Then his brother, in a cold voice without looking at him, said, ‘Do if you want to. It's quite useless, you won't find anything.'

Raimondo went off silent, pale and trembling. He had humiliated himself for nothing! The other had declared war! He did not want him nearby!

The prince in fact had let all his relations and acquaintances know that he could find no words to disapprove enough of Raimondo's conduct. ‘It's an unheard-of scandal! And he isn't even ashamed of himself! To have the effrontery to come back to his own town? When one wants to do something crazy like that one hides as far away as possible, where one's not known and can let people think what they like!'

And to his aunt Donna Ferdinanda, who drove up to the Belvedere one day on purpose to intervene and induce the prince to do the same as her, he replied, ‘We're in different situations. Your Excellency is free to think whatever you like, to do whatever you like. You can even take them into your house, as you've no one to render account to. I have a wife and daughter and cannot put a scandal like this under their very eyes.'

He said these things in front of the princess and the child, showing steadfast indignation in spite of the spinster's insistence. Chiara also disapproved of her brother's action, as Federico considered it immoral; not to mention Cousin Graziella, who acted as spokesman for the prince. All the latter's remarks reached Raimondo's ears through the discomfited spinster, or resentful hangers-on, or gossiping servants. He fumed in silent rage; then Donna Isabella said with a sad smile: