The Watercolourist (5 page)

‘There’s something I’d like to show you, if you’ll follow me?’

Bianca wipes her hands on a rag. Donna Clara leads the way. She uses a highly varnished black cane, but is incredibly quick for a woman of her small stature. She crosses the lawn, goes into the
house, up the stairs, and down a hall that Bianca has not yet explored. As she moves, Donna Clara’s starched clothes crackle and whine. Bianca wonders whether she still wears a whalebone
corset, as was the vogue in her youth, and if so, who tightens it for her each morning.

She stops in front of a small painting, near a row of nymph statuettes. It is a portrait of a mother and child. Positioned right in front of a window, it soaks up all the natural light. Bianca
studies the work with the eye of a professional. The dark background allows the two heads to float out of time and space. One has curly brown hair, while the other’s is straight and blond.
The mother has a frivolous, somewhat disquieting look, perhaps due to her curls or the glow in her eyes. Bianca notices a resemblance between the little boy and the girls who play outside: the same
curve in the cheek, round eyes and colouring. She understands.

‘I was pretty, wasn’t I?’ says Donna Clara, leaning on the pomegranate-shaped handle of her walking stick. ‘That’s my boy . . . he was five years old there. Then I
sent him to boarding school and left for Paris with my Carlo, and I didn’t see him for a long time. An eternity, it seemed. But when Titta grew older, our paths crossed again. He came to
Paris when he was twenty and we’ve never been apart since.’

And then, as though fearing she has revealed too much, she wraps her shawl around her, turns around and walks away, leaving Bianca to contemplate the painting on her own. She notices other
details now: the boy’s gaze seems restrained and distracted, as if there is a dog somewhere beyond the picture frame, barking and inviting him to play. She notices his mother’s sharp
expression, like that of a fox, with her slight, coy smile. The pair are positioned closely within the frame, but it is clear that each one anxiously wants to be elsewhere.

Bianca starts her work. Following the generous instructions of her master – it makes her smile to think of him as her master, and yet that is his role – she takes
all the time she needs. Each morning she carries out her box and easel and a large, somewhat frayed, straw hat. Soon, hampered by all the trappings, she decides to leave the more bulky props
behind. Feeling light and reckless, she goes off to where domesticated nature ends and wild nature begins. Wild is perhaps an exaggeration, for in fact, she and Minna – who follows her like a
shadow – are never entirely alone. There is always some gardener snipping, pruning, collecting and carrying away dry branches. The men don’t look up from their work, nor do they speak
to the ladies. Bianca constantly gets the feeling that she is being watched. But each time she turns around, the man nearby will be looking elsewhere and seems interested only in his pruning tool,
his axe, or the clutch of weeds he holds in his clenched fist, raising them to examine the naked roots. It feels like wandering in a forest full of Indians: eyes and blades everywhere. But this is
the only fear that the women allow themselves. Though, in fact, Minna is also afraid of insects, which is strange for a girl who has grown up in the countryside. She runs away from bumblebees,
horseflies and praying mantises.

‘They won’t harm you,’ Bianca says, picking up an insect in the palm of her hand to examine its big eyes before placing it back on a leaf, which it grips like a castaway at
sea. But the girl keeps far away, and stares in admiration at Miss, who isn’t afraid of anything. Maybe it is because she is English.
The English are strange
, Minna thinks.

Insects, children, flowers: how limited Bianca’s new world is and yet, at the same time, how incredibly full of potential ideas. Insects and children: Pietro has the malicious insistence
of a hornet. Enrico, on the other hand, has the feeble blandness of a caterpillar that knows only its own mouth. The girls are like grasshoppers, green, lilac, baby blue, all eyes, never at a
standstill. Minna looks like a young beetle: the tiny, iridescent kind that never knows where to perch, and is capable only of short flights.

Bianca sketches and captures specific moments, sensations, gestures and movements. She speaks the plants’ names out loud. She is drawn to the plants and flowers whose names she
doesn’t know. The estate at Brusuglio offers an unlimited variety of new species. There is the
Liquidambar
, rooted into the earth, and pointing to the sky as if it is an arrow. There
is the little green cloud, a
Sophora
. There is
Sassafras albidum
with leaves that look like gloved hands. There is the
Catalpa
tree, known as ‘the
hippopotamus’ because it is so large. And then there are the shrubs: the
Genista
, the
Coronilla
, the
Hamamelis
, with its dishevelled and fading flowers, and the
Mahonia
, which smells like honey. And then the plants with modern names like
Benthamia
or
Phlomis
, names which often sound too lofty in comparison to their humble
appearance.

It doesn’t feel like work. It isn’t that different from her ardent childhood and adolescent pastime, except for the absence of the person dearest to her. A gracious but inadequate
group of strangers has taken his place. As a unit, they only make her long for her own family even more.

Everyone in the household is very devout. A small parish church has been built near the estate by Carlo, Donna Clara’s deceased lover and the previous master of the house.
The pungent smell of its recent construction blends with the overpowering scent of incense. The priest, a burly old man with a kind face, entrusts the censer to a young altar boy. Bianca lets
herself become distracted by the trails of light blue smoke. She contemplates the Good Shepherd, who gazes out at everyone, one by one, from beside the apse. She feels surrounded by lambs. The
children sit in the second row with their governess. Pietro takes something out of his pocket and shows it to Enrico, covering it with his other hand like a shield, so his sisters cannot glimpse
it. Of course, they stretch out their necks to see and, in so doing, miss echoing the psalm. Their grandmother turns around from the front row with a threatening scowl. The girls fall back into
line and the object disappears into Pietro’s pocket once more. Enrico sighs. The children’s mother and father are two composed backs of solid mass.

Bianca’s gaze wanders. Several old women sit in another row. Not many country folk could allow themselves the luxury of attending two services a day, morning and evening. Since Bianca is
not a believer, she wonders how she would cope with these rituals.

It is Don Dionisio, the elderly priest, who surprises her. She is wandering in the park one day when he approaches with a timid bow. He holds out his arms towards hers.

‘Come with me,’ he says, opening his hands to her and taking a few steps backwards. She raises her arms and makes to move forward. He stops and drops his hands by his side, as if he
has asked too much of her too soon; hers are left hanging in air. She doesn’t really know how to behave with Catholic priests, or with priests in general, but she senses that obedience is
appreciated so she hurries to catch up to him. They walk on, both lifting their skirts from the ground in strange unison. He stops in front of a small door to the side of the church, which has, it
seems, been built for a dwarf. ‘Here we are.’ He pushes it open, bends forward, blocks the passageway for a moment, and then disappears inside. She follows him in, head bowed. She finds
herself inside a simple, bare vestry, where a crucifix hangs between two tall, narrow windows of light brown glass, which create an amber light. ‘That door is always open,’ he says.
‘Prayer doesn’t always happen on a schedule. It’s not a postal carriage. God comes to us when we least expect him. And you can do the same.’

From that moment on, Bianca doesn’t enter the realm of the kingdom of God on a twice-daily schedule. She doesn’t have to explain herself to anyone and no one asks her a thing about
it. Donna Clara seems perplexed but not altogether amazed.

The governess whispers to her in confidence and with a hint of envy, ‘Innes doesn’t come to service either, you know.’

But prayer occurs within the home, too, and without any forewarning. Donna Clara keeps a jet rosary on her at all times, wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet, a Christ figurine dangling from
it like a strange sort of charm. Whenever the conversation turns into an appeal to the saints and Mary, she slips it off and clings to those beads that reconcile the heavens and earth. Donna Julie
follows her example. The children mumble their Hail Marys in a distracted singsong. Don Titta, on the other hand, doesn’t pray. When he is present, he simply lowers his head and folds his
hands together, as if prayer is just another opportunity to leave this world and get lost in another. Bianca takes advantage of those moments to study them all. She is the only one to keep her eyes
open.

Innes, the English tutor who doesn’t attend Mass, returns from his salubrious holiday. The little girls, who have been anxiously awaiting his arrival since morning, dash
towards him as soon as he descends from the carriage, screaming with glee. The boys look up silently from their game – a complex construction made up of small pieces of wood – but only
when their governess tells them to, do they stand to greet their tutor, taking their time to brush away the sawdust from their trousers. Innes sweeps Giulietta up while the other girls hug him
tightly around his knees. He is very tall, Bianca thinks, enormous, even for an Englishman. She is sitting in the shade of the portico with a book in her lap. Innes laughs and stumbles forward, the
little girls still clinging to him. When Donna Clara comes out, everything resumes its order. The sisters let go and line up. The boys join the group so that the family formation is complete.
Bianca stands with the others while the servants, Berto and Barba, unload a worn suitcase and an incongruous carpet bag embroidered with purple flowers. When the carriage departs, the governess
runs to shut the gates, too excited to leave it to the valet, before taking her place at the end of the line and staring intently at the new arrival.

‘Dear, dear, dear Innes!’ Donna Clara exclaims, opening her arms to him and clutching him briefly. Her face only reaches to his chest. ‘I trust you are well rested and
fortified. You must tell me everything about the Paduan spas. I, too, would like to take the waters there one day . . . when I find time to leave the family!’

As always, Donna Clara has placed herself in the precise middle of the circle that is her whole world. Her gaze is its radius and it is as though everything that happens has to be connected to
her in some way, to make her shine – if only from reflected light. Such is her arrogance, and it is supported by rank and habit. Innes doesn’t pay it the least attention, or perhaps he
is just used to it.

‘Donna Clara, you have no use for miracle waters. Here at Brusuglio lies the fountain of youth. I am certain it’s somewhere here on the estate and you’re keeping it secret
while I wander high and low to find it!’