Splendors and Glooms (31 page)

The old woman uttered an exasperated noise, something between a snort and a growl. “That’s no good; that’s impossible. You must want something other than that. Your brother took half the house — what did you take?”

Lizzie Rose set the books on the bed. Cassandra frowned. “What’s this? Shakespeare in three volumes? Faugh!” She flipped the covers open and shut. “Do you really want Shakespeare? I’ve always found him dull.”

“My father loved Shakespeare,” Lizzie Rose explained. “He used to say you could read Shakespeare your whole life long and never grow weary of it.”

“I’d be weary by the end of the first page,” Cassandra said acidly. She shoved the books away. “What’s this? Ah, something livelier!” A look of mischief passed over her face. “
Tom Jones
! Gracious, child, what made you choose that? It’s”— her mouth twisted mockingly —“not suitable for a young lady.”

“It must be suitable,” Lizzie Rose said stoutly. “It was Father’s favorite novel.”

“Have you read it?”

“No, but I shall.”

Cassandra nodded. “Good. It will open those innocent eyes of yours. What else? Two books, a borrowed tiger skin, and —?”

“A seashell,” Lizzie Rose said, reaching into her apron pocket. “I thought it was the best one in the case. It reminded me of Brighton. Father and Mother took me to Brighton once.”

Cassandra Sagredo took the seashell on her palm. It was a miracle of loveliness: a milky spiral with a heart of orange pink. “Is that all? No jewels?”

Lizzie Rose thought wistfully of the emerald necklace she had turned down. “I don’t need jewels.”

“Fiddlesticks! Every woman needs jewels! What else is in your pocket?”

Lizzie Rose set down her final and favorite choice: the portrait in the ivory frame. “I found this in the library. I think it’s ever so pretty —” Her voice faltered.

The witch’s hand darted out, fingers curled. “Give me that.”

Lizzie Rose surrendered it. Cassandra sat stark still, gazing at the portrait in her hand. Her mouth worked. She raised her head and looked straight at Lizzie Rose. “You little bitch.”

Lizzie Rose’s head came up sharply. She had spent most of her life in the theatre, and she was familiar with foul words. But she was not used to being sworn at. David Fawr had shielded his wife and child from such disrespect. Even Grisini, who had beaten her, had not insulted her with such language. Her eyes filled with tears. “How dare you?” Her voice shook with outrage. “How dare you speak to me that way? I don’t want your books — or your pictures — or your horrid money! I won’t be spoken to like that!”

She spun on her heel and started for the door. But to her astonishment, Cassandra cried out to her. “Come back!” the old woman commanded. “Come back! If I insulted you, I beg your pardon!”

Lizzie Rose stopped with her hands on the doorknobs. She had never found it easy to hold out against an apology. She felt that this was a dreadful weakness in her nature, but she couldn’t help it.

“I beg your pardon,” Cassandra said again. She was panting, as if the apology had taken a physical toll on her. “You couldn’t have known. No one knows.”

Lizzie Rose asked, “Knows what?”

Cassandra evaded the question. She stared at Lizzie Rose as if she’d never seen her before. Abruptly she said, “Give me your hand.”

Lizzie Rose said, “Why?” but Cassandra held out her own hand, palm up. After a moment, Lizzie Rose slipped her work-roughened hand into the old woman’s fat claw.

Cassandra bent her head. Her eyebrows drew together, and her eyes narrowed until they were almost shut. She was so still that Lizzie Rose wondered if she was falling asleep. Then the old woman opened her eyes. “You’re good,” she said flatly. It was not a compliment but an accusation. “Gaspare lied. He said you were deceitful. You’re good, God help you, and God help me. Horribly, inconveniently good.”

Lizzie Rose didn’t know what to say. She had never been able to make up her mind whether she was a good person or not. From books, she had gathered that if you thought you were good, you probably weren’t, because thinking you were good was conceited. On the other hand, she knew how hard she tried to be good, and she couldn’t help thinking that Madama’s word
inconvenient
was entirely apropos. It had not escaped her notice that being good was often very inconvenient. “Ma’am —”

“Well? Don’t stand there twisting your hands. If you want to ask me something, ask! And call me
Madama,
not
ma’am.
”

“Madama — when did you speak to Mr. Grisini about me?”

The old woman’s face was suddenly guarded. “Months ago. I don’t remember the exact date.” She dismissed the subject with an imperious wave of her hand. “I’m sorry I insulted you. If you want the painting, take it. It’s an insipid thing, and I have no use for it.”

Lizzie Rose looked from the old woman to the girl in the picture. “Did you know her, ma’am? Was she your daughter?”

“No. I had no children.”

“She was dear to you?” Lizzie Rose suggested, but Cassandra answered vehemently.

“No. She was a girl I knew at school. When she died, she left me her portrait — I can’t think why. It’s been seventy years since I saw her.”

Lizzie Rose fetched the cushioned stool by the dressing table. She sat down, folding her hands in her lap. “Tell me about her,” she coaxed. To her surprise, the old woman gazed off into the distance and began to speak.

“H
er name was Marguerite Tremblay. I met her in the convent at Venice — but no, I must begin earlier than that.

“When I was eleven years old, my mother ran away from home. She was a great beauty, and she caused a great scandal. For a long time, no one would tell me what had become of her. The servants told me she was dead, but we didn’t put on black and there was no funeral. I eavesdropped until I found out the secret. My mother had chosen to abandon my father and me so that she could disgrace herself with a man.

“Her disgrace spread to all of us. We were no longer received in society. No one came to the house. My father — who had once been fond of me, I believe — was afraid I would grow up to be like my mother — foolish and faithless. It was an intolerable time for him, and he decided to leave England. My father was a scholar of the natural sciences, and he had friends in Padua.

“So we set off to Italy. The journey was a long one, and we were both bad travelers. My father scarcely spoke to me. But at last we reached Venice. I’d been sick on the road — foreign food disagreed with me — but I was not seasick in Venice. When we glided down the Grand Canal, I lifted my head to gaze about me.

“You have never seen Venice, I suppose? I tell you that there is nowhere on earth more beautiful. We floated between two rows of palaces: flesh pink or fawn colored or pale green or tawny . . . and the world was drenched with light. The light of Venice was unlike anything I’d ever seen. So soft, like candle flames shining through a seashell . . . The water was glassy green, and everywhere you looked there were rippling shadows and reflections. Beauty like that can break the heart. I ached with longing — and I began to hope. I had a strange fancy that in Venice, I would find everything I’d lost: even my father’s affection.

“Of course I was wrong. My father had brought me there to be rid of me. He enrolled me in a convent school of Santa Maria dei Servi. The Venetians greatly disliked foreigners, and I cannot think how he persuaded the nuns to accept me. But take me they did, and my father moved on to Padua. I begged him to write, and he promised that he would. But he didn’t.

“To say that I was unhappy doesn’t begin to tell you the state of my feelings. The convent was a prison to me. The other girls despised me. My father had taught me only a little Italian — and it was not Venetian but pure Tuscan. The Venetian girls slurred their words, so I couldn’t understand them. They laughed at me. I was a foreigner, a big clumsy girl. My clothes didn’t fit — I was growing too fast, and everything was tight. There was not a single soul that I liked or who liked me. I seemed to grind my way through each day, longing for nighttime so that I could weep.

“Then Marguerite came to the convent. She came from New France, in North America. She spoke no Italian, only French and English. Because I spoke English, she attached herself to me. I did not seek her friendship. She sought mine. I thought the other girls would shun her, as they had shunned me. But when they mimicked her bad Venetian, she laughed with them, and in time she became everyone’s pet. You must understand that she had many things that I had not. Her papa had a fortune from the fur trade. She was very pretty, and her gowns had been made in Paris. She always had the best of everything, from ribbons to lapdogs.

“You asked if she was dear to me. The shoe was on the other foot:
she
cared for
me.
Her nature was affectionate, and she was as eager to please as her own lapdog. When I had headaches — I had dreadful headaches in those days — she used to sit by me and bathe my forehead with lavender water. She had many friends, but I was her first, and, she used to say, her dearest. She always called me that: her dearest friend.

“I thought she was a fool, to love me so much when I cared so little for her. But there was a reckless streak in her that I admired. We used to slip out of the convent, especially when it was Carnival and the streets were full of people making merry. None of the other girls dared. Those were my happiest times in Venice — those times when we escaped together. It was then, and only then, that Venice kept her promise to me. The city was so gay and so beautiful. . . . And we were never caught.

“There was one way in which Marguerite and I were alike. She was motherless, too, and there was a shadow over her mother’s name. When Marguerite was six years old, the house caught fire, and her mother perished in the flames. Marguerite had been told that it was a tragic accident. But Marguerite believed — and I have no doubt she was right — that Madame Tremblay set the fire herself:
she died by her own hand.
Her father denied it. But though Marguerite was a silly child, she was a child, and a child has a special instinct for what is being hidden. Marguerite remembered her mother’s fits of rage and melancholy, and she was quite certain that her mother had been mad. I have told you that Marguerite was not dear to me; I envied her too much to be fond of her. But I pitied her, too, because of her mother.

“I remember the day I hated her most. It was her birthday — our birthday — because that was the curious thing: Marguerite was a year younger than I, but we shared the same birthday. The year that I was thirteen and Marguerite was twelve, Monsieur Tremblay asked the nuns for permission to give his daughter a birthday party. The sixth of November fell during Carnival time —”

Lizzie Rose’s head jerked up. “The sixth of November!” she repeated. “But that’s Clara’s birthday!”

Cassandra Sagredo flinched as if someone had thrown a glass of water in her face. Lizzie Rose realized that the old woman was in a vulnerable state, stranded somewhere between the present and the past.

“I’m sorry.” Lizzie Rose laid a hand on the coverlet. “I shouldn’t have interrupted. But there’s a girl I used to know, and November the sixth was her birthday —”

Cassandra didn’t ask who Clara was. “November the sixth?” she repeated. “November the sixth? Are you sure?”

Lizzie Rose nodded. “I’m sorry I interrupted, Madama. I won’t do so again.”

Cassandra leaned sideways and jerked the bed cord. “You won’t have the chance. I’ve spoken too long and told too much. Run along — that’s a good child. Fettle will attend to me. Take your little treasures and let me sleep.“

Reluctantly Lizzie Rose gathered up the books and the seashell. She didn’t want to leave. She wanted the rest of the story. But Madama would brook no argument. She held out the portrait to Lizzie Rose. “Here, take it. You want it — I don’t.”

Lizzie Rose snapped her fingers for Ruby. On her way out, she set the little painting on Madama’s dressing table.

I
t was Christmas Eve. Under the table in the Tower Room, Clara lay beside Parsefall and listened to the sound of distant church bells tolling the hour for Midnight Mass. Beside her, Parsefall muttered and twitched in his sleep. Clara wondered if he was dreaming of Grisini.
Grisini’s not here,
Clara soothed him.
He can’t get in.
There’s a bolt on the door.