Tuscan Rose (11 page)

There was a door at the opposite end of the parlour. Rosa opened it and found herself inside the Marchesa’s bedroom. The canopied bed sat on a platform. Rosa’s gaze followed the gold posts and tasselled steel blue curtains up to the gold crown pinnacle of the bed. A matching chaise longue was placed near the marble fireplace. The walls were papered in black-and-gold damask. Next to the bed was a
prie-dieu
inlaid with emeralds. Did the Marchesa pray? Rosa could not imagine it. The overblown palazzo atmosphere of the room was at odds with the Marchesa’s slick personality. Rosa remembered the first time she had seen the Marchesa eating the bloody steak, and the way the woman had fed off the vulnerability of the man with the cowlick. Perhaps the funereal colour scheme suited the Marchesa’s vampiric nature.

Rosa strained her ears to listen for anyone approaching the Marchesa’s quarters before moving on to the next room. The space had no windows. She flicked on the light. Floor-to-ceiling shelves stored the Marchesa’s array of hats and purses, while her
Schiaparelli and Mainbocher dresses dangled on hangers in the open wardrobe. The dressing room was more in keeping with the style she expected of the Marchesa. Rosa cast her eye over the gold tray ceiling, triple-mirrored walnut dresser and coromandel screens. She glanced at the clock on the dresser and realised she only had a quarter of an hour before the staff would start returning to their posts.

Attached to the dressing room was a bathroom decorated in black-and-white porcelain with gold trimmings. Beyond that was another door. Rosa opened it and found herself looking into a bare room with unpolished floorboards. It might have been a cupboard except that there were no shelves, only a window covered by a red curtain at the far end of the room. Rosa was curious to find out what could be seen from the window. She pulled the curtain aside and discovered not a window but a metal door. She supposed it was a safe and expected it to be locked, but to her surprise the latch sprang open when she touched it. She stared into the darkness. It wasn’t a safe but another room from which a spicy smell emanated. There was no light switch near the door but she noticed a cord dangling from the ceiling and tugged it. Two lamps set on either side of a stone altar were illuminated. Rosa found herself staring at a huge eye painted on the wall. Next to it was a gold figure of a vulture with a plumed head and the claws of a lion. She was so hypnotised by it that it took her a few moments to notice the other objects in the room. Propped on shelves and stools were figurines of beetles, scorpions, bears, lions and crocodiles. There were hundreds of stones, gems and crystals spilling out of ivory chests and bowls: green basalt, granite, marble, jasper, bloodstone and haematite. Hieroglyphics covered one wall. It was as if Rosa had walked into the tomb of an Egyptian queen. The collection looked ancient and must have been worth a fortune. Miss Butterfield was wrong—the Marchesa’s mother had to be a princess. How else could the Marchesa have acquired all these things?

On the stone table was a gold coiled serpent with ruby eyes and a slab of lapis lazuli next to a larger stone. On the lapis lazuli
something had been written in gold. Rosa picked it up and held it under the light to get a better view. The words were in Italian:
Otterrò il controllo del mio cuore. I shall gain mastery over my heart.

She replaced the slab and picked up the other stone, which was white and semi-transparent. On it was written:
My heart is triumphant. I have gained power over it and will not be judged according to what I have done.

Rosa reread the mysterious message. She heard a bell ring downstairs, which was the signal that dinner was over and the staff would be returning to their posts. She turned to go, and spotted a gold-leaf etching of an Egyptian king and queen on the adjacent wall. The queen was nursing a baby on her lap. There was a handle at her feet and Rosa realised that the etching was a cupboard set into the wall. She opened it and found a glass jar on a shelf inside. There was something inside the jar but she couldn’t see it clearly. She lifted the jar and discovered it was full of liquid. She held it to the light to see what it contained. At first she only registered that the pale object was about the size of a small pear. There were dozens of metal pins stuck into it. Then a sickening realisation hit her and her stomach heaved. She managed to put the jar back into the cupboard and close it before lurching towards the bathroom. She dry-retched over the sink. The blood roared in her ears. There was no mistaking what the object was: she had sketched it many times while studying Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings, only this one was smaller. A heart.

Rosa would have to hurry out of the Marchesa’s quarters or be discovered. By sheer force of will she managed to stand upright. But when she had fled the third floor and hidden herself in her own room, she could not rid herself of the vision of the faded organ of life floating in the formalin. A pain seared through her head from her eyes to the back of her skull. From the size of the heart Rosa guessed it had belonged to a child, maybe even an infant. One question ran around and around her head: whose heart was it?

W
hen Rosa’s first day off came, three months after her arrival at the villa, she was glad to get away from the Marchesa. Although she didn’t see the woman daily, images of the child’s heart with pins in it haunted her dreams. She had no doubt that the Marchesa was a practitioner of black magic and the words she had seen on the lapis lazuli and white stone were demonic incantations. One afternoon, while Clementina practised her scales on the piano, Rosa had searched through an anatomy book in the library. Perhaps the heart belonged to a lamb or a calf? But when she found the section on the heart, the pictures were too close to what she had seen in the jar. Where could the Marchesa have obtained the heart? Was she a graverobber? Rosa closed her eyes and tried to discover the owner of the heart by willing a vision of its origin. She could see nothing but the dead flesh floating in the jar.

She had been tempted to tell Ada and Paolina about her discovery but the atmosphere of the villa made her suspicious of everybody. They seemed like good women but she didn’t know what they truly thought of the Scarfiottis. They might be indignant that she had invaded their employer’s private quarters, and might even tell the Marchesa.

On her day off Rosa planned to visit Suor Maddalena. She had heard nothing from her despite having sent several letters. The estate manager, Signor Collodi, was driving into Florence to pick up supplies and offered to take Rosa with him. His truck wasn’t as luxurious as the Marchese’s car and reeked of oil and mouldy grass but it was better than waiting for the tram or walking.

The truck rattled and bumped down the driveway. The wildflowers on the side of the road were in full bloom. ‘The bees love the flowering mallow,’ Signor Collodi told Rosa. ‘We will have good honey this year.’

When they reached the end of the driveway, Signor Taviani came out to open the gate for them. Rosa averted her eyes. Signor Collodi worked a toothpick around his mouth while they waited. He looked as ill at ease as Rosa felt. Signor Taviani strode towards the gates, unlocked them, then remained by the gatepost until the truck had passed through. Although Rosa still didn’t look at him, she shivered, sure that he was staring at her.

When they were some distance down the road, Signor Collodi ran his fingers over his moustache and turned to Rosa. ‘My father took over Giovanni’s job so I’m uncomfortable around him. He was the big man on the estate when the Old Marchese was alive. The Marchese trusted him completely. But he had some trouble…I think the young Marchese keeps him here out of respect for his late father. Signor Taviani won’t allow anyone near his lodge. He once threw a rock at the gardener when the man tried to trim the gatehouse’s hedge.’

Rosa couldn’t feel sympathy for the gatekeeper, no matter what his troubles had been. When she thought of him, all she saw was the innocent puppy he had slaughtered.

The road levelled out and the engine ran more quietly. Signor Collodi asked Rosa how she was finding the villa. Rosa answered that she enjoyed teaching Clementina and then asked Signor Collodi about the preparations for the ball, which she knew were extensive.

‘We are all working at a pace,’ he told her. ‘They haven’t had a
ball at the villa since the Marchese’s sister married. That was before the Great War.’

Rosa remembered the way the Marchesa had strutted about at Clementina’s birthday party. ‘I’m surprised to hear that,’ she said. ‘I thought the Marchesa was partial to social gatherings.’

‘I believe she is too but she prefers to host them in Paris. Perhaps she doesn’t think that Florentines are up to her standards.’

Signor Collodi brushed his hair across his pate with one hand while holding onto the wheel with the other. Rosa sensed his wounded Tuscan pride. She decided to use it to her advantage to glean more information.

‘Why has she changed her mind this time?’ she asked.

Signor Collodi shrugged. ‘Can you imagine anywhere more beautiful to have a ball than here? The villa was always lit up in the days of Nerezza Scarfiotti. Her social events were famous. Perhaps somebody has said something like that to the Marchesa and it has finally prompted her into action. After all these years.’

‘I heard Nerezza Scarfiotti was a great beauty and an accomplished musician,’ Rosa said. ‘And that she and the Marchesa didn’t get along.’

She realised that she was walking on dangerous ground, speaking so personally about her employer. She affected a casual tone, but she was digging for dark secrets and wondered if Signor Collodi would notice it.

He merely nodded. ‘I was only a boy when Nerezza Scarfiotti was alive. But I do remember sneaking a look at her one evening when she hosted a soirée. She was a magnificent woman…and not only an accomplished musician but an excellent linguist and conversationalist as well. The whole of Florence was enamoured of her.’

‘I guess it would be enough to make any woman jealous?’ Rosa fished.

Signor Collodi shrugged. ‘If you mean the Marchesa Scarfiotti…well, there might have been some jealousy but perhaps more on Nerezza Scarfiotti’s part. She was proud of her family’s name.
Whoever her brother married would become mistress of their home. I’m not sure she thought the Marchesa was suitable for the role.’

A truck appeared before them on a steep part of the road and Signor Collodi had to concentrate on the gears. While he was occupied, Rosa considered what he had said. It was true that it was hard to imagine the Marchesa feeling inferior to anyone, but Nerezza had been of noble birth, beautiful and accomplished. Perhaps the Marchesa didn’t like to give parties at the villa because Florence’s elite shared Nerezza’s opinion that she wasn’t good enough to have married into the Scarfiotti family. That would explain her strutting about at Clementina’s birthday party. Perhaps the Marchesa had wanted to punish the women for their snobbery by enchanting their husbands.

Signor Collodi let Rosa out near the Ponte Santa Trinita. The sun was high in the sky and Rosa knew Suor Maddalena would have some free time before she began the afternoon’s chores. As she passed through the Piazza de’ Frescobaldi and the fountain of Bernardo Buontalenti, she smiled at the artist’s nickname, ‘good talents’, and thought how it was as improbable as her own name. The houses of the quarter had their shutters closed against the heat, and Rosa dabbed her face with her handkerchief as she made her way along the streets and lanes to her destination. When she reached the convent, she stared at the walls, never having seen the place where she had passed nearly all of her life from that aspect. She gazed up at the sky; the expanse of blue was the link between the outside world and those inside the convent.

There was a shiny bell near the convent door. Was it new? Rosa grabbed the clanger and rang it. Suor Daria, the portress nun, appeared. She didn’t recognise Rosa in her well-cut dress and new hat.

‘Ah, Rosa,’ she laughed, when the young woman gave her name. ‘How you have changed in such a short time.’

A short time? Rosa felt as though she had been away for years. Her life had changed completely.

Suor Daria ushered her into the vestibule and led her towards the parlour. The smell of incense and beeswax brought memories of prayers and schoolrooms flooding back to Rosa. The blue-and-white parlour was a jolt to her. She stared at the carved chairs and the oil painting of Jesus drinking with the sinners and remembered the faces of the parents she had seen sitting in the room while she ran errands for the nuns. How many mothers had she witnessed trying to look proud of their daughters while being devastated that their child had chosen God over family?

‘Suor Maddalena will be here in a moment,’ Suor Daria told Rosa, closing the parlour door and taking a seat next to it. The elderly nun did her best to be discreet but Rosa knew her role was to listen in on the conversation.

She heard the doors from the inner convent open, and Suor Daria pushed a buzzer to indicate that the doors to the outside world were closed. Rosa knew that only when that was ascertained would the wooden shutter behind the grille rise. Within a second it did, and Rosa found herself face to face with Suor Maddalena. She was so moved by the sight of the dear face that she had not seen in months that it took all her effort not to burst into tears.

‘How are you, my child?’ Suor Maddalena asked. ‘You seem well. Are you keeping up with your flute?’

The nun’s formality cut Rosa to the core. Suor Maddalena was thinner than when she had last seen her but otherwise appeared to be in good health. Why hadn’t she replied to any of Rosa’s letters? Rosa did her best to answer Suor Maddalena’s questions cheerfully but she felt as though her heart was in her feet. Surely not even the bars between them, nor Suor Daria’s presence, could have curbed Suor Maddalena’s motherly affection towards her. What had changed? Had another orphan taken Rosa’s place in the nun’s heart?

‘I haven’t had a chance to play my flute much, but I am hoping to practise every day again now that things are settling down into a routine,’ Rosa replied.

Her life at the convent had been governed by routine. She recalled the sense of inner restlessness she had felt then. The
Badessa had been right when she said that Rosa was not suited to the religious life. Rosa bit her lip and wished that she had not come. She had happy memories of her life at the convent and now they were ruined. Her head began to swim and spots flickered before her eyes. She was about to get up and make some excuse to leave when the door behind Suor Maddalena opened and Suor Dorotea slipped a grey spotted cat onto the nun’s lap. ‘I thought Rosa might like to see Michelangelo,’ she giggled, before disappearing again.

Suor Maddalena’s face broke into a smile and her shoulders relaxed. She held the cat up to the grille. ‘They gave me Michelangelo to keep mice away from the kitchen. But the mice scare him.’

The cat rubbed against the grille. Rosa poked her fingers through the bars and scratched its chin. Suor Maddalena took Rosa’s finger and squeezed it. The gesture was an opening between them. Suddenly the resentment Rosa had been feeling melted away.

‘Thank you for your letters,’ Suor Maddalena told her. ‘I’ve kept every one. But the Badessa said that I had best not reply until you were settled into your new place. Now I see that you are, I hope you will visit often and continue to write.’

There were tears in Suor Maddalena’s eyes and Rosa felt her own eyes well up. The nuns of the Augustine order were not as strictly enclosed as the Carmelites and Poor Clares. There were certain occasions when they were allowed out of the convent. Perhaps at such a time Rosa and Suor Maddalena would be able to talk without bars between them. But that wasn’t likely to happen in the near future unless there was a war or an earthquake or some other disaster that would bring the nuns out of the convent to help the injured and sick.

Rosa told Suor Maddalena about the pleasant things at the villa and about Clementina. ‘She’s a bright girl; she learns everything so quickly.’

‘Just like you,’ said Suor Maddalena.

Rosa glanced over her shoulder and saw that Suor Daria had nodded off to sleep. She took the opportunity to slip the silver key from her pocket and show it to Suor Maddalena.

‘It was in your wrappings when you came here as a baby,’ Suor Maddalena whispered. ‘The women in my village used a charm like that to protect a child from harm.’

‘You mean witches?’ Rosa asked, her eyes wide. She was surprised Suor Maddalena wasn’t offended by the charm if that was the case.

Suor Maddalena gave a wise smile. ‘There are many ways to the Almighty, Rosa,’ she said. ‘I simply think the Catholic Church is the most direct one. We have our symbols and charms too, after all.’

Rosa didn’t know whether to be proud or shocked that the most religious person she knew was also the most open-minded. Wasn’t what Suor Maddalena was saying a kind of heresy? Ada had claimed that all women were witches. By that definition, nuns were witches too. Rosa thought about that idea for a moment: was there really such a difference between prayers and spells? Weren’t both appeals to the Almighty? She was about to tell Suor Maddalena that the cooks at the villa were
streghe,
but Suor Daria stirred and coughed into her hand, signalling the visit was over and that Suor Maddalena needed to attend to her chores.

‘I will come next month,’ Rosa said.

Suor Maddalena nodded. ‘I would like that.’

Out in the sunshine again, Rosa walked to the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens. Although she had lived in the area, she had never seen them. She stood in front of the severe façade of the enormous palace and thought about how one powerful family could fall and be replaced by another. Luca Pitti had ordered the building of the palace in 1457, to outrival the Medici family with a display of wealth and grandeur. The irony was that the cost of the building bankrupted the Pitti heirs and the palace was bought by the Medicis in 1550. The Medicis eventually fell too, as did the rulers who lived in the palace after them. Now it was an art gallery. Would the Scarfiotti family also fade to oblivion in the future? Rosa recalled her conversation with Signor Collodi. Was that why Nerezza had feared her brother marrying beneath himself?

The sun was hot and Rosa walked into the gardens and along a path lined with cypress trees until she came to an artificial lake where she sat down on a bench in the shade. A young couple were standing near a fountain. They spoke with their heads close together. Suddenly the man seized the girl and kissed her passionately. Rosa felt her toes tingle. What was it like to kiss someone, she wondered. She thought of Signor Parigi at the antiques store on Via Tornabuoni and hoped that the first man she kissed was as handsome as him.

She felt in her pocket and took out the silver key. So a witch had put the charm in her wrappings to protect her. Was it her mother? Was that why Rosa had grown up with the power to see the source of things?

She unclasped the chain around her neck that held her crucifix and added the key to it, then tucked the chain back under her collar. What was the witch trying to protect me from? she wondered, then sighed when she realised that no matter how many questions she asked herself, her origins would always be a mystery.