Beautiful Antonio (17 page)

“We have to confess our error to the Church, and the Church will rectify it.”

“
Rectify
it? How?”

“By annulling the marriage contract with which we virtually swindled the Church!” burst in impetuous the voice of the mother-in-law from between the curtains of the dressing-room.

Signora Agatina made her appearance clad in a flourish of plumes and furs, feathers, fineries and gauzy veils, with a rustling of silks between her hefty knees and at the armpits, while plumes and featherages merged and parted by turns, casting upon her shoulders, her bosom, her countenance itself, their sheen and shadow.

Antonio shot to his feet and took a few steps backwards, shedding fearful glances at another couple of doors which might at any moment exude further figures.

“Were you in there eavesdropping on us?” mumbled Antonio.

“Not eavesdropping,” replied that lady, tartly. “I just happened to be in the dressing-room, fetching myself a looking-glass, and I happened to overhear…”

“It was wrong of you to listen, Mamma!” cried Barbara, rising to her feet in turn. “You ought not to have listened! Really you ought not…”

And having thus delivered herself, she burst into tears and hid her eyes in the crook of her right arm.

It was a minute or two before anyone spoke. Antonio followed each of Barbara's sobs, accompanying it with a motion of his lips, as we do when carried away by the words of a speaker who convinces, persuades, and has our entirest approbation.

The mother-in-law kept her eyes on Barbara, but turned her face towards Antonio, so that in that indicative swivel of the eyes he could read the thought in her bosom: “Now just look what you've done!”

Suddenly Barbara burst out, “I can't stand it! I can't stand it any longer!” And hurling her work and crochet-hook onto the double bed, she left the room head bowed, still sobbing.

Antonio and the elder lady heard, throughout the length of corridors and chambers, those retreating sobs, recalling for both of them the silvery tones of the girl.

Then the mother-in-law spoke, and said: “As you plainly see, things cannot go on like this!”

Antonio made no reply. He was quite at a loss; the ebbing of his strength left him with a sense of being entirely soothed and coddled. His face, reflected in the circular mirror on the wash-stand, and in the square one on the wardrobe door, exuded sensitivity; and on his lips there appeared to hover words such as even to a noble spirit it is given but once in a lifetime to pronounce.

Signora Agatina could not restrain herself from seizing one of his hands and clasping it to her bosom.

“Dear boy,” she said. “You must not lose heart. You're still so young.”

And, more taken with him than ever, she wrapped her fur-draped arms around him and hugged him with intensity, resting her cheek against his.

“My dear boy!” she repeated. “My dear Antonio!”

“But… but…” mumbled the young man, lacking so much
as the breath to puff away the monosyllable that seemed glued to his lips, “but…”

“Speak up, dear boy, tell me all! You can say what you like to me!” urged Signora Agatina, hugging him still tighter. “I'm an old woman… I've seen a bit in my time! You needn't be afraid of telling me…”

“All I wish to know,” continued Antonio in a voice so faint that the lady was obliged to draw very close to his lovely, parched lips to read his words.

“Come now, tell me! What do you wish to know?” asked the lady, also in a hushful whisper and almost mouth to mouth.

“What I want to know is why your husband the notary has for seven months been pretending ignorance about all this, and then suddenly, without first coming to me to hear… to find out… makes up his mind to talk Barbara over, makes her discuss it with the Archbishop, and then goes off to my poor old dad…”

“Ah me, Antonio,” sighed the mother-in-law, again pressing her cheek upon his. “Antonio, my love, you have to
understand
!”

“But understand what? I'm prepared to throw myself on my knees before your husband and before Barbara herself, if without meaning to I've given them offence.”

“No dear, no no, my love, that's absolutely unnecessary! Why should a young man of your stamp go on his knees before anyone? He mustn't kneel to a single soul in this world, my lovelier than the sun itself, my own Antonio! With you and Barbara, the will of God was not favourably disposed. So be it! This can only mean it was writ in heaven that you should marry another! The behests of heaven are known only in heaven, and when a marriage is not written in that Book, it's of no avail for us poor wretches to scribble our names side by side in the parish register… Such a marriage stays only there on paper!… Have patience, my lovely boy! You are both young. Life hasn't even begun for you yet. Just you see, you will find your real, true spouse, the one the good Lord has
destined for you; and Barbara, she too… I scarcely think you'd like her to be left a spinster!… She too has her rights… No harm done if she too finds the mate destined for her by the Lord!”

The conversation had proceeded in tones so hushed and low that a slight movement of the lady, provoking a rustle of silks, more than sufficed to drown her last few words.

“Is Barbara likely to be married soon? Who to?” enquired Antonio, with a mildness that matched the grief he felt able to hold at bay thanks to the torpor so entirely overwhelming him.

“You'll never guess who's fallen in love with her,” purred the mother-in-law enveloped, she too, by a peculiar sensation – it may be by a dream of pleasure that caused her tongue to wag. “And so madly in love that he'd tear himself to pieces for her and relinquish all his billions? The Duca Di Bronte!”

“Ah, the Duca Di Bronte? Him, eh?” said Antonio in a low, slow voice, adding: “But isn't he already married?”

“His brother the prince is married, but not the duke!”

“I thought I'd heard it's a tradition in that family for only the eldest son to marry.”

“So it is. But this time the eldest son is childless, so they are allowing the younger son to get married.”

“Ah well, so it's the Duca Di Bronte, eh?” said Antonio huskily. “But he's so fat!… Or so it seems to me… Could I be wrong?”

“He's been to Paris and done a slimming cure. Cost him a packet!… And you, sweet boy, who would you marry, if you had your choice?”

“What, me? Oh, leave me out of it!”

“How d'you mean, out of it? Tragedies happen once in a lifetime, not over and over again.”

“No, no, me… leave me out!”

“Love of my life, why so?”

“Leave me out, leave me out!”

And thus saying, his thread of a voice by now reduced to a
faint murmur – such as persons of inflamed imagination fancy they hear by gravesides – and his face having acquired an almost lustrous pallor, Antonio closed his eyes and swooned away.

“Caterina! Graziella!” shrieked the mother-in-law, as she felt the young man's whole weight slump into her arms. “Caterina! Graziella! Come quick as you can!”

And meanwhile, having hauled Antonio to the bedside, and laid him athwart it as best she could, she hastily straightened up, under the impression (or was it a dream?) that she had kissed him, and more than once, full on the mouth.

C
OMING ROUND FROM HIS SWOON
, Antonio had no wish to stay another minute under his father-in-law's roof, and ran for cover in Via Pacini with his parents. There he shut himself up in his room and for three days remained alone, allowing admittance only to his mother, who had the goodness to sit at his bedside watching in silence as he slept, and smiling from time to time should his eyes be half open.

After these three days he began to venture into other rooms and passages, but by no means all; and as he absolutely refused to set eyes on the maid these sorties of his were frequently preceded by shouts from Signor Alfio and Signora Rosaria: “Rosina, go into the lavatory and lock the door! Don't come out until I tell you!” He consented to see his father, but only if his mother was present, never alone; he took good care to keep well away from the windows in case he should be spotted by the neighbours: above all he feared the barbed glare of the Spinster Ardizzone, whose head he imagined sticking out from the wall of the house opposite like that of a harpy; and when darkness fell, before turning the switch of his bedside lamp he would dispatch his mother to close the shutters securely. Likewise, he gave door-handles a rattle before opening them, because whenever he padded silently in his slippers from one room to another he always stumbled on his father in the act of beating himself on the temples – though checking his fists an instant before impact – or on his mother pressing a handkerchief to her mouth, and sighing into it her spasmodic sobs.

Friends (even Edoardo, who every morning sent round a
municipal policeman with a bag of fresh fish), were told that Antonio had gone down with measles, a serious illness for a grown-up, and dangerous for Barbara and her family, who had not had it in childhood; consequently he had been conveyed to his father's, and would not be receiving anyone until he had completely recovered…

‘I want a promise from you,” said Signor Alfio to Notary Puglisi, “that by the love you bear your daughter neither you nor any of your family will for the coming fortnight let out the least hint as to what has occurred!”

“You have my word,” returned the other.

“Remember, sir, that an ox is judged by his horns and a man by his word.”

“We Puglisi have always been gentlemen, and known where our duty lay. For a fortnight it shall be done: we shall not even go to confession, and our tongues will not know the sufferings of our hearts!”

But the fortnight was fleeting by and Signor Alfio had as yet not been able to steel himself for a heart-to-heart with his son. Time and again he passed to and fro along the corridor outside Antonio's door; sometimes he rubbed a fumbling hand across it; but when it came to knocking he would find himself, knuckles poised, waiting expectantly for his wife to come hurrying out of the living-room crying, “Alfio, what are you doing? Leave the boy in peace! Haven't you noticed how thin he's got?” And should it happen that his wife did not come hurrying out he slowly lowered his fist and began pacing up and down again.

But just before the two weeks ran out, he took his courage in both hands and, bursting open the door, entered.

“You've got to tell me just this one thing!” he said without preamble, making full use of the modicum of resolution that spurred him on: “Is Barbara the same as every other woman, or has she got some defect?”

“What defect could she possibly have, Alfietto! We women are all made in the same way,” put in Signora Rosaria who,
on seeing her husband enter Antonio's room had bustled along from the living-room and set the door ajar.

“Silence, you!” roared Signor Alfio. “Let me talk to my son!”

And he pushed his wife from the room, half following her out into the passage to make sure she really went away. Then he came back and locked the door.

Antonio had leapt from the bed on which he'd been lying prone, and gone to rest his brow against the window-pane, though shielding himself from view with the lace curtain.

“Well then?” demanded Signor Alfio.

“No, dad,” answered Antonio, without turning. “Barbara has no defect.”

“Then in God's name, why?… I'm going round the bend!”

Antonio answered nothing.

“Did you do it on purpose perhaps? Did you deliberately not…”

Silence. The nape of Antonio's neck, waxy beneath the back hair now grown long, but none the less bewitching for all that, stirred no more than that of one asleep; but into a fold of the lace curtain fell a drop of blood from a bitten lip.

“Yes,” he groaned out. “I did it on purpose.”

“Enough! That's all I want to know!” yelled Signor Alfio, leaping from his seat. “Not a word more! I've got it. All I want to know! God be praised! I've got it, I've got it, all I want to know!”

Then Antonio did turn, longing to eat his words and to put things right, but his father, flourishing his hands on high, had already left the room.

“Ah, sweet Jesus!” exclaimed the old man, making at the top of his speed for the living-room. “I told you so… He made up his mind not to… And he'll have had his own good reasons. That we can find out later… But it's taken a load off my mind… Now just watch me settle the hash of that billy-goat-bearded scrivener!”

“What's happened Alfio?” asked his wife, full of apprehension.

“What's happened is that my son has restored me to life, that's all… God's bones! Come here and dial that awful number for me, the one with One-Seven in front.”

“What on earth are you up to?”

“I want you to dial the number with that foul One-Seven in front!”

Signora Rosaria put on two pairs of spectacles, one on top of the other, and dialled Notary Puglisi's number.

“Hullo, is that you?” demanded Signor Alfio into the instrument. “Listen to me then, there's something that simply must be done!… Yes, yes, it's me, Alfio Magnano speaking… Listen here… There's something that must be done, by the three of us, you, me, and my son… go to some woman… wherever you please… even a brothel… and you'll stand there and watch the whole proceedings from beginning to end!… Eh? What'll you have to watch?… Why, my son's performance!”

“But Alfio, Alfio!” cried his wife, stretching out her hands in an effort to stop him.

“You are mad,” replied the notary witheringly from the other end of the line. “Therefore to hell with you!”

“Mad? Not a bit. Don't try and pull that one on me! And get this well into your thick skull: that before spreading your iniquitous insinuations you're going to come along with me and my son, whether you like it or not, because otherwise, old as I am, I'll haul you there by that beard of yours and rub your nose you know where!”