Saddle the Wind (63 page)

Blanche, who had turned her head away from his piercing eye and curling lip, now swung back to face him.

‘You can’t insult me by allying me with such women and such beliefs,’ she said incredulously. ‘Don’t fool
yourself there. But you see such humour in it, don’t you? In women wanting equality. But why shouldn’t they fight for what is rightfully theirs? But no, you see it as comical – to you it’s
funny
, a joke – women suffering the most appalling degradation and humiliation for their beliefs. Don’t you think women have the right to equality?’ She shook her head. ‘Though I don’t need to ask that question; I’ve learned well enough the answer to that.’ She gazed at him, at his face so close to hers as he leaned towards her. ‘You amaze me still,’ she said. Her voice was icy, calm. ‘Are you totally insensitive? Women chain themselves to railings to have their cause recognized. They do no harm to anyone but themselves. They go to prison where they’re subjected to suffer the most painful forced feeding – and you see it all as a music hall turn.’ She turned away from him. ‘You make me sick.’

Throughout her words Alfredo’s face had told her that she should halt, but she had been unable and unwilling to stem the flow. Now, as she finished speaking she became aware of the quiet vehemence with which she had spoken. And she looked at the glassy eyes of the signor and signora Marino (Alfredo’s eyes were now lowered – in embarrassment, humiliation?) and saw that, for all their smiles, they were not regarding her with approval.

How Blanche got through the rest of the evening she did not know. Whatever lightness and enjoyment had been created the mood now was gone, and it was not long before Marino and his wife got up to leave. Blanche, having tried in the meantime to recover the lost ground, had known that she could not succeed. The damage had been done.

She remained in the living room while Alfredo saw the pair to the door, and she stood listening to the distant
murmur of their voices as they said their goodbyes, followed soon afterwards by the closing of the front door.

At the sound of Alfredo’s approaching steps as he came back across the tiled hall she tensed. Knowing him she knew how he would have nursed and nurtured his anger for this moment when they were alone. Even so, she was not prepared for the eruption of his fury.

Entering the room by the already open door he strode across the carpet towards her, and as he reached her side he raised his hand and struck her hard across the face. She reeled from the blow, but before she even had time to cry out his arm swung back and with the back of his hand he struck her on the opposite cheek.

The force of the blows made her head swim and she staggered back, fetching up heavily against a bureau, her flailing arm striking a vase of roses that rocked and toppled with a dull crash to the floor. As she straightened, her head still reeling, she was dimly aware of the taste of blood in her mouth.

‘Alfredo – please –’ she managed to say, but he would not be halted, and he came after her, his hand rising again, striking out at her again.

‘Don’t you ever dare to humiliate me like that in front of my guests again,’ he said. He spat the words at her, punctuating them with violent blows from his swinging hands.

Desperately, while shrieking out pleas and little cries of protest, Blanche tried to protect herself, but her hands as she fought to ward him off were ineffectual against his strength and his fury. At last, sent spinning from a particularly savage blow from his fist she careered backwards over the coffee table and crashed to the floor.

The violence of the fall drove the breath from her body and she sat up gasping. As the seconds passed she
recovered her breath, but her humiliation and her suffering were not yet over. Lifting her face and opening her eyes she gazed up through the mist of her pain and saw Alfredo unbuckling his belt as he stood above her. In a daze she was dimly aware of him unbuttoning his trousers, wrenching them down. Next moment he was bending, kneeling, his hands reaching out for her. Through the waves that brought her consciousness receding and returning over and over she was aware of him throwing back the fabric of her dress and her petticoat. His hands fumbled for a moment at the waist of the lace combinations she wore, and then with one furious movement gripped the front buttoned edges and ripped the garment open from her chest to her knee. His hands moved to her ankles, roughly clutching them, thrusting them apart so that she lay with her legs bent and splayed, open to his assault. ‘Yes!’ he hissed, ‘
and
I’ll teach you never to refuse me again.’ Following his words he threw himself upon her and in one movement thrust himself up inside her body. She had not the strength to resist him. For a few moments as she lay there the strange, unreal thought went through her mind that it was not really happening; it was all a nightmare. Then, still lying there under his weight, she found herself unable any longer to hold at bay the creeping darkness and, almost welcoming the dark, she drifted into oblivion.

‘Signora …’

She felt cold, and there was a voice, soft, concerned, whispering close to her ear.

‘Signora …’

She was aware of hands pulling down the skirt of her dress, covering her bare legs. Then the voice again:

‘Signora … please …’

She tried to close her ears to the voice but it remained there, insistent. At last she opened her eyes – her right eye was rapidly closing – and saw Betta’s homely, worried little face close to her own.

‘Betta …’

Betta, frowning, gave a little smile, the relief sounding in her voice. ‘Oh, signora.’

With the pain coming back with her returning consciousness Blanche remembered what had happened. With Betta’s help she sat up, struggled to her knees and somehow managed to get to a chair nearby. Sitting, she leaned forward, dipping her head low over her knees. ‘Where is he?’ she muttered through her swollen lips, ‘– the signore …’

‘Gone up to his bedroom.’

Whispering encouragement, Betta urged Blanche to sit up. Blanche did so. Then Betta’s gentle hands were dabbing gently with a damp cloth, sponging away the blood – though, Betta said, the signora’s beautiful dress was ruined for ever. When Blanche’s cuts had been
treated with iodine and her bruises with some soothing balm, she was helped out of the chair. Now, Betta said, she would help her upstairs to bed.

Quietly, Blanche and Betta set off up the stairs. Blanche’s ribs had been bruised in her fall and she was aware now of their sharp ache as she moved. At last, however, she reached her room and Betta helped her to get undressed and into bed. There was a sofa on the other side of the room and Betta whispered that she would sleep there for the rest of the night. Blanche wanted to say that the girl should go back to her own bed beside Adriana’s in the nursery – which would surely be more comfortable – but she had not the energy or the strength to protest. She merely nodded, ‘Yes.’ The hands of her bedside clock pointed to two-fifteen. She must have been lying downstairs for hours. Closing her eyes against the memory and the pains that nagged at her, she at last slept.

She did not go down to breakfast the next morning, and Betta brought to her a tray with some toast, some scrambled egg and some coffee. Blanche ate a little of the food and drank the coffee. Where was the signore? she asked, and Betta replied that he had already breakfasted and left the house. She had heard him say that he was going out on business and that he would soon be back.

Blanche heard of Alfredo’s absence with relief. Where was signorina Adriana? she asked, to which Betta replied that the child was playing downstairs and had been asking when she could visit her mama.

Blanche asked Betta to fetch her a mirror, and Betta took the tray, set it down and brought to Blanche her little looking glass. Blanche gazed into it. Her left eye was discoloured and almost closed, while the left side of her upper lip was also very swollen. There were other
bruises on her face, and a few minor cuts, other than the cut on her lip. Most of the rest of the pain was in her rib-cage, from the bruising sustained when she had fallen.

When, with Betta’s help, she had done as much as she could towards patching up the damage to her face, and had dressed her hair, Blanche asked Betta to let Adriana up to see her. After that, she said, she would get up.

A few minutes later, when Adriana entered the room and looked at her mother she burst into tears.

‘Oh, Mama …’

‘I’m all right, my darling. I’m all right.’

Sitting up in the bed, holding the child in her arms, Blanche knew that she must come to a decision. She either had to put up with it, to suffer whatever Alfredo cared to do to her, or else take Adriana and get away.

The day passed slowly, the hours drifting by without any sign of Alfredo, though all the while Blanche expected to hear the sounds of his return. And evening came and there was still no sign of him. She said to herself that if she had known that he would be away for so long she would have packed a bag and taken Adriana and gone – and she would have sought help from Marianne and Gentry. Their home, though, would surely be the first place Alfredo would go looking for her. And in any case it would be very difficult to get out of the house during Alfredo’s absence without Edgardo knowing of her escape. The only answer would be to wait for a time when she was sure that Alfredo was going to be away for some hours. Then, where Edgardo was concerned, she would just have to look for the right opportunity.

*

After she had tucked Adriana into bed that night she got into the warm bath that Betta had drawn for her and lay there while the soft water soothed her stiff muscles and sore bruises. She felt better afterwards, though her face with its bruised mouth and eye was still a shocking sight.

Betta came to her room to help her prepare for the night. Was there anything she could get for the signora? she asked. Blanche thanked her but said there was nothing. She wanted only to get to bed again, to take refuge in the blessing of sleep, for a while to be able to forget.

When Betta had gone from the room Blanche lay for a while in the dark listening to the occasional sounds coming from the street. ‘Please God, let me sleep before Alfredo returns,’ she murmured. She didn’t even want to hear him, let alone see him.

After a while she slept.

She was lying awake, brought back to wakefulness by the sound of a carriage going by beneath the window and by the ache in her ribs. After lying there for a while she gave up hope of going back to sleep and pulled herself up in the bed, struck a match and lit the lamp. Glancing at the clock she saw that it was just after four. She would go downstairs and make herself some tea, she decided. With the decision she got out of bed and put on her dressing gown and slippers.

Quietly, so as not to risk waking Alfredo, she opened her door and moved out of the room. The landing was lit by the small flame of a gaslight that was kept burning throughout the night at the head of the stairs. In its pale glow she turned and glanced towards the door of Alfredo’s room. Earlier, when going to her own room to sleep, she had noticed that his door had been left ajar.
It was still so. She turned from it and moved across the landing.

She was halfway down the stairs when a sudden thought brought her to a halt, and after hovering for a moment she turned and made her way up again. Silently moving back across the landing she came to a stop outside Alfredo’s door. Had he still not returned? Without making a sound she slowly pushed the door open wider and looked in. By the dull light that spilled from the landing she could see that his bed was empty; it had not been slept in.

Turning from the door she stood on the landing and wondered at his continued absence. It had been shortly after breakfast when Betta had heard him say as he was leaving that he would soon return. Had something unexpected happened to delay him? And then the thought came to her that perhaps he had
never intended
to return so soon. Perhaps he had known that he would be away for several hours. Yes … Perhaps he had spoken in front of Betta about soon returning in the knowledge that she would relay the information to her, Blanche. Perhaps she, Blanche, had been
meant
to expect his return – for in doing so she would not entertain any thoughts of escape.

Blanche stood quite still on the landing. Perhaps Alfredo’s words and actions meant that he would
not
be returning tonight.

She was aware all at once of her heart thudding in her breast, while her palms were suddenly damp.
She could go now
. She and Adriana, they could leave now, while Alfredo was out of the house and before Edgardo and the other servants were up.
Yes
. She would go to Marianne and Gentry. They would help her to get away.

One after another the thoughts spun through her mind. But how would she get to the Via Gabriele, she
wondered. She wouldn’t easily be able to find a cab at this hour – and it was too far to walk with Adriana. And if they did attempt to walk they would soon be found by anyone who cared to come after them.

She must do it, though. It might be a very long time before she had another chance.

Another minute of pondering on the problem and she had decided on a plan. Turning, she moved silently across the landing to the nursery where she noiselessly turned the door handle and crept into the room.

Betta lay asleep in the bed nearest the door, Adriana near the window. The room was faintly lit by a night-light that burned on a little table near Betta’s bed. Silently closing the door behind her, Blanche moved to Betta and, leaning down, whispered the girl’s name into her ear and gently shook her. Betta came awake almost at once, and as she did so Blanche put a finger to her lips, signalling to her to be silent.

Betta nodded, and Blanche whispered to her that she needed her help, that she should get dressed at once, put on her coat and come to her room. ‘But don’t make a sound,’ she urged. ‘We mustn’t wake anyone else.’

‘Yes, signora.’ Betta nodded; she was already pushing aside the covers.

Returning to her own room Blanche hurried to her little table beneath the window, opened the drawer and took out writing paper, an envelope and a pen. Her hand shook so as she wrote the note that she paused to take a deep breath and try for greater control. There was no time to go into detail in her letter; she had to be brief. In it she asked Gentry to get a cab, or bring his carriage at once to the Piazza San Bernardo which was close by. She and Adriana would meet him there. There was, she wrote – and she underlined the words – no time to lose. She folded the note and slipped it into the envelope. As
she did so the door behind her silently opened and Betta slipped into the room. She was wearing her outdoor coat. Blanche turned to her, gave her a nod, then bent over the table and wrote on the envelope Gentry’s name and address. Turning back to the girl she paused briefly then whispered: