The Girl Behind The Fan (Hidden Women) (15 page)

Did Bea and I really look so alike? Was it possible that the wig and the change of outfit really had fooled Marco? Though the courtyard of the Palazzo Donato had been illuminated with what seemed like hundreds of flaming torches for the ball, the corridor on which the library had been situated was dimly lit. Likewise the library itself, where the only light had come from a reading lamp on the desk I habitually used and the glow from the fireplace. In such a dimly lit room, perhaps Bea and I were easily mistaken for one another.

I remembered watching Bea through the crack in the door. She was flirting, talking in Italian. But then, Marco knew that I could speak Italian. As far as he was concerned, my accent might be as good as Bea’s. And he had never seen my face except in that online photograph, with its harsh lighting that was so unflattering.

If he had been genuinely confused and still thought that I was the one who had shrieked upon touching his hand in the library, then no wonder he was being so distant. Though I had gone into the library after the incident and called to let Marco know I was there, perhaps he hadn’t heard me. Perhaps he had already left the house.

Should I tell him about the incident in the library? I decided that I would.

I climbed into the honeymooners’ bed and listened to the sounds on the canal outside. There was a snatch of ‘O Sole Mio’. You heard that all the time in Venice. Those old Cornetto ads had a great deal to answer for. More music. A gondolier singing one of the old traditional tunes. Tinkling laughter. The chug-chug-chug of an idling vaporetto. A shout. An echoing whisper. All the noises of Venice were distorted by the water. They seemed to be coming from somewhere far away. Not just in distance but in time. Rome may be called the Eternal City but there is something timeless about Venice, too.

I rolled onto my side and pulled the sheet up over my shoulder. First thing in the morning, I would go to the Palazzo Donato, I would explain about the dress swap and I would ask Marco to tell me the truth in return.

Chapter 19

Paris, 1840

The snow stopped the very next morning. It was as though the bitter weather had been hanging around with the sole purpose of tormenting Remi, my beloved. Now that he had gone from Paris, the sun came out. The ice melted. It wasn’t exactly warm but the very tips of my fingers started to grow pink again. I did not need to wrap my hands in rags and put on all my stockings before I could even venture out of the house.

And venture out I had to, because there was not a thing left in the cupboard. I had wrapped the very last of the bread and cheese for Remi since he was facing a horrible journey. I could take a little hunger for the greater good. But after two days, it was too much. I took a couple of strings of beads to the pawn shop and bought enough wormy old vegetables to make some nasty soup. So much for ‘
la vie bohémienne
’ that inspired Remi’s old friends, the ‘fascinating young men’. Without Remi to share that soup, there was nothing romantic about it.

Remi had told me it would take him at least a day to walk to the town where he had been born. The snow would have made the journey more difficult than usual. He’d said that when he got to his father’s house, he would know at once whether he would be there for a minute or a day. I imagined his father opening the door to him. Remi had not seen Monsieur Pierre Sauvageon in a year. Surely he would not send his son away without inviting him in to warm himself by the fire. And if he had arrived in the afternoon, it would be cruelty itself to send him away again before morning. Remi’s father would insist that he stayed the night. And if he stayed the night, he would have to give him breakfast. And lunch too. Any parent would want to make sure that Remi was strong enough to make the return journey – and they’d have more to catch up on than could be talked of over breakfast alone.

I spent the long days making calculations. The earliest he could possibly be back was Tuesday evening. Tuesday evening came and went. I sat by the window. No sign of Remi. But that was a good thing, I told myself. It meant that his family had properly welcomed him. I would not allow myself to think of the other prospect: that he had frozen to death on the walk and never made it to his family’s home at all.

Wednesday passed without sign of him too. I had hoped I would receive a letter at least, to tell me how matters were progressing. Nothing. Thursday, the same. Friday. Still nothing at all. I took my best dress and sold it to buy enough to eat over the weekend. I told everyone I met I was looking for work. Anything would do. I would clean. I would sew. I would look after babies. They asked about Remi. I told them he had gone in search of a job too.

Sunday. I listened to the church bells that had once serenaded our lovemaking in the garret. Where was he? Where was my man? Now I really began to worry. Guerville was not so very far. A letter could have reached me within a day. Why hadn’t he written, if he was going to stay away so long? He was dead. He must be. The baker explained to me that the snow was still deep outside the city. It was the city’s filth that kept it warm.

Monday. Remi had been gone for a whole week. Though we had never properly married, I was ready to consider myself a widow. I walked through the market like a ghost, not acknowledging my friends, until Jeanne-Marie pulled me into her kitchen and insisted on giving me supper. She warmed my hands between her own.

‘We will find your love,’ she told me. ‘When my husband next goes out, I will tell him to scour the ditches between here and Guerville. If Remi has fallen into one, I promise you, you’ll soon know.’

And if he had? He must be dead. I was in agony and misery. I wanted to throw myself into a ditch after him. Until the post arrived . . .

Jeanne-Marie made me a hot drink while I opened the letter with trembling fingers. It was in Remi’s hand. That, I said to Jeanne-Marie, was a good thing. He was alive enough to write. I pulled open the seal. Some sort of promissory note fell out. I put that to one side as I read the letter. The more I read, the less it made sense.

My love for you is putting you in danger of your life. As an artist, I cannot keep you. I cannot put food on the table. I cannot put wood in the fire. How can I love you properly when I am lacking in so many ways?

‘I have made peace with my father and agreed to let him find me employment in the family business. In return, he will pay off my debts and put a roof over my head. His one condition is that I do not ask you to join me here in Guerville. I told him I have never loved a woman more ardently and he says he understands, but your former mistress’s reputation has reached this sleepy town and my father says that to allow you to live under his roof would be to sully the whole family with Arlette Belrose’s debauchery. He would be a subject of gossip. My sisters would be unmarriageable. Everyone would suffer. And so I must try to limit the suffering to my own heart.

‘I am sorry, Augustine. I send you the enclosed promissory note to bide you over until you are able to find employment again as I am sure you will. Remember me fondly, dear heart.

Ever yours in affection, your Remi.

Limit the suffering to his own heart! What about mine? When I finished reading the letter I collapsed in misery. Jeanne-Marie and her husband carried me upstairs and laid me in their own bed to keep safe while I recovered. When I came back downstairs, I found Jeanne-Marie with the letter in her hand. She and her husband gave me their sympathy.

‘I always knew he was a worm,’ said Cyril. ‘He was playing at being a pauper to inform his bloody art.’

‘He loved me,’ I tried to say, but the letter certainly suggested otherwise. ‘He loves me still. He must.’

‘He loves no one but himself,’ Cyril told me. ‘He loves having a full belly and fancy clothes. He loves the idea of painting a poor person’s life. He doesn’t want to have to live it.’

‘But what should I do?’

‘Take the money,’ said Jeanne-Marie.

‘I couldn’t possibly.’

‘Take it. There’s only enough to keep you for a week, anyway. You deserve a million times more. Get the cash and start looking for a job. Forget all about him. If I see him again, I will not even waste the energy it would take to spit on him.’

‘I’ll spit on him,’ said Cyril. ‘I’ll black both his little eyes too.’

I burst into tears. I let Jeanne-Marie fold me in her arms. Though the snow had gone completely and spring was on the breath of the wind, I had never felt so cold.

Chapter 20

I was back in the library for a third day. This time I did not hesitate to log in to the Palazzo Donato’s network and send a message to let Marco know I was there. I got no response. I tried to busy myself as usual by looking at the sketches, but they didn’t hold my attention for long. Perhaps it’s just that I don’t know how to appreciate art properly, but after three days of studying the drawings, I wasn’t sure what else I could get from them. But I was loath to leave the library in a hurry while the message on the screen was still unanswered.

I got up from the desk and made a tour of the room. There were enough books in the Palazzo Donato library to keep a person reading for a hundred years and, though I had spent many hours there, I didn’t really have that clear a view of what the library contained.

I browsed a few of the shelves, picking out books and opening them at random. As a teenager, studying for my A-levels, I had often broken up the monotony of revision by playing a game with myself, whereby I picked up a book, closed my eyes, opened the covers and picked out a line. I later discovered that the game is called stichomancy and it’s a well-known way of telling fortunes. I told myself that the line I chose would have a message for me, though of course, I just kept on opening books until I got the exact message I wanted.

That’s what I was doing again in Marco’s library: pulling out books as if they might give me a sign.

And perhaps they did. While I was absorbed by my little project at the shelves, I became aware of something moving behind me. I spun round, only to realise that I’d been distracted by my own reflection in the mirror where I had once watched myself undress. It was then that it came to me. If there was a secret door in this library, it was perhaps not behind the mirror, but opposite it.

Standing right opposite the mirror, I looked at the shelves again. I ran my fingers along their expertly smooth edges to find a join that might indicate the edge of a door, but it was more difficult than finding the end on a new roll of sticky tape. I couldn’t see anything obvious. But then I saw the book. It was
Beauty and the Beast
. My favourite story in an old edition, well-thumbed and well-read. Well-loved. I picked it up and – like a scene in a Hollywood movie – I heard the sound of something shifting. Where the book had been sitting was the tiniest wooden button. The weight of the book must have been holding a lock in place. I pressed the shelf in front of me and it started to move away from me. I had indeed found a door.

As the door shifted, it released a little cloud of dust like a puff of genie’s smoke. I was triumphant and at the same time filled with trepidation. My suspicions had been confirmed. I’d found the door and I’d opened it. What now? I found myself looking into a short corridor that I would have to duck to get into. And what was beyond that?

It was dark. It smelled musty. I tentatively put my foot inside, to see if I’d revealed a straightforward hallway or a staircase that I might go tumbling down. There was a floor. It seemed solid.

I stood there for just a few seconds before I decided I would go for it. I would see what was on the other side. If Silvio caught me? So what? I had seen Remi Sauvageon’s sketches. I didn’t think I could get anything more from staring at them for another day. And if I found Marco sitting on the other side like some modern-day wizard of Oz? At least I would have seen him in the flesh. A mystery would have been solved. And maybe, just maybe, he would be pleased to see me.

So I stepped into the corridor. The first thing I wanted to do was satisfy my suspicion about something. I closed the door slightly again and examined the back of it. Yes. There it was. A little spyhole. I put my eye to it, just as Augustine had put her eye to the hole in her bedroom floor and watched Arlette with her clients. As I had also suspected it might, the spyhole made perfect sense of the positioning of the mirror. Though it was difficult to see anything close up, I could see the reflection of my desk and chair quite easily.

Turning back into the corridor, I could see another door just a couple of feet ahead of me. Another door with another spyhole. I put my eye to this one too.

I’m not sure what I expected. A dungeon, perhaps? A red room of pain? Thankfully there was none of that. Beyond the second door was a room that appeared to be an office. It was a small room but it had a high ceiling and was beautifully lit by a large, long window, as though it had once been part of the library. Right in front of me as I looked, was a desk. On the desk, a computer. In front of the desk, a modern office chair, ergonomically designed to prevent backache. There didn’t appear to be anyone in there.

I felt like Bluebeard’s wife as I pushed open that other door to this room that I was obviously not meant to know about, let alone enter. But I was somewhat emboldened by my discovery of the spyhole that led into the library. If I was confronted, I now had plenty of ammunition with which to turn my trespassing into a righteous search to find out what exactly went on at the Palazzo Donato. I still hoped that I would not find a camera.