Tuscan Rose (10 page)

‘All right,’ Clementina answered, opening the well-worn pages of the book.

Rosa pressed her cheek to Clementina’s and tried to block out her memory of the Badessa’s warning to the nuns about becoming too attached to their charges:
They are like little birds that have been blown out of their nests in a storm. We feed them, keep them warm and educate them, but one day we must let them go.

I won’t let her go, thought Rosa. She needs me.

It was the early hours of the morning before Clementina finally fell asleep. Rosa pulled the covers around her before returning to her own room. In the hallway she caught a glimpse of Maria sneaking up the stairs and slipping into the nursemaid’s room. Where had she been all this time?

Rosa tried to sleep, but found herself unable to settle down. She kept seeing the scene with the puppy before her again and again.
I can’t stand malformed things!
the Marchesa had said.
They disgust me!

Rosa was lonely at the villa. Her position as a governess put her in limbo. She wasn’t part of the family and at the same time she didn’t belong in the hierarchy of the other servants. At Villa Scarfiotti this wasn’t necessarily a disadvantageous situation, however: apart from Clementina she would rather be distant from the family; and she was glad that she wasn’t under the thumb of Signora Guerrini. Rosa passed much of her spare time in the villa’s extensive library. Although they lived in enclosure, the nuns of Santo Spirito were great scholars as well as musicians. They had imparted to Rosa a love of study and she continued her education at the villa by reading works as far-reaching in range as Tolstoy and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Still, she had been brought up in a close community and longed for human contact. She climbed out of bed and dressed again, and wandered down to the kitchen
where she knew Ada and Paolina would be making an early start. She found them trimming artichokes. They invited Rosa to sit by the fire while they continued working.

‘How long have you been at the villa?’ Rosa asked Ada.

Ada clucked her tongue. ‘I came here in 1914, when the Scarfiottis turned away their cook of thirty years. I sent for Paolina when she was sixteen. She’s my niece.’

‘Why did they get rid of their cook?’ asked Rosa.

‘I don’t know,’ Ada said. ‘The woman was the third generation in her family to be in charge of the food at the villa. The Marchese pensioned her off, but, with no husband or children and only old age to look forward to, I heard she died of despair.’

That sort of callous behaviour wouldn’t have surprised Rosa if it had come from the Marchesa. But the Marchese? Rosa had known him to be generous, even if somewhat aloof. Why had he done that?

‘Clementina’s aunt must have still been alive when you came here,’ Rosa said.

‘Yes. But I never laid eyes on the woman,’ Ada said. ‘She had recently returned from Libya where her husband had been killed and she was pregnant and ill. Only Signora Guerrini was allowed anywhere near her.’

‘Signor Morelli at the music repair shop said she was beautiful.’

Ada nodded. ‘I believe so. Well, she certainly was in the portraits I saw of her. She was as beautiful as Giorgione’s
Sleeping Venus:
full-figured as a woman should be, with a round, gentle face. A natural beauty without artifice.’

Rosa thought that Clementina’s aunt sounded the opposite of the Marchesa. ‘What was her name?’ she asked.

‘I believe Cristina was her baptismal name,’ said Ada. ‘But I never heard anyone use that. Everyone called her Nerezza.’

The unusual name struck Rosa. It meant ‘darkness’. Clementina’s aunt must have been a brunette.

‘I haven’t seen a portrait of a full-figured woman anywhere in the house,’ she said.

Ada sighed. ‘The Marchese had them taken down after her death. It was the grief and…guilt.’

‘Guilt?’

‘The Marchese was away on his honeymoon in Egypt when his sister returned here. She died a few weeks after the birth of her child from an infection. He only made it back in time for the funeral. The war slowed down his travel.’

‘Was the Marchese close to his sister?’ asked Rosa, thinking of the grave and inscription:
Buona notte, mia cara sorella.

Ada nodded. ‘She was his elder sister and had practically brought him up after their mother was killed in a hunting accident. They were twin souls. Well, until the Marchesa came along, apparently.’

‘I heard it was the Marchesa who convinced the Marchese not to hurry home,’ Paolina said. ‘Nerezza was supposed to be as strong as an ox. Illnesses that felled other members of the family never touched her. No-one expected her to die.’

Rosa thought about that piece of information. Signor Morelli had said the same thing. It seemed Nerezza had been known for her vital constitution. ‘I guess that’s why the Marchese and Marchesa don’t get along together,’ Rosa said. ‘He probably blames her for his not being with his sister when she needed him.’

Ada and Paolina nodded. ‘Apparently there was no love lost between the Marchesa and her sister-in-law,’ said Ada. ‘The rumour was that they hated each other.’

‘What happened to the child?’ Rosa asked.

Paolina glanced at her aunt. Ada’s chin quivered and tears came to her eyes. Rosa was taken aback by the cook’s show of emotion.

‘She was a beautiful child,’ Ada said. ‘Despite her mother’s illness she was as plump as a dumpling. Signora Guerrini would bring her to me each morning to bathe. I would weigh her on my scales and give her a little diluted goat’s milk and thin gruel to make her stronger. I told Signora Guerrini we should find a wet nurse but she said Nerezza insisted on feeding the infant herself. Some idea she had got in Paris. Well, the mother’s milk must have
been infected too. The little angel survived only a short while after her mother’s death, despite the help of the wet nurse we eventually employed when I noticed she was losing weight. The infant died the day the Marchese returned.’

The women fell silent.

‘What a terrible tragedy,’ Rosa said. She felt for the Marchese, no matter his faults. His sister’s child might have been a comfort to him had she survived.

Ada and Paolina prepared to make breakfast and Rosa offered to help them. It was like being back at the convent again, working with Suor Maddalena. She ground chestnuts to make flour and thought about what Ada and Paolina had told her. The Marchese had loved his sister but had married a woman who hated her. There were things about the Scarfiotti family that didn’t make sense. The fire began to die and Paolina picked up the poker to stir the coals. She stopped mid-action, as if she had seen something that puzzled her.

‘Three spirits of fate,’ she said. ‘They are weaving a garment and have almost completed it.’

Rosa remembered the dream she’d had where Ada and Paolina were talking about witches. The Bible said that magic was of the devil. But there was nothing malevolent about Ada and Paolina.

‘Are you
streghe?’
Rosa asked the women. ‘Are you witches?’

Ada chuckled. ‘All women are witches,’ she said, brushing her hands down her apron. ‘Only some of us are more aware of it than others.’

‘I’m not a witch,’ said Rosa.

‘Oh, yes, you are,’ said Paolina. ‘I saw the power in you the first time you walked into the kitchen. You can see things that others can’t.’

Rosa was taken aback. What Paolina said was true. She did see things differently from others. When one person saw a piece of meat, Rosa saw a cow munching grass.

‘That doesn’t make me a witch,’ she protested. ‘Witches are evil.’

Ada raised her eyebrows. ‘Do you think Paolina and I are evil?’

Rosa swallowed her words. Of course they weren’t evil. She found herself thinking back to what she had read in the Bible. Perhaps she had taken it too literally. Even Suor Maddalena had displayed an open mind to philosophies besides Catholicism.
If one can’t understand others’ beliefs how can one argue for one’s own?
she used to say. Rosa often found her in the convent library looking up Plato and Pythagoras and passing it off as an interest in mathematics and science. What did witches believe? She remembered Suor Maddalena had explained to her that while many women who were called witches had been persecuted with false charges such as human sacrifice and evil deeds, their basic belief was that no matter how complicated the world seemed, everything was made up of the same four elements: earth, air, fire and water.
Rather than being separate entities, they believe we are all parts of the same body,
Suor Maddalena had said. Was that so far-fetched, Rosa wondered now.

‘Is is true that witches were burnt in the woods here?’ she asked Ada and Paolina. ‘During the Inquisition?’

Ada glanced at her. ‘So you’ve heard the story of Orsola Canova?’

Rosa shook her head. ‘I only overhead someone saying that the woods are haunted.’

Ada placed the breakfast rolls in the oven before turning back to Rosa. ‘Then let me explain,’ she said. ‘In the time of the Medicis, Francesco Canova spoke out against the ruling classes’ corrupt ways. He was banished from Florence and his properties were divided amongst the elite. Only his youngest daughter, Orsola, remained in the city with her aunt and cousin. Most women were not taught to read then, but Orsola’s relations were scholars and she grew into an educated girl, but one with no respect for the powerful families. The women had an interest in medicine, and would secretly visit people in their homes to cure them of illnesses. The Scarfiottis had a son who fell in love with Orsola. She did nothing to encourage him, but the young man’s infatuation became so embarrassing for the Scarfiotti family that
they claimed Orsola had used magic to make him fall in love with her. The authorities searched her aunt’s house and found phials and books on anatomy. Orsola, her aunt and cousin were brought before the tribunal and accused of sins against the church. They were burnt here in the woods.’

‘What a horrible death,’ Rosa said, shaking her head. ‘I’m glad that humankind has progressed since those times.’

‘Do you think so?’ Ada asked, looking at her uncertainly. ‘They say that when the pyre was lit, Orsola swore that she would return and haunt the Scarfiottis.’

Rosa remembered the queer feeling of being watched she had experienced in the woods. ‘Do you think Orsola is still here?’

‘You can’t kill a witch like Orsola,’ Ada replied. ‘Her spirit will remain here until her vow is accomplished.’

‘That’s what I saw in the fire,’ said Paolina. ‘The Fates have decided. Orsola and her companions are ready.’

‘For what?’ Rosa asked.

Paolina peered into the smouldering ashes before turning back to Rosa. ‘I can’t tell. But you coming here has stirred them up, that much I know.’

The weeks before the ball were a flurry of activity. The French doors to the ballroom were flung open and maids busied themselves dusting paintings and polishing the mirrors and floorboards. Rosa caught a glimpse of the Bösendorfer piano when it was moved into the ballroom to make space in the music room for the card games. ‘Dramatic, rich and full-bodied’ had been the description given to both the piano’s sound and Nerezza. Rosa stood in the doorway for a moment, trying to imagine the woman sitting at the keyboard. She recalled the profile of the statue on the grave. Nerezza had been a skilled artist and musician. She was beautiful and had died young and unexpectedly. Her husband had been killed in Libya. Rosa felt her interest in Clementina’s aunt grow with each new fact she learned about her. But Nerezza wasn’t the only person Rosa was curious about at the villa.

The Marchesa hurried past with Signora Guerrini, discussing the flowers for the ball. Rosa turned away. Although the Marchesa had not changed her behaviour towards Rosa after the incident with the puppy, Rosa found it difficult to hide her repulsion for the Marchesa. Why is she so cruel? Rosa wondered. And how can I protect Clementina—and myself—against her? She no longer had any qualms about uncovering the Marchesa’s dark secrets. She needed to understand them for her own self-defence. Miss Butterfield had said that the Marchesa’s mother was not an Egyptian princess as she claimed but had been a dancer in a Cairo bar. Paolina had implied that the Marchese blamed his wife for his not being with his sister when she died. Rosa would have once dismissed such comments as gossip, but now she wanted the truth.

Two weeks before the ball, Clementina was sent on a camp with the Piccole Italiane, the Marchesa arranged to visit Baroness Derveaux at her villa, and the Marchese was away in Florence, presumably with Signora Corvetto. Rosa knew that with everyone away at the same time, this would be her only chance to investigate the Marchesa’s quarters.

The day the Scarfiottis departed for their individual destinations, she waited until the servants were at their evening meal before descending the staff staircase to the Marchesa’s quarters. A surge of panic overtook her when she reached for the door. If she was discovered, she would be dismissed. To her dismay, the door to the Marchesa’s floor was locked. She hesitated, wondering if it was a sign from God that she should abandon her perilous undertaking. What was she expecting from pitting herself against such a powerful woman? And what was it she was hoping to find? The Marchesa hadn’t been embarrassed to have a scene with her lover in front of Rosa. Perhaps it was futile to try and have something over someone who was shameless?

Rosa inhaled a breath and steeled herself. Knowledge and a better understanding of the woman she was dealing with was her way of combating her helplessness. She continued down the
staircase to the lower floor, and opened a door, which she found led onto the main landing where she was as exposed as a rabbit caught between two hollows. Distant clinks of cutlery and voices rose from the servants’ dining room below. She would be seen if Signor Bonizzoni or another servant walked out into the foyer. Rosa swallowed and crossed the open area to another set of stairs that gave access to the third floor. She willed that the door to the Marchesa’s quarters would be unlocked from that approach, and breathed a sigh of relief when she turned the doorknob without resistance. She slipped inside to the inner corridor she had seen with Maria. A wedge of twilight lit the Nubian slaves and the Egyptian dancer with the serpent entwined around her leg. Rosa had read somewhere that Egyptian artefacts were supposed to contain the spirits of the beings they represented. She turned away from the serpent’s zircon eyes and entered the parlour of paintings and sculptures of the Marchesa. Why was it necessary for a woman to have so many representations of herself? It had to be more than vanity alone.