Tuscan Rose (37 page)

When she took the package out of the box and placed it on the desk she felt as if she had slipped away from time. She untied the string and opened the brown paper. Her fingers brushed the light grey
cordellino
uniform and what she had suspected was confirmed. She saw the Marchese as a boy playing in the garden at the Villa Scarfiotti. He was not the Marchese that Rosa had known because his gait was carefree and no shadows stalked him. The accompanying official letter said the Marchese had been killed on 15 March that year while defending the Sanchil Peak. Rosa gazed at the uniform to see if she could ascertain the Marchese’s feelings when he died. She sensed light and sound fading. His death had been quick. He hadn’t had time to think, although she felt fatalism in his last breath. She had the impression that he was at rest but, unknown to Signora Corvetto and Clementina, he had not wanted to stay in this world for a long time. He’d not found the courage to leave it until that final battle.

Rosa recalled Clementina’s ninth birthday party. She remembered the arrival of Bonnie Lass and the delight on Clementina’s face when she rode the pony with her father leading her. Rosa shook her head. The war was not some freak of nature. It was motivated by human greed and fear and that made it all
the more tragic. She opened her notebook to record the contents of the package: there were no unsent letters, nor was there a wedding band or a Bible. However, there was the signet ring that the Marchese had worn the day he came to the convent and a silver-topped clothes brush. The Marchese’s engraved map case had been included, although the Allied officials had removed the maps. Under the case was a book. Rosa picked it up and found it was a copy of Dante’s
La divina comedia.
She opened it. On the title page there was a dedication from Nerezza. When Rosa saw the bold handwriting, the strange foreboding feeling returned to her.

For words that are yet to be said and for days that are yet to be lived
it read. It was dated 12 October 1906. Perhaps it was a birthday gift.

Rosa was about to put down the book when she realised there were photographs wedged between some of the pages. The first was a portrait of Signora Corvetto. She looked beautiful with her softly lit face and her hair cascading over her shoulders in rolls. On the back of the photograph the Marchese had written:
Gisella, September 1937.
Rosa slipped it back between the pages and took out the next one. It was of a young woman in a tennis dress. She had large bright eyes and a broad grin and her hair was piled up in a fashionable style. At first Rosa thought it was another mistress of the Marchese’s and was afraid of the pain that would cause Signora Corvetto, but then she realised the young woman was Clementina. She’s grown lovely, Rosa thought.

There was a photograph of the Villa Scarfiotti with a couple and a young girl standing in front of it along with an infant in a pram. The light in the office was growing dim and Rosa took the photograph to the window so she could see it more clearly. There was no notation on the back, but Rosa assumed the child in the pram was the Marchese and the man and woman were his parents. The girl with them must be Nerezza. Rosa’s fingers itched. She had seen the girl’s face before. She turned the photograph to the light so she could view the features more clearly. Her heart dropped to
her feet. The sculptured cheekbones and upward-slanting eyes…she could have been looking at a picture of her own daughter!

Rosa stayed on after the Bianchis had left so she could give the package to Signora Corvetto when she returned. She didn’t want her to be alone when she received it. She wondered if she could remain strong for Signora Corvetto because her own mind was in turmoil. The resemblance between Sibilla and Nerezza was too striking for Rosa to have any doubt any more. She thought about the expression on Ada’s face when she had seen the key from Nerezza’s piano stool around her neck, and of the way Baron Derveaux had stared at her and said that from certain angles she reminded him of someone. She thought of the surround on the grave at the Villa Scarfiotti: she had never seen that statue face-on, only in profile. She went to the window and stared at her reflection in it, turning her head slightly. Is it possible? she asked herself. Isn’t Nerezza’s child buried with her in that grave?

Rosa returned to the Marchese’s uniform to see if it would reveal any more secrets; after all, if what she suspected was true, then the Marchese had been her uncle. She rubbed her forehead. She didn’t know what to think. She had heard that extraordinary beauty often skipped a generation and passed from grandmother to granddaughter. Still, there were enough resemblances between herself and Nerezza to make a link on their own. Both of them were musicians, each had a full figure, and Rosa had been taken to the convent around the same time that Nerezza had given birth to her child. Rosa pushed back her hair. Was she seeing more than what was there? If she was Nerezza’s child, then why had she been taken to the convent and why had the Marchese been told that she had died? The Marchesa Scarfiotti’s bloodless face appeared in Rosa’s mind. Surely if there was any wrongdoing then she was involved. But why would the Marchesa have wanted to get rid of Nerezza’s child? Rosa remembered Miss Butterfield, the governess, saying that the Marchesa was vain about her title. But Rosa was a girl. She wouldn’t have had any claim on the title of Marchesa if her uncle had married. Was it simply spite? It seemed
common knowledge that Nerezza and the Marchesa had hated each other.

‘You’re here very late,’ said Signora Corvetto, walking in the door. She looked washed out. Her lipstick had vanished and her curls were falling flat. ‘Was it an awful day? I tell you, that meeting was an eye-opener—’ She stopped mid-sentence when she saw the package. Her face twisted into a terrible expression. ‘No!’ she screamed.

Rosa tried to help her into a chair but she stepped away. ‘Just tell me!’ she said, her eyes wide with fear. ‘Just tell me!’

‘The package was mislaid,’ Rosa said. ‘We only received it today. I’m sorry.’

Signora Corvetto sank to her knees. ‘Oh God!’ she said. It wasn’t a dignified position, but there was nothing dignified about grief. Rosa thought it was like birth: you simply had to do whatever helped you bear the pain.

‘This terrible war!’ Signora Corvetto wept. ‘When are they going to stop? When they’ve taken
all
the men?’

Rosa put her arms around Signora Corvetto. She thought that having to extinguish the light of a loved one was like tearing off a piece of your soul. Signora Corvetto rocked and trembled with the agony of it. After a few minutes, she muttered, ‘I’m sorry that I won’t hear his voice again or be able to listen to his lectures on Florentine architecture. All the things I shall miss when this war is over and we go back to our ordinary lives.’

Rosa wondered if they would ever have ordinary lives again. She thought of what she had felt when she had touched the Marchese’s uniform and of Nerezza’s dedication to her adolescent brother:
For words that are yet to be said and for days that are yet to be lived.
She was sorry for Signora Corvetto. She was grieving for a love that was a concoction of mirages and false expectations. From what Rosa knew of the Marchese at the villa and what she sensed from his uniform, by the time he had met Signora Corvetto, he had already given up hope for a happy future.

After more tears, Signora Corvetto gradually regained her composure. Her gaze fell to the package. Rosa helped her to stand up and passed it to her.

‘Here,’ she said, taking Signora Corvetto by the arm and leading her to her office. ‘Take your time to look through his things and say goodbye. I’ll be out here waiting for you if you need me.’

Rosa closed the door and sat at her desk again. At first there was only silence and then she heard Signora Corvetto sobbing. Rosa herself was experiencing a form of delayed shock. She took her coat from the cupboard and covered her legs with it. The lingering doubts she’d had about whether or not she was Nerezza’s daughter seemed to have dissipated in the past hour. It was a strange sensation to have such an epiphany after living in limbo about her origins for so many years. Nerezza was my mother? Rosa tried to get used to the idea. She had thought that if she ever discovered the identity of her mother she would be overwhelmed by feelings of love, affection and belonging. Instead she felt numb. She found herself wondering what sort of mother Nerezza would have been, and recalled those endless lists in the notebook; her perfectionism. She might not have been any kinder to Rosa than the Marchesa was to Clementina. Rosa recalled Suor Maddalena singing her to sleep. She hadn’t had all the material advantages that would have come with being the daughter of Nerezza, but she had been loved. She reminded herself that she didn’t know everything there was to know about Nerezza. Maybe she’d had qualities that Rosa wasn’t considering—she had loved her brother dearly, she loved music and art. I just don’t know, thought Rosa, staring at her hands. I don’t know what it would have been like if I hadn’t been taken away to the convent. The chance to know was denied me by somebody else.

She stared up at the ceiling. She tried to keep the Marchesa Scarfiotti out of her mind but the woman forced her way in. She saw the woman as she remembered her from the villa: haughty, vain, superior and cruel. I was thrown in prison because of her,
Rosa thought. Maybe I grew up with no name and no family because of her too.

It was almost eight o’clock in the evening before Signora Corvetto emerged from her office. Rosa had rung the apartment to tell Ylenia that she would be late and to serve dinner for Antonio.

‘Signora Corvetto,’ Rosa said, standing. ‘Is there anyone I should call?’

Signora Corvetto took Rosa’s hand and squeezed it. ‘No, there is no-one to call.’

Rosa sensed how drained Signora Corvetto was through her skin, but she seemed more tranquil now she had expressed her grief.

‘When you come in tomorrow, I’d like you to type an official letter to accompany the Marchese’s things,’ she said. ‘We should be addressing it to the Marchesa Scarfiotti but I think we both know that would be a wasted effort. Address it to Clementina. I will take it with his belongings to her personally.’

‘Certainly,’ Rosa said.

Signora Corvetto smiled. ‘Now, you have a husband who has been patient with your work here. I want you to go home. I don’t know what I will do if you fall sick.’

‘What about you, Signora Corvetto?’ said Rosa. ‘You are all alone.’

Signora Corvetto shrugged. ‘It’s the life that I chose,’ she said, looking away. Then, turning back to Rosa, she said with a sad smile, ‘Let’s stop this formality. From now on I want you to call me Gisella.’

She took her coat from the cupboard and Rosa helped her with it.

‘At least let me walk you part of the way to your apartment,’ Rosa said.

‘As you wish,’ agreed Signora Corvetto.

The two women walked out of the building and onto the dark street. There was a blackout order but many Florentines had ignored it and left their curtains open. Rosa listened to the click her shoes made on the pavement.

‘Signora Corvetto…I mean, Gisella,’ she said. ‘There is something I want to talk to you about.’

Signora Corvetto nodded for Rosa to continue.

‘I know something about you. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do. I know Clementina is your daughter.’

Signora Corvetto stopped and stared at Rosa in the dim light. Neither of them moved.

‘How do you know?’ she asked quietly. ‘Did the Marchese tell you?’

Rosa shook her head. ‘No-one told me. I sensed it.’

Signora Corvetto stared at her feet before turning to Rosa. ‘You married your boss. I did too. Only my husband was forty years older than me and had already been married twice before. He’d outlived both his wives. People humoured him, “You won’t outlive this one”, but they despised me. It’s easy to look down on people when you have money. Rodolfo wanted my youth; I wanted a better life. I was an orphan, you know. Even a baker I had taken a liking to looked down on me. What other woman in my situation wouldn’t have married a rich man if she had the chance?’

‘But Signor Corvetto was too old to father children?’

Signora Corvetto nodded. ‘Poor Rodolfo was too tired to do anything. He didn’t even approach me on our wedding night.’

‘It must have been lonely,’ said Rosa, ‘for a young girl.’

‘His family and his social circle would not even address me. It was as though I didn’t exist. Not that we went out much.’

The two women continued walking.

‘When I met Emilio, his marriage was miserable too,’ said Signora Corvetto. ‘We found solace in each other. But when I became pregnant, there was the risk of a scandal. Rodolfo would have been humiliated. We had to invent a suspected case of tuberculosis. I went away to a “sanatorium” in Switzerland. The Marchesa was often abroad in those days so it wasn’t so difficult to pass Clementina off as her child, apart from the fact she’s always been so thin. There’s something wrong with her, did you know that?’

Rosa had suspected the Marchesa had some problem with her health. She hardly ate anything except nearly raw meat, and underneath the layers of make-up she had looked malnourished.

‘Well, she can’t have children so she agreed to take Clementina because at least she was Emilio’s natural daughter. I thought she might be softer towards my daughter, but that was an impossible hope. I was glad for your influence on Clementina, and I am glad now that she is approaching an age when she can get away from the Marchesa’s clutches. There will be no-one to protect Clementina now that her father is gone.’

Rosa and Signora Corvetto fell silent, each lost in her own thoughts. They walked on further than they had agreed and stopped outside the door to Signora Corvetto’s building and embraced before parting. Rosa watched the older woman enter the building and close the door behind her. She’s an orphan too, she thought. Her own situation of being separated from her children made her sympathetic to Signora Corvetto’s pain over Clementina.

After Rosa had finished the supper Ylenia had left for her in the kitchen, Antonio came in with the dictionary.
‘Coincidence,’
he read aloud. ‘A
correlation of events without an obvious causal connection.’