Love and Lucia Page 4

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  “Send Augustino with the food, and tell him he is to buy anything Miss Beaumont requires,” the Marquis continued. “Then see if you can find them lodgings with a studio in a better part of the City.”

  He knew his secretary looked at him in astonishment, but he was too well trained to ask questions, and the Marquis said,

  “As Mr. Beaumont is ill they will require a servant to tend him, so for the time being provide somebody from here – a man you can trust, who will understand what is expected of him.”

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  The Marquis’s secretary thought he had had many strange instructions during the years he had served such an exacting master, but this was certainly unusual.

  “When the pictures arrive,” the Marquis went on, as if he was following his own train of thought, “I want them hung for the time being in the library.”

  “It will mean removing the pictures that are already there, my Lord.”

  “I am aware of that,” the Marquis answered sharply. “Have them carefully put somewhere where they will not be damaged. I want to see the pictures I have bought on the wall, for that, I am sure, is the best place for them.”

  Mr. Johnson wrote down what he had been told, then as he thought there were no more orders he turned towards the door, but the Marquis, as if as an afterthought, said,

  “Tell Augustino to inform Miss Beaumont that I shall be visiting her this afternoon, and ask him too, to obtain from her the addresses where her father’s other pictures were left or sold, and to buy them back.”

  “What price should he give for them, my Lord?”

  “Whatever is asked. Do not prevaricate but obtain them at any cost.”

  Again Mr. Johnson was surprised.

  All the time he had been with the Marquis he had been aware that although he was extremely generous when it suited him, he very much disliked anybody taking advantage of him.

  Picture-dealers, tradesmen, wine merchants or anybody else who attempted to put up their prices because they knew he could afford it were swiftly disillusioned.

  The Marquis paid what was right and just, and no more, and this was the first time, Mr. Johnson thought, he had ever known him give carte blanche for something he required.

  There were obviously no more orders for the moment, and as the Marquis continued his breakfast Mr. Johnson left him alone.

  By the time the Marquis left the dining room it was far later in the morning than was usual.

  He was therefore not surprised when, as he went towards the room in which the pictures were to be hung, he heard the patter of two dainty feet following him.

  He turned round to wait for Francesca.

  She was fully dressed and looking exquisite, with her dark hair, which he knew had already received the attention of a hairdresser, hidden under a fashionable bonnet ornamented with emerald-green ostrich feathers.

  There were emeralds in her small ears and the Marquis remembered that he had promised her a necklace to match them.

  He was, however, sure that she would already have arranged for a jeweller to call on him later in the day.

  Her dark eyes were gleaming under their mascaraed eyelashes, and her red lips which seemed always to be ready for kisses were smiling at him provocatively.

  “How could you let me wake to find you gone?” she asked in a manner that was both a reproach and a compliment.

  “You were sleeping very soundly,” the Marquis answered.

  “I missed you,” Francesca said, “but I cannot tell you how much at this moment because I have a rehearsal. Tonight, because you have made me so happy, I will sing better than I have ever sung before.”

  “And I must of course say that is impossible,” the Marquis replied a little mockingly.

  Francesca laid her hand for a moment against his cheek.

  “When I tell you I will sing for you,” she said, “it is a present, and there will be another present for you later in the evening.”

  There was no doubt what she was insinuating, and the Marquis’s eyes were slightly cynical as he raised her hand to his lips.

  He was too well versed in the wiles of women not to realise that if they gave, they also expected to receive, and if the emerald necklace was in his mind, it was also very much in Francesca’s.

  “Until tonight,” she said very softly.

  She turned away, supremely confident, as she did so, that he would watch her walk down the long Gallery which ran down the centre of the Palazzo until she reached the stairs at the end of it.

  He watched her, as was expected of him.

  Then the swing of her fashionable and very expensive gown made him think unexpectedly that when Lucia had moved beside him in her unfashionable and threadbare clothes, her feet had hardly seemed to touch the ground.

  And as they had climbed the long staircase to the attics she had seemed to float upwards as if there were wings on her feet.

  One reason had been that she had been so thrilled and excited that he had consented to come with her.

  But another was that she was so light through not having enough to eat that he felt poetically she might stand on a rose-petal and not bruise it.

  Then, as Francesca disappeared from sight, the Marquis, sending for his chef, began to consider what was best to build up the strength of a man who was, he was convinced, dying from starvation.

  ‘What could have made him, get to such a state?’ he wondered.

  He felt unusually curious about Beaumont and how he had come to paint in such an unusual manner.

  The Marquis found himself thinking of the artist and his daughter throughout the morning.

  When just before luncheon he learned that Augustino had returned with the pictures, he took the unusual step of going down himself to the entrance to see them being lifted from the gondola.

  When they had been carried upstairs in the linen wrapping which Mr. Johnson had prudently provided, the Marquis, as they began to be unwrapped, had a sudden fear that he had been mistaken.

  Supposing the light in the attic, or Lucia herself, had beguiled him into making a false judgement and seeing the pictures in a different perspective from what was the truth?

  Perhaps after all they were just rubbish, the daubs of a man who could not portray adequately the architecture of Venice and therefore has resorted to painting light, rather than what was tangible.

  Then, as Mr. Johnson lifted the first picture from its cover, the Marquis knew that his instinct had not failed him.

  The pictures were fantastic!

  There was no other word for them, and while he was still aware that few people would agree with him, he had by a stroke of unexpected luck discovered a new star in the world of art.

  It was only when he had decided exactly where each picture should hang and which of those that belonged to the owner of the Palazzo should be banished from their accustomed place, that Mr. Johnson reminded the Marquis that he had a luncheon engagement.

  “The Count is expecting your Lordship,” he said, “and will undoubtedly be very disappointed if you fail to arrive.”

  “I had forgotten,” the Marquis said.

  He looked at the clock and said with a sigh,

  “I suppose I had better go now. Have the pictures hung exactly where I have shown you, Johnson, and I will let you know when I return what I intend to pay for them, and where the money should be deposited.”

  He did not wait for Johnson’s reply, but went to his bedroom to change his coat for one which was smarter and had been cut by Weston, the tailor who enjoyed the King’s patronage.

  “Yer Lordship dressed this mornin’ without my assistance,” his valet said reproachfully.

  Because he had been with him for many years, Evans was, the Marquis knew, extremely jealous if he was overlooked or found his master could manage without him.

  “I was in a hurry to go out in the fresh air,” he replied.

  “Wot yer Lordship’s missin�
� is your rides,” Evans said, in the tone of a nanny reproving an obstreperous child. “I thinks Yer Lordship wouldn’t be ’appy in a place without ’orses.”

  “You are right,” the Marquis replied.

  “If yer Lordship asks me, the sooner we gets back in England, the better!” Evans said. “Yer Lordship wouldn’t want to miss the races when there’s at least three likely winners in yer Lordship’s stables.”

  The Marquis guessed that Evans was tempting him for reasons of his own.

  At the same time, he had to admit that there was some truth in the valet’s statement that he missed his rides and the large amount of exercise he habitually took when in England.

  Evans did not say any more, but the Marquis had the feeling that he was pleading with him, and he thought irritably that this was a day when people did nothing else. First Lucia, then Francesca, and now Evans.

  ‘It is a pity they cannot leave me alone,’ he thought to himself.

  But he was honest enough to realise that if they did it would be even more irritating.

  To make his valet happy he said aloud,

  “Perhaps you are right, Evans, and as I have no wish to grow fat and lazy, the sooner we return home, the better!”

  “That’s good news, M’Lord, very good news!” Evans remarked. “I was thinkin’ to meself a place like this ain’t natural, not with streets made of water, an’ not a ’orse or dog to be seen.”

  He paused, then added as if he was speaking to himself,

  “Only women, all flashing eyes and ‘come hither’ looks for decent men to cope with.”

  The Marquis wanted to laugh, knowing that Evans was referring to Francesca, whom he had disliked from the very first moment she had arrived at the Palazzo.

  Because it was inevitable that there should be an affinity between a master and his valet, to whom traditionally he was no hero, the Marquis was aware that Evans had very strong likes and dislikes about the women in his life.

  There was one Incomparable whom he had taken under his protection and set up in a house in Chelsea, of whom Evans had such abhorrence that the Marquis could feel hatred exuding from him when he was dressing to visit her.

  She had not lasted long, and the Marquis had often thought with a mocking smile that when she had started to bore him, which was inevitable, Evans had hastened the process with his own type of witchcraft.

  “Your Lordship should be careful of these ’ere Venetians,” Evans was saying now.

  “In what way?” the Marquis enquired.

  He had changed his cravat and was tying the one Evans had given him in an even more intricate and elaborate style than he had used first thing in the morning.

  “I-talians, from all I ’ears, are bad enough wi’ their vendettas and crimes o’ passion,” Evans answered, “but the Venetians, my Lord, be subtle. Poison’s more to their taste.”

  “I doubt it!” the Marquis replied loftily. “And it is always a mistake to listen to gossip.”

  “I’m just warnin’ yer Lordship.”

  “That is what I suspected,” the Marquis replied, “but I assure you, Evans, there is no need for it.”

  He walked from his dressing-room as he spoke, knowing that Evans would be feeling discomfited.

  At the same time he found it rather touching that the man should be so protective and think that he could not look after himself.

  He stepped into the gondola, ready to be carried only a short distance along the canal to one of the most famous Palazzos, which was still in possession of the family for whom it was originally built.

  As he did so he found himself thinking that after what would undoubtedly be a long-drawn-out meal, he would visit Lucia again and see if she had enjoyed the food he sent her.

  *

  Lucia, at the time the Marquis was thinking of her, was actually feeding her father with the soup which the chef had sent in the hay-basket.

  It was still hot when it arrived, and after she had given her father only a quarter of it she wrapped it up again to keep it warm.

  She was wise enough to know that when anybody had been without food for a long time, it was a mistake to eat too much too quickly.

  She had looked at the enormous hamper that the Italian servant had brought up the stairs and into the attic, and had found, strangely enough, that she was not hungry.

  It was only when he had left her to try to trace the pictures of which she had disposed, as the Marquis had ordered him to do, that she made an effort to eat,

  She nibbled tentatively a little of the cold salmon mousse which the chef had arranged in one dish, and found it so delicious that she managed to dispose of quite a sizeable amount of it.

  There was a light claret for her father, and this too she had fed him spoonful by spoonful, knowing that once again it would be a mistake to drink too much alcohol.

  Now, when he had had several more spoonfuls of the soup, she persuaded him to try a little of the salmon. After a while he seemed to enjoy a mouthful of chicken resting on a pasta so light that she felt it might float away.

  “No – more,” her father managed to say.

  As he lay back against the pillows Lucia felt there was a little more colour in his face, and his lips were not so bloodless as they had been earlier in the day.

  “With food like this, Papa,” she said, “you will soon be up and able to paint another picture for the Marquis, which is what he wants.”

  Her father did not answer and she looked at him apprehensively, feeling because he was so still that he was drifting away from her, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

  Then she told herself she was worrying needlessly.

  The Marquis had come to their assistance like an Archangel of deliverance, and now everything would be different.

  ‘Perhaps we could even stay here,’ Lucia thought, ‘because Papa finds it easier to paint here than in England.’

  Then, with a little shiver, she knew she would never feel safe unless she was with him.

  Ever since her father had fallen ill and she had been obliged to go out by herself, she had realised the dangers that lurked in every doorway, on every bridge and in every callete.

  Men like menacing animals seemed to spring at her from every shadow.

  While she had never noticed them before when she was with her father, now she was acutely aware of them, and her whole body shrank and shivered every time one of them came anywhere near her.

  Once, when a man had pursued her, it was only because she could run faster than he that she had been able to escape.

  She had dropped the parcels of food she had been carrying, the purchase of which had delayed her longer than she intended, so that it was later in the morning than usual.

  With flying feet she had swept over the bridge of the canal nearest to their lodgings, and slipped in through the open door and up the stairs before her pursuer realised exactly where she had gone.

  Only when she reached the attic door did she listen to hear if he was behind her and when there was only silence felt that she must faint from sheer relief.

  She stood there shivering and feeling as if the walls were swimming around her.

  Then she told herself that she must not distress or upset her father by letting him know what had happened.

  It had been nearly five minutes before she had composed herself enough to breathe naturally, walk into their room, and make some plausible excuse as to why she had not brought back the food which she had gone out to buy.

  As she could not walk about at a later hour, it also prevented her from selling her father’s pictures, or begging, as once or twice she had been obliged to do, in order to pay their rent.

  Now she saw the money lying on the table where the Marquis had left it, she could hardly believe it possible that she could now pay what was owed.

  There would also be enough left over to keep them in comfort for at least two weeks.

  Then she remembered that the Marquis would pay them for the pictures,
and she knew that however much her father wanted to stay, they must return to England.

  “I will not upset him, but I must explain that I cannot walk about alone,” Lucia told herself.

  She was aware that to her father she was still a child, and that because she had been very careful not to worry him, he had no idea that as a woman she was not safe in the streets of Venice.

  Sometimes, when she was frightened of leaving him to go out, she would look at herself in the cracked mirror which stood in a corner of the room in which she slept and wonder how she could make herself look old and ugly.

  She had a feeling it was not only her face she would have to alter, but her figure, the way she walked, and of course the fairness of her skin which was so different from that of the Venetian women.

  With a sudden determination which had not been there before, she said now,

  “We will go home and back to the village in the country where we lived for so long, and where nobody took any notice of us.”

  Thinking of it now, with its small black and white thatched cottages, green fields and trees which would be just coming into bud after the winter, it seemed to Lucia far more beautiful than Venice could ever be.

  But remembering the eulogies which her father and many other people had uttered about the City, she laughed at herself.

  Then with irrefutable logic she thought,

  ‘It is not what one’s eyes see which matters. It is where one’s heart is.’

  It was that, she knew, which had made her mother supremely happy in Venice, because her heart was with her husband there.

  To him Venice was all he had dreamed of, and all he had ever wanted to paint.

  But Lucia thought passionately that she would give up the San Marco, the Palazzos, the Grand Canal, and the glory of the sky and sea for the village green at Little Morden.

  To her the duck pond and their little cottage with primroses blooming in the garden were far lovelier than the Doge’s Palace.

  Then she told herself she had been very wrong and untrusting not to believe that God, her mother and her Guardian Angel had been looking after her.

  They had sent her to the Piazza this morning at exactly the right time to see the Marquis sitting alone at the table outside Florian’s café.