Виктория Холт - The Silk Vendetta

Lorenzo came into our room on some pretext just as we were about to leave. He clasped his hands and stood regarding us with admiration; and I knew he was imagining himself in Philip’s hat and cloak. He clapped his hands and murmured: “Magnifco! Magnifico!”

That was a wonderful night—the last of the wonderful nights. It seems incredible looking back that one can be so oblivious of disaster so close.

The opera was Rigoletto; the singing was superb; the audience appreciative. I was completely enchanted by the magnificent voices of the Duke and his tragic jester. I thrilled to Gilda’s Caro nome and the quartette with the flirtatious philandering Duke intent on pursuing the girl from the tavern mingling with the tragedy of betrayed Gilda and the revengeful Rigoletto. I thought: I must tell Grand’mere all about this.

During the interval I looked up at one of the boxes and in it I saw the man who had spoken to us in the Piazza. He caught my eyes and recognized me, for he bowed his head in acknowledgement.

I said to Philip: “Look, there is that man.” Philip looked vague. “Do you remember we saw him in the Piazza?”

Philip nodded vaguely.

As we came out into the street I saw him again. He was standing as though waiting for someone. Again we acknowledged each other.

“Perhaps he is waiting for his conveyance,” I said.

We ourselves decided to walk to the Reggia.

That was an enchanted evening. I wanted it to go on and on. We stood, side by side, on our balcony for a while looking down.

“When there are no people in the streets they look sinister,” I said. ”One begins to ask oneself what violent deeds were done down there in days gone by.”

“That would apply to anywhere,” said practical Philip.

“But I think there is a special quality here. …”

“You are too fanciful, my darling,” said Philip drawing me inside.

We had spent the day walking and after dinner we were rather weary. Lorenzo had hovered about us while we ate in the almost deserted dining room.

“You do not go to the opera thisa night?” he asked.

“No. We were there last night,” Philip told him.

“It was wonderful,” I added.

“Verra nisa. Rigoletto, eh?”

“Yes. The singing was superb.”

“And tonight you notta go again?”

“Oh no,” said Philip. “Tonight we are going to retire early. We have some letters to write. We are rather tired so we shall have an early night.”

“That is gooda …”

We returned to our room. We wrote our letters. Mine was a long one to Grand’mere telling her about the wonderful sights of Florence and our visit to the opera. Philip had had news from the factory and was absorbed in replying.

We sat on the balcony for a while afterwards and went early to bed.

Next morning breakfast was late in arriving and when it did come it was not brought by Lorenzo but by one of the others.

“What has happened to Lorenzo?” I asked.

His English was not good. “Lorenzo … has gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

He set down the tray and looked blank, raising his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

When he had gone we talked about Lorenzo. What could have happened? It could not mean that he had gone altogether.

“I should have thought he would have told us if he were having a day off,” said Philip.

“It’s odd,” I agreed. “But then Lorenzo is rather odd. I daresay we shall hear in due course.”

But when we came downstairs no one knew of his whereabouts, and it was clear that they were as surprised as we were about his disappearance.

“He’s on some romantic mission, I daresay,” said Philip.

We went out and wandered about the city. We passed the Medici Palace and with our Lorenzo in mind we talked of that other Lorenzo, scion of that notorious family which had had sovereign power over Florence in the fifteenth century.

“Lorenzo il Magnifico,” mused Philip. “He must have been a very great man to be universally known as such. Well, he was magnificent. He gave much of his great wealth to encouraging art and literature and made Florence the centre of learning. You know, he gave great treasures to the library which he founded; he surrounded himself with some of the most famous sculptors and painters the world has ever known. That is magnificent. I believe he became too powerful in the end and that is not good for anybody; and by the time he died in Florence he had lost some of his power. The sons of great men often do not match their fathers and there followed troublous times for Florence.”

I could not stop thinking of our Lorenzo.

“I hope there is no trouble when he returns,” I said. “I should imagine they will not be very pleased with him … walking out like that without saying where he was going.”

We shopped on the Ponte Vecchio and walked along by the Arno where, Philip said, Dante had first encountered Beatrice.

I was rather glad to return to the Reggia because I could not get Lorenzo out of my mind.

There a shock awaited us.

As soon as we entered the hotel we knew that something was wrong. One of the waiters with two of the chambermaids came hurrying up to us. We had difficulty in understanding what they were saying for they all spoke at once and in Italian with only a smattering of English.

We could not believe that we had heard correctly. Lorenzo was dead.

It seemed he had been attacked soon after he left the hotel on the previous night. His body had been left in one of the little alleyways at the back of the hotel and discovered only this morning by a man on his way to work.

The manager came up.

“It is good that you are back,” he said. “The polizia they wish to speak… I must let them know that you are here. They wish to speak…”

We were astounded, wondering why they wished to see us, but we were so stunned remembering the exuberant laughing Lorenzo now dead that we could think of little else.

Two members of the police arrived to talk to us. One spoke fair English. He said they had not identified Lorenzo for some time because he was wearing a cloak with a label inside and that label was the name of a London tailor. They had thought that the victim of the attack was a visitor to Florence. But he was not unknown in the city and was soon identified. They surmised that the object of the attack was robbery, but it was difficult to say whether anything had been stolen.

We were puzzled. Then I remembered Lorenzo’s admiring himself in Philip’s opera hat. I said I wanted to go to our room. I did so. The hat box was empty; nor was the cloak in the wardrobe.

I hurried down to tell them.

As a result we were taken to see the bloodstained cloak. There was no doubt whatsoever. It was Philip’s. By that time the hat had been found. As soon as I saw it I guessed what had happened.

We were very upset for this touched us deeply. We had been amused by Lorenzo and enjoyed our encounters with him. I remembered that he had particularly asked us if we should be out that night, and knowing that we should not be, he had taken Philip’s cloak and hat and so had been mistaken for a wealthy tourist and met his death.

It was so tragic and we felt deeply involved because he had been killed in Philip’s clothes. I kept thinking of him, sauntering along, feeling himself to be a very fine figure of a man, irresistible to women. His vanity had killed him; but it was such a harmless, lovable vanity.

Poor Lorenzo—so full of life and so equipped to enjoy it and then, because of one foolish act… it was over.

That was the end of the honeymoon for us. We could no longer be happy in Florence. The place had taken on a new aspect. These streets with their fine buildings, full of shadows of a glorious past, were indeed sinister.

Wherever I went I saw Lorenzo … strolling out, pleased with life and himself, and then suddenly the assassin’s knife had descended on him.

“I think,” said Philip, “that it would be better if we went home.”

How different was our homeward journey compared with that on which we had set out. I was sure Philip, like myself, could not stop thinking of Lorenzo. He had come only briefly into our lives but I was sure that we should never forget him and that it was in Philip’s cloak and hat that he had met his death.

I thought of him—setting out so jauntily, seeing himself as a sophisticated man about town … and then suddenly death striking him. I wondered if he had had time to realize what was happening to him and why. Perhaps … for one terrifying moment …

What a vicious attack it had been. He had been struck several times and nothing taken. That was strange. Perhaps it had not been robbery, but a long-standing quarrel. Perhaps the stories of his conquests had been true and there was some jealous rival. No. The cloak and the hat were significant. He had been mistaken for a tourist.

It occurred to me that it might so easily have been Philip and that really frightened me. I told him of my fears, clinging to him as though I was afraid to let him go.

He said: “This has changed Florence for us.”

And I agreed.

So we came home.

Grand’mere was waiting for us, her hands clasped, her eyes anxious as she surveyed me. She was soon smiling: nothing could hide the contentment in my face.

“I am so happy … so happy,” she said. “It is a dream come true. Oh, how rarely does that happen in this life! One plans … one hopes … and then it does not come. But this time … yes. You are happy, mon amour. He is good, is he not, this man? And good men are rare … and those who find them are fortunate.”

“It was wonderful. I must tell you about Florence. The beautiful buildings … the pictures … the sculptures … everything … the lovely bridges over the river … the little shops there…the streets…” I trailed off. The dark, narrow streets where a man could go out jauntily … happily … in love with life and himself … and meet death.

“What is it?” asked Grand’mere, all concern.

I told her about Lorenzo and she listened intently. “And he was wearing Philip’s cloak and hat?”

“Yes. He must have been mistaken for a rich tourist and that was why …”

“Mon Dieu … it could have been …”

I nodded. “That’s what I thought. That is why we have come home earlier than we intended.”

“Thank God you are safe. Thank God you are happy. This is how it must stay. I missed you. I thought of you all the time. I wondered. Marriage means much in a woman’s life. There are some who did not find happiness in it, but I see you have and that makes me happy.”

But what had happened to Lorenzo had thrown a shadow even over Grand’mere’s contentment. I could see that she could not forget what might have happened to Philip.

Lady Sallonger was pleased to see me back.

“You have been away so long,” she said. “Now I hope you are not going away again. That would be really thoughtless of you.”

I was no longer subservient. I was a daughter of the house, married to one of the sons. Mrs. Philip Sallonger—no longer plain Lenore Cleremont.

I said: “Philip wants us to find a house in London. He will be there most of the time and of course I shall be with him.”

“He can come here whenever he likes,” she protested. “It is his home as well as the rest of us.”

“I know. But we are going to have our own house.”

“Tiresome,” said Lady Sallonger. “Well, it will be some time before these things can be arranged. I have The Moonstone now. I heard it is most exciting. I thought we might start it this afternoon.”

I could see that she wanted to bring me back into bondage, though I must say that one of my most agreeable tasks was reading to her.

But Lady Sallonger would have to realize that life had changed.

Cassie embraced me warmly. She said: “It has been so dull here, Lenore. I’ve been longing for you to come back. Your grandmother and I were counting the days. I had a calendar and used to mark them off. We were so pleased when you came home early.”

She listened wide-eyed while I told her about Florence and the terrible thing that had happened to Lorenzo.

“If he hadn’t taken the cloak it wouldn’t have happened,” she said awestruck.

“We don’t know. But he did seem to have been mistaken for a tourist. On the other hand it might have been the outcome of some quarrel. He was always talking about his conquests and the Italians are a fiery people. They are always having feuds and vendettas.”