The Viceroys (52 page)

‘You can help me, put in a good word,' went on Raimondo, ‘mention that after all, what we're asking is only justice … 
for Isabella's will was forced; thirty witnesses can prove the truth …'

‘I know! I know!' replied the Prior eventually. ‘I wouldn't have listened to you had I not known that right is on your side!'

‘Then can I count on you?'

‘Indeed you can, indeed you can I But there's another matter. The present case is not a question so much of abstract justice as of worldly prudence. We have, of course, to render account only to God for our actions, but in order that our consciences should be entirely at rest we should not and cannot lose sight of the effect which our judgements may have! Now, how can you expect this step to be considered properly if in our own family the very head of our house does not recognise your reasons, and condemns you with such severity?'

‘And suppose Giacomo comes round?' insisted Raimondo.

‘It'll be a great step forward! Public opinion would follow him, you'll see, and all those who declared themselves your enemies till now will support you entirely. Then it will be much easier to get what you want. Giacomo too can be of more use with the judges than I can. You well know how close are his relations with the Bishopric's … a word from him would mean much more than one from me …'

This was the point he wanted to reach with all that talk. He did not like this affair of Raimondo's, all this mess of marriages to be dissolved and retied. The mute reproval of the general public was well-known to him and put him on guard against the mistake of supporting a bad cause, the triumph of which would anyway be of no help to him whatsoever.

On his return Raimondo sent for Signor Marco. Shut in a room together, they spent a few minutes in close confabulation. The administrator returned next day and then the day after, staying longer each time.

One afternoon Ferdinando had flung himself on his bed for a snooze when the baying of dogs suddenly awoke him; his agent was knocking on the door.

‘Excellency! Excellency!… Your brother's here … The prince himself!'

He jumped to the ground, rubbing his eyes. Giacomo here?
When Raimondo was here too? Suppose they ran into each other?

‘I'm coming at once. You keep him … but don't say a thing about …'

‘What, Excellency? But the two brothers are chatting together! The princess is here too …'

Rushing down to prevent some disaster, Ferdinando entered the drawing-room and found his two brothers and sisters-in-law chatting away gaily together.

‘We were passing this way,' said the prince, ‘and thought of paying you a visit.'

Next day, in the Yellow Drawing-room, Cousin Graziella, who had come to luncheon early and found the princess with Don Mariano, was attacking Raimondo and his mistress with more than usual heat, narrating their latest moves, their approaches to the duke to lend his deputy's authority to obtain the dissolution of the marriages and get the good Baron Palmi to agree. The princess was on hot coals, changing colour, raising, lowering and rolling her eyes as if to invoke the intervention of Don Mariano, and coughing slightly to warn the cousin not to insist. But on she went more ardently than ever:

‘If only they'd be a little patient! They'd be freed just the same, for poor Matilde is at death's door. They seem to want to bring on her end! Imagine what effect this news has on her!… But her father is swearing worse than ever that he'll never agree to suit their plans. His daughter implores him to keep calm, as when such news arrives he seems on the verge of an apoplectic fit … It's really a bit too much! There's Donna Ferdinanda's thumbprint all over it! Don't you think things have got to the point where they ought to be warned to be more prudent?'

The princess had no time to reply or hide the new embarrassment in which this question threw her when Baldassarre, entering soundlessly, announced with that fine serenity of his:

‘The Signor Count and the Signora Countess.'

Cousin Graziella was turned to salt. Raimondo? The
countess?
Which countess? Then Donna Isabella appeared, went towards
the princess, who came to meet her, embraced and kissed her on both cheeks.

‘How
are
you, Margherita? I was anxious to repay your charming visit of yesterday …'

They were calling each other
‘tu
'! The Fersa woman had found a way of mentioning that Margherita had paid her a visit! And now the prince appeared, shaking Raimondo's hand and saying:

‘Sister-in-law and cousin, will you both stay to luncheon?'

‘T
HE
Duke of Oragua! The deputy! The patriot! Where? Where is he? There he is … He's stouter!… He's been away nearly three years!… Does he come from Turin? Signor Duke! Excellency! Excellency!…'

And there were greetings and bows to left and right, some drawing back a pace before meeting him and baring their heads as at the passage of the Blessed Sacrament. When he had passed everyone turned round to follow him for a time with their eyes. Only a few enjoyed the privilege of being able to go up to him, shake his hand and ask his news. Very few indeed, the elect, could have the honour of accompanying him, escorting him, mingling with the group of close admirers and friends who followed him everywhere, to the Prefecture, to the Municipality, to the clubs. He would walk in the middle of the street as if he owned the place, listened to devoutly by those beside him, awaited by a throng of courtiers intent on singing his praises even when some pressing little need drew him into a corner.

At the palace there was the same coming and going as the time before, electors, petitioners, delegations of political societies returning to thank him personally, after thanking him in writing, for the good he had done the town and his fellow-citizens; thanks to him, the first railway begun in Sicily was to run between Catania and Messina, and in the port there were wharves for steamships, and the town had many new schools, an inspectorate of forests, and a stallion depot; a credit-establishment, the
Banca Meridionale
, was about to open; the Government had promised to undertake a number of public works and help the municipality and province; and one by one good
Liberals, sons of the revolution, were obtaining what they asked for; a job, a subsidy, a decoration.

His popularity was at its apex. Some did, it is true, blame him for his absence during the troubles of '62 and put it down to fear, revived those tales about him in '48, and accused him of having finally thought of his constituency only now when the Chamber was being dissolved and he wanted his mandate reconfirmed; but these murmurers were the eternal malcontents, the few republicans, an out-and-out Garibaldino or two, all people who could not forgive his adherence to the conservative party. In conversations about politics, he would uphold a moderate policy quite openly, ‘Now we've had our revolution and reached our aim,' and praise the Government's prudent action, deplore Garibaldi's rashness, criticise discontent with the September Convention, affirm that a league of good men and true was necessary to save the nation from enemies, external and internal.

More than in his first period as deputy, he would now make great play with mention of important political friends, ‘When I went to see Minghetti … As Rattazzi said to me … At the Minister's home …' But he no longer quoted Baron Palmi. If his nephew Raimondo's actions were mentioned he would make a slight motion with shoulders and head which could fit in with any mood of the questioner, approval, indulgence, blame. By now anyway Raimondo's and Donna Isabella's situation was legalised, and all the relations followed the prince's example and treated them as husband and wife. In less than six months, the Episcopal Court, accepting the fact that the marriage had been contracted by force and fear, had set Donna Isabella free.

Raimondo's marriage with Matilde had been rather more trouble. At first the baron was also expected to ask for his daughter's marriage to be annulled and assert that he had forced her into it. But the baron, ‘a stubborn oaf', explained Pasqualino, had said no and went on saying no until the very last moment, even though his daughter—God rest her soul—had finally set her heart at rest, particularly on learning that the first marriage no longer existed and that the count had a son to legitimatise. Donna Matilde—one must be fair!—in spite of wild ideas was quite sensible really, and knowing that she was ill, and realising that the count would be free anyway sooner or
later, had decided to ask her father's consent to the dissolving of the civil marriage; not of the religious one, for she had certain rather odd scruples about the sanctity of the sacrament of matrimony; but her husband would be content with a civil divorce. Yes, the count and countess had none of the pigheadedness of the rustic baron, who swore that he would prefer to see his daughter dead rather than consent to free his son-in-law!… He wouldn't do it? Then the count himself asked to be freed, adducing that his mother had forced him to take that wife!

Everyone knew what sort of woman the old princess had been, how she had tyrannised her children. Had she not ridden roughshod over Chiara's wishes to give her to the Marchese of Villardita? So she had also violated Raimondo's to give him the Palmi girl! There were dozens, hundreds of witnesses to affirm that the young count had never had the slightest desire to get married; first relations, the prince, his sisters, in-laws, uncles and aunts, cousins, then his friends, then the servants, and then the whole town.

But to obtain the dissolution of the marriage it had to be shown that in the act of pronouncing the ‘yes' which tied Don Raimondo for ever, he had felt grave fear. And then Don Eugenio had come before the magistrates to witness that his sister-in-law the princess had had her son accompanied to the parish church by two armed rangers, who if he answered ‘no', were to bind him, fling him into a carriage waiting near the church, take him into the country and beat him up. Two rangers came down from the Mirabella estate to confirm this testimony, and the coachman also swore to his part of the story, as did the sacristan. And so the Tribunal gave their verdict.

Certain people—Pasqualino found this really too much!—were actually suggesting that these witnesses were false, that the rangers had been paid and that Don Raimondo had given his uncle Don Eugenio a tip of three hundred
onze
! As if Don Eugenio Uzeda of Francalanza, Gentleman of the Bedchamber to His Majesty Ferdinand II (without duties, however, as Ferdinand was no longer in this world and his descendants had been dismissed) was capable of such an action! As if the judges were people to accept untrue depositions! Others were hinting that, being a man, the young count could not have been cowed by
threats and there had never been a case of a marriage annulled because of undue pressure on the husband's will. There had not yet been, now there was; well, what was there to laugh about? Not even Baron Palmi had found it laughable, for he had taken no part in the case! Gossip said that the baron had let things run on from love of his daughter, whose life was near its end, but Pasqualino just couldn't understand how some thoughts got into people's heads! What had Donna Matilde's illness to do with the baron's silence? Donna Matilde wouldn't suddenly get well from pleasure at hearing her marriage had been dissolved, would she? Instead of which she died—Heaven preserve us!—a few months after the count's marriage to Donna Isabella! So the baron must have remained silent because he knew his son-in-law was telling the truth!

Immediately after making his peace with the prince, Raimondo and Donna Isabella had been reconciled to most of their old opponents. Cousin Graziella in particular had set to work defending them even more warmly than Pasqualino himself, pointing out that passion is ‘blind', that men are ‘made of flesh and blood' and so are women, and that the blame for all that had happened could be attributed to the irresponsibility, ‘to say the least', of the Palmi family. Even so a large part of the nobility still remained hostile to Raimondo and his mistress. But the cousin was full of assurances that gradually they would all be tamed, particularly when the tribunals had done their jobs and granted the divorces; not content with assurances, she also made active propaganda, persuaded the hesitating, faced up to mutterers.

Meanwhile, after thanking Ferdinando for his hospitality, Raimondo had taken an apartment in the Palazzo Roccasciano and set up house there with his future wife. Actually Giacomo, the Prior, the duke, had all advised them to do no such thing but stay up at Pietra dell'Ovo until the day of their legitimate union, and then go off to Naples, Milan or Turin, amid new people. But Donna Isabella had been so affronted by past insults that she wanted to get her revenge and enjoy her triumph.

Raimondo, who had pledged himself to conquer one and all, was still doing what she wanted in spite of himself. His firm intention was to go away as soon as possible, not for the
reasons of prudence suggested by his relations but because he avowed he just could not live even a day or two in his native town except from extreme necessity; a few words from her were enough to dissuade him. Might not his relatives be giving that advice because in spite of making up their quarrel, they did not much want to receive her and preferred to know that she was at a distance? Weren't there still many who greeted her coldly and avoided talking to her?