What a monster, this Pevenche! I thought, listening to her demands. Aloud, I inquired tenderly, “And in what subjects do they instruct the poor girl in this school of hers?”
Inwardly I was thinking: I observe that she had learned some useful lesson already In how to get what she wants.
He did not even know the answer to my question, poor man. Pevenche’s education plainly failed to interest the girl herself, so it was not a subject on which she permitted discussion, apparently. He dared not ask more, and nor did he truly preoccupy himself with the matter. The grim determination with which he satisfied her whims showed me not that he loved her but that he had given up on making a sweeter person out of her. He merely chose the easier path of denying her nothing. Giving her what she wanted, immediately, also obviated the need for prolonged contact, and I suspected that having discovered this advantage, he subconsciously acted upon it.
Other times he returned from visits to his ward looking furtive, and I wondered, What did she sell him this time? What piece of finesse did he suffer today?
And when he did not see her on an almost daily basis, he was obliged to submit to letters from her in laborious, large handwriting with a superfluity of capital letters and misspellings in even very simple words. These missives were usually signed “Baby P.,” no doubt her father’s pet name for her. Obviously the girl had seen the utility in prolonging her infancy, and certainly it was the notes signed in this way, which received the most feverish attention from her guardian.
He always answered them, never mind other commitments or pleasures that called him. “I am sure you are taking the right course.” Or “I admire the way you handle such obstacles. You are definitely in the right.” And once, “Yes, the other girl is a species of pig, you are quite justified in this course of action.” When I interrupted him at such work, he slid the letter under his sleeve, even at the expense of the resultant black blots on his cuffs. Then I thought it a good thing that he was embarrassed, because at least it proved that he was not an utter imbecile in her regard. At least he knew that he was making a fool of himself.
The thing he wrote most often was, “Of course, dear Pevenche. Have the account sent to me.”
She had one further talent. I observed the sequence played out several times. (I always glanced at those severely misspelled letters when my lover was out of the room.) In one note she requested, for example, a “cheap” pair of gloves made from pink kidskin. Of course my lover was instantly stumbling in his haste to have them located and supplied to her. But the very next day a noble little letter arrived, reeking of self-sacrifice, saying that of course the gloves didn’t matter and that she could very well live without them if they presented even the slightest problem. She had some old black ones that would do just as well once she had contrived to mend them, which she could surely do as soon as she was feeling a little better. Valentine Greatrakes was soon scribbling back to her, begging her not to reduce herself to such circumstances, that ten pairs of the pink gloves would soon be found. She replied begging him not to trouble himself, really, she was absolutely suited to her old black gloves. Anyway, she never went anywhere elegant—why had she need of such fashionable trifles? Reading this note, he grew agitated: There seemed to be a real possibility that she would deny him the possibility of performing this service for her. Of course it always ended with the girl receiving multiples of her original request and yet also retaining the appearance of martyrdom.
In a moment of weakness he told me that when Pevenche did not get what she wanted, she would go to a corner of the room, pick up her ukulele and pluck the strings, making an abominable noise and mewing little snatches of self-pity distantly out of tune with her dreadful chords.
“When I hear her do that, my heart goes out to her,” he confesses. “Her father gave her that ukulele. She makes such a horrible noise with it, and she looks so pathetic, that it reminds me of her orphaned state. She is not so—mentally developed—as to realise its effect on me.”
Do not depend upon It, I riposted, but silently. If she made a noise like that I would turn up her posteriors) and flog her with rods.
Aloud I exclaimed, “Poor little thing. But you mustn’t take on this guilt. She is acting as if you somehow made a human sacrifice of her father. You were nothing but the dearest friend to him, you must remember that. And your devotion to the father is witnessed in your great generosity to her. No one could be a more generous guardian.”
“You think I am too indulgent?” he asked.
And I ventured a smile: “A little, perhaps.”
“You are too clever for everything,” he lifted me up in his arms.
But later, when I criticized her—a light matter, for her lack of manners in phrasing a demand for cash—the embarrassment fled away and all his anger was funnelled up and flung at me, bitter words hurtling like an arrowhead of black, migrating birds.
I knew from the hard things he said to me just how mean-spirited, just how selfish, just how demanding was this girl Pevenche, because I understood very early on that whatever insults he used on me were the ones she merited and which he longed to hurl at her, but which guilt about her father forbade him to use in her direction. Pent up inside him, they had curdled and were ejected at moments when he was undone, at me.
It was not anything like the dark assassinations delivered by my first lover, for it was both inept and regretful, but it was far from pleasant. After that, I had no opportunity of undeceiving my lover as to the motives and methods of his little ward. I was not permitted to mention her name without his feelings hardening against me.
I learned to feel fear every time a discreet knock on the door announced the arrival of a message from Pevenche. Too often it happened that we heard the timorous tap of Dizzom late at night and he entered the room, lowering his eyes at my deshabillé—he was always a neat and tactful little personage—for an urgent and discreet conference with his master in a far corner. His hunted expression announced that Dizzom bore a fresh demand from the girl. I had begun to suspect that Pevenche had divined a new attachment for her guardian and that having discovered a rival, she had immediately gone into battle.
“She is always so… attentive?” I asked once, out of breath, after a particularly untimely interruption.
“No, not always,” he had panted, letting loose the clothes that were kept upon him solely by the clutch of his fingers and throwing himself back upon me. He was eager to forget her, and soon did.
I did everything I could not to set myself up in rivalry with the little girl, which was incredibly difficult given the fact that she had declared war on me, and that, worse, he himself had most unfortunately subscribed to the opinion that I wished to duel with her for his attention.
Meanwhile the girl was busy with her precocious manipulations. A parcel arrived one afternoon from Mr Lackington’s Temple of the Muses, the vast book emporium in Finsbury Square. Mystified, my lover tore open the paper and a shabby novel fell into his lap. I had a glimpse of the title: The Adopted Lover. When he was at his ablutions later, I flicked through the well-worn pages. It was the story of a dashing guardian who, little by little, falls in love with the adorable young girl who has grown up as his ward.
I shuddered. Even I had not been so scheming at the age of eight. Compared to Pevenche, I had been an innocent child. Truly! Then I noticed the inscription in her childish hand: “To my guardian, sorry I had to get a second-hand copy: My allowance would not stretch to new. With kisses from poor little Baby P.”
“I’ll not be waiting for you to grow up and snatch him out of my hands,” I promised the girl, under my breath. But I was aware that my breathing had quickened, and that I felt myself threatened by her far-fetched plans, as if she were already a potential rival for my lover’s romantic affections, and not just an infantile pretender to his time.
One day it came most painfully to a head.
We were again walking on the ice, enjoying the beauty of the frozen river, when Dizzom came pan
ting with a new commission, the greasy shine of apprehension on his face.
I had been so happy; my hand in my lover’s, his cheek against the top of my head, his tall body protecting me from the wind. And here was Pevenche’s newest demand come to fluster and take him away from me.
I couldn’t help myself. I tore my hand from his. I asked him: “Are you not humiliated by these manipulations? I myself am humiliated merely to witness them.”
He shivered then, and his lips drew into a straight, thin line.
Dizzom flushed and turned aside sharply.
“Have you no feelings,” my lover asked coldly, “for a poor little girl without a father?”
The thought traversed my mind that he would never address his ward in that brutal tone of voice; that the worse she behaved toward him the more craven he would be with her. He would never humiliate Pevenche in this way in front of Dizzom.
With this man I wished not to act a role but to be my own self. Now I chanced it.
“Yes, I have feelings,” I answered seriously “I feel that she uses you to the point where you are ridiculous. I shall think very little of you if you do not begin to use your intelligence in dealing with her as you deal with everyone else.”
He turned his back on me then and walked away.
I had lost my gamble with the truth. The truth did not keep him at my side. Tears pricked my eyelids as I watched him leave, but I knew I could not retrieve the situation with a simple apology. I myself had sent him rushing to her.
My instinct was to run after him, to beg his pardon and be enfolded in his arms. But my instinct to show my hand and express my honest feelings had led to this rupture. With regret, I resorted to strategy.
For a few days I would let him miss me, I resolved. That was the subtler path. Let him contrast the gratifications of my company against those of Pevenche’s. Let him draw his own conclusions. If they seemed like his own productions, they would be all the more valuable to him.
And when he was used up, miserable and lonely, full of resentment against the vile little girl, then I would go to him. And perhaps we could begin again, with one more truth established between us, however painfully.
• 5 •
A Cordial Epithem
Take Queen of Hungary’s Water 6 drams; compound Spirits of Lavender, Spirit of Saffron, each 2 drams; Apopletic Balsam 1 scruple; Oil of Cloves 10 drops; mix.
It’s a proper Prescription against swooning Fits and palpitation of the Heart. But it is not agreeable to Hysteric Women, because of its perfume, which few of them can bear.
Meanwhile, I had other duties.
Mazziolini made it known to me that my employers were grievously put out with my choice of lover, not to mention the fact that I had presumed to elect one at all without their first instructing it. It emerged that I had been sent to London to decoy a different kind of man, a politician, an aristocrat called Gervase Stintleigh. I had met him the previous year in Paris, and made the running with the preliminaries—a smile, an exchange of certain smoky looks across a dinner table—though at that time I was principally at work upon a French nobleman for his knowledge of some trade routes to the Indies.
My employers never forgot a smile, even though so many hundred miles away. Sometimes I longed to read the reports that Mazziolini made of me: Did he describe the exact moment I caught Stintleigh’s small eye across the opulent table in the Place des Vosges? Did he follow this with an account of his own researches, which would have shown that this Englishman was at present intriguing with two French colleagues on the matter of some Oriental drugs? It must have been so, for my instructions in London were clear as light: I must re-establish contact with Stintleigh and follow through on that single smile, and make it talk.
It was abhorrent to me to drag my attentions back to the politician, when Valentine Greatrakes had filled them so capaciously But I did, for it was necessary to throw my employers off the scent of my plans. Gervase Stintleigh was just starting to sing like the wizened canary he so much resembled when he was most vilely murdered in Hyde Park, while on his way to my apartments. And his head—what a barbarity! —was found piked on London Bridge.
Mazziolini, who almost never spoke to me, made an exception in this case. He came beating at my door with the news. Perhaps even this was his duty: to observe and record my reactions. I managed some screaming and some tears, and even swooned, which seemed to please him—at least he enjoyed slapping my face and administering a stinking epithem he had spitefully brought along with him. But it did not shake him. He was without a compassionate fiber: He cared not whether my shock was genuine, but he found it good meat for my employers.
Whatever had happened to the politician, it was my own dire misfortune. If Stintleigh had remained alive, I would have been permitted to stay in London. As it was, I had no doubt that I would soon be ordered on to a new assignment. I assumed that had my relationship with him been allowed to flourish, I would have found out not only what my masters wished to know, but also what it was that made him a worthy candidate for murder.
A single night with him had resulted only in one labored and manual manipulation in the ignominious domains of his anatomy and no verbal emission that would clear up the mystery for me or my employers. He had rehearsed upon me a few times without coming to the point. I had not been able to force myself to perform an entire act with him, although my instructions were clear. When I could not make myself yield to the clammy pleas of Gervase Stintleigh, my refusals drove him to such a peak of frustration that I was at last able to evacuate him with a few deft prods of my hand. He was not dolefully disappointed, no doubt assuming that night was just a preliminary skirmish, the first step in some heartless minuet he foresaw as cynically as my employers did, though for different motives.
But there was a grisly surprise in store for both of us. I imagined that the arrogant little string had run foul of the dignity of some rival in politics, commerce or love. At that last thought I smiled, for of course Valentine Greatrakes could have no knowledge of that solitary and inconclusive tryst, being safely ensconced with Pevenche on the relevant evening. I had exiled him to that condition myself by virtue of offending him in her regard.
A prideful, savage part of me fantasized that my lover had killed him in a duel. Indeed I could picture it: the solemn ceremony in an appointed field, both men immaculately attired, cocking their pistols over cascading lace at their wrists. I found it strangely pleasing, this vision of my kind lover brandishing the gun, his handsome face intent and serious, of the deferential black-coated seconds, of the ritual questions being posed and answered in elegant accents.
But no, Stintleigh had not died like that: The tale soon emerged that he had been shabbily dispatched by a low- life sans in some aggravated robbery. My lover was probably as shocked by the death as I had been myself: The nobles of England were doubtless bonded together by more than their castes, at least as clubbish as their Venetian counterparts. No doubt he had read about it in the broadsheets; perhaps he attended the elegant funeral.
Naturally I shared none of these thoughts with Mazziolini. More urgent matters were afoot. My fears proved correct. On receiving the news of Stintleigh’s death, my employers ordered me back to Venice, with immediate effect.
It was time to erase my quarrel with my lover. In spite of the bizarre behavior with his ward, I could not tolerate the thought of leaving him, of returning to Venice, and after that Paris or Amsterdam or Rome.
I balked at the idea of another mission, of launching my body into yet another commercial adventure. I could not bear the vision of myself growing old in harness, scribbling my reports at elegant desks in foreign rooms. I could not endure the thought that there was no resting place on earth for me, until my employers thought me all used up, and discarded me, in all probability back at the convent of San Zaccaria. For them, there would be a certain tidiness in such an end. And what sort of existence would I endure, interred alive there for the remainder of my days? Nuns have smal
l lives and therefore large memories, and of all breeds of women they are the greatest lovers of revenge. They would not have forgotten me or my crime. I shuddered at the thought of poisons cooked in almond biscuits, or plague-sheets left on my bed, not to mention the thousand subtle insults and feminine barbs that would discolor my existence. They would certainly shave my head, none too carefully, and sell the hair. And no one would lift a finger to help me.
I had given grave offence, and hurt my lover in a tender place.
Still he did not come to see me, and I knew that I must go to seek him out. Only that tribute would convince him of my sincerity.
Unfortunately nothing would now shake Mazziolini from my trail when I needed to venture out of doors. Instead of trying to contrive a secret flight, and provoking him to extreme actions, I simply informed him of my intention and suffered his ridicule with lowered eyes.
Chasing after a man? An Englishman! His arched eyebrows sneered. How very quaint.
And so when I went to find Valentine Greatrakes at his place of work, there was Mazziolini in the carriage beside me, his smooth face vicious with contempt.
It was the first time either of us had been south of the river, and neither of us, two fastidious Venetians, could possibly be pleased by it. Valentine Greatrakes had talked with pride of this industrious part of London, but he had never described the squalor or its stink.
Mazziolini had done his research beforehand. He took pleasure in taunting me about it, and explaining the provenance of all those smells: the tanners using the droppings and pissings of dogs, the soap boilers their noisome fats, the glue-makers their bones. Meanwhile, he told me, the poor girls of the borough frequently lost their minds pulling rabbit fur for aristocratic hats because of the daily contact with the mercury and nitrates used to gloss the pelts. And the prostitutes were drowsy with stinking contraceptive potions administered by quacks who were in turn supplied by local purveyors of counterfeit medicines. The taverns of Southwark swarmed with smugglers, declared Mazziolini, and the streets were the haunt of thieves. The “businessmen” of Bankside were nothing but underworld entrepreneurs and coarse brewers, according to him. I held my head up high and refused to allow his lies to ruffle my proud composure.