Death in the Palazzo (11 page)

When Urbino looked at Viola, he was startled to find her staring at him, and he got the eerie impression that she, too, was thinking of Boccaccio and the other house party. His suspicions were proved correct when she slipped over to him and whispered, “Déjà vu.”

Gemma, speaking in a weak voice, had just made her own contribution about her experiences in Florence, where the
acqua alta
had been even worse, when Molly, her eyes behind the thick glasses opened wide, burst out:

“Fiddling while Rome is burning! Dancing when the barbarians come sweeping in! Chatting away with the plague outside! It all comes down to the same thing in the end. This isn't the first time this building of noble lines and noble residents has listened to stories while a storm was building up. And why do I think of the name Boccaccio? Does it mean something? And Signor Urbino mentioned a stolen painting! Is it the one in my room? And—and Signor Filippo, you spoke about cats! Are there cats in the house? Are they dead or alive? Oh, everything's all mixed up in my mind!”

“No wonder about that,” Sebastian said in a stage whisper to Oriana. “The girl has drunk half a bottle of B.E.! It's a wonder—”

“You're saying too much!” Gemma cried. At first Urbino thought she was speaking to Sebastian, but she stood up and glared at Molly. An expression of discomfort then came over her face. It was as if Gemma had spoken involuntarily, or at least without thinking, and was now regretting it.

“I'm sorry, Molly.”

She went over to the little woman and took her hand. She bent her head and said something to her in a voice inaudible to Urbino, who was standing the closest of anyone to the two of them. The Contessa's face was white and strained as she watched the two women.

Gemma squeezed Molly's hand, and in the several moments before the dinner bell blessedly sounded, the two women gave every appearance of understanding each other completely.

6

Dinner was, at first, a surprisingly calm affair. It was as if everyone was weary from what had gone on in the library and was determined to get through the meal as smoothly as possible. There was little general conversation, and the diners broke into shifting patterns of talk, avoiding anything disturbing—and this included the bad weather, which continued to assault the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini and, beyond it, the vulnerable city.

It was a sign of the Contessa's foresight, as well as her uneasiness, that she had had the table set with her own Pembroke family china and crested glasses and not the Cozzi china that had been in the Da Capo-Zendrini family since the eighteenth century.

Urbino remembered her comment about three ailing women under one roof, and considered them now in turn as they went through the ritual of dinner. The Contessa herself looked weary as she addressed Mamma Zeno, who, although the oldest person at the table, seemed in many ways the most vital. It was all in her quick dark eyes, eyes that were still hungry, and in the way that she seemed to relish her food.

Angelica, by contrast, looked out at the dinner table with a dull, uninterested gaze and picked at her food. She probably couldn't wait to get back into the cozy intrigues of
Lady Audley's Secret
. Most likely she had another Victorian novel or two stashed away in her room, along with several boxes of bonbons. Every once in a while Filippo, who was sitting on one side of her, would address her, but her responses were so minimal—weak smiles and even weaker nods—that he soon gave up to bestow his attentions on Viola.

Robert, the thoroughly modern man of relics, had the pleasure of listening to Sebastian rant on about Canterbury and materialism like some latter-day Chaucer. Robert said as little as possible, which was more than enough for Sebastian's diatribe.

Gemma was very still, and kept observing everyone around the table in an almost furtive manner. Her face had a grayish cast and there were dark smudges beneath her eyes and in the hollows of her temples that even the Contessa's carefully calculated lighting couldn't conceal. Although she was eating more than Angelica, it seemed to be only to keep up appearances.

It fell to Oriana's lot not to have the attention or the ear of any of the gentlemen, but instead that of the energetic Bambina, who both ate and spoke with a kind of nervous avidity. Her eyes darted all around the table in an almost desperate manner, and her gestures were so dramatic that at one point Urbino feared she was about to fling some
petits pois
into Oriana's inviting décolletage.

The only people who genuinely seemed to be enjoying themselves were Molly and Dr. Vasco. They forgot all about the food and drink for long minutes as they earnestly—and in low voices—conferred on topics they obviously felt were of little interest to the group at large or to Viola and Mamma Zeno, who sat on either side of them. Vasco gave every appearance of being fascinated by the little Englishwoman.

“I must say, Urbino,” Oriana declared, escaping with evident relief from Bambina's nervous volubility, “that our dear Barbara didn't keep the proportions right for the weekend. All too many women and all too few men.”

“We're a perfect mixture,” Urbino said, marveling at his cool ability to stretch the truth to such thinness. “Besides, it's not a dance. We don't need to be paired up. But if we did, you wouldn't end up a wallflower.”

“Ever gallant, Urbino, managing to defend Barbara and pay me a compliment at the same time. What would we women do without you?”

“Indeed,” said Viola, who had been listening to their exchange. “He makes himself indispensable.”

“True enough, Viola dear,” Oriana responded, “but I warn you: Barbara is equally indispensable to him.”

“Only Barbara? That puts the rest of us women out in the cold.”

“Out in the dark, I'd say,” Oriana corrected with a laugh. “Urbino has his intentionally inscrutable side.”

“Perhaps,” was the limit of Viola's agreement, although she might have committed herself further if at this moment Oriana hadn't suddenly shrieked and stood up. Everyone broke off their conversations.

“Thirteen! We're thirteen for dinner! Thirteen for the weekend! How could you do this to me?”

She collapsed back into her chair and reached for her water tumbler. She knocked over her wineglass. A red stain crept across the cloth.

“Déjà vu
encore
,” Viola had time to say to Urbino with an arched eyebrow before the Contessa responded to Oriana's outburst. For a moment he didn't know what Viola meant, then remembered the wine Andrew Lydgate had spilled across his shirtfront at the original house party. He looked over at Vasco, who, back then, had predicted to the Conte that Lydgate would do just that because he wanted him to. Vasco's mouth was tight and grim.

“Don't take it as a personal affront, Oriana,” the Contessa said with a nervous laugh, her eyes on the growing stain. “These things sometimes happen.”

“Thirteen for dinner doesn't just ‘sometimes happen'! Not with you! And not when you've been as nervous as a cat for months about this house party.”

The Contessa colored deeply and gave Urbino a silent plea for rescue.

“Let poor Barbara off the hook,” Sebastian said before Urbino could step in. “Viola and I are the guilty ones.
We
added Molly to the feast,” he said with an unmistakable air of pride. “She was so irresistible.”

From the look Oriana gave Molly it was evident that she found the woman as resistible as poison in the present circumstances.

“But we're really not thirteen,” Sebastian went on, trying to suppress a smile. “There's Lucia, Mauro, and about half a dozen other staff.”

“They don't count in situations like this!” Oriana snapped back, as if there existed a book of rules on superstition. “Believe me, if there wasn't a deluge out there, I'd leave immediately!”

“We'll just have to take our chances, dear,” Filippo said. “There's no turning back now.”

7

After they retired to the
salotto blu
, their ominous number was diminished by one. Mamma Zeno no sooner heard there now would be a bridge game and charades than she pronounced herself ready for bed and made it clear she wanted Bambina to accompany her.

“Charades, Mamma! You know how much I love charades!”

“You do?”

“Of course.” Bambina laughed her girlish laugh. “I played them every summer when we used to go to Bellagio. In English! With all those Americans and English that stayed at the Hotel Grande Bretagne.
You
remember.”

It didn't seem that her mother did or, if she did, that at the moment she didn't choose to. She insisted that Bambina see her up to her room, and mother and daughter left.

As they waited for Bambina to return, conversation was desultory until Angelica discovered the Contessa's collection of Venetian paperweights. She picked up one of the
mille fiori
balls and stared at it with an almost rapt expression on her thin, pale face.

“That one belonged to Colette,” the Contessa said. “It used to be in her bedroom.”

“Ah, La Colette,” Oriana apostrophized. “You are my soul mate!
Chéri! The Last of Chéri!
”

Under the amused glance of her husband, she enthused at great length over Colette's novels about the love affair between an aging courtesan and a young man.

“Did you know Colette?” Sebastian asked, trying to restrain a grin, when she had finished.

“Bosom buddies, my charming young man! We went around Paris together in the twenties! I'm joking, of course!” she said with evident irritation when he seemed about to ask her something else. “Where is Bambina? She's taking forever!”

She no sooner said this than the round little woman appeared at the door, looking flushed and strangely self-satisfied. She gave the Contessa a glance and seemed to be repressing a smile as she bustled across the room to Molly and Dr. Vasco, who were once again ensconced in a corner together, whispering furiously.

“I want to be on your team,” she said to Molly. “You must win all the time.”

“Quite the reverse, dearie.”

“Don't let Molly fool you,” Sebastian said. “She's ingenious at them, I'm sure. First rule of games-playing is never to believe a word of what the opponent says.”

“Urbino, why don't you get the charades organized?” the Contessa said quickly. “I'll see to bridge.”

But she had some trouble getting four players. Only Oriana and Filippo showed an interest in joining her.

“I suppose we can play dummy bridge,” the Contessa said when still no one volunteered to join them. “Oriana, you can play the dummy hand, if you don't mind?”

“But I do! Have we got our group down to twelve just to play dummy bridge? You know what it is in Italian!”

“What's she talking about?” Viola asked Urbino.

“
Morto
. It means to be the dead person. Same in French.”

“Now I see why Father always told us to beware of the Continent! Dangers lurk even in the tongue!”

“Won't someone rescue us from this silly situation?” the Contessa threw out to the room at large.

“Perhaps a game of bridge will be a fitting end to a wonderful evening,” Dr. Vasco said.

“Our knight of the evening,” the Contessa said.

“Don Quixote is more like it,” Sebastian said loud enough for everyone to hear.

“I assure you, young man, that I would recognize a windmill for what it is, and I see none around here,” Dr. Vasco said as he went over to the bridge table. “Nor any ordinary wenches, either,” he added as he grinned at Oriana, looking like a death's head.

Oriana gave an involuntary shiver, only marginally less pleased to have the cadaverous Vasco as her partner than to be the dummy. Even more disturbed by the arrangement, however, was the abandoned Molly, who glared the full force of her ill will at Oriana through her impossibly thick spectacles.

Despairing of any smooth interludes that lasted for longer than a few minutes this evening, Urbino quickly explained the rules for the charades.

“All topics will be in English, since Gemma and Bambina obviously know English better than the rest of us do Italian,” he began.

“Spoken ever so humbly for yourself,” Viola said with a smile.

“Except for proper names, of course, like—like Vivaldi or Veronese,” Urbino went on. “Also, all topics will be on a Venetian theme. For example, the Bridge of Sighs or Grand Canal. We're going to need a timekeeper.” He looked at the group, which included himself, Viola, Sebastian, Bambina, Gemma, Robert, Angelica, and Molly. “Is everyone going to play?” he asked, feeling more and more like a master of ceremonies for a less than enthusiastic group of celebrants—except for Bambina, who was close to squirming in anticipation.

“I'll just watch,” Angelica said and drew her limbs more closely to her on the sofa.

“I will, too,” Robert said.

“Oh, not on my account, Robert. I'll cheer you on.”

A less energetic or mirthful cheerleader Urbino could hardly imagine, unless it were Mamma Zeno, who had already retired.

“I'll be timekeeper,” Molly volunteered and raised her arm to display her watch as if its outrageously colored bands and stars alone qualified her for the job.

Urbino wrote the names of the six players on slips of paper and had Angelica draw for the teams. It fell out that Sebastian, Gemma, and Bambina composed one team, and Urbino, Viola, and Robert the other.

Urbino went to the library and gathered up half a dozen books on Venice and brought them back to the
salotto
.

“To give us some ideas. But please, let's not be too esoteric.”

“Most definitely not,” Viola mocked him with a smile.

They spent ten minutes selecting and writing down their topics. Urbino was pleased to see that there was at least some of the usual giggling—although all Bambina's—and self-satisfied nods and stares, which were brought off with theatrical aplomb by Sebastian.