Chapter 11

 

Christmas Eve dawned, and with it a sense of dread that lay heavily on my stomach. Since Papa’s revelation I had been in an agony of indecision. I wanted to contact Raphaël but didn’t know how to go about it. He wouldn’t return until New Year’s Day. Maman had press-ganged me into helping in the kitchen. It seemed that Vincentello was to be regaled with a feast that evening and I had to help her prepare it. If I had had poison I would have added it without qualms to the wild boar stew and then eaten it myself. Even Annunciata was in a state of expectation as she dusted and mopped and scrubbed. She winked at me once or twice but I pretended not to notice. It appeared that everyone was aware of my fate – and everyone except me thought it was a great privilege.

As the day wore on, I had a headache – a real one this time. I put it down to the stress of the past few days. My parents had been severe with me but I hadn’t given any quarter myself. The strain of having no one to confide in was almost unbearable. If only Sophia and I hadn’t fallen out. But there would have been little time to visit her, anyway, since Maman had considered my presence indispensable.

As I went upstairs to change – the violet frock, at Maman’s command, although I felt much more like wearing black this evening – my temples throbbed and I had gooseflesh. In my room, I put my hand to my forehead, which was burning. But I climbed into my frock and put up my hair. My face was flushed, no doubt from the heat of the kitchen. As I went downstairs, my limbs were as if made of rubber.

I went into the salon, a room we rarely used except on important occasions, and seated myself next to the fire. Vincentello had arrived an hour or so before, but Annunciata showed him to his room so that he could change. Despite being next to the fire I was shivering and my mouth was dry. After a while, Maman came in, dressed in her best black with her relieving silver brooch. Today, I was aware of how she had aged. After her came the men. I was to be on my best behaviour.

“Here is your cousin Vincentello. Wish him a Merry Christmas,” Papa ordered.

I dropped into a curtsey, my head swimming. Vincentello crossed the room, took my hand and pressed it and then raised it to his lips. How different from my meeting with Raphaël only a few months ago! Vincentello was wearing a new jacket and looked quite handsome, but I saw the hardness in his mouth and lips. When I looked at him I felt nothing.

The evening passed in a haze. I had no appetite and couldn’t eat much. Vincentello, on the other hand, who was seated next to me, wolfed down everything he was offered. Maman pressed him to seconds of each course, which he accepted without hesitation. His table manners left something to be desired, but my parents appeared not to notice. We exchanged few words. My headache had worsened and I couldn’t bear even the light from the candles.

Approaching eleven o’clock, we put on warm clothing and made our way across the square to the church of Santa Giulia for mass. Papa offered his arm to Maman and made it quite clear that I should take Vincentello’s arm. My cousin’s solicitous but doubtless insincere attention was revolting.

This had always been one of my favourite times of year. I loved the midnight mass when we all came together to remember the humble birth at Bethlehem. Raphaël said it was all superstitious claptrap and I never contradicted him. Even so, there was something magical about it. That night, however, my headache was so bad that I had difficulty remembering the responses. Sophia was there with her father and Orso, who, as usual, looked like thunder and eyed Vincentello up and down as if he wanted to plunge a knife into him. I wished he would. Somehow I got through the service but, to this day, I remember little of it. When we arrived home I could barely stand. Maman had prepared a light meal for us but I had no appetite.

“Maman, please excuse me, I don’t feel well at all. I have a blinding headache and I want to go to bed.”

“A headache again?” She put her hand on my brow. “You do seem feverish. Perhaps it would be a good idea if you went to bed. Your father will be disappointed. And so will Vincentello. But since he is going to spend tomorrow with us as well, it would be better if you were feeling well by the morning.”

I undressed by candlelight, the fire in my room not enough to warm my limbs. I clambered into bed and fell into a slumber broken with dreams where I was sliding into a chasm. Raphaël tried to pull me back but my hand slipped out of his. And in the background Vincentello’s narrow mouth smiled but not his eyes.

***

After a fitful sleep I awoke on Christmas Day and could barely move my limbs. If anything, my headache was even worse, I had a raging sore throat and I shivered and burned by turns.

When I tried to swing my legs out from under the sheets, my head swam and I couldn’t raise myself up. Falling back on the pillows, I was seized with fatigue and could do no more than lie there, dozing from time to time.

After what seemed like aeons, someone knocked at my bedroom door.

“Maria, why aren’t you yet up? It’s already nine o’clock,” Maman called from outside. I tried to respond but nothing emerged from my mouth except a faint groan.

Maman opened the door and peered in. The curtains were still drawn and she had to accustom her eyes to the gloom.

“What’s wrong, Maria? Why aren’t you out of bed? Are you ill?”

She came into my bedroom and pulled back the curtains of one window. The glare was unbearable and I shielded my eyes with my arm. Maman pulled the curtains again and moved across fast to my bedside. She sat on the bed and put a hand on my brow.

“Why, child, you’re burning up with fever. What on earth can this be?”

“I feel very ill, Maman. I can’t get up,” I croaked.

Maman soaked a handkerchief in lavender water and placed it on my forehead. The cooling sensation was comfortable against my scorching brow. Maman asked me to open my mouth and peered in.

“Your throat is quite red and sore. I don’t like the look of this. We must ask the doctor to come and see you.”

Maman brought me some water and held me up while I tried to drink some but it felt like thorns scouring my throat as it went down. I lay back, exhausted and fell into a troubled slumber. Again, I had the dream where I was falling into a chasm and no one could help me. Again, Vincentello was watching without sympathy in the background. I cried out and woke with a jolt.

Soon afterwards, Maman brought Doctor Molinari into my room.

“I can’t thank you enough, Doctor, for interrupting your Christmas Day to attend to Maria. But I’m very worried about her.”

The doctor sat on my bed. “Now, Maria, let’s find out what’s the matter with you.”

He placed a hand on my brow, then asked me to open my mouth and examined my throat. Finally he opened the top button of my nightdress and listened to my chest with his stethoscope. Was that rasping noise really coming from my lungs? He redid the button and pulled the coverlet over me. Signalling to my mother they went into the corridor but left the door ajar.

Only snatches of their conversation came to me through the door and through my fever.

“Can’t yet venture a precise diagnosis…possibly diphtheria…even a meningitis…keep her warm…plenty of liquids…dose with powders…on no account must she be distressed…come back this evening.” I heard my mother’s low voice in reply, but couldn’t make out what she said. I passed in and out of consciousness.

After that, I moved into a twilight world where I couldn’t distinguish between nightmares and reality. When I awoke from one of my terrible dreams the sense of relief was quickly replaced by terror as the walls and ceiling of my bedroom closed in on me and threatened to crush me. Sometimes, I was aware of another person in the room with me. They leant towards me and their face fragmented into a million pieces which I couldn’t piece together again into a human form. A hand pressed into my back and pushed me forward. Strong fingers prised open my lips and poured in a hell-draught of bitter gall. I gagged but they hold my mouth closed. Were they trying to poison me? I struggled but the weakness in my limbs prevented me from fighting my tormentors.

Sometimes I had a moment of lucidity and I saw Maman keeping vigil by my bedside, her sewing in her hand. When she saw I was awake she smiled and held me up so I could drink some water to ease my parched throat. But soon after I had lain back on the pillows the nightmare started again and I couldn’t tell if I was awake or asleep. I wasn’t aware of time passing. It could have been a few seconds or epochs. As I twisted in my sweat-soaked sheets, wars could have been fought and lost, empires grown and crumbled and oceans dried and filled up again.

All of a sudden, I awoke one morning and I knew it was over. The curtains were drawn tight but I sensed the sun was shining outside, the weather was frosty and my fever had burned itself out. My body was as insubstantial as seeds of thistledown carried on the breeze, and I was as weak as a new-born lamb. But that was how I felt: re-born. How good it was to be alive!

I turned my head and Maman leant towards me. She took my hand and put her other hand on my brow and then she smiled. Her face was pallid but her eyes glowed.

“You’re back with us, Maria. Thank God. At one point, we thought we had lost you. You have had meningitis, Doctor Molinari says, and you’re lucky to have pulled through.”

“How long?” I rasped.

“Five days. Vincentello has been very worried about you. He left on Christmas Day as soon as we realised you were very ill but he has sent to ask after you every day.”

Vincentello. The memory of my nightmares flooded back as did the thought that he was the man I had to marry. Fatigue sat on my limbs like hoar frost. I thought of Raphaël and the tears welled up.

“You’ve been rambling for some of the time, calling out,” Maman said. “But we couldn’t make out what you said.”

That was a relief, for I was sure that in my fever I called upon Raphaël. I snuggled down under the covers and closed my eyes.

“That’s right. Sleep now. I’ll look in on you later.” She closed the door behind her and the tears squeezed out from beneath my eyelids, wetting the pillow.

***

I had to stay in bed for a further week until Doctor Molinari considered me well enough to get up. Sophia had heard I was ill and came to ask after me several times. When Maman considered the time was right she showed Sophia up to my room.

“Now, don’t stay too long, Sophia,” Maman said. “She’s still weak and, above all, she mustn’t be upset.” Sophia nodded and sat on the bed next to me, taking my hand. She smiled at me and I gave her a pale smile back. We had hardly seen each other since our quarrel and I didn’t know what to say to her.

“We’ve all been so worried about you, Maria. Everyone has been asking after you and Monsieur le Curé even said prayers for you in church. Orso has been beside himself.”

Orso. I would rather have had him than Vincentello. But neither of them could compare with Raphaël.

I sighed. “I’m very grateful for everyone’s concern. I suppose it’s not yet common knowledge but my father says I must marry my cousin Vincentello. That’s what he was doing here on Christmas Eve – surveying the goods.” The corners of my mouth turned downwards.

Sophia frowned and pressed my hand. “I had so hoped that you and Orso might marry. You would have been my sister then. He’ll be devastated when he knows.”

“Please don’t say anything yet. My father will want to announce it formally and he would be furious if it were already known around the village.”

Sophia nodded. “And what about Raphaël? He came back to the village yesterday and has a meeting with Papa today before the school year begins about council business.”

“He won’t know anything about my illness or this business with Vincentello. Will your father tell him I have been ill?”

“I expect so; the village has talked of little else for a week. Maria, your mother told me not to upset you and I don’t want to. But you really must put Raphaël out of your mind. After all, your parents have decided that you have to marry Vincentello. You can’t go against their wishes.”

“Don’t remind me,” I replied, turning my head on the pillow, the tears stinging my eyes. “Would you do something for me, Sophia?”

“If it’s something that is in my power to do, I’ll do it gladly.”

“Please would you go tomorrow to the urn at Santa Giulia’s shrine? You know the one – where you and I used to put notes for each other. Raphaël and I hide letters to each other there. He’s sure to have written one to me and I’m desperate to know how he is. He’ll no doubt worry about me when he knows I’ve been ill and I’m still unable to hold a pen. But would you please tell him when you see him, as you’re bound to, that I’m much better. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Sophia said. “You persist in this misguided fling with Raphaël. Do you know what you’re doing, Maria?”

“Please, Sophia. Just this once. I’ll never ask you to do anything again.”

She sighed. “Very well. But this is the one and only time I’ll do this. I will not act as a go-between. You know how I feel about the whole business. You would have been much better off with Orso; now you have to marry Vincentello. No good will come of this.” She shook her head.

“Thank you, Sophia. This means so much to me.”

Maman came to the door. “That’s long enough, Sophia. We mustn’t tire her out when she’s still weak.”

“Of course, Madame Orsini. I was just leaving, anyway.”

She kissed me on both cheeks and walked towards the door. She paused on the threshold and looked at me with an expression that I couldn’t interpret. She followed Maman down the stairs and the heavy front door closed on her.