Dark Venetian

Celeste smiled, but it was not a pleasant smile. ‘To a degree you have a point. The Contessa is money-conscious, I admit, but like all Italians, the family means a lot to her, and if I had arrived here without my dear stepdaughter, I venture to suppose she would be curious as to the reasons.’

‘You could have told the truth: that I have a job in London.’

‘Oh, no, darling. Perhaps with your small-minded approach to life it hasn’t occurred to you to wonder exactly how much Clifford left me, but I can assure you the Contessa knows my bank balance down to the last farthing, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘What has that to do with it?’ asked Emma wearily. ‘Lots of girls whose parents have money work for a living, why shouldn’t I!’

Celeste shrugged. ‘You just might,’ she murmured reflectively, ‘but with several million dollars in cash and securities, I think it’s unlikely, to say the least.’

‘Several million dollars!’ Emma was incredulous.

‘Of course. You didn’t imagine I married Clifford and put up with his pawing for peanuts, did you?’

Emma was nauseated. ‘Celeste,’ she said, almost inaudibly.

‘So? Emma, be sensible! What possible harm can there be in allowing an old lady to imagine that you and I are on the best of terms, just to satisfy her … how shall I put it … proprieties?’

Hearing it put like that Emma was temporarily bereft of reasons. If it was true that the Contessa was only interested in Celeste for her money, wasn’t it reasonable that Celeste should have the chance to acquire her title, if that was what was so important to her? After all, Celeste was the type of person to get what she wanted despite any opposition.

Emma shook her head. ‘The whole situation is disgusting. If this is what money brings you, I’m glad I don’t have any.’

‘Why, darling? Wouldn’t you like to be a Contessa?’

‘Not particularly. I’d rather marry a man I loved than some middle-aged playboy who has gambled away all his own fortune and now wants to start on someone else’s.’

Celeste laughed. ‘Oh, Emma, you couldn’t be more wrong as far as the Count Vidal Cesare is concerned. He’s far from middle-aged, and he’s very attractive. Not that that mattered, as you will have gathered, but it’s nice to know the father of my children won’t need aphrodisiacs to stimulate his natural desires.’

Emma turned away. ‘Celeste!’ she exclaimed, ‘that’s a horrible thing to say.’

‘You’re far too sensitive, darling,’ retorted Celeste carelessly. ‘If you stay long with me you’ll soon shed that sensitive skin of yours and toughen up a bit. Grow up, darling, surely you’re well aware that the reason the Contessa wants me and not some older and possibly richer woman is because I can produce the heir that she so ardently desires for her grandson. See?’

Emma shrugged. ‘Well, that settles it. I’d rather stay on the outside, if you don’t mind. I’ll go back home, and you get on with your life without me. You’ve managed very well so far; don’t think you’ll need to feel any further responsibility for me. Like you, I can survive in my own sphere.’

Celeste’s voice was suddenly hard. ‘You’re staying.’

‘I think not.’ Emma was firm.

‘Then think again, Emma. The Contessa has taken a liking to you and I have no intention of allowing you to return to England leaving me with a host of unexplainable details to contend with. No, darling, you’re staying, and if you intend making any speeches, don’t! You may not believe this right now, but I could make life pretty unpleasant for you, if I was forced to do so, and if you walk out on me I will consider myself forced to do so.’

Emma’s cheeks burned. ‘Don’t threaten me, Celeste. I support myself, you know. I don’t need any assistance from you.’

‘No, perhaps not. But this hospital you are training at in London could no doubt use some funds, and if you cross me I’ll find someone on their staff who is corruptible enough to do anything for money, understand?’

Emma stared at her. ‘You must be joking!’

‘I was never more serious in my life.’

‘There are other hospitals.’

‘I would always be able to find you. I have the money, darling, and believe me, I know, money can buy anything, but anything!’

‘I believe you would hound me,’ said Emma wonderingly. ‘Why? Celeste, why? What have I ever done to you?’

‘Nothing. And that has nothing to do with it, Emma. I want you here, and if you walk out on me, your life will become so unpleasant you will surely wish you’d never crossed me.’ She sighed, and her tone changed again. ‘Darling, what am I asking, after all? Six weeks of your time, six weeks during which time you can explore one of the most exciting cities in the world; surely that’s not so much to ask?’

Emma shook her head, too choked to speak, then without a word she turned and walked back into her bedroom. She was nineteen, which was not a very great age, inexperienced and a little frightened by her stepmother’s threats, and there was no one in the world to whom she could turn, apart from a couple of distant relatives back there in England, who couldn’t care less really what happened to her. It seemed she would go with Celeste, because just at present she didn’t feel up to standing up to her.

At breakfast the next morning the scene the previous evening might never have happened. Celeste had resumed her earlier indulgent attitude, and if she thought Emma was a little silent, and perhaps rather subdued, her own inconsequential chatter amply covered any evidence of that.

She told Emma lightly that she had met Count Vidal Cesare the previous evening.

‘He joined us after dinner,’ she recounted, a smile on her lips, a little self-satisfied smile like the look of the cat when she has just been at the cream. ‘He couldn’t join us for dinner, because he had commitments which couldn’t be broken, but he stayed long after the Contessa had returned home, and we went for a trip on a gondola. Emma, darling, it was marvellous! We must see what we can do about arranging an escort for you while you are here, because one cannot enjoy any of the delights of Venice by night without a suitable male in tow.’

‘Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,’ said Emma quietly, and Celeste looked at her sharply.

‘You are not leaving.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

‘No, Celeste, I’m not leaving. But nor do I intend to be manoeuvred by you into accepting the company of some hangabout relation of this Count’s.’

‘Don’t be so vehement, darling. No one is going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do … now.’ She rose elegantly to her feet. ‘And now I’ll go and get dressed, and you can finish the packing, if you’d be so kind. A gondola is coming for us at eleven. Some fellow who works for the Contessa, Giulio, I believe his name is, will arrive to escort us to the Palazzo. Imagine it, Emma, me, Celeste Bernard, staying at a Venetian palazzo!’

To Emma, the Palazzo represented many things. It was certainly old, and she supposed it might be called beautiful, but the thoughts uppermost in her mind were those concerning Celeste, and she did not find the excitement in the visit she might have done in different circumstances.

Celeste shivered as they crossed the chill dankness of the lower hall and ascended the staircase in the wake of Giulio, who was laden down with two of Celeste’s larger cases. Emma was carrying a small case and a hold-all which accommodated most of her belongings, while in the hall below stood the huge trunk which Celeste had filled with her evening gowns and shoes and jewels.

‘We must have a lift installed,’ remarked Celeste, over her shoulder to Emma. ‘No one walks upstairs in the States!’

The Contessa awaited them in the large lounge, and Celeste was relieved to note that in these apartments central heating had been installed and the furniture was reasonably modern and comfortable. She saw no reason to retain the inner rooms of the Palazzo in the same state as the outer walls, and Emma felt sure her first thoughts were the amount of renovation which would take place as soon as it was certain that she was to be the next Contessa.

The maid, Anna, was waiting to serve coffee and biscuits, and after several cups and a couple of cigarettes, Celeste and Emma were shown their rooms.

Celeste’s room was a huge barnlike salon with a massive tester bed hung with velvet drapes from a central cornice that could be let down to enclose completely the occupants of the bed. The tesselated floor was strewn liberally with soft piled rugs, and the furniture was made of dark stained wood accentuated by the bright colours of the bed covers and curtains.

‘Heavens!’ exclaimed Celeste, in amazement, ‘It’s like a small auditorium.’

‘Perhaps that’s what it was used for in the olden days,’ remarked Emma, forgetting for a moment her own problems. ‘Maybe the Contessas used to hold audience in their bedchambers like kings and queens used to in days gone by.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Celeste made a moue with her lips. ‘Ah, well, so long as the bed’s comfortable, I don’t suppose I shall worry. Actually, though, I imagine those drapes could prove rather stuffy on a hot evening.’

‘In this place?’ Emma shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t imagine these rooms ever get stuffy, as you put it. They’re built of stone, you know, these palazzi. And stone takes an awful lot to warm up.

Celeste sighed. ‘And where is the bathroom? I wonder if the plumbing is modern. Let’s hope so.’

The bathroom was huge, and stately, and the bath was big enough to hold half a dozen adults at one go, but the plumbing was modern, and when the taps were turned on, a refreshing stream of steaming water splayed out on to the porcelain basin.

Anna had offered to unpack for Celeste, so leaving her stepmother to the maid’s ministrations, Emma decided to explore. Her own bedroom was far less imposing than Celeste’s, but it was still rather big although the bed was a modern divan-type four-footer, for which she felt rather disappointed. She, much more than Celeste, would have welcomed the genuine atmosphere of old things in their proper place.

The lounge when she returned to it was deserted, but sounds penetrated from a door opening off to the left which seemed to lead to the kitchen quarters and she thought perhaps the old lady might be supervising the arrangements for lunch.

She stepped back out on to the long gallery which ran from front to back and stood for a moment looking down on the deserted and rather dark hall below. She could picture what the Palazzo must have looked like in the days when the hall was used for receptions, when the room was filled with beautifully adorned women in silks and satins and brocades, their jewels more fabulous than any Emma had ever seen, while the men, bewigged perhaps, or simply elegantly clothed themselves in satin breeches and waistcoats joined their ladies in the minuet, the strains of violins floating up to the younger members of the family, as they watched perhaps from the secrecy of this very balcony.

She was lost in thought, a faint smile touched her lips, and she started, shaken out of her reverie, when the outer door opened below and a shaft of sunlight momentarily dispersed the gloom, revealing a man who was entering the Palazzo, carrying a guitar case in his hand.

Completely unaware of her scrutiny, he walked silently across the hall to an ante-room. He opened the door, and without a sound disappeared inside.

Emma frowned, and straightened up. She had been leaning on the balcony rail, and her arm felt cold from the touch. But she was unconscious of any discomfort to herself. There had been something peculiar about the entrance of the man downstairs; she could not have said what it was exactly, but his movements had been deliberately stealthy, as though the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself. And if that was the case, who could he be? And what was he doing down there?

Emma swallowed hard. It was difficult for her to gauge the situation. From what Celeste had told her, and the Contessa’s conversation the previous evening, she had gathered that only the apartments on the first floor were used by the Contessa and her grandson, and if this were so, what possible reason could anyone have for entering the ante-room downstairs, and with a guitar, too? It sounded ridiculous when she thought about it, and shrugging her shoulders, she turned resolutely away. Whatever was going on it was no concern of hers, and she hardly knew the Contessa well enough to go and ask whether she knew that someone was using one of her downstairs rooms.

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