The Watercolourist Page 3

  ‘It’s a simple task. You’re smart and you’ll do it well. Of course, there’s the chance that you might get bored with the environment and the people. It’s a test of patience for you. A form of discipline. It will do you good. Accept the offer.’

  Bianca is thinking back to her final conversation with her father, many months prior, after she received the letter. It was a long yet concise missive; the penmanship was pointed and oblique, the paper ruled and heavy. There was a wax seal on the verso of the envelope, which she kept touching with the tip of her finger.

  ‘Why me, Father?’ she asked him.

  ‘Because there’s no one like you. Not here. Because you’re unique, darling.’

  ‘But to be so far away for so long . . .’

  ‘It was bound to happen sooner or later. It’s what you’ve chosen to do. You didn’t think you’d be here your whole life, did you? I didn’t raise you that way. You are perfectly able to take care of yourself. You have seen some of the world. My only concern is that you might bury yourself in the countryside. Personally, I would prefer that you went to the city. But on the other hand, you need to be where your subjects are. Follow them. This is an important commission. It could mark the beginning of a career . . .’

  She did as he bade. She was already buried in the countryside after all; the difference would be the company.

  The letter proposed a commissioned project in a tone that Bianca couldn’t define. It was both serious and vague. Or perhaps it was just the unfamiliar nature of the idea itself and what it implied that confused her. The sender of the letter had seen and appreciated some of her watercolours of landscapes and botanical subjects, it seemed – the ones she had sold on the insistence of her neighbour and long-time friend Count Rizzardi to an illustrious guest.

  The intended project was to depict every flower and plant on a specific estate in Lombardy.

  ‘I would like to bequeath to posterity not only my compositions in verse and prose, as is my craft, but also my flowers and my plants, which are no less significant to me. I am inclined to spend much of my time with them and desire to capture their perfection in order to have them forever with me, even in winter, even if they might never flower or bloom again. A large part of my culture is experiment, chance, failed attempts. As an amateur, the pleasure is as great as the risk.’

  He’s a gambler, Bianca thought. She liked the idea. She wrote back herself. Perhaps the sender was expecting a letter from her father; at the time she was no more than eighteen years old. But the letter was addressed to her, was it not? Don Titta was clearly a man of liberal ideals with a modern point of view. He was widely seen as a worldly man too. But it was also known that he had chosen a sober and secluded existence for himself.

  ‘You will live within our family,’ he specified in the letter. ‘Ours is a simple life, far from everyday distractions.’

  ‘Sounds like an interesting fellow,’ her father added. ‘It seems as though he understands what he needs and despite his profession has managed to free himself from the lures of fame. It’s admirable, I’d say. See it as a great adventure, Bianca. And I will be here, waiting for you, if you don’t take a different path along the way. Though, of course, I will be happy either way.’

  ‘What other paths?’ she protested. ‘The only right path is the one that will bring me back here.’

  ‘Anything can happen,’ he said solemnly.

  And like that, they made up their minds.

  Anything can happen.

  His disease arrived swiftly. They had been out on one of their favourite walks, at La Rocca. As always, the lake looked different from so high up. She wished she could fly over it and see their little white house, the details of their garden, and the winding, rocky path that disappeared into the shadows of the parkland.

  ‘Look at the lake, Papa,’ she had said. ‘It looks like it’s made of turquoise.’

  She turned back and saw him bent over, speechless with pain, deathly pale. Bianca knelt down beside him, overcome with fear. And yet, amazingly, she managed to contain it. They waited together for the pain to subside a little and then set out homewards. He leaned on her out of caution. She was his walking stick in flesh and blood.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said reassuringly at the dinner table that night, still quite pale but stronger now. ‘It’s just a sign that I’m growing old, Bianca. I’m not made for La Rocca any more.’

  ‘Then we will simply have to take our walks at the Cavalla,’ she answered, relieved. ‘There’s a nest of baby geese near Villa Canossa. I will show it to you tomorrow. The goslings are about to hatch.’

  Instead, she went alone. He chose to stay at home and rest. The baby geese had just been born and were grey, damp and snug. The mother’s beak was red, ready to cut into something. Bianca kept her distance and sketched them on the pad she always carried with her. On her return trip, she saw the doctor’s carriage from a distance. Her father died two days later, seized by another attack, this time fatal.

  Everything had been decided far in advance: the property was entrusted to Bartolomeo, some of the money went to Zeno to finance his military career, and some went to Bianca, who was granted lifetime occupancy of her own little quarter of the household. Thank heavens Bianca still had somewhere of her own. Bartolomeo, who had filled out after his successful nuptials, and his pregnant wife quickly started eyeing the home and the garden with the cynicism of new proprietors. To watch them wander about the beloved rooms talking about carpets and decorations made her unbearably sad. They had agreed that Bianca’s rooms would remain locked and intact until her return, but it was still torture for her to say goodbye to her collection of silhouettes and miniatures, her small rosewood desk, and her balcony that looked out onto the lake. It had been torture but also a relief, because it was evident that the spirit of the home had departed with their father. Her leaving had come at the right moment.

  Her neighbour Count Rizzardi was, as ever, a gentleman.

  ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘there will always be a room for you in my home.’

  But all of a sudden he had seemed so old to her, as if her father’s death had forced him, too, closer to that threshold.

  Zeno had his own opinion about work and women.

  ‘You’re a girl, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So it isn’t right that you go prancing off alone, waving that letter around. It’s a passport to trouble, I’m telling you.’

  ‘What should I do then, according to you?’

  ‘You could get married. Girls tend to do that, you know.’

  ‘Not all of us.’

  ‘But you’re pretty.’

  ‘And I have no dowry. My only asset is this,’ she said, waving her fingers in his face. He took hold of her hand, pretended to bite it, and then hugged her tightly.

  ‘You’re going to get yourself into a sticky situation, Bianca. You could always live with me, you know. You could be my manservant.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ laughed Bianca. ‘I could cut my hair, wear boy’s clothing and sleep on a cot outside your room.’

  ‘When you were younger you could easily have passed for a boy. And you bossed us both around.’

  They smiled in recollection.

  Bartolomeo, on the other hand, seemed relieved at the prospect of her departure. Until then, he had been living in discomfort in his wife’s home and waiting for his inheritance. It was evident that he now wanted to enjoy his new circumstances to the full, without any obstacles.

  ‘Come home whenever you want,’ he said, because he had to, because a brother should say that. She pursed her lips into a smile, trying to remember the boy with stars in his eyes, the boy he was, before becoming the rotund dandy now standing in front of her.

  ‘There’s something I’d like to show you, if you’ll follow me?’

  Bianca wipes her hands on a rag. Donna Clara leads the way. She uses a highly varnished black cane, but is incredibly quick for a woman of her small stature
. She crosses the lawn, goes into the house, up the stairs, and down a hall that Bianca has not yet explored. As she moves, Donna Clara’s starched clothes crackle and whine. Bianca wonders whether she still wears a whalebone corset, as was the vogue in her youth, and if so, who tightens it for her each morning.

  She stops in front of a small painting, near a row of nymph statuettes. It is a portrait of a mother and child. Positioned right in front of a window, it soaks up all the natural light. Bianca studies the work with the eye of a professional. The dark background allows the two heads to float out of time and space. One has curly brown hair, while the other’s is straight and blond. The mother has a frivolous, somewhat disquieting look, perhaps due to her curls or the glow in her eyes. Bianca notices a resemblance between the little boy and the girls who play outside: the same curve in the cheek, round eyes and colouring. She understands.

  ‘I was pretty, wasn’t I?’ says Donna Clara, leaning on the pomegranate-shaped handle of her walking stick. ‘That’s my boy . . . he was five years old there. Then I sent him to boarding school and left for Paris with my Carlo, and I didn’t see him for a long time. An eternity, it seemed. But when Titta grew older, our paths crossed again. He came to Paris when he was twenty and we’ve never been apart since.’

  And then, as though fearing she has revealed too much, she wraps her shawl around her, turns around and walks away, leaving Bianca to contemplate the painting on her own. She notices other details now: the boy’s gaze seems restrained and distracted, as if there is a dog somewhere beyond the picture frame, barking and inviting him to play. She notices his mother’s sharp expression, like that of a fox, with her slight, coy smile. The pair are positioned closely within the frame, but it is clear that each one anxiously wants to be elsewhere.

  Bianca starts her work. Following the generous instructions of her master – it makes her smile to think of him as her master, and yet that is his role – she takes all the time she needs. Each morning she carries out her box and easel and a large, somewhat frayed, straw hat. Soon, hampered by all the trappings, she decides to leave the more bulky props behind. Feeling light and reckless, she goes off to where domesticated nature ends and wild nature begins. Wild is perhaps an exaggeration, for in fact, she and Minna – who follows her like a shadow – are never entirely alone. There is always some gardener snipping, pruning, collecting and carrying away dry branches. The men don’t look up from their work, nor do they speak to the ladies. Bianca constantly gets the feeling that she is being watched. But each time she turns around, the man nearby will be looking elsewhere and seems interested only in his pruning tool, his axe, or the clutch of weeds he holds in his clenched fist, raising them to examine the naked roots. It feels like wandering in a forest full of Indians: eyes and blades everywhere. But this is the only fear that the women allow themselves. Though, in fact, Minna is also afraid of insects, which is strange for a girl who has grown up in the countryside. She runs away from bumblebees, horseflies and praying mantises.

  ‘They won’t harm you,’ Bianca says, picking up an insect in the palm of her hand to examine its big eyes before placing it back on a leaf, which it grips like a castaway at sea. But the girl keeps far away, and stares in admiration at Miss, who isn’t afraid of anything. Maybe it is because she is English. The English are strange, Minna thinks.

  Insects, children, flowers: how limited Bianca’s new world is and yet, at the same time, how incredibly full of potential ideas. Insects and children: Pietro has the malicious insistence of a hornet. Enrico, on the other hand, has the feeble blandness of a caterpillar that knows only its own mouth. The girls are like grasshoppers, green, lilac, baby blue, all eyes, never at a standstill. Minna looks like a young beetle: the tiny, iridescent kind that never knows where to perch, and is capable only of short flights.

  Bianca sketches and captures specific moments, sensations, gestures and movements. She speaks the plants’ names out loud. She is drawn to the plants and flowers whose names she doesn’t know. The estate at Brusuglio offers an unlimited variety of new species. There is the Liquidambar, rooted into the earth, and pointing to the sky as if it is an arrow. There is the little green cloud, a Sophora. There is Sassafras albidum with leaves that look like gloved hands. There is the Catalpa tree, known as ‘the hippopotamus’ because it is so large. And then there are the shrubs: the Genista, the Coronilla, the Hamamelis, with its dishevelled and fading flowers, and the Mahonia, which smells like honey. And then the plants with modern names like Benthamia or Phlomis, names which often sound too lofty in comparison to their humble appearance.

  It doesn’t feel like work. It isn’t that different from her ardent childhood and adolescent pastime, except for the absence of the person dearest to her. A gracious but inadequate group of strangers has taken his place. As a unit, they only make her long for her own family even more.

  Everyone in the household is very devout. A small parish church has been built near the estate by Carlo, Donna Clara’s deceased lover and the previous master of the house. The pungent smell of its recent construction blends with the overpowering scent of incense. The priest, a burly old man with a kind face, entrusts the censer to a young altar boy. Bianca lets herself become distracted by the trails of light blue smoke. She contemplates the Good Shepherd, who gazes out at everyone, one by one, from beside the apse. She feels surrounded by lambs. The children sit in the second row with their governess. Pietro takes something out of his pocket and shows it to Enrico, covering it with his other hand like a shield, so his sisters cannot glimpse it. Of course, they stretch out their necks to see and, in so doing, miss echoing the psalm. Their grandmother turns around from the front row with a threatening scowl. The girls fall back into line and the object disappears into Pietro’s pocket once more. Enrico sighs. The children’s mother and father are two composed backs of solid mass.

  Bianca’s gaze wanders. Several old women sit in another row. Not many country folk could allow themselves the luxury of attending two services a day, morning and evening. Since Bianca is not a believer, she wonders how she would cope with these rituals.

  It is Don Dionisio, the elderly priest, who surprises her. She is wandering in the park one day when he approaches with a timid bow. He holds out his arms towards hers.

  ‘Come with me,’ he says, opening his hands to her and taking a few steps backwards. She raises her arms and makes to move forward. He stops and drops his hands by his side, as if he has asked too much of her too soon; hers are left hanging in air. She doesn’t really know how to behave with Catholic priests, or with priests in general, but she senses that obedience is appreciated so she hurries to catch up to him. They walk on, both lifting their skirts from the ground in strange unison. He stops in front of a small door to the side of the church, which has, it seems, been built for a dwarf. ‘Here we are.’ He pushes it open, bends forward, blocks the passageway for a moment, and then disappears inside. She follows him in, head bowed. She finds herself inside a simple, bare vestry, where a crucifix hangs between two tall, narrow windows of light brown glass, which create an amber light. ‘That door is always open,’ he says. ‘Prayer doesn’t always happen on a schedule. It’s not a postal carriage. God comes to us when we least expect him. And you can do the same.’

  From that moment on, Bianca doesn’t enter the realm of the kingdom of God on a twice-daily schedule. She doesn’t have to explain herself to anyone and no one asks her a thing about it. Donna Clara seems perplexed but not altogether amazed.

  The governess whispers to her in confidence and with a hint of envy, ‘Innes doesn’t come to service either, you know.’

  But prayer occurs within the home, too, and without any forewarning. Donna Clara keeps a jet rosary on her at all times, wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet, a Christ figurine dangling from it like a strange sort of charm. Whenever the conversation turns into an appeal to the saints and Mary, she slips it off and clings to those beads that reconcile the heavens and earth. Donna Julie follows her exampl
e. The children mumble their Hail Marys in a distracted singsong. Don Titta, on the other hand, doesn’t pray. When he is present, he simply lowers his head and folds his hands together, as if prayer is just another opportunity to leave this world and get lost in another. Bianca takes advantage of those moments to study them all. She is the only one to keep her eyes open.

  Innes, the English tutor who doesn’t attend Mass, returns from his salubrious holiday. The little girls, who have been anxiously awaiting his arrival since morning, dash towards him as soon as he descends from the carriage, screaming with glee. The boys look up silently from their game – a complex construction made up of small pieces of wood – but only when their governess tells them to, do they stand to greet their tutor, taking their time to brush away the sawdust from their trousers. Innes sweeps Giulietta up while the other girls hug him tightly around his knees. He is very tall, Bianca thinks, enormous, even for an Englishman. She is sitting in the shade of the portico with a book in her lap. Innes laughs and stumbles forward, the little girls still clinging to him. When Donna Clara comes out, everything resumes its order. The sisters let go and line up. The boys join the group so that the family formation is complete. Bianca stands with the others while the servants, Berto and Barba, unload a worn suitcase and an incongruous carpet bag embroidered with purple flowers. When the carriage departs, the governess runs to shut the gates, too excited to leave it to the valet, before taking her place at the end of the line and staring intently at the new arrival.

  ‘Dear, dear, dear Innes!’ Donna Clara exclaims, opening her arms to him and clutching him briefly. Her face only reaches to his chest. ‘I trust you are well rested and fortified. You must tell me everything about the Paduan spas. I, too, would like to take the waters there one day . . . when I find time to leave the family!’

  As always, Donna Clara has placed herself in the precise middle of the circle that is her whole world. Her gaze is its radius and it is as though everything that happens has to be connected to her in some way, to make her shine – if only from reflected light. Such is her arrogance, and it is supported by rank and habit. Innes doesn’t pay it the least attention, or perhaps he is just used to it.