The Marriage Portrait, page 11
There is nothing she can do. She is powerless, entirely at the mercy of a heartless force. She is thrown one way, then the other; her head is pressed down into the pillows, snapped forward, then back. Her arms are pulled rigid, her fingers retract into claws. It is difficult to get breath past her frozen throat, down into her petrified lungs.
She might die. This fact presents itself to her, like a gull flying out of a storm, and she examines it, dully, through the churning mists of the sickness. She might. She recognises this; she accepts it. She has reached a place where all she craves is an end to the torment, the bodily suffering. Any end at all.
The Duchess Lucrezia on Her Wedding Day
Palazzo, Florence, 1560
The chamber is filled with people and the wedding gown waits for her on the bed.
Lilies stand tall in a vase on the mantel, their stems offering up blooms as if for scrutiny. The air moving in and out of her is heavy with their scent. When she’d woken, just after dawn, the buds had been closed but now the full complexity of their petals and stamens is open for all to see. The sweet, cloying smell of them fills her chest, leaves it, fills it again. A rust-red shadow of pollen encircles the base of the vase.
Behind them, servants come and servants go, their shoes rushing one way and the other. Someone knocks at the door, delivering a wooden box; another person opens the box and takes out jewels from inside it, one by one. Someone else lifts Lucrezia’s arm and places bracelets on it, pushes earrings through her lobes, fastens her betrothal ruby about her neck. Lucrezia is the only motionless being. She sits at the centre of this activity, a reed caught in the eddy of a stream.
Three maids are stationed around her, each unknotting a section of her hair, tugging and pulling at the scalp with combs. One of them, a girl of about Lucrezia’s age, with a puckered scar curving from the corner of her mouth to her neck, has a particularly gentle touch, disentangling the knots with careful fingers, instead of yanking the comb through them, and Lucrezia would like to tell her how grateful she is for this.
Lucrezia has been occupying herself, as she sits here, with planning how she would paint the lilies, how she could capture the flecked pink stains of their interiors, the swan-white of the outer petals, the stamens sticky with nectar, their simultaneous strength and fragility. Her leg, beneath her camiciotto, is bouncing up and down, up and down. She cannot stop it: sitting still for so long is intolerable for her. She wants to leap up, to bat these women away from her, to yank her hair out of their grasp and move about the room, pulling off the clinking bracelets, rolling her shoulders in their sockets, stretching her neck from one side to the other. Most of all, she would like to clear everyone from the room with a loud cry, so that she might have a moment to gather her thoughts.
But there will be no sketching today. The wedding gown is waiting and the lilies will be bound and placed in her hands, and she will carry them before her, like a shield or a lance, all the way to the altar.
A long triangle of light, an exact yellow replica of the window behind it, makes a sudden appearance at her feet, spreading itself out across the floor, as if reaching for her ankle. Lucrezia observes how it bends around objects in its path, drapes itself over a pair of shoes, a dropped cloth, a discarded shift.
Near the bed, two servants are arguing in impassioned whispers. Something about the dress, and the order in which it must be donned. Lucrezia sees one of them pick up a sleeve and say, This, in a peremptory tone, and the other shakes her head, bringing her hand down emphatically on the bodice. The first servant clutches her forehead dramatically, and says if they weren’t taking so long with the hair she would already be dressed. They are anxious because Eleonora has instructed them, in commanding tones, to make Lucrezia look like a duchess because this, she said, with a rare smile on her face, is what she will be. The old Duke, the father, has died and Alfonso is now the Duke of Ferrara; Lucrezia has heard rumours that this is why he has returned from France, to assume control of his court, and not, as Eleonora says, to claim Lucrezia as his bride. Either way, she will become a duchess today, from the moment she is married. She sometimes says this word to herself—duchessa, duchessa—over and over, when she is alone, rendering the word into a slurry of sound. Its three syllables seem to battle against each other, the peremptory du, the harsh che and the final susurrating ssa. How strange that it will soon be forever part of her name.
Lucrezia knows there was a series of masques at the palazzo last night, in honour of the new Duke, with the players dressed in embroidered velvet. There were twelve Indians and twelve Greeks, accompanied by heavenly music. The Florentine ladies danced and course after course of delicacies were served on the salon’s long tables. This may also be why the servants are tired and tetchy: they will have been up most of the night. Across the city, there have been feasts, with pigs roasted above fires, and citizens carousing through the night. Her father arranged for a game of calcio to be played in front of Santa Croce, which was attended by thousands, and a young man from the eastern quarter has been grievously injured while defending his team’s goal. Her father has dispatched a purse of scudi to his family, in honour of his bravery and grit.
She knows all this not because she was there but because she has overheard the servants talking of it all—the masques, the candles, the pig-roasts, the calcio, the scudi. She longed to see it, to stand in the rooms, or perhaps even the gallery above, and watch the dancing, to see all those faces. She begged and begged her father and mother, but they refused. She had stamped her foot and cried, why can’t I, why? But her parents turned away, shaking their heads, saying that she, Lucrezia, must remain here, in her chamber. It is not right for young brides to be seen before the wedding.
The mirror gives back to her a face with cheeks high in colour, eyes glittering, hair held away in looping ropes by the six hands of servants, who are combing and plaiting it, and this gives her an unearthly look, as if she is floating up and into the sky.
The wedding gown waits; she can sense it behind her, biding its time, its empty shape poised to encase her body.
There comes into the air around them the sound of the bell in the campanile. It strikes five, it strikes six, then seven. Behind it, by just a fraction, come Florence’s other bells, as if the city is an echo chamber, calling and responding to itself. As the final tolls still shiver against the walls of the room, the maids begin to panic. They dart from door to window, from coffer to bed, calling to each other to hurry, quick, hurry. The woman still holding the dress sleeve begins to castigate the ones still plaiting her hair, saying, Why aren’t you finished yet, you’re so slow, you’re going to get us all into trouble. The older maid, who is beginning to coil the long plaits around and around and pin them to Lucrezia’s scalp, tells the woman to shut her mouth or she’ll shut it for her.
Lucrezia’s hair has never been cut, not since the day she was born: if unbound, it reaches to her ankles, a burnished copper river that falls from her head to the ground. She can wear it around herself like a shroud. It can conceal much: her whole self, if loose, or flowers, seeds, even small pets, if piled up. Brushed, it comes to life, transforming and separating into sinuous tendrils, the edges of which crackle and rise into the air, like severed spider weave. If dressed, like this, by the hands of expert servants, it can be pinned and woven into a crown or a halo.
The plaits are arranged, criss-crossing her head, looping over her ears and the jewels there, up the curve of her neck, and secured at the crown of her head. The veil is brought down around her while they affix the golden diadem, brought by Vitelli himself, from the iron-lined strongroom.
The maids are still squabbling among themselves. One makes a slightly bawdy remark about husbands, another titters, and the older one tells them sharply to hush. The diadem suddenly feels too tight around Lucrezia’s head: she can feel it pressing upon her skull, along with a hundred bristling brass pins, keeping her hair in place. She curls up her toes inside her slippers and repeats to herself Sofia’s advice on the matter of her wedding night: let the man do what he will, don’t fight or struggle, breathe deeply, and it will soon be over. But it is not, she had wanted to say to Sofia, in my nature to acquiesce, to submit.
Then the veil is lifted back and she sees that the maidservant with the gentle hands and the scarred face is motioning to Lucrezia to stand up.
Lucrezia turns and faces the dress.
Here it comes now, cradled in the arms of the two servants. It travels, like a full sail, to where she stands, made ready in her shift and veil. Its fabric ripples like running water; the silk carries in itself myriad blues, from the light cerulean of a clear sky to a dark, inscrutable ink. The gold organza divides the blue down the centre, a glinting, shining road.
It opens, the dress, in the many deft hands of the maids, unfolding like a map, and it hovers—flat and unreadable—for a moment. Then they pass it in front of her and it is wrapped around her. The bodice is laced, one maid pulling on the ties, the other holding the fabric together; the sleeves, stiff and voluminous, are eased on to her arms and the scarred girl stands at her shoulder, fastening them with quick movements. Lucrezia finds herself wondering about this girl who treats her with such kindness. She is perhaps not much older than Lucrezia; she has light hair, not dissimilar to Lucrezia’s in colour, curling out from under her cap. Patches of sweat mark her gown under the arms and along the collar. The crescent-shaped scar curves from the corner of her mouth to her neck and this throws her beauty into relief, making it somehow more apparent.
Lucrezia can feel the bodice drawing together at her waist in the small of her back. She feels the colour rise to her cheeks and neck, and a dangerous pricking at her eyelids. The girl lacing the sleeves, who is in front of her now, tying the threads under her armpits, glances quickly at her, then away, and is it Lucrezia’s imagination but does the girl look at her, once more, with pity and sympathy? How can such a girl, maimed like this and living as a servant, feel sorry for her?
And then it is done. The dress is on her. It reaches her ankles, it covers her wrists, it stands up on all sides of her, a fortress of silk. Above it is her piled hair, the ruby collar, below it her feet, now in satin shoes.
In the mirror, she sees a girl surrounded by a sea of blue and gold, like an archangel fallen to earth.
And, with the servants ushering her forward, placing the bound lilies in her hands, she steps towards the door.
The gown rustles and slides around her, speaking a glossolalia all of its own, the silk moving against the rougher nap of the underskirts, the bone supports of the bodice straining and squealing against their coverings, the cuffs scuffing and chafing the skin of her wrists, the stiffened collar hooking and nibbling at her nape, the hip supports creaking like the rigging of a ship. It is a symphony, an orchestra of fabrics, and Lucrezia would like to cover her ears, to stop them with her palms, but she cannot. She must continue like this to the door; she must walk through it, out into the corridor, where there are people—her father’s officials, her mother’s retinue—waiting for her. She must leave behind this chamber and this palazzo and it may be that she will never sleep here again.
She is ushered along, through room after room, passing under marble portals, through archways. Doors are opened for her, faces peer out at her.
She averts her eyes as they approach what used to be Maria’s chamber, but not before she sees, unbelievably, that the door is ajar. A sliver of light reaches out from it, into the corridor. Lucrezia grips the lily stems. Can someone be staying in there? Has Maria’s room been given to someone?
The idea that it will be the Duke of Ferrara rears into her mind. It will be him, of course it will. Where else would they put him, when the palazzo is stuffed with guests and visitors, servants and courtiers? What other room would befit his status?
Maria’s room: her bed, the heavy red drapes, the coffer with golden lacquer, the high window with a table beneath it. There used to be a quartz vase there, with patterns cut into the rim. Maria liked it to be filled with anemones in spring, then bougainvillaea in summer. Will it still be there, filled with delicate purple-pink blossoms, as it would be if she were alive?
If she were alive, it would be her, now, coming out of that door and walking towards the staircase, trailed by maids, flanked by courtiers, and here is Vitelli, at the bottom, looking up at her, then glancing towards the courtyard, giving a signal to whoever is waiting there. Here she comes now, he is telling someone just out of sight.
It should have been her, Maria, is what everyone around her is thinking. Lucrezia is sure of this. It should have been Maria in this dress, with these lilies. Not this one, who is smaller, younger, not nearly so pretty and altogether less agreeable.
At the top of the stairs, she is seized with an urge to double back and push at that door, just in case there has been a mistake and Maria is in there, sitting at her table, writing letters, her vase of flowers before her, light from the window falling on to her shining head of hair, and she will turn, displeased at the interruption, and see Lucrezia there, and she will say, What on earth are you doing? Why are you wearing my dress? Remove it this instant.
Lucrezia takes a step down, then another and another, the thin soles of her slippers meeting each tread. The girl with the scarred face is just to her right; she is holding Lucrezia’s wrist, steadying her on the stairs. Does she think Lucrezia will fall?
Vitelli is at her side, gripping her arm; the two of them move through the velvet dark of the gatehouse. It feels oddly intimate, enveloped as they are, together. Lucrezia finds she wants to lean towards him and say—what? Let me go. Let me run. Release my arm so that I may—
The gates creak open and a waterfall of noise crashes down on her. She doesn’t know it but she has departed from the only quiet of the day: the rest will be motion and jostling and talk and commands and obligations. Here she stands, on the threshold of the palazzo where she was born, and now she is stepping forward, outside its tall, tall walls. She has to close her eyes against the glare. A huge sound rolls around her, like a wave. It is enough to knock her off her feet so she is glad, in a way, that Vitelli still has her by the arm. When she opens her eyes, she sees that the piazza is crammed. The people of Florence are waving scarves and flags in the air, shouting, all their faces turned her way. So many faces! It is quite astounding. All so different: some old, some with wide eyes, some narrow, mouths with white teeth, mouths with none, hair that curls and hair shorn close to the head. There are babies held in arms, there are children straining their necks to see. How many iterations of the human face exist, how many ways in which mouth, nose and eyes can be arranged! It astounds Lucrezia. She would like to stop and look at them all, one by one, to speak to them, ask what is their name and what are they doing here. A woman near her, held back by a guard, is saying something, over and over, stretching out an imploring hand. Lucrezia looks at her. She could reach out and touch this woman, this person in a grimy smock with hair unravelled down her back. She realises, with a small shock, that the woman is calling her name—Lucrezia, Lucrezia—and how can this person know her name, and what is it to her, what is she to her?
Here is the carriage, suddenly, not the covered one her parents usually use but the other, with an open top, its door held for her by a guard. She puts her toe on the footrest and Vitelli and the guard hoist her, her flowers and her dress up and into the carriage, and close the door with a snap.
The carriage is high, and precarious-seeming; the glare and noise of the piazza feel close but not overwhelming, and Lucrezia is trying to find a comfortable seated position inside the cage of her dress, so it takes her a moment to realise that she is sitting opposite her parents.
Eleonora sits in a nimbus of cross-hatched fabric, one hand supporting her chin, the other hooked through Cosimo’s arm. She considers her daughter with thick-lashed eyes.
“Yes,” she murmurs, as if they are continuing a conversation from earlier, “the colour does suit. It complements your eyes, your hair. I thought as much, although some of my ladies warned it might emphasise your pallor, but I was right, after all.” She continues to examine the dress, from the bodice, all the way down to the hem and back again, leaning forward to scrutinise the sleeves.
Then Eleonora puts her head on one side. “Don’t you have a kiss for your mamma, on a day such as this?”
“Yes,” Lucrezia says. “Sorry, Mamma.” She gets cautiously to her feet, clutching the lilies. She struggles for a moment to find her balance—the dress is so enormous, so burdensome—and leans forward carefully to plant a kiss on her mother’s face.
The cheek is cool and soft, the texture of an overripe apricot, with that same slackness and deliquescent give. Her mother’s scent is always the same: hair pomade, violet oil, cloves.
At the sight of this kiss between mother and daughter, the crowd gives up a great cheer, which bounces over them and back. It is as if someone is tossing a bright golden ball from one side of the carriage to the other.
The horses, at the touch of the whip, jolt forward and Lucrezia is shunted back to the opposite seat.
“Do you see,” Eleonora says, “these people, Lucrezia? How they love us.”
