The Marriage Portrait(111)
She places the final bright tress on the coffer and runs a hand down the length of her shortened hair. The ends are sharp and bristly against her fingertips. Surprising how light her head feels, how easily it turns, how her neck feels cold and exposed.
Behind her, Emilia is crying as she lifts the severed strands. She is saying that they will keep them, that they can use them to dress her hair, pinning them into the remaining tresses, and it will look just as it used to, if done properly, should Lucrezia wish it.
“I do not wish it,” Lucrezia says.
“But, madam—”
“Burn them.”
“I cannot. I—”
Nunciata is putting her dog on the floor, shuffling forward. “Alfonso said he wanted the hair.”
Lucrezia turns. “Alfonso?”
“Yes. He asked me to—”
“Why?”
“How should I know?” Nunciata says testily. “It is not for us to question his whims.”
Lucrezia watches as Clelia takes the hair from Emilia, binds it, combs it, coils it around itself, and wraps it in linen. Nunciata takes this bundle and holds it at arm’s length as she leaves the room, her spaniel yapping at the end of its leash.
Lucrezia is filled with the urge to pull the packet of hair from her grasp, to keep it, to destroy it. She does not like to think of part of herself being taken away and put into Alfonso’s possession. What will he do with it? Keep it in a chest, lock it in a cupboard?
The door closes after Nunciata, and the hair is gone. Lucrezia turns away. The maids sweep the floor, they tidy the coffers, they clear away the dishes, they prepare her daily herbal draught; the day turns, continues and closes, like any other, as if nothing at all has changed.
* * *
The beautiful rooms are bare. Lucrezia paces from one wall to the other, from the bedchamber to the window overlooking the piazza. She does not look at the painting of the Madonna or at the bowl of fruit—swollen lemons, figs on the point of bursting. She keeps her head averted from them. If they will not let her have her own paintings, she will not let her eyes fall on these.
From this small rebellion she draws solace.
* * *
She is permitted to leave her rooms for a quarter of an hour, to take the air on the loggia, as long as she is wrapped in furs to protect her from the damp winter winds.
She walks as fast as she is able, feeling the blood tick along her veins, her heart work away in her chest. She keeps one eye on the sundial, watching the progression of the shadow. Her guard will tell her when her time is up, when she must return to her rooms.
* * *
Emilia devises a way to dress Lucrezia’s hair so that the loss of so much length is concealed. It involves twisting strands at the front to give an impression of mass, looping these strands over the ears, and pinning up the remainder in a pearl diadem from the wedding chest.
Clelia says it is not to her taste. She does Lucrezia’s hair the next day, wetting her fingers and teasing it back into curls.
Emilia says she thinks this does not suit their mistress’s long neck.
On the third day, Lucrezia says she will do her hair herself.
The maids watch, each from the corner of their eyes, sullenly, not looking at the other.
Lucrezia invents some message for them to take to distant places in the castello or asks them to fetch things for her, from the kitchens, or to take treats to her mule in the stables. Anything to be rid of their glowering presences for a while, to be alone in her thoughts.
* * *
Every five days, Alfonso comes to her. He, too, dismisses the maids but for different reasons.
* * *
No longer does he remove his clothes as he crosses the room or pull back the bedclothes to look down upon her. He kneels at the bedside instead, insisting she does the same, and, with his rosary beads in hand, leads her in prayer. The act itself is swift, his movements deliberate and careful.
He does not once mention her hair.
* * *
He is always courteous afterwards. He tells her what has been happening at court—what songs were sung over dinner, who recited which poem, who is having love affairs with whom. He mentions matters of state, both in Ferrara and abroad. He says he has visited the studio of Il Bastianino, to see the progress of her marriage portrait, and he was much pleased by how it is coming along. He asks her how she is feeling: calm, calmer, warm, cooler? Not too hot, hungry, thirsty, at peace, at rest? Does she feel any change in herself, in her body? Is there anything she craves to eat or drink? Can he do anything for her?
* * *
She is, he reminds her, obliged to visit her confessor. For this, too, she may leave her rooms.
* * *
Lucrezia becomes very frequent in her visits to confession. She insists for the first time on attending Mass at least once a day.
* * *
As she goes to and from the chapel, everyone remarks on how apt and right this is, that she should appeal to the Lord for a child. The whole castello is praying for the bestowing of an heir on the couple. The guards, maids, servants, stewards watch with reverent eyes as the little Duchess crosses herself before the altar.