The Marriage Portrait(34)

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.