The Marriage Portrait(81)

“I see that marriage has yet to improve his manners.” Nunciata sighs and calls across to him querulously. “Aren’t you going to come and greet us? Or are you now expecting your little bride to do it for you?”

Alfonso gives no sign of having heard her, continuing his conversation.

“She is a very little bride,” Nunciata remarks, peering short-sightedly at Lucrezia’s feet, then her arms, her hair, anywhere but at her face. “Somewhat delicate-looking, is she not?”

Elisabetta flicks her gaze between sister and brother, then back to Lucrezia, giving her hand, which she still holds, a small and reassuring squeeze.

“She is lovely,” Elisabetta says, “perfectly lovely. What a fortunate choice for—”

“Perhaps what I mean is young,” Nunciata interrupts. “You seem very young,” she adds, more loudly, in an accusatory tone, as if Lucrezia is somehow at fault in this. “I thought you were near twenty or so—”

“No.” Elisabetta cuts across her swiftly and smoothly, and they know, all of them, that Nunciata is mixing up Lucrezia with Maria, the bride who never was, and Lucrezia feels sure that if she were to turn her head, she might see Maria standing beside her, arms folded, peeved, much in the stance that Nunciata has adopted. “Lucrezia is…fourteen, I believe, or fifteen?” She turns to Lucrezia for confirmation.

Lucrezia nods. “I will be sixteen in—”

“A charming age!” Elisabetta exclaims. “To be almost sixteen is—”

“Very young,” Nunciata mutters again, in the direction of her sister’s ear, her face twisted with anxious displeasure, like someone who suspects she has been cheated in a purchase. “Not too young,” she adds, in a whisper she apparently, and mistakenly, seems to think Lucrezia cannot hear, “we hope?”

Colour rises to the delicate cheekbones of Elisabetta and she appears to struggle to know what to say. For a split second, Lucrezia believes that Elisabetta is embarrassed by her sister’s lack of tact, by her blundering indiscretion, but then Elisabetta looks quickly at the floor, bowing her head, and Lucrezia, aghast, sees that Nunciata has, instead, pinpointed and voiced Elisabetta’s own concern, that they are, all of them, perhaps everyone in this building, just biding their time, desperately waiting for her to become pregnant.

Lucrezia stands there, in her travelling dress, in her fifteen-year-old skin. She feels as though these people desire to see right through her; they are like anatomists who peel back the hides of animals to peer inside, who unclothe muscle from skin and vein from bone, assessing and concluding and noting. They, all of them, pulse with the craving, the need, to see a child growing within her, to know that an heir is secured for them. They see her as the portal, the means to their family’s survival. Lucrezia wants to fasten her cloak about herself, to hide her hands up her sleeves, to tie her cap to her head, to pull a veil over her face. You shall not look at me, she wants to say, you shall not see into me. I will not be yours. How dare you assess me and find me lacking? I am not La Fecundissima and never will be.

There is a movement to the side of her and Maria once again flits across her mind but the hand that closes over hers is familiar and warm: a tall presence is stepping in next to her. Alfonso.

He surveys his sisters, then looks at Lucrezia, scanning her face. If he manages to divine what has passed between the them, he doesn’t let on. Instead, he lifts her hand and, in front of his sisters, clasps it to his chest.

“What do you think?” he says to them. “Is she not a beauty? Did I not tell you I had chosen well?”

“Oh, yes,” Elisabetta says, with visible relief, “oh, you did. It is wonderful to meet her. I am so happy, she is lovely.” Nunciata nods, her mouth pursed into a line, then mutters something about how they had feared he would never settle down but would continue in his youthful ways for ever, so it is a greatly fortunate event for this family that he has entered into matrimony, finally.

Alfonso allows a short silence after Nunciata subsides. He is unmoving, his eye trained upon her. Then he transfers Lucrezia’s hand to his sleeve and holds it there, tight, in the crook of his arm. She can feel the iron-like contraction of muscle against her palm.

Lucrezia clears her throat. She feels that if anyone is to speak, it should be her. “Is there…” She hesitates, looking about the room, as if she might find a different topic of conversation among its furnishings and chairs. “Will I have the pleasure of meeting your honoured mother today? And your elder sister?”

Elisabetta flinches, her brows lifting, and she glances at Alfonso.

Nunciata snorts. “Are you,” she gestures with the arm not holding the little dog, her gown rustling indignantly, “intending to travel on to France?”

Lucrezia is thrown by this reply. “I…no…Are they—?”

Elisabetta sighs. “What do you wish us to say, Fonso?” she murmurs.

Alfonso doesn’t reply. He disengages himself from Lucrezia, walks towards a table and pours himself a draught of wine. “What do I wish you to say?” he repeats. “Whatever do you mean, Elisabetta?”

“You know exactly what she means,” Nunciata snaps, and the spaniel, as if sensing its mistress’s irritation, lets out a sharp, high bark.

Alfonso takes a sip from his glass, eyeing Nunciata and her dog over the rim. Lucrezia takes a step back. It is as if the room is filled with flickering flames, visible only to these three siblings, hidden conflagrations that would burn if she came too near them.