The Venice Sketchbook(86)

CHAPTER 33


Caroline, Venice, October 2001

It was hard to get through the rest of the meal, to chatter lightly while thoughts whirled in her head. The moment she had made the connection, she could see other similarities—the shape of his upper lip, his long fingers, the hint of auburn in his grey hair. So Aunt Lettie had had a child out of wedlock, presumably with Luca’s dead grandfather. But would the family have legitimized him? Would that old woman in the nursing home have accepted him as her son? She remembered Angelo saying, “Unlike my mother, who rarely visited the nursery.”

Somehow she survived the rest of the evening. Coffee was served in tiny cups and limoncello in small crystal glasses. Not used to much alcohol, Caroline found she was relaxed, almost pleasantly sleepy, until she was jarred awake by the loud blaring of a siren.

“Oh no.” Luca’s mother got up and went over to the window. “Not aqua alta, this early in the year, surely?”

“It’s been happening earlier and earlier, hasn’t it?” Angelo said. “Climate change. That’s what they are shouting about, isn’t it?”

“What is it?” Caroline asked, nervously.

“When rain and high tide come at the same time, we have flood here,” Luca’s father said. “And here in St Mark’s sestiere is some of the worst. Luca, you should probably take the young lady home before she has to swim, eh?” He laughed and patted Caroline’s knee.

“Oh no, it’s all right. Luca doesn’t have to . . . ,” Caroline began, glancing up at him.

But the contessa interrupted. “Of course he will take you home. He has the boat, although it may be a bumpy ride.”

Luca had already risen to his feet. “Are you ready now? My parents are right. We should go if we do not want to walk through high water.”

“‘Wade,’” his mother said. “That is the right word, Luca.”

Luca glanced at Caroline and rolled his eyes, making her smile. “Always she corrects my English. Let us go, Cara.”

Caroline reacted to this shortening of her name. Only Josh had called her that. She thanked Luca’s parents and was given a warm hug by the countess.

“Lovely to meet you, my dear,” she said. “We must do this again on a less wet evening if you’re planning to stay awhile.”

She let Luca help her on with her still-damp coat and accompanied him into the lift.

“Your parents are very nice,” Caroline said as they descended. “Not at all how I imagined a count and countess would be.”

“And how should a count be?” Luca looked amused.

“Stuffy. Aristocratic.”

He laughed. “I will be il Conte one day, and I don’t intend to be at all stuffy. But it is my mother who has always prevented my father from being stuffy. She is a great believer in equality. If she had not married him, she would have studied law, you know. She comes from a family of prominent lawyers in New York. In fact she went home intending to go back to university there, but my father pursued her and said he couldn’t live without her. So she left everything behind and married him. A passionate man, my father. But then, most Italian men are.” He gave her a wicked little grin.

“What a romantic story,” she said.

They came out to the street to find rain beating down and water already pooling over the cobbles.

“Oh, I am afraid we will get a little wet,” Luca said. “Come under my umbrella. My boat is not too far away.” He put an arm around her, as if this was a most natural thing to do, and led her through a narrow gap between buildings until he reached the launch, which was tied to a gondola post. Then he walked across the prow, balancing precariously, and hauled the boat closer in to shore for Caroline to step in.

“Sorry, we can’t go fast this time,” he said. “Grand Canal has a slow speed, so that the buildings are not damaged. But you will get a little shelter from the rain in the cabin.”

“But you will be soaked.”

He shrugged. “No matter. See, the rain is already easing. And we shall be back in Dorsoduro soon.”

“I’ll hold the umbrella over you,” she said.

“That’s not necessary. I like the rain in my face. Besides, the wind would soon blow it away.”

He revved the engine and reversed the boat into the Grand Canal. There was almost no traffic. Caroline came to stand beside him, staring out as wind and rain blew into her face.

“Don’t you want to sit where you can be dry?” he asked.

She shook her head, wondering how to tell him her suspicion.

“What is wrong?” Luca asked, looking at her. “I noticed this evening that you seem preoccupied and upset.”

Caroline hesitated. “I don’t know if I should tell you this,” she said. “And we probably should never mention it to your father, but I think my great-aunt Juliet was his mother.”

He gave her an astonished look, then shook his head, laughing uneasily. “But no. This cannot be. He had a mother. My grandmother. You met her.”

“A mother who rarely visited his nursery. That’s what your father said. A mother who reacted with such anger when she saw me. She recognized a family resemblance, Luca, as I did. Your father looked at me in exactly the same way my aunt used to. There was something about his eyes. It’s uncanny. That’s why there were so many sketches of him as a baby—because she was forced to give him up.”