Mimmo was frowning. ‘You know my name,’ he said slowly, ‘but I’ve no idea who you are.’
‘Zumbo sent me. From Paris.’
‘Zumbo?’ He turned away, head lowered.
‘Zummo. You remember him?’
‘Of course.’ His knuckles whitened on the arms of the chair as he adjusted the position of his stump. ‘You’ve come all the way from Paris?’
‘Yes.’
‘What does he want?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I haven’t made myself clear. My name is Marguerite-Louise of Orléans, and I’ve come to see my daughter.’
His whole body twitched, and the chair that was supporting him tipped over and crashed to the floor. He had to seize the corner of the table to keep himself from falling.
A voice called down from upstairs. ‘Are you all right, father?’
Mimmo called out that he was fine.
I righted the chair, and as I looked at him close up and saw the tears in his eyes I thought I understood.
‘She doesn’t live here any more, does she?’ I said. ‘She left you.’
He faced into the fireplace. ‘She’s dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘Yes.’
I swallowed. ‘When?’
‘She died nine years ago. In childbirth.’
I sank down on to a chair. All this way, all this time, and she was gone — and the fact that I had missed her by so many years only made it worse.
‘And the child?’
‘That was her just now.’
‘She had a child …’ I glanced up at Mimmo, but he was standing with his back to the light, and his face was hard to see. ‘Who by?’
She was Zummo’s daughter, he said. It seemed that Faustina had become pregnant the night she spent with Zummo in the ghost house.
‘She’s my daughter now, though,’ he added. ‘I’ve cared for her since she was born.’
I heard the warning in his voice. I heard the apprehension too.
He hauled himself over to a door at the back of the room. ‘Luisa?’ He looked at me across one shoulder. ‘She was christened Marguerite-Louise, but that’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it.’
I stared at him. ‘She’s named after me?’
‘It was Faustina’s idea.’
A girl appeared. She had shoulder-length brown hair and cautious eyes, and her shift dress had been washed so many times that it was impossible to tell what colour it had been when it was new. Clearly, she hadn’t expected to find a stranger in the room. Nervous suddenly, and wrong-footed, she rubbed quickly at the side of her head, the flat of her hand skimming her hair. At first I didn’t understand why the gesture seemed so familiar. Then I realized it was something Zumbo had done when he came to see me, and I let out a soft laugh of wonder and recognition.
‘What is it?’ Mimmo asked.
‘Nothing.’
I thought of what Stufa had said to Zumbo not long before his fatal plunge into the well. There are things you’ll never know. Zumbo hadn’t understood what Stufa had meant by that. I didn’t either. Perhaps it was the key to everything, or perhaps it was just pure bluster. It turned out that Stufa had been right, though, in ways he could never have imagined …
With a start, I remembered the baby Zumbo had made and then concealed inside the body of the girl. It wasn’t the Grand Duke’s future he had predicted. It was his own. Not a precaution, then, as he had intended, not a homage either, but a prophecy. A kind of self-portrait.
Secrecy had many faces. If it was imposed on you, against your will, it could be a scourge — the bane of your existence. On the other hand, you might well seek it out. Nurture it. Rely on it. You might find life impossible without it. But there was a third kind of secrecy, which you carried unknowingly, like a disease, or like the hour of your death. Things could be kept from you, maybe for ever.
The girl had pressed herself against Mimmo, though her eyes were fixed on me. I told her to come closer. She hesitated.
‘Suppose I show you my ring,’ I said.
Her gaze dropped to the opal. Charles had told me it was a symbol of passion and spontaneity, which had seemed so clever at the time — perfect, really — but as the years had passed those words had been replaced by others. Passion, yes. But thwarted. Incomplete.
Slowly, the girl detached herself, and came and stood in front of me.
‘It looks milky, doesn’t it,’ I said, ‘but if you tilt it you see all the colours of the rainbow.’
‘Are you a queen?’
‘I used to be.’
‘Not any more?’
‘No. I live in a convent now.’
She stared at me without saying anything. She was standing so close that I could hear her breath. In that moment I sensed something in her eyes. A watchfulness that came from somewhere beyond her. Real and yet intangible, like an echo or a draught. The presence of another.
‘It’s near Paris,’ I said. ‘Do you know where Paris is?’
‘France.’
‘Very good.’ I took off the opal and slid it on to the girl’s ring finger. It would be years before it fitted. ‘Your father’s going to look after this for you until you’re grown.’ Mimmo started to protest, but I talked over him. ‘Please. I want her to have it.’
Later, when she had left the room, I stood up. ‘There’s something else.’ I produced a purse. ‘I brought this for Faustina.’
He kept his hands on the back of the chair as someone else might keep his hands in his pockets. ‘She wouldn’t have accepted it.’
I put the purse on the table. ‘Use it for your daughter.’
He struggled over to the window, a curious five-legged creature with rounded shoulders and dusty hair. ‘You’re not going to take her away from me, then?’
‘No.’ I joined him at the window. It was late afternoon, and Luisa was on the terrace below, watering the geraniums. ‘But one day, perhaps, you’ll tell her who the ring was from.’
He nodded. ‘One day.’
I looked at the groove on my finger — a new absence, a lightness, an unexpected sense of release.
Luisa had moved on to the pots of basil and oregano. She held the bucket of water in both hands, careful not to spill a drop.
‘If Faustina knew about me,’ I said, ‘why didn’t she look for me?’
‘Perhaps she was proud.’ He glanced at me sidelong. ‘Or stubborn.’
Like her mother, I thought he meant.
When I left his house, I closed the green door gently behind me. The air still smelled of warm stone, but the sun had gone. In half an hour the village streets would be filled with people drawn outside by the coolness of the evening. Blue smoke lifting from the chimneys, the cries of children. Fireflies glinting like sparks in the darkness of the olive groves. I would already have started for the border by then. It was a long journey back.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following people for their guidance and generosity: Dr Raida Ahmad, David Austen, Claudia Bardelloni, Professor Giovanni Cipriani, Rory Farquhar-Thomson, Paolo Giansiracusa, Edward Goldberg, David Mackie and Christine Hellemans, Joanna Mackle, Ruth McVey, Dr Amy Mechowski, Luca Merlini and Nicole D’Alessandro Merlini, Beatrice Monti della Corte, Dr Rosanna Moradei, Peta Motture, Mike Osborn, Rosalind O’Shaughnessy, Dr Luisa Palli, Jan Parker, Renato Pasta and Orsola Gori, and Dr Marta Poggesi. I am also deeply indebted to the following institutions. In London: the British Library, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. In Florence: the Bargello, the Museo Firenze Com’era, the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, the Pitti Palace, La Specola, and the Villa I Tatti. In Siracusa: the Accademia di Belle Arti. A special thank you goes to Jean Norbury, and to John and Maria Norbury, for their unfailing support over the years. I would also like to thank my agent and friend, Peter Straus, my copy editor, Daphne Tagg, and everyone at Granta, especially Sigrid Rausing, Philip Gwyn Jones, Pru Rowlandson, Michael Salu, Anne Meadows, Iain Chapple, Brigid Macleod, Christine Lo, and, though she has now moved on, Michal Shavit. Finally, thank you to my wife, Kate, and my daughter, Evie, for their love, their understanding and their encouragement. No writer could have better champions.