The Thief of Venice(27)
Sam glanced down the table and realized that the man was not a total stranger. Lucia Costanza had introduced him as her assistant, Signer Bernardi. Then, later, on the day after her disappearance, quest' idiota had intimated that she was a thief. Was this upstart pretending to take her place? Sam sank back in his chair as Bernardi talked interminably, managing to be imprecise and vague while enumerating all the measures that they in the Palazzo Patriarcale were going to take against high water, namely measures 1,2,3, 4, 5, and 6.
Sam stopped listening. It occurred to him that Bernardi deserved a place in his Society of Bores. The more the man droned on, the higher Sam raised him in the hierarchy, inventing dazzling upper reaches. When Bernardi sat down he had achieved the level of Knight Errant Bore in the Thirty-third Degree.
*22*
Ursula had a doll. It was an anorexic platinum blond Barbie doll. To the child it was another self, a friend, something to cherish.
Her grandmother loathed the doll, and refused to give Ursula pieces of fabric for the making of doll dresses. "Really, Ursula, that creature is a piece of outrageous commercial exploitation. I can't bear to look at it."
One day Mary Kelly found Ursula making the doll a dress. "Oh, Ursula, what a pretty doll. What's her name?"
Ursula looked at her warily. "It's Ursula."
"Ursula? The same as yours? Well, I like the two Ursulas." Mary sat down and watched the child pull down over the doll's head a bunchy outfit of gauzy blue cloth. The side seams had not been stitched. The dress was held together with big X's sewn into the corners.
Mary reached out and touched it. "What lovely material. If you have more of it, I could help you make something else."
Ursula's face broke into a wide smile. Without a word she lumped up and ran to her room. When she came back she was dragging one of her own dresses, a flouncy pale blue article with ruffles. It looked expensive. A large piece had been hacked out of the skirt.
Mary guessed that the little girl would soon be in terrible trouble. "I'll tell you what, why don't you and I go shopping and buy a few pieces of pretty stuff? You know, a little velveteen, and some ribbon and lace edging?"
"Oh, yes," breathed Ursula.
"But firstmay I?" Mary took the doll. "Look, if you made some darts, the dress would fit better." With Ursula's permission she took the dress off the doll and explained. The little girl grasped the idea at once, and bounced up to find a paper of pins.
They were hard at work, teacher and pupil, when Mrs. Wellesley burst in, her painting materials under her arm, and complained bitterly about the weather. "I had to stop in the middle," she said, showing Mary a sheet of blotched watercolor paper. "I couldn't finish." Then suddenly her attention sharpened, and she stared at the vandalized dress.
At once there was an uncomfortable scene. It appeared that the dress had been a birthday present from Mrs. Wellesley. And then she began on the doll. "Oh, that horrible creature! Ursula, where's that really beautiful doll I bought you on Via Madonetta Meloni? Oh, Mrs. Kelly, it's the loveliest doll. Go get it, dear. I want to show it to Mrs. Kelly."
Ursula got up slowly and retreated to her room. She did not come back. It was soon evident that another crisis was impending, and Mary excused herself. As she headed for the stairs she heard the brazen voice of Mrs. Wellesley shrieking at her granddaughter, "Ursula? Where are you? What on earth are you doing?"
*23*
Mary no longer wandered alone around the city of Venice. These days her explorations were often accompanied by the good-looking doctor she had met in front of the house of Tintoretto. They met again the day after, to climb the spiral staircase of the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo. At the top of the winding stairs there was a broad view of the city. Bulky in the foreground rose the framework for the new walls of the concert hall of La Fenice, which had been destroyed by fire.
Henchard stood beside her, identifying landmarks, pointing out church towers.
"Doctor Visconti," said Mary, looking dreamily at the bulbous domes of San Marco, "are you sure you have time for this? I should think your schedule would be too full ofwhat?surgery and appointments with patients, and"
"No, no, I have plenty of time. Surgery's first thing in the morning. Ordinary appointments are in the afternoon, but there aren't very many right now. At the moment my fellow citizens seem to be fairly healthy. Except, of course, for a few sad cases. There are always some of those." Henchard was standing close to Mary, his shoulder against hers. He turned and said gently, "Please call me Richard."
Again he took her to lunch, this time at a famous place, the Osteria ai Assassini.