Lucy Gordon - The Italian’s Cinderella Bride

‘Are you quite sure?’ he asked, searching her face.

‘I was never more sure of anything in my life. I love you, and only you. Is everything all right now?’

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘If it’s all right with you, then everything’s all right with me.’

He drew her close in a fervent embrace, and when they looked up again they were alone.

‘He’s gone,’ Pietro said.

‘So let him go.’

From somewhere deep in the building Josie’s voice floated back, ‘Just push off!’

And Gino’s answering, ‘If you’d just listen to me- ow ! What did you do that for?’

‘What do you think?’

They faded to nothing.

‘I think she’s got his measure,’ Pietro observed.

‘Can you stop worrying now?’ Ruth asked tenderly.

He shook his head in wry self-understanding.

‘No, I’ve just got a new set of things to worry about. What will I do if you leave me, if you don’t love me, if you won’t marry me-?’

‘I can set your mind at rest about that one right now.’

‘Then I’ll find another one. Suppose I disappoint you, drive you away with my awkward behaviour-’ He checked, answered by her fond smile.

‘Just promise to be here always,’ he said. ‘Love me to the end, and I won’t ask anything else.’

‘There isn’t anything else,’ she said. ‘Nothing else in all the world.’ She touched his face. ‘I’ll have to teach you that.’

‘Teach me anything you like, as long as you’re here.’

‘As long as for ever,’ she said.

Carnival ended with fireworks set off from boats far out in the lagoon, while an orchestra played on land. It began at eleven o’clock and finished on the stroke of midnight, for that was the start of Lent, the time of repentance.

‘Not for me,’ Pietro said as they wandered back home, his arm about her. ‘No repentance, no regrets-ever.’

‘You can’t be sure of that,’ she reminded him.

He regarded her fondly. ‘Yes, I can.’

Now it was over. The crowds wended their way back to hotels and the next day most of them would be gone. Already Venice seemed to be growing quieter as they opened the side door of the palazzo, and found Toni waiting there with an expectant look.

‘I was planning to go to bed,’ Pietro informed the awkward hound.

Toni looked at him.

‘He’s entitled to his walk,’ Ruth insisted. ‘We couldn’t take him out before because of the fireworks.’

‘Come on, then.’

They went towards the Rialto Bridge, and stood there a moment, watching as a convoy of gondolas approached, on their way home. As they neared the bridge the lead gondolier called out, congratulating them on their coming marriage.

‘How does he know?’ Ruth asked.

‘He’s Minna’s nephew. And the one behind him is Minna’s godson and the one behind him-well, you get the picture.’

‘You mean all Venice knows?’

‘Certain to.’

Toni put his paws on the stone balustrade and wuffed, and the gondoliers hailed him too, before gliding on under the bridge, and home.

‘The whole of Venice is planning our wedding,’ he said. ‘And the rest of our lives probably, how we’re going to open up the palazzo and return it to its glory days.’

‘Do we have to?’ she asked quickly. ‘Cinderella isn’t used to living a grand life.’

‘I’m afraid the Contessa Bagnelli will have to put up with a bit of grandeur, some of the time.’

‘I suppose so,’ she sighed. ‘It’s just that I love those little rooms. They’re like a nest. I’d like to stay right there, but I suppose that’s unrealistic of me.’

‘We could still keep it. When you get mad at me, you can take refuge in the nest. Just leave me a note saying that you never want to see me again, and I’ll know where to bring the red roses.’

They laughed in fond understanding.

‘In any case,’ she mused as they left the Rialto and strolled on under a narrow archway and over a tiny bridge, ‘the nest is very tiny. It won’t be big enough for three of us-or four-’

He stopped abruptly. ‘No,’ he said.

‘I thought you wanted children.’

‘Not like-I mean, it’s up to you. I’ll never pressure you, or even ask you.’

For a moment his voice was tense as his ghosts walked again and she hastened to ease his mind.

‘You won’t have to ask,’ she promised. ‘It’ll just happen. Stop worrying.’ She put her hands on either side of his head and repeated, ‘Stop worrying. I’m here, and I’m going to take care of everything.’

He gave a self-mocking smile. ‘You don’t know how good that sounds.’

‘From now on you’ll have me to look after you.’

‘Then I have nothing else to worry about-’ his face clouded again ‘-as long as all is well with you. I saw you when you were waiting for Gino, and you were afraid, I could tell. Suppose you did love him, after we-?’

‘No, it wasn’t like that,’ she assured him. ‘I was only afraid of what I might remember, that maybe I’d done something stupid, something that would cast a blight over you and me, or even send my mind back into the shadows. That was the only fear.’

‘And instead, Gino turns out to be a cowardly little swine whom no woman should look at twice,’ Pietro said with a touch of anger.

‘Hush, it doesn’t matter.’

‘How can you say that what he did to you doesn’t matter?’

‘All right, it matters, but only because it sent me to you. If he’d behaved well I might have married him, and then you and I would have met too late.’

He nodded. ‘That’s a terrifying thought, because I couldn’t have met you without loving you, and if it was too late-’

He tightened his arm about her.

‘That would have been truly a life lived in the shadows,’ he said. ‘With nothing but pain and regret.’

‘Do you remember the first night we met?’ she asked. ‘We talked then about shadows, about how they never ended.’

‘I remember.’

‘But they have ended now. Gino has gone from my mind as thoroughly as he’s gone from my heart. Now there’s only you, always.’

Pietro replied, not in words, but with a kiss that was long and gentle.

They walked on for a while, listening to the night. Venice was quiet except for the distant sound of laughter, the fading music that meant the gondoliers were going home, the soft cry of seagulls.

‘Contessa Bagnelli,’ she mused, trying the name for size. ‘I just can’t quite see myself living up to all the pomp. Life in a London suburb doesn’t exactly fit you for it.’

‘But you’ll do it wonderfully, with the help of your friends-all seventy thousand of them.’

She understood at once. The people who lived here all the time, the true Venetians who stood out from all other people in the world by their courage, their readiness to face any trouble, and, above all, their generosity.

Her very first day here they had kept protective eyes on her as she blundered around, then guided Pietro to her rescue. Her friends were there again now, opening windows overhead, looking down at the two of them, smiling with delight, whispering their good wishes, welcoming her into the family.

‘Buona notte, signore.’

‘Buona notte, Alfredo, Renato, Maria…’ He knew all their names.

From all sides the words floated down around them. ‘Is it true? Please say that it’s true-we will be so glad.’

He laughed up at them. ‘Wait and see,’ he teased.

But they had already seen what they cared about. Their friend was laughing again. All was well.

‘You’re one of us already,’ Pietro told her. ‘And we’ll never let you go.’

Overhead, a hundred eyes watched them drifting contentedly on their way, with Toni padding softly behind them, until the friendly darkness swallowed them up.