A Heart Most Worthy (28 page)

“We need the police. To come and take him away.” He opened the door of the shop and ushered Luciana through it, then turned to look for the other girl.

Julietta had walked over to where Angelo lay on the ground. “I can’t believe I ever kissed you . . . I can’t believe I ever thought I loved you . . . I can’t – ” A sob tore at her throat. She kicked him in the stomach. And again for good measure. Oh, but the effort made her arm ache. “You filthy, miserable . . .
malfattore!
”

Once inside, Billy alerted Madame to the goings-on in the alley. She telephoned for the police. But by the time Billy had met them at the entrance to the shop and led them through to the alley, Angelo had gone.

The policemen looked up and down the alley, but found no sign of him. They came back to where Billy was standing. “An assassin? One of those anarchists?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Says who? You?”

Billy looked over at Luciana, who had hung back by the door.

She nodded hesitantly.

“Says Miss Luciana Conti, daughter of the Count of Rome.”

Madame helped Julietta tie up her arm in a scarf. It still hurt – it hurt excruciatingly – but at least it wasn’t bumping against her side at every step. She left the shop by the front door as the policemen went out the back.

She pondered her fate as she walked home.

Mama would have to be told what had happened. Mauro would have to be called to look at her arm. She would have to spill the whole shameful story. And it was a shame. All of it. A deep, abiding, humiliating shame. And that was the worst of it. The deep, deep shame. A shame that kept Julietta’s gaze on her feet all the way home.

She hadn’t known he was like that, had she? At first? She had once thought Angelo bold and visionary, but she had discovered him to be so much less. She was shamed now that she would have to admit to a relationship with him. Shamed even more that it was Mauro who would have to be told.

Julietta might have told Mama everything that evening, but the astounded woman began clucking over her daughter’s arm just as soon as she saw it, and didn’t stop exclaiming over it until Mauro had been called. And once he had come, she stood right over his shoulder as he examined Julietta’s arm, as he pronounced that it needed to be set in plaster. He had his own ideas – culled from the way she refused to meet his eyes and the fading finger-shaped bruises on her forearms – about how she had happened to break her arm, but he decided to keep his suspicions to himself. Which left Julietta feeling even more shamed as she went to work the next morning.

Madame was able to rig a sort of vise to hold Julietta’s work as she went about her embroidery, but it was slow going and awkwardly done, and by the time the day was over, Julietta was wishing for nothing so much as her bed. But she had amends to make first.

“I owe you something, Luciana.”

Luciana looked up from her work in surprise. Julietta hadn’t spoken for the entire day. Luciana eyed the girl with suspicion.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I want you to have your necklace back. I don’t deserve it.

I’ve brought you nothing but trouble.”

“You earned it. You altered the gowns for me.”

“But it’s not mine. It’s yours. It belongs to you. Angelo recognized . . . I mean, I didn’t know he was like that. Not really . . . not until . . .” She said it like a plea.

Luciana’s eyes softened. “Neither did I. He deceived me back in Roma. The same way he did you.”

“But I didn’t know! Not at first.”

“Neither did I.” Luciana still couldn’t believe she hadn’t known. Hadn’t realized.

“I feel so . . .”

“Stupid? Foolish?”

“Sì.” And angry, too. “Please . . . take it back.”

It was a pendant made in the design of the Conti family crest, and of all the pieces she’d had to let go, it was the one she had regretted the most. Luciana nodded.

“You’ll have to unfasten it yourself.” She lifted her useless arm as she bent her head, baring her neck.

Luciana undid the fastener, pulled the chain free, and then put it around her own neck. The gems twinkled as the lavaliere fell back into place beneath her blouse.

41

“Look what I found!” Stefano had called out to Annamaria from across the room.

She turned from the stove toward him, glad to hear a note of excitement in his voice. There had been so little to delight over, so little joy in the apartment since Mama had died.

He was swinging a familiar silver medal as he waited for dinner, the chain whirring as it spun an arc through the air. “I found it on the floor underneath the shelf.”

She held out her hand.

“It’s mine! I found it.”

“Give it,
bambino mio
. You don’t want a medal of Saint Zita.”

No one did. No one with any hopes or dreams.

“It’s mine.”

Vittorio was watching from his place at the table. “What?

You want to turn into an old maid like Annamaria? Give it back to her. That’s who it belongs to.”

“An old maid?” Stefano pulled a face. Threw it at her. “I don’t want it anymore. You can have it.”

She threw up a hand and caught it before it could hit her in the face. Saint Zita. Patron saint of single women and servant girls. Saint Zita had beckoned her back, called her home. How could she think of doing anything now but caring for her poor motherless family? She bowed her head to fate and slid the chain back over her neck.

Stefano suddenly and unaccountably ran over to her and threw his arms around her waist. “You won’t leave us, will you, Annamaria?”

All eyes at the table turned in her direction.

Leave them? Now? Now that Mama had died? How could she? How could anyone? A small voice inside her insisted that this wasn’t what she wanted.

“Now you have to stay with us, don’t you? You can’t leave.

Not ever! Not like Mama did.”

Tears glistened at the corners of her brother Vittorio’s eyes.

Papa had bowed his head and put a trembling hand up to cover his face.

Closing her eyes, she bent to kiss him on the head. “Now I have to stay with you.”

“Promise! Promise you won’t leave.”

“I won’t leave.”

She fell asleep that night clutching the medal, praying that God would give her the strength to stay. And the grace not to regret it.

Before he began his rounds on Saturday, Mauro stopped in at the Giordanos to take another look at Julietta’s arm. He pronounced her well enough to do nearly anything. “But nothing too strenuous, Mama.” He didn’t bother to give the instruction to Julietta, because he knew she would ignore it.

But Julietta didn’t have plans to do anything strenuous. There was only one place she wanted to go and she went there that very afternoon, sliding into the confession booth at St. Leonard’s a little after three o’clock.

Julietta crossed herself. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

My last confession was six months ago.”

The priest waited for the voice to continue, but it said nothing. “My child?”

“I need . . . help, Father.”

“You can’t remember your sins?”

Julietta nearly smiled. “No. I can remember them.” She remembered all of them. “It’s just that . . . there are so many.”

How had she come to collect so many of them? And why was it that she had waited so long to confess them?

“God has been waiting for you, my daughter.”

Have you, God? Truly?

“To offer you peace and forgiveness. Mercy and wholeness.” You would do that, God? For me? Even after . . . everything? “The Holy Scriptures tell us that all have sinned and that in Christ alone we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins. He can forgive you. He will forgive you. If only you will confess.”

Forgiveness. That’s what she wanted. She wanted to start all over again. She wanted to feel clean.

“It’s always best to start with your mortal sins. Confess the worst one first.”

Mortal sins. All of them had been mortal sins. They were all grave sins, and all had been committed with Julietta’s full knowledge and full consent. “Then I confess to . . . lust.” That one was the worst. That was the one that had led her to Angelo and then kept on drawing her back. “I confess to hatred, wrath, strife, sedition, envy . . . reveling.” She listened to the words as she spoke them. She meant every one. “I confess to anger.” She’d been angry, hadn’t she, that her family hadn’t been more American? She’d been angry that they kept living as if they were still in the old country, and angry that they couldn’t be made to see any sense. That they wouldn’t change. And the anger had led to shame. Or had it been the other way around? “I confess to neglect of my Sunday obligations, to lying, and to sins against love. I’ve been very ungrateful, Father. I’ve despised my family for their . . . love.” Because that’s all they’d ever done, wasn’t it? All they’d ever done was love her. All they’d ever done was wanted the best for her. “And I confess to pride.”

“How many times have you committed these sins?”

Times without number. “Too many times to count.”

Father Antonio was rarely surprised by the sins his parishioners committed, but he had never ceased to be saddened. “You committed yourself to the path of rebellion, my child.”

She nodded, though she could not speak for sorrow.

“Do you wish to turn from this path?”

“I want to, Father. I’m sorry for these and all the sins of my past life.” She hadn’t before realized just how far away from her family, how far away from love, her sins had carried her. She’d undertaken some of them as a lark. She’d made a game of trying to keep her family from knowledge of Angelo. She hadn’t realized how dangerous that game had become.

“You must go from here and confess these sins to your parents.”

Her heart quailed within her. But as she bowed her head, as she listened to the words of the priest, she realized that he was right. She’d already confessed her sins to God. Now she needed to confess them to the people she had hurt. And when, at last, she was invited to, she sincerely spoke those timeless words of contrition. “O God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. But most of all because I have offended you, my God, who is all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of your grace to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life. Amen.”

The priest sighed, both in sorrow over the transgressions of this beloved daughter of God and in happiness that she had come to accept a measure of His grace. “May our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you; and by His authority I absolve you from every bond of excommunication and interdict, so far as my power allows and your needs require.” He crossed himself. “Thereupon, I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Now, may the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the merits of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the saints obtain for you that whatever good you do or whatever evil you bear might merit for you the remission of your sins, the increase of grace, and the reward of everlasting life. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.”

Julietta had received the ministrations with eager gratitude, and now she was forgiven. Renewed.

Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. For His mercy endures forever. And it extends to such as me.

Madame Fortier had gone to her shop on Monday morning, trepidation spotting her palms with sweat. Today was the day. The day she would either discover the jewels to have been returned . . . or the day she would have to fire one of her third-floor girls. Only one outcome was acceptable. The other would leave her reputation in tatters, her business in ruins.

It was a day when she wished – how she wished! – to be her father’s daughter once more. To find him in his tailor’s shop, mouth filled with pins. To walk into his warm embrace. To sit on Papa’s lap, sheltered by his arms, and tell him all that was wrong. But she was no longer a girl; she was a woman grown. And she was no longer her father’s daughter. She was Madame Fortier.

She busied herself first with settling some bills, then with writing up some orders. She did a hundred things that morning which kept her from opening the safe in her office. She heard the steps of her girls going up to the second-floor workshop. And three sets of steps going up farther still.
Grazie a Dio
, Annamaria had finally returned!

It was time.

Madame considered fortifying herself with a drink from the bottle she kept in her drawer. Then decided she’d better not. The theft had nothing to do with the strega. It was her own fault that she’d hired a thief, if a thief there proved to be . . . though she’d always been so certain of her judgment. In any case, if she had to fire one of her girls, she wanted to have all her wits about her. But she sat there behind her desk for several minutes more, staring at her fear until she became annoyed by the stubbornness with which it had dogged her. And it was then that she finally summoned the anger necessary to continue.

But it was at that moment – that very same moment – someone pushed into the shop. And shoved the door shut with such energy that the building itself shuddered.

Madame dropped her hand from the lock and left her office to see who it was.

The strega.

Her eyes widened. All her hopes plummeted from the secret shelf in her heart where she had put them, hoping, praying that the jewels would be returned. There was no doubt. Mrs. Quinn knew. By some dark magic she must have discovered the theft of the jewels. She had discovered the theft and now she was going to demand payment.

“Where is she?”

Madame Fortier came out from behind the counter onto the shop floor. She tried to make sense of Mrs. Quinn’s words, but there were only so many ways to rearrange those three short words and none of those combinations made any sort of sense. “Where is . . . who?”

“Her!”

“Which
her
?”

“The girl who stole Billy.”

Stole
was a word that fit Madame’s expectations, but . . .

“Billy?”

“The girl who’s seduced my son. That Italian girl!” Mrs. Quinn’s face flushed bright red, and her eyes flashed dangerous glints of steel.

Madame took a step back toward her office. “I assure you, I have no idea of what you speak.”

“And I assure you that one of your girls has trapped Billy into marriage.” It had taken her a while – three weeks, in fact – to find out who it was that Billy was so bent upon marrying. And even now she didn’t know who the girl was.

But Madame did. And she liked Luciana. She wasn’t about to throw her to the strega. “Which girl?”

“The Italian one!”

“I have several Italian girls working for me. To which one do you refer?”

“I don’t know. They all look the same to me!”

Madame Fortier’s right brow had risen dangerously high. She’d had enough! Enough of being tied to the orders and whims of a woman whose only goal seemed to be to make life complicated.

“
I
am Italian. Perhaps you are speaking of me.”

Mrs. Quinn took a step backward, away from Madame’s wrath. “Of course you’re not Italian. You’re . . . you’re . . .

French!”

“As French as an Italian can be.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t – ”

“Out.” Madame pointed toward the door with one majestically outflung finger.

“I don’t think – I mean – ”

“Get out of my shop.”

“If I leave, I may never come back.”

“Bene. May it be a promise between us.” Madame opened the door herself and then pushed the strega through it with an unyielding hand.