The Lost Relic

Chapter Sixty-Eight

‘I was born Simonetta Renzi in 1912,’ the old woman began. ‘A very long time ago. I am in my hundredth year, but God has blessed me with a clear memory. Though at times,’ she added darkly, ‘I wish he had not.’

She gestured about her. ‘I did not always live like this. My parents were peasant farm workers, both illiterate, who never left their village to the day they died. I had six brothers. All gone now.’ She paused, as though remembering each of them in turn. ‘Perhaps because I was the youngest, and the only girl, I knew from the start that the hardship of working on the land was not the life I wanted. At a young age, I taught myself to read and write, and I could sew and embroider beautifully. I was almost twelve when word came around that a local aristocrat was seeking a lady’s maid for his new bride.’

‘Count Rodingo De Crescenzo.’ Ben said.

Mimi nodded. ‘I was very mature for my age. Pretending to be fourteen, I presented myself to the count’s head servants and somehow managed to persuade them that I was suitable for the position. That is how I first came to meet Gabriella, then the newly wed Contessa De Crescenzo. We quickly became friends. It was she who first called me “Mimi”, after the seamstress heroine in Puccini’s opera “La Bohème”. The nickname has stuck with me all my life.’ The old woman paused again as Elise returned with drinks. The maid placed a Campari soda on the table at Mimi’s elbow, and a frosted bottle of white wine and a jug of iced lemon water on the side for Ben and Darcey. When she was gone, Mimi continued her story.

‘In many ways, Gabriella’s background reflected my own. She was born Gabriella Giordani in 1908, to an impoverished upper-middle-class Milanese family. By the time she was seventeen, her father had squandered much of his inherited wealth. All he had left to sell was his beautiful daughter. To help save her family from poverty she agreed to marry this Count De Crescenzo, twenty-five years her senior, and reluctantly went to live on his estate. I remember the house very well. It was a veritable palace, so huge that many parts of it were never used. And it was old, so old that some rooms and passages had even been forgotten. Gabriella took to wandering alone, exploring. One day she came on a hidden passage that led to a secret room which had been unused for many years. After she very discreetly asked the servants, she realised nobody knew it was even there.

‘It became her refuge. You see, she was so miserable. Her husband was a cruel man, a weak man who lived in the shadow of his domineering mother and took out his frustrations on his poor wife. He did everything he could to destroy her confidence. He ordered his manservant Ugo, a terrible brute of a man whom we all dreaded, to spy on her; and meanwhile he and his mother would regularly go through her personal belongings, so that she had no privacy. Only her secret diary, the key to which she wore on a neck chain, remained safe from their prying eyes. And only I remained her friend. She and I spent many hours together, sharing stories and dreaming of a time when our lives would be different.’

The old woman sighed and was silent for a moment, deep in thought. Ben wondered what the look in her eyes was. Regret, certainly. Guilt, possibly, too.

‘The one true solace in Gabriella’s life at that time was her love of art,’ Mimi continued. ‘But again, the count put a stop to that. When Gabriella decided to apply to the art academy to study formally, she found herself rejected. She was told by the board that she had no talent. No eye either for form or composition, and no possible future as an artist.’

‘Arseholes,’ Darcey muttered, reaching for some wine. Ben shot her a look.

Mimi went on. ‘She was suspicious, because she knew she had talent. She grew even more suspicious on discovering that the senior academy director who had most vociferously rejected her, and encouraged his colleagues to do the same, was a close acquaintance of her husband’s. Gabriella realised then that Rodingo had conspired against her, to ruin any chance she had. It was not until three months later, when he announced that he was throwing a large dinner party and she saw the same art academic’s name on the guest list, that she saw her opportunity for revenge. In the weeks leading up to the party, she devoted herself to recreating a lesser-known work by one of her most favourite artists. I think you may know what work I am referring to, Mr Hope?’

It wasn’t a far stretch to guess. ‘Goya’s “The Penitent Sinner”,’ Ben said. ‘Charcoal on laid paper.’

‘Correct,’ Mimi said.

‘What was the idea?’ Darcey asked, sipping wine. Ben could see she was getting drawn into the story.

‘The idea was to expose the so-called art scholar who had humiliated her. When the work was finished, I helped her to frame it, as she had taught me. Then, an hour before the dinner was due to begin, while the count was too occupied to notice, Gabriella asked me to hang her sketch on the dining-room wall where it would be in plain view of the esteemed expert.’ Mimi’s face wrinkled into a smile. ‘And the plan worked so beautifully. As the academy director took his place at the table, he suddenly leapt up and let out a roar of delight. “My God, De Crescenzo, you never told me you had a Goya!” Before Rodingo could speak, the academy director had rushed over to examine the sketch up close. “Magnificent,” he exclaimed over and over. I was watching through a keyhole. I could see the triumph on Gabriella’s face.’

‘I like this woman,’ Darcey said.

‘At this moment, Gabriella stood up and addressed him. “I am pleased you admire it so greatly, sir. For it was not the great Goya who drew it, but one too lacking in talent to be worthy of a place at your illustrious academy.” Rodingo was furious. When the guests had departed, he beat poor Gabriella and forbade her ever to paint again. He gave her one hour to destroy every piece of art she had ever produced, threatening that he would do so himself if she refused. As he watched from a window, Gabriella was forced to make a bonfire in the estate grounds. But she did not burn them all. Many she kept hidden in her secret room – including her perfect copy of “The Penitent Sinner”.’

‘The sketch that people have killed and died for, even to this day,’ Ben said. ‘What I want to know is why.’

Mimi smiled. ‘And you will, Mr Hope. But in order to understand why I wished to speak to you, you must please bear with me.’ She paused. ‘How much do you know about Russian history?’

Ben was taken aback. ‘A little,’ he said. ‘No more than most people do.’

‘We must pause our story of Gabriella and Rodingo for a moment,’ Mimi said, ‘and return to the year 1903. Back to the days of Imperial Russia, and an aristocrat named Alexander Borowsky. A distant cousin of the ruling Romanov dynasty, Borowsky was also the owner of the biggest gold mines in Siberia, and one of the richest men in the empire. He and his wife Sonja had three children: Natasha, Kitty and the youngest, Leo, born in 1895.’ Mimi drew in a long breath. ‘And now we come to it. For in that year of 1903, Alexander Borowsky came to be in possession of an object of terrible beauty and incredible value. It would become known as the Dark Medusa. And when I tell you what it was, you will begin to understand.’