Page 204 - The Grotesque Children's Book

Chapter 20.

Bianca, Carola, Carola, Bianca

The morning after Carola opened the locket, Bianca de’ Medici, Duchess of Tuscany,
was getting ready to sit for Alessandro Allori as long and as still as she could. She had had her
ladies put on her gown, but, in a stroke of buonaventuri for Carola's sake, Bianca had not yet put
on the jewelry, including the locket in her hair.

*

Carola's plan was to confess. She had taken the locket. But! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean
to! Here it is, look, look, here's the locket. I found it down my bodice when I undressed last
night. I never would steal it, please, please, waiting ladies, it was an accident. An accident!
Then squeeze out some convincing tears. If you n-need to p-punish me, I would understand. I
would do the same thing if I were in your p-position. But please, waiting ladies, I throw myself
on your mercy. I should have checked my bodice. I don't know how this could have happened.
It will never happen again. Here's the locket. It was an accident by a foolish and frightened little
g-girl. More tears. And then...hope for the best.

It seemed her best option. Certainly better than trying somehow to sneak the locket into
My Lady's jewel box with all the waiting ladies' eyes on her. Certainly better than...what had
been her mad plan last night? Something about goats and Switzerland? She couldn't quite recall
it, for just after succeeding in getting the locket open, Carola had fallen violently ill with
emotion, fear and vomit. One thing is for sure, she thought, I'll never try to steal anything for
real. I'd make a terrible thief.

So that had been the plan. She arrived at the Palazzo Vecchio, working up a fit of
emotion, heaving tears of contrition, bursting into the antechamber next to Her Majesty's private
chambers in which the waiting ladies changed Bianca's clothes and laid out the jewels. She
didn't get any further than “I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, look, look --” when she stopped dead in
her tracks. For there in the antechamber, attended by three waiting ladies, was Her Majesty
herself, Bianca de’ Medici. Carola was too late.

*

Bianca enjoyed surprising Allori, rising early, dressing in the gold and white gown and
all the pearls and of course her ruby locket headpiece, which she called “The Dragon.” She
thought it was great fun to sit herself in the posing chair and spin around after Allori came into
the room expecting the usual model, but getting...(here she often made sounds imitating a
trumpet -- pa pa pa pa!) Her Majesty Herself. She liked to watch Allori's face, first startled in
surprise, then, poor thing, try to pretend to find the joke funny himself, and then add some heroic

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