He had meant to walk straight back, arriving triumphantly before they did. But when he got into the Via Venti-due Marzo his steps began to flag. Not for the first time the crumbling, florid front of the church of San Moisé claimed his attention. Ruskin had loaded it with obloquy: in his eyes it was frivolous, ignoble, immoral. Eustace was determined to like it: half one’s pleasure in Venice was lost if one could not stomach the rococo and the baroque. But this evening, as he stood on the little bridge and watched the pigeons strutting to and fro, hardly visible among the swags, cornucopias, and swing-boat forms whose lateral movement seemed to rock the church from side to side, his interest was not in the morality or otherwise of the tormented stonework, but in the state of mind of people to whom such exuberance of spirit was as natural as the air they breathed. Never a hint, in all that aggregation of masonry, of diffidence or despondency, no suggestion of a sad, tired mind finding its only expression in a stretch of blank wall.
Turning back to the sober little street which had all the look of a cul-de-sac but was not, he wandered on. To his left rose the rich, reserved buildings of banks, converted palaces, no doubt. In the narrow space they seemed to attain to skyscraper altitude. The Banca Itala-Americana-Britannica-Francese was his. He peered through its gilded portcullis. How deferentially they treated him when he leaned on their mahogany counters! His modest letter of credit had long since expired, but since then nearly fifty pounds of Miss Fothergill’s money (blessed be her name) had been conjured up for him by those darkly smiling, suave young men. No doubt that he had lived more intensely during the flush of those transactions, but the glow had faded now, along with the general glow of Venice, which he was so soon to lose.
One after another he passed the tall, narrow openings of alleys that were conduits to the Grand Canal; the last had a sign hanging from it, gold letters on a black ground, ‘To the Splendide and Royal Hotel.’ He had taken the hint, and here he was.
9. AN OLD FRIEND
GIVE ME another Clover Club, please, Tonino,” he said, and while the barman was mixing it he looked round the room.
It was not the rush hour yet; there were two or three people who had been there when he came, and on one of the windowseats, looking out, a woman who must have come in since, unnoticed by him. As though she felt the interest in his look she got up and walked to the bar. She was thin and brittle-looking, and very pretty. Her frosty blue eyes moved restlessly; her clothes were fashionable but not expensive, and she brought a strong whiff of scent with her. “The same again, Tonino,” she said, and he replied, “Just a moment, Signora Alberic.”
Pricked anew by the name, Eustace stared at her with a curiosity franker than good manners allowed; and she, who had been drumming with her fingers on the woodwork of the bar, returned his gaze with more warmth of recognition than the occasion warranted. A sensation went through Eustace like none he had known, and he heard himself say, “Good-evening.”
“Good-evening,” said Mrs. Alberic. Her intonation, like her look, suggested that Eustace was not a complete stranger. Glass in hand, she took half a step towards him. Automatically Eustace rode and moved the vacant chair a few inches in her direction. They both sat down. The lady’s hands ceased to fidget, and her eyes grew steadier under her plucked, raised eyebrows.
Obscurely feeling there was some move he ought to make, Eustace said:
“Excuse me, but I thought I remembered your name.”
“Did you?” she said. “I’m trying to forget it.”
Her smiling eyes saved Eustace from feeling snubbed, but did not help him to think of something to say.
“And for a moment,” he told her, not quite truthfully, “I thought I’d met you before.”
“Did you?” she said again. “Perhaps you have. It doesn’t matter, does it?”
Seeming half amused, half impatient, she waited for him to go on.
“Have you been long in Venice?” said Eustace, and stopped, for he remembered having seen the date of her arrival in the book.
“It might be any time,” she answered. “But I shouldn’t think it’s more than a week.”
“Is this a comfortable hotel?”
“More comfortable than I can afford, I’m afraid. More comfortable than the hotel in Bombay.”
“Oh, you come from India?”
“Yes, thank God. You’re not staying here, are you?”
“In Venice?”
“I meant, in this hotel?”
“No, I’m staying in a p—in a house.”
“Oh, you’ve a house of your own? Lucky man. I thought I hadn’t seen you about. Is it far from here?”
“About twenty minutes’ walk,” said Eustace, answering the second part of her question.
“Is your house a show-place? What they call a palazzo? I’m not much of a sight-seer, I’m afraid. I’ve never been inside one. Draughty old bird-cages, aren’t they?”
“This one isn’t.”
“You make me curious. Do you ever take people over it?”
“Well, you see, it doesn’t belong to me. I’m just staying there, with Lady Nelly Staveley, as a matter of fact.”
“Oh, are you?” Mrs. Alberic paused, and her measuring eye put Eustace in a new perspective. “The old girl whose pictures you see in the paper?”
“Yes,” said Eustace stiffly.
“Well, in that case I won’t ask you to show me over. Is it fun there, or is it deadly?”
“Oh, great fun, great fun.” With some vague idea of banishing the look of disappointment on Mrs. Alberic’s face, Eustace added, “At least, it was.”
“Not so much fun now?”
“Not quite.” Feeling disloyal, he none the less had to say it.
“So you were just having a quiet drink to get away from it all? I don’t blame you.”
Her air of sympathy gave Eustace a pleasant feeling of being hardly used.
“Well, that was the idea.”
“Does she keep you on a string?”
Eustace knew that his grievance against Lady Nelly was that she wasn’t holding the string tightly enough. But he answered:
“She is rather inclined to.”
“If you’re feeling fed up, should we dine together in some quiet little place? I’m at a loose end to-night.”
This step seemed revolutionary to Eustace. “What excuse shall I make?”
“Ring her up and say you’ve met an old friend.”
Eustace looked at her. Cocktails and conversation had put a flush into her cheeks. Her china-blue eyes were alight with pleasure instead of shifty with restlessness. He now felt that her features, as well as her name, recalled something to him.
He struggled with himself. He had heard some of Lady Nelly’s Anglo-American friends complain that their guests in Venice used their houses like an hotel; but he had never absented himself from a single meal at the Palazzo Sfortunato. Perhaps Lady Nelly would be glad if he did; he remembered Juvenal’s warning about repeated cabbage. Perhaps she would feel freer if he was not there. And it would be an adventure to take this strange lady out to dinner.
Smiling at her, he said to the barman, “Can I use your telephone, Tonino?”
He felt very dashing.
“Sairtainly, Signor Shairington.”
The Countess was out, the major-domo told him; she was “fuori in gondola.” But Lord Morecambe was in. Would Eustace like to speak to him? Eustace shrank from Lord Morecambe’s jocularity and the highly coloured account of his absence that he would pass on to Lady Nelly. So he asked the major-domo to give her a message. His Italian went a little haltingly. “Un amico?” queried the man. “No, un’amica,” said Eustace, resolute in truthfulness, and wondering whether there was any nuance attached to the Italian for female friend.
“All done,” he said, returning jauntily. “Now let’s have another drink.” He felt a different man.
“How did she take it?” asked Mrs. Alberic, responding to the change in him.
“Oh, she wasn’t there; s
he was out in the gondola. I can guess who with. I gave a message to a servant, the maestro di casa, as a matter of fact.”
“Who’s he?”
“He corresponds to the groom of the chambers in an English household.”
“Oh, really? Did you say I was an old friend?”
“Well, I said a friend. ‘Vecchia’ would have meant you were an old lady.”
She laughed. “Like Lady Nelly.” She hesitated, and seemed to be debating with herself. Then, sipping her cocktail she said, “You know, I knew some Staveleys once. I wonder if they were any relation.”
“Did you?” exclaimed Eustace.
“Yes, they were neighbours of ours at a place called Anchorstone. We saw a lot of them.”
“Then you know Anchorstone,” cried Eustace.
“I lived there as a child.”
“So did I.”
They fixed questioning eyes on each other, and a half-frightened look came into Mrs. Alberic’s face.
“I heard the barman call you something just now. I believe you’re Eustace—Eustace Cherrington.”
“Then you must be Nancy Steptoe.”
Nancy Steptoe, who, Dick told him, had married a wrong ’un called Alberic. Eustace didn’t know how he looked, but a blush slowly mounted on Mrs. Alberic’s face.
“So you are an old friend!” he exclaimed.
The blush, he could not guess why, deepened, and, as it ebbed, left behind the face of the Nancy he remembered.
“Think of us meeting like this,” she said, as carelessly as she could. The blood struggled back into her face. “Almost a pick-up, wasn’t it?”
Eustace didn’t like the term.
“Oh, but we knew each other really,” he said. “We just didn’t remember each other’s names.”
The bar began to fill with people. “Come along,” commanded Eustace, “let’s go to the Gambaretta. We can talk better there.”
Proud and protective, he was leading her away when the barman called after him, “Scusi, Signor Shairington, but shall I put these drinks down to the Contessa?”
After all, Lady Nelly did owe him something. “Yes, you might as well,” said Eustace carelessly.
“So now you understand,” Nancy said, “why I’m glad to be leaving India. He can get his divorce if he likes. I don’t care. I’ve no children.”
Eustace felt deeply sorry for her.
“But won’t he give you any money, or anything?”
“Not he, why should he?”
“But it was all his fault, really.”
“He doesn’t see it like that.”
Eustace prayed for counsel from the Venetian night. They were dining out of doors, between the bright windows and open door of the restaurant, which gave them all the light they needed, and a church on whose vast bare wall their figures made dramatic and intimate silhouettes. There only lacked the moon; but a growing pallor in the sky suggested the moon might soon be coming. On such a night...
Such a night accorded ill with the story that Eustace had just been hearing, but found a ready response in the mood the story had evoked in him. He knew that Nancy’s prettiness belonged to a lower order of looks than Hilda’s obvious or Lady Nelly’s elusive beauty, but for that reason it was the more approachable; like a tune heard at a street corner, it could be enjoyed without being admired.
“Shall we have a strega?” he said.
“A what?”
“A liqueur called strega. Strega means witch.”
“How well you know Italian! You’ve made a lot of headway in six weeks.”
“Oh, you only have to know a little French and Latin.”
“Only.”
Lemon-yellow, sweet and syrupy, the liqueurs soon stood beside them.
“Ooh,” said Nancy. “It tastes of soap.”
“Perhaps that’s how a witch does taste. Do you remember tell-ing me Miss Fothergill was a witch?”
“Oh, that old lady. I’d quite forgotten her. She left you some money, didn’t she? Have you spent it all?”
“Well, not quite all.”
“You’ve still got some left?”
“Oh, just enough to keep up appearances.”
“I believe she was in love with you.”
“Oh no, she couldn’t have been. I was much too young, and besides——”
“Besides what?”
“Well, nobody has been.”
“I don’t believe that. And haven’t you been in love with anyone?”
Eustace hesitated. “I—I don’t think so.”
“Oh, come now, you must have been. I believe you were in love with me once.”
She raised the strega to her lips, and he seemed to see it coursing down her throat, a golden stream, befriending her, doing her good. “Perhaps I was.”
“Don’t you think you could be again?”
“I—I——” Eustace sighed and stopped, aware that this question embarrassed and disturbed him less than would have seemed possible an hour ago. “I think all that sort of thing was scolded out of me when I was a child.”
“They wouldn’t let you speak to me. Did they think I was a bad influence?”
Eustace said nothing.
“I believe they were jealous of you and wanted to keep you to themselves. What happened to Hilda? Did she ever marry?”
“No.”
“Too fond of you?”
“Oh no, I’m sure that wasn’t the reason. She got taken up with —with other things.”
“You haven’t brought her out here?”
“No.”
“Nor your aunt?”
“No.”
“And your father’s dead, you say?”
“Yes.”
“They’re none of them here.” Nancy looked round her, as though to make sure that the darkness was free from restraining presences. “Well, I am glad to see you again,” she said.
“So am I to see you.”
“What an age it’s taken us to meet. The last time we were alone together was the time of the paper-chase.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted to see me after that?”
“Oh yes, Nancy, I often tried to.”
“What a difference it might have made if they’d let us.”
“Ye—es.”
“You don’t sound very certain. Have you changed, I wonder?”
“I don’t think so. Do you think I have?”
“A moment ago I wondered, but perhaps not. You were always rather sweet, you know.”
“Was I?”
“Well, I thought so. You liked me, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes, Nancy.”
“You said that rather dutifully. Perhaps you think I’ve changed?”
“I think you’ve got prettier.”
“You always said nice things. I’m not prettier, I’m a positive hag; but anyone would be who’s gone through what I have.”
“Poor Nancy.”
“Oh, well.”
As she sat sipping her strega, with the strong light and shadow playing on her, Eustace saw how thin and fragile-looking she was. He could not dissociate her from her physical delicacy nor from the tale of wrong and injustice that had caused it.
“I suppose I have changed. I’ve grown up. Have you, I wonder?”
Eustace smiled, and at any rate metaphorically expanded himself.
“Oh yes, I think so.”
“Do you enjoy pottering about in Venice?”
“Oh yes, but I work too, you know.”
“Dancing attendance on her, you mean? I expect she makes you earn your keep.”
“Well, in a way, but she means to be considerate.”
“I knew a man who lived that sort of life, and he said it was slavery.”
“What sort of life?”
“You know, being a rich woman’s darling. He called it something else. In the end he just cut and run.”
“Did he?”
“He said it was no life for a man. He said people laughed so when they
saw him dancing with her.”
“I don’t dance with Lady Nelly,” said Eustace.
“Well, whatever you do, I shouldn’t think it could be much fun. But you always did have a weakness for old ladies.”
“Lady Nelly isn’t old,” said Eustace.
“Oh, I’m not trying to put you against her. I envy her—I’d be jolly glad to be in her shoes. I was thinking of you and the kind of things people say. They’ve much more sympathy, you know, with a real love-affair. Even I know that.”
“A real love-affair?”
“Yes, when there’s something on both sides. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Eustace felt himself being hurried towards an unknown goal.
“I like seeing people in love.”
“But you don’t envy them?”
“Perhaps I do, a little.” He thought of Barbara and Jimmy, of Lord and Lady Morecambe, of Dick and Hilda, and a sense of far-off, unattainable sweetness possessed him. “But I don’t think it’s for me, somehow.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I told you.”
“Oh, nonsense. You were only a child then.”
“But I am very fond of you, Nancy. I didn’t remember how fond I was.”
“What’s in the way, then? I’m very fond of you.”
The summer before Eustace had been with a reading-party in a chalet in the Alps. One day they traversed a glacier. Roped, he found he could jump the crevasses better than he expected. Then one came which didn’t seem much bigger than the others. The man on the far side held out his hand; Eustace could feel what it would be like to be across; but he couldn’t make the jump, and the party had to follow the side of the crevasse to a point where it narrowed. He remembered the incident now.
“Are you going to be here long, Nancy?” he temporised.
“I was going to-morrow. I might stay for a day or two. It just depends.”
Eustace didn’t ask what it depended on. “But could you cancel your wagon-lit ticket?”
“I don’t need to. I’m going to sit up.”
“I’m sorry.... We could meet in England, couldn’t we?”
Nancy twitched her fur impatiently.