“It’s half-past twelve,” said Eustace.
“Is it really? So late! What a good thing I jogged your memory! Now, don’t let’s waste another minute. En voiture!”
In the combined effort to help Lady Nelly into the gondola Eustace found himself left out, so great was the general zeal to perform this rite. She seemed to be lowered into the boat with silken chains. Following her across the ironing-board drawbridge, he watched all the patting and smoothing with which, like some large pale bird, she was brought to rest. Indeed, everyone moved with exaggerated care, as if carrying a box of explosives into the presence of a helpless invalid. Eustace found himself turning round and round like a dog before he ventured to sit down beside her. The plumped-out cushion subsided under his weight with a soft sigh. But they were not off yet. Lady Nelly bethought herself of several things she had forgotten and which Silvestro, in ringing tones of command, demanded of the despised indoor servants. Then the awning had to be put up. Eustace tried to help, but his very diffident intervention seemed to throw the process completely out of gear and he was adjured with many soft-popping negatives to rest tranquil. Meanwhile a crowd had gathered; the parapet was topped by a line of faces looking down with critical or admiring eyes. Silvestro paid no more attention to them than does a lion to the riff-raff behind the bars. At last the tugging and grunting ceased, the linen curtains were in place, and Silvestro’s face, very red and heated, appeared suddenly between them, giving the effect, as it so often did, of an awful nearness.
“Santa Rosa, Signora Contessa?”
“Si, Santa Rosa, Silvestro.”
“Santa Rosa, sa?” shouted Silvestro to Erminio, in a tone that ruled out all other destinations.
3. THE PICNIC AT SANTA ROSA
THEY TIED up at a post, with the lagoon on one side and on the other an island of which Eustace could see, by twitching the curtain, a confused coast-line of hedges, vines, and vegetables, and a rather tumble-down pink cottage, weather-stained and peeling here and there, but well filled, to judge by the number of children who thronged its water-front and stared with Latin fixity.
“Ecco Santa Rosa,” said Silvestro. “Grande città,” he added humorously. Its smallness certainly made a vivid contrast with the great bulk of Venice that, beginning a mile or so from where they sat, swung away to the right, an horizon in itself, compared to which the real horizon, visible to Eustace if he leaned forward, looked disappointingly low and flat.
“Now for our luncheon,” said Lady Nelly. Produced from a three-decker Thermos and laid on a table which held them wedged in their places, the luncheon was a delectable meal. But Eustace was soon in trouble with his spaghetti.
“You look like Laocoon,” said Lady Nelly, “except that he was afraid of being eaten, and you are afraid to eat. Try one at a time.”
Feeling like an inexperienced shark that must turn over to bite, Eustace made another attempt to take the bait. The manœuvre gave him a contortionist’s view of Lady Nelly’s face, such as Tintoretto might have chosen.
“What would Edie Staveley say,” said Lady Nelly, “if she saw us now!”
Eustace came up to breathe.
“Do you suppose she ever goes for a picnic?”
“Not alone with a young man; that would be against her principles.”
Eustace took a sip of his white wine. The fresh, faintly salty taste delighted him. But he wished he was not contravening Lady Staveley’s principles. Anyone else’s principles seemed better founded than his own.
“I suppose she is very strict,” he said.
“She’s very conventional,” said Lady Nelly, “and that means doing things in a certain way. It’s the technique of living, as practised by the experts. It may not take you very far, but you’ll always feel you are on the right road, and in good company. I recommend it to you, Eustace. But perhaps there’s no need.”
Eustace was not quite sure how to take this.
“I certainly don’t like getting into a row,” he muttered.
“Being conventional won’t save you from that,” said Lady Nelly. “But it’s a different kind of row, and people will be on your side as long as they believe that in spirit you still toe the line. You needn’t be afraid that you won’t be able to do a great many things that you want to do. Only you have to do them in a certain way.”
“Secretly, I suppose,” said Eustace, privately horrified at the idea of a sin not committed, and proclaimed, on the housetops.
“Well, according to recognised rules, and one is that people don’t mind about something that isn’t forced on their notice.”
“No—o,” said Eustace, still obsessed by the idea that if there must be impropriety it should be as public as possible.
“Venice was very gay just before the war,” said Lady Nelly. “I remember a party at Murano. There, on the right.” She pulled back her curtain, and Eustace saw, duplicated in the water, the roofs and towers of a long island. “We went over in gondolas—there weren’t many launches then—and after supper there was a dance and some of the ladies of the party danced with the gondoliers. Well, that made a very bad impression on the more old-fashioned Venetians; and one old girl, Contessa Loredan, was heard to say, ‘On peut coucher avec un gondolier, si on le désire; mais on ne danse pas avec lui.’”
Eustace turned scarlet.
“Have I shocked the boy?” said Lady Nelly. “I’m afraid I have. But you see what convention means. After that, no one dared to dance with a gondolier.”
Eustace withdrew his eyes from Silvestro, who was busying himself with the kitchen arrangements in the forepart of the boat; he looked as if his dancing days were over, but you couldn’t be sure; he was a kind of sailor, and sailors were agile and sure-footed.
“Don’t imagine that you’ll be made a witness of such scenes staying with me,” said Lady Nelly. “When we go to Murano, it will be to look at the glass factory. That’s a most blameless sight —I expect my sister-in-law saw it when she came here for her honeymoon.”
“Venice is a great place for honeymoons, isn’t it?” said Eustace. He saw a picture of Dick and Hilda floating by in a gondola.
“It used to be,” said Lady Nelly. “But I fancy the rhythm here is too slow for modern love. Perfect for friendship, of course. To be really up-to-date you’d have to spend your honeymoon in an aeroplane.”
Eustace decided to take a plunge.
“Do you think that’s how Dick will spend his?”
At this moment Silvestro came up to change the plates. He returned with chicken in an aluminium container. While he handed it there was only one preoccupation—to make oneself as small as possible. Eustace and Lady Nelly writhed outwards. When they came together again Lady Nelly said, “It wasn’t just greed—I couldn’t speak to you through Silvestro. You were asking me about Dick, weren’t you?”
“Oh, he just passed through my mind.”
“He sometimes passes through mine,” said Lady Nelly. “Not intentionally, and not to stay, of course: I shouldn’t flatter myself. But I believe he’s fond of you.”
“Oh, do you think so?” said Eustace. “I thought it was Hilda that he liked.”
Lady Nelly turned to him.
“Dick’s peculiar,” she said. “I mean, he’s peculiar underneath all the mystery-man stuff. He isn’t the kind of man that women understand.”
“He seems to like them,” said Eustace.
“Oh yes, he does, he does. But on his terms, not ours. I don’t think he’s got much to offer to a woman, you know, Eustace.”
“He has Anchorstone,” said Eustace.
Lady Nelly looked at him.
“Anchorstone’s a nice little place, and I dare say plenty of girls would be glad to have it, but I wasn’t thinking of that. When I said ‘offer’ I really meant ‘give.’ He hasn’t much to give a woman.”
“What kind of things hasn’t he?”
“The kind of things women value—gentleness, affection, continual small attentions, fussing about a
fter them, you know. We like to be always in someone’s thoughts. And we like men to be rather helpless, at any rate in some ways, and incomplete, and even a little ridiculous and pathetic. Not irritatingly so, of course, but women aren’t repelled by weakness in the way that some men are.”
Eustace considered this, to him, novel picture of a woman’s man.
“Dick certainly isn’t any of those things.”
“No. I admit he’s attractive, but he doesn’t give, he takes.”
“But I thought women liked that.”
“Some do, of course, but not for long if they have any spirit. Imagine being the wife of our oarsman here!”
“Is he married?”
“Oh yes, he has a large family. I’m godmother to one.”
“You wouldn’t like someone you were fond of to marry Dick?” Eustace said.
“Oh, I don’t say that. But she’d have to be a special kind of woman, I think, with an elastic nature.”
“Dick seemed to be very concerned about Hilda when she hurt her hands playing billiard-fives.”
“Your sister Hilda? Yes, I noticed that. What a lovely creature she is. I don’t wonder that he was attracted by her.”
A warm wave of happiness splashed over Eustace. “You thought he was?”
“Well, wasn’t it obvious?”
“I wish I knew how she felt about him,” Eustace said.
“Hasn’t she ever been in love?” asked Lady Nelly.
“No, not to my knowledge,” said Eustace.
They had finished the chicken, but still another plate came. Eustace took a peach from the basket Silvestro offered him. It had a deep, Italian complexion, robuster than an English peach. Silvestro filled their cups with coffee.
“Would she enjoy country life?” said Lady Nelly. “And seeing neighbours, and doing good works, and being rather dull?”
“She would enjoy the good works,” said Eustace eagerly. “She wouldn’t be dull if she had them. And I think she would enjoy riding—she’s always liked horses. That’s part of country life, isn’t it. She always liked running risks; she told me she loved the aeroplane. She doesn’t care much about social life or casual acquaintances, but she would put up with them for Dick’s sake, if she thought it was her duty.”
He hesitated to cut his peach, it looked so beautiful with the bloom fresh on it.
“Dick doesn’t care for them either,” said Lady Nelly. “They seem to have a lot in common, don’t they? Looks, aeroplanes, riding, risks, a distaste for the social round. Perhaps your sister is the girl we’ve all been looking for!”
Eustace thrilled at her words, and the lazy smile that accompanied them blended with the sweetness of the peach he had now begun to eat.
“Oh, but it seems too wonderful!” he exclaimed. “I can’t really believe it. I’ve really wanted it all my life, you know, just this very thing to happen to Hilda!”
“What a matchmaker you are!” said Lady Nelly indulgently. “I believe you brought your sister down to Anchorstone all robed and garlanded for the sacrifice.”
“Well, I had to persuade her,” said Eustace. “She didn’t want to come. I think she was afraid of meeting you all. She’s always seemed to know what’s best for both of us. If you knew how much I owed her! This is the only time she’s done something for me, as it were—I mean, a considerable thing—against her own judgement, and really against her will. Perhaps she would never have known what it was to be in love if it hadn’t been for me.”
“You think she is in love?” said Lady Nelly. “You didn’t seem sure a moment ago.”
“I wasn’t then,” Eustace confessed. “But with Dick and everything—oh, how could she not be!”
Lady Nelly drew a longer breath.
“She is going to his birthday-party, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Eustace, “on the fifteenth—the same day as the Feast of the Redentore.”
“The same day?” said Lady Nelly vaguely—“are you quite sure?”
“I think you said the same day,” said Eustace, not wanting to seem too positive. “You asked me to come out earlier so as not to miss it.”
“I did, didn’t I?” said Lady Nelly, as though reminding herself.
“But I’m never very good at dates. We’ll ask Silvestro. I expect he’s asleep.”
Turning round, Eustace peered between the curtain and the brass rod to which it was tied. Silvestro lay curled up on a bed of Procrustes, all gaps and slats; but perched on the very extremity of the gondola, with the expression of one resigned to taking a back seat, Erminio kept watch.
Eustace reported the situation. “Shall I ask Erminio?” he said.
“We must be careful,” said Lady Nelly. “It depends which Silvestro minds most: being woken up, or not being consulted. Try Erminio.”
Eustace was glad to be able to address Erminio in English.
Erminio, however, was too much taken by surprise to have his English ready.
As he was struggling to speak Silvestro opened his eyes, unfolded himself, sat up and growled a question. Battle was joined. “Oh dear,” said Lady Nelly, “they’re quarrelling about the date. We should have asked Silvestro first. But I suspect Erminio’s right, really. That’s the worst of him.”
She listened. “I can only catch a word here and there, but Silvestro seems to be telling Erminio all his faults and Erminio keeps repeating with maddening persistency that the festa is always held on the third Sunday in July.”
By now the hubbub was dying down; Silvestro’s explosive rejoinders grew rarer, then ceased, and Erminio, scrupulously restrained in triumph, said:
“Hit is day twenty.”
“There! you could have gone to Anchorstone after all,” said Lady Nelly. “What a monster I am to have brought you out here under false pretences. Can you ever forgive me?”
Eustace said he would try, but he did not manage to give the impression that the effort would be altogether easy.
“I am sorry,” said Lady Nelly. “But I dare say that in circumstances of that kind, the absence of a beloved and adoring brother might be a help rather than a hindrance. What do you think?”
Eustace could not but see the force of this, for the same idea had occurred to him.
“Of course,” Lady Nelly went on, almost wistfully, “you probably would have met a lot of charming girls there. I’m very fond of Anne myself, though she stays so much in the background. I thought that you and she rather hit it off.”
For some reason Eustace did not feel disposed to admit that there had been anything much between him and Anne.
“Youth,” said Lady Nelly, “is altogether charming, isn’t it? Nothing takes its place. All those young people with their lives before them, bubbling over to tell each other things, sharing little jokes and the gossip of their day which it seems so vitally important to be au courant with, wildly excited to see how it’s going to turn out between Dick and your sister—perhaps even, in an utterly engaging way, a little jealous.”
Eustace began to wonder whether the party would have been such fun for him, after all.
“I expect Monica would be there, too,” Lady Nelly went on. “She’s an old flame of Dick’s, you know. I thought you got on fairly well with her too, though she ought to have been rather suspicious of you, belonging as it were to the other camp. It isn’t for lack of other offers that she’s been faithful to Dick for so long. One reason why she’s popular is that she doesn’t mind being on the losing side. You don’t either, do you, Eustace?”
“Well, I have to be on my own side,” said Eustace, “and that often loses.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Lady Nelly. “Youth is never really a loser, not with age, at any rate. Here in Venice I’m afraid you’ll find us all harridans or frumps—for the moment, at any rate. Later on I hope to be able to offer you something more succulent. Meanwhile we shall all fasten on you like harpies. I don’t think I shall dare to introduce you to Laura Loredan.”
“Will she expect me
to dance with her?” asked Eustace.
“No, because I shall dress you up as a gondolier.”
Eustace blushed.
“You’ll be safe as long as you’re with me. I should rather like to see you in a white blouse with a sailor collar, and wearing a blue sash.”
“As long as you don’t ask me to row the gondola,” said Eustace.
“Oh, I shall make no extravagant demands. But I can’t help feeling glad, in a way, that I made that mistake about the dates and got you out here a day or two earlier. Of course, it was a mistake. You see, they don’t even know the date themselves, so how was I to? You’re not still angry with me?”
Quite sincerely Eustace protested that he was not.
“But at Anchorstone they will be,” said Lady Nelly. “Heigh-ho! I can see poor Edie searching frantically in her address book, and saying to herself, ‘How shall I find a substitute for that charming young man?’”
“Perhaps Antony will go,” said Eustace.
“Antony is quite delightful.” Lady Nelly’s voice seemed to put Antony for ever in his place. “He’s promised to come here, you know, later in the summer. But Edie suspects he finds them dull, and John says he talks too much.”
“I was afraid I talked too little,” said Eustace.
“You couldn’t—I mean, my dear, from John’s point of view, not from mine. That was one reason why he liked you. No, they won’t have an easy job replacing you.”
Not without satisfaction, Eustace imagined the eligible bachelors of England being combed in vain to find a substitute for Eustace Cherrington.
“Now,” said Lady Nelly with sudden briskness, “we mustn’t have any more mistakes. What time is it? Don’t ask either of those ignorant men, unless you want to see a stand-up fight. I’m sure you’ve got a beautiful watch of your own.”
Eustace took out his gold watch and said expansively, “Miss Fothergill gave me this, the—the old lady I told you about.”