Eustace and Hilda (85 page)

Eustace's mind was a pair of scales holding Stephen's letter in one tray and Antony's in the other.

‘Well, Eustace, this is a pleasant surprise, but I must tell you we weren't expecting you back. Hilda? Oh, Hilda's at the clinic, didn't you know? Where did you imagine she'd be? She's particularly busy just now: I shouldn't go down for a day or two, if I were you. Ill? Oh no, that was nothing—Hilda is never ill. Your friend Mr. Hilliard must be an alarmist. Supper's in five minutes; you won't be late, will you? It's Annie's evening out. I expect you got into rather late ways in Venice. You must tell me what you did there. I expect you had an interesting time.' Outweighed, Stephen's letter began to soar into the air, and Eustace threw his wishes into the scales against it. ‘Oh, Eustace, what fun this is. I never thought I should find you here. I felt sure your sense of duty would have taken you back to England. But tell me, who are these extraordinary people that Lady Nelly's got hold of? I didn't catch their names.' ‘Oh, that's Grotrian Grundtvig, the pianist, you know, and his wife and daughter—he's a celebrity.' ‘My dear, he
was
, before we were born, but he can't play a note now. Believe me, he
empties
any concert-hall. He's music's arch enemy. And what a bore! And that terrible daughter with the piano legs! He must have married a Broadwood.' ‘No, a Bechstein, she's German.' ‘Well, I tried to be civil to them, but, Eustace, you must protect me. Don't leave me for a moment. I value my good name, you know, I daren't be seen with them.' ‘All right, Antony, I'll stand by you. Look, there's Laura Loredan, she's waving to us. Let's go and neigh at the old war-horse.'

How quickly Antony's arrival, even in thought, had changed the perspective of the social scene! Eustace no longer felt lonely and neglected. Clothed in Antony's radiance, he saw the Grundtvigs crawling in slow beetle progress, emptying concert-halls, avoided as bores by all with whom they professed to be on such friendly terms. He went to the window. The rust-brown sunblinds flapped, and he saw the sunshine lying white as snow on the curving walls of the Canal.

For days he had felt its glitter as an oppression, a challenge to which his spirits could never rise. Now they responded as gaily as did the stones of Venice. He turned back. A spear of sunlight had caught the mosquito curtain furled above his bed, transfixing it. On either side of the fiery stab the folded muslin darkened to a tinge of blue. A knock, and Mario came in.

“Scusi, signore, ma la Signora Contessa I'ha mandato questo biglietto.”

Eustace almost snatched the envelope from him. Once these notes were of daily occurrence. Sometimes they suggested times and meeting-places; sometimes they shared a joke, sometimes they just asked him how he was. He had not had one lately; all the more reason to be pleased with this.

A charming, friendly note, but Eustace felt his heart contract.

He hadn't heard of other guests coming—was he in the way? Venetian houses looked so vast, but none of them had many bedrooms. Was Lady Nelly tactfully giving him his dismissal? He hardly thought so; she had made such a point of his staying for the Regatta, and had said she didn't want him to miss Grundtvig's playing. Perhaps Grundtvig really was a very great player. Eustace's imagination got to work on this idea.

‘Hullo, Eustace, there you are, what fun to see you. I was afraid you might have gone, you're so elusive. Yes—I came in a hurry because Lady Nelly telegraphed that Grundtvig was to play. Isn't it thrilling? Where is he? I can hardly wait to see him. You know Nelly's swans are so often geese—poor darling, she has a positive gift for getting hold of duds. Her young men are always going to work wonders, but they hardly ever do. She gives them a flying start, but they soon drop out, and then she conveniently forgets them. Can you blame her? But Grundtvig, Grundtvig really is a star. I wonder if he'll let me hear him practise. If he will, I don't care if I don't see Venice at all. I shall just sit all day with my ear glued to the piano. His daughter Minerva, you know, is the most marvellous 'cellist. There's never been such a prodigy since Mozart.... Oh, by the way, Eustace, just before I left I heard a rumour, and I wanted to ask you if it's true.' ‘What rumour, Antony?' ‘Well, it was something about your sister—but I'm sorry, I can see you haven't heard.' ‘Oh, what is it, Antony?' ‘Well, to put it frankly, she is supposed to have disappeared.' ‘Disappeared?' ‘I mean, no one quite knows where she is. I happened to see Anne Staveley, and she told me. She seemed quite upset.' ‘But Hilda
can't
have disappeared.' ‘Not really, of course, but Anne seemed to think she had. I expect it was just a way of talking.' ‘Had it anything to do with Dick?' ‘One of his practical jokes? I hadn't thought of that. Anne didn't say.'

‘Do you think I ought to go back to England?' ‘That's for you to say. I must admit I half expected you would have gone. Naturally I'm glad you haven't. But don't stay on my account, if you think you ought to go. I shall be quite happy with the Grundtvigs. By the way, where are they? Lead me to them.' ‘I think they're in the salone with Lady Nelly. This way.... And now, Antony, I'm afraid I must go and pack.' ‘Oh, must you? What wretched luck. I hope you will find Hilda. People never do disappear—not one's relations, anyhow. So long, Eustace. Oh, GROTRIAN!——'

Too agitated to sit down, Eustace walked over to his writing-table. His three watches lay there: the larger gold one, Miss Fothergill's, for Lady Nelly; the inferior gold one that he was to give, or bequeath, to Minney; and the silver one, furnished with blobs instead of figures (a new device for outwitting Time), that he had reserved for himself. None of them tallied; and Eustace, remembering his appointment to-morrow morning, and already sure that he would be late for it, stood watching his watches. But soon his thoughts went back to Hilda. ‘She has been the making of you,' Stephen had once said. ‘She sharpened the pencil. But for her you would be lying like a log at the bottom of whatever hill it was easiest to roll down.'

P
UNCTUALLY
at half-past ten he was on the fondamenta. No Lady Nelly; but the Grundtvigs had already installed themselves in the gondola. They had the air of passengers who have secured their seats in the train, and they did not invite him to join them. There was only room for four, and Eustace wondered what would happen when Lady Nelly arrived. Meanwhile he leaned against the parapet, which was also supporting Silvestro. Erminio sat on the poop, in an attitude that combined relaxation with alertness. To the right, in the small canal, the traffic as usual was stationary or moving under difficulties, so little space was there for the boats to pass; on the left, in the Grand Canal, craft of every sort at every speed went by. The sun poured down from the sky and up from the pavement. Silvestro took his hat off, shook his head, mopped it and said, “Caldo.” Eustace agreed. His mind was beset by so many worries and problems that he had forgotten his habitual precautions against a sudden cold spell and had come out prepared for heat only.

“Before the war,” the pianist announced suddenly from the depths of the boat, “no one stayed in Venice during August and September. No one at all. You are making a long stay, Mr. Cherrington?”

Eustace muttered something about not knowing how long his stay would be.

“Lady Nelly is so kind,” the great man went on. “She would entertain the whole world if she could. I am afraid many people take advantage of her kindness. We, no. How many friends were we compelled to disappoint, Minerva, in order that we might accept Lady Nelly's invitation?”

“Five, you said, Father.”

“Only five? I thought it was more.”

“Laura Loredan, Giulia Gradenigo, Dulcie Warde-Torrington, Gloria Stepan Otis, and Rachel Funk.”

“I told Nina Costello-Brown another year, perhaps.”

“She makes six.”

“Naturally, Nelly is our oldest friend. She is Minerva's godmother. When did we meet her first, Trudi?”

“I'm afraid I don't remember, Grotrian,” Mrs. Grundtvig said.

“Not remember? How forgetful you are. It was after my first concert at the Albert Hall. For her I broke my invariable rule never to receive friends during a performance. Royalty, yes—that is a command.”

Into Eustace's mind, dense with worry, came a picture of the pianist bowing over a royal hand. He tried to look impressed and murmured, “Royalty would be different, of course.”

“But I couldn't refuse our hostess,” Grotrian continued. “She has done so much for music.”

Silvestro, who was facing the doorway, suddenly threw away his cigarette.

“Ecco la Contessa,” he said, and doubled down the steps to the gondola, where he took off his hat, held his arm crooked in readiness, and directed at the palace a bright, expectant smile.

Meanwhile Lady Nelly came slowly into the doorway, turning her eyes slightly to left and right, as if everything she saw was better worth looking at even than she remembered. At the sight of Eustace her look of grateful recognition strengthened and deepened. “Why, you're here!” she exclaimed, giving him her pale gloved hand; “I never thought you would be.” Eustace felt as if he had received a prize. “Why, you're all here!” she went on in a crescendo of delighted amazement, “Trudi, Grotrian,
and
Minerva! What wonderful guests I have.” Her gloved hand resting on Silvestro's white-sleeved arm, she paused a moment. “Yes, you're all here,” she repeated in a slightly different tone, eyeing the boatload. “Now——”

Mrs. Grundtvig and Minerva struggled to their feet; Grotrian too tried to rise from his seat of honour on the right; but his weight, and the natural list of the vessel which his weight had intensified, were too much for him, and he subsided with a grunt. His wife and daughter staggered against each other. Lady Nelly laughed and turned to Eustace, who was standing on the steps, waiting to embark.

“We're such a large party,” she said. “We've never had so much talent in the boat before. If you got in, Eustace, with all that book in your head, we should sink. You didn't know he was an author, did you?” she said to the others. “Well, he is, and what is still rarer, he's a great expert on Venetian topography. He can find his way anywhere, even to the railway station—the only guest I've ever had who could. Now, Eustace, I wouldn't ask anyone but you, but I know you love walking, and while we are going to the Piazza will you ferret out Fortuny's and meet me there? Don't be late, mind.”

For a moment the familiar feeling that Lady Nelly had granted him a favour enveloped Eustace. Smiling, he walked beside the boat until it turned into the Grand Canal and swept away from him. He watched its golden glory being swallowed up by the common craft of the canal. Left alone among the black-shawled women, with their restless eyes and hard, set faces, on the traghetto's fragile landing-stage, he felt he had somehow been cheated, and all the loneliness and desolation of the morning came back to him. He put his lira on the shabby, dull, chipped gunwale, but the gondolier, indignantly haranguing his passengers about some grievance, failed to notice the overpayment, or else regarded it as a stale eccentricity no longer worth a smile.

The cheerful crowd and the repeated invitation of the shop windows helped to keep Eustace's thoughts at bay, but the unconscious effort of suppressing them weakened his sense of direction which was, in any case, more map-made than instinctive; and this morning, trusting to the gondola, he had forgotten to bring his map. The calle debouched into a campo—a campo he knew quite well: it was a hive of commerce, not a haunt of tourists, and the people who wandered through looked straight ahead of them, not round and up. But it had six exits, one at each corner and two in the middle, and Eustace, who had only once been to Fortuny's before, could not remember which bolt-hole led that way. But time had not yet begun to press, by any of his watches (he carried them all with him in case an unforeseen access of courage should take him to the jeweller's), so he followed where the main stream led. Another smaller, squarer campo, quite featureless; plain, grey stuccoed walls, plain, rectangular windows, many of them shuttered against the heat; brown sunblinds flapping, pools of shadow on the pavement.

Crossing the campo in a direct line he entered another calle, and at the end of it found himself, to his amazement, at the foot of the Rialto bridge.

The sight of the great stairway curving upwards between the lines of shops moved Eustace as it always did, as did any work of man or nature which suggested a triumphant ascent from the level at which he was. He toyed with the idea of going up, on the excuse of finding in those rather cheap-jack shops some of the presents with which he must fortify himself for his return—a string of beads for Annie, perhaps?—a leather bag stamped with the Lion of St. Mark for Aunt Sarah?—some baroque gift for Stephen, a trifle that the craftsman had taken seriously, or an object of serious intent that he had trifled over. Something that amusingly reversed the accepted sense of value. What could it be?—for Stephen's taste in paradox was exacting, not to be satisfied with a knife made to look like a gondola, or a model of the Campanile concealing a lead pencil.