Eustace and Hilda (65 page)

“Now don't you call that beautiful?” said Lady Nelly. “Just say the word—I don't believe you can.”

The gondola had a dark-blue carpet and two little black-and-gilt chairs riding tandem. Above the twin humps of the black seat was a wooden decoration, pierced and carved, also in gilt: it had an ogive outline, and beneath the point was a shield with a flamboyant ‘S' repoussé on it.

The polished black woodwork of the gondola flashed almost unbearably in the sun; Lady Nelly could see her face in it as in a mirror. The strips of brass with which it was lavishly adorned shone too. All the brittle brightness of the Venetian day, and the dazzling flicker of its reflections, seemed concentrated on those glittering surfaces of black and gold.

“We were saying how beautiful your gondola is, Silvestro,” said Lady Nelly in Italian.

The gondolier smiled, a slightly automatic smile, as if he expected to hear his craft complimented.

“It certainly is like Cleopatra's barge,” said Jasper. “It burns on the water. But ought you to have all that gold? Isn't it rather vulgar? Wasn't there a sumptuary law condemning gondolas to be black? Isn't the gold just a concession to the forestieri who like to make a bella figura on the Grand Canal?”

“Jasper, you're hopeless,” said Lady Nelly. “You ought to live in Shoreditch.” Accepting the support of Silvestro's bent arm, which he held out to her as stiff as a ramrod, and treading carefully on the wooden board which made a bridge between the gondola and the steps, she embarked.

“Now take care, Jasper,” she warned him. “If you fall in I shall know it was on purpose.”

Their exit from the narrow inlet was not easy. Insignificant boatmen who had dared to use it for their unimportant purposes had to be admonished and ordered out of the way; there were black looks, raised voices, repartees, grunts. But at last they were out on the dancing water, with the cloud-grey dome of the Salute in front of them, in the heart of pictorial Venice.

Neither Lady Nelly nor her companion spoke for a moment; the impression was too strong to find an outlet in words. To her it seemed to contradict and annul his mood of criticism, and he, by his silence, seemed to admit that it did.

The tide was flowing against them, and the gondola, to be out of the main current, hugged the fringe of palaces on their right.

“Where do you want to go, Jasper?” said Lady Nelly at last.

“Drop me at the Accademia Bridge, would you, Nelly? I'll walk the rest of the way. I mustn't be seen arriving in a gondola, even with you.”

“You won't object to me arriving in one this evening?” said Lady Nelly.

“Not if you come alone.”

“I can't promise.”

“I shouldn't believe you if you did.”

Outside the Accademia the water, churned into a fierce brown wash by the departure of a vaporino, forbade an immediate landing. Jasper Bentwich showed signs of impatience, and when the boat did draw up to the riva, to be feebly hooked by an infirm-looking rampino, he disregarded Silvestro's warning and his proffered arm, and made an awkward landing. There was a look of irritation on his face as he turned to say good-bye. A moment later he had recovered his poise, and his tall, erect, well-tailored figure, striding purposefully through the drifting throng by the dust-pink wall of the Accademia, left them looking more than ever aimless and untidy. Somehow Lady Nelly liked them the better for it.

“E un tipo originale, Signor Baintwich,” observed Silvestro. “Ha poca simpatia per i gondolieri, tutti quanti.”

Lady Nelly did not disagree with him, though she was not sure that it was a sign of originality to be ill-disposed towards gondoliers. But Silvestro had not finished.

“Mah!” he exclaimed. “Forse ha ragione. Sono lazzaroni, la più gran parte.”

Lady Nelly was about to challenge this damaging statement when he added, “Scusi, Signora Contessa, ma mi sono dimenticato —c'è un telegramma e due lettere, una per lei e una per un signore di cui non posso dir il nome.”

He produced the letters from one of the many pigeon-holes with which the gondola was structurally provided.

The telegram said at great length and with many apologies that Eustace was arriving by the train-de-luxe that afternoon.

One of the letters was for him; the other Lady Nelly opened.

“Scia! Scia!” barked a voice in front of her, tense with anxiety. There was a sudden swish and a foaming wave as the gondoliers pulled up. Recalled from a vision of Anchorstone Hall, Lady Nelly looked up, half dazed, at the pediment above the door. It was the door in the side canal; Silvestro objected to using the other, because the wash left by steamers and launches in the Grand Canal was ruination, he declared, to the delicate fabric of the gondola. Lady Nelly collected herself.

“Silvestro,” she said, “a friend of mine is arriving this afternoon.” She spoke in English, and his look of troubled intelligent non-comprehension reminded her of a golden Labrador trying to understand what is wanted of it. She began again.

“Un signore arriva nel pomeriggio col lusso”—she glanced at the telegram—“alle due e mezza.”

“Si, signora. Che nome ha?”

Lady Nelly showed him Eustace's name on the envelope.

“Cher-reeng-tong,” said the gondolier slowly. “Nome difficile.” Then his eye brightened.

“Sherry è un vino spagnolo molto forte?”

Lady Nelly smiled at the thought of Eustace being a strong Spanish wine, and, feeling that the gondolier could not dispute her etymology, explained that Cherrington meant Cherrytown.

At this innocent, non-alcoholic rendering of Eustace's name, Silvestro looked a little disappointed.

“Come lo distinguo?” he asked. “E alto, magro, con baffi pendenti?”

A typical Englishman, tall, thin and with a drooping moustache; the description did not fit Eustace. But he was not easy to describe. Confronted by a trainful of passengers pouring out of the station with harassed, luggage-lorn faces, Lady Nelly was not sure she would recognise him herself.

“E di statura media,” she began, but Silvestro's face, understandably enough, betrayed no confidence of being able to pick out a gentleman of middle height.

“E giovane o vecchio?”

Lady Nelly said that Eustace was about twenty-five.

“Un bel giovanotto,” said Silvestro thoughtfully.

In the interest of identification Lady Nelly felt she could not let this pass. Eustace was not a handsome young man.

“Non tanto bello, neanche,” she said regretfully.

“Non bello? Piuttosto brutto, allora?”

How they see everything black or white, thought Lady Nelly. But you couldn't call Eustace ugly.

“Nè brutto, nè bello,” she said. “Ha una faccia simpatica.”

She was pleased to have contributed something positive to the description of Eustace's appearance, but Silvestro's response was disappointing.

“Ah, Signora Contessa, ma ci sono tante facce simpatiche—almeno fra noi Italiani ce ne sono.”

Lady Nelly agreed that most Italians were sympathetic-looking, but maintained that for an Englishman Eustace was noticeably so. Then she had an inspiration, and said that his face was troubled and anxious—pensieroso. Silvestro, however, did not find the description helpful; in these uncertain times, with the cost of living mounting every day, everyone's face was troubled and anxious.

“E biondo o moro?” he demanded.

Eustace was neither fair nor dark; his complexion was not easy to fit into any category.

“E più biondo che moro,” she heard herself say.

“Forse avrà la faccia lunga lunga?” suggested Silvestro, evidently obsessed by the idea that Englishmen had long faces.

“No, è piuttosto tonda,” said Lady Nelly, dissatisfied with herself, and a little aggrieved with Eustace for being so nondescript.

“Forse avrà il naso lungo?” Silvestro ventured, still anchored to the idea of length.

“No, è corto, credo,” said Lady Nelly. She could not remember what Eustace's nose was like; indeed, his whole face was rapidly fading from her mind. Silvestro would think, and say, that she was entertaining an absolute stranger.

“Sarà vestito elegante, con molto chic?” asked Silvestro, so hopefully, that it went to Lady Nelly's heart to tell him that Eustace's clothes would almost certainly not be smart.

“E sposato, Signora Contessa?” The gondolier put into the question so much delicacy that Lady Nelly was quite startled. “Per caso porterà un anello matrimoniale, o un altro anello, di stile più distinto?”

Lady Nelly said that Eustace was not married, and she did not think he wore a ring, distinctive or otherwise.

“Sarà un tipo un po” comune?” said the gondolier, excusably enough, as it seemed to Lady Nelly. But she knew that Silvestro's behaviour to guests was influenced by his conception of their importance, and she did not want him to start off with the idea that Eustace was a common type. How could she convince him that Eustace had claims to consideration that might not strike a casual eye?

“E un signore molto studioso,” she said hopefully. “Fa i suoi studi all'Università di Oxford.”

Silvestro did not seem greatly impressed.

“Ah gli studenti, Signora Contessa!” he exclaimed, mournfully; “sono gente che fanno molto disturbo! Sono tutti Comunisti, ma tutti, tutti!”

Lady Nelly felt she must at once rid Silvestro's mind of the idea that her guest was a mischief-making Communist, and she explained that he took no interest in politics, but meant to be a writer when he had finished his studies.

“Un professore, allora?” said Silvestro, delighted to be on firm ground at last. “Sarà facile distinguerlo, perche porterà la barba e gli occhiali grossi.”

Wearily, and with a growing sense of defeat, Lady Nelly declared that Eustace was not a professor, nor did he wear a beard or spectacles. She was dismayed by the number of negatives that the idea of him conjured up, and began to wonder if he had any existence at all. Silvestro evidently shared her doubt, but he was determined to discover in Eustace some distinguishing mark, if not some mark of distinction.