Eustace and Hilda (91 page)

Eustace looked up from the bottom of the abyss. Truth lay there, as Lady Nelly said. But he must not think of her, she was part of the plot. She had enticed him to Venice with the promise of a religious celebration, leaving the coast clear for Dick Staveley to seduce his sister Hilda. Yes, to seduce her; why shrink from the word? There were a great many words, and thoughts, and shapes, like rocks, dark and slippery with seaweed, but with jagged edges, strewn on the floor of the abyss. His mind ventured near them and found they were not so strange as he thought. Indeed, to one part of his mind they were curiously familiar. Could he have seen them, one day when he looked over the edge? Had he always known they were there, and ignored them?

Speak, speak, Hilda! But no voice reached him. Hilda could not speak: she was paralysed.

He had persuaded her to go to Anchorstone Hall, that was how it happened, and they had put her in a bedroom far, far away from him, where he could not find her. Of course he should have slept across her door. Then they had gone away in the aeroplane. He should have been there, he should have squeezed in. They would have come back in time for tea, and after tea, perhaps, they would have walked along the shore to New Anchorstone to find the place where he and Hilda made their pond. When they came back it was nearly dinner-time. Dinner was a dull, ordinary meal, with Dick looking cross and disappointed; and after dinner Lady Nelly Staveley reminded him that he had promised to stay with her in Venice. But he had taken a dislike to her: he realised she was the type of woman with a finger in every sexual pie. She knew how to drape a love-affair in French past participles or in a Fortuny dress; she had told him herself that seduction was a very good thing for a woman; it let light into the chambers of her mind, even if the windows were broken. She had told him that experience was valuable in itself, and much more in that strain; she was a nasty, dangerous woman, an entremetteuse, almost a procuress; he had seen that at once. So he told her, rather bluntly, that he couldn't go to Venice, he had too much work.

And all that summer he worked like a slave, reading all the set books, and many more, but still finding time to visit the clinic every afternoon that Hilda was free. And the clinic was getting on splendidly. And once or twice, when Hilda told him that Dick had asked her out to dinner, he persuaded her not to go. Indeed, they had a row about it, and he told her frankly what he knew about Dick's reputation. After that she always refused. What a blessing it was that she had him to turn to, and consult! The only man in the family. Lady Nelly Staveley had written imploring him to change his mind and come to Venice; but he hadn't even bothered to answer her letter.

He often used to find Stephen at the clinic when he went there; business visits Stephen called them, but he did not mean that. At first Hilda was a little shy and standoffish with him, but after the episode of the chicken-house, Eustace knew how matters stood, and did everything he could, in a perfectly nice way, to bring them together. Aunt Sarah was very pleased with him, and he felt that at last he had made her forget whatever it was she disliked and distrusted in him. Hilda and Stephen were to be married in September, and she would leave the clinic as soon as a substitute could be found.

The knock must have been repeated several times, for it was quite loud when Eustace heard it. “Avanti!” The maid Elvira stood in the doorway, looking very pretty and penitent and self-conscious.

She excused herself profusely for running away. The signore's mistake had frightened her—m'ha spaventata—she said.

“My mistake?” queried Eustace.

Yes, scusi, the signore's mistake. For of course there had been no one in the garden. There could not have been. It was a very easy mistake to make. Elvira gave him a firm, kind smile. Now she had come back to finish his room, and to bring a message from the Countess. The Countess, she said, had returned from the Piazza, and was awaiting the signore in her sitting-room.

I cannot see her, thought Eustace wildly. I shall be rude to her, I shall insult her. He stared at Elvira speechless.

“Cosi ha detto la Signora Contessa,” said Elvira with the complacent air of one who has repeated a lesson correctly. “La Contessa l'aspetta, subito, subito.”

Eustace's gaze roved round the pallid, sickly walls of the Chamber of Truth, seeking a way out. Suddenly a loophole appeared.

“Tell the Countess I am very sorry, but I have a most urgent engagement at the Splendide Hotel.”

And without waiting to see if she had understood, he bolted from the room as unceremoniously as she had with the threat of the larva at her heels. Down the empty, lighted staircase he sped, without meeting anyone, into the dim cavern of the entrata. The door stood open, and in the cube of light beyond he could see the rain-drops glinting. But he was unprepared for the warm, wet buffet of wind that met him on the threshold.

The pavement was awash, not only with rain, but with water from the canal. The sirocco had brought a high tide, almost a flood; the domed felze of the gondola showed black above the parapet, the steel ferro, level with his head, was prancing madly. Two figures in black oilskins were crawling cautiously about the boat; as he looked, one of them disengaged himself and tested the creaking, heaving landing-board with his foot, then staggered forward, with two oars over his shoulder. It was Silvestro; in the weak light his face under the streaming sou'wester looked as dark as a Red Indian's. The storm seemed to have exhilarated him; his lips parted in a smile that showed all his teeth.

“Dove va, signore?” he shouted.

Eustace hesitated, trying to remember where he was going.

“Al Hotel Splendide,” he replied, with all the strength his voice could muster.

“Ma senza cappello, senza palto?” Silvestro was horrified. In his haste Eustace had brought neither hat nor coat. No matter, he couldn't go back to that room to get them.

“Fa niente!” he cried, trying to smile.

Silvestro's face became stiff with prohibition.

“No, no, signore, si bagna. Non si può andar a piedi, non è permesso. Cosi prende una polmonite, sicuro. Venga con noi in gondola.”

As Eustace said nothing, Erminio reared himself shakily on the poop, and translated his colleague's protests.

“He says you will get wet. He says you must not go on foot, that it is not allowed. He says you will catch pulmonia for certain.”

“Shut up, you!” exclaimed Silvestro in Italian. “The signore understands perfectly what I say.”

Eustace was touched by their kindness. Here they were, with the gondola half dismantled, their day's work nearly done, probably wet through, sacrificing themselves to keep him dry. He felt himself back in the world of plain, straightforward actions, meaning what they seemed to. And of what use was it his getting wet? Practical considerations began to have some value.

Boarding the straining, plunging gondola, he crawled backwards into the felze. Silvestro closed the doors, and at once the silken darkness wrapped him round. The grunts, creaks, and shouts that showed the gondola was under way sounded faint and muffled. No one could see him, no voice could reach him, only two Italian boatmen, ignorant of all that was passing in his mind, knew where he was. It was a womb-like, tomb-like state. Let the rain lash the windows, the wind spin the boat round and capsize it: he did not mind.

Still dazzled by the impact of the strong lights in the hotel, Eustace found Jasper Bentwich sitting at a table in the bar. He rose. “Well, this is good of you,” he said. “You're late, of course, but I never thought you'd turn out on such a night.”

It was the nearest approach to a speech of unqualified approval that Eustace had ever heard him make. He looked into the steel-rimmed mirror. During his brief transit from the gondola to the hotel the weather had left its mark on him. His face was streaked with rain, his clothes were spotted, and his pockets bulged like panniers. Jasper's straight back was immaculate; nowhere did he bear the smallest trace of an encounter with the elements.

“I came straight here from Nelly's party,” he said, answering Eustace's unasked question. “It went on too long, they always do; but at any rate I missed the rain. Rain in Venice is the devil. You, I take it, came in Nelly's famous boat?”

Eustace said he had.

“Well, I suppose they are useful sometimes. By the way, why did you run away from us so suddenly? Nelly said something about your feeling off-colour.”

“It wasn't quite that,” said Eustace. “I had some rather bad news from home.”

“Bad news? I'm sorry. Tonino, a double gin and vermouth for Mr. Cherrington. That's what you like, isn't it? Awful stuff. But why didn't Nelly say so? Women are all the same: they can't tell the truth about the simplest matter.”

“Do you think Lady Nelly isn't truthful?” Eustace asked. He was back in the abyss again, peering into the darkness, stumbling on the rocks.

Jasper raised his eyebrows, and his monocle slid down on to his waistcoat. “Oh, I wouldn't say that. It's just her dramatising instinct. The plain truth is so dull, no foundation for fantasy.”

“Do you think she is scheming?” Eustace said.

“Can you ask me that, having spent two months with her? Or is it three? Of course she schemes; all women do.”

“But about what sort of things?”

Jasper did not try to disguise his impatience. “I really don't know. Love, I suppose, match-making, setting the wolf where he the lamb may get, and so on.”

“In fact, you wouldn't call her a good woman?” said Eustace.

“A good woman? What extraordinary expressions you use.” Jasper stared at Eustace in distaste and his features converged on each other threateningly. “She's a kind, delightful woman.” He considered his own phrase, seemed to dislike it, and added petulantly, “She's a woman of charm and distinction and personality. But good —I don't know, I'm not her confessor.”

“You said something about the wolf and the lamb,” persisted Eustace. “Did you mean that she might deliberately try to—to——?”

“You haven't read your ‘Rape of Lucrece,' I see,” said Jasper. “You've some pretty bad gaps. ‘Oh, Opportunity, thy guilt is great.' Well, women like to collaborate with Opportunity. How else would the world go on? Marriages are not always made in Heaven, and less regular unions are often arranged for at sewing-parties, I imagine.”

“I see,” said Eustace.

“But you sidetracked me with your inquisition into Nelly's character. She's quite a good woman, as women go. I wanted to say, if you had let me, that I was sorry you had had bad news. I shan't ask you what it is—everyone will tell me, and tell me something different. But I hope it doesn't mean you're leaving us.”

“I'm afraid it does,” Eustace mumbled.

“But you're not sure? Don't misunderstand me—I don't want you to go, but how I wish people could make up their minds! At least half a dozen times in the past month I have been told you were going away, because Venice didn't suit you, because you had come across an old friend and were joining her in England, because Nelly's Count had cut you out, because you had had a tiff with her —you haven't, by the way?”

“No.”

“I only ask because you seemed so interested in her moral state. Well, I shall believe you've gone when I see you go.”

“I'm going to-morrow,” Eustace said.

Jasper Bentwich stiffened in his chair and then sagged a little, and his dark eyebrows and grey moustache looked shaggy instead of spruce. “You really mean that? Well, it's too bad. You come here, and we get used to you, and then off you go. You young men are not very considerate to your elders. What does Nelly say?”

“I haven't told her yet.”

“She'll be counting on you for the ball and to give her a hand with those ghastly Grundtvigs. And isn't Antony Lachish a friend of yours? He'll be disappointed.”

“Still, I've got to go,” Eustace said. The thought of leaving Venice was the least of his troubles, but he was on the verge of tears.

“You'll have an awful journey, you know, probably have to sit up all night or share a bunk with some revolting Jew. Still, as you're bent on going.... Oh, by the way, I remember now what I wanted to see you about.”

“Oh yes?” said Eustace listlessly.

“You don't seem very interested. You're looking a bit run down. I wanted to ask you about your book.”

Eustace thought a moment.

“Oh yes.”

“I don't suppose I shall like it, in fact I'm sure I shan't, but will you lend it me to show a friend of mine who's here, a publisher? His taste is—well—fruitier than mine—he admits the lush—and he might take a fancy to it.”

“You're very kind,” Eustace said. “You have been very kind to me. Everyone has.” He could say no more.

“Nonsense, my dear boy, you've given remarkably little trouble, remarkably little, except of course by always being late.” He looked at his wrist-watch on its ribbon of gold, and frowned. “Why will people dine at a quarter to eight? So suburban. But it's here, thank goodness. Are you going back to the Sfortunato?”

“Yes—no—I hadn't really thought.”

“You hadn't thought? But doesn't Nelly expect you? Isn't this your last evening?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Eustace said.

“Well, give her my love. Everyone gives her that—she has more of it than she knows what to do with. A spoilt woman.”

Like a boxer taking the count, but struggling still to rise, Eustace's spirit feebly threshed about seeking in itself some sign of healthfulness, some renewed stirring of confidence, such as a sworn affidavit that Lady Nelly was a saint would have given him.

“Do you really think——” he began.

“Yes?” Jasper turned to give himself a surreptitious glance in the mirror.

“That Lady Nelly might—in certain circumstances—do something—connected with love—that might be very harmful—to another person?”