by Ursula Bloom
She turned from the ship’s side, and saw Oliver just come up from dinner, and about to go down the gangway.
‘You will come to the Serenata with me?’
She had meant to say no. In her own heart she had decided that although Cala Mistra had been lovely, it had been a little indecent. It could not happen again. Decorum, the death of Lilia, and the fact that Oliver was Oliver and Ann was Ann, forbade it. Nice people did not do that sort of thing. And now here she was, in spite of all her good resolutions, actually running down to her cabin for her coat, and all in a hurry to go out with him to the Serenata. She did not even stop to think twice.
They were in a gondola together.
She had thought the canals perfect by day, and had not realized how much more perfect they were by night. Cuthbert would have been horrified at the intimacy of the gondola in which you lay side by side, yet here nobody seemed to mind. Just at first Ann tried to keep to her own side, but Oliver’s hand closed over hers, and after a while nothing mattered. There was the mystery of the music.
They drew nearer to the boats in which the performers were seated, with the gay balloons of light and the water lapping a little against their sides. It was more like a scene on the stage than real life, with the Grand Canal straggling behind in blue and grey and purple, and the wavy outline of the hotels from Danielli to Regina, and the firm round breast of della Salute opposite.
The gondolier moved his boat alongside the others and sat down in an attitude of patient attention. He adored the music. He committed none of the English outrages; he did not whistle or beat time, but sat there in a huddle, and every little while Ann could see the glint of his eyes on the singers, and hear his admiring intake of breath, and his ‘Ah, si, si, brava’.
She felt that she had never heard music, real music, before. She would never hear it again. And now she let her body lie closer to Oliver’s. She was glad that he held her hand. For Venice demands love. Venice is love. Once she thought that he turned and kissed her hair, for she felt his lips quivering close. She felt his breath on her cheek, but she could not be sure. He teased her a little.
‘What if I touched your lips?’
And quickly she replied, ‘Oh, please don’t.’ The old terrified Ann!
‘My sweet, I would not harm you.’ And the atmosphere of the place confused her so that she almost believed that his kisses would be lovely, and she wished that he would overcome the recurring modesty of the old Ann.
Enchantment of the moment! She did not know how many times the bronze man hammered out the hour in the square. She did not know how often the weather-beaten sailor clanged his bell on board the Allando. What was more she did not care now. She was half asleep, when quietly they slipped away into the light mist which lay above the water of the lagoon. In the dim confusion of sleepiness and mist and music and enchantment, she felt Oliver’s lips upon her forehead.
III
Ann awoke in a panic next day. What had happened? She must be entirely crazy. She must be mad. She had made up her mind not to go out with Oliver again, and on the instant she had gone. First of all she had allowed him to pick her up in the park (crude, but entirely true); then they had visited Pompeii; they had gone ashore in Malta and had bathed together. Now this! She took herself very sharply. She must be extremely firm about it, because after all, although on a cruise anything might seem to be possible, it was not quite so possible when you returned to everyday life.
She had got to maintain her self-respect. And now, as she dressed in the little cabin, with the open port disclosing a blue and glittering lagoon without, she felt all hot and cold at the memory of the previous night. She reiterated that she must have been quite mad. She decided that there was something curious about foreign places, which affected you in that way. For instance, you could not do that sort of thing in a level-headed country, in such district as Golders Green or Clapham or Chingford. There people behaved nicely and properly and did not find atmosphere taking hold of them and making them behave oddly. There was no Serenata in Kensington, for instance; if you wanted music you went to the Albert Hall, and the Albert Hall did not supply you with a cushioned gondola, in nature peculiarly like a bed, and your escort did not kiss you.
Worthing supplied you with the most excellent bathing (as the prospectus obtainable on application to the Town Clerk informed you), but it was not quite the same bathing as at Cala Mistra. Abroad, so Ann’s father had once told her, things happen. She thought, ‘They most certainly do happen.’
Yet that morning everything was serene. There was an excursion from the Riva degli Schiavoni, organized by the painstaking Mr. Thomas Cook; it was an excursion through the picture galleries and the less famous but by no means less interesting churches (this according to the book of the words). Ann loved pictures, but she did not feel that she could possibly go round the galleries in a herd. Miss Bright was going of course. The Spinkses had employed what other people called a guide, but what they were pleased to term a ‘courier’. The Duncans had given up the last shred of pretence. They were now frankly man-hunting. The count whom they had met at the tea-dance at the Danielli but yesterday had escorted Ethel to the Serenata, and there had proved himself to be no gentleman! They were trying the Luna to-day, lunch in the street, and they felt that anything might happen.
‘Remember that we sail at five,’ said Fergus warningly to Ann; ‘it would be ghastly if you got left behind.’
Ann watched the gondolas as they passed to and fro, and she went by steamer to the Lido. It was one of those places that she felt she ought to see, if only because it would shock Cuthbert so immoderately, and now she had grown reckless. She wanted to shock Cuthbert. He did not believe that any woman returned intacta from the Lido, and there possibly he was more or less correct. All the same Ann found it dull. It was modern, as against the age of the city of romance. But the magnolias were in flower, and the essence of verbena came to her in every little breath. There were trees too, and after the days at sea, and Venice itself, trees looked strange and almost out of place. She thought, ‘How quickly you change your outlook! Fancy being surprised at the sheer beauty of a tree!’ She thought of the song, and marvelled at the truth of it ‒ ‘But only God can make a tree.’
Even at the Lido she could not be entirely free of the ship. There were a few daring souls who had not fallen in with Mr. Cook’s efforts to fatigue them for ten-and-sixpence a head, but who had come to the Lido to flirt. She heard them laughing before she got to them. ‘Well, anyway,’ she told herself, ‘they won’t get as far as Murano.’ That was some consolation.
IV
The gondolier arrived to time.
Ann lay back on the black velvet cushions. By now gondolas meant no more to her than mere taxicabs; they were more comfortable, they ran more smoothly, that was all. She drowsed as the gondola went forward across the rippleless blue. The rhythmic dipping of the oar, the lapping of the water against the prow, and the lazy heat all soothed her. She closed her eyes. She had recovered from her shocking recollection of last night now, and she was feeling that she had only got to be firm with herself. That was the main thing. Oliver must be brought to understand that matters had gone quite far enough; they could not possibly go any further. She was glad that so far she had not suffered the embarrassment of meeting him to-day. It would be easier when the ship was on its way to Ragusa, and all this atmosphere of romance was left behind.
She blamed the atmosphere a great deal, and herself a great deal more. Her father had always told her that no man overstepped the limits of friendship without some encouragement, however small. Therefore she honestly believed that she was to blame. She was going to be strong-minded about it, she told herself.
She must have slept for some little while, for she awoke with a jerk to find that the gondola had ceased its steady progress forward, and was just floating along in the lagoon. She was not at all sure of its direction. The gondolier was sitting in the stern mopping a somewhat heated brow.
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p; ‘It ’ot,’ he told her frankly.
‘It’s very hot. Are we near Murano?’
He shrugged his shoulders indifferently. ‘Murano very long way,’ he said, making no effort to get on with his work.
Ann, becoming less sleepy, sat up and took notice. ‘The ship is sailing at five,’ she said. The gondolier received this piece of information with a complete lack of interest. ‘But you don’t seem to understand. We’ve got to get to Murano and back.’
He said ‘I understand,’ and then, arriving at the urgent matter nearest to his heart, ‘’ow much you pay?’
‘How much is it?’ she asked.
The gondolier named a sum that even Ann knew to be preposterous. ‘Oh, but that’s absurd,’ she said. ‘I certainly should not pay all that.’
He shrugged his shoulders again, as though it were a matter of no consequence. It was a very helpless feeling, for here they were drifting about the lagoon, miles from anywhere; she had no idea where they were, there seemed to be islands all about them, and far away, in the direction where she would least have expected it, the faint, almost indiscernible Campanile.
‘Very well then,’ said Ann, ‘we won’t go to Murano. We will go back to the ship.’
The gondolier looked his indifference. ‘Ship-a long way,’ he commented.
All interest in blown glass bubbles had left Ann. She glanced at her wrist-watch, only to find that in the disturbance of last night she had forgotten to wind it up. She felt a rather cruel fear gnawing at her heart. ‘We must get back,’ she said.
Again the unruffled demand, ‘’Ow much you pay?’
She began to capitulate. ‘What is the fare?’
The gondolier once more made one of his staggering announcements.
‘But I should never think of paying anything of the sort,’ she said. This disturbed her a great deal more than the gondolier, who only settled himself the more comfortably as though prepared to stay the night. She was now getting thoroughly nervous. Anything was better than missing the Allando, anything in this world, and anyway she could argue when she got back and refuse to pay, and the purser and the officer of the watch would come to her assistance.
‘We will go back at once, please,’ she said. The gondolier stared blankly into Space. ‘At once,’ said Ann.
Slowly the dark eyes of the young man turned lazily towards her. He had experienced that sort of thing before, and he knew that once alongside she would solicit the aid of officials. ‘Pay now,’ he demanded.
‘But this is infamous,’ exclaimed Ann, ‘you know it is abominable. You know you have no right to ask it. I won’t pay.’
Again he stared absorbedly into space. Ann had a horrid suspicion that she might have been asleep longer than she had originally supposed. The shadows were growing long under the islands; the sun did not seem to be very high in the heavens. Real terror came to her. ‘What is the time?’ she asked.
Slowly, with an elaborate languor, the gondolier drew out of his sash a large brass watch. He consulted it carefully and then made an announcement in Italian.
‘I don’t understand,’ she cried wretchedly.
He made no attempt to help her. His English had now deserted him, but what did that matter? He was used to dealing with people from cruises, was Antonio. The great secret was never to hurry. He tucked the watch back into his sash. Suddenly Ann, driven to the point of desperation, called to him:
‘I’ll pay. I’ll have to pay. I’ve just got to get back to the ship.’
She brought the bundle of notes out of the small bead bag and began to count them. She was on the verge of tears as she pushed them across towards him. He began to count them with unflurried care; he was not to be disturbed.
‘Oh, hurry, hurry!’ she begged.
But the gondolier was not going to be hastened. When he had finished counting them, he tucked them into his sash, securing them safely. Then he rose and began to ply his oar. The distance did not seem to diminish. Ann thought that she would never manage to get back in time at this rate. Every little while Antonio would pause to mop his brow, and to complain that it was very ’ot. All her sympathies had gone from her. She now did not care whether he was hot, or whether he was cold. Anyway he was a Venetian and he ought to be accustomed to the climate. The sun was falling behind the islands. She said, ‘You can go quicker than this, and you must,’ and she beat an impatient tattoo with her fingers on the side of the gondola.
‘You not pay much,’ he complained.
‘You can’t demand more?’ He rested to mop his forehead again; it appeared perfectly certain that he could demand more. ‘It must be getting late, very late, and we shall miss the boat,’ she panicked.
He echoed her worst fears. ‘Si. We missa the boat. Not much time now.’
It was terror that gripped Ann’s throat. Her fingers shook as she drew out a slender stock of lire and held them out to him. ‘Take them, only hurry. For goodness’ sake be quick. I’ve got to catch the boat at any cost.’
He tucked the notes away and turned to his oar. Now she knew that he had been doing this on purpose, for the gondola skimmed along. They twisted in and out of the little islands, and she saw the dome and spires of Venice coming nearer. They entered the lagoon itself past St. George’s island, and as they did so she saw a great ship moving out to sea. She screamed. The gondolier with true Italian helplessness threw up his hands to heaven in an unavailing gesture of despair.
It was no use.
The ship had sailed.
PART THREE
Chapter 1
I
Ann found herself landed on the steps of St. Mark’s with night falling and no luggage, no home, no friends. She felt the choky feeling at her throat that she had not felt since she was a child. She believed that if anyone sympathized with her, she would cry. Her first idea was to go to the emporium of Mr. Alfred Bunt, in the hope ‒ an extremely forlorn one ‒ that after all Fifinelle had played the game and had sent the deposit money. She wondered how soon it would be before they discovered on board that she was missing, whether she could possibly go on by train and rejoin them at Ragusa. She was very vague about her geography, and she had no money.
She went into Bunt’s, her heart throbbing right up into her very throat itself. Yes, there was a letter for her. The pimply clerk pushed it towards her through the bars which fenced him in behind the counter.
She opened it, and the franc notes which were enclosed fell out into her lap. Madame could not think how the mistake had occurred. It had made her most malheureuse, and she humbly craved forgiveness. It was all most distressing and she did hope that Mademoiselle had not been put to any inconvenience. Mademoiselle, stranded in Venice, was now looking upon the mistake as entirely heaven-sent. She folded the letter up.
She approached the pimply clerk again, who was quite indifferent to her quandary and enquiries, but said that he would fetch Mr. Harding. Now Mr. Harding was more senior, and he was used to predicaments, more particularly women in predicaments. He had been with Bunt’s in Rome and in Naples and now in Venice, and he was very well accustomed to ladies who got themselves left behind, ladies who had missed their trains, ladies who had lost their luggage, and ladies who were in need of financial assistance.
Ragusa, he said, was out of the question, and it would be a most unpleasant journey for a lady to make alone if there had been the time, and there wasn’t. The ship would have sailed again before she got there. She could of course cable to Mr. Robert for some more of her money to see her home by train, or she could apply at the British Consulate for aid.
She said that she would go to the Consulate. Mr. Harding thereupon pulled out an enormous watch with a fob attached to it, and said that he thought there would not be much time. Why not let him make arrangements for her for the night at a perfectly respectable and moderately priced hotel, and go to the Consulate in the morning? By then, he went on to say, there might be some message from the ship, as her disappearance would most certainly have been
noticed.
This did seem to be the better arrangement, and eventually Ann found herself walking across the square with Mr. Harding, who had become most exceedingly conversational. He thought Ann was a nice-looking young woman. ‘Young woman’ was the actual term that he used. He did not know why he should hurry, whereas Ann for her part was both distressed and embarrassed.
It was providential that Fifinelle had returned the money, otherwise she would have been stranded with a small matter of eighty lire between her and starvation. It was an additional mercy that she had her passport in her bag, and that Mr. Robert had been so particular about that passport, although the line had said that it was unnecessary for cruising. Now she felt how utterly right Mr. Robert had been. There is a deal of comfort in a straightforward British passport tucked into your bag.
Matters were better than they might have been, though that was a small comfort. Mr. Harding was telling her about his own life, all of which seemed to be a little confusing. Much had happened in his twenty-eight years. Oh, the things he had seen and done too, well, you wouldn’t believe it! He twiddled a small ginger moustache, and rolled pale blue eyes to heaven.
Ann interrupted. ‘I’ll have to go home overland, I suppose?’
‘That you will.’
‘Shall I be able to start at once?’ Her voice quavered a little. What an end to a cruise! What ignominy! What humiliation! ‘I suppose there isn’t a chance of the Allando coming back for me?’
‘None whatever,’ he snapped.
He had been going to tell her about life in Golders Green, where he had been born. He was proud of Golders Green, it was the sort of suburb you could talk about, nothing inferior like Clapham or Camden Town or that sort of place. Not that he was a snob. He wasn’t. But he liked talking, and since he had come to Venice he had not found anyone willing to listen. They were not interested in Golders Green. They were full of Venice, which wasn’t much of a place really; old, he admitted, oh yes, old enough, crumbling in fact. And now after all it did not seem that Ann was really sympathetic. Funny how occupied people were with themselves. Very selfish, he thought, most inconsiderate.