Eustace and Hilda

by L. P. Hartley

  “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.

  “Ma non c’è altro, Signora?” he persisted. “Non avrà con sè un cane, per esempio?”

  “Dio mio, spero di no!” cried Lady Nelly, not that she disliked dogs, but she could not imagine Eustace with one.

  “Ah ben po’!” cried the gondolier, spreading out his hands as though to indicate that the problem must now be approached from an entirely different angle. “Sarà lui, il signorino, che dovrà riconoscermi, me Silvestro!”

  He extended his arms, drew himself up, puffed his chest out and fixed Lady Nelly with a challenging eye. She could not deny that thus inflated, projected, underlined and emphasised he had a high degree of recognisability; she could have told him a mile off. But why should Eustace be able to? Diffidently she put this question to the gondolier. But he was not in the least taken aback.

  “Ma tutti mi conoscono!” he cried, in genuine astonishment. “Tutti! tutti!”

  If everyone knew Silvestro, then it followed logically that Eustace would know him too. Lady Nelly let it go at that, the more willingly because her major-domo, in his extremely correct black suit, had appeared on the steps and was listening to the conversation without, however, deigning to look at Silvestro, a calculated slight which the ruddy back of the gondolier’s neck, now a deeper shade of terra-cotta, seemed to be returning with interest.

  Just before five o’clock, when Jasper Bentwich was sipping his imported China tea in the sala that all visitors to Venice who valued the completeness of their impressions hoped to see, his maid brought him a note.

  Jasper Dear [he read],

  Do forgive me, but Mr. Cherrington is rather tired after the journey, as you thought he might be, and if you don’t mind we’ll dine quietly here.

  I mind very much, in fact I’m heartbroken and so is he (I couldn’t resist telling him a little of what we were missing).

  In the hope of being forgiven and asked again,

  Your disappointed but devoted

  N. S.

  Jasper rose from his tea, went to his green-and-gold-lacquered writing-table and wrote a note. Dissatisfied, he tore it up and wrote another, ending ‘Yours to countermand,’ but he destroyed that too.

  The third invited Lady Nelly and her guest to dinner the next day, subject to none of them being too tired.

  2. TIME’S WINGED CHARIOT

  GIACINTO, who brought Eustace his breakfast, spoke a little English.

  “Have you everything you want, signore?” he asked as he put the tray on Eustace’s bed.

  “Everything, thank you.”

  “You do not want any bacon and eggs?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Nor any porreege?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “And if you want anything else you will ring?”

  “Yes, please,” said Eustace, growing a little bewildered.

  “And the Countess says that if it is fine weather you will be going for a nice peek-neek in the gondola at twelve o’clock.”

  “How lovely,” said Eustace. “Will it be fine, do you think?” He associated picnics with rain.

  “Pardon, signore?” said Giacinto, who was better at talking than understanding.

  “Will the weather be good?”

  “Oh yes, signore, in Venice we have always good weather. Desidera altro, signore?”

  Eustace said quite sincerely that he had nothing left to wish for, and Giacinto with a smile and a bow withdrew.

  Careful not to entangle himself in the furled wings of the snowy mosquito net, Eustace got out of bed and walked to the window. There were three windows in the room: two facing the bed, widely spaced like far-apart eyes, and one in the far right-hand corner, a cross-light.

  Eustace visited them each in turn, but it was the third he liked best, for it had a long view down the Grand Canal, terminating in a level iron bridge, a concession to utility without which Venice to his ascetic northern eye seemed almost overdressed. His thoughts were at home with the bridge; elsewhere they were still uneasily resisting the seduction of the undisciplined, unashamed opulence around him. He felt more at ease with the Gothic than the Baroque, and with brick than stone or stucco; happily this palace, the Palazzo Contarini Falier, was Gothic, and the window he was looking out of, though to an eye accustomed to lancets their outlines seemed wanting in modesty, were undoubtedly Gothic windows.

  Everything Eustace saw clamoured for attention. The scene was like an orchestra without a conductor; and to add to the confusion the sights, unlike the sounds, did not come from any one place: they attacked him from
all sides, and even the back of his head felt bombarded by impressions. There was no refuge from the criss-cross flights of the Venetian visual missiles, no calculating the pace at which they came. That huge square palace opposite, with its deep windows like eye-sockets in a skull, was on you in a moment with its frontal attack. The building next to it, red, shabby and almost unadorned, was withholding its fire, but the onslaught would come—Eustace could see it collecting its charm, marshalling its simplicity, winging its pensive arrow. Nor, looking at the water, did the eye get any rest. Always broken, it was for ever busy with the light, taking it on one side of a ripple, sending it back from the other; and the boats, instead of going straight up and down, crossed each other’s path at innumerable angles that were like a geometrician’s nightmare, and at varying degrees of slowness that were like a challenge to a quadratic equation. The rhythm within him which, in Eustace’s case, was to some extent determined by the rhythm outside him, kept starting and stopping like a defective motor-engine, while the variations in the quality of the light made him feel that he was taking messages from a hundred heliographs. Even the angle of the walls between the two windows was not, he suddenly noticed, a true right angle—it was slightly acute; he felt it compressing him like a pair of scissors. Upon examination, every angle in the room seemed out of true; he was living in a trapezium, and would never be able to feel a mathematical relationship with his surroundings. Good-bye to the sense of squareness! But could a thing, or a person, be fair without being square?

  How did Venetians ever achieve stability of mind, Eustace wondered, turning away from the window. Rope ladders of light chased each other across the ceiling. He felt extraordinarily stimulated and renewed. Watching, taking in, was an arduous exercise, but it loosened the spirit and discovered delicious new sensations.

  On the dressing-table, draped in sprigged muslin, his personal possessions seemed to have lost their quality of belonging to him; they wore a reproachful look. Even Stephen’s letter, which had greeted him with the face of a friend, mutely accused him of disloyalty. Stepping from rug to rug to avoid the cold touch of the polished brawn-like pavement, he took the letter back with him to bed. He would re-read it with his breakfast.

  BLACKSTONE’s BUILDINGS,

  ESSEX ST., W.C.2.

  My Dear Eustace,

  Distasteful as it may be to receive reminders of your discarded life, I feel constrained to write, if only to allay the sense of guilt which (so you told me) was aggravating your natural terrors at the prospect of such a portentous journey—I wish you would not worry yourself about the Moral Law: Marx undermined it and Freud has exploded it. You cannot have any personal responsibility for your actions if your whole thought is conditioned by the class of society in which you were brought up, still less if your mind was infected by an Œdipus Complex before it had attained to self-consciousness. I do not say that yours was, but it might have been, which is good enough for the argument; and I do not of course know whether the social stratum which you now adorn has achieved an awareness of moral standards outside the automatic functioning of its no doubt numerous taboos. I should think not, to judge by the behaviour of His Royal Highness. But he is too high for me; and besides—at enim—you will say that neither a man’s moral standards nor his moral worth can be inferred from his acts, even in the case of a Royal personage. To which I reply, rather tartly, that a tree is known by its fruit (I am leaving Lakewater out of the discussion).

  But I know that you have ambitions in the moral field and believe that progress is possible there, even, I suspect, without the aid of Divine Grace (Pelagius was not an Englishman for nothing). And so, though I cannot form any opinion as to the rightfulness or wrongfulness of what you may be doing in Venice (a city notoriously given to vanity and pleasure), I can reassure you on one point. Since you went away everything has gone, as they say, swimmingly; even more swimmingly, dare I suggest? than when you were here to supervise our natation. I never quite knew what it was you were afraid of; but anyhow, it hasn’t happened. All your fears are groundless. The clinic still stands; in fact, it goes from strength to strength, if you will pardon the expression; and (I believe this may surprise you) I have been vouchsafed a glimpse of what I expect you are now learning to call Palazzo Cherrington.

  The day after you left for Venice I received an invitation from your aunt to dine at Willesden. You can imagine my trepidation, and with what an anxious eye I studied my meagre wardrobe (your aunt had told me not to dress), thinking, this pin-stripe might pass muster with Miss Cherrington, but Miss Hilda will certainly pronounce it dull; or, these socks, their clocks indicating the upward trend of duty, might satisfy Miss Hilda, but to Miss Cherrington they will seem too emphatic, over defined, and perhaps even suggestive, as though the arrow were pointing up my leg to who knows what destination! Of course if I had known that your sister, Mrs. Crankshaw, would be there with her so different sartorial requirements I should have died, like a chameleon on a rainbow! But I was not expecting, though immensely flattered, to find what might justly be described as a gathering of the clans.

  You can imagine how excited I was to be present at the scene of so many famous happenings. A place of pilgrimage! As we passed the staircase I murmured to Mrs. Crankshaw, “Is this where you used to put the furniture?” and when we went into the drawing-room I said, “Is this where you turned back the carpet?” I was afraid I had been over-bold, but they all laughed, Miss Hilda loudest of all. How tolerant women are! I shouldn’t have dared to say such a thing had Mr. Crankshaw been present, but he was away, keeping a date with a dynamo, I think. Mrs. Crankshaw showed me his photograph: a striking-looking, but not what I should call an engine-turned face.

  From what you told me I expected to find your aunt a little austere, but she could not have been more gracious, and you would have been touched (as I was) by the pride she showed in your academic trophies. All your school prizes came out: The Naturalist on the Amazon, The Cruise of the Cachalot, Ants, Bees and Wasps, Whales and How to Harpoon Them, With Pick and Pack in the Gobi Desert—what a double life you lead, my dear Eustace! And I was shown your trinkets and bibelots and even asked if I thought you would care to part with some of them, especially that Chaldæan paper-weight (if such it be: it is certainly very heavy, how the papyrus must have groaned!). But I was loyal and said No, something of your spirit had passed into these things, and in years to come, when you were famous, and a hundred years hence, when you had died, people would scramble for them.

  Upon your social achievements we touched more lightly, but Mrs. Crankshaw was very anxious to know when we might expect to see your photograph in the Sketch and Tatler, prone or supine on the Lido, and would it say ‘Lady Nelly Staveley and Mr. Eustace Cherrington,’ or just ‘Lady N.S. and friend’? Your aunt did not contribute much to this discussion, but Miss Hilda said, “Perhaps she will have found another friend by then.” I thought I ought to warn you.

  Miss Hilda was in remarkably good form. Her animation almost overflowed the house, not that it’s small, but you know how she requires a spacious setting—such as I gather from you Anchorstone Hall must have been. She didn’t say much about that; perhaps she imagined (wrongly) that you had told me everything. She said that she had enjoyed herself more than she expected to, but would never have gone if you hadn’t insisted—you have a will of iron, dear Eustace. I gather you have let her in for going again, but she thinks she may get out of that. She spoke of Richard Staveley as being a man with a future—I nearly told her he was a man with a past, but felt you would have given her a brotherly warning, and besides, he is a valued client of Messrs. Hilliard, Lampeter and Hilliard, and I ought to welcome every scrape he gets into. I must add that Miss Hilda was charmingly dressed —I couldn’t help voicing my admiration, and she said you were to blame, you had corrupted her (there is food for your guilt-complex!). Next time I see her she will be in the clinical accoutrements with which I somehow associate her.

  Daring as ever, I proposed a visit to the
clinic one day next week and she raised no objection!—so that I feel I am in favour. She has several projects on hand, but the purchase of the chicken-run is at last completed, and without any capital outlay on her part, thanks to my defensive measures.

  You see what a steadying influence I have. When you write to her, you must not fail to sing my praises.

  This long, too long letter does not mean that I am neglecting business. On the contrary, after my delightful and instructive evening with your family I feel more than ever that the Cherringtons are my business, as they are also my pleasure, if I may put it like that.

  Good-bye, Eustace. Remember the rate of exchange—pounds and lire, though the same sign serves for both, must on no account be confused. Nor must soldi and shillings, though they are nearly the same in Latin. With these exhortations to a realistic outlook I remain,

  Yours affectionately,

  STEPHEN.

  P.S. I shouldn’t wait until the end of your visit (but, Stephen, my visit will never end: Lady Nelly has asked me to stay with her for ever) to tPip the servants. Even if the palm is not actually outstretched, it will always welcome a little transitional greasing—but let it be a little: I sometimes tremble for you—you have such inflationary ideas about money.

  Stephen, Eustace reflected, had got an entirely different impression of his home from the one he had grown up with. Perhaps visitors always did. But his family must also have behaved rather differently. Certainly his aunt had. She had never told him she meant to invite Stephen, and yet the invitation must have been sent almost before he left the house. He could not remember that, unprompted by himself or Barbara, she had ever asked anyone to dinner before. Perhaps it was not strange that she should have wanted to see Stephen for herself, for she had always seemed to like the idea of him. But it was strange that she should exhibit Eustace’s prizes, a thing he had never known her do before. He almost wished she hadn’t. The admiration Eustace felt for her had never wavered, but the affection had. On his conception of her as a just but unloving woman—unloving at least to him—he had built up and justified the idea of himself as being more appreciated abroad than at home. Now he would have to revise that conception, and in spite of Stephen’s assurances, suffer the sense of guilt that the consciousness of being more loved than loving always brought him.