by Susan Hill
We had found yet another quiet, modest pensione – we had a genius for it, I thought, the places so suited us, and the way we always seemed to be in retreat, always carefully turning away our faces. I was used to it now, I did not mind; only, as I hung up clothes, folded things, slid open heavy drawers, I felt a spurt of raw longing, for my own rooms, my own furniture, home, and I indulged it, and Cobbett’s Brake came, still and quiet and undisturbed, into my mind. I measured out the time I allowed myself to spend on it most carefully, before going in search of Maxim.
We settled down quite quickly. We would stay, Maxim said, stay for the winter – why not? Indeed, we had had our share of sunshine. I was surprised how easily the routine of days together came back to us, how we fell into a pattern of fetching the newspaper, eating a late breakfast, walking, exploring, looking at pictures, at churches, at houses, at the faces of Venetians, at the boats gliding silently across the silky black water, at the sky, morning and evening, over the campanile. When we had last come here, we had looked at one another, so that I did not see the city, only Maxim’s face.
The weather was mostly bleak, the wind bitter, snaking down alleyways and across the open squares, driving us indoors. But sometimes the clouds cleared, and then the reflections of the houses shone back from the face of the water and the gilding on the walls and the painted domes were sparkling. There was fog, too, when the footsteps that never cease in Venice and the bells and the stroke of the oars were muffled in it, and we did not leave the dark, red plush lounge, except for our private café and then the time hung heavy, then I wanted open, wide skies, I thought of ploughed fields and bare trees and sometimes dreamed that I was standing on the cliffs above Kerrith, watching the breakers race in and crash up over the black rocks.
Maxim was at first quite unchanged, retreating into the old, familiar ways of our earlier years in exile, wanting my company, reading a great deal, interested in the dull, ordinary news from home, that came a couple of days late, not wanting to be reminded of painful, former things, so that I grew used again to being careful what I said, to sparing him, to concealing some of my own thoughts. We came to know Venice and a very great many of its works of art and ways of daily life as well as inhabitants, we were experts, we scarcely needed our guide books, we quizzed one another about dates and styles and history and doges and painters, and it was a pleasant and perhaps fruitful way of helping the time to pass.
Sometimes, I caught him looking at me, and his face darkened, I could not tell what he was thinking. Sometimes I sensed that he had closed himself off from me, and I retreated, and that was easy, I had dreams in which I could snatch ten minutes of nostalgia and fragile fulfilment, when it was necessary.
Letters came. We heard from Giles, Frank Crawley wrote once, there were business envelopes to be attended to sometimes, but they seemed to be of little consequence, and to cause Maxim no distress. He only spent an hour or two dealing with them, at a table in the window of our room, and then I would go out alone, to wander about the streets of Venice, or ride up and down the Grand Canal, on the vaporetto, a cheap, harmless, hour of pleasure.
Christmas came, and it was as strange and alien as Christmas had been every year of our exile, and I was used to it, I thought, I would not feel any different. We would exchange our own presents and eat whatever it was the custom to eat and I would go to a foreign church and hear the service in a language I did not know, but otherwise, the day would pass much as any other.
I went not to one of the grand principal churches, with the dressed up crowds, St Mark’s or the Salute, I felt no more inclined than ever for public display. Instead, I got up early, leaving Maxim barely awake, and walked through sidestreets and obscure, empty squares, over the Rialto Bridge to a church I had found one day in my solitary walks, and which had pleased me because it was quiet and plainer than was usual in Venice, not very gilded or full of precious paintings, but a more modest, a more real church, I thought. No one would come here to see and be seen, I would slip by unnoticed in my grey fur collared coat and hat.
Maxim never came. He did not believe, he said, except for ‘some truths’ and I had never questioned him further. I was not, indeed, very sure what I believed myself, I was uneducated in theology as in most other things, though I had been brought up with the usual teachings, the familiar stories, but I had prayed my desperate prayers these last years, and had had our reprieve, and our quietness and closeness together, as answers.
I made my way with the families and the old, black coated women who shuffled, arm in arm, nodding in response to an incurious smile, slipping in to the back of the church, to hear the Christmas Mass, and now, among the blaze of newly lit candles and the great urns of branches and waxen flowers, the rise and fall of the priest’s voice and the murmured responses, I prayed again, to be scoured clean of the thoughts and memories, the reminders, the whispering voices, to forget, to forget. I meant to pray to be satisfied with what we had, too, to give thanks for it, to be modestly grateful; but as I knelt, I knew that I could not, I felt a tremendous, raw anger and desire well up in me, the house, Cobbett’s Brake, was there, in front of me, and I longed for it and could not let it go.
I wanted Christmas, as it should be by now for us, Christmas in a house, our own house, with great green branches brought in and swathed around the mantelpieces and burning in the grate, scarlet and white translucent berries, the old words in English, the familiar carols, the hot, rich, comforting plates of food. I was bitter with longing, so that I could not pray, not decently, I only sat dumbly, enduring the chanting and the shuffling files of communicants and the clinking of the chain as the censer swung to and fro, waiting for it to be over, and I to be released.
The fog had come creeping off the lagoon and seeped into the slits between the gaunt old houses, it hung over the surface of the black water of the canal, sour and sulphurous, and I walked back very quickly, my head bent. Maxim was standing in the hall, talking in his fluent Italian, with great cheerfulness, to the hotel manager, holding a glass of wine.
‘There you are,’ he said, and put out his arm to me, his face full of pleasure that I had returned, and how could I not respond, and warm to it, how could I not go quickly to him, out of nothing but love?
I did, I did, and another glass was brought, and the proprietor kissed my hand and we wished one another a happy Christmas, in a foreign tongue, and I smiled, and it was not like Christmas at all.
But there was a rhythm with my moods, as with everything, and in any case, I kept them to myself, it had become the strictest point of honour with me not to let him know what I felt – and so, I supposed, also the ultimate deception. But I was used to it now, it was better that way.
And so the even tenor of our days resumed, and they were companionable, undemanding, pleasant, and we quickly grew accustomed even to that bizarre, extraordinary city, and in the end scarcely noticed it and might have been anywhere.
That Maxim seemed to have secrets too now, that I caught him looking at me strangely, questioningly, that he seemed to need time to conduct matters of business did not trouble me, though I was surprised. I was glad of it, I thought it must mean that he had some interest elsewhere, outside of our enclosed, inward looking little world.
January passed in gloom and greyness, late dark and early dark, in bitter winds and rain that drove relentlessly across the lagoon. The water rose and flooded steps and landing stages, crept up the walls of the buildings, overspilled into the piazza, a foetid, damp smell curled into our nostrils whenever we went out, and the lamps were never switched off, day after day.
When relief came, it was not only with the sight of the sun, after the weeks of dark, not only with the faintest trace of something clean and new on the air that reminded us that there would be spring, it was with something quite other, and entirely unexpected. It came with high comedy and a reminder of that past in which I had very first known Maxim, which had nothing of sadness or unpleasantness about it, as so many of our memories h
ad. It brought back the first flush of love, and my own innocence, and showed me again how well Maxim had rescued me.
It was my birthday, a happier day than Christmas, for Maxim always tried to give me not simply a present but some wonderful surprise, some pleasure I could not have anticipated. It was the sort of thing he was very good at, so that I woke, always, with that child-like sense of anticipation, the flutter of excitement, as I remembered the day.
The sun shone brilliantly and we went out very early. We were to breakfast not as usual, modestly in our pensione, but at Florian’s, and as we walked over the bridge and down towards the piazza, among the Venetians hurrying to work, the women and toddlers, and babies, the small boys running to school, the sky was the enamel blue of the sky in a Renaissance painting, and indeed, that seemed the exact word for it. ‘A new birth,’ I said, as we strolled, ‘a new beginning.’
Maxim smiled, and I suddenly saw his face as I had very first seen it, sitting on the sofa at the Hotel Côte d’Azur all those years ago. Then, it had seemed to me a medieval face, in some strange way, the face of a fifteenth-century portrait, a face that belonged to a walled city like this one, full of narrow cobbled streets, and it was so again, there was the same sharpness and elegance about it, so that he fitted in exactly here, though he was not at all like the jutting nosed, red haired Venetians.
The coffee tasted better than coffee had for years, real, rich Italian coffee, the taste belonged to the old years before the war and all the deprivations. Coffee had become thin, grey, gruel-like stuff, but this was fragrant, rich and dark, and the cups were large, with a delicate gold rim, and as we sat, not outside – it was still too chilly and too early for that – but on one of the plush banquettes beside the window, the pigeons rose in a cloud, and fluttered up and around and around the glittering domes of St Mark’s, casually at home among the massive lions and the prancing horses, and then fell back again on to the pavement.
Maxim was leaning back, looking at me, his expression one of amusement. ‘You have not very long left,’ he said, ‘you had better make the best of it.’
I knew what he meant at once. ‘What shall you do?’ I asked. ‘We had better make plans. You will not like me then.’
‘Of course. I shall disown you on the stroke of midnight, you will be cast into outer darkness.’
When I had first met Maxim, on one of those heady, unforgettable, first days, we had been driving back in his car to Monte Carlo, and something, some remark, had brought me back to myself and the reality of my situation, and I had blurted out in a moment of frustration and misery, ‘I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin and a string of pearls.’
For that had seemed to me the sort of age and type of worldly, sophisticated woman Maxim de Winter would prefer, and I had been so much younger, gauche and school-girlish, inexperienced, and stupid. But it had been me he had married, me he had wanted, astonishing, unbelievable as it had been – and still was, I thought, now, looking at him across the pink tablecloth of Florian’s, still was. A woman of thirty-six in black satin and a string of pearls had been everything he had loathed and wanted to escape from, a woman like Rebecca. I had learned that.
But in a couple of years I would be thirty-six. Though I would never wear the black satin, I had once or twice secretly wished for the pearls, for they were flattering, gentle and softer than most jewels, which had always seemed to me hard, brittle, repellent things.
The age did not matter, I knew now that on some days I was older than my mother had been, as old as it was possible ever to be, and on others, a very few – today was one – I was the age I had been when I had met Maxim, and would never alter or grow older. Most of the time, if I thought of it at all, I was some dull, indeterminate middle age.
But this morning, my birthday, I was as new born as the day, and the sunshine, the air, the sparkling city, filled me with delight, I would never whine again, I said, I would never be discontented, never look back over my shoulder, pining for lost things. I had no need of that.
The day brought small pleasures but he waited until darkness to surprise me best, telling me to change into an evening frock, and wear a fur wrap, and then leaving me alone, to get ready. I had supposed that we would walk across to one of our favourite small restaurants near the Rialto Bridge, but we went only down the side street, as far as the landing stage, and there was a gondola, waiting like an elegant, dark swan on the gleaming water, with torches lit and glowing golden around its prow. We had ridden like this the last time we had been here, on our honeymoon, Maxim had made just such romantic gestures a dozen times a day, but I was not used to it now, our life was not like that, I had forgotten how good he had been at it.
I wanted time to stop, and the quiet journey down the canal to last forever. I did not look back or long for anything else, but only wanted the present, in this place – such times are the more precious for being rare. But it did not take very long, we were slipping up to a landing stage, and I saw the entrance doors of the hotel opened by attendants, the lights gleamed on the water and bobbed there.
I had never truly enjoyed smart places, we had both done with all that; and yet, once in a while, it was an excitement, a brief, fluttering episode of pleasure, to dress up and sit under chandeliers and be attended to, and perfectly harmless, for it was a game now, a treat, not a way of living, not essential to our self image, as I knew it was to very many of the people Maxim had once known – Maxim, and Rebecca.
He had been so wary of such places for so long, afraid of being seen and pointed out, as well as afraid of reviving memories he found painful, that I was quite used to our hiding away and did not mind it. I was surprised now, that he had wanted to dine at the oldest, smartest hotel in Venice.
‘You deserve a special occasion,’ he said, ‘you’ve had so few of them. I’ve been too dull for you.’
‘No. That’s what is best – what I like. You know that.’
‘Too wrapped up in myself then. I intend to take myself in hand.’
I stopped, just as we were about to go inside, between the uniformed, braided porters, holding open the glass doors. ‘Don’t change – I wouldn’t want this often.’
‘Certainly not, I’m far too old to change.’
‘It will be lovely – I’ve walked by here so often and looked in – it always seems so beautiful – like a palazzo, not like a hotel.’
‘That’s what it was.’ We went in, stepping on to the jewel coloured carpet. ‘And we are very unlikely to meet anyone at all. If people still take notice of such things, it isn’t yet the smart season to be in Venice.’
It may not have been, but there were smart people dining in the hotel that night nonetheless, mainly older people, clearly rich, in a dull, old fashioned sort of way, women in small fur wraps and emeralds, with balding men, couples who sat and stared ahead of them complacently, and scarcely spoke. We passed between them unremarked, and I wondered whether we seemed old too, whether any young people ever did come here.
And then I saw one. He came down the velvet carpet, between the brocaded sofas, the deep, ruby red chairs, and I could not help staring at him, because he was young, as young as any of the junior waiters, but of a style and type I did not recognise, could not place. He was very slim, with beautifully shaped, dark hair that looked as if it had been carefully recombed only moments before. He wore a dinner jacket with a black satin tie which Maxim would probably frown at as being slightly too wide; for that was the kind of thing he still noticed and counted as important, a small, innate snobbery, and it seemed that I had acquired it, I was judging the pretty young man with a critical as well as a curious eye. He paused for a second to let our waiter step back out of his path and I saw what a beautifully shaped mouth he had, how perfect a skin, but also, that he had a discontented, faintly supercilious expression. A younger son, or a grandson, I decided, enduring a holiday with older relatives and longing only to get away from them, but obliged to sit listening to talk about peop
le in whom he was not interested, and play bridge and walk rather slowly about Venice, and to fetch and carry – for he held an envelope and a spectacle case that I was sure were not his own. I supposed that he had expectations and so must be dutiful, careful not to offend for fear of being cut from the will.
All speculation over in a moment, the young man summed up, pigeon holed and dismissed. I felt so ashamed of myself that, as he caught my eye, glancing across at us, I half smiled, before looking away again in embarrassment. His eyes flickered, there was perhaps a movement at the corners of his mouth, before he moved on. I saw Maxim raise an eyebrow at me, understanding at once everything I had thought and decided, and in complete agreement with me, I could tell without his having to speak. He looked amused.
Then, I heard a voice from the sofa in the corner just behind us, a loud voice, aggrieved, complaining, a voice that came ringing to me across the intervening years, and turned me into an awkward, ill dressed girl of twenty-one again. ‘My goodness, you took your time, whatever were you doing? Why on earth you couldn’t find them right away I just can’t imagine.’
Maxim and I stared at each other, our eyes widening in disbelief.
‘Now do sit down again, you’re hovering, and you know I can’t stand you to hover. No, not there, there. That’s it. Now, just pass me the envelope, I’m sure the cutting I want is in it, there was a photograph, it was in Paris Soir – oh, I know it was an old one, from years before the war, and I daresay it may not be him, I daresay he is dead, like the rest of them – only there was something so familiar about the back of his head, I could swear it was the Comte – he had such style, you can’t imagine – well, no, you couldn’t; so French, he kissed my hand every time we met with such wonderful panache – only French men know how to bring that off, they know exactly how to treat a woman. What ever is the matter with you now, why are you fidgeting like that? We’ll go in to dinner in ten minutes.’