A Favourite of the Gods and a Compass Error

by Sybille Bedford

  “From the start she was something quite exceptional, they all say that. They never saw a child who could read and ride so early. I mean ride, not write. Horses. Constanza was mad about horses during her first twenty years. She had complete physical courage. I have not. She says it is only because she knows when it’s not in her stars to be killed in a ditch. And there were her looks. Well, you’ve seen her. She is beautiful. Simon used to tell people she was a Giorgione toned down by Gainsborough; there is something lighter than pure Italian. She says she had a perfect childhood, an almost miraculous childhood. It might so easily have turned otherwise. Without Anna for her mother she would have been brought up like an Italian girl of the time, like her aunts. Anna believed in children being free, she trusted them, and she saw to it that Constanza got a proper education. At home. But by the most brilliant people; even Mr. James took a hand. Constanza loved to learn then; like me.

  “Apart from the education she was allowed to run wild. She played with the children in their street when they had the time which wasn’t often and with diplomatic children, a cosmopolitan lot, like mine, only that Constanza was gang-leader. She was wild. In spring she was sent to their country place with mammina and some nice English tutor and they stayed all summer. That was Castelfonte. The house was so run down that even Anna couldn’t afford to do anything about it and she never liked it much. The prince came often, he and Constanza loved the place. She lived out of doors and often went to work in the fields with the contadini.

  “She says she looked up to her mother, her father was her own flesh and blood, they understood each other, they were allies. In no particular cause, just for the fun of it, the bond of it, like baiting Anna about democracy. It was all good-natured, Anna made no scenes then that one knew of. There were no demands on Constanza, real demands, grown-up demands. She was aware, she must have been aware, she says, of the deep affection her father bore her, but alas she took it for granted.

  “The prince was affectionate by nature, he was devoted to his mother and to a majordomo of his parents’ days, a man called Socrate, and there was one horse, Archimede, he could never do enough for, but his love was for Constanza, Castelfonte and the Marchesa Giulia. Constanza doesn’t know in which order the other two came but she knows now that she was first. He didn’t show it when he let her go.

  “When they had that first trouble, Anna finding out about the prince and carrying on as if it were the end of the world, Constanza must have been about five or six; she doesn’t even remember; Mena does, every minute of it. It was she who took up the trays Anna wouldn’t touch when she kept to her room and had sent for her trunks. The prince was shaking and the women in the house, the old principessa and his sisters were blaming him, you see they all thought that Anna was going to take Constanza away with her to America. Well, in the nick of time they realized that all that Anna was wailing about was some French floozy the prince wasn’t even particularly attached to (a crony of Anna’s, a censorious old toad who lived in hotels and got everything half wrong, had spilt the beans to her). So the women got Anna to open her door and the prince was pushed forward and asked her pardon and promised never to see the French girl again and they had a great drama and Anna consented to be reconciled.

  “Even so they had to send her half round the world. The prince scraped up the money they had set aside to repair the roof again and Anna went off to India with some English acquaintances and stayed with the viceroy and came back with a ruby. That stone has had a curious history. With us; I’ve no idea what it did in India. In the family rubies mean luck. I really do believe that without it we wouldn’t have got here, without that silly ring I should not be here with you now, Therese, now this moment.

  “Of course it had nothing to do with the ruby itself, the real cause was their all being so insanely superstitious. When Anna brought it home—some thirty years ago it must be—the prince put it in his pocket. It was unset then, just the stone. It was his protector, his charm, you know, he touched it, turned it over in his pocket when he saw an omen.

  “After Anna’s return the good years went on. Constanza says she was sure that her mother was happy. She could be that; even later on. She always would have liked to have let herself be happy. It was probably after the old principessa died that Anna became . . . unsettled. There wasn’t much scope actually in Rome for Anna; they never let her achieve anything. Nothing changed. Women don’t vote even in your country, they told her. And she couldn’t do anything about Castelfonte, she couldn’t even get them to attempt making it profit-able—she never understood about the land, that wasn’t in her blood.

  “Then one day she found that she was going to have another baby; she was so wretched that she tried to keep it secret at first. Constanza was getting on for fourteen and everybody had forgotten about an heir. Even the prince wasn’t particularly pleased, he said that times had changed, there wasn’t going to be a place any more for the likes of him (he detested United Italy). They had Constanza. Let her make some splendid new beginning, let her start a new line (in all but name).

  “Anna did get better once the boy was there. (It turned out to be one: Giorgio.) She rather spoilt him now and again; but when it showed that he wasn’t intelligent like Constanza she didn’t like it. He has turned out badly, my young uncle, a delinquent practically. Mindless, glib, conceited, all out for number one.

  “And now I really must come to what happened, to what . . . put a stop to it all. It’s hard to tell it as it must have been, it was so unexpected. Out of a clear sky, or so it seemed to them. You might say that this thing had been brewing up for a long time, that the threat was there; they hadn’t seen it.

  “Anna and the prince had been married, well, if not for twenty years, not much short of it. Constanza was growing up and knew it. She was giving herself another two years, then it would have had to start for her, the conventions and the frills. She was not looking forward to her coming out as an Italian girl, but she was determined not to let herself get married early. First she wanted to learn and see, she wanted to wait for a man who did things and was something on his own. Oh, she liked boys then, she liked boys of her own age, she had love affairs quite early. At Castelfonte. With neighbours’ sons. They knew that she wasn’t going to marry any of them, she wasn’t going to marry an Italian like her aunts’ husbands. Her mind was open as long as the man had great quality; she saw him as an explorer possibly, or an English statesman. . . . She told herself she was going to wait—as long as it took—then choose.

  “You see, if there was one thing they felt sure of it was time: time in front of them. They were a family living in Rome for better or for worse, that wouldn’t change any more than the world would change. The world before 1910. I often think of it. My grandfather saying that everything was going downhill, my grandmother talking of progress, but neither expecting it for that year or the next, they didn’t dream of real change, not in their lifetime nor their children’s.

  “One morning someone tipped the truth to Anna. The old story, the old truth, the facts. He wasn’t a Roman; the Romans didn’t talk, didn’t go tale-bearing. An American told her, a young man, one of Constanza’s tutors. He had taken it that Anna knew like everyone else, he was half in love with her and wanted to show his allegiance. He said something unconsidered, Anna pounced on it. When he realized what he had done he panicked and she had it all out of him. The Marchesa Giulia.

  “Thirty years of it. . . . The prince going to see her every day. . . . A love of his youth begun long before the marriage. Rome looking on them as a devoted couple.

  “She learnt it all—the Marchese himself tied by his own attachment to a married woman married to a man who loved an opera singer: perspectives of liaisons, sensualities, combinazioni, everybody having their place in the chain. Everybody, not Anna. She turned white as paper—the young man fled.

  “When the prince saw her standing in his door, he would not take it up. For him it was an ordinary morning. He said, ‘Oh, Anna, what
is it now?’ She asked him if it was true—the long lie? He didn’t bother to deny it. Mr. James said afterwards that this was the worst mistake he made. They might have been saved if Rico had met tragedy with drama. That morning the prince felt merely tired and repelled. It was the wrong day.

  “He made use of what Mr. James calls the great masculine resource: leaving the house. He went off to a shoot. He stayed away two days. It was fatal.

  “When he came back Anna refused to see him. She had locked her door. Mena was helpless. On the other side of that door was Anna, alone. She had driven herself into doing what would hurt most; she had decided to take Constanza from her father. For herself it meant leaving Rome. On their way to the station she would not throw her coin into the Trevi Fountain.

  “She had planned it all. The Church permitting no divorce, the way open to her was separation. She had sent for lawyers. They had made her realize that even with proved adultery it would be a long and uncertain fight before she would be allowed to take away both children, as the Italian courts would be reluctant to let the prince’s son be brought up outside his own country. Anna cut it all short. She offered a compromise. She gave up Giorgio in return for custody of the girl. The lawyers fell for it. They called her generous.

  “The prince’s entourage did their best to stop her, the sisters, the brothers-in-law, his own lawyer, the priests. The prince himself was ready now to shake her out of it—he was fond of her, even then, always was; breaking up a family seemed inconceivable to him, a form of hell, a madness. Anna remained frozen. She sent him a message saying she would never see him again as long as she lived. (That came true.)

  “The others hatched plans for him, like abducting Constanza and hiding her in the depth of Calabria. The prince turned it down. When all had failed they decided to send for Constanza herself—it was the autumn and she was still at Castelfonte. She was nearly sixteen; if she refused to go and told her mother so herself, Anna, they reckoned, would not be able to go through with it. Constanza was tough and had a will of her own like Anna. They asked the prince what his daughter would choose to do. He knew. When I asked her, now, twenty years after, ‘Whom would you have chosen to stay with, Constanza?’ she answered, ‘If I had been told the true facts, my father, there could have been no doubt about that.’ The prince never asked her.

  “They couldn’t persuade him. He wouldn’t let them tell her. He forbade it: he would not have the child put in that position. It was Anna who sent for her finally. Constanza found the house in gloom and confusion. The prince appeared briefly. They were alone. Your mother has been difficult again, he told her, best for her and you to travel for some time—Papa, where are we going?—The tickets are for England. Be good to her, look after her, bring yourselves back to us soon.

  “That was all. An hour later they left.

  “That was how the prince behaved. And Constanza never knew it.

  •

  “And then they were in London, the three of them. Anna kept to the hotel room; she had told Constanza something unspeakable had happened, Never question me. To Mena she said that her life was over. I have seen her like that myself. How we dreaded it! We used to duck and wait. I can see now that she was really very unhappy, terribly unhappy. I think she must have longed to be coaxed out of it. We didn’t help her much. Mena did in her way, it wasn’t enough, she needed an educated person to put her case to—everybody ought to be allowed to put their case—we didn’t even try to hear hers, we only heard the tone. There she was, pacing, pacing, like something locked in. We hated it. I often hated her. I couldn’t bear her judgements, I didn’t agree, I don’t agree, with her values. But, Therese, she was so unhappy, unhappy. . . .

  “Perhaps she wasn’t so wrong when she felt cheated and outraged and alone? Perhaps what happened to her was really bad? But jealousy is wrong? is bad? Perhaps it’s real too and makes people suffer? Oh, Therese, is it? Must it be?”

  •

  Flavia fell silent. She reached for a sip of water. Much of what she had been telling had been brought out raggedly at first, there had been hesitations, intervals, while she was trying to see, groping for a piece in the jig-saw; and then it all seemed to come to her, she only had to keep speaking. She had long given up the tussle with French and lapsed into straight English (which Therese, damn it, was supposed to understand). During the last minutes she had been talking with extreme rapidity in a light high voice.

  More calmly, she went on, “And what about Constanza? Now we come to the ironical side of it all.

  “She had never been out of Italy before—now there she was without as much as a full day’s notice at Brown’s Hotel looking on top hats and umbrellas out of a window that worked like a guillotine. Well, they had hardly brought her up a tea-tray (with the most delicious things to eat) when she was told that there was someone downstairs to see her: it turned out that most of the young men, her one-time tutors, were dons now or curators or secretaries to cabinet ministers and apparently asking for nothing better than to take her about, and there were Anna’s English friends, all those people who had dined or wintered at the palazzo. Anna refused to see them but let Constanza meet their boys and girls and go down to their houses in the country. From that minute she was in a whirl. She began to hunt, she says, she loved it. She loved everything, her new-found friends and her new friends, the intellectual ones and the sporting ones and the jokes they made and that kind of life in England and everybody being so accomplished and gay. It all came at the right time, she said, at exactly the right time.

  “Her mother still didn’t tell her the reason for leaving home: she implored Constanza not to ask and made Mena promise not to talk. Constanza did ask, Anna simply repeated, Something too dreadful to speak about. And when she kept on asking, When shall I see papa? Anna never said, Not before you are twenty-one; she didn’t tell her about the legal arrangements she had made. She said that if Constanza went it would break her heart.

  “Constanza says that she felt so much for her mother, even if she did not understand then what it meant to her to be cut off from Italy, from Rome. She couldn’t bear things like Anna refusing to keep house or giving any pleasure to herself. She felt that it was up to her now to protect her mother: Mama, do come to the House of Commons with me. Mama, won’t you give a luncheon for my friends?

  “They lived like that for about two years. Then Constanza made another leap. She had become grown-up and again she was lucky. She was able to slip into a place in an adult society. She didn’t have to go through the debutante stage. She was able to manage it because Anna fancied herself as having renounced the world and because of their rather special position in England as accepted outsiders not subject to the letter of the rules. Before her marriage Anna had been taken up as one of the handful of pet Americans and now, although they did not know exactly what had happened, everybody in London sided with her. The kind of friends she had were loyal by definition, and they liked her, in their eyes she was a woman who could do no wrong (she was only separated, mind, not divorced), they were ready to do anything for her and when she would not let them they did it for the girl. They liked the girl, too. That’s not beside the point.

  “Anna wasn’t rich for England, far from it. Mr. James says the yardstick was the multiplicity of houses in full running order. Two isn’t multiplicity and Castelfonte never was in running order, and now they were living in hotels. So (for all her personal extravagance) the principessa was regarded exactly as she regarded herself, just decently well off.

  “Constanza belonged more than Anna. A matter of language. What with those tutors, hers is English English, her friends’ English; she did the same things and made the same jokes and had the qualities they admired—the post-Edwardians, the young new Georgians of her set, her sets—dash, courage, brilliance, intellectual freedom. And there were her looks, nobody could forget them, nobody except herself; she never did a thing about them, as women do these days, she never gave a damn: as my father used to say, she wears her
beauty lightly. Oh, she was an insider in London, she belonged. At the same time she was a foreigner, a foreigner with privileges, a rare bird—catch Constanza not having the best of both worlds.

  “It was the time when so much began, the new writing, painting, the ballet coming to London. . . . She had two years, in the centre of it. Everything was right—the place, the time, her own age, the excitement in the air and the capacity to feel it. Many of her friends were in politics or belonged to political families, it was the era of the Liberal reforms and that was what fired her most: she went to dinner-parties where she sat next to men who were going to make a speech that night and there were weeks when she went to the House every day, it was what she had always wanted, it was history, it was important, immensely important and she was seeing it, seeing it happen and that was important to her.

  “There is little of that left now, she says. I hope she is not right. Possibly, she says, there will be other years like those—for other people. And that is sad, too.

  “She had love affairs. Less pastoral ones. (No more afternoons in the mulberry groves of Castelfonte with boys like Donatellos.) It was young men now, older than herself; she liked them tough and full of talent; she was not ambitious directly but found that life with the obscure is less interesting. And she was careful not to be found out; her recklessness, she says was only apparent: she always thought of Anna. Only fools—she says, she thought then—overpay.

  •

  “Then it was 1914. First of all she came of age, as I said, in the spring of that year. She had known the truth for some time by then more or less, and the legal position, but had never quite managed to have it out with her mother. Anna had recovered to the extent of running a house again—a furnished one in Regent’s Park—and of going out a little. She had good days and bad.