Octavius must have felt this too, for when they had landed and walked a little way into the city he excused himself in not very intelligible terms and vanished. It wasn’t gallant but it showed good sense, and Gloria didn’t resent its happening in a quarter where she wasn’t very sure of her bearings.
She carried neither a guide book nor a plan, so it wasn’t surprising that she was quite quickly lost. Just at the moment, it was a condition there was something to be said for, since it reproduced the state of affairs she was conscious of inside her head. She thought of the people you read about as found wandering because they’ve forgotten who they are. She was a bit like that. She’d been calling herself a young woman, and it turned out she was really a bank account and a collection of pictures. Perhaps she ought to have been prepared for it. She remembered Harry telling her – rather brutally soon after her mother’s death – that she’d be a tremendous catch and God knew who would be after her. Well, Octavius Chevalley had turned out to be one answer. And it had been careless of her – conceited of her, in fact – not to think of it.
Perhaps, however, she’d better un-lose herself. It wasn’t wholesome, deliberately cultivating a forlorn state. She could stop any stranger, any female stranger, in this unknown salizzada she was walking down and simply say ‘San Marco?’ on an interrogative note. There would be helpful gestures, pointings and smiles, and when she’d repeated the process two or three times she’d arrive on home ground, more or less. Or she could stop an elderly man. She could even stop a young man. Gloria made this last announcement to herself experimentally; it was to discover if she could so much as entertain the thought of a young man ever again. She decided not.
It was just at this moment that a young man stopped her. He did it by jumping up from a table outside a little café and planting himself before her.
‘So here you are,’ the young man said. ‘You won’t remember me. I’m Jake.’
Chapter Eighteen
INOPPORTUNE REAPPEARANCE
OF OUR HERO
‘I’m Jake,’ Jake said – and waited to see what coin, if any, dropped.
None did. So it would have been natural for Jake to amplify – using some such words as: ‘I’m your cousin, Jake Counterpayne’. But for several moments he said nothing more. He was looking at Gloria attentively – much more attentively than she was looking at him. Gloria appeared to be having difficulty in emerging from a brown study, which was something he wouldn’t have reckoned she had the habit of falling into. But if this was unexpected, nothing else about her was. So Jake told himself he had been right about this girl. It was something it wouldn’t be easy to present in a sensible light, since their acquaintance over a dozen years hadn’t been exactly extensive. Still, this was it.
‘I last saw you the day your mother died,’ Jake said, without awkwardness. ‘Of course, we didn’t manage much talk. But it was a reunion, all the same.’
‘Yes, of course . . . Jake.’ Gloria put out both hands, and for a moment clasped both his. It was more than Jake had expected; he was delighted but he was puzzled as well; suddenly he had a very queer perception that she’d done it simply to stop herself from turning and running away. ‘How odd to meet in Venice!’ Gloria said, and appeared to remember something. ‘I suppose this is a chance meeting?’
‘Oh, not a bit.’ Jake found the question unexpected, but it seemed a good lead-in. ‘I thought I’d hunt you up.’
This remark was not a success. If Jake, abruptly assuming the form of a bug-eyed monster, had incontinently yelled ‘I thought I’d hunt you down’ he might have reckoned to affect Gloria much as he now seemed to have done. She was certainly upset. It occurred to him that she might be exhausted by the sort of sight-seeing people are conned into in a place like Venice.
‘Let’s get some tea somewhere,’ Jake said cheerfully, ‘and talk for a bit. That’s what I’d like.’ Feeling this last statement to be egotistical, he added: ‘If you would, that is.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Gloria smiled. It was the smile – Jake perfectly clearly saw – of a princess who, when ready to drop, must still do the right thing. This was discouraging, and even alarming. But at least it was a challenge, and there is always something in that. ‘Only,’ Gloria was saying, ‘I don’t know this part of Venice at all.’
‘They’ve been keeping you in the posh places, I expect. As a matter of fact, this caff I’ve been sitting in isn’t too bad. So let’s just stay put. I haven’t ordered anything yet. Only just decided on a tea-break. Haven’t felt like taking much time off.’
‘From what?’ But now Gloria had at least sat down.
‘Finding you, of course. It’s quite something, quartering a city like this. Due te con limone, per favore.’ Jake’s Italian, although atrociously pronounced, was of the carefree sort that is always understood. ‘Of course, I’d no idea of your hotel.’
‘It’s a boarding-house. Didn’t Mr Thurkle tell you the address?’
‘Thurkle?’ Jake was puzzled. ‘I’ve never heard of him.’
‘Then how did you know I was in Venice at all?’ There was no urgency in Gloria’s question. There wasn’t even the lively curiosity that Jake would have liked. He had to face it, he told himself. She was making conversation until she could get away. Jake (although he wasn’t really a conceited young man) found this bewildering.
‘I knew it was Venice,’ he said, ‘because I was told by a chap called Harry—Harry Carter, isn’t it?—when I went down to Nudd to look for you.’
‘Oh, I see.’ For a moment Gloria again seemed quite uninterested. And if she was abashed, she certainly didn’t show it. But now she frowned, as if absent-mindedly perplexed. ‘How did you come to talk to Harry about me?’
This was difficult. Jake, in a man-to-man way, was pledged to silence about the little matter (which was how he now saw it) of the rustic trollop in the barn. So he couldn’t begin from that. In not doing so, he was, in fact, telling a lie. He saw that keeping faith with a girl meant cutting out that man-to-man stuff, and he made a note of this for future use. But now he prevaricated.
‘It had to do with a tea shop,’ he said vaguely. ‘And muffins.’
‘You won’t get muffins here.’ This was the first flicker of life Gloria had shown. As it died away, Jake faced the conclusion that there was really something wrong. ‘How did you travel?’ Gloria asked politely.
‘I’ve got a van. I shoved it in that big car-park for a night – but they wouldn’t let me sleep in it, and it cost the bloody moon. So I’ve got it on a nice bit of swamp near Mestre now, and I can nip across on the train for a bob.’
‘Jake, I’m afraid I don’t even know what you do.’
‘Do? I’m a painter.’
‘If you’re interested in art, I suppose you’re very fond of Venice.’
‘No, I’m not.’ Jake had for a moment supposed that there must be something malicious in the suggestion of his being ‘interested in art’. But he realised that Gloria’s mind didn’t work that way. ‘Are you,’ he asked as the tea arrived, ‘very fond of Venice?’
‘No, I don’t think I am.’
‘Then you’re quite right.’ This hint of common ground encouraged Jake. ‘It’s a dying organism – which isn’t a very cheerful thing to be crawling round.’
‘I rather liked Torcello, and in a sense it’s quite dead.’
‘No harm in being dead. It’s the preliminaries there’s no sense in hungering after. If you were going to write some sort of death-wish thing, you’d do well to set it in Venice. Thomas Mann did a superior job at just that. Change and decay in all around he saw – and a spot of cholera thrown in for good measure.’
‘I haven’t read it.’ Gloria was still being polite, and she had started drinking her tea. ‘If you don’t like Venice,’ she asked, ‘why have you come here?’
‘I’ve told you. To hunt you up.’
‘That’s why you came?’
Jake realised that, up to this point, Gloria had failed to ge
t the message. And there wasn’t anything gratifying in her manner of taking it now. She had, indeed, exclaimed in a tone of astonishment which might have been all right in itself. But it hadn’t been like that. ‘Incredulous horror’ – Jake told himself – were the words a dispassionate observer would apply to Gloria’s reaction. In short, and for some mysterious reason, he had quite an assignment on his hands. He sought for some changed approach.
‘Tea all right?’ he asked. ‘Would you like an ice?’
‘It’s very good. No, thank you.’
‘Ice-cream is something the Italians are supposed to be tops at. I’m researching into the subject. Because I’m going to make some.’
‘Ice-cream?’ Gloria was managing to be politely interested again, although it was evident she was still controlling something. And this time, she didn’t sound surprised. A world in which young gentlemen dedicated to the more liberal professions periodically tipped themselves into manufacturing pursuits for financial reasons was obviously familiar to her. So Jake decided to enlarge on this ground.
‘It’s going to be quite good pay. I had to borrow some money from my father not very long ago. And as he puts in a lot of time feeling the breadline lapping up on him, it’s the fair thing to get it back to him pretty soon. I don’t think you’ve met him since we were kids. He’s quite a decent old chap.’
If Gloria was asking herself in her heart whether she could ever have said of her mother, in that throwaway fashion, ‘She’s quite a decent old girl’, she didn’t betray it. The poverty of the Counterpaynes, however, might conceivably have been opening up for her some further vista. She gave Jake a look that troubled him. It might have been called a hardening look – such as you might get if you’d been barefaced or impudent. As these were not among Jake’s numerous failings, he was left rather groping about.
‘Does your father,’ Gloria asked, ‘feel he’s been hardly done by in a family way?’
This, for a change, didn’t trouble Jake at all. He had a notion of conversation as something that should get you where you’re going as quickly as may be.
‘Oh, yes!’ he said. ‘There’s nothing round-the-bend about him, exactly. But he has his dotty side. I can see he’s the last man who ought ever to have handled his own investments, and so forth. But, in fact, he’s made a disastrous full-time job of it. When he could have been breeding trout, or conserving the countryside, or any harmless ploy of that sort. I rather think he imagines he’s going to go bankrupt, and all that. Bailiffs, and so forth.’ In what might be called the innocence of his heart, Jake was almost enjoying painting this picture of Counterpayne penury. ‘And he’ll certainly die while thumbing over the butts of old cheque-books.’
‘I’m sorry that your father should be worried by these things.’
‘Well, it’s his life, in a way. And at least he won’t worry you. His bark’s much worse than his nibble.’ Jake paused. His sense of misgiving was mounting. On the other hand, he did now seem to command Gloria’s attention. He resolved to carry on with this mild family fun for a while. ‘And he can be entirely at sea. You know your Velazquez?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t be silly! Of course you do.’ Jake wasn’t standing for waywardness. ‘The small Spanish boy on horseback.’
‘Oh, yes. It’s said to be very valuable.’ As she said this, Gloria looked merely bewildered. ‘What about it?’
‘My father thinks it would be nice if you sent it to him as a Christmas card.’ Jake suddenly saw why he was saying all this. ‘There are a lot of imbecile family feelings I’d hate to see take you by surprise, Gloria. But they’re not bad feelings, really. Only batty ones. And they’re not what you and I ought to be thinking about, at all. I’ve come to Venice because—’
‘Jake, would you mind telling me the way to the Zattere?’ Gloria had stood up. ‘If you’d just point it out to me. No more than that.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Jake had stood up too. ‘But I want—’
‘I don’t know what you want. But saying you’ve come to Venice to find me is quite fantastic.’ Gloria’s desperation was suddenly extreme. ‘You’ve been thinking something up – some sort of horrible double bluff. I don’t want to hear more. I can’t take more. Perhaps I’ve got everything wrong. But it’s enough for today.’
‘You go straight down this street.’ Jake might have been described – in a figure appropriate to the place – as having gone as pale as Desdemona’s smock. ‘There’s an archway. You go under it, and are in the Piazza. Then—’
‘Then I’ll know. Good-bye.’
Jake found this extravagant scene took some recovering from. He was aware that he must have been nervous, and gone off on a silly tack as a result. But whatever the puzzle was, there was a big chunk missing from the middle of it – and just where to put his hand on what would make sense of the surrounding mystification he didn’t at all know.
He did know he mustn’t pursue Gloria now. It was the sense of pursuit that had rattled her. Having told her the simple truth of why he’d come to Venice, he ought to have gone dead ahead from that. It would have been easier if they’d had, the two of them, at least a few meetings even of the most fleeting sort in the years between childhood and now. Not, he sensed, that the crux of the matter had lain in that. He’d have carried the staggering fact that he was simply in love with her but for this hidden thwarting thing. But you can always get an applecart on its wheels again, and he had a clear saving sense that brainstorms don’t last. And he did now know that he’d never, never let go.
Jake strode through Venice – scowling at it even more ferociously than he’d ever scowled at Lambert Domberg of Comberback and D. He blamed Venice. Whatever had put it in Gloria’s head to come to the beastly place? It wasn’t her sort of place in the least. An ‘abhorrent, green, slippery city’ – that was what D. H. Lawrence had called it; and Lawrence, although a bit given to creating, had been a thoroughly sensible man. Had somebody brought her here? It didn’t seem likely she’d come entirely on her own. He’d find out tomorrow. It had better be tomorrow. He just mustn’t push in on Gloria again until she’d slept something off. Unfortunately that meant that there was the rest of today.
He paused in front of another café, a rather bigger one. If you didn’t go to those idiotic tourist places and sog yourself in disgusting music purveyed by execrable bands, you could at least get your drink tolerably cheap. The immediate solution lay in that. He sat down at a table. But he saw Gloria looking at him – although only in his disturbed inward vision – and jumped up again. He glanced at his watch, although quite without taking anything in from it, and just walked on and on.
Eventually he came to the Piazzetta, and sat down on the steps of one of the great columns. In front of him was a broad expanse of marble patterned like a chessboard gone mad. Beyond that was the sullen water of the bacino. A big ugly freighter, which you’d have supposed had gone hopelessly astray, was nosing out of the Canale della Giudecca. It was sending up smoke that blotted out almost the whole of San Giorgio Maggiore. Very inconsistently, since the whole place was so beastly, he felt this to be an outrage. There was another young man, obviously an Englishman and not an American, similarly sitting on the steps a few feet away from him, and equally obviously nursing much the same feeling. As the young man was a total stranger, Jake was surprised to hear himself speak.
‘What are you doing here?’ Jake asked gloomily.
‘God knows.’ The young man wasn’t bothering to wonder why he’d been addressed. But he took a look at Jake. ‘Well – Carpaccio, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I needed to have another look at him.’
‘Anecdotal character.’
‘Yes.’
The conversation lapsed. On Jake’s other side a woman was having something or other explained to her by a guide. She was the sort of wealthy woman who announces to heaven knows whom that what she expects in a male guide is that he should be young and good-looking – and who gets what she wants. From this depressing spe
ctacle Jake turned back to his neighbour.
‘Come and have a drink,’ he said.
They went and had a drink, punctuated by a few more perfunctory remarks. They both had their troubles, but a common code, perfectly understood, assured them that these, like their personal identities, would remain anonymous. Ten minutes later, they parted with a casual nod. It isn’t recorded that they ever met again.
Chapter Nineteen
A VERY NICE GIRL
On the following morning Jake felt ready to tackle his problem anew. But there were really several problems, and the first was to discover Gloria’s whereabouts. She had wanted to be directed to the Zattere, so she was presumably in some sort of hotel or pensione there. At least there weren’t two sides to the Zattere, as it ran along the verge of the crazy place’s broadest ditch. Still, there was nearly a mile of it, and he might have rather a hunt. He decided to begin by going to a tourist office and getting a list of hotels and so forth in that part of Venice. This took quite some time, and was probably a mistake. The Zattere proved not crammed with hostelries you could imagine Gloria staying in. And the second one he entered immediately struck him as hopeful.
‘Buon giorno,’ he produced to a woman behind a desk – but with an impatience of this initial civility which made it sound not at all right. ‘E a casa la Signorina Montacute?’
The woman gave a shake of the head which, although perfunctory, conveyed quite a lot – for example, that Jake’s Italian vocabulary, accent, syntax and whatever were about as pitiful as could be. She seemed quite a decent woman, and he supposed she must be having a bad day. But he hadn’t time to feel discouraged before somebody else spoke from behind him.
A Palace of Art Page 16