Closed Circle

by Robert Goddard

  The illusion was intact an hour later, as I sat in the sun at a table outside Quadri’s Café, watching the pigeons and passers-by move and revolve in the Piazza San Marco. I stretched my legs and drew on a cigarette, wondering why coffee and tobacco seemed to taste so much better here than in London, why I seemed to feel so deliciously irresponsible. Basilicas, campaniles and associated architectural wonders generally leave me as cold as left-over stew, but there could be no doubt that some subtle brand of Venetian gaiety had crept into my soul since I had emerged from the railway station the previous afternoon and gazed about at the unchanging wonder of the Grand Canal.

  I had been to Venice before, of course. Where the idle rich foregather, Max and I in our time had never been far behind. But it held no ghosts for me, no reproachful reminders of former misdeeds. The city’s collective past lay treacle-thick all around. On the face of it, my memory and my conscience receded into the realms of forgetfulness.

  ‘Hello, Guy.’

  I had been expecting Diana to approach from the Piazzetta and had angled my chair in that direction. Now I started at the sound of her voice, so close to my ear she might almost have stooped to whisper into it. Whirling round, I found her smiling down at me, amused by my confusion. The smile, the sunlight, the delicate pink dress and the broad-brimmed cream hat framed a sudden glimpse of her loveliness.

  ‘I don’t always use direct routes,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Consider this a warning.’

  I joined in her laugh and rose to kiss her. ‘I’m not complaining. One surprise deserves another.’

  ‘You mean your ’phone call?’ She sat down beside me. ‘It was a surprise. But a very welcome one.’ She glanced around the Piazza and I found myself studying the play of light and shade on her neck. ‘I didn’t think you’d come. I didn’t think you’d regard it as … well, I don’t know, proper.’ She looked back at me, her eyes clear and dark and disturbingly perceptive. ‘I’m glad you did, though.’

  ‘It didn’t take more than a few wintry days in London to persuade me. I would have written, but … I thought you might have changed your mind.’

  ‘Silly.’

  ‘We men often are.’ The waiter appeared beside us. Diana ordered chocolate and I another coffee. When he had gone, I lit a cigarette for her, waited a moment, then said: ‘To be honest, the weather wasn’t the only thing depressing me.’

  ‘Max?’

  I nodded. ‘And everything he’s ruined. Our friendship. Your family. People’s lives.’

  She looked down into her lap. ‘He broke my heart, Guy. But I don’t want it to heal by hardening. Aunt Vita’s a dear, of course, but I’ve felt so …’ She raised her head. ‘I can’t mourn any longer. Papa wouldn’t have wanted me to. I didn’t come here to forget. I came here to let go. Of all of it.’

  ‘I suppose that’s why I came too.’

  ‘Good.’ The dazzling smile returned to her lips. ‘Because, until I heard your voice on the telephone this morning, I didn’t think it was going to work.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I rather think it might.’

  We made no early departure for the Lido. Diana suggested a stroll through the alleys and squares to the Rialto and I was happy to agree. On the way, she let me buy her a silk scarf that caught her eye as well as mine. We savoured the view from the Rialto Bridge, then retreated to a nearby restaurant for lunch. We talked of Venice and the Venetians, of Byron and Casanova, of journeys and arrivals. After lunch, we took a gondola back round the Grand Canal to the Riva degli Schiavoni. Diana gazed at the pastel-hued palazzi on either side, while I pretended to do the same, but actually looked at her. Around the time we passed under the Accademia Bridge, I realized a startling truth. Given similar weather, I would have been as happy and as sensually fulfilled aboard a barge on the Manchester Ship Canal – so long as Diana was beside me.

  We took tea at the Danieli. Then, while I was booking out, Diana telephoned the villa and asked for the speed-boat to be sent over to collect us. Soon, we were sitting together in its stern as it crashed back through the spraying wakes of other craft, Venice diminishing behind us into a golden horizon. The chill as of a fine chablis had entered the afternoon, herald of a perfect evening. Glancing at Diana as, hat in hand, she let her hair stream out behind her in the wind, I could not help wishing that Vita was not waiting at the villa, that only solitude – and however we might choose to fill it – lay ahead.

  But Vita was waiting. And so was the Villa Primavera. It stood salmon-pink and creeper-clad in lush gardens beside one of the canals that thread across the Lido. An attentive staff came with the hire of the place. After they had taken my luggage away, I was ushered into a large and ornately decorated drawing-room in which Vita looked more at home than any tweedy English spinster had a right to. Diana had deserted me to bath and change and my heart sank at the prospect of spending an hour closeted with her aunt. But I need not have worried. Venice had worked its magic on her also. The bustling good cheer she had displayed aboard the Empress of Britain had been revived.

  ‘I’m delighted you’re here, Guy. Company of her own age – or at any rate closer to it than her decrepit old aunt – is just the tonic Diana needs. You will be staying for more than a few days, won’t you?’

  ‘Well … I’m not sure.’

  ‘Do, please, if you possibly can. Take Diana out. Put a smile back on her face. Stop her brooding.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘I’ve managed to persuade her to go to the opera on Saturday. You must have my ticket and escort her.’

  ‘That’s very kind, but—’

  ‘Opera bores me rigid, so you’ll be doing me a favour. I only arranged the evening to entertain Diana, which you can do much more readily than me.’

  ‘In that case,’ I said with a grin, ‘it would be an honour.’

  ‘Splendid. Now, before she returns …’ She patted the cushion next to her on the sofa and I sat down obediently in the appointed place. Her voice dropped to a murmur. ‘What have they been saying about poor Fabian in England?’

  ‘Less than I think you feared. The affair seems to have passed off pretty quietly.’

  ‘That’s a mercy. And … your friend?’

  ‘Still not found.’

  She clicked her tongue. ‘Such a dreadful business. But we must bear up.’ Her bosom swelled alarmingly as she squared her shoulders against the world. ‘I shall expect you to jolly us both out of any mopish tendencies while you’re here. Do you think you’re equal to the task?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I shall enjoy finding out.’

  The next four days were ones of growing entrancement for me. Each day, the sun shone from an opalescently blue sky. In the airily baroque rooms of the Villa Primavera, or amidst the sub-tropical greenery of its garden, tranquillity seemed tangible, the senses lulled by ease and warmth, leaving space only for the pleasure I took from Diana’s company – her trust, her candour, her physical closeness. A boat-trip in the lagoon, a game of tennis, lunch at one of the Lido’s luxury hotels, an afternoon swim, a bath and dinner back at the villa, with Vita retiring early and Diana strolling out with me onto the verandah: it sounds idle and inconsequential, and yet it was neither. I saw in her what I suppose Max had seen in her. And she saw in me much of what she had loved in Max – till he had thrown her love away. In these echoes were signals of a danger both of us secretly relished. We held back because of them, beyond the point when we might normally have expressed what we felt and acted accordingly. We held back – and yet we went on.

  In my case, a sundered friendship was not the only call to go unheeded by my conscience. There was also the small matter of the mission I had been sent to Venice to carry out. Maundy Gregory and the people hiding behind him were paying handsomely for my days in the sun and would not have been pleased to discover how little energy I was devoting to their cause. I made, in fact, no effort whatever to penetrate Charnwood’s secret through his daughter. I told myself this was because
there was no secret to penetrate, but that was not my real motive. The truth lay in my unwillingness to forfeit Diana’s affection. I was simply not prepared to take the slightest risk with her vision of me – and what it might lead to. For the moment, losing her in exchange for a share of a fortune did not seem as attractive a proposition as, at any other time in my life, it would have.

  Our night at the opera crowned the easeful days. Diana wore a gown of blue velvet, with the topaz pendant I had last seen at the party on the Empress of Britain. We took the speed-boat across the lagoon in the cool of late afternoon, stopped at Harry’s Bar for a cocktail, then proceeded by gondola round the canals to the Fenice Theatre. The Venetians were out in force and finery, preparing to revel in some piece of tuneful nonsense by Rossini based on the story of Cinderella. Ordinarily, it would have plunged me into a coma of philistine indifference, but the gilded auditorium glowed bewitchingly in the gas-light and beside me, enraptured by the singing, sat a woman more beautiful by far than any of the painted dryads frolicking on the balcony panels around us.

  During the interval, we took our champagne outside, where the chill of the evening was as refreshing as the wine, and stood on one of the bridges crossing the canal behind the theatre. The watery acoustics of Venice by night seemed to blend with the memory of the music as Diana hummed one of Cinderella’s songs. Then she broke off and looked up at me so solemnly and searchingly that I yielded to the impulse of the moment and kissed her passionately for the first time. She did not resist, but clung to me as if drowning. When we drew apart, I saw there were tears in her eyes.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. Except … Have we the right to be happy … after all that’s happened?’

  ‘I look upon happiness as a duty, not a right. Sadness never solved anything.’

  ‘No, but—’

  I kissed her again. ‘Live for the present, Diana,’ I whispered. ‘Live for what we have.’

  ‘We have each other,’ she said, hardly daring, it seemed, to believe her own words.

  I nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  But our evening was not destined to end as delightfully as it had begun. We dined at a restaurant near the theatre after the performance, then strolled back to the Piazza San Marco for chocolate at Florian’s, whose outdoor orchestra preserved the musical theme. It was well after midnight when we summoned the speed-boat and returned to the villa. We expected – and in my case hoped – to find that Vita had gone to bed. But, not only was she still up, she had a visitor to entertain: none other than Mr Faraday. I sensed Diana flinch as she caught her first sight of him and it was as much as I could do to force a weak smile onto my face. But Faraday’s grin was as broad and oblivious as ever.

  ‘I arrived by flying-boat this morning, en route to Asolo, where Sir Charles and Lady Hick-Morton have a villa scarcely less charming than this. Fearing Vita would not forgive me if I passed through Venice without paying my respects …’

  ‘He’s been trying to persuade me to accompany him to Asolo,’ said Vita with a laugh I thought betrayed signs of strain. ‘Even though the Hick-Mortons are strangers to me.’

  ‘It was their suggestion,’ said Faraday, ‘when I mentioned you were here. You’d like them, I feel sure.’

  ‘Nevertheless …’

  ‘Well, think it over a little longer. I don’t leave until Monday.’ It was, in fact, already Sunday, but Faraday’s departure still sounded horribly distant to me. I did not for a moment believe the reason he had given for his visit. I felt sure he was in Venice in order to ascertain what progress I had made. Since I had made none, the sooner he was gone the better.

  Faraday was staying at the Excelsior, about half a mile away on the sea-front. When he eventually left to go back there, I offered to walk with him, ostensibly for the sake of some night air. What I really wanted, of course, was the chance of a few plain words with him in private. These I attempted to have as soon as we were clear of the villa.

  ‘What the devil are you doing here, Faraday?’

  ‘Trying to lend you a helping hand, actually. I thought – we thought – your chances of success would be enhanced if Vita were out of your hair for a few days.’

  ‘I don’t need a helping hand.’

  ‘No? Do you have something to report?’

  ‘Not yet, but—’

  ‘In that case, I must beg to differ. We cannot wait indefinitely. Therefore, you do need help.’

  ‘Not this kind. Surely you realize Vita won’t rise to the bait. Who are the Hick-Mortons? Other creditors of Charnwood?’

  ‘You needn’t concern yourself with their financial circumstances. They will play their part. As you are expected to play yours.’

  ‘I’m trying to.’

  ‘Good. Then I suggest you apply your mind – and whatever else may be appropriate – to breaking down Diana’s defences in her aunt’s absence.’

  ‘She isn’t going to be absent.’

  ‘Really? Well, as to that, we must wait and see, mustn’t we?’

  I left Faraday beneath the flood-lit arabesquerie of the Excelsior and walked slowly back to the villa, contemplating the folly of ever having supposed I could ignore my employers’ wishes. The time had come to apply my legendary ruthlessness. But never before had I felt so reluctant to do so.

  I went into the garden of the villa by the side-entrance, intending to smoke a last cigarette beneath the peach trees before turning in. It was from there, as I devised and discarded half-baked stratagems in my mind, that I glimpsed Diana through the open window of the drawing-room. I could hear her talking to Vita in anxious tones. Crushing out the cigarette against a tree-trunk, I moved carefully towards the window, until I could catch some of their words, then closer again, until I could catch all of them.

  ‘At least you enjoyed the opera, my dear,’ said Vita.

  Diana laughed. ‘Oh yes, I enjoyed it.’

  ‘Did Guy?’

  ‘I think so. In fact, I’m sure of it.’ She paused, then said: ‘Rossini chose a strange sub-title for La Cenerentola, you know. La bontà in trionfo. The triumph of good. Ironic, isn’t it, that I should find myself glorying in music dedicated to such a proposition?’

  ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t.’

  Diana laughed again, this time with a fractured hint of bitterness. ‘There are many reasons, as you know. As I fear Mr Faraday also knows.’

  ‘He is sure of nothing.’

  ‘Let us hope he remains so. To which end, I really think you must accept his invitation to Asolo.’

  Vita sighed heavily. ‘Must I? The man is so transparently inquisitive. He had the effrontery to ask me this evening whether I’d ever been to Trieste.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That I had, of course. That you had too. That we went together, on a whim.’

  ‘Good. It is as we surmised, then?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad our efforts weren’t wasted.’

  ‘It certainly seems they weren’t. In which case, why must I go to Asolo?’

  ‘To keep him guessing, Aunty. Guessing wrong.’

  Vita gave another heartfelt sigh. ‘Very well.’ A spring creaked in the sofa. ‘Now, I must take myself off to bed.’

  ‘I’ll wait for Guy.’

  ‘Good night, my dear.’

  ‘Good night, Aunty.’

  Silence followed and I knew I ought to creep away. But I lingered a moment longer and was rewarded by the sight of Diana leaning out through the window. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply, savouring the coolness of the air and the nocturnal scents of the garden. I looked at her dark hair falling back from her face, at her pale breasts exposed by the low-cut gown, at the topaz pendant glittering above them, and realized with a sudden jolt that the duplicity I had just learned she was capable of made her even more desirable.

  I had thought till now that she and Vita might be innocents, misjudged by Faraday and his kind in their desperat
ion to salvage something from the wreck of Charnwood Investments. But it was I who had misjudged them. They had spoken of visiting Trieste as if it were a deliberate feint in a series of complex manoeuvres. Patently, they were hiding something.

  But that only made my task easier. I had the advantage of them now and did not propose to throw it away. Besides, had Diana really encouraged Vita to go to Asolo simply in order to string Faraday along? Or had she some other reason for wanting to be left alone with me? This last thought revolved tantalizingly in my mind as she turned away from the window and I began my retreat across the garden.

  Faraday came to lunch next day and expressed his pleasure at Vita’s change of heart about the expedition to Asolo. He could not celebrate his triumph over my scepticism until the ladies left us alone in the garden, savouring coffee and cigars in wicker chairs in a sun-filled arbour of Virginia creeper. And, when he did, I had to restrain myself from pointing out the pyrrhic nature of his victory.

  ‘O ye of little faith,’ he said with a smirk. ‘It seems my intervention has been more effective than you anticipated.’

  ‘So it does.’

  ‘I expect to be equally successful in extending Vita’s absence beyond the couple of days to which she has so far consented.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Leaving the way clear for you to make some progress here. On which point—’ He leaned towards me and lowered his voice. ‘I should apprise you of certain facts which have recently come to my attention concerning our charming hostesses. They left England on Thursday the seventeenth of September, but did not arrive here until Saturday the nineteenth.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘They obviously broke their journey somewhere. In Switzerland, perhaps, where the confidentiality of the banks is legendary. You might usefully apply yourself to finding out precisely where they stopped. Also why they travelled to Trieste a few days after their arrival. It may be on Italian soil now, but before the war it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Charnwood’s connections in Vienna – both political and commercial – were numerous and of long standing. Trieste may have been recommended to him as a safe haven for hidden assets.’