by Iain Pears
The same applies to Venice, but on a grander scale. What were these people doing living in the middle of the sea like that? Why, in their days of greatness, did they not migrate to the land? How, now that those days of grandeur were past, did they intend to adapt themselves to a new world? Signor Ambrosian seemed the best fitted to answer such questions. No one else I had yet met was likely to do so.
I wrote a note on the back of my calling card, asking him to send a message to my accommodation, and then returned there for a rest before dinner. I was hungry; the day had been long, and the food not plentiful, and the excitement had worked up a fine appetite in me. I was looking forward to dinner and my own company, for I resolved that that evening I would eat alone. It was natural, even necessary, to place myself in the way of English society, but I was not, that evening, willing to converse with the likes of Longman in a fashion of easy conviviality—and I knew that such a manner was utterly vital if my deception was to be successful. Besides, I was not yet ready to meet Cort again.
For the next few days a certain watchful peace descended on me. All thoughts of leaving and moving on to new sights and places fell away so softly I did not even realise they had departed. I could not even keep myself fixed on reality through business, as I received a letter from Signor Ambrosian’s secretary to say the banker was away for a few days, but that he would be happy to make my acquaintance on his return.
I was in love; for the first time in my life, so I thought. When I had taken her, I had abandoned all my caution and any doubts; she was irresistible, and I did not want to resist. Her vulnerability, which hid so well a terrible animality, fascinated me. I could see nothing but perfection. I wanted her more than anything else in my entire life. I was not a passionate man in my habits, not romantic in my behaviour: I imagine this is obvious already. I had disciplined myself carefully and thoroughly, but nature will out; Venice, and Louise Cort, broke the dam, and a torrent of emotion burst through. The more I possessed her, the more I was prepared to lose myself in that glorious, unmatched feeling and prove it through recklessness.
I thought I was in love because I knew so little. I thought I loved my wife, but Louise showed me that was mere affection, with not even much respect to solidify it. And then I thought I loved Louise, not realising it was simply passion, untrammelled by knowledge. Only when I came to Elizabeth did I finally understand, and by then I was getting old; it was almost too late. She saved me from a dry and empty life. I had looked for someone perfect, but did not realise until then that this was not the point. Only when you can know someone’s every fault, failing and weakness and not care do you truly know what love is. Elizabeth certainly has her failings; every single one of them makes me smile with affection, or feel sad for her sufferings. I have known her now for nearly two decades, and every day I know her better, love her more. She is my love and more than that.
But then Louise Cort, the image and remembrance of her, filled my days and my mind, and tinted the city I daily grew to know ever better. I became lover and saviour; my pride and vanity grew as my association with her contrasted my nature all the more powerfully with that of Cort. The practical matters were easily disposed of; there was a man who worked at the hotel I had initially stayed in, Signor Fanzano, who spoke English and who had struck me as a robust, commonsensical fellow, worldly and discreet.
“I have a certain requirement for accommodation,” I said, when I discovered him near the kitchens of the hotel. “I need some rooms that are comfortable but private.”
He did not ask what I wanted such a thing for, merely applied himself to the matter. “Do I take it you do not wish anyone to know you have these rooms?” he asked.
“Yes. That is the main necessity.”
“So not in the centre. Not in San Marco. But, presumably, not too far away either.”
“Precisely.”
“Do you have any particular price in mind?”
“None.”
“And how long would you need this for.”
“I do not know. I will happily pay for three months to begin with. They must be furnished and clean.”
He nodded. “Leave it to me, Mr. Stone. I will send a message when I have come up with something.”
Two days later I received a message to apply to a Signora Murtano in a small street close to San Giovanni è Paolo, near the Fondamenta Nuova. She turned out to be one of Fanzano’s relations (although every one in Venice seems to be a relation of everyone else) with a sitting room and bedroom to rent in a dingy house which had fallen far from its days of glory, if it had ever had any. But it had a fireplace (wood extra, as usual), a separate entrance and only the cruellest luck might have caused me to encounter anyone I knew as I was entering or leaving. The price was exorbitant, not least because I had decided to give Fanzano a handsome reward both for his dispatch and for his discretion. It was a good bargain, as it turned out: it acquired the loyalty of a man who served me well for the next three decades, but nonetheless, I felt at the time that the price of love in Venice was steep.
Still, it was done, and the day after I had made the arrangement, I arranged for Louise to accompany me on another tour of the city. We visited San Giovanni together, and then I showed her my find.
She knew exactly what I intended as we approached the front door, and I was afraid that the practicality of it might affect her sensibilities. And so it did, but only to make her more wild and passionate.
“Don’t open the shutters,” she said, as I moved to let some light into the rooms so she could see it better. We spent the next two hours exploring a new land far more exotic than a mere city of brick and marble could ever be, even if it does float in the ocean like some fading flower.
She was the most exciting woman I had known. She brought out a recklessness in me that I had never believed existed. Only very occasionally did things go awry between us, then and every time thereafter that she could steal away for an afternoon, an hour, even on one occasion a fumbling, desperate encounter of less than fifteen minutes when she tore at me as her husband waited below. That excited me, thinking of her returning to her duties as a wife, clothes immaculately in order, face calm and showing no sign of the way I had only a few moments before pushed her against the wall and pulled up her dress to make her cry out with pleasure. He could not do that. I half-wanted him to know.
Once she pulled away as I was reaching for her, I grabbed her arm and she turned angrily away, but not before I caught sight of a red weal across her upper arm.
“What’s that? How did that happen?”
She shook her head and would not answer.
“Tell me,” I insisted.
“My husband,” she said quietly.
“He thought I had misbehaved.”
“Does he suspect that…”
“Oh no! He is too stupid. I had not done anything amiss. It does not matter. He gets the desire to hurt, that is all.”
“That is all?” I replied hotly. “All? What did he do to you? Tell me.”
Again a shake of the head. “I cannot tell you.”
“Why not?”
There was a long pause. “Because I am afraid that you might wish to do the same.”
CHAPTER 10
And so it went on; we found time to meet more and more often, sometimes every day; she became expert at slipping away unnoticed. We talked little; she became sad when we did, and in any case we had little enough to say. Then I did not think that mattered.
I had forgotten the Marchesa’s salon, and groaned with disappointment when I remembered it. Nonetheless, I did my duty, and presented myself on the following Friday evening at seven. I was bathed, as well as is possible in a house with no running water and no easy means of heating what there was, shaved, changed, and felt moderately satisfied with my appearance.
I imagined an evening such as one might encounter in London or Paris; alas, it was very different—remarkably dull for the first part, deeply disturbing for the second. A soirée in Venice is a d
reary, weary affair, with about as much joy in it as a Scottish funeral and a good deal less to drink. The spirit of Carnevale has so deserted the city that it requires real effort to remember that it was once famed for its dissolution and carefree addiction to pleasure. That pleasure is now well watered, and joy rationed as though in short supply.
I attended few such events in my time in the city and when I left them I felt I had been there for hours, though my pocket watch said it was less than half an hour on each occasion. You enter, are presented with a dry biscuit and a very little wine. Then you sit in a respectful circle around your hostess until decorum says it is time to leave. I freely admit I understood little of the conversation, as even the elevated talk in dialect, but the seriousness of the faces, the lack of laughter, the ponderousness of the speech all indicated I was missing little.
And it was cold, always. Even if a small fire burned bravely away in a far corner, its feeble heat did little but tantalise. The women were allowed to tuck earthenware pots of hot ashes about their persons to give some minimal warmth, but such things were not allowed to men, who had to freeze and try to forget the slow progress of icy numbness up the fingers and arms. Decline had expelled merriment, which belongs to greatness; the feebler Venice had become, the more humourless were its inhabitants. They were in mourning, perhaps.
The Marchesa was Venetian by marriage only, but had embraced dullness with the enthusiasm of a convert. She dressed for the occasion in black with acres of lace and a headdress which almost completely covered her face, then sat on the settee, quietly greeting those who arrived, conversing briefly with them and, as far as I could tell, waiting pointedly until they got up, bowed and left.
At least I was being introduced to Venetian society, although I later learned that the most respectable had long since refused to enter her door, and she had equally long ago ceased to invite them. There had been something of a scandal—the Marchesa, as I have mentioned, was not Venetian and, even worse, was penniless when she married her husband.
Which was done against the wishes of his family, and that was the source of the scandal. Especially as the good gentleman—many years her senior—had died not long after without successfully providing an heir. This was such a complete failure of responsibility that the Marchesa was held to be somehow to blame, because someone had to be at fault for such a lapse in a family which, however impecunious of late, had successfully negotiated disease, war and ill fortune to survive in an unbroken line for seven centuries.
Now it was all over; a great name was on the verge of extinction—already was extinct, in the opinion of many. Bad fortune attends all families eventually; England itself sees regular snuffings out of great names; for my part I care not one jot, nor would I if they all disappeared, although I grant the utility of aristocracy in holding land, for unless that is stable the country cannot be. But, for the most part, three generations is more than enough to complete the ruin of any line. One generation to make the fortune, a second to enjoy it, and a third to dissipate it. In my case, of course—unless my current quest produces an answer I do not expect—not even that is allotted to me. I have no heir. It is something we could not do. All wish to leave something behind them and the vast organisation I have created is not enough. I would have liked a child; as I buried my father, so he should have buried me, and looked after Elizabeth when I was dead. It is our only chance of any immortality, for I do not delude myself that my creations will outlive me for long; the life of companies is very much shorter than the life of families.
That, in truth, was the greatest sadness of our lives together; we were so close. Elizabeth was transformed by joy when she told me she was to have a baby, and tasted true, uncomplicated happiness for the first time. But it was snatched away in the most horrible fashion imaginable. The child was a monster. I can say it now, although for years I banished all thought of him. He had to die; would have anyway. She never saw it, never knew what had really happened, but the sorrow was overwhelming for her. We buried him, and mourned—for him and for what might have been. It was not her fault; of course it wasn’t. But she took it on herself, thought that her life had somehow been responsible, that the degradation she had known had suffused her being to such an extent that even the product of her body was corrupted. I thought for a while she might never recover, worried she might go back to those terrible drugs that she had once used so readily when strain and nervousness overtook her. Her life had been hard and dangerous; the syringe of liquid made her forget just enough to keep going.
She came through, of course; she is so very brave. But there were no more children. The doctors said another pregnancy might kill her. I think she would have embraced such a death gladly. She is more precious than all the heirs, all the children in the world. Let everything turn to dust, blow away on the winds! But let me have her by my side until the end. If she left me, I would die myself.
“I do hope you enjoyed my little evening,” the Marchesa said when all was, at last, over.
“It was charming, madam,” I replied. “Most interesting.”
She laughed, the first lighthearted sound to have filled the room all evening. “It was terrible, you mean,” she said. “You English are so polite you are ridiculous.”
I smiled in an uncertain fashion.
“Yet you behaved yourself, and made a good impression. I thank you for that. You have solidified the reputation of your country as a place of seriousness and dignity, by sitting and saying nothing for such a long time. You may even receive an invitation to some evenings from one or two of my guests.”
She noticed the look of dismay which passed over my face.
“Don’t worry; on that they are easy enough. They will be quite happy if you do not go.”
She stood up and let her dress fall about her. I got up as well.
“And now,” she said, “we may begin on the more interesting part of the evening.”
My spirits lifted at the very idea.
“We will eat first of all, and then…”
“Then what?”
“Ah, for that you must wait and see. But there will be people you know, so you will not be lonely. Have you encountered Mrs. Cort, for example?”
I trust that I did not give myself away, but in some ways she was excessively perceptive. I said I had met Mrs. Cort.
“Poor woman.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It is not hard to see that she is unhappy,” she said softly. “We have become friends, in a fashion, and she has told me much of her life. The cruel way she was treated by employers in England, the failings of her husband…” She put a painted nail to a painted lip to indicate the need for discretion. “She is drawn to the Beyond.”
I could have said that, in my experience, her interest in more earthly matters was rather more notable, and that I had no need to be told about discretion, but said nothing.
“But then, this life has little to offer her,” she continued.
“She has a husband and a child.”
She shook her head in a melodramatic fashion. “If you knew what I know…” she said. “But I must not gossip. Let us go in and welcome the guests.”
She allowed me to take her arm, and we finally left the cold, draughty salon. I did feel slightly aggrieved that what I had taken to be Louise’s confidences to me she had also divulged to the Marchesa, but accepted that desperation does make women tell each other secrets. I put it out of my mind, and felt my mood improving with every step towards the dining room; merely moving began to unfreeze my flesh, although feeling her so close was a little uncomfortable. She wore her usual over powering perfume and pressed herself against my arm in a manner which was perhaps more intimate than her age made respectable.
In the dining room the candles were lit, and a fire blazed to take off the evening chill—it was warm outside but the houses are so permanently damp they are never truly comfortable at night—and food was waiting to be served. We ate, and as we ate others entered. Mara
ngoni, first of all, then Mr. and Mrs. Cort, and my heart leapt as I saw her, and we exchanged a brief glance of complicity. She held my gaze for only a fraction of a second; no one could have seen it, but it was enough. I wish to be with you, now, she told me, as plainly as anything could. Not with him. I greeted Cort as ordinarily as I could, but my feelings towards him had changed utterly. As much as possible I had taken to avoiding those places where I was likely to run into him; I did not trust myself not to betray some hint of my contempt, as I could not now think of him without remembering Louise’s description of what he was truly like. He noticed, I am sure, and was bemused by it, as well he might be, and the temptation to explain welled up in me. For her sake only I controlled myself and made polite conversation for a few moments, although his replies were vague and slow.
Macintyre was not there, of course. He was too solid a man to consider attending such an event, even had he not been offended by the Marchesa’s rejection of his wish for rooms that might have made his daughter more comfortable. Longman and Drennan made up the party, so we were seven in all by the time the meal was done—not a Venetian amongst us, I noted.
Then the Marchesa began to talk, all about auras and journeys, souls and spirits, This Side and the Other Side. The room was darkened, the atmosphere became more tense, even though not a single guest was anything other than sceptical about the entire business. Except perhaps Louise, who seemed quite nervous. About Cort I could not tell; he seemed almost drunk, unresponsive to what was going on all around him.