Illyrian Spring

by Ann Bridge

  Her generosity sprang to meet him. ‘Yes, I am sure of that. It was just my silliness, Walter. No one else would have been so stupid. I apologise, my dear.’

  But that generosity turned a last key in the many locked doors of his reserve.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Gina had the same idea.’

  ‘Gina?’ She was as much vexed as astonished. ‘But how could she? I never said a word to her – or to anyone. What can she have been thinking of?’

  ‘Like a good many other people, she was thinking about why you had left home,’ he answered, rather drily. ‘But she considered that I had given you some cause. She gave me a most tremendous dressing-down one day.’ He smiled rather wryly at the recollection.

  ‘But Walter, it wasn’t only – that – that made me feel I must go away. It was quite as much Linnet as Rose – more, really.’

  Generosity and candour can almost overreach themselves sometimes. Told thus plainly that his daughter mattered as much or more to his wife than he did himself, Walter Kilmichael again smiled a little wryly. He knew it was true. But whose fault was that? It did not alter his heart’s commendation, nor his new unformulated sense of hope and assurance – it was just Grace all over to say it like that.

  ‘I know,’ he said. And then he moved briskly away from the subject that had now been liquidated. ‘I say, where are we? Oughtn’t we to be getting back?’

  They had wandered far along, among the villas and gardens, and were above the harbour. Grace agreed, with a glance at her watch. ‘But do you mind if we drop down here and go back through the town, Walter? I never brought my picture back from the cloister, with all these doings. I don’t think I’d better leave it there all night.’

  So they found their way down and went in through the Porta Ploce and along the Stradone, talking quite easily now. Passing M. Kraljic’s shop, Walter’s eye was caught by his treasures. ‘This fellow has some nice stuff,’ he said, pausing.

  ‘Yes. He talks English,’ she warned him, in a lowered tone. ‘Look – you stay and look at them if you want to, while I slip across to the cloister. It’s just there. But don’t get Linnet a bracelet,’ she added, ‘because I got her one this afternoon. Get her earrings, or one of those gold bags.’ It never occurred to her that Walter would be buying a present for anyone but Linnet. Happy and relieved, she went over and into the cloister. There was no picture there – stool, easel and all were gone. Nicholas had probably fetched them for her – kind child. She went back to M. Kraljic’s.

  Within, chests had been opened – articles of superior virtue, not usually disclosed, lay spread about; M. Kraljic’s singular English was flowing in an appealing torrent. Walter looked round as she came in; he had in his hands a very wonderful garniture in wrought-silver chain-work – a heavy necklace, a great brooch three inches across, earrings and bracelets to match, all taking the shape of venetian windows, with their fine fretted points. It was the most beautiful example of its kind that Grace had ever seen. ‘Oh, what a lovely thing!’ she exclaimed. ‘M. Kraljic, you never showed me that!’

  ‘Expensif! Madame,’ M. Kraljic bowed. ‘Gentleman not mind.’

  ‘You’re not to ruin the gentleman – he’s my husband,’ said Grace firmly.

  ‘Do you like it?’ Walter asked.

  ‘Oh yes, Walter, it’s a beautiful thing. But isn’t it a little heavy, perhaps, for her?’

  ‘For whom?’

  ‘Linnet. She’s so slight. I don’t know – she could keep it for later.’

  ‘This is for you,’ he said. ‘Very well – I’ll take that. Do it up, will you?’ he said to M. Kraljic. ‘I’ll come and settle with you tomorrow – I’m at the Imperial.’

  ‘Yes, sir! Very well, sir! Perfectly good, sir! No hurry, sir! This lady’s gentleman quite all right, sir!’ said M. Kraljic, hurrying to envelop the jewellery in his green and white flowered paper.

  ‘But Walter dear! For me?’ She was almost too astonished to speak.

  ‘Is there any special reason why I shouldn’t give you a present?’ he asked, rather formally.

  So his heart’s commendation found its second and to him perfectly satisfactory expression in an expensive present – which is also a very English way of doing things.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  As Grace and Sir Walter entered the garden of the Imperial they encountered Linnet and Nicholas, coming in from the opposite direction.

  ‘Hullo, darling, have you and Nicholas been for a walk?’

  ‘Yes – somewhere. Mums, this is a divine place; such incredible plants and things.’

  ‘We went to the Dance,’ said Nicholas. ‘I found her rather straying when I got back from embarking the family.’

  ‘Straying! Mums, do they have cocktails here?’

  ‘Yes, pet – but come and dress first and have one when you’re ready, if there’s time. The Grk is better than the cocktails – it’s like the most lovely sherry. Do you want a bath?’

  Nicholas and Linnet had had a rather mutually instructive walk. Returning from the re-embarkation of Celia and the General, he had found the girl sitting under the palms, swinging her small white shoes over the edge of a chaise longue. On seeing him she at once asked if she couldn’t be shown something.

  ‘What?’ Nicholas asked rather heavily. He felt singularly reduced by the events of the day, and really only wanted two things – to lie flat on his bed, and to talk to Lady K. about it all. In the ordinary way he could have combined these; she often sat with him while he rested before dinner – it was a convalescent habit which had clung. However, on being told ‘Anything!’ he led the girl up the hill and out towards the Dance, where he presently insisted on sitting down on one of the frequent seats overlooking the fortress of San Lorenzo and the sea. ‘Sorry, but I’m dropping!’ he excused himself.

  ‘Are you? Why?’

  ‘Been ill, for one thing – and all these doings are enough to exhaust a cow.’

  ‘Didn’t you know your Father was on this cruise?’

  ‘I knew he was cruising somewhere, but I didn’t know he’d be coming here.’

  ‘But why didn’t they know you were here?’ asked Linnet, who was seething with suppressed curiosity.

  ‘Because you see I told Mother I was going on to Greece; but then I got stuck at Komolac with this complaint. And Lady Kilmichael wrote to my Mamma from there. I don’t suppose that letter would have given time to catch Father anywhere. But it did give me a shock to see him come walking into that cloister!’

  ‘Nothing like the shock it gave Poppy and me to see Mums come walking in!’

  ‘Why, didn’t you know she was here either?’

  ‘Not a notion. She came abroad to paint, and simply sank without trace. That utterly unreliable Lady Roseneath said she’d gone to Greece. Where did you meet her?’

  ‘I was introduced to her in Venice by the said Lady Roseneath, who happens to be my Aunt,’ said Nicholas. He applied this good stout suppressio veri and suggestio falsi in the repressive manner which people usually employ for such a purpose.

  ‘Oh, sorry. So she is – I forgot. And then you and Mums just joined forces and painted?’

  ‘That was about it. Lady Kilmichael was extraordinarily kind about helping me. But then she’s an extraordinarily kind person.’

  Linnet was a little intimidated by his manner. She had expected this comparing notes to be more fruitful – the young could generally get on very well discussing the peculiarities of the old, however tolerantly. But the yellow-headed young man had a curious knack of infusing a touch of dignity into his replies which made further questions unexpectedly difficult, and clearly he was going to leave ‘Lady Kilmichael’ to tell anything there was to be told, in her own way. Linnet gave it up, and shifted her ground.

  ‘Yes, Mums is quite a lamb,’ she said, very airily, because she was a little nettled. ‘For a person of her generation she’s really rather good.’

  ‘Have you found many people of your own generation with half her equipment?
’ the young man asked, caustically.

  Linnet stared at him. ‘Her equipment? Oh, you mean her painting?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of her painting – though that’s incredibly good.’

  ‘What do you mean, then?’ She wasn’t nettled now – she was most genuinely astonished. Mums’s equipment? What could he mean?

  ‘Her intelligence – and all the things she knows. You hardly ever come across anyone with so many interests, or so well-informed. I think she’s probably the wisest and the most interesting person I’ve ever known.’ He shot a glance at her, sideways, and seeing her astonished face said, with a rather sour touch of amusement – ‘Has it never struck you that your Mother is rather a remarkable person?’

  ‘I never thought of her as particularly intelligent,’ said Linnet, startled into complete candour. ‘Of course she’s terribly attractive, and has a wonderful gift for clothes – I give you her being fearfully good-looking.’ And she in her turn glanced at him sideways, with considerable interest. But –

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of that,’ said this extraordinary young man. ‘I suppose she is – or at least I suppose she was when she was younger. But I meant—’

  ‘But what nonsense!’ Linnet interrupted, roused now herself to her Mother’s defence, on more familiar ground. ‘Mums is frightfully decorative – surely you must see that? After all, you’ve painted her!’

  ‘I daresay – I honestly never thought about it,’ he said. ‘She has a wonderful face to paint, because – well, because of what she is, and because she has good bones.’ He stood up. ‘Hadn’t we better be getting back?’

  But all the way back to the hotel Linnet was as it were staring at a new picture of her Mother. Mums intelligent, well-informed, wise, wonderful! And thought so, not by some mouldering elder, who would be carried away by her charm – of course Mums had tons of charm – but by this really rather entertaining young man, who had never even noticed that she was good-looking! Idiot! Mums was really almost lovely, sometimes, although she did practically nothing about it, bar dressing so well. It really was most extraordinary. And she continued, with deepened interest, to study the young man, who was beguiling the way with a rather amusing account of some peasants they had visited in the interior somewhere. He was really quite witty at times. H’m. Well. And that night before she went to bed Linnet began a last letter to her best friend.

  Mums is here! We cannoned into her, entirely without warning, in a cloister today. Poppy nearly had a heart attack! Here and hereabouts is where she’s been all the time, painting and teaching a young man to paint. Poppy and I are skipping Venice and staying here for two or three days, really to allow time for a leisurely reconciliation, I suppose – we shall be picked up again when the Star dips southward once more. The parents are being very parental, but they’ve had one walk and seem pretty serene. The final touch is that Mums has got a boyfriend! Very much so – twenty-three-ish; the one she’s been teaching to paint. Really rather a charmer – definitely one of the nicest seen for ages. He’s completely toqué about Mums, but whether she spots it or not I’m not quite sure. I can’t begin to describe the flap that has raged here today, because the young man is the General’s son (I always said heredity was tripe) and they didn’t know he was here either! It was coup de théâtre after coup de théâtre, as we all kept meeting long-lost relatives all over the town, and trying to explain. Final sensation occurred when Daddy’s Frenchman off the boat, who’s Mums’s Paris dealer, spotted one of the boy’s pictures and raved about it. Mums seems to have coached him to some purpose; anyhow the old fish instantly cornered the whole visible supply for vast sums in cash and Nicholas is now a made man and can snap the fingers at his parents! All too unreal. It has been fun to watch.

  Something has come over Mums. She’s got very definite, all of a sudden – handling everything and everyone in the most unwonted way. You should have seen her with the General! I hope it won’t go too far. At present she’s rather sweet – une femme magistrale, but gentle.

  But in the interval before dinner Linnet wasted no time on letter-writing, but applied all her attention to her appearance. This might seem a singular perversity and waste of effort on her part, since the only immediate young man had just shown himself so markedly unappreciative of female looks; but even very intelligent people of nineteen do not always think out the things which affect themselves with quite the devastating clearness which they apply to their elders’ affairs, and indeed the instinct which governs feminine dressing lies almost below the threshold of consciousness. When Linnet Kilmichael went back to the ship to ‘garner her effects’ she had, in all her competent haste, garnered two or three of those dresses which in London had proved most efficacious. Into one of these she now inserted herself, and with hair shining subtly along the waves, perfectly arranged complexion, and lips and fingertips matching in carmine brilliance, she went down to dinner.

  Lady Kilmichael, however, had also made a special effort in the matter of a toilette that night. She did so quite deliberately, with the businesslike thoroughness of the woman who dresses for occasions rather than for persons. This was an occasion, in a mild way – Walter liked occasions to be dressed for, and he would expect his present to be worn. Lady Kilmichael was one of those happy women who go on into middle life looking well in white – by good luck, she had a white evening dress with her which would show off the silver jewellery to perfection. So to please Walter – dear Walter! and he seemed altogether in a mood to be pleased – she very much did her best with herself; she was happy too, tonight, and presently came trailing down to dinner clothed in a singular radiance. Walter fairly stared at her – he had forgotten that Grace ever looked like that. Linnet exclaimed over the garniture, which did indeed give the last touch – its barbaric splendour heightening and emphasising that quiet civilised grace. But Nicholas first stood, and afterwards at table sat, entirely unable to take his eyes off her. What with working late, with evening walks, and frequently dining out in little restaurants, he had seen very little of Lady Kilmichael in evening dress – and it may be that Linnet’s indignant remarks about her Mother’s looks had opened his eyes to other aspects of her appearance than those he knew and loved – her smile, the sweetness and candour by which her eyes were made beautiful, the transparent changefulness of expression which made watching her face almost as good as talking to her. Beauty he had never looked for in her, beyond the beauty of ‘good bones’ and supple muscles, which he had appreciated with professional detachment; beauty now he found, and it left him dumb.

  Altogether, to Nicholas, that dinner was a discouraging meal. Though they were all very nice to him, they so evidently belonged together; they had so much to hear and tell of matters in which he had no real part or interest – what the twins were doing, Nigel’s last discoveries at the end of the Easter vac, details of the cruise. They all tried to bring him in, and when Grace’s discoveries of the West Highland stones were being canvassed, for instance, he had a brief place. But it meant trying; he wasn’t really in. Lady Kilmichael had been so much his Lady K. these last weeks – her sympathy, her interest all for him; now she was theirs, and that man, so witty and so distinguished, was her husband. There was a prick in that – a prick which he shied away from. And he kept on remembering also that she was really Grace Stanway, the painter with an international reputation – and he had once told her that she couldn’t draw! Yes – although she had worked all these miracles for him today, with his Father and that old Frenchman, miracles which even now he could hardly realise or believe in – he, Nicholas, a man of independent means, and free forever to be a painter, with his parents’ sanction! – he remained unexhilarated; he felt diminished, unhappy, forlorn. It was senseless and ungrateful, but it was so. And when Sir Walter made them drink to his health and his future success, though he laughed and made some mild witticism in response, his eyes were curiously unhappy when he turned them again to Lady Kilmichael.

  All this was not lost on Grace. She
realised that something must be done about Nicholas. She would rather have put it off till the next day, but she couldn’t let him go to bed with eyes like that! And this new power that had come to her, of seeing which were the important things and going for them first, made it almost easy for her to break up this first evening with her family, a thing that normally she would have found embarrassing and difficult to a degree. When they had drunk their coffee, sitting out under the illuminated palms in the garden, she said with a sort of airy decision – ‘Walter, I’m going to take Nicholas to show him a view of San Lorenzo that I think he might do in this light – moonlight and lamplight.’ She rose as she spoke, and pulled a fur round her shoulders.

  ‘Oh yes – a walk would be heavenly. Do let’s all go!’ Linnet said eagerly – her energy and vivacity quite undimmed. Very serenely her Mother turned to her. ‘Yes, do, darling – take your Father to see the Porta Ploce; it’s quite marvellous in this light. We’ve often seen it.’ And quietly, graciously, but with unmistakeable decision she led Nicholas out of the garden, leaving Linnet almost staring after her. Mums so high hat! The odd thing, Linnet later noted, was that though she had wanted to go for a walk and was done out of it, because Poppy was tired and wouldn’t, for some mysterious reason she harboured no irritation against her Mother this time. She had been told exactly where she got off, she freely admitted, but done like that, it didn’t seem so tiresome. And presently she went in and wrote her letter.

  Nicholas and Lady Kilmichael strolled down the hill, through the warm southern dark splashed richly with the light from the street lamps, and out onto the little promenade below the Forte Bocar. A restaurant stands at one side of this promenade, and they went and sat down at one of the little tables nearest the sea, ordering vermouth as an excuse. It was late, and there were very few people about; such as there were were congregated in the brightly lit space immediately in front of the restaurant, playing cards or gossiping – but out where they sat it was quiet and empty; in the shadows the water lapped gently on the stonework within a few feet of them. Opposite and above them loomed the great bulk of San Lorenzo, rather masked by the nearer buildings in front of it; but its summit, rising clear from the patchwork of light and shadow which flecked these lesser buildings, shone white and splendid in the moonlight.