“Got nobbled,” said Cantrip.
“Nobbled?” I repeated, a little perplexed by the expression. Cantrip is a Cambridge man — it is not always easy to understand what he says. “Nobbled? By whom, Cantrip? Or, to adopt the Cambridge idiom, who by?”
“Henry, of course,” said Cantrip. “Spotted old Tim trying to make a break for it and sent out the guards to head him off. Had him hauled back to the stalag.”
“Cantrip means,” said Selena, “that as we were leaving for coffee Henry sent a message by the temporary typist that Timothy’s presence was required in Chambers. It appears that a rather distinguished firm of London solicitors needs the advice of Chancery Counsel on a matter of some urgency.”
“That’s right,” said Cantrip. “So while we’re swilling coffee, poor old Tim is listening to the demented ravings of the senior partner in Tiddley, Thingummy & Whatsit.”
“So you see, Hilary,” said Selena, “no one’s on holiday. Except Julia, of course. She should be in Venice by now.”
“Julia?” I said, much astonished. “You haven’t let Julia go off on her own to Venice, surely?”
“Am I,” asked Selena, “Julia’s keeper?”
“Yes,” I said, rather severely, for her attitude seemed to me to be irresponsible. She likes, I know, to pretend that Julia is a normal, grown-up woman, who can safely be sent round the corner to buy a loaf of bread; but, of course, it is quite absurd. Poor Julia’s inability to understand what is happening, or why, in the world about her, her incompetence to learn even the simplest of the practical skills required for survival — these must have made it evident, even in childhood, that she would never be able to cope unaided with the full responsibilities of adult life. She must have been, no doubt, a docile, good-natured child, with a certain facility for Latin verbs and intelligence tests — but what use is that to anyone? Seeking some suitable refuge, where her inadequacies would pass unnoticed, her relatives, very sensibly, sent her to Lincoln’s Inn. She is now a member of the small set of Revenue Chambers in 63 New Square. There she sits all day, advising quite happily on the construction of the Finance Acts, and doing no harm to anyone. But to let her go to Venice — I imagined her, wandering alone through those devious alleyways, looking — as, indeed, she does at the best of times — like one of the more dishevelled heroines of Greek tragedy; and I could not forbear to chide.
“Furthermore,” I added, “it is no use your implying, Selena, that your part in the enterprise was a merely negative one. If you tell me that Julia could have managed to purchase a travel ticket, find her passport, pack her suitcase and catch an aeroplane, all without the aid of some competent adult, I shall be obliged to disbelieve you.”
Selena admitted to having provided such assistance. She had accompanied Julia to a travel agent and had represented, on her behalf, the necessity of a holiday in Venice being arranged at five days’ notice. (I did not ask why Julia had made no earlier arrangements — to plan five days in advance is, for her, a remarkable achievement.) The travel agent had found a vacant place on something called an Art Lovers’ Holiday. Asked in what manner this differed from other holidays, the agent had explained that it included guided tours of various places of historical and artistic interest: additional tours were available on an optional basis.
“This made,” said Selena, “a great impression on Julia. If some of the tours are optional, the remainder, she reasons, must be compulsory. For most of the time, therefore, she will not be on her own, but travelling about the Veneto in a group of respectable Art Lovers under the supervision of a qualified guide. So you see, Hilary, that all this alarm and despondency is quite unjustified.”
“You naturally prefer,” I said, “to look on the bright side. So far as I am aware, however, the qualifications for a guide are not those of a nursemaid or a guardian of the mentally infirm. The poor fellow will take his eye off her for a moment and she will wander off. What then?”
“She will ask the way back to her hotel.”
“She will have forgotten the name of her hotel.”
“We have made her write it down on a piece of paper.”
“She will have lost the piece of paper. She will find herself alone in a strange city. She will not know where she is or what she ought to do.”
“The same thing,” said Selena, “happens in London at least once a fortnight.”
There was some truth in this. In her native city Julia is still unable to find her way with confidence from Holborn to Covent Garden. Even so—“Julia,” said Ragwort firmly, “will not get lost in Venice. I have lent her my guide books, both to Venice itself and to those cities of the Veneto which she is likely to visit. I wasn’t always able to get the English version, so one or two of them are in Italian. Still, I don’t think it matters — the main thing is that they all have maps in them. Perfectly clear, simple maps. Julia will be able to see at a glance where she is, where she ought to be and how to get from one to the other.”
This was a kindness beyond mere courtesy. Visiting Venice in the previous spring Ragwort had formed a passionate attachment to the city and all connected with it — the guide books were as dear to him as the last mementoes of a love affair. To hand them over to Julia, particularly when one remembers her tendency to spill things—
“I have told her,” said Ragwort, “that she is to take great care of them and not to read them while drinking gin. Or coffee. Or while eating pizza with her fingers. And I have put brown paper covers on them to protect them on the outside. So it really should be all right.”
“Of course it will be all right,” said Selena. “And it doesn’t matter about some of them being in Italian. Julia speaks very good Italian.”
This opinion of Selena’s is erroneous but incorrigible. Selena herself declines to learn any foreign language. Julia, on the other hand, makes her way along the shores of the Mediterranean in the happy belief that everyone still speaks some version of Latin, with the endings of the nouns slurred and a slightly lilting accent: she achieves in this way a sufficient fluency to be regarded by Selena, when they travel together, as the one who speaks the language.
I raised another question which was perplexing me. “It all sounds,” I said, “very expensive. How can Julia afford it? I thought that the Inland Revenue had reduced her to destitution.”
Julia’s unhappy relationship with the Inland Revenue was due to her omission, during four years of modestly successful practice at the Bar, to pay any income tax. The truth is, I think, that she did not, in her heart of hearts, really believe in income tax. It was a subject which she had studied for examinations and on which she had thereafter advised a number of clients: she naturally did not suppose, in these circumstances, that it had anything to do with real life.
The day had come on which the Revenue discovered her existence and reminded her of theirs. They had not initially asked her for money: they had first insisted, unreasonably but implacably, that she should submit accounts. They had shown by this that they were not motivated by a just and lawful desire to fill the public purse for the public benefit: their true purpose was to make Julia spend every evening for several months copying out the last four years’ entries in her Clerk’s Fee Book on an old typewriter that did not work properly. I myself am not entirely sure that the age and defectiveness of the typewriter were an essential feature of the Revenue’s planning. But Julia was: every time it stuck, her bitterness towards them deepened. The Revenue, on receiving the result of her labours, had uttered no word of gratitude or commendation. They had demanded a large sum of money. More than she had. More, according to her — though I think that she cannot be quite right about this — than she had ever had. More than she could ever hope to have.
In this extremity, she had appealed to her Clerk. Julia’s Clerk is called William, an older man than Henry, and perhaps more indulgent. It took a mere two hours of sycophantic pleading, freely laced with promises of perpetual industry, to secure his assistance. He sent out fee notes, as a matter of urgency, requesting immediate payment from those solicitors who were indebted to Julia for her services.
His efforts raised a sufficient sum to pay the Revenue, but left Julia with nothing to live on. Or at any rate with only so much as might support the bare necessities of life. I did not see how she could afford to go to Venice.
“The unhappy events to which you refer,” said Selena, “occurred some months ago. That is to say, in the financial year which ended on the fifth of April. On or about that date, the Revenue wrote to Julia, reminding her that they were now entitled to another year’s accounts.”
“And Julia was jolly miffed,” said Cantrip. “Because the way she saw it, she’d done her bit as far as accounts were concerned.”
“But she consoled herself,” said Selena, “with the reflection that it was only one year’s accounts and couldn’t
