selection.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” said the Major. “Can see you two were having a good old chin-wag.”
“I was complaining,” I said, “of the way I am treated by the Inland Revenue.”
“Julia doesn’t think,” said Ned, “that we are fair to her.”
“Oh no,” I said, “I didn’t say that. I could never say, Ned, that you were anything but fair. What I am complaining of is not your fairness: it is your coldness, your lack of feeling, your indifference to human suffering.”
“Ah well,” said the Major, “only doing your job, of course. I’m sure the little lady doesn’t mean it personally, do you, m’dear?”
“I’m afraid she does,” said Ned. “But I hope to persuade her to think more kindly of us.”
My confidence in Catullus seemed vindicated, for this was not a remark, you will surely agree, Selena, which a well-brought-up young man could make without intending some encouragement. Nor, as you shall hear, was this the only cause given me for optimism.
We continued to sit in the cafe, reviving ourselves with coffee for our homeward journey. The Major was greatly pleased with his maps, and would have liked to show them to us; but they had been carefully rolled and wrapped and he felt it unwise to undo them. Fearing that the maps would put him in mind of some incident in his military career, I agreed hastily that it would be most imprudent.
“Julia,” asked Ned, after a few minutes, “did you know you had a smudge of ash on your cheek?”
“I didn’t know,” I answered. “But I readily believe it.” If one smokes French cigarettes, it is usual, after an hour or two, to get a certain amount of ash on one’s face.
“If you’ll excuse me—” he said. He rose from his chair and took a clean handkerchief from his pocket. Then he leant over me, and, resting his left hand lightly on my shoulder, gently brushed the ash from my cheek.
This produced in me, as you will imagine, Selena, a passionate agitation, gravely affecting my breathing and heart beat. Yet it was of the most pleasant and hopeful kind, for I could not suppose that any young man, unless utterly heartless and lost to all sense of shame, could conduct himself in such a way towards a woman whose advances were unacceptable.
“Excuse me, m’dear,” said the Major. “Just off to inspect the jolly old ablutions.”
“When we get back to Venice,” I said, taking advantage of his temporary absence, “instead of paying the exorbitant prices which they charge in the bar of the Cytherea, why don’t you come and have an aperitif in my room? I’ve got some brandy I bought in the duty-free shop.” If I had misconstrued his behaviour, I thought, he could always say that he didn’t like brandy before dinner.
“I’d love to,” answered Ned. “How kind of you, Julia.”
You will imagine with what impatience I now looked forward to our return; how bitterly, though silently, I cursed the late arrival of the coach driver; with what equal fervour, though in equal silence, I urged him to drive back at all speed along the
We arrived at the landing stage of the Cytherea.
“How about a snifter in the bar?” said the Major.
“You’re forgetting, Bob,” said the enchanting Ned, sharing between us a smile of angelic sweetness, “Julia has kindly invited us to drink brandy in her room.”
O Perfidy, thy name is man. They are, as I have said, a deplorable sex, and never again shall you hear me speak well of them. If I could think kindly of one, it would be of a young man of obliging disposition, such as Cantrip. Cantrip, you may say, has his faults; but at least he can be prevailed on to engage in a health-giving frolic without expecting one to talk for weeks on end about his soul. Cantrip, so far as I am aware, has never claimed to have such a thing.
“I jolly well do have a soul,” said Cantrip.
“Well, don’t tell Julia,” said Selena. “It’ll only upset her.”
I am old enough, I hope, to bear philosophically a reverse in the lists of Aphrodite; but to be obliged, in addition, to offer the Major the hospitality of my room, not to speak of large quantities of my duty-free brandy, was more than I could easily endure. By the time the long day was over, I was too shattered in spirit to take up my pen to write to you: I sought consolation in the Finances Act.
After a morning of looking at churches, I have returned to the Cytherea for lunch. I shall have the company, it seems, of the beautiful but perfidious Ned — I have just seen him coming across the bridge from the annexe. Let him not look to me for kind words or compliments — I shall upbraid him for every infamy committed by his Department since the institution of income tax.
In a mood, as I have indicated, of the most bitter misandry, this leaves me
Yours, as always, Julia.
“Julia is being unreasonable,” said Ragwort. “The young man gave her no encouragement beyond mere civility.”
“There is,” said Selena, “a postscript.”
Wednesday evening.
The deed is done — Clarissa lives. No time to write more.
Yours, as always, Julia.
“Who,” said Cantrip, “is Clarissa?”
“Clarissa,” said Ragwort sadly, “is the eponymous heroine of the celebrated novel by Mr. Richardson. The phrase used by Julia is that, if my recollection serves me, in which the villain Lovelace announces his conquest of her long-defended virtue.”
“I say,” said Cantrip, “do you mean Julia’s scored with the man from the Revenue?”
“It would seem so,” said Timothy. “I hope that’s not going to complicate things. They’re calling my flight — I’d better go. I’ll ring you tomorrow, Selena, as soon as I know anything definite.”
I hope my farewells to Timothy did not seem unduly off-hand. All my goodwill went with him; but I was a little preoccupied — I had remembered something curious about the news from Italy.
CHAPTER 9
Between the best of friends a difference of opinion may arise. So it was with Selena and myself on the matter of Sunday. It seemed to me plainly convenient that I should spend the day at Selena’s. Thus Timothy, when he telephoned, would have the immediate benefit of my advice.
“I’m sorry, Hilary,” said Selena. “I have an Opinion to write on the Settled Land Act. I can’t spend the day in cooking and idle gossip.”
She was quite wrong in supposing that she would have been put to any trouble for my entertainment: the tastes of the scholar are simple to the point of austerity. An omelette of some kind for lunch, with a salad and a few new potatoes; for dinner, a plain grilled sole, perhaps with a caper sauce—
“No,” said Selena. “Moreover, I have plans for the evening which do not admit of the presence of a third party.”
In that case, naturally, there was nothing more
to be said. Selena has an amiable arrangement for the weekends with a young colleague of mine: I would not for the world encroach on the pleasures of either. I spent Sunday, therefore, in Islington, conversing with the cats and reading back copies of
Selena telephoned me at half past six. Timothy’s news, so far as it went, was, she felt, satisfactory. He had not yet seen Julia — accommodation had been found for her in the little resort of Chioggia, on the other side of the Lagoon — but would be dining with her that evening. His client, having chosen to make the journey from Cyprus by sea, had become unwell during the journey and had fortunately not yet recovered.
