A Favourite of the Gods and a Compass Error

by Sybille Bedford

  “There had been one flare-up. According to the agreement Giorgio, Anna’s little boy, spent a couple of months each year with his mother and they used to send him over with a nurse-maid and a courier. He was due again and suddenly they heard that the prince himself was bringing him. Mena says that Anna was convinced that he was coming to fetch her, and Mena swears that she was ready to go back. Perhaps he only meant to see Constanza, at any rate the lawyers messed it up. Next thing they got through the grapevine was that the journey was off.

  “It was then that Anna started on the sleeping stuff, taking too much, erratically—a sort of Russian roulette. Mena coped with it.

  “There is one other thing that makes it all so odd, so difficult to understand. This. When Anna was first told about it in Rome by that ass of a young man, when she learnt about the old truth, the long lie, she cried out it was a bolt from a clear sky shattering her life. But was it? After she was found dead and there were so many questions and Mena told so much, she said to Constanza—oh, I can give you the very words, I shall never forget them—Mena said, ‘One day many many years ago, when the old principessa was still alive, she opened a door and saw them, the prince and the Marchesa Giulia, in the long room at Castelfonte.’ Anna shut the door again, she did not know that Mena had followed her, and walked round the house and came in by the terrace, a smile on her face. What do you make of it? What can you make of it?

  •

  “As I was saying, Constanza was twenty-one. The day after she went to Anna. ‘Right or wrong, I must go now and see my father.’ Anna’s answer was, If you go to him the instant you are free, what will the world say? That really shocked Constanza. That one sentence, it made her see something about her mother. She also remembers her own answer (we do seem to have words to remember), ‘The world, mama, will say what you tell it; it always has.’ She felt hostile enough to be able to press going to Rome that week. Then: bathos—Giorgio, yes, the little horror was with them once more, got the mumps. Quarantine. By the time that was over Constanza was in a fatalistic mood, she agreed to wait until the autumn. Reluctantly, but then she still loved Anna, although she had begun to judge her. Only it was the autumn of 1914.

  “The war drew them together again. To Constanza it was an end, an end then and there—the sole fact that it happened, that people consented to it happening, men sent out, actually going out to hurt and kill, systematically destroy one another’s homes and lives and loved ones, the folly of it, the beastliness, the pain; the strange mad illusion that any of this, under any aspect, any theology, any ideal, could be right—the staggering, inconceivable, immediate, ultimate, concrete wrongness of it all. How they felt it! How right they were!

  “They all did war work. One can always try to do something for individuals. Anna became very active and efficient running charities and committees; Constanza took a shift at a canteen, and after Italy was in the war she got a job in a ministry, real work, and she did it; for what it was worth. She always does—without much faith in what she is doing, like those anti-fascist chores she used to take on until recently (I shouldn’t talk about that really). Whenever she turns her hand to something, she says, it is trivial.

  •

  “Funny thing happened about money during the war. Anna decided that she must not profit by it in any way and consulted Constanza—she always did: You are my chief heir and it will affect you—Constanza told her to go ahead. So Anna bullied the trustees into changing her investments, she made them get rid of large blocks of French loan and Russian railways and go into something pacific and domestic instead like American soap companies. Later on she forgot all about it. But you realize the result? We are living on it.

  •

  “In that same first year of the war, Constanza met Simon, my father. He turned up at a party one night having just managed to get back from Italy where he’d been supposed to be studying and it came out that he’d been to Rome, too, and had actually met her father and knew their story—better than she did—and had sat at the feet of the Marchesa Giulia. He took them all off and that made Constanza laugh at once, but she didn’t have much time for him, she was in love with someone else and he had enlisted. However, Simon came to call at Regent’s Park, he had the perfect excuse. The prince had asked him to take over a small present; Simon had stuck it in a pocket and thought no more about it, only when he saw Constanza he decided to deliver it in person. She unwrapped it and it was the prince’s ruby, set for her in a ring. The prince sent it to her with his love, just like that. Well, it shook her. And it made her look at Simon again, he was the messenger, he was a link, it had to mean something. One cannot understand Constanza’s actions without taking into account that side. She still did not have much use for him personally; he, too, was twenty-one, they were exactly the same age take a week or so, and very sure of himself, too sure, even for her taste. He was what Anna called an impertinent young man.

  “Only this time she didn’t. Anna adored Simon from the word go.

  “They clicked, as they say. She found him charming and stimulating and good company. She was charming to him. On that first visit he told her quite a bit about himself. Younger son, very much so; brothers Army, one already out in France; chilly place in Northumberland; little money to go round; parents chilly too, as well as proud and stiff. No cosy warm Italian family life for him, he told Anna, school, university, crammers, lodgings, his happiest time had been a couple of years recovering from pneumonia with an uncle, the British padre, on the Ligurian coast. The future? To be free. To have an interesting life. To have the good things. How? First of all turn one’s back on the bloody war, then qualify for some career. One of his main interests was Italian art, but he rather felt he’d like to keep that for himself, not muck it up with money and degrees. He supposed he had better start reading for the Bar, quick and easy. ‘Was it?’ ‘Oh, yes, certainly for me.’ One thing he did want was money, enough of it, and pretty soon: ‘Without money you miss most of the pleasures and lose most of the time, and don’t let’s pretend otherwise.’ His people kept him monstrously short—‘I can’t wait till they discover the debts I’ve made; though as a matter of fact I can wait, it would be wiser too.’

  “On his second visit he told her that she was like the favourite aunt he had never had, or better still—Americans make such wonderful parents, will you not adopt me, please? She did. He lived at Regent’s Park. Constanza was out most of the time but when she dropped in to change, there they were, rattling Italian to each other, poring over Anna’s art books—‘Bet you’ve never been inside Sant’-Agnese in Oscurità?’ ‘But I have, dear boy, and I know the tomb you mean though it is not by Taddeo Duodecimo as attributed.’ Anna prided herself on setting a good table; now, in wartime London, she put her mind to it: great lasagne pies, Virginia ham, as well as all the best fish, game and vegetables her friends in the country sent her. There was always a supply of the two things Simon liked to consume at all hours, fresh fruit and very good brandy. And of course every wine he would name. Speak to my wine merchant, dear boy, he ought to have some of that left. She was so animated again, it was a joy to Constanza.

  “Then her own young man was at the front. It was total anguish, she told me, not for herself, but for him. She thought that he might get killed. She didn’t exactly pray, she kept up some kind of attention, a vigil, the whole time; she never dared let up. Simon was a help to her, keeping the surface going, making the hours pass when she was not on duty at her canteen. They walked in the park, it was winter then, endlessly. He discovered that as a girl she had had a passion for Stendhal, so had he, and they talked about Julien Sorel and Tolstoi and Rimbaud.

  “One day her young man was home, invalided out of the war with nothing really bad. Constanza found him uncouth and a bore—that was one of the things being with Simon did to one—she broke it off and went to parties again. With Simon now.

  “Her mother looked happy, and for a while all was good. Then she was in love with Simon. She says she has nev
er again felt so close to anyone, he was like an accomplice and brother. So she judged him—she always felt impelled to judge Simon, measure him—he was a grabber, but then he had never had anything so far, and also he had daring and enjoyed himself so much, so very much, he loved the suppers and the singing. So all was still well; they were happy (in spite of the war). Only Mr. James worried, he was afraid of what was brewing.

  “Simon played a trick. One day Anna came in, all emotional, but beaming this time. Wonderful news! What the devil? Your engagement of course! Simon has told me he asked you and you have given him hope.

  “Constanza was furious. Anna became agitated, Don’t tell me it isn’t true! He has asked you? As a matter of fact he had, Constanza giving him short shrift. Simon hasn’t a bean, she told her mother, besides I am much too young. Anna turned all American, What can be nicer than a young couple with their way to make, and what was she for? That didn’t appease Constanza. But you love him? Anna wailed.

  “She did, worse luck. She didn’t approve of him. That was one impediment. It may sound priggish, but she says it’s unwise to go against one’s nature, its fundamental requirements, she knew that she could only make a go of it, a real go—and that was what she wanted—with some very extraordinary kind of man, and she hadn’t met him yet. It occurs to me: Oh good God, was she a romantic, too, in her own way? No more of a realist than Anna? Surely she was clear-sighted? And isn’t that what counts?

  “Well, she didn’t admire Simon—the way she admires Michel now; I can see how much she does, that’s why I am so for it. And he is admirable. The austere ideal, the man who acts out of his principles and endures what is—can you imagine Michel Devaux saying as my father so often did, I’ve only got one life and so much time, I can’t afford to stand back? Yet, Simon was right for himself? What would he have had if he’d played the stoic? Who can tell? How can one tell?

  “After the trick of the engagement Constanza wanted to break it off then and there whatever her own feelings. They rushed out into Regent’s Park—out of earshot—and Simon told her, yes of course he was forcing her hand, it was blackmail: he did love her so, she was the right one for him and he’d take her tomorrow on five hundred pounds, if someone would lend them to him, and he did rather fancy himself as a married man at twenty-one.

  “ ‘On my mother’s money?’

  “ ‘That’s my bit of luck—the trust fund thrown in as well as your extraordinary mama. Darling, sweet Constanza, let’s do it, let’s do it now, we are going to have a jolly life you and I, let’s cock a snook at the world and the mess it’s in.’

  “Yet if she insisted he would wait, he would wait for her if he must. You presumptuous monkey, she told him, there’s nothing to wait for, I’m not going to marry you. ‘Yes, you will.’ ‘Oh, caro—why cannot we go on as we are?’

  “For a time she tried to do exactly that. Anna—of course—didn’t know that they were having an affair, so now there were awkwardnesses, unfunny lies. And Anna was getting restive, dazzled as she was by the new prospect. Constanza saw it all too well: Anna above all needed a future and here it was, a son-in-law whom she could help to make his way in the world. It was a frightful time, people were dying and dying—how could one hang on, she asked herself, to one’s private plan for a life? She loved Simon; too much to set out with him in that way—two pawns in a combinazione, a deal, even if partly his own. She loved her mother more. She was married before the spring.

  “Simon made a hash of telling his parents—he did hate them so—he went to Northumberland and came back rocking with laughter, Do you know what they are taking you for, my sweet? You and my darling principessa? Adventuresses. Scheming foreigners. Papists! That’s the worst for them; they’re cutting off my pittance if I ever see you again. ‘Dearest boy,’ said Anna, ‘you must allow me to let you depend on me.’

  “Simon went to get himself some shirts made. May I order a whole dozen, Anna?

  “Mr. James was angry (for him) and almost interfered. Constanza agreed with much of what he had to say; but he did not know of any way of not letting down Anna either.

  “There might have been a religious question. Simon was not unwilling to turn R.C. just to annoy his people. Constanza shelved it by promising to take him to Rome after the war for some slap-up ceremony; meanwhile they made do before a registrar.

  “They settled down—rather well—in that house in Regent’s Park. Simon stayed at home working for the Bar Examination, he passed the first part quite soon just as he had predicted. Then I was expected, that was rather a nuisance. They had something to worry about then: conscription. Constanza would have liked Simon to have been a conscientious objector. Simon said goodness knew he did object to being blown to pieces: but, No. In the end one had to do as one’s friends did. When I’m old I want to sit and drink my wine with them in peace (poor Simon). So he went and got himself a commission before conscription became law.

  “He was away training when I was born. Anna had me baptized by a Catholic priest. Constanza didn’t protest, she had become a . . . subdued agnostic. Simon said it was a splendid idea, that, on top of my being a girl, would guarantee his people’s keeping their paws off me. (They have ignored my existence to this very day.) The name they gave me was the old principessa’s, the prince’s mother, the kind one.

  “Then Simon was in France (an infantry officer in the trenches!). Anna was brave. She had changed, what she wanted then was victory and America to come in. Constanza told me how alone she felt between her mother and that baby; only her friends were a support, some of them, too, turning against the war. Simon away was the first young man all over again, a hundred times worse. Simon was so alive. Her existence was suspense, and prayer, this time it was prayer. For Simon’s life. (His second brother was killed at Verdun. They had that news.) In 1916 Simon was wounded; one leg was smashed by a grenade. (He walked with a limp ever after.) But he was home, honourably out of the war, everybody saying how well he had done. When they rushed to his hospital dragging hampers, he was practically levitating with relief.

  “He was given a job in Whitehall. There too he did well. In fact he was quite brilliant and promoted almost at once. Approval stimulated him and he began to work extremely hard. He began to get interested in politics, too; Anna had something to do with that at first. Men who had found him unsufferable a year or two ago began to see his abilities or his charm. They still said that he talked much too big, but they did stop treating him as a scruffy nonentity. He was offered constituencies; it was taken for granted that he would stand for Parliament in the first post-war elections.

  “Anna blossomed. Constanza was not sure. He was earning a decent salary and had been made welcome in the Liberal Party. Now she was worrying about motives. To his face.

  “ ‘You despise me, don’t you?’ he said. ‘I thought I was marrying a fellow immoralist; scratch her and it’s a New England governess.’

  “ ‘I think I almost prefer you still grabbing at peaches and silk shirts.’

  “ ‘My poor girl, there’s nothing sacred about politics.’

  “ ‘Perhaps because of people like you.’

  “ ‘Oh, you do despise me!’

  “There was more. Something that she had expected even less than ambition. Jealousy. The Yellow Monster. Simon worked late at his office then went on to places meeting people whom he ought to know, next morning he’d say to her, You were awfully late last night where have you been? Whom did you dance with? She told him. Twice? What for?

  “It put her back up. It was so against her own code. She warned him.

  “ ‘Well, what do I know?’ (Simon was drinking quite heavily then, even Mr. James said she ought to have had allowed for that.) ‘What about all those other chaps before the war? During the war for all I know? How can I trust you an inch?’

  “Constanza wouldn’t stand for an answer. Simon apologized. Next week he started again. ‘You don’t love me. You’re a true American wife: husbands come last.�
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  “Mr. James spoke to her. Simon’s had a harder war than you realize, he’s still under a strain. My doctor tells me that leg of his must still be hurting like the devil.

  “ ‘But why jealousy? Goodness knows he has no grounds.’

  “ ‘He may like you to tell him that.’

  “ ‘He ought to know.’

  “ ‘Dear girl, can’t you see that Simon isn’t as sure of himself as he likes to appear? He wants you to admire him.’

  “ ‘But I do. I love being with him. I admire his talents; I’m not sure that I trust the uses he will put them to.’

  “ ‘Yes, you do doubt him.’

  “ ‘That absurd obsession with infidelity. He’s carrying on like mama.’

  “ ‘And you, my dear? Aren’t you being the intransigent wife?’

  “ ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘I hope not. It’s only that I cannot stand possessiveness, it diminishes people.’

  “Then Mr. James sighed. ‘People are what they are.’

  “Now I must come to this quickly. For me it is the saddest part. It changed everything, again. In the last year of the war there was a girl who had a job in Simon’s office. I won’t tell you who she is because the name is a household word. Constanza and Simon used to call her Miss Mouse because she was so meek and mild and everything Simon did was perfect. The name was their joke because she didn’t look mousey at all, she was a great flashy beauty—there was some Latin blood there too, just what Simon liked—a mouse in tiger skin. She fell in love with Simon. Constanza gave him an example of how she thought one should behave, never a murmur or fuss. Miss Mouse’s father controlled a string of newspapers; he is very rich. Miss Mouse decided that she must have Simon.