by Dorothy Eden
“You won’t be too cruel, will you, Miss Hurst?”
“Aunt Tameson, are you suggesting I am cruel!” Charlotte exclaimed. “That’s unfair. I couldn’t be doing more to help you. But someone has to be a little practical.”
“Practical people are so dull. I was never one of those, thank goodness. I don’t believe Miss Hurst looks very practical either. She’s too pretty. Why isn’t she married?”
“Now that’s her business, aunt.” There was an edge to Charlotte’s voice, as if this were a question she herself would have liked to ask.
“I expect Daniel engaged her. A man always has an eye for a pretty woman and by the look of him, your Daniel’s no better than others.” The old woman sounded malicious. It seemed as if she didn’t care too much for Charlotte, perhaps because she resented being dependent on her.
Charlotte sighed. “I have explained, Aunt Tameson. We needed extra help. We hadn’t expected Eliza to get ill, and if you must know, we hadn’t thought you would be so feeble. Actually, it was Flora who took a fancy to Miss Hurst, and the doctor has said her wishes aren’t to be crossed, though I must say I don’t entirely agree with that. So now you have the whole story, and it’s time we left you. You must try to sleep. And no walking about in the night counting your possessions. I’ve ordered Fernanda to sleep in here and see that you don’t wander.”
The old lady looked crafty and petulant.
“Why shouldn’t I look at my possessions while I still have them? Soon enough they’ll be gone.”
“And you’ll be at Winterwood, not needing any of them. Forgive me if I sound hard, but you know this is the doctor’s orders. You must rest and get strong for the long journey.”
“You mean otherwise I’ll be listening to those screeching cicadas for all eternity. I’d rather have an English thrush singing on my grave.”
“And so you shall. We’ll take you safely home. But you must promise to be good.”
“Oh, I’ll be good, since I must. Only let us get started. We haven’t all the time in the world. Am I unfaithful, forsaking Lorenzo to lie with my little Tom? But Tom came before Lorenzo. He was my baby. And there was his father. Once I loved him very much. But I was so young. Only seventeen. And he had to get himself killed at Waterloo before little Tom had a chance to know his papa. I must say though,” her eyes twinkled with some dry amusement, “Willie would have been astonished to know that I would be dying a countess. I wonder which husband I shall choose on the other side, Willie or Lorenzo. I admit that I enjoyed Lorenzo’s title and money. Poor Willie was only a captain of Hussars. But I don’t suppose there are any titles in heaven. I daresay we are all leveled into the same dull position.”
“How can you be so irreverent, Aunt Tameson?”
“Now don’t be cross, Charlotte. I enjoyed my title and I shall dislike giving it up. That is the truth.”
Charlotte seemed upset as they left the gloomy room.
“I can’t tell you, Miss Hurst, how these visits to my aunt upset me. The old will be so morbid, and I hate death.”
“I think perhaps your aunt is frightened, too, Mrs. Meryon.”
“Oh, no, she is very strong-minded. Anyway, I don’t believe she means to die at all.”
It seemed as if the words slipped out without Charlotte’s intending them to. She immediately went on, “Naturally Daniel and I hope she will enjoy a long happy time at Winterwood. That’s why it’s important to make this journey as easy as possible for her.”
Lavinia had noticed a peculiar musty smell in the house, as if it had been shut up for years. Now, in the flickering candlelight of the large marble-floored sala, she saw dust on the heavily carved furniture and statues and ornaments. The floor looked as if it hadn’t been properly swept for months.
There had been the same musty smell, overlaid by the clinging violet perfume, in Aunt Tameson’s room.
“Are there no servants except that one we saw?” she asked.
It was a casual question, and shouldn’t have prompted such a sharp, suspicious look from Charlotte.
“Why do you ask?”
“Nothing has been properly dusted. What are the other rooms like?”
Charlotte threw up her hands.
“Don’t talk about them. Chaos! I wouldn’t have told you this if you hadn’t mentioned it, but my poor aunt has really grown quite eccentric. After being used to a horde of servants when her husband the Count, was alive, she apparently decided she couldn’t stand their noise and clatter and dismissed them all except a girl to clean and shop, and the old one who died. She has been living here in virtual isolation, seeing nobody, and thinking herself poor. That’s a hallucination of the old, I believe. You saw the way she can’t bear to throw anything away. But please don’t talk of this, Miss Hurst. One doesn’t gossip about one’s relatives’ infirmities.”
“Naturally I won’t talk about it,” Lavinia said stiffly.
“I particularly meant to Flora. That child is a jackdaw for gossip. She mustn’t be allowed to think her great-aunt peculiar. Nor must Edward. Children develop secret nightmares about things like that. I want them both to be fond of the poor old lady. They may give her a little pleasure in her last years.”
Charlotte, Lavinia divined, would have liked to have said last months, or even last weeks. Naturally she couldn’t be expected to have any fondness for an aunt she hadn’t seen since she was a child. But she scarcely needed to be a hypocrite. Or did she? Wasn’t it better that way, pretending an affection and concern she didn’t feel. At least it gave a more civilized veneer to the affair, and the poor Lady Tameson could deceive herself that she was being cherished.
Lavinia had found the long strange day quite exhausting. She thought she would sleep soundly, but contrarily it was too hot and she was too strung up and queerly apprehensive. She hadn’t seen Daniel at all. She had had her supper with the children, and gone to her room after they were settled in bed. Then she had begun thinking of the lonely old woman a prisoner in the dusty palazzo, and this had taken her depressed thoughts to Robin, who was even more of a prisoner. Finally she had got up to throw open the long narrow window and see if the moon was shining on the lagoon as it had done last night.
She thought its beauty would soothe her. It was very late, past midnight, and there was only a small knot of gondoliers lounging on the quay, talking vociferously, as usual. But no—there were still some strollers. Two people, a man and a woman, walked slowly down the humped bridge over the canal and toward the hotel. As they approached the door, the woman put her hand on the man’s arm, indicating to him that she didn’t want him to come farther. She wore a dark cloak and was heavily veiled. The man took off his hat and bowed exaggeratedly in a mocking way. Then he laughed. His laugh was quite audible and completely recognizable. It was that of Jonathon Peate.
Lavinia was almost certain that the veiled woman was Charlotte.
There was something peculiarly clandestine about them. Charlotte, if it were Charlotte, was hurrying from him as if she were extremely anxious to get away. Yet she paused to look back and he waved. As if he had her under some spell…
The next day Charlotte left Lavinia in the downstairs drawing room of Aunt Tameson’s house to fold and pack a pile of clothing and other objects.
“I hope you have been trained to pack neatly, Miss Hurst.”
Lavinia said with truth that she had. Three months in Cousin Marion’s employment had taught her that. But she doubted if she could constrict this mass of belongings—feather boas, bonnets, gowns, fans, buttoned boots, boxes of gloves, parasols, a large Bible with gilt clasps, bundles of letters tied with lavender ribbon—into boxes.
Over everything hung the violet perfume, making the large room, darkened by closed shutters, stifling and full of ghosts.
The silence was unbearably oppressive. The whole house was silent. It hardly seemed that there was an old woman still living upstairs. No wonder Lady Tameson wanted to be taken away to escape the ghosts of the past. There wa
s not even the cheery chatter and bustle of servants, for Fernanda, the plump, slatternly maid, couldn’t speak English,
Charlotte had asked Lavinia if she spoke Italian.
“No more than a few words.”
“Then if you want Fernanda for anything you’ll have to use sign language. But you shouldn’t need her. And don’t disturb my aunt. She’s resting.”
It was obvious that Charlotte, having had to employ Lavinia against her will, was now going to make the utmost use of her. Flora had threatened to make a scene when she had heard that Lavinia was not to be at her sole disposal that day, but calmed down when told that her father would be taking her and Edward out.
With the scent of the Contessa’s past gaiety cloying her nostrils, Lavinia thought wistfully of the children, perhaps taking a gondola ride with their father, or eating ices in the Piazza San Marco while the great bells rang from the Campanile, and the pigeons wheeled with rattling wings. She worked hard, slowly reducing the pile of objects to be folded and packed. A long necklace of black and gold Venetian beads, a pair of lavender kid gloves, an elaborate program tied with silk cord from Teatro La Fenice—Il Trovatore—a set of the works of William Shakespeare in red leather with faded gilt lettering, a Venetian leather box containing the Count’s decorations. Thirty years of a woman’s life.
Once a door closed somewhere. Once Fernanda called something upstairs, but the answer, if there was one, was inaudible.
Lavinia, suddenly suffocated, opened a shutter, and the hot sun struck her in the face. Water sucked beneath her, leaving slimy green marks on the ancient wall. The black prows of passing gondolas dipped and rose; a gondolier was shouting vociferously, his voice dying over the water.
She imagined long-ago guests arriving here for parties, the ladies delicately lifting their skirts to climb the slippery steps, the great lamps over the doorway glowing, and the sounds of violins coming from this mirrored and polished room.
Now the mirrors were empty, or almost, since they had nothing to reflect but shrouded furniture and trunks that could have been coffins. Was all the house as gloomy as this room? Lavinia suddenly had the impulse to explore.
She went softly up the marble staircase and, tip-toeing past Lady Tameson’s door, which was closed, began opening doors along the corridor. The rooms were all bedrooms, all furnished with massive four-posters and heavy wardrobes, all empty, all musty, with a mingled scent of canal water and age. She was examining a prie-dieu, obviously meant for more devout guests, when she heard quick, firm steps on the stairs.
Fernanda called, “Signor!” and something more in Italian. The door leading into Lady Tameson’s bedroom opened and shut.
The doctor?
Lavinia lingered a moment, then was ashamed of her curiosity and went softly downstairs.
Halfway down she heard Lady Tameson give a stifled exclamation, as of disgust. Or fear? After that there was no more sound.
She was closing the last trunk when the footsteps came back down the stairs. If they belonged to the doctor, he would go straight on out the door through which he had apparently admitted himself. If they were Daniel’s, he would come in to inspect her progress.
She bent over her work as the door opened.
“Can I help you with that, Miss Hurstmonceaux?”
She stiffened over the trunk fastenings. She would have thought it impossible, in the airless heat, to feel cold, but chills went over her just as they had done in the London courtroom.
It took all her willpower to straighten herself and look around calmly.
“Thank you, Mr. Peate. But I have almost finished. And you have made a mistake with my name.”
“I do beg your pardon. Of course. You’re Miss Hurst. Flora’s new companion.” Jonathon Peate was looking at her with his bold impertinence. “In this somewhat dim light you looked exactly like another young lady I saw not long ago. Miss Hurstmonceaux. Lavinia Hurstmonceaux,” he added with deliberation.
“It’s very easy to make a mistake. I hope you found your aunt well.”
“As well as can be expected. And how are you enjoying your new position, Miss Hurst?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“Splendid. I’m glad to hear it. I will look forward to renewing our acquaintance at Winterwood.”
“At Winterwood!”
“Don’t look so surprised, Miss Hurst. Or is it alarm I see in your face? It’s too dark in here to see much at all. Why don’t you have a shutter open?” He crossed to one of the windows and threw open a shutter. The light streaming on his face seemed to heighten his ruddy color. “There, now I can see you. You really are quite extraordinarily like that other lady.”
“What an odd coincidence,” Lavinia said coldly.
“It certainly is. And don’t admire my good memory. One simply doesn’t forget quickly your kind of looks. And hers, of course. But I’m scarcely flattering you by confusing you with her. She wasn’t exactly in enviable circumstances.” He laughed softly as he added, “Cousin Charlotte has invited me to spend some time at Winterwood. I believe I shall enjoy that.” He wrinkled his nose. “I say, these Venetian smells aren’t exactly lavender water. I’ll have to close this again. Stuffiness is the better of two evils. You will have to try to survive, Miss Hurst. I’m sure my young relative Flora would be most upset if you didn’t.”
Was that a threat? Why would he threaten her?
When he had gone, shutting the door with a bang and calling in his loud jovial voice for the gondolier, Lavinia tried to reassure herself. She was feeling a little sick. She couldn’t be certain that Jonathon Peate knew who she was. He might have been only guessing. He must have seen her on one of the days of that interminable two weeks of the trial. She knew there had been a great number of sightseers, particularly men. Surely it wasn’t her bad fortune to meet one of them so quickly. But she did remember the strange searching look he had given her in the hotel yesterday. Some memory had nagged at him then. Later he must have remembered what it was.
So now he was either certain, of his knowledge, or bluffing.
But why? Did he think that, scared of his betraying her secret, she would allow him to put her to some future use?
Rather than that, she would let him tell the whole truth.
But it would hurt Flora, who had conceived this sudden ardent affection for her, dreadfully. She didn’t yet return Flora’s affection, but she was extremely reluctant to have that tragic little figure in her wheelchair hurt.
And Daniel? How would he accept such news? Lavinia clenched her hands, feeling them gritty with dust, and beginning to shudder with revulsion and despair. Daniel mustn’t know. She couldn’t bear him to know. Her chin lifted and hardened. Perhaps Mr. Jonathon Peate would get a surprise himself when he found that she was not so easy to manipulate after all. He forgot that she had come through an experience not designed to make her easily frightened or to rely on tears. When lies were of value, she would tell them without compunction. Let him find out how little she could be terrorized.
But what exactly was he up to?
It seemed that Jonathon had scarcely gone before the doorbell clanged.
That would be Charlotte coming back to see if her work was finished, and to pay her second visit of the day to Aunt Tameson.
Fernanda flapped across the sala in her loose espadrilles.
The door opened. Daniel’s voice said, “I have come for Miss Hurst, Fernanda,” and Lavinia was hurriedly wiping the moisture off her cheeks.
“Have you finished, Miss Hurst?” Daniel was in the doorway. “My wife has a bad headache, so I have come for you. I’ll just go upstairs and pay my respects to the Contessa. We plan to leave Venice next Monday. I have been making all the bookings.”
The old house was suddenly alive again. Lavinia sat on a trunk until Daniel came downstairs. She knew in that brief passage of time that nothing could ever make her confess her past. She desired so ardently that he think well of her.
Then he was in the do
orway again, not smiling, but looking at her with his too observant eyes.
“You have streaks down your cheeks, Miss Hurst. Is it the heat?”
Lavinia opened her eyes wide, willing the tears to be dry.
“Yes, it’s dreadfully hot. I tried opening the shutters, but that made it worse. But I’ve got everything packed to the last handkerchief, in spite of an interruption by Mr. Peate.”
“What did he want?” Daniel’s voice had ceased to be friendly.
“He made a call on his aunt.”
“Deathbeds become quite a family reunion, had you ever noticed, Miss Hurst?”
“I am not very familiar with deathbeds, Mr. Meryon.”
“No. Well—the old lady seems fond of Mr. Peate, or so my wife assures me, so I expect he does no harm. I wonder if I could make Fernanda understand that we would like some lemon tea. You look fatigued.”
Lavinia was about to protest, then subsided gratefully.
“That would be very pleasant, Mr. Meryon. I confess I do feel a little tired.”
Again, while he was gone, she forgot to tidy herself, but sat waiting passively for him to return. He was gone for a long time and when he returned he was carrying the tea tray himself.
“This isn’t a conventional establishment. My wife’s aunt seems to be quite eccentric. Apparently she refuses to pay servants. She imagines they rob her. Well, by tomorrow there won’t be much to rob her of.” He threw the dust sheet off a tapestry-backed chair and sat down. “It’s sad, don’t you agree, seeing a great house break up.”
He knew that the marks on her cheeks had been made by tears. He was giving her the opportunity to attribute them to the air of pervading and haunted melancholy in this old house.
“Yes, I wonder who will live here next. Shall I pour the tea, Mr. Meryon?”
“Please do. A rich American, perhaps. They are beginning to discover Europe and the fascination of living in houses to which centuries have given their individual atmosphere. Winterwood is like that. Each generation has added something to it. My grandfather built the ballroom, my great-grandfather had the gardens landscaped. My father contented himself with bringing back statuary from Greece and Egypt. We have sphinxes on the terrace. My grandfather built the Temple of Virtue in the shrubbery. He was a wonderful old pagan.”
