Late in the evening of the same day a policeman asked to see Mrs. Verdew, who was sitting in a bedroom in the King’s Head inn at Fremby, a market town ten miles from Verdew Castle. She had been sitting there all day, getting up from time to time to glance at a slip of paper pinned to one of the pillows. It was dated, ‘7.30 a.m., July 10th,’ and said, ‘Back in a couple of hours. Have to see a man about a car. Sorry—Rollo.’ She wouldn’t believe the constable when he said that her husband had met with an accident some time early that morning, probably about five o’clock. ‘But look! But look!’ she cried. ‘See for yourself! It is his own handwriting! He says he went away at half-past seven. Why are all Englishmen so difficult to convince?’
‘We have a statement from Mr. Randolph Verdew,’ said the policeman gently. ‘He said that he . . . he . . . he met Mr. Rollo at the castle in the early hours of the morning.’
‘But how can you be so stupid!’ cried Mrs. Verdew. ‘It wasn’t Rollo—it was Mr. Rintoul who . . .’
‘What name is that?’ asked the policeman, taking out his notebook.
THE WHITE WAND
THE WHITE WAND
C.F. told me this story and I shall re-tell it, as nearly as I can, in his own words. He would certainly have wished to be anonymous, and I shall respect his wish.
‘Last summer,’ he said, ‘after an absence of many years, I revisited Venice. I used to stay there for long stretches at a time before the war, and had many friends in the Anglo-American colony. My reasons for going to Venice were partly curiosity, to see if the old spell still held, and partly in order to write—I’ve always been able to write in Venice. The apartment I used to take had been let, and I had found a new one, though of course I hadn’t seen it. Nor had I notified my friends of my arrival; I’ll tell you why Arthur, presently.
‘But I didn’t expect to be altogether alone, nor did I want to be. I had one stand-by. My gondolier, Antonio, who had served me all the times I was in Venice, was at the station to meet me. Italians are very good at welcoming one. He greeted me rapturously; he could hardly stand still: excitement wriggled from the top of his greying head to the soles of his feet. It was as if a fund of affection had been accumulating in him during the war years and now he was pouring it all out.
‘Alone of my Venetian friends I had kept in touch with him during the War. Somehow or other, by way of Portugal, or the Vatican, or the Red Cross, we had managed to communicate, and the very difficulty entailed by those manœuvres seemed to have made our friendship more precious. Though I had never succeeded in hating him as an enemy, the reaction was just as strong as if I had, and I think the same was true of him. He was much more articulate about his feelings than I was. All the way from the station to my flat, which was somewhere behind the Zattere—I’ll try to tell you where later, it’s so hard to describe where anything is in Venice—I kept screwing my head round on the cushion and looking up at him, while he leaned over his oar, his words tripping over each other he talked so fast.
‘I got more feeling from that conversation that hostilities had come to an end than I did from V.E. day or V.J. day, or indeed from anything before or since. The cold war with Russia had not yet got under way, and talking to Antonio I felt that human solidarity was once more a fact.
‘So enveloping was his personality and so infectious his goodwill that I was hardly aware of the strangeness of my new abode, he was like a strong dose of familiarity that transformed the unknown into the known. I only noticed that it was up a great many steps.
‘There was only one subject I didn’t discuss with him, and that was my friends in Venice. Partly because I thought that he wouldn’t know about them (though he was by nature a know-all), partly, and illogically, because I thought he might tell me something I didn’t want to hear, but chiefly because—well, you know how I have felt about people since the war. The whole thing was such a ghastly disappointment to me that even my closest friends were somehow involved in it—even you, Arthur. I saw even the people I liked best as somehow at each other’s throats. My personal relationships were a tender area, as the doctors say. I had dreaded my meeting with Antonio, in case it turned sour on me, like food on an acid stomach. I had jumped that hurdle, but I thought the others could be taken later. It’s one thing talking to a servant who more or less has to agree with you (at least, Italian servants feel they must), and another to broach highly controversial topics with people whose minds and feelings have to be approached as warily as if they were a Foreign Power. And I was in no mood for circumspection. If I couldn’t see eye to eye with someone, I didn’t want to see him; I couldn’t bear to be disagreed with, and I wasn’t over eager to be agreed with, either. So I didn’t ask Antonio for news of my friends, and he didn’t for the moment volunteer any.
‘I might have noticed that he and Giuseppina, the maid of all work who “went” with my new flat, were not hitting it off; but if I did notice, it didn’t register. In the confusion of arriving I forgot to introduce them to each other formally. This was a breach of etiquette, but I don’t think it would have made any difference if I had. There is never any love lost between gondoliers and indoor servants, and I think they were jealous of each other from the start. Giuseppina had not been warned that I should have this attendant, and Antonio did not trouble to disguise from her the fact that he regarded me as his possession. She looked about fifty; he was ten years older. She never let him out of her sight if she could help it, and she didn’t want him to unpack for me. At about seven o’clock, before going out, as was his custom, to celebrate with his friends, he asked me if there was anything I wanted—tobacco, cigarettes, cognac? I said I should like some cognac and he brought it back with him when he returned to wait on me at dinner. Afterwards, when he was standing in the dimly-lit sala, saying goodnight, which took him a long time for he had by no means rubbed off the patina of absence, Giuseppina circled round him like a cat round a retriever, and when he had gone she shot the big bolt—the catenaccio—across the door with a sigh of satisfaction.
‘I dined well and slept well, and the next morning what was my surprise and pleasure when Antonio appeared at eight o’clock bringing my early morning tea and beaming at me like the sun. In his other hand he was carrying something else—a bottle. He did everything with a flourish.
‘ “What have you got there?” I asked, when he had gone through our morning salutations and inquiries which, so strong is habit, took the same form they had taken in pre-war years. “It isn’t time to begin drinking yet.”
‘His expression changed and became serious, even severe.
‘ “O signore,” he said accusingly, “what a lot of cognac you drank last night!”
‘He held the bottle up to the light; it was about three-quarters full. I was surprised that I had drunk so much and said so. “I was drinking a toast to my return to Venice,” I added, apologizing for excess.
‘He accepted my explanation graciously but still with a touch of disapproval in his manner; and then suddenly his face relaxed and became sunny again.
‘ “Good news,” he said. “Signor Gretton is in Venice, he is staying at the Grand Hotel.”
‘I was dumbfounded. It was anything but good news to me. Gretton was an old friend of mine of pre-war days, not a member of the colony but a constant visitor to Venice, as I was. I liked him but I didn’t want to see him, and he would bring the whole colony buzzing round my ears.
‘ “Yes, signore,” Antonio went on, “he was leaving to-morrow, but when he heard that you were here he put his departure off a day.
‘ “How did he know that I was here?” I asked—a silly question from someone who knew the workings of the Venetian bush-telegraph as well as I did; but I was so relieved that Gretton was so to speak on the wing that I hardly knew what I was saying.
‘Antonio shrugged his shoulders. “His gondolier must have told him,” he said—forbearing to add, “And I told his gondolier.” “And he wants to know if he may dine with you to-night. He thought you wou
ld prefer that to going to his hotel—I expect he is short of money like all the English, alas.” This was a reasonable inference, but quite groundless, for Gretton is the soul of hospitality.
‘So Gretton came to dinner and it wasn’t at all the flop I thought it would be. The moment I saw his tall, thin figure Venice seemed to become itself and I could scarcely believe that so many years had rolled by. Gretton is a man of generous impulses, quick enthusiasms and equally quick resentments. But I didn’t feel uneasy with him, still less quarrel with him, for the things that upset him were always personal matters—someone had treated him badly or had treated badly someone in whom he was interested. If he simmered with small resentments or flared up in sudden indignation these outbursts were like safety-valves, and no pressure of basic disagreement could form while they were spurting; he didn’t reawaken the slumbering feud I had with almost everyone. There was just one thing: his eyes didn’t light up when he saw me, and he didn’t smile; he looked surprised, and I know why. It wasn’t only that I looked much older; it was the sour expression I have now—you needn’t tell me I haven’t, I catch a glimpse of it in the glass sometimes.
‘Well, it was very hot and we sat on the terrace with the night above us and below us, sipping iced water—it was much too hot to drink anything else. I went back in Gretton’s gondola to his hotel, and walked home, revelling in the Venetian night which was like gold thread on black velvet: and it was nearly one o’clock when I reached the flat.
‘Next morning Antonio again appeared with my early tea and I remember not feeling surprised—for I was in the befuddled state between sleeping and waking, when one is disposed to accept everything as a matter of course—to see the brandy bottle in his other hand. Having greeted me he assumed a stem, even a shocked expression, and said:
‘ “O signore, what a lot of cognac you and Mr. Gretton drank last night! Ma quanto! Quanto! “What a lot, what a lot!” And he held the bottle up for my inspection: it was more than half empty.
‘ “But, Antonio,’ I said, now thoroughly mystified, “we didn’t drink any cognac. It was much too hot.”
‘He turned away, but not before I had seen his expression change, and went to the window and looked out.
‘ “Forse mi sbaglio,” he said. “Perhaps I am mistaken.”
‘ “But you can’t be mistaken,” I said. “Someone has drunk it.”
‘At that he turned away from the window and observed, significantly:
‘ “Signore, you were better off in your old flat.”
‘It was plain what he meant. He meant that if I hadn’t drunk the brandy, Giuseppina had. I didn’t answer, but I suddenly remembered how, all those years ago in my old flat, my stock of brandy sometimes used to dwindle, not in this sensational and dramatic fashion, but little by little. After breakfast I was still pondering upon this, and wondering who was the culprit, when in came Giuseppina. She said nothing but beckoned to me, and I saw that she was carrying in her hand a key. She led me from the room where I was sitting to the dining-room, where she fitted the key into the lock of the cellarette. Then she pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows, and withdrew.
‘Later in the morning Gretton called to say good-bye to me. I was so pleased to see him and thought it so good of him to come, on the morning of his departure, that I forgot the problem of the missing brandy. But when I was asking him if he would have a drink I remembered it and told him.
‘He was up in arms at once.
‘ “How monstrous! Let me see the bottle.”
‘I brought it and before I could protest, indeed before I knew what he was up to, he had taken out his fountain pen and scored a thick black line across the label to mark the level of the brandy.
‘ “That’ll teach him,” he said.
‘After Gretton was gone I wondered if I should lock the cellarette and take away the key. I couldn’t bring myself to do that; it was too flagrantly hostile an act, and against someone to whom I was very much attached. But all the same, my resentment mounted. I shouldn’t have minded so much if Antonio had just sipped the brandy on the sly; it was this ridiculous act he had put on this “commedia” as the Italians call it, imagining he could so easily throw dust in my eyes. You can’t throw dust in people’s eyes without getting some of it in your own; and that’s what had happened to him. And then, when he saw the first cock wouldn’t fight, to try to put the blame on Giuseppina! Was there every such a misguided piece of cleverness? What a fool he must think me! That is the Italians all over, I thought; they are not content with theft, they must give it a panache, an extra twist to make them feel how smart they are, what artists. No doubt Antonio was telling the story to his fellow-gondoliers at the traghetto, and it would lose nothing in the telling. In Italy, I thought, there is no public opinion against dishonesty; as long as a man is ingenious about it, and successful (for Italians adore success), they think the better of him.
‘I would willingly have given Antonio a bottle of brandy if he had asked me, but he would rather steal it than take it as a gift, because any nit-wit can have something given to him, but only the clever can steal it. I suppose you would say it’s one of the things that make Italians so human.’
It was time to break in.
‘I shouldn’t say so,’ I protested.
‘Well, I thought you might. But I couldn’t see it in that light. All through the war, in England, stopping at strange hotels and places up and down the country, and not only at hotels, I had been the victim of innumerable acts of pilfering—don’t tell me, Arthur, please don’t tell me, that the war has done our morals any good. All the little trinkets I possessed—yes, and necessities, too—were pinched from me—watches, watch-chains, cuff-links, travelling clocks—even the shirt off my back, when it was new enough. The war turned us into a nation of thieves—oh yes, it did, Arthur, whatever you may say. And to have this happening all over again in Venice it was too maddening.’ My friend looked away from me and the sour look came into his face.
‘All the rest of that day, until dinner-time, Antonio was charming—so attentive, he couldn’t do enough for me. It seemed as though he could hardly get used to the idea that I was back and had a fresh shock of pleasure every time he saw me. I have never been able to find the same thing more than once, but he seemed able to rediscover me many times. That is all very well, I thought; but how do I know that this mood is more genuine than the other? How do I know that it isn’t the brandy he is rediscovering, not me? So I turned a rather glum face to his smiles. But I didn’t take any further steps and didn’t mean to take any, so that when the storm burst it took me completely by surprise.
‘It happened while he was laying the table for dinner. In my old flat he always laid the table. He had his own way of doing it, which was not quite orthodox by English or indeed by Italian standards; and Giuseppina, in pointing this out to me, also observed that she was accustomed to doing it herself. I said that perhaps later on I would tell him not to bother with the table. But I didn’t mean to, knowing it would hurt his feelings.
‘Yet when he burst into my sitting-room with a face twisted and black with rage, my first thought was that it must have something to do with this dispute, this “questione” about the table-laying. Then I saw the brandy-bottle; he was not carrying it delicately in the palm of his large hand, he was grasping it by the neck and looked as if he meant to hit me with it: perhaps I was lucky that he didn’t. I jumped up and said:
‘ “What’s the matter, Antonio?”
‘He came towards me and thrust the bottle under my eyes.
‘ “Who did this?” he demanded in (I don’t exaggerate) a strangled voice.
‘I saw the accusing black line across the label.
‘ “I did,” I said. It was the easiest thing to say, the truth would have involved too many explanations which would, in any case, have been lost upon his fury. Besides, I was to blame for the line being there.
‘ “Does it mean that you have wished to suspect me——?” he began
in the same choking voice.
‘Suddenly I saw red. I wasn’t sure that his anger was genuine. I thought he might be putting it on, using his bad temper as a weapon to terrorize me and bounce me into believing he was innocent; and this made me still more angry. I took a long breath.
‘ “I don’t know whom to suspect,” I said. “Tutti gli Italiani sono ladri, specialmente i gondolieri”—“all Italians are thieves, especially gondoliers.”
‘I shouldn’t have said it, of course, but at the moment I was glad to have said it, I wanted to do him the greatest injury I could. I might have stuck a dagger into his heart if I had had one, and felt the same satisfaction.
‘Antonio went as white as a sheet—the only time I have seen him without colour. His normal complexion was a shade darker than brick-red. I remember his once saying to me, alluding to his complexion, “I am red, I have always been red, and when I am dead I shall still be red.”
‘A moment later he was red again, redder than I have ever seen him. He looked away from me, dashed the bottle down on the mosaic terrazzo, squared his shoulders, turned round, and walked out of the room stiffly, like a soldier.
‘I sat down and laughed weakly. In doing so I too was putting on an act, but to impress myself, not someone else. How long I sat there I don’t know, but suddenly I noticed a strong smell and, looking down, I saw a long rivulet of brandy curling round my feet. Dark fragments of broken glass littered the terrazzo, which I now saw was slightly splintered where the bottle had struck it. What would Giuseppina say to all this? I went to look for her and found her in the kitchen, placidly beating up a zabaione.
‘ “Where is Antonio?” I asked.
‘Her face became expressionless, as it always did when I mentioned his name.
‘ “Isn’t he in the dining-room?” she said, as if the dining-room would be contaminated by his presence.
The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley Page 34
