Harriet Smart: The Romances, page 44
“Scusi, signor…” The girl had crept over to him. “Possible es…” She was struggling with her Italian. But it was clear she wanted to look at his sketch in progress. “Oh dear,” she said, in a distinct Scottish accent: Edinburgh if he was not mistaken. He could not help smiling and turned to meet her gaze.
And saw something puzzling and familiar.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he managed to say, trying to think where he knew her from.
“Oh, you’re –” she said, smiling.
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
“Oh, Mr Henty, he’s Scottish!” exclaimed the girl.
The gentleman came over.
“I thought we might have a countryman in our sights,” said the gentleman, taking off his hat to Will. “That crook, sir – well, I have a farm near Peebles, and my man Donald made one of those for me. Edward Henty at your service, sir. That is a fine sketch, by the way. You have got the girls and the cat to the life – and cats are hard to draw, I believe – young Sophie here informs me so, at least.”
“They are manageable while they sleep,” conceded Will.
Sophie, he thought – whom did he know called Sophie? Was not her sister...? He dismissed the thought.
“I cannot even draw them when they sleep,” Sophie said.
“You need a nice soft piece of chalk – this red chalk is good.”
“I have never tried that,” said Sophie. “I must.”
“Do you give lessons, sir?” said Mr Henty. “Forgive the question, but I know young artists are sometimes not too proud to supplement their expenses with a little teaching. It is not the easiest profession to establish yourself in, I think.”
“Oh no, I am just amusing myself,” Will said. “It is not my profession. Someone suggested I take up drawing again to get myself through a difficult convalescence. A wise person.”
He broke off, unable to stop himself looking at Sophie. What was it about her? Was it her nose – it seemed so reminiscent of Adela, but that was impossible, surely? Yet her younger sister was a Sophie.
But the world was full of Sophies. Edinburgh was full of Sophies, for that matter.
“It should be your profession, sir,” said Sophie. “I like this very much. And you are right, Mr Henty, the cat is lovely. And you have got him in only a few tiny strokes. That is clever.”
“I would be happy to give you the benefit of my little experience, if you would sit for me,” said Will. He reached into his coat and took out his card and handed it to Mr Henty. He had not arranged to get them printed – his mother had ordered them back in May when he had first come into the inheritance. “If that is not a disagreeable idea?”
“I would love to sit for you, sir,” said Sophie. “And my sister would too, don’t you think, Mr Henty? That would amuse her. She has been ill and has seen nothing of the city yet. It is dull for her.”
“Yes, yes, I think so,” said Henty, handing the card to Sophie. “Sir William, it would be an honour indeed. We are at the Danieli,” he added, handing Will his own card.
~
Adela was still feeling rather fragile. She had been unwell – a chill and a fever, and a sore throat which had made it hard to speak. There was nothing that warranted the attentions of a doctor, but it had been enough to keep her to her bed and subsist on chicken broth, black tea with honey and little else.
She had got up and dressed for the first time in three days, and had been sitting on the balcony watching the life of the city beyond, a piece of sewing in her hands, but not a stitch made.
“Can you speak yet?” said Sophie, coming out onto the balcony.
“A little. How was your walk?”
“We found these for you,” Sophie said, laying the flowers in her lap.
“Oh, how lovely!”
“The last rose of summer,” Sophie sang. “We had better press some for Carrie, if we can. We met an interesting artist, by the Arsenale,” Sophie went on, sitting down beside her, “who can draw cats. And wants to draw me.”
“Very interesting,” Adela said. “And was he handsome?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Sophie. “He had a shepherd’s crook and is Scottish. He’s not really an artist, he’s a gentleman traveller. Quite a name, according to Mr Henty.”
“What name?”
“Urquhart,” said Sophie, picking up the flowers from Adela’s lap. “These need a vase.”
And thankfully Adela was left alone to take in this information.
She stared out at the arched and pillared windows of the house opposite. Earlier she had been wondering who might live behind those latticed windows, what stories those buildings had accumulated over the years.
Venice seemed to be full of whispers, where the past lingered longer than it did anywhere else. Then should she be surprised to find her own past creeping up on her, just as the water from the canals seemed to cover the pavements, making them dangerous to walk upon? And now she had a dangerous passage to negotiate if she were to preserve herself.
She wanted to call out to Sophie and get more details of what had happened. Had he learnt who Sophie was? A Miss Sophie Ross who looked vaguely familiar would be bound to make him wonder if she was not her Sophie. She had mentioned Sophie more than her other sisters, and although they had different coloured hair, their features had a similar cast.
But her voice was too sore to call out, and she felt too weak to get up and pursue the answers she needed. So instead she sat and tumbled the information about in her head. What on earth was Sir William doing in Venice, if this Urquhart was her Sir William?
My Sir William, she thought: he is certainly not that. Yet how easy it was to be proprietary about him, the husband who was not her husband.
And she leant back in her chair and in her fragility, she allowed her mind to wander into some foolish places. She pictured herself sitting here, and his discovering her, and taking her hand and kissing it. She imagined him making some sincere, distinguished lover-like remarks, rather in the form of the novel that Mrs Henty had been reading aloud to them. But these visions soon collapsed, as if the puppet strings she was pulling had been abruptly cut and the marionettes lay sprawled on the floor, broken and tangled.
For Sir William was not the exemplary hero of a silver fork novel. He could never be. He could not be expected to behave predictably, let alone honourably. He had married her on a whim to get himself out of a difficult legal situation. He was a man who had suggested seducing her for their mutual amusement, for the sake of intimate recreation, after all. He was a man who had got her to agree to such a plan.
Why, then, was she such a fool as to imagine he had come, like a knight on a white horse, to play the conventional husband and walk hand in hand with her into a sunlit garden of straightforward marriage? It was ridiculous to expect such things of him.
A TEMPTING PROPOSAL
Chapter Thirty-six
At the Casa Guerdicini, in her second floor drawing room, the Contessa Theresa, was holding court with various other ladies of the Venetian nobility. They nibbled on tiny almond biscuits and sipped little glasses of liqueur while discussing the latest round of births, deaths and marriages.
Will had got himself admitted to this feminine assembly by begging the favour of recording the scene in a sketch. He was treated with a mixture of curiosity and pity at first, but eventually they seemed to forget all about him as he sat with his chalk and drawing board on a low stool in the corner.
The sketch went well, and would make an excellent companion piece to the lacemakers of the morning. Should he work them up into paintings? He was in some need of something serious to work at. Two large pieces like that – Venetian conversations, he might describe them – would certainly give him a chance to test his oil painting skills to a degree that they had not been tested before. The possibility of failure was strong, of course, but it was an interesting challenge.
And an excellent distraction, he thought, glancing across the room at the ladies. The light in the room was enough to keep a man working for years to capture it. Elusive, beautiful Venetian light…
The Contessa rose from her seat and came over to him. She looked him over carefully.
“You look pale, signor,” she said. “You must not work so hard.”
“There is no danger of that,” he said, putting down his board.
“Come and take some wine with us,” she said.
He struggled to his feet and limped over to the group.
“You must have many acquaintances in Venice, signor,” said one of the ladies, a straight-backed matriarch whose distinguished profile had been particularly challenging to draw. “I am always hearing English voices at the moment. We are overrun with them.”
“Rather the English than the Austrians,” said another, with knots of red ribbon in her dark hair and a slightly impish manner.
“I am surprised the signor does not have his wife with him,” remarked the matriarch.
“I do not think the signor has a wife yet,” said the Contessa with a smile.
“Then you must write to your parents, signor, and tell them to find you one,” said the matriarchal lady, who clearly enjoyed speaking her opinions plainly. “You are too old not to be married. And clearly you need a wife to look after you.”
“But English men and women choose for themselves, I hear,” put in the lady with the red ribbons. “Is that not true, signor?”
“I am a Scotsman,” Will said, “but yes, that is the usual thing in Britain.”
“A very imperfect system,” said the first lady. “What follies that must lead to!”
“I think it is romantic,” said the lady with the ribbons. “Perhaps the signor will find a wife among the English visitors. I saw some very pretty girls yesterday in the Piazza San Marco. They have quite a different way of dressing from us, I think. So simple and yet so elegant. It quite makes me want to go shopping in London!”
Will thought of his encounter with the mysterious Miss Sophie in her pale linen and striped sash. He had her guardian Mr Henty’s card in his waistcoat pocket. He could see her face very clearly in his mind, or rather what he wanted her face to be. For he was sure that he was making her resemble Adela in his imagination because some foolish part of him wanted desperately to believe that she might be in Venice.
He took his leave of the ladies and went downstairs to his vast and empty salone. He went to the balcony, and stood looking out at the Grand Canal for some minutes, trying to decide what to do, fingering Mr Henty’s card, and wondering if he should just fling it into the water and be done with it.
He ought to pack his bags and quit Venice at once. There were friends in Rome who would be glad to see him. There would be uncomplicated sensual diversions as well – and that, as he recovered his bodily strength, he had begun to want again.
But then if Adela was here, if there was even some slight chance of seeing her, of talking with her again… then how could he ever tear himself away?
He turned back into the salone, and saw his belongings scattered about: the wretched debris of a traveller disfiguring the majestic beauty of the room. Why had he taken up this foolish life again? Why had he not stayed at Balnagowan and done some good? Elliot had told him as much, and yet to stay there alone would have been meaningless. She had made the place alive for the brief time she had been there, just as she had made the grubby stage at Macreadie’s alive. He pictured her walking across the salone now, stopping to examine some detail, making some acute observation that could not fail to amuse or stimulate him.
And I sent her away. I sent her away, because...
She had awoken in him the thing that he feared. He did not want to be in love and yet, it seemed, he was. For what else could cause the impossible, dry-throated longing that now swept over him?
Why else was he seeing her face in strange girls?
Why did those women talking of marriage and wives so disconcert him, and fill him with shame at what he had done?
Why was he left feeling so wretched and hollow, if he were not in love?
He looked again at Henty’s card. It was a little token of Edinburgh, of Scotland, of everything he had left behind.
Well, he would go and call on them, just to settle the matter. That or stay there and die from self-torture.
~
It was after six when the servant came in with his card. Adela was alone – Mr and Mrs Henty and Sophie had gone out sightseeing.
She wondered for a moment if she should send him away, but that would not answer any of the questions that had been tormenting her all afternoon. So she said she was at home.
In a moment he was at the threshold, dressed again in his white linen coat and battered straw hat – clothes that looked right in Venice.
He walked across the room with a heavy limp. It looked as if his entire leg were made of wood, but she was astonished enough to see him walking, and with colour in his cheeks that was not from fever.
She scrambled to her feet and stared at him. She found herself clasping her hands together. It was her instinct to reach out and take his hands, and squeeze them, just from the joy of seeing that he could walk again. But she restrained herself, clasping her own hands together instead.
“Mr Robertson saved your leg, after all,” she managed to say.
“Yes, he did. Something of a miracle.”
“You look well,” she said. She found she was smiling with relief. “But thin.”
“I was always thin,” he said. “I am glad to see you are looking well also. Your sister said…”
“You guessed she was my sister?” She blushed at her stupidity in saying it when it was obvious. “Of course you did.”
“She has a strong look of you. But it was slightly surprising to run across her.”
“I saw you at the opera!” she burst out. “That was astonishing.”
“You did?”
“Three nights ago – at Lucretia Borgia. It was the night I was taken ill. I thought you were a hallucination brought on by the fever. Or a ghost. I thought –”
She broke off.
“Where were you sitting?” he asked.
“Just opposite but one. I was hiding behind a curtain with Sophie because the officers in the box next to yours were looking at us rather too much.”
“And you are quite well now?”
“I think so. Yes,” she said, although now she scarcely felt it. “Won’t you sit down?”
“Thank you,” he said, and took a chair opposite her. She sat down too and was glad to. She felt frail and awkward.
“So, why did you come to Venice?” she asked.
“Why does anyone come to Venice?” he said. “Why did you come?”
“Because…” she made a vague gesture with her hand towards the window and the view beyond.
“Quite,” he said. “Venice is a glittering seductress that none of us can resist, at least any of us who have an eye for beauty. Which I know you do.”
“I do?”
“Yes. You are brim full of discernment.”
“Perhaps.”
“I shouldn’t really be surprised to run across you here. It is just the same as your buying an opera ticket. Putting my money to excellent use.”
“Yes,” she said. “It has been pleasant to be able to travel. For which I thank you.”
He inclined his head.
“So why are you here?” she asked again.
“To amuse myself,” he said. “I have been through quite a dull stretch, as you might imagine. I was determined to get away the first moment I could. My mother threatened to break my other leg when I said I was going.”
“Surely not?”
“Surely,” he said. “She has enjoyed it all greatly. She is now the first lady in the neighbourhood – and the mistress of a great house. You should have stayed, really, for she has got her way too easily. She has got all the credit for my miraculous recovery, which is not at all fair. You and Mrs Hay were the real architects.”
“Mrs Hay, yes, but –”
“Remember you told me to take up drawing to amuse myself?”
“Yes.”
“I took you at your word. I have been working at it, and it has done me more good than you can imagine.”
She knew she was flushing again, and was furious at herself.
“Sophie did say you can draw cats, and I cannot believe they are easy to do.”
“They are not,” he said. “None of it is easy, but I am encouraged that with work, I may improve. And even if I do not improve, I am kept calm and content. You did me a good turn, Lady Urquhart.”
“Please, I would rather that you did not call me that. I do not go by that name.”
“I gather not, since your sister did not recognise my name. What have you told them?”
“She knows I am married but not to whom. I did not want to embarrass anyone. I am Mrs Frazer.”
“And where is the mysterious Mr Frazer?”
“In America, on business.”
“That is a terrible banishment. Poor fellow.”
“I am sorry. It was the best I could think of. I did not want to say I was a widow yet.”
“Though you might have been,” he said.
“Please!” she said, getting up and walking across the room, turning away from him. The relentless scrape of his gaze on her made her wish she had a screen or a curtain to hide behind. “I had enough of a shock the other night seeing you at the opera. I thought you were a ghost, to tell the truth!”
“One of those ghosts that come at the hour of death?” he said quietly.
“Yes.”
“I am flattered,” he said.
“I had a fever,” she said. “I think that was the cause of it – of my silly thought, that is. Obviously you were there.”
