Sarah Caudwell - Thus Was Adonis Murdered

Before going to lunch, I shall have to return to my room to get the guide book to Verona — having confessed to Marylou that it was the foundation of my success there, I felt obliged by courtesy to offer it to her for this afternoon’s excursion. I have explained to her that it is Ragwort’s and she must be very careful of it.

On leaving my room again, I shall be circumspect but not fearful. Writing to you has persuaded me to look on the bright side: I now realize that to see the Major when he isn’t really there must at least be preferable to seeing him when he is really there. If, however, there is any repetition of the Phenomenon, I shall report it forthwith by way of postscript.

Terrace of the Cytherea.

Friday evening.

Men, Selena, are very odd creatures — I shall never understand them. There seems to be in their conduct no reason or consistency of purpose — they are blown like feathers this way and that on every changing breeze of mood and fancy, so that it is quite impossible to predict, on any rational basis, what they will do next. Delightful, of course, in some ways, but confusing. Take, merely as an example, the enchanting Ned, with whom I should have said this morning that there was not the slightest chance — well, I will tell you everything, just as it happened.

Having returned to my room to fetch the guide book to Verona, I left it again without misadventure — that is to say, without seeing the Major in fact or fantasy: I concluded with relief that the affliction had been temporary. Coming downstairs again, I found myself crossing the bridge back to the main part of the hotel only a few paces behind Ned and Kenneth. As seemed natural in the circumstances, I said “hello” to them, patting Ned on the elbow — a gesture, I think, of no greater intimacy than one Art Lover might in good fellowship show towards another.

Ned’s reaction to this was most extraordinary. He turned round towards me very sharply and violently, almost as if preparing to defend himself against some physical attack, and said, in a tone of disproportionate ill-temper, “For God’s sake, Julia, don’t do that.” This seemed an absurdly exaggerated response: he could hardly suppose that I would choose such a time and place for an improper advance; besides, his reaction was more appropriate to an attack on his life than on his virtue.

“Dear me,” said Ragwort. “How very interesting. We can assume, I suppose, that the young man would not immediately have realized who it was who had touched him on the elbow?”

“Certainly,” said Selena. “And when a man seems at lunchtime to be in fear of his life and is found murdered before dinner, one is disposed to think that there must be some connection.”

I apologized for having startled him.

“Don’t take any notice,” said Kenneth, evidently embarrassed by Ned’s abruptness. “He’s just started worrying about tomorrow’s flight. He gets very nervous about flying, don’t you, Ned?”

“Yes,” said his friend. “Yes, horribly, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, Julia — I didn’t mean to snap at you.” Looking at him more closely, I was inclined to believe that this was indeed the reason for his curious behaviour, rather than anything specifically to do with me. He was very pale and showed every sign of nervousness. I noticed with great distress that the perfection of his chin was marred by a strip of adhesive plaster.

“Ned,” I cried, unable to conceal my anguish at this aesthetic catastrophe, “what have you done to your face?”

“My hand was shaking so much I cut myself shaving,” he said. “Isn’t it silly? Do I look very awful?”

“No, no,” I said, “no, of course not.”

I filled the time it took us to reach the dining-room with reassurance and compliment; but Ned’s nervousness seemed unabated — I noticed that he ate no lunch and even spilt some of his wine. Still, though concluding that there had been nothing personal in his response to my greeting on the bridge, I would not have given a lira for my chances of further success with him.

Graziella arrived, as we were finishing lunch, to round up in time for a two o’clock departure those Art Lovers who were going to Verona — that is to say, Kenneth and the two Americans. Kenneth hesitated, and seemed to be asking Ned if he minded being left alone; but eventually, patting him on the shoulder and suggesting that he should lie down for a while, he followed Graziella out of the dining-room. Ned and I were the only Art Lovers remaining — Eleanor and the Major had been absent from lunch. Coming over to my table, Ned suggested that we should have coffee together on the terrace.

“Well,” I said, as we drank our coffee, “this is our last afternoon in Venice — how are you proposing to spend it?”

“I’m still not feeling terribly well,” he answered. “I think I’d better do as Kenneth says — take a siesta.”

“What a pity,” I said, “that you won’t allow me to share it.” I entertained, as I have said, no hope of getting anywhere with this suggestion — I made it rather as a matter of form, not wishing Ned to think that the strip of adhesive plaster so detracted from his appearance that I could easily refrain from making an advance.

And for all the world as if he knew no better than a young man brought up to serve breakfasts rather than tax assessments, as if no wounding remarks had been made about obligations which he was happy to forget, as if my approach on the bridge had been a matter for satisfaction rather than alarm—“Why not?” he answered.

Men, Selena, are very odd.

We returned across the bridge to the annexe, smiled on again by the pretty chambermaids, and went, this time, to Ned’s room rather than mine.

If he felt any modest reluctance to yield again so soon and with so little intervening commentary on his soul and intellect, it was, I am bound to say, most admirably dissimulated, for he devoted himself to the enterprise with great energy and apparent enthusiasm. To such an extent, indeed, that if I were the woman to call a truce with the Revenue — but never let it be said. Such exertion, in the heat of a Venetian afternoon, ends unhealthfully in sleeping between damp sheets. Ah Selena, when in our age I complain of my rheumatics, remind me how pleasantly I earned them.

When I woke up it was past six o’clock. Ned, lying beside me, still looked so peacefully asleep that tender-heartedness prevented me from waking him. Not wanting him to think, however, that I valued him so little as to leave entirely without ceremony, I scribbled my name and address and a few discreet words of affection on the inside cover of my Finance Act and left it, by way of souvenir, on the table beside the bed.

After this, having washed and changed for dinner, I came down to the terrace to write to you of the oddness of men. I am back in my usual corner: the vine or similar shrub has thus protected me from any obligation to converse with Eleanor or the Major, both of whom have returned to the annexe in the past half-hour — they have been having a last rummage, I suppose, among the personal effects of the late Miss Tiverton.

I shall have to stop soon for lack of light: the sun has just set and the only lamp on the terrace is designed more for romantic atmosphere than serious illumination.

Besides, it seems to be time for dinner: the pretty chambermaids have scattered — no doubt to turn down counterpanes and so forth — and those of the Art Lovers who went to Verona have returned and are on their way back to the annexe. I shall go to dinner and post this on the way — I am feeling, for some reason, extraordinarily hungry.

Yours, Selena, as always, Julia.

“Poor Julia,” said Selena. “I do hope she got something to eat before people started arresting her.”