Brideshead Revisited(30)

Our rooms were on the floor above, reached by a precipitous marble staircase; they were shuttered against the afternoon sun; the butler threw them open and we looked out on the grand canal; the beds had mosquito nets.

‘Mostica not now.’

There was a little bulbous press in each room, a misty, gilt-framed mirror, and no other furniture. The floor was of bare marble slabs.

‘A bit bleak?’ asked Sebastian.

‘Bleak? Look at that.’ I led him again to the window and the incomparable pageant below and about us.

‘No’, you couldn’t call it bleak.’

A tremendous explosion drew us next door. We found a bathroom which seemed to have been built in a chimney. There was no ceiling; instead the walls ran straight through the floor above to the open sky. The butler was almost invisible in the steam of an antiquated geyser. There was an overpowering smell of gas and a tiny trickle of cold water.

‘No good.’

‘Si, Si, subito signori.’

The butler ran to the top of the staircase and began to shout down it; a female voice, more strident than his answered. Sebastian and I returned to the spectacle below our windows. Presently the argument came to an, end and a woman and child appeared, who smiled at us, scowled at the butler, and put on Sebastian’s press I a silver basin and ewer of boiling water. The butler meanwhile unpacked and folded our clothes and, lapsing into Italian, told us of the unrecognized merits of the geyser, until suddenly cocking his head sideways he became alert, said ‘Il marchese,’ and darted downstairs.

‘We’d better look respectable before meeting papa,’ said Sebastian. ‘We needn’t dress. I gather he’s alone at the moment.’

I was full of curiosity to meet Lord Marchmain. When I did so I was first struck by his normality, which, as I saw more of him, I found to be studied. It was as though he were conscious of a Byronic aura, which he considered to be in bad taste and was at pains to suppress. He was standing on the balcony of the saloon and, as he turned to greet us, his face was in deep shadow. I was aware only of a tall and upright figure.

‘Darling papa,’ said Sebastian, ‘how young you are looking!’

He kissed Lord Marchmain on the cheek and I, who had not kissed my father since I left the nursery, stood shyly behind him.

‘This is Charles. Don’t you think my father very handsome, Charles?’

Lord Marchmain shook my hand.

‘Whoever looked up your train,’ he said — and his voice also was Sebastian’s — ‘made a bêtise. There’s no such one.’

‘We came on it.’

‘You can’t have. There was only a slow train from Milan at that time. I was at the Lido. I have taken to playing tennis there with the professional in the early evening. It is the only time of day when it is not too hot. I hope you boys will be fairly comfortable upstairs. This house seems to have been designed for the comfort of only one person, and I am that one. I have a room the size of this and a very decent dressing-room. Cara has taken possession of the other sizeable room.’

I was fascinated to hear him speak of his mistress so simply and casually; later I suspected that it was done for effect, for me.

‘How is she?’

‘Cara? Well, I hope. She will be back with us tomorrow. She is visiting some American friends at a villa on the Brenta canal. Where shall we dine? We might go to the Luna, but it is filling up with English now. Would you be too dull at home? Cara is sure to want to go out tomorrow, and the cook here is really quite excellent.’

He had moved away from the window and now stood in the full evening sunlight, with the red damask of the walls behind him. It was a noble face, a controlled one, just, it seemed, as he planned it to be; slightly weary, slightly sardonic, slightly voluptuous. He seemed in the prime of life — it was odd to think that he was only a few years younger than my father.

We dined at a marble table in the windows; everything was either of marble, or velvet, or dull, gilt gesso, in this house. Lord Marchmain said, ‘And how do you plan your time here? Bathing or sightseeing?’

‘Some sightseeing, anyway,’ I said.

‘Cara will like that — she, as Sebastian will have told you, is your hostess here. You can’t do both, you know. Once you go to the Lido there is no escaping — you play backgammon, you get caught at the bar, you get stupefied by the sun. Stick to the churches.’

‘Charles is very keen on painting,.’ said Sebastian.

‘Yes?’ I noticed the hint of deep boredom which I knew so well in my own father. ‘Yes? Any particular Venetian painter?’

‘Bellini,’ I answered rather wildly.

‘Yes? Which?’

‘I’m afraid that I didn’t know there were two of them.’

‘Three to be precise. You will find that in the great ages painting was very much a family business. How did you leave England?’

‘It has been lovely,’ said Sebastian.

‘Was it? Was it? It has been my tragedy that I abominate the English countryside. I suppose it is a disgraceful thing to inherit great responsibilities and to be entirely indifferent to them. I am all the Socialists would have me be, and a great stumbling-block to my own party. Well, my elder son will change all that, I’ve no doubt, if they leave him anything to inherit…Why, I wonder, are Italian sweets always thought to be so good? There was always an Italian pastry-cook at Brideshead until my father’s day. He had an Austrian, so much better. And now I suppose there is some British matron with beefy forearms.’