3

 

'Our house is very far from the centre, but the little canal is very comme il faut.'

      'It's the sweetest corner of Venice and I can imagine nothing more charming,' I hastened to reply.  The old lady's voice was very thin and weak, but it had an agreeable, cultivated murmur and there was wonder in the thought that that individual note had been in Jeffery Aspern's ear.

      'Please to sit down there.  I hear very well,' she said quietly, as if perhaps I had been shouting; and the chair she pointed to was at a certain distance.  I took possession of it, assuring her I was perfectly aware of my intrusion and of my not having been properly introduced, and that I could but throw myself on her indulgence.  Perhaps the other lady, the one I had had the honour of seeing the day before, would have explained to her about the garden.  That was literally what had given me courage to take a step so unconventional.  I had fallen in love at sight with the whole place - she herself was probably so used to it that she didn't know the impression it was capable of making on a stranger - and I had felt it really a case to risk something.  Was her own kindness in receiving me really a sign that I was not wholly out in my calculation?  It would make me extremely happy to think so.  I could give her my word of honour that I was a most respectable inoffensive person and that as a co-tenant of the palace, so to speak, they would be barely conscious of my existence.  I would conform to any regulations, any restrictions, if they would only let me enjoy the garden.  Moreover I should be delighted to give her references, guarantees; they would be of the very best, both in Venice and in England, as well as in America.

      She listened to me in perfect stillness and I felt her look at me with great penetration, though I could see only the lower part of her bleached and shrivelled face.  Independently of the refining process of old age it had a delicacy which once must have been great.  She had been very fair, she had had a wonderful complexion.  She was silent a little after I had ceased speaking; then she began: 'If you're so fond of a garden why don't you go to terra firma, where there are so many far better than this?'

      'Oh it's the combination!' I answered, smiling; and then with rather a flight of fancy: 'It's the idea of a garden in the middle of the sea.'

      'This isn't the middle of the sea; you can't so much as see the water.'

      I stared a moment, wondering if she wished to convict me of fraud.  'Can't see the water?  Why, dear madam, I can come up to the very gate in my boat.'

      She appeared inconsequent, for she said vaguely in reply to this: 'Yes, if you've got a boat.  I haven't any; it's many years since I've been in one of the gondole.'  She uttered these words as if they designed a curious far-away craft known to her only by hearsay.

      'Let me assure you of the pleasure with which I would put mine at your service!' I returned.  I had scarcely said this, however, before I became aware that the speech was in questionable taste and might also do me the injury of making me appear too eager, too possessed of a hidden motive.  But the old woman remained impenetrable and her attitude worried me by suggesting that she had a fuller vision of me than I had of her.  She gave me no thanks for my somewhat extravagant offer, but remarked that the lady I had seen the day before was her niece; she would presently come in.  She had asked her to stay away a little on purpose - had had her reasons for seeing me first alone.  She relapsed into silence and I turned over the fact of these unmentioned reasons and the question of what might come yet; also that of whether I might venture on some judicious remark in praise of her companion.  I went so far as to say I should be delighted to see our absent friend again: she had been so very patient with me, considering how odd she must have thought me - a declaration which drew from Miss Bordereau another of her whimsical speeches.

      'She has very good manners; I bred her up myself!'  I was on the point of saying that that accounted for the easy grace of the niece, but I arrested myself in time, and the next moment the old woman went on: 'I don't care who you may be - I don't want to know; it signifies very little today.'  This had all the air of being a formula of dismissal, as if her next words might be that I might take myself off now that she had the amusement of looking on the face of such a monster of indiscretion.  Therefore I was all the more surprised when she added in her soft venerable quaver: 'You may have as many rooms as you like - if you'll pay me a good deal of money.'

      I hesitated but an instant, long enough to measure what she meant in particular by this condition.  First it struck me that she must have really a large sum in her mind; then I reasoned quickly that her idea of a large sum would probably not correspond to my own.  My deliberation, I think, was not so visible as to diminish the promptitude with which I replied: 'I will pay with pleasure and of course in advance whatever you may think it proper to ask me.'

      'Well then, a thousand francs a month,' she said instantly, while her baffling green shade continued to cover her attitude.

      The figure, as they say, was startling and my logic had been at fault.  The sum she had mentioned was, by the Venetian measure of such matters, exceedingly large; there was many an old palace in an out-of-the-way corner that I might on such terms have enjoyed the whole of by the year.  But so far as my resources allowed I was prepared to spend money, and my decision was quickly taken.  I would pay her with a smiling face when she asked, but in that case I would make it up by getting hold of my 'spoils' for nothing.  Moreover if she had asked five times as much I should have risen to the occasion, so odious would it have seemed to me to stand chaffering with Aspern's Juliana.  It was queer enough to have a question of money with her at all.  I assured her that my views perfectly met my own and that on the morrow I should have the pleasure of putting three months' rent into her hand.  She received this announcement with apparent complacency and with no discoverable sense that after all it would become her to say that I ought to see the rooms first.  This didn't occur to her, and indeed her serenity was mainly what I wanted.  Our little agreement was just concluded when the door opened and the younger lady appeared on the threshold.  As soon as Miss Bordereau saw her niece she cried out almost gaily: 'He'll give three thousand - three thousand tomorrow!'

      Miss Tina stood still, her patient eyes turning from one of us to the other; then she brought out, scarcely above her breath: 'Do you mean francs?'

      'Did you mean francs or dollars?' the old woman asked of me at this.         'I think francs were what you said,' I sturdily smiled.

      'That's very good,' said Miss Tina, as if she had felt how overreaching her own question might have looked.

      'What do you know?  You're ignorant,' Miss Bordereau remarked; not with acerbity but with a strange soft coldness.

      'Yes, of money - certainly of money!' Miss Tina hastened to concede.

      'I'm sure you've your own fine branches of knowledge,' I took the liberty of saying genially.  There was something painful to me, somehow, in the turn the conversation had taken, in the discussion of dollars and francs.

      'She had a very good education when she was young.  I looked into that myself,' said Miss Bordereau.  Then she added: 'But she has leaned nothing since.'

      'I've always been with you,' Miss Tina rejoined very mildly, and of a certainty with no intention of an epigram.

      'Yes, but for that-!' her aunt declared with more satirical force.  She evidently meant that but for this her niece would never have got on at all; the point of the observation, however, being lost on Miss Tina, though she blushed at hearing her history revealed to a stranger.  Miss Bordereau went on, addressing herself to me: 'And what time will you come tomorrow with the money?'

      'The sooner the better.  If it suits you I'll come at noon.'

      'I'm always here, but I have my hours,' said the old woman as if her convenience were not to be taken for granted.

      'You mean the times when you receive?'

      'I never receive.  But I'll see you at noon, when you come with the money.'

      'Very good, I shall be punctual.'  To which I added: 'May I shake hands with you on our contract?'  I thought there ought to be some little form; it would make me really feel easier, for I was sure there would be no other.  Besides, though Miss Bordereau couldn't today be called personally attractive and there was something even in her wasted antiquity that bade one stand at one's distance, I felt an irresistible desire to hold in my own for a moment the hand Jeffery Aspern had pressed.

      For a minute she made no answer, and I saw that my proposal failed to meet with her approbation.  She indulged in no movement of withdrawal, which I half-expected; she only said coldly: 'I belong to a time when that was not the custom.'

      I felt rather snubbed but I exclaimed good-humouredly to Miss Tina, 'Oh you'll do as well!'  I shook hands with her while she assented with a small flutter.  'Yes, yes, to show it's all arranged!'

      'Shall you bring the money in gold?' Miss Bordereau demanded as I was turning to the door.

      I looked at her a moment.  'Aren't you a little afraid, after all, of keeping such a sum as that in the house?'  It was not that I was annoyed at her avidity, but was truly struck by the disparity between such a treasure and such scanty means of guarding it.

      'Whom should I be afraid of if I'm not afraid of you?' she asked with her shrunken grimness.

      'Ah well,' I laughed, 'I shall be in point of fact a protector and I shall bring gold if you prefer.'

      'Thank you,' the old woman returned with dignity and with an inclination of her head which evidently signified my dismissal.  I passed out of the room, thinking how hard it would be to circumvent her.  As I stood in the sala again I saw that Miss Tina had followed me, and I supposed that as her aunt had neglected to suggest I should take a look at my quarters it was her purpose to repair the omission.  But she made no such overture; she only stood there with a dim, though not a languid smile, and with an effect of irresponsible incompetent youth almost comically at variance with the faded facts of her person.  She was not infirm, like her aunt, but she struck me as more deeply futile, because her inefficiency was inward, which was not the case with Miss Bordereau's.  I waited to see if she would offer to show me the rest of the house, but I didn't precipitate the question, inasmuch as my plan was from this moment to spend as much of my time as possible in her society.  A minute indeed elapsed before I committed myself.

      'I've had better fortune than I hoped.  It was very kind of her to see me.  Perhaps you said a good word for me.'

      'It was the idea of the money,' said Miss Tina.

      'And did you suggest that?'

      'I told her you'd perhaps pay largely.'

      'What made you think that?'

      'I told her I thought you were rich?'

      'And what put that into your head?'

      'I don't know; the way you talked.'

      'Dear me, I must talk differently now,' I ventured.  'I'm sorry to say it's not the case.'

      'Well,' said Miss Tina, 'I think that in Venice the forestieri in general often give a great deal of something that after all isn't much.'  She appeared to make this remark with a comforting intention, to wish to remind me that if I had been extravagant I wasn't foolishly singular.  We walked together along the sala, and as I took its magnificent measure I observed I was afraid it wouldn't form part of my quartiere.  Were my rooms by chance to be among those that opened into it?  'Not if you go above - to the second floor,' she answered as if she had rather taken for granted I would know my proper place.

      'And I infer that that's where your aunt would like me to be.'

      'She said your apartments ought to be very distinct.'

      'That certainly would be best.'  And I listened with respect while she told me that above I should be free to take whatever I might like; that there was another staircase, but only from the floor on which we stood, and that to pass from it to the garden-level or to come up to my lodging I should have in effect to cross the great hall.  This was an immense point gained; I foresaw that it would constitute my whole leverage in my relationship with the two ladies.  When I asked Miss Tina how I was to manage at present to find my way up she replied with an access of the sociable shyness which constantly marked her manner.

      'Perhaps you can't.  I don't see - unless I should go with you.'  She evidently hadn't thought of this before.

      We ascended to the upper floor and visited a long succession of empty rooms.  The best of them looked over the garden; some of the others had above the opposite rough-tiled house-tops a view of the blue lagoon.  They were all dusty and even a little disfigured with long neglect, but I saw that by spending a few hundred francs I should be able to make three or four of them habitable enough.  My experiment was turning out costly, yet now that I had all but taken possession I ceased to allow this to trouble me.  I mentioned to my companion a few of the things I should put in, but she replied rather more precipitately than usual that I might do exactly what I liked: she seemed to wish to notify me that the Misses Bordereau would take none but the most veiled interest in my proceedings.  I guessed that her aunt had instructed her to adopt this tone, and I may as well say now that I came afterwards to distinguish perfectly (as I believed) between the speeches she made on her own responsibility and those the old woman imposed upon her.  She took no notice of the unswept condition of the rooms and indulged neither in explanations nor in apologies.  I said to myself that this was a sign Juliana and her niece - disenchanting idea! - were untidy persons with a low Italian standard; but I afterwards recognised that a lodger who had forced an entrance had no locus standi as a critic.  We looked out of a good many windows, for there was nothing within the rooms to look at, and still I wanted to linger.  I asked her what several different objects in the prospect might be, but in no case did she appear to know.  She was evidently not familiar with the view - it was as if she had not looked at it for years - and I presently saw that she was too preoccupied with something else to pretend to care for it.  Suddenly she said - the remark was not suggested:

      'I don't know whether it will make any difference to you, but the money is for me.'

      'The money -?'

      'The money you're going to bring.'

      'Why you'll make me wish to stay here two or three years!'  I spoke as benevolently as possible, though it had begun to act on my nerves that these women so associated with Aspern should so constantly bring the pecuniary question back.

      'That would be very good for me,' she answered almost gaily.

      'You put me on my honour!'

      She looked as if she failed to understand this, but went on: 'She wants me to have more.  She thinks she's going to die.'

      'Ah not soon I hope!' I cried with genuine feeling.  I had perfectly considered the possibility of her destroying her documents on the day she should feel her end at hand.  I believed that she would cling to them till then, and I was as convinced of her reading Aspern's letters over every night or at least pressing them to her withered lips.  I would have given a good deal for some view of these solemnities.  I asked Miss Tina if her venerable relative were seriously ill, and she replied that she was only very tired - she had lived so extraordinarily long.  That was what she said herself - she wanted to die for a change.  Besides, all her friends had been dead for ages; either they ought to have remained or she ought to have gone.  That was another thing her aunt often said: she was not at all resigned - resigned, that is, to life.

      'But people don't die when they like, do they?' Miss Tina inquired.  I took the liberty of asking why, if there was actually enough money to maintain both of them, there would not be more than enough in case of her being left alone.  She considered this difficult problem a moment and then said: 'Oh well, you know, she takes care of me.  She thinks that when I'm alone I shall be a great fool and shan't know you to manage.'

      'I should have supposed rather that you took care of her.  I'm afraid she's very proud.'

      'Why, have you discovered that already?' Miss Tina cried with a dimness of glad surprise.

      'I was shut up with her there for a considerable time and she struck me, she interested me extremely.  It didn't take me long to make my discovery.  She won't have much to say to me while I'm here.'

      'No, I don't think she will,' my companion averred.

      'Do you suppose she has some suspicion of me?'

      Miss Tina's honest eyes gave me no sign I had touched a mark.  'I shouldn't think so - letting you in after all so easily.'

      'You call it easily?  She has covered her risk,' I said.  'But where is it one could take advantage of her?'

      'I oughtn't to tell you if I knew, ought I?'  And Miss Tina added, before I had time to reply to this, smiling dolefully: 'Do you think we've any weak points?'

      'That's exactly what I'm asking.  You'd only have to mention them for me to respect them religiously.'

      She looked at me hereupon with that air of timid but candid and even gratified curiosity with which she had confronted me from the first; after which she said: 'There's nothing to tell.  We're terribly quiet.  I don't know how the days pass.  We've no life.'

      'I wish I might think I should bring you a little.'

      'Oh, we know what we want,' she went on.  'It's all right.'

      There were twenty things I desired to ask her: how in the world they did live; whether they had any friends or visitors, any relations in America or in other countries.  But I judged such probings premature; I must leave it to a later chance.  'Well, don't you be proud,' I contented myself with saying.  'Don't hide from me altogether.'

      'Oh I must stay with my aunt,' she returned without looking at me.  And at the same moment, abruptly, without any ceremony of parting, she quitted me and disappeared, leaving me to make my own way downstairs.  I stayed a while longer, wandering about the bright desert - the sun was pouring in - of the old house, thinking the situation over on the spot.  Not even the pattering little serva came to look after me, and I reflected that after all this treatment showed confidence.