Illyrian Spring Read online

  The drawing of the stone took longer than Grace Kilmichael expected. It was extraordinarily difficult to get all those complicated interlacings correct. As she sat concentrated on her work, she was made vaguely aware of the arrival of yet another launch by a distant swirl of tourists round the two churches, and of voices in the distance other than the pleasant nasal tones of the peasants. But the tourists seldom came round the east end of the basilica, and she was startled when someone close by said – ‘I beg your pardon, but could you bear to shift for a moment?’

  She looked up. A young man without a hat, holding a tripod camera in one hand, was standing a few yards behind her.

  ‘I want to get the apse from just here, and a figure in front will dwarf it,’ said the young man explanatorily. ‘Do you mind?’ He was civil, but not particularly apologetic, she noticed; he spoke in a peculiar impersonal, rather drawling tone.

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said, rising and moving away. But it was getting late, and she wanted to go on with her drawing; she began to tug at the piece of carved stone, to shift it to another position, out of the camera’s line of fire. ‘Here, let me help,’ said the young man abruptly, and together they lifted the stone a few feet to one side, and Lady Kilmichael sat down to work again. The young man, as she did so, glanced at her sketchbook, and then at the stone. ‘You’ve got that wrong,’ he said, in that same impersonal voice; ‘look – here’ – he touched the drawing with his finger.

  ‘Oh, so I have,’ said Lady Kilmichael. ‘Thank you.’ She rubbed that piece out, and began it afresh, while the young man paced, and peered, and clicked; she assumed that the interruption was over. But presently he came up to her again.

  ‘I’ll put it back for you now,’ he said.

  ‘Oh no, thank you – it’s all right here,’ she answered.

  ‘But I want to get another from this side,’ said the young man, in the same explanatory and unapologetic manner, ‘and a figure dwarfs it completely.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ said Lady Kilmichael – he was rather an offhand young man, she thought, though his clothes and speech appeared to belong to the class to which she was accustomed. While he moved the stone back to its old place, she looked at him more carefully. He was very young, probably not more than twenty-two, she decided, with blue eyes and a mop of curly straw-coloured hair; his face was burned a bright raspberry pink by the sun, a most unbecoming combination; in addition, this youthful face, which should have been cheerful, wore a markedly dissatisfied expression. He was not a very taking person, she felt. But while Lady Kilmichael looked at the young man, the young man, when she reseated herself amid mutual and rather cold thanks, looked at her sketchbook. ‘You’ve got it wrong again,’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t you see? That one goes under, not over – and then out here – look, so.’

  ‘So it does. How stupid of me,’ said Lady Kilmichael, blushing a little – she still blushed, in spite of her forty-two years, when anything embarrassed her. She set to work once more, while the dissatisfied young man returned to his photography; the stone was a horrible thing to draw – it was more like mathematics than anything else, with all those interlacing lines. When she got one right, it made another come wrong. However, that was better now. She held her sketchbook away, examining it – and suddenly found the young man by her side.

  ‘No, I’m not going to ask you to move any more,’ he said, with a faint grin. ‘I’ve done now. I came to say Thank you.’ He glanced at the drawing and then at the stone. ‘Oh, but look here,’ he burst out, ‘now you haven’t got it right! This is hopeless!’ He pulled out a pencil, and taking the book from her, drew a couple of lines rapidly. ‘There – like that – and here – so.’

  Lady Kilmichael watched him ‘I can’t think why I can’t get it right,’ she said rather regretfully, watching his assured strokes.

  ‘Nor can I,’ said the young man, looking as he spoke at the stone – ‘perhaps you’re not accustomed to drawing. Oh – you’ve got that bit wrong too. Shall I do it for you?’ he said, looking now at her. ‘It won’t take me long, and these things are no good unless they’re done accurately.’

  Lady Kilmichael agreed to both these propositions, and the young man sat down and began to draw the stone with quick, careful strokes – dotting, measuring and planning as he went. Grace looked on, a little envious of his precision, a little amused at his suggestion that she was not accustomed to drawing. He was an odd creature – so young, so self-assured. She noticed that the shadows were lengthening; the air was getting cooler, and the marshy smell of the inlets came strongly to them as they sat; it would soon be time to be starting back, she thought regretfully. Several times she heard an impatient hooting from beyond the churches, but she paid no attention, and presently it ceased. The young man, too, found the stone a bit of a teaser, it seemed; even he had to make one or two erasures – it took him longer than she expected. But at last it was done to his satisfaction, and he gave her back the book. While she thanked him, he glanced at his watch.

  ‘Lord! The launch!’ he exclaimed in dismay. ‘It should have gone half an hour ago.’ And before she could utter a word he snatched up his camera and was off, running like a deer across the meadow, till he disappeared round the corner of the basilica.

  Lady Kilmichael followed more slowly, feeling guilty. Probably those hoots had represented the cluckings of the launch over its lost passenger. She had never thought of that at the time. Sure enough, when she got down to the fondamento no launch was visible, and the young man was standing disconsolate in the centre of a gesticulating group which included her two gondolieri. ‘It’s gone – and it seems it was the last today,’ he said as she approached – and now his red face under the yellow hair looked not only dissatisfied but tragic.

  ‘You can come back with me – I have a gondola,’ said Lady Kilmichael.

  ‘How long will that take?’ the young man asked gloomily.

  Two hours, she told him.

  ‘My miserable aunt! I shall be late for dinner again,’ he said, more gloomily than ever. ‘I was late yesterday too,’ he added.

  Lady Kilmichael was not sure whether the ‘miserable aunt’ was a person or an ejaculation, but did not ask. She apologised and commiserated, but there was nothing to be done; it was already nearly seven and nothing could get the young man back to Venice in time for dinner at eight. ‘Well, I must lump it,’ he said dejectedly. And then all of a sudden something in the whole situation seemed to amuse him. He put his head on one side, looked full at Lady Kilmichael, and laughed. ‘What a happy day!’ he said.

  THREE

  Italians have the amiable trait of always being willing to do a fellow tradesman a good turn at someone else’s expense, and this was doubtless the motive which prompted Giovanni, the gondolier, to suggest to Lady Kilmichael that before leaving the Signora should take a cup of coffee at the little trattoria just across the inlet from the landing stage. ‘Good idea,’ said the young man when she put this suggestion to him.

  Grace was hungry, and glad of his concurrence; they would not get back to Venice much before nine in any case. Giovanni poled them across the few yards of still water, shattering the reflections of the white buildings, the pink roofs and the soft green hedges of tea plant which bordered the little inlet, to the inn, where they sat under a trellis of vines in the garden. It was very still; the water lapped against the stonework below them; further down the inlet a moorhen paddled across from the greenery on one side to the greenery on the other; when the disturbance created by the gondola’s passage had subsided, the pinkish shape of Santa Fosca, with its roof of rayed tiles so nearly matching its delicate small bricks, re-formed itself, still moving very gently, on the clear surface. While they waited for their coffee the young man looked consideringly at his companion, and said ‘Why did you want a drawing of that particular stone?’

  Lady Kilmichael explained about West Highland tomb slabs, and how exciting and extraordinary it was to find one of those patterns carved on a ston
e in Torcello. ‘Of course this bit is only a detail, really – as a rule the tombstones have a sword down the middle for a man, or a cross for an ecclesiastic, with this scrolly stuff at the sides; and sometimes there’s a galley at the foot, or a book and shears. And the later ones even have figures, and animals, like stags and hounds.’ She further explained how, without calico, it was impossible to make a rubbing, as she would have liked to do. The young man seemed interested in all she had to say, and asked several rather intelligent questions. Of what date were the stones? Oh, fifteenth or sixteenth century, as a rule, she told him; but unless there was an inscription, as on MacMillan’s Cross, they were very hard to date with any accuracy. Eventually – ‘I suppose you are an archaeologist,’ he said, again considering her with his head on one side. Sitting there under the trellis, with the low sun casting blue shadows from the vine leaves on her white dress, Lady Kilmichael looked no more like an archaeologist than like an artist; she had taken off her hat, and her hair, a little ruffled by the light breeze, lay in brown waves, untouched with grey, round her face; her interest in the subject of the stones had made her open her eyes very wide – she looked both pretty and animated. But she disclaimed archaeology – ‘I wanted it for my son – he’s the archaeologist. I don’t really know anything about it.’

  ‘You seem to know rather a lot,’ said the young man. Still looking at her – ‘Where’s your son at school?’ he asked.

  ‘He isn’t at school – he’s at Cambridge.’

  The young man’s face of astonishment at this announcement made her laugh – a rather nice low laugh. The young man, however, did not even smile – he continued to contemplate her with unmoved gravity and said ‘Well, you don’t look it,’ rather repressively. While they drank their coffee he asked if she had found any other fragments of the same sort of pattern elsewhere in Torcello. No – she had been all round both the basilica and Santa Fosca, and had seen no traces of it. ‘What about the Museum?’ he asked.

  Lady Kilmichael had not been to the Museum. This the young man thought wrong – there were some good things in the Museum. ‘Let’s just look round there, before we go – shall we?’ he said. So they called to Giovanni, and were poled back, breaking up the reflections again. The Museum was by now closed, and the custodian trimming roses in his garden – but he was easily persuaded to reopen it when the young man, in fluent Italian, represented that the Signora was a noted archaeologist, giving her another fleeting grin as he did so. When he grinned his face lost its dissatisfied look, and became rather attractive, in spite of the deplorable combination of his red skin and yellow hair. They went in, and in the fading light gazed at the various objects, mostly Roman, which were set out in the small rooms – but there were no scroll-work patterns to be seen. Presently Lady Kilmichael came to a halt before something – the young man, who had been wandering about by himself, came up to see what she had found. ‘Is that some of it?’ he asked.

  It was not. It was a small cinerary urn, with an inscription in lovely clear Roman lettering between two graceful wreaths. A piece was broken out of the top, so that the first two lines were incomplete. Standing by her, the young man read it:

  ‘OLIM N …

  NATI SUM …

  NUNC QUIETI SUMUS

  UT FUIMUS

  CURA RELICTA, VALE ET TU’

  It dated from the second century.

  ‘I must copy that,’ said Lady Kilmichael suddenly. But she had left her sketchbook in the gondola. ‘I’ll do it – I’ve got a book,’ said the young man; ‘perhaps I’d better,’ he added, and grinned at her again. He pulled a small sketchbook out of his pocket, and copied the inscription, imitating the lettering, she observed, very beautifully and carefully. She stood looking on, thinking how odd he was, with his discontented face and his extraordinary assurance – she had never met anyone who asked questions so freely; she was afraid that he would ask her why she wanted that inscription copied, that he would laugh at her if she told him, and that she would feel a fool if she did not. But when he had finished he did not ask her anything – he put away his book, she tipped the custodian, and they went down and took their places in the gondola. Giovanni and his second oarsman pushed off, and once more the image of Santa Fosca in the still water was broken by their passage, while Grace Kilmichael looked her last at the beautiful reality on the shore – the lovely slope of the low roofs against the central lantern, the delicate brickwork, the slender arches and pillars – all in that strange shade of brownish pink, like a peach stone, enriched now by the evening light almost to rose colour. The young man gazed too, his face no longer discontented, but almost sad. It was only when they had passed down the inlet into the main channel leading out to the lagoon, and of all the buildings of Torcello only the Campanile showed above the grey shores, that he spoke. ‘Do you mind telling me why you wanted that thing copied?’

  A certain hesitancy with which the question was put surprised Lady Kilmichael – in her surprise she answered at once, truthfully: ‘I had an idea that I should like the last part on my tombstone.’

  The young man stared at her in silence for some moments. Then he looked away, out to the low blue horizons opening in front, to left, to right of them, as they emerged into the lagoon; when he spoke, he appeared to be addressing the distant silhouette of Burano far ahead. ‘O Care left behind, to thee also farewell,’ he said – ‘not a bad epitaph at all.’ He turned to her again – ‘Why do you know Latin?’ he asked, as if to change the subject.

  ‘My Father liked us to know it,’ said Lady Kilmichael. ‘He said it was the only way to understand the difference between the classical and the romantic in literature,’ she added, unnecessarily. Something in the way that question about the inscription had been asked and answered had put her almost at her ease with the strange young man; his grave considering silence on the subject of her taking farewell of Care had a curious – sensitiveness was perhaps the word – about it which made her suddenly feel almost confident in speaking to him.

  Now it was something quite new for Grace Kilmichael to feel in the least secure or at her ease with the young, either male or female. Like so many women of her generation, in her heart she was afraid of them. Youth nowadays has many weapons in its armoury with which to defeat middle age. The young – usually with great charm, and (outside one’s own family) invariably with the utmost civility – tolerated middle age perhaps, were courteous to it, but left it feeling that they despised both it and its methods; they dismissed its sanctities with gay derision, quite unaware that they were holy – laughed their way through secret shrines of which the stricken owners were too shy even to acknowledge the existence. With all their charm and courtesy, the young contrived to make you feel small – and if you loved them, wounded you. All this had puzzled and troubled Grace Kilmichael for some time, and lately, on account of Linnet, more than ever. She did not fawn upon the young, like many of her contemporaries – partly out of a sort of moral fastidiousness, partly because she was too shy to make advances; she was friendly and kind to them, but she never felt that she really understood them, and had latterly decided that she need never hope to.

  It was all so different from her own youth. Then, the middle-aged were extremely high-hat – what an expression! but Teddy always used it – about the young; they thought them foolish; ‘young and foolish’ was the regular phrase. And the young did not very openly protest. But now the boot was on the other foot; it was the young who thought the elderly nitwits (Teddy again!) and made their opinion very clear. As a matter of fact Grace did not think the young were particularly foolish – often they were rather shrewd; painfully so, indeed. Had her mother’s generation been wrong about the inseparableness of youth and foolishness, or had the odium of folly in itself made her generation foolish? And were the new young right or mistaken in their assumption about the close connection between ineptitude and middle age? She never could be sure. Anyhow, one thing was certain – taking them by and large, the young had now got the upper ha
nd (rather like servants, Lady Kilmichael thought); parents were afraid of their children’s judgements, afraid of being failures with their own offspring; when things went wrong, it was the parent who suffered the pangs of humiliation, as she was doing even now over Linnet – Linnet suffered no pangs at all, that she could see. And this fear of one’s children’s criticism paralysed intercourse – of that she was certain.

  It was therefore with considerable surprise that Lady Kilmichael found herself talking with anything like freedom to a person as young as the yellow-headed boy beside her in the gondola. Abandoning the subject of Latin, they presently began to talk about Torcello, and Lady Kilmichael, rather hesitatingly, mentioned Ruskin – she knew that Ruskin was now completely out of date. The young man had heard of Ruskin, but knew nothing about the Torcello chapter – Lady Kilmichael said he ought to read it, and when he said he would get hold of it produced the book.

  ‘Why don’t you read it to me? We’ve nothing on earth to do,’ said the young man – ‘if it’s as good as you say, it ought to go well aloud.’

  So she began, a little nervously at first, then as the splendour of thought and prose took its wonted hold of her, with increasing clearness and emphasis. She wanted to skip the pulpit paragraphs, but the young man would not allow this; indeed he made her read the remarks about the ‘meanness and diminutiveness of the speaker’ twice, with a satisfied grin. But as the sentences rolled on, magnificent in their sonorous simplicity, to the comparison of this exiles’ church with a ship, an ark of refuge in the midst of the prevailing destruction, he ceased to grin, and listened quietly. As she approached the end, Grace Kilmichael nerved herself to do justice to the great closing sentence – she paused for a moment, and lifted her eyes from the book to the low marshy shores, the reaches of water between spanned with the long lines of weed-hung sea-stained poles which mark the channels. Then she read on. ‘And if the stranger would yet learn in what spirit it was that the dominion of Venice was begun, and in what strength she went forth conquering and to conquer, let him not seek to estimate the wealth of her arsenals or the number of her armies, nor look upon the pageantry of her palaces, nor enter into the secrets of her councils; but let him ascend the highest tier of the stern ledges that sweep round the altar of Torcello, and then, looking as the pilot did of old along the marble ribs of the goodly temple-ship, let him repeople its veined deck with the shadows of its dead mariners, and strive to feel in himself the strength of heart that was kindled within them, when first, after the pillars of it had settled in the sand, and the roof of it had been closed against the angry sky that was still reddened by the fires of their homesteads – first, within the shelter of its knitted walls, amidst the murmur of the waves and the beating of the wings of the seabirds round the rock that was strange to them – rose that ancient hymn, in the power of their gathered voices: