Closed Circle (19 page)

"Less than I think you feared. The affair seems to have passed off pretty quietly."

That's a mercy. And .. . your friend?"

"Still not found."

She clicked her tongue. "Such a dreadful business. But we must bear up." Her bosom swelled alarmingly as she squared her shoulders against the world. "I shall expect you to jolly us both out of any mopish tendencies while you're here. Do you think you're equal to the task?"

"I don't know. But I shall enjoy finding out."

The next four days were ones of growing entrancement for me. Each day, the sun shone from an opalescently blue sky. In the airily baroque rooms of the Villa Primavera, or amidst the sub-tropical greenery of its garden, tranquillity seemed tangible, the senses lulled by ease and warmth, leaving space only for the pleasure I took from Diana's company her trust, her candour, her physical closeness. A boat-trip in the lagoon, a game of tennis, lunch at one of the Lido's luxury hotels, an afternoon swim, a bath and dinner back at the villa, with Vita retiring early and Diana strolling out with me onto the verandah: it sounds idle and inconsequential, and yet it was neither. I saw in her what I suppose Max had seen in her. And she saw in me much of what she had loved in Max till he had thrown her love away. In these echoes were signals of a danger both of us secretly relished. We held back because of them, beyond the point when we might normally have expressed what we felt and acted accordingly. We held back and yet we went on.

In my case, a sundered friendship was not the only call to go unheeded by my conscience. There was also the small matter of the mission I had been sent to Venice to carry out. Maundy Gregory and the people hiding behind him were paying handsomely for my days in the sun and would not have been pleased to discover how little energy I was devoting to their cause. I made,

in fact, no effort whatever to penetrate Charnwood's secret through his daughter. I told myself this was because there was no secret to penetrate, but that was not my real motive. The truth lay in my unwillingness to forfeit Diana's affection. I was simply not prepared to take the slightest risk with her vision of me and what it might lead to. For the moment, losing her in exchange for a share of a fortune did not seem as attractive a proposition as, at any other time in my life, it would have.

Our night at the opera crowned the easeful days. Diana wore a gown of blue velvet, with the topaz pendant I had last seen at the party on the Empress of Britain. We took the speed-boat across the lagoon in the cool of late afternoon, stopped at Harry's Bar for a cocktail, then proceeded by gondola round the canals to the Fenice Theatre. The Venetians were out in force and finery, preparing to revel in some piece of tuneful nonsense by Rossini based on the story of Cinderella. Ordinarily, it would have plunged me into a coma of philistine indifference, but the gilded auditorium glowed bewitchingly in the gas-light and beside me, enraptured by the singing, sat a woman more beautiful by far than any of the painted dryads frolicking on the balcony panels around us.

During the interval, we took our champagne outside, where the chill of the evening was as refreshing as the wine, and stood on one of the bridges crossing the canal behind the theatre. The watery acoustics of Venice by night seemed to blend with the memory of the music as Diana hummed one of Cinderella's songs. Then she broke off and looked up at me so solemnly and searchingly that I yielded to the impulse of the moment and kissed her passionately for the first time. She did not resist, but clung to me as if drowning. When we drew apart, I saw there were tears in her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Except... Have we the right to be happy ... after all that's happened?"

"I look upon happiness as a duty, not a right. Sadness never solved anything."

"No, but '

I kissed her again. "Live for the present, Diana," I whispered. "Live for what we have."

"We have each other," she said, hardly daring, it seemed, to believe her own words.

I nodded. "Exactly."

But our evening was not destined to end as delightfully as it had begun. We dined at a restaurant near the theatre after the performance, then strolled back to the Piazza San Marco for chocolate at Florian's, whose outdoor orchestra preserved the musical theme. It was well after midnight when we summoned the speed-boat and returned to the villa. We expected and in my case hoped to find that Vita had gone to bed. But, not only was she still up, she had a visitor to entertain: none other than Mr. Faraday. I sensed Diana flinch as she caught her first sight of him and it was as much as I could do to force a weak smile onto my face. But Faraday's grin was as broad and oblivious as ever.

"I arrived by flying-boat this morning, en route to Asolo, where Sir Charles and Lady Hick-Morton have a villa scarcely less charming than this. Fearing Vita would not forgive me if I passed through Venice without paying my respects .. ."

"He's been trying to persuade me to accompany him to Asolo," said Vita with a laugh I thought betrayed signs of strain. "Even though the Hick-Mortons are strangers to me."

"It was their suggestion," said Faraday, 'when I mentioned you were here. You'd like them, I feel sure."

"Nevertheless .. ."

"Well, think it over a little longer. I don't leave until Monday." It was, in fact, already Sunday, but Faraday's departure still sounded horribly distant to me. I did not for a moment believe the reason he had given for his visit. I felt sure he was in Venice in order to ascertain what progress I had made. Since I had made none, the sooner he was gone the better.

Faraday was staying at the Excelsior, about half a mile away on the sea-front. When he eventually left to go back there, I offered to walk with him, ostensibly for the sake of some night air. What I really wanted, of course, was the chance of a few plain words with him in private. These I attempted to have as soon as we were clear of the villa.

"What the devil are you doing here, Faraday?"

"Trying to lend you a helping hand, actually. I thought we thought your chances of success would be enhanced if Vita were out of your hair for a few days."

"I don't need a helping hand."

"No? Do you have something to report?"

"Not yet, but '

"In that case, I must beg to differ. We cannot wait indefinitely. Therefore, you do need help."

"Not this kind. Surely you realize Vita won't rise to the bait. Who are the Hick-Mortons? Other creditors of Charnwood?"

"You needn't concern yourself with their financial circumstances. They will play their part. As you are expected to play yours."

"I'm trying to."

"Good. Then I suggest you apply your mind and whatever else may be appropriate to breaking down Diana's de fences in her aunt's absence."

"She isn't going to be absent."

"Really? Well, as to that, we must wait and see, mustn't we?"

I left Faraday beneath the flood-lit arabesquerie of the Excelsior and walked slowly back to the villa, contemplating the folly of ever having supposed I could ignore my employers' wishes. The time had come to apply my legendary ruthlessness. But never before had I felt so reluctant to do so.

I went into the garden of the villa by the side-entrance, intending to smoke a last cigarette beneath the peach trees before turning in. It was from there, as I devised and discarded half-baked stratagems in my mind, that I glimpsed Diana through the open window of the drawing-room. I could hear her talking to Vita in anxious tones. Crushing out the cigarette against a tree-trunk, I moved carefully towards the window, until I could catch some of their words, then closer again, until I could catch all of them.

"At least you enjoyed the opera, my dear," said Vita.

Diana laughed. "Oh yes, I enjoyed it."

"Did Guy?"

"I think so. In fact, I'm sure of it." She paused, then said: "Rossini chose a strange sub-title for La Cenerentola, you know. La bontd in trionfo. The triumph of good. Ironic, isn't it, that I should find myself glorying in music dedicated to such a proposition?"

"There's no reason why you shouldn't."

Diana laughed again, this time with a fractured hint of bitterness. "There are many reasons, as you know. As I fear Mr. Faraday also knows."

"He is sure of nothing."

"Let us hope he remains so. To which end, I really think you must accept his invitation to Asolo."

Vita sighed heavily. "Must I? The man is so transparently inquisitive. He had the effrontery to ask me this evening whether I'd ever been to Trieste."

"What did you say?"

"That I had, of course. That you had too. That we went together, on a whim."

"Good. It is as we surmised, then?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Well, I'm glad our efforts weren't wasted."

"It certainly seems they weren't. In which case, why must I go to Asolo?"

"To keep him guessing, Aunty. Guessing wrong."

Vita gave another heartfelt sigh. "Very well." A spring creaked in the sofa. "Now, I must take myself off to bed."

"I'll wait for Guy."

"Good night, my dear."

"Good night, Aunty."

Silence followed and I knew I ought to creep away. But I lingered a moment longer and was rewarded by the sight of Diana leaning out through the window. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply, savouring the coolness of the air and the nocturnal scents of the garden. I looked at her dark hair falling back from her face, at her pale breasts exposed by the low-cut gown, at the topaz pendant glittering above them, and realized with a sudden jolt that the duplicity I had just learned she was capable of made her even more desirable.

I had thought till now that she and Vita might be innocents, misjudged by Faraday and his kind in their desperation to salvage something from the wreck of Charnwood Investments. But it was I who had misjudged them. They had spoken of visiting Trieste as if it were a deliberate feint in a series of complex manoeuvres. Patently, they were hiding something.

But that only made my task easier. I had the advantage of them now and did not propose to throw it away. Besides, had Diana really encouraged Vita to go to Asolo simply in order to string Faraday along? Or had she some other reason for wanting to be left alone with me? This last thought revolved tantalizingly in my mind as she turned away from the window and I began my retreat across the garden.

Faraday came to lunch next day and expressed his pleasure at Vita's change of heart about the expedition to Asolo. He could not celebrate his triumph over my scepticism until the ladies left us alone in the garden, savouring coffee and cigars in wicker chairs in a sun-filled arbour of Virginia creeper. And, when he did, I had to restrain myself from pointing out the pyrrhic nature of his victory.

'0 ye of little faith," he said with a smirk. "It seems my intervention has been more effective than you anticipated."

"So it does."

"I expect to be equally successful in extending Vita's absence beyond the couple of days to which she has so far consented."

"Good."

"Leaving the way clear for you to make some progress here. On which point He leaned towards me and lowered his voice. "I should apprise you of certain facts which have recently come to my attention concerning our charming hostesses. They left England on Thursday the seventeenth of September, but did not arrive here until Saturday the nineteenth."

"What of it?"

"They obviously broke their journey somewhere. In Switzerland, perhaps, where the confidentiality of the banks is legendary. You might usefully apply yourself to finding out precisely where they stopped. Also why they travelled to Trieste a few days after their arrival. It may be on Italian soil now, but before the war it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Charnwood's connections in Vienna both political and commercial were numerous and of long standing. Trieste may have been recommended to him as a safe haven for hidden assets."

"It may, yes."

"Or the visit to Trieste may have been designed to deflect our attention from Switzerland. We should not suppose the ladies are lacking in subtlety."

"I wasn't about to do so."

Faraday's expression grew stern. "I'm simply cautioning you against over-confidence, Horton. It will not be easy to prise the truth from the daughter of such a practised dissembler."

"No." I tried to shape an earnest frown. "But I think I may be able to find a way."

Diana and I accompanied Vita to the railway station the following morning. Faraday was waiting for her there with a preposterously large bunch of flowers and a clutch of smiling assurances: the Hick-Mortons' car would be waiting for them at Bassano; the drive from there to Asolo was short and picturesque; the villa was delightfully situated in the Asolean hills; their welcome would be a warm one; Vita would be in her element. She looked less than wholly convinced, but soon it did not matter. The train had borne them away and Diana and I were left behind with only each other for company.

"Take me to the Accademia, Guy," she said dreamily, her gaze still focused on the plume of smoke from the departing engine. "There's a picture I want to show you."

We went by gondola, through the Rio Nuovo. I did not ask what the picture was, nor experience my normal yawning dread of art galleries. To walk beside Diana past several centuries' worth of groaning canvas was to be reminded of the eternal superiority of flesh and blood. We came at last to the work she wanted me to see: Lotto's Portrait of a Young Gentleman in his Study. A pale-faced youth of the Renaissance was depicted leafing idly through a book while a discarded letter lay on the table beside him, along with some scattered rose petals and a blue scarf across which a lizard was crawling. A mandolin, a hunting horn and a deed-box, with a key on the end of a cord resting on its lid, were visible in the background.

"Do you understand the symbols, Guy?"

"I'm not sure."

"He enjoys music as well as hunting, learning as well as risk. But he has secrets in the box and the letters to taint his pleasures. Some things fade, like the rose petals. Others endure, like the salamander. But which? He doesn't know the answer. You can see that in his eyes. And, four hundred years later, neither do we."