But, thought I, the revenant, as I walked along the extreme northern fondamenta of Venice, past the Madonna dell’ Orto with its wonderful Tintoretto, past the Sacco della Misericordia—hated by the gondoliers in bad weather—and looked down on the long curve of the Fondamenta Nuove—so beautiful, so sunless—and then up at the closed and shuttered windows of the palazzo—is it fair to think that Anna and James Carteret would have minded so much the idea of their cherished and lovely house being occupied by nuns?
Was it quite true that they stood for everything the nuns did not stand for?—for material and snobbish values, and above and beyond them, the values of art and literature, the aesthetic values which they never ceased to uphold and to proclaim?
Looking up at the dull, uninteresting façade of the place, I thought that never, never again even if the suore would receive me, would I venture into those rooms, where beauty had once reigned and which were now dormitories, refectories, toilets, and so on.
Anna Carteret, née Filkenstein, was a Jewess; when she came to Venice she became an Anglican Protestant; after a while she was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Her husband followed at a short distance—non lungo intervallo—these religious mutations of hers. It was a grief to the Anglican Church in Venice, to which the Carterets had presented a fine pair of bronze doors, when the Carterets left them and went over to Rome.
These Vicar-of-Bray-like proceedings did, of course, excite hostile comment not only from the faithful Protestants but also from the Italians, who from afar and not much concerned took a cynical view of their tergiversations and said ‘I signori Carteret will adopt whatever religion suits them best at the moment.’ The Anglican Chaplain felt especially bitter because when the Carterets removed their patronage the Church had to close down.
Well, it was a rather shabby story and yet I could not help feeling that Anna and James had, besides religious snobbery, some better reason for turning their coats so often. Would any one as secure as they were in their social position have changed the forms of their religious faith so often if they hadn’t been really interested in religion? They lost face with many people, Protestants and Catholics alike, by doing so. They did not mind such criticism for as Belloc said (mutatis mutandis)
The maxim gun was in their case, of course, money and social prestige. But I couldn’t help feeling there was more in their changes of front than that; money and social prestige they could have retained if they had been Jews, Protestants, or anything else. I preferred to think that their changes of mind had been genuine movements of the spirit. But was I right?
Gradually, when I went back to Venice, I began to hear stories—they were not altogether rumours for I knew their gondolier, Antonio, and I knew their doctor, and I knew Anna’s faithful maid and confidante Maria. Their accounts as to what happened to Anna Carteret in her last hours did not always tally, but neither do the Gospels (no levity intended) in their accounts of what happened in the life and death of Jesus Christ, such a different character except in being an outstanding one, and critical of human behaviour—from Mrs. Carteret.
She had seldom been ill, but now, in her late seventies, she was ill, and she knew she was. Her doctor, greatly daring, told her she must stay in bed.
‘Is it serious?’ asked her husband, who was going to Rome on a mission to the Pope. ‘Ought I to stay here?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said the doctor. ‘Signora Carteret has a very strong constitution and besides that, she is especially anxious that you should keep this appointment in Rome. I think it would do her more harm if you stayed than if you went. Signora Carteret—’
‘I know what you are going to say,’ her husband said.
‘She doesn’t like to be crossed. Speaking as a psychologist, I should say it would be bad for her if you cancelled your visit to Rome. In an illness of this sort,’ the doctor didn’t give it a name or he was not quite sure what it was, ‘as in many other illnesses,’ he added hastily, ‘it is essential to keep up the patient’s interest in life. Mrs. Carteret is, of course, deeply religious and she has set her heart on your being received by His Holiness. Your account of the interview will give her a stronger hold on life than any of my medicines. Equally, disappointment in a matter that means so much to her, would have the opposite effect. She has several times said to me, “I look forward so much to my husband being received by the Pope. It means almost as much to me as if the Holy Father were to receive me myself. My great fear is lest, knowing how concerned James is about my health, he may cancel his appointment and miss this golden opportunity”.’
Mr. Carteret thought for a while.
‘I shall pray for her as I always have. But would it be correct for me to ask the Holy Father to make intercession for her?’
‘Why not?’
‘He must have so many requests of that kind.’
‘What if he has?’ said the doctor. ‘It is part of his business—il suo mestiere—to pray for others, and you and your signora have been generous benefactors to the Church.’
‘So you think I should go?’
‘I do, most decidedly.’
Mr. Carteret went.
What happened afterwards is confused and not wholly credible, especially as the evidence of the two eye-witnesses, if such they were, sometimes disagree. If only Dr. Bevilacqua (well-named for he was an ardent teetotaller and could have been relied on to give an accurate account of what happened) had not been called away to another bedside! Antonio, the Carterets’ butler and first gondolier, and Maria, Anna Carteret’s personal and confidential maid, were still alive. I sought them out and they remembered me, not I think without affection, as a one-time habitué of the Palazzo Contarini dal Molo.
Their accounts differed in detail but essentially they were the same. Maria and Antonio, the two most favoured servants, may have been jealous or envious of each other. They were not malicious about Mrs. Carteret in spite of her arrogant ways, for she and her husband had left them well provided for.
According to Antonio, the doorbell rang at about 10 p.m., by which time (he said) he would have been in bed but for his concern for the signora. It was a stormy night in November; the north wind, the bora, was almost a hurricane. The Carterets’ palace received its full force; hardly any gondolier or any sandolier, rowing a working-man’s seaworthy boat, would venture down the Sacco della Misericordia, where die wind collected and swept down as in a funnel. The only way to reach the palace on such a dirty night (una notte cosi cattiva) was on foot; and who would want to come then, unless it was the doctor?
Antonio opened the door cautiously and with difficulty, for the wind almost swept it off its hinges and him off his feet; and before he had time to ask who and why, a stranger had slipped in. He was wearing a flimsy raincoat and the red cap that sailors and fishermen sometimes wear; but he was obviously soaked to the skin, and even while he stood a puddle was forming at his feet.