At most times she could see a joke as well as anyone, indeed she often laughed when he saw nothing to laugh at. But where her young men were concerned she was, it seemed to him, as impervious both to humour and to reason as her mother was in matters of social etiquette and observance. She took it all with deadly seriousness, even when she was laughing and flirting with her swains; and she resented any comment on her conduct, however sympathetic and well meant.
Does she really know what she is doing?’ he had once asked her mother. ‘She seems to think that love to-day is different from love at any other time.’
‘Oh, Annette’s all right,’ Maureen replied. ‘Besides, there’s safety in numbers. We mustn’t interfere, we must let her find her feet. If she was really serious about anyone, I should know.’
‘Yes, but this isn’t England,’ Henry said. ‘Autres pays, autres mœurs.’
Maureen shook her head. ‘We mustn’t spoil her fun,’ she said. It had become a slogan.
Henry did not like watching people dance, it pricked him with nostalgia and a sense of guilt that he, too, was not dancing; so after a while he went upstairs again. This time he spied a breach in one of the muslin fortresses: it widened, a head emerged and a voice urged him to come in. He obeyed. The flap was folded to, the bows were tied, the outside world withdrew. But it was only a brief respite. The other man of the trio looked at his watch: “Why, it’s two o’clock,’ he said. ‘Dobbiamo filare—we must be off!’ The warmth and graciousness of their farewells made Henry feel more lonely than before. Again he descended to the ballroom, this time he would risk Annette’s displeasure, beard the Nino’s and the Gigio’s and beg her to come back. ‘Your mother isn’t well!’—that should be his plea. But this time he couldn’t see her in the milling throng; she had vanished: face after beautiful face looked blankly down at his. Perhaps Loredana knows where she is, he thought, and diffidently approached his hostess where, fresh and animated as five hours ago, she sat, magnetizing the men on either side of her: but just out of range of her conscious glance he stopped. With a hundred or more guests about her, how could she know where Annette was? And it would be a clumsy, tactless question anyway; how Annette would hate the notion of a search-party, of being run to earth! And he might have to explain, prematurely, about Maureen, too. So he waved to his hostess as gaily as he could, and she shouted something out to him: Venetians always shouted at you—in ballrooms as well as from bridges—something he couldn’t catch: was it good night? Did she think he was taking his leave? Making it as inconspicuous as possible? He couldn’t tell, and slowly, availing himself of the silken rope, he climbed to the upper gallery.
It was in semi-darkness; in the splendid chandeliers only a few lights sparkled. Had all the non-dancing guests, the vecchietti, departed? The encampment hadn’t been dismantled; nothing had been put straight: the servants had left the task of tidying till the morning. Peering in, he saw the cards scattered on the card-tables. The more distant tents, the bowers of love, he could hardly see, still less tell whether they were tenanted. He passed by them towards the windows and saw, with a sudden rush of longing, the two tents set apart for the misanthropes. Either would be a refuge. He chose the farther one, in the darker corner; once inside, he felt rather than saw that he was its first occupant. Draw the flaps and make them fast; let the mosquitoes sing outside! Dimly the thud and whine of the music reached him; it had no power to disturb him now: it was a lullaby. Soon he fell asleep.
He dreamed and in his dream he was still looking for someone, but it wasn’t here, it was in the bright sunshine among the bathing-huts and cabins of the Lido. The search was most embarrassing, for all the cabins had their blinds drawn down, and every time he knocked an angry voice said, ‘Who’s that? You can’t come in.’ ‘I’m looking for my daughter, Annette,’ he explained. ‘She’s a tall girl, dark, and rather pretty. I want to take her home. Have you seen her?’ ‘We have seen her,’ the voice replied, ‘but she doesn’t want to go home, and she’ll be angry if you try to find her. Nino and Nini and Gigio and Gigi are looking after her. She has her own life to live, you know.’ ‘Yes,’ said Henry, ‘but her mother is anxious about her. She doesn’t want her to go home alone—it wouldn’t do. People would talk about her. Please tell me where she is.’ ‘She’s somewhere here,’ the voice said grudgingly, ‘but you won’t be able to get in because the door’s locked. This is a temple d’amour, so please leave us in peace.’
Oddly enough Henry knew at once which door the speaker meant and went straight to it. But now he was carrying some flowers, flowers he had bought in the Campo San Stefano that morning, and he was glad of this because they gave him an excuse. He knocked and said very humbly, ‘Please let me in, Annette, and don’t be angry with me: I’ve only come to give you these flowers—you can wear them in your hair or anywhere you like, but you needn’t wear them at all if you don’t want to. Not everyone likes flowers.’ But though he knew she was inside she didn’t answer, and he saw that the flowers were withering in his hands.
He wasn’t really asleep, he was only dozing, and the dream kept repeating itself in other sets of circumstances which were much less clear than they had been in the first one, until at last the visual aspects of the dream grew indistinct and only the sense of frustrated search remained.
When he awoke he thought he was in bed, his own bed with die mosquito-curtains round him. Gradually he remembered, and his first sensation was one of relief: he had outwitted Time and all those boring hours of waiting, they had slipped past his tired consciousness and now Annette would be ready and perhaps waiting to be taken home—and not best pleased at being kept waiting. He must go to her at once. For a moment that seemed as easy as it would have in a dream: then full awareness of his situation dawned on him. He was here in the Palazzo Bembo and it was quite dark: too dark to see his wrist-watch. He struck a match: it showed a quarter to five. He let himself out into the open, and as his eyes got used to the darkness saw around him the ghostly forms of the encampment, looking strangely large and solid. No sound came from any part of the building. He had been forgotten, that was it. The ball was over and in the general concourse of good-byes his absence had been overlooked. Someone would have taken Annette back; it only remained for him to go back too.
All this was something to be thankful for. But when he began to think about his situation, it didn’t seem so simple. To begin with, how was he to get out of the house? And how, if discovered, would he explain himself? Would he be mistaken for a burglar? And how would he get home? Annette would have taken the gondola. He would have to walk, and he wasn’t sure he knew the way.
He went to the window and leaned out. It looked on to a garden, a square garden, quite large, one of the few gardens in Venice. Dawn was not far away: he could see the Renaissance pavilion at the end, the shadows of night still dark between its columns. Nothing stirred, though he could hear the plash of the fountain in the centre. Would he have to go through the garden to get out? He had never approached the Palazzo Bembo on foot. Somewhere, he supposed, there must be a narrow calle, an alleyway that led to the main street. But where?’
Baffled, he turned away from the window and, treading cautiously between the tents—afraid of catching his foot in one and tearing it down—he made his way to the other end of the great sala. Light met him as he went, the accumulated radiance of the lamps of the Grand Canal. He leaned out of the window, and drank in the familiar scene. How beautiful it was—Venice asleep! Perhaps this was the only hour out of the twenty-four when no one was abroad.