The Master (37 page)

Only once in Henry’s presence did Tito speak of her. One night, as they waited for her daughter, Mrs Benedict asked Henry to compliment Tito on his dexterity, especially on corners and
small canals. When Henry translated her remarks, Tito bowed solemnly to her and then said that Miss Woolson had sought him out not for the dexterity she had mentioned, which all the gondoliers had,
but because he knew the lagoon, the open water, and could navigate safely there. Miss Woolson always preferred to move out from the city, out into the lagoon, he said. Many Americans, he said, love
the Grand Canal and want to travel up and down it all day. But not Miss Woolson. She liked the Grand Canal because it led out to the lonely open water, where you would meet no one. Even in the
winter, she had loved it, he said. Even in the bad weather. As far out as you could go. She had her favourite places there, he said.

Henry wanted to ask him if she had taken such journeys right until the end, but he knew from the way that Tito had finished his speech that no more information would be forthcoming unless Mrs
Benedict were to ask a question. Once Henry had translated for her, however, she smiled at the gondolier distractedly, and asked Henry what he thought her daughter might be doing to keep them
waiting so long.

A
FTER A WHILE
he began to wake in the night; the worried thoughts which came disturbed him, and in the morning there remained a residue of the
night’s unease. After a time, however, his waking was merely an interlude in his sleeping, another aspect of the night’s deep rest rather than a disturbance; he felt no fear, and no
worried thoughts came into his mind, but rather a sense of abiding warmth. In this period, he did not feel Constance’s presence at all. He felt instead a nameless and numinous presence. As
time passed, the glow on entering these rooms, and when he woke in the night, took on a more particular intensity. He found himself all day looking forward to this, and wondering if, when he left
here and returned to London, such ease and sweet goodwill could follow him.

It was not a ghost, not anything unsettled and haunting, but rather it was a figure hovering gently, the shadow movements of his mother’s protecting aura coming to him now in the night,
pure and exquisite in its female tenderness, gentle and enclosing, cajoling him back to sleep in those rooms which had so recently been inhabited by his friend, whose death still filled him with
guilt and whose sad, impassive spirit looked on at his determination each day, as he sat at her desk quietly setting aside letters from her doctor and from Alice’s friend Miss Loring and,
when the coast was clear, putting them into the fire.

A
FTER MUCH
negotiation with the American consul about their relative’s estate, and much fussing and prevarication, the Benedicts oversaw the
packing of her papers and the wrapping of her paintings and mementoes which they placed in the consul’s care until legal matters were sorted out to his satisfaction. The month of April had
been rainy and chilly and both of the women had caught colds and been confined to quarters. By the time they emerged again Venice had changed; the days were longer and the wind had died down and
many of their acquaintances had also, for one reason or another, left the city. Thus their farewell dinner was desultory and badly attended with Henry eager to stand up from the table before nine,
as usual, and shake their hands, and kiss them if they should need kissing, and look into their eyes, promising that, as he still had a key to her apartment at Casa Semitecolo, he would oversee the
final clearing out of her effects and the return of the key to the landlord.

In the morning when the Benedicts had left the city Henry discovered that they had made no arrangements to dispose of Constance’s clothes. They must have known, he realized, that her
wardrobe and dressing tables were full because they had searched for her will there. He wondered if they had discussed the matter, or if it had evoked too much sadness for them to deal with, and
then, at the end, they were too embarrassed to mention it. In any case, they had, it seemed, left him to deal with Constance’s wardrobe and personal effects. He waited for several days in
case one of their Venetian friends made contact to arrange the removal of the clothes. As no one did, he became certain that the Benedicts had taken advantage of his support and had fled leaving
wardrobes full of dresses and cupboards full of shoes, underclothes and other items, that appeared not to have been disturbed.

He wanted no further discussions about Constance’s estate, and therefore did not wish to contact any of her friends who would, he knew, quickly spread the news that her clothes had been
left in the apartment, thus offering the freedom to visit and snoop as they pleased, asking for the key at will, and invading the privacy he had guarded for her in the time after her death. When he
had pictured her planning each scene in which he and her relatives took part, this aspect of her demise was far from his mind. The throwing away, or giving away, of her clothes had not been, he was
sure, part of her dream afterlife. While he had felt her deep displeasure as he burned the letters, now he felt a dull sadness and the grim weight of her absence as he contemplated the clearing-out
of her wardrobe.

He confided in no one except Tito who, he felt, would be willing, under his supervision, to transport what was left of his friend’s worldly goods. Tito, he believed, would know what to do
with them. But when Henry showed him the mass of clothes in the wardrobe and the shoes and then the underclothes, Tito merely shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. He repeated these gestures
when Henry suggested that perhaps one of the convents might be interested in old clothes. Not the clothes of the dead, Tito told him, no one will want the clothes of the dead.

For one moment, Henry wished he had handed the key to the landlord and left the city, but he knew that it would not have been long before he received letters about the clothes, asking what
should be done with them, not only from the landlord himself, but from members of the colony.

Tito, in the meantime, stood in what had been Constance’s bedroom watching him fiercely.

‘What can we do with them?’ Henry asked him.

His shrug this time was almost contemptuous. Henry held his gaze and sternly insisted that the clothes would have to be moved.

‘We cannot leave them here,’ he said.

Tito did not reply. Henry knew that his boat was waiting, he knew that together they would have to carry these clothes and place them in the gondola.

‘Can you burn them?’ Henry asked.

Tito shook his head. He was intensely studying the wardrobe, as though he were guarding its contents. Henry felt that if he made to empty the wardrobe, Tito would rush at him to prevent his
interfering with his mistress’s clothes. He sighed and kept his eyes down, hoping that the impasse at which they had arrived would cause Tito to speak or make a suggestion. As the silence
between them lingered, Henry opened the windows and went to the balcony and looked at the building across the way and the ground onto which Constance had fallen.

On turning and catching Tito’s eye, he saw that Tito wanted to say something. He gestured to him in encouragement. All of this, Tito said, should have been taken to America. Henry nodded
in agreement and then said that it was too late now.

Tito shrugged again.

Henry opened one of the cupboard drawers and then another. Tito, when he turned, was watching him with an interest bordering on alarm. Henry stood and faced him.

Did he know, he asked him, the place in the lagoon to which he had ferried her regularly? The one he had told Henry about? Where there was nothing?

Tito nodded. He waited for Henry to speak again, but Henry merely gazed at him as he considered what had just been said. Tito seemed worried. Several times he made as though to speak, but sighed
instead. Finally, as though someone were in the next room, he pointed surreptitiously to the clothes and then in the direction of the door and then in the direction of the far lagoon. They could,
he silently asserted, take the clothes there and bury them in the water. Henry nodded in agreement, but still neither of them moved until Tito lifted his right hand and stretched out the
fingers.

Five o’clock, he whispered. Here.

At five Tito was waiting at the door. Neither of them spoke as they entered the apartment. Henry had wondered if Tito would bring a companion and if they both could be trusted to take
Constance’s clothes and bury them in the lagoon without any further questions or hesitations. But Tito came alone. He managed to suggest that the work of moving the goods from the apartment
to the gondola should be done now and quickly and by both of them.

Tito took the first bundle of dresses and coats and skirts and motioned to Henry to take the second bundle and follow him. As soon as he held the dresses in his arms, Henry caught a powerful
smell, which sharply evoked the memory of his mother and his Aunt Kate. It was a smell so redolent of them, their busy lives around their dressing rooms and wardrobes, their preparations for
travel, the folding and protecting and packing which they did themselves no matter where they were. And then as he crossed the room carrying the bundle he caught another smell which belonged to
Constance only, some perfume of hers, something she had used in all the years when he knew her, which mixed in now with the other smell as he carried the dresses down the stairs and deposited them
in the waiting gondola.

In their journeys from her bedroom to the boat, their movements fast and watchful as though they were doing something illegal, they slowly emptied the wardrobes. They carried her shoes and
stockings and then, careful not even to glance at each other, her white underwear which they hid beneath the dresses and coats in the gondola so that it could not be seen. They were both out of
breath as they went one last time to see if everything had been cleared. The smell had brought her so close to him that he would not have been surprised if, at that moment, he had found her
standing in the bare room. He almost felt free to speak to her, and looking around the room one more time, after Tito had descended to the gondola, he sensed that she was there, an absolute
presence, her old practical self glad that the task had been completed, that nothing of her remained; the room did not seem to him full of dust and air as much as filled with the sense that should
he wish to linger she would be ready to outstare him.

As the light began to fade over the city, and a pink glow mixed with the pale and rich colours of the palazzi on the Grand Canal, and the water reflected the sky which was tinged with shades of
red and pink, they set out towards the lagoon. They were relaxed now, although neither spoke nor acknowledged the other’s existence. Henry took in the light and the buildings, glancing back
at the Salute, feeling a strange contentment. He was tired, but he was also curious to know where exactly Tito would take him.

It was, he thought, like meeting her again, away from their friends and family and the social whirl, connecting in calm places. This was how they had known each other. No one would ever discover
that he had come here; it was unlikely that Tito would ever volunteer this information to any of their friends. The only person watching them was Constance herself as Tito steered them out beyond
the Lido into waters into which Henry had never before ventured. They moved out until soon they had merely the seabirds and the setting sun for company.

At first Henry believed that Tito was searching for a precise place, but he soon realized that, by moving at random back and forth, he was postponing the action they would now have to take. When
they caught each other’s eye and Tito intimated that Henry should begin their grim task, Henry shook his head. They might as well have been carrying her body, he thought, to lift her and drop
her from the boat, let her sink into the water. Tito continued to circle a small area, and on seeing that Henry would not move, he smiled in mild rebuke and exasperation and laid down the pole
until the gondola began to rock gently in the calm water. Before he reached for the first dress, Tito blessed himself and then he laid the garment flat on the water as though the water were a bed,
as though the dress’s owner were preparing for an outing and would shortly come into the room. Both men watched as the colour of the material darkened and then the dress began to sink. Tito
placed a second and then a third, each time tenderly, on the water, and then continued working with a slow set of peaceful gestures, shaking his head as they floated away each time, and moving his
lips at intervals in prayer. Henry watched but did not move.

The gondola swayed so gently that Henry was not aware of moving in any direction, merely staying still. As her underclothes sank, he imagined that the consignment lay directly beneath them,
falling slowly to the ocean bed.

It was only when Tito reached to lift the pole that both of them at the same time caught sight of a black shape in the water less than ten yards away and Tito cried out.

In the gathering dusk it appeared as though a seal or some dark, rounded object from the deep had appeared on the surface of the water. Tito took the pole in both hands as if to defend himself.
And then Henry saw what it was. Some of the dresses had floated to the surface again like black balloons, evidence of the strange sea burial they had just enacted, their arms and bellies bloated
with water. As they turned the boat, Henry noticed that a greyness had set in over Venice. Soon a mist would settle over the lagoon. Tito had already moved the gondola towards the buoyant material;
Henry watched as he worked at it with the pole, pushing the ballooning dress under the surface and holding it there and then moving his attention to another dress which had partially resurfaced,
pushing that under again, working with ferocious strength and determination. He did not cease pushing, prodding, sinking each dress and then moving to another. Finally, he scanned the water to make
certain that no more had reappeared, but all of them seemed to have remained under the surface of the dark water. Then one swelled up suddenly some feet from them.