As the train rolled southwards from Paris the following evening, past the ten crus of Beaujolais and alongside the waters of the Rhone, Powerscourt was counting his dead.
Prince Eddy, in that charnel house of a room in Sandringham. Lancaster, suicide in the woods. Forever Faithful. Semper Fidelis. Simon John Robinson of Dorchester on Thames, place of death unknown. Lord forgive them for they know not what they do. The two gentlemen from the homosexual club in Chiswick. Lady Louisa Gresham, interred in some Catholic chapel in the Midlands, unmourned and unloved by her mother-in-law.
Six of them now. Six corpses. What was the thread that held them together? Was there indeed one single thread? Was the answer in Venice or in London? Or neither?
As his train turned eastwards and began its long ascent into the Alps, Powerscourt fell asleep. He did not dream. Clarence hath murdered dreams, he thought to himself, as the roar of the great steam engine met the deep silence of the mountains.
Santa Lucia railway station is one third of the way down Venice’s Grand Canal. Santa Lucia, thought Powerscourt happily. They’ve even named a railway station after Lady Lucy. How nice of them. I think she’s got a church just round the corner too, maybe a palazzo. But he wasn’t sure about the palazzo.
An aged gondolier, wiry moustache and that red beret they always seemed to wear, secured Powerscourt’s passage to his hotel. As they pushed off from the bank, the gondolier took a deep breath and filled his lungs with the dank Venetian air.
‘Please,’ said Powerscourt, holding up his hand just in time. ‘Please, per favore, no singing. Niente opera,’ he went on desperately. ‘Silenzio. Per favore. Niente aria. No singing.’
The gondolier looked dumbstruck. ‘No arias? Not one, signor? Not even a little one? Drinking song from Traviata perhaps?’
‘No arias.’ said Powerscourt firmly. ‘Not one. Not even that damned drinking song.’
The gondolier gave one of those special shrugs reserved for foreigners and resolved to add yet more lira to his bill. Powerscourt felt he had had a narrow escape. Singing Italians, usually out of tune in his view, on the way down the most romantic street in the world were an abomination not to be borne.
Palazzos drifted by on either side. When he was a boy Powerscourt had a map with all the great ones marked, their dates of construction, the famous and the infamous who had lived there. When he was nine or ten, he could remember most of them. The names, he thought, such poetry in the names.
Palazzo Vendramin Calergi, one of the most beautiful Renaissance buildings in Italy. Palazzo Giovanelli where they had bribed their way into the aristocracy with 100,000 golden ducats. Ca’ Rezzonico, home of yet another Venetian Pope. Palazzo Falier, home to the traitor who tried to become king and lost his head for his pains, cut off on the top of his own staircase. The vengeful aristocrats, Powerscourt remembered, had given him one hour’s notice of his execution. Palazzos built for the great families with their names in the Golden Book.
Families with Doges. Families with Procurators of St Mark’s. Families with Popes. Families with Admirals. Families who traded in spices. Families who traded in silks. Families who traded with Shylock.
The waters of the canal were choppy now, boats being unloaded, the gondoliers picking their way skilfully through the traffic. They were passing the Rialto Bridge, once the financial heart of Venice, the City of London on the water where two banks went bankrupt when they heard of the great voyages of Columbus back in the 1490s, Venice’s monopoly of trade with the East supposedly broken. Venice took three hundred years to die.
The gondolier was humming now, humming quite loudly as if in revenge. Powerscourt thought it was the drinking song from Traviata, the noise blending in with the wider noises of the city, boatmen shouting at each other, porters warning the public to beware, other, better treated gondoliers bellowing away into the Basin of St Mark. The great bulk of the church of Santa Maria della Salute loomed up, a giant in Baroque, built to commemorate the salvation of the city from the plague. One million piles were sunk into the soggy ground to build it, one third of the population wiped out before they started. Even syphilis, Powerscourt thought bitterly, even syphilis hadn’t managed that yet.
The porters at the Danieli must have been warned of his arrival.
‘This way, milord. Your coat, milord, your hat, milord. Cup of tea, milord?’
The interiors were all gold leaf and dark red velvet, huge chandeliers of Murano glass hanging everywhere. Ornate rococo paintings, imitation Tiepolo, filled the walls with nymphs and satyrs from some imaginary Venetian past.
The place was full of Americans, their nasal twang echoing round the great reception room that looked out across the water to San Giorgio and the Lido. Americans rushing around on the Grand Tour, thought Powerscourt, who rather liked Americans. Buffalo come to meet Byron. Boston embraces Botticelli. Grand Rapids hails Giorgione. Tampa salutes Titian.
‘Five days in Venice, five whole days,’ one bulky matron was telling her compatriots indignantly. ‘I can’t believe it takes five whole days to look at Venice. The place isn’t a quarter the size of Philadelphia! Then we’re down for seven days in Rome! Seven days! I mean, after you’ve seen the Pope and his pictures, what is there left to do?’
A solemn little man with a small moustache, very correct in a frock coat, greeted Powerscourt. ‘Lord Powerscourt? Welcome to the Danieli. My name is Antonio Pannone. I am the manager here.’
He led Powerscourt to a quiet table by the window and removed the reserved notice.
‘Lord Rosebery telegraphed to say you were coming. He is an old friend, Lord Rosebery. Any friend of Lord Rosebery must be a friend of the Hotel Danieli, no? It is so.’
The little man looked round. Tea appeared as if by magic. He poured two cups, his eyes watching steadily as the crowds passed by his windows.
‘Lord Powerscourt, Lord Rosebery said you were probably looking for somebody, no?’
Powerscourt told him about his quest for Lord Edward Gresham. ‘He is a young man, in his late twenties, with fair hair and brown eyes. Lord Edward Gresham always dresses well. His friends used to tease him about his clothes.’
‘Here in Venice,’ said Antonio Pannone sadly, ‘everybody likes to dress well. It is the fashion. Do you have a picture or a photograph of him by any chance?’
Powerscourt did. Johnny Fitzgerald had pressed it into his hand minutes before his train left London two days before.
‘For God’s sake, Francis.’ Fitzgerald was panting after his long run up the platform, searching for his friend. ‘Why do you have to travel in a compartment right at the front of the bloody train? I nearly missed you. Now then. If you’re going looking for somebody, then it sometimes helps to have a picture of them so everybody else can see what the bugger looks like. I thought even you would have realised that by now.’
Powerscourt hadn’t. In his haste, he had quite forgotten. Lord Johnny pressed a copy of the Illustrated London News into his hand.
‘Page twenty-four.’ he said firmly. ‘Or maybe page twenty-five. There he is, on the steps of a house party somewhere in the country, looking very handsome too.’
‘How on earth did you get this, Johnny?’
There was a lot of activity up at the front of the train. Whistles were blown, flags waved. Almost imperceptibly, the seven o’clock express to Dover and Paris began to move.
‘It’s my aunt, Francis. Christ, I’m going to have to do some more running to keep up with you. I’m not running all the way to bloody Venice, Francis. She collects all these magazines, my auntie. She’s got rooms full of them. She says they’ll be valuable in the years to come. She’s quite mad. She’s potty . . .’