“You’re beastly,” she said, her eyes brimming, blue as flax flowers, her red mouth quivering. “You’re perfectly beastly . . . here am I alone in Venice, without a husband, and you won’t lift a finger to help me in my distress. You’re revolting and unchivalrous . . . and . . . beastly .”
I groaned. “Oh, all right, all right, tell me about it. But I warn you I’m not getting involved. I came here for peace and quiet.”
“Well,” said Ursula, drying her eyes and taking a sip of her drink, “I’m here on what you might call an errand of mercy. The whole thing is fraught with difficulty and imprecations.”
“Imprecations?” I asked, fascinated in spite of myself.
Ursula looked around to make sure we were alone. As we were only surrounded by some five thousand junketing foreigners she felt it was safe to confide in me,
“Imprecations in high places,” she said, lowering her voice. “It’s something you must not let go any further.”
“Don’t you mean implications?” I asked, wanting to get the whole thing on to a more or less intelligible plane.
“I mean what I say,” said Ursula frostily. “I do wish you’d stop trying to correct me. It was one of your worst characteristics in the old days that you would go on and on correcting me. It’s very irritating, darling.”
“I’m sorry,” I said contritely, “do go on and tell me who in high places is imprecating whom.”
“Well,” she said, lowering her voice to such an extent that I could hardly hear her in the babble of noise that surrounded us, “it involves the Duke of Tolpuddle. That’s why I’ve had to come to Venice because I’m the only one Reggie and Marjorie will trust and Perry, too, for that matter, and of course the Duke who is an absolute sweetie and is naturally so cut up about the whole thing, what with the scandal and everything, and so naturally when I said I’d come they jumped at it. But you mustn’t say a word about it to anyone, darling, promise?”
“What am I not to say a word about?” I asked, dazedly, signalling the waiter for more drinks.
“But I’ve just told you,” said Ursula impatiently. “About Reggie and Marjorie and Perry. And, of course, the Duke.”
I took a deep breath: “But I don’t know Reggie and Marjorie and Perry or the Duke.”
“You don’t?” asked Ursula, amazed.
I remembered then that she was always astonished to find that you did not know everyone in her wide circle of incredibly dull acquaintances.
“No. So, as you will see, It is difficult for me to understand the problem. As far as I am aware, it may range from them all having developed leprosy to the Duke being caught operating an illicit still.”
“Don’t be silly, darling,” said Ursula, shocked. “There’s no insanity in the family.”
I sighed. “Look, just tell me who did what to whom, remembering that I don’t know any of them, and I have a feeling that I don’t want to.”
“Well,” said Ursula, “Peregrine is the Duke’s only son. He’s just eighteen and a really nice boy, in spite of it.”
“In spite of what?” I asked, muddled.
“Adulteration,” said Ursula, ominously and incomprehensibly.
I decided not to try to disentangle this one.
“Go on,” I said, hoping that things would become clearer.
“Well, Perry was at St Jonah’s . . . you know, that frightfully posh school that they say is better than Eton or Harrow ?”
“The one that costs ten thousand pounds a term without food? Yes, I’ve heard of it.”
“My dear, only the very best people’s children get sent there,” said Ursula, “it’s as exclusive as . . . as . . . as . . .”
“Harrods?”
“Well, more or less,” agreed Ursula, doubtfully.
“So Perry was at St Jonah’s,” I prompted.
“Yes, and doing frightfully well, so the headmaster said. And out of the blue came this bolt,” she said, lowering her voice to a penetrating whisper.
“Bolt?” I said, puzzled. “What bolt?”
“Out of the blue, darling,” went on Ursula impatiently, “You know how bolts come. I do wish you’d stop interrupting, darling and let me get on with the story.”
“I wish you’d get on with the story, too,” I said. “So far all I’ve got out of it is an adulterated Duke’s son with a bolt, and I have no means of knowing whether this is an affliction or not.”
“Well, be quiet and let me tell you. If you’d stop talking for a moment I could get a word in sideways.”
I sighed.
“All right,” I said, “I’ll be quiet.”
“Thank you, darling,” said Ursula, squeezing my hand. “Well, as I say, Perry was doing frightfully well when along came this bolt. Reggie and Marjorie went to the school. Reggie was employed as their art master because, you know, he is awfully good at oil-painting and etching and things like that, although I do think he’s rather eccentric and so I was surprised at St Jonah’s taking him, really, because it’s so posh that they don’t really go in for eccentrics, if you know what I mean?”
“Why is he eccentric?”
“Well, my dear, don’t you think it’s eccentric to have an oil-painting of your wife in the nude hung over the mantelpiece in your drawing-room ? I told him I thought it was more suitable for the bathroom, if you had to put it on the wall, and he said that he had thought of hanging it in the guest bedroom. I ask you, darling, if that’s not eccentric, what is?”
I did not say so, but I rather warmed to Reggie.
“So Reggie was the bolt?” I enquired.
“No, darling, Marjorie was the bolt. The moment Perry saw her he fell violently in love with her, because she a rather beautiful — if you like those women from the South Seas that Chopin used to paint.”
“Gauguin?” I suggested.
“Probably,” said Ursula vaguely. “Anyway, she really is quite pretty, but I think she’s just a weeny bit stupid. Well, she behaved very stupidly with Perry because she encouraged him. And then came another bolt.”
“Another bolt?” I queried, steeling myself.
“Yes,” she said. “My dear, the silly girl went and fell in love with Perry, and as you know she’s almost old enough to be his mother and has a baby. Well, perhaps she’s not old enough to be his mother, exactly, but he’s eighteen and she’s thirty if she’s a day, although she always swears she’s twenty-six, but anyway, it doesn’t alter the fact that the whole thing was most unsuitable. Naturally, Reggie got very despondent.”
“He could have solved the problem by giving Perry the portrait of Marjorie,” I suggested.
Ursula gave me a reproving look.
“It’s no laughing matter, darling,” she said severely. “We have all been in a complete turmoil, I can tell you.”
I was fascinated by the thought of seeing a Duke in a turmoil, but I did not say so.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Well, Reggie tackled Marjorie and she confessed that she had fallen in love with Perry and that they had been having an affair behind the gym, of all uncomfortable places. So, not unnaturally, Reggie got fearfully annoyed and gave her a black eye, which was really quite uncalled for, as I told him. He then went looking for Perry to give him a black eye, I suppose, but luckily Perry had gone home for the week-end, so Reggie couldn’t find him, which was just as well because Perry’s not a very strong boy, poor dear, whereas Reggie is built like an ox, as well as having a terrible temper.”
Now that the plot had started to unfold, I found myself starting to take an interest in it, in spite of myself.
“Go on,” I said, “what happened next?”
“This is the worst part of the whole thing,” said Ursula, in her penetrating whisper. She took a sip of her drink and glanced around to make sure that the whole of Venice, now assembled around us for a pre-lunchtime drink, was not eavesdropping. She leant forward and pulled me towards her by my hand. I leant across the table and she whispered in my ear. “They eloped,” she hissed, and sat back to see the effect of her words.