They ate in silence, the subject he wished to change now accompanied by another subject which could not be mentioned. He knew that if he asked Lily some particular question about her aunt or her plans, she would either laugh or become heated. He resigned himself to saying nothing; she would decide the flow of conversation.
Eventually, she spoke.
‘I do not think she would have come to Venice for solitude. It is not a place to be alone at any time, but certainly not in the winter.’
‘Yes, she might have been wiser to have moved,’ he said. ‘It is hard to tell.’
‘Of course Mrs Curtis and she both believed that you planned to take a pied-à-terre in Venice,’ Lily said. ‘I believe that they even searched for a while on your behalf.’
He saw where she was going and knew that it was essential to stop her.
‘I’m afraid they misunderstood my enthusiasm for its beauties and its pleasures,’ he said. ‘Yes, whenever I was there, I longed to hold the grand watery city, as it were, by owning a view, however modest. But these fancies can be entertained but briefly, I’m afraid. The rest is dull. It is called work and it makes demands.’
Her look was darkly pointed, but with a tinge of sympathy. She smiled.
‘Yes, I can imagine,’ she said drily.
IN THE MORNING he told Mrs Smith that he wished her husband to remain in bed where he would in the course of the day be examined by a doctor. Luncheon would be served by the parlour-maid with assistance from Burgess Noakes, who should be found a jacket which fitted him. He asked her if she could come out to the garden with him, knowing that Lily Norton was writing a letter in a room not overlooking the garden, and would not witness this scene. He wished to study Mrs Smith in clear daylight, and when he did so he saw that she could not continue in his kitchen, that she did not seem to have washed or changed her clothes in a very long time.
‘I trust your guest is enjoying her stay,’ she said. ‘I trust everything is in order for her and there are no complaints.’
Her tone was almost insolent. When he understood that she was about to say something else, he stopped her by raising his right hand, and then he bowed gently and returned to the house.
He found Burgess Noakes and asked him to enquire urgently among the shopkeepers of Rye to discover the name of Mrs Smith’s sister who lived in the gardener’s cottage at Ashford. Soon, Burgess returned with the news that her name was Mrs Ticknor. As he turned towards his study, Burgess touched him on the shoulder, put his finger to his lips and guided him to the garden.
Henry watched amazed as Burgess checked that no one else could see them, his expression cautious and watchful. As Burgess led him to the outbuildings behind the kitchen, Henry wondered what his diminutive houseboy could possibly want him to see. Checking to ensure that Henry was following, Burgess motioned to him to enter one of the sheds and pulled back a stretch of canvas to disclose an enormous cache of empty whisky, wine and sherry bottles, which gave off a foul, sour smell.
By luncheon, Henry had summoned the doctor to call in the afternoon and had sent an urgent telegram to Mrs Ticknor. He was thus able to greet Lily’s friend Ida Higginson, who, he appreciated, had known all her life only the most orderly domestic rituals which Boston could provide, and a friend from Eastbourne who had come for the day, as though his household was in good health and perfect harmony. He knew that Lily Norton would not be indelicate enough to mention the matter to anyone save her Aunt Grace who would be too interested in the news to be fully deprived of it. He was glad he had not confided in her or in anyone else. He explained to the company that the butler was not well and hoped they would not be offended by the parlourmaid serving luncheon with the assistance of young Burgess Noakes.
As luncheon came to an end, Mrs Smith having once more miraculously cooked a meal, Burgess indicated to him that Mrs Ticknor had arrived, and he asked that she wait for him in the front sitting room. He knew that this would prevent him from showing his guests around the garden, but he easily arranged that, since he had work that could not wait, in the shape of a novel appearing as a serial, Miss Norton should take her fellow guests on a walk through Rye, with which she had become thoroughly acquainted.
Once they had happily and innocently departed, he went to Mrs Ticknor and told her of his plight. He emphasized that it could not, would not, continue. He wished to dismiss both of them. He would settle generously with them, he said, but he could no longer employ them. Mrs Ticknor, he hoped, could make arrangements for them, but he would not help her in that, he said.
Mrs Ticknor said nothing, her face betrayed no emotion. She simply asked where her sister was and if she could speak to her. As they moved into the hallway, they saw the parlourmaid let the doctor into the house. Henry sent Mrs Ticknor to the kitchen, and, having briefed the doctor, dispatched him in the care of the parlourmaid to the room behind the pantry where, he understood from Burgess Noakes, Mr Smith lay.
That evening as he dined with Lily Norton and his friend from Eastbourne, the conversation ranged over political and literary matters. Lily was at her most persuasively charming and intelligent. Considering her insistence on raising the issue of Constance Fenimore Woolson the previous evening and her insinuation that he had abandoned her friend and left her to her fate in Venice, he wondered if she, too, Lily Norton, had been abandoned, or if she lived in fear of such an eventuality. Her not marrying, not being allied with someone who could offer her greater purpose and scope for all her flair and charm, was, in his view, a mistake and would likely seem more so as time passed. As he looked at her across the table, it occurred to him that the re-creation of herself, her deliberate broadening of her effect, could have atrophied other qualities more endearing to a potential suitor. Constance, he thought, might have written a very good novel about her.
The doctor returned in the morning and professed the case hopeless. Mr Smith, he said, remained drunk because the daily intake of alcohol over so many years had made him so. Once the supply was withdrawn, he would suffer enormously. Mrs Ticknor returned with her husband and told Henry that his generosity was appreciated and indeed would be needed as the Smiths did not have a penny. They had saved nothing. They had spent all their income on drink and in fact owed money to several suppliers in Rye. Mrs Ticknor was brisk in her tone and her husband stood beside her, clearly embarrassed, his cap in his hands.
The Smiths were, as their goods were gathered, he thought, simply two saturated and demoralized victims with not a word to say for themselves, even Mrs Smith moved in silence to her doom, avoiding his glance. He knew that they would not find work again, and that, when his payments had run out, and their close family could no longer manage them, they would face the abyss. The Smiths, he thought, who had come with him so faithfully through so many years, were lost. But he knew that he would have given anything to get them out of the house.
He wrote to his sister-in-law about the episode, but mentioned it to no one else. It was, he said, a perfect nightmare of distress, disgust and inconvenience. He realized that everyone in Rye would soon discover the fate of the Smiths. Even though they were disliked, the speed of their dismissal, he knew, would cause people to observe him closely as he walked through the town.
This episode and the enervating weeks that followed as he lived servantless and ate in a local hostelry filled him with an unhappiness that only work could cure. In the mornings he sat at the wide south window of the drawing room which caught all the early sunshine and he read over the previous day’s work. The window overlooked the smooth green lawn and he loved to watch George Gammon at work under the shade of the old mulberry tree. Later, as he took his stroll in the garden, he would enjoy being protected from the world by the high garden walls of Lamb House.