Our Last Day in Venice

by LOUISA NEWLIN

MRS. BROWNELL and her daughter, Felicity, were sitting at a table outside the expensive café in the Piazza San Marco, waiting for Felicity’s husband to come back from the Giorgione exhibition. They did not look at all alike, nor did they even seem acquainted until they began to talk; they had the air of strangers sitting in the last two chairs, in accidental and uncomfortable juxtaposition.

“Look at this light,” Mrs. Brownell said breathlessly. “Is it like this in Rome in the evenings?”

“Mm,” said Felicity. “Well, it’s gold like this, anyhow. But it’s softer, somehow — here you have all the glittering of the water. Peter could describe it better than I. I guess it’s really quite different.”

Mrs. Brownell sighed. “I wish we could go to Florence, and to Rome, and maybe even to Naples. I wanted to come to Rome and see your room, and meet your friends, so that I’d be able to picture you, but your father said Venice was the farthest south he’d go in August.” Mr. Brownell was back at the hotel taking a nap after a late lunch on a sunny terrace. “There are things in Florence I’ve wanted to see since I was fifteen and took history of art at boarding school.” She sat up straight, drew a deep breath, and smiled; she was determined that this trip was going to be fun. “But this is lovely, lovely,” she said. “Look at San Marco, Felicity— just look at it! Have you ever seen anything like it?”

Felicity turned her head and looked obligingly at San Marco. Some bad moments had come dangerously close during the three days her parents had been here, and she wanted this last day to go well. “No,” she said truthfully, “I never have. There is nothing like it.”

Mrs. Brownell seized on this. “I really feel, Felicity, that you and I have something I never had with my mother — a real intellectual companionship.” Mrs. Brownell made this statement often, and always as though she were saying it for the first time.

Felicity smiled politely and shifted uneasily in her chair. “Yes,” she said.

“A daughter’s a daughter the rest of her life,” Mrs. Brownell said hopefully, as though she did not really believe it but thought that saying it might make it true. To state things in a positive way was safer than to pose questions.

Felicity smiled politely again and patted her mother’s hand. “I’d like a gelati,”she said. “A gelati with chocolate sauce. Do you mind? Would you like one too?”

“Of course I don’t mind, darling,” said Mrs. Brownell. “I really couldn’t, not after the pastry at lunch. But you go right ahead—you’re still too thin, missy.”

“Too thin for what?” Felicity could not help feeling annoyed. She had been told too often by her mother and grandmother that she was too thin, and that her hair was too long.

“Oh, now, Felicity,'’ her mother said hastily, “don’t be so prickly. I just think you’d feel so much better if you weighed five or ten pounds more.” Mrs. Brownell remembered saying confidently just before Felicity’s wedding that she was sure the girl would put on weight once she was married; she would blossom like a rose, she had told her daughter joyously.

“I feel fine,” Felicity said, getting up. “I’m going to get my gelati — we’ll never get that waiter back.”

Mrs. Brownell watched her as she moved between the tables, as quickly as though she were following a path. She wished Felicity would not wear those brown thong sandals all the time. She knew Venice was informal —she herself was not wearing a hat and she did not mind so much Felicity’s pale lips — Peter did not like lipstick or that awful black jersey blouse she seemed to be so fond of, but she did mind dusty feet and dirty toenails. However, she had tried very hard not to criticize and to be grateful that at least the young couple had consented to stay with them at the Gritti Palace, at Mr. Brownell’s expense.

FELICITY came back, carrying the dish of gelati in one hand and a new cup of coffee in the other. “Oh, dear —” said Mrs. Brownell, and then decided not to finish,

“What’s the matter?” Felicity asked. “I bet it’s the coffee.”

Her mother nodded. “Look, Mother,” said Felicity, “I’m twenty-two years old, and it’s up to me to decide how much coffee and how many cigarettes are good for me. Do I look sick?”

Mrs. Brownell had to admit that she did not. In fact, Felicity had become so brown during the last year that her skin was beginning to look almost leathery, but this was something else Mrs. Brownell had decided not to mention. “I guess one never stops trying to bring up one’s children,” she said.

“I guess not.” Felicity drank some of her coffee. “What time is it getting to be? Peter ought to be back pretty soon.”

Mrs. Brownell looked at her watch. “It’s only four thirty,” she said. “He won’t be back until at least five, do you think?” She had looked forward to this afternoon alone with her daughter; when Peter was with them, Felicity seemed to withdraw from her completely to join her husband in his moody silences. “If he goes to get a haircut, he’ll be even later,” she added, then immediately wished she had left that alone; she knew perfectly well that this was not at all likely.

Felicity laughed. “Dear Mother, I doubt it very much. But admit he’s been good — he’s worn a white shirt and a tie to dinner every single night.”

Mrs. Brownell, with a great effort, restrained herself from remarking that it had been the same white shirt. “It’s a complete mystery to me why a boy who went to Exeter wouldn’t want to wear a tie,” she said.

Felicity shrugged her shoulders. “When in Rome.”

Mrs. Brownell tried to smile understandingly. She changed the subject. “I can’t wait till you’re in your own little house with all your nice things around you,”she said.

Felicity looked startled. “What little house?” she asked suspiciously.

“Oh, just a little house, any little house. Your first home. I don’t mean in Willow Grove, necessarily; it’s good for young people to start out someplace new.”

“But we are in our first home,” said Felicity. “Our room in the pensione is home.”

“Oh, not really your first home,” Mrs. Brownell said. “You don’t have any of your wedding presents with you, or your grandmother’s furniture, or anything.”

“Good heavens,'’ said Felicity. “Our wedding presents. My God — excuse me, Mother — my gosh. I’d forgotten all about them. They’re still in the attic, aren’t they?” She almost wondered aloud if they could be sold, but stopped herself in time.

“Of course they’re in the attic. Of course you haven’t forgotten them,” Mrs. Brownell said crossly. “You’ve got some perfectly lovely things. I only wish Peter hadn’t made you take so many of them back.”

“We’ll use up the credit someday,” Felicity said, and thought that, after all, they could probably use the credit to send wedding presents to other people. As for the ones they had kept, she dimly remembered row upon row of glasses — monogrammed highball glasses, glasses with ducks on them, oldfashioned glasses decorated with the Exeter emblem —and stacks of plates depicting scenes of Old New York, Audubon bird plates, square plates, freeform plates, casserole dishes, martini pitchers, water pitchers, milk pitchers, candy dishes, compotes, silver serving spoons . . .

“Most of those stores like you to use up credit within a year,”Mrs. Brownell said, and then as casually as she could, “When are you coming back, by the way? Your father and I were hoping that maybe by Christmas—”

“I doubt we’ll be back for Christmas, Mother,” said Felicity, trying to be gentle. “I hate to disappoint you. I suppose it’s possible, but it really depends on how Peter’s work is going. He’s just beginning to feel he’s actually putting on canvas what he wants to put there.”

Mrs. Brownell sighed. Felicity knew that her parents were unable to consider painting as work, and she braced herself in case her mother should ask again, “But what does Peter plan to do?”

“You do realize,” Mrs. Brownell started, squinting at a flock of pigeons which had risen abruptly into the air without apparent motivation, “you do realize that Peter’s best chance for a good job is back where he has roots. Oh, I know you’re going to say roots don’t mean anything anymore, but as far as getting started goes, they do, believe me.”

Felicity did not know what, if anything, she ought to say at this point. She and her brother, Harry, had discovered quite early that the easiest way to get along with their mother was to speak as little as possible. She remained silent.

Mrs. Brownell stopped pretending to watch the pigeons and leaned closer. “Felicity, do you mind if I ask you something?”

Felicity looked up at the campanile. She tilted her head way back, and by half focusing on moving clouds, indulged in the optical illusion that the building was falling, a game she and Harry had played as children. “Not at all,” she said. “Go right ahead.”

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Felicity,” her mother said sharply.

Felicity jerked her head forward obediently, blinking at the purple dots she saw swimming before her. Mrs. Brownell dropped her voice to a significant whisper: “How are things?”

Felicity squirmed. “I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you mean.”

“I don’t really mean that, though you ought to realize what a wonderful cementer children are. What I mean is, are things all right? Is Peter a good husband?”

“Of course he’s a good husband,” said Felicity, blushing. “We don’t need any cement.”

“I don’t understand why you won’t be frank with me,'' said her mother. “I’ve always tried so hard to be frank with you about things and discussed things with you openly.” Felicity’s face was still pink, and Mrs. Brownell changed her tack; perhaps the reason her daughter would not respond was that there was some trouble. “I want you to know that you can confide in me,” she said eagerly. “I never felt I could confide in my mother.”

“Everything is just fine, Mother,” Felicity said impatiently, and thought to herself, finer than you’ll ever know. “It’s just that there are certain things too private to hash over with anyone. And if you’re worried about children —well, we just don’t want any right now. I promise you we’ll have some someday.”

“Harry was born eleven months after we were married,” Mrs. Brownell said. “But things are different these days, I suppose.” Her voice was getting louder. “I may not have any close friends who are artists, but I know several musicians, and I know all about that sort of people. They may be very interesting and creative, but they don’t make very good husbands and wives, believe inc.”

“Peter is — a — wonderful — husband,” Felicity said, enunciating each word firmly.

Mrs. Brownell went on talking as though she had not heard. “I knew we shouldn’t have let you go away to that college. It was too far away. I knew it was too far away. My parents wouldn’t even let me go to the Curtis Institute of Music, right in the same city, and I wanted to so badly, but it was good for me. It’s good for people to have to make sacrifices to please other people.” She paused, but Felicity did not look up. “I tried to keep up with you when you went away to college. I tried so hard to read Wallace Stevens and those other people you kept talking about when you came back.” Her voice was quivering, and some people at nearby tables turned to look dispassionately at her. She tried to bring her voice into control. “You must think of your father’s feelings, too,” she said. “Your father’s feelings are hurt that after everything he’s done for us, you don’t seem to respect what he’s done in his business, or appreciate the nice things he’s given you. What’s wrong with you and Peter that you can’t accept nice things?”

Felicity, who had hoped desperately that they were not in for a real scene, now prayed that at least the tears standing ready in her mother’s eyes would not spill out. “Mother,” she said helplessly, “we don’t want nice things.”

“What do you want then?” Mrs. Brownell cried shrilly.

Felicity put her face in her hands. “I don’t know what we want,” she said, trying to be patient. “It hasn’t anything to do with hurting you. Right now we just don’t know what we want. Maybe if we get rid of everything we don’t want, we’ll be able to see what we do want. Do you see what I mean at all?”

“No,” said Mrs. Brownell flatly. “I suppose you’re trying to say that you might not be coming back at all.” She waited tensely for the answer, overcome by her own courage in asking it.

“That’s right,” said Felicity, driven there finally.

“Why did you have to do this to me on our last day in Venice?” her mother cried. “Your brother Harry’s my only sane child, and even he’s living in Denver.”

Felicity refrained from commenting that one sane one out of two was, after all, doing pretty well. “Here comes your father,” Mrs. Brownell said.

Mr. Brownell, freshly shaved and smiling contentedly, was walking toward them across the Piazza San Marco. He was not a particularly fat man, and Felicity knew from old photographs that he had once been as thin as Peter. Could Peter, even in twenty years, ever look as serene and well fed? Mr. Brownell came up to the table and put one hand on his wife’s shoulder, the other hand on his daughter’s. “How’re my girls?” he asked cheerfully. “Have a nice afternoon? Do any shopping?”

Mrs. Brownell could not bear to burden him right then. “Very nice, darling,” she said. “We haven’t done much of anything.”

Felicity smiled back affectionately at her father but did not dare say anything. She looked beyond him and saw her husband working his way through the thicket of tables, a chair in each hand. “Here’s Peter,” she said with relief. “How was the exhibition?”

“I’ll take you back to it tomorrow,” he said, putting down the chairs. He wiped his perspiring face on his shirt sleeve. “Please sit down, sir,” he said pleasantly to Mr. Brownell, acknowledging his mother-in-law with a nod. Since none of them had ever invented satisfactory nicknames for him to call his in-laws, Peter usually avoided addressing either of them directly.

Mrs. Brownell looked at him sitting beside her daughter. She had to admit that he would be attractive if he weren’t quite so unkempt; after a year here, he looked almost Italian. She turned to her own husband and reached for his hand. “Look at them, darling,” she said. “Aren’t you a little envious of twenty-two and twenty-five, going off and studying painting in Rome?”

Mr. Brownell shook his head and laughed. “No, I’m afraid not. I can truthfully say that I’m not.”

Deprived of a companion in longing, Mrs. Brownell suddenly felt entirely deserted. The sun had gone, though the sky was still light, and a few lamps were being turned on around the piazza. “Do you think we could stay just one more day here in Venice?” Mrs. Brownell pleaded.

Her husband looked surprised. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he said, not noticing her desperation. “We have plane reservations for Geneva tomorrow, and hotel reservations there, and the Gritti Palace probably has people moving into our rooms tomorrow — do you mind? We’ve had a nice little visit with Felicity, and I’ve had enough of Venice for one trip.”

“I don’t mind at all,” said Mrs. Brownell bravely. She was determined that the rest of the trip would be fun.