by Jane Arbor
Bewilderedly, Emma protested: “But you have admitted yourself, señora, that we were up against officialdom. And in a foreign country that can be much more alarming than in one’s own.”
“Of course you were dealing with officialdom!” snapped Leonore. “But in your place I should immediately have taken a high hand and refused to discuss the charge with them.”
“A ‘high hand’, señora? With my passport in their possession and the frontier barrier firmly down across the road?”
“Well then, you should have seen that Ayesha’s story sounded more convincing!”
“Ayesha was telling the truth as she knew it But mostly in Arabic, I admit.”
“Nonsense. She can speak and understand Spanish well enough when she likes. If necessary, you should have shaken something out of her which the guards would accept. But no! - you chose instead to sit and twiddle meek thumbs until Mark or I could extricate you. And yet” - there was a sneer in Leonore’s voice - “I should have said that you, of all people, in view of your history, would be particularly anxious to steer clear of the notoriety of a charge of this sort, however false!”
All colour drained from Emma’s face. “In view of my history?” she repeated. “What do you mean, señora, please?”
But she knew, even before Leonore went on: “Or do you consider that an easily disproved case of petty smuggling has little connection with the grand-scale passing of contraband diamonds? Oh, yes” - Leonore’s widehanded gesture of tolerance was an insult in itself - “of course, one knows that personally you weren’t guiltily involved in either. But aren’t you a little apprehensive lest people who know about both affairs may associate the two ideas, and not to your credit? Mark Triton, for instance - Wouldn’t you say that mere knight-errantry must have a saturation point? I should. Especially when the rescued victim consistently refuses to learn -"
At that, Emma turned away and left the room without a word in her own defence, for the simple reason that she could not trust herself to speak. Leonore had won that duel and she must know it. But Emma could almost discount the victory as petty beside the deeper defeat of her realization that everything which Leonore knew about her own association with Guy’s disgrace, she must have learned from Mark.
He need not have told her. Surely he need not! Or, if he had had to explain her lack of background in Tangier before Leonore would employ her, surely he could have done it without allowing the other woman to believe that she had shared or even known of Guy’s guilt? Leonore need not have been offered that particular barb to use upon her.... And yet she felt infinitely less hurt by Leonore’s unfounded accusations than she felt be-trayed by Mark.
Besides, it reopened a chapter she wanted to forget and which she had supposed was closed for ever. Since Guy had left Tangier so hurriedly, she had heard nothing more of him and there had been no repercussions from the unproved case against him. And now that her heart had no curiosity about him she did not want to be reminded of him again.
So that when, a few days after the incident at the frontier, the unwelcome, the unbelievable thing happened, it almost seemed to Emma as if the evil intent of Leonore’s words had caused it, had conjured it up for her deeper dismay.
In the city one morning she was almost certain she saw Guy.
He did not see her, and when she reached the corner where he had been he had already disappeared among the crowds in the Rue du Statut. Guy in Tangier again? She had no wish to meet him, but the sight of him brought back all the past, and she wondered whether he knew that he might be running the risk of arrest by coming back.
She did not know it for certain herself, and only the police and one person - Mark Triton - could tell her. But, even to warn Guy, she still felt too bitter against Mark to take any new mention of Guy’s trouble to him. Again she thought with a sick sense of betrayal, he need not have implied to Leonore that I was involved.
All that day she could not forget having seen Guy. But she did not expect to hear anything of him, as he would surely suppose she would have taken his advice to return to England. And even if he thought she might have stayed in Tangier, he could not know where she might be. Besides, by now she must be to him no more than a girl in his past, as he was a man in hers....
It was therefore a shock when, a couple of days later, Leonore told her that he had telephoned the villa, leaving a message for her.
Pilar was to spend the weekend in Gibraltar as the guest of an uncle and aunt of John Nicholas’s, who were staying at the Rock Hotel. And it was when Emma returned, after driving her to the Airport to catch the Maritime-Air morning flight, that Leonore gave Emma the news.
Leonore said: “Your friend Trench rang up, and I answered the call. I told him you weren’t available, but he asked that you should be told he had called up. He said he had something to tell you which he felt you would want to know, and he left this number where he suggested you should ring, in order to arrange where you could meet.”
Emma stared at the number on the message pad which Leonore flicked towards her. “Thank you, señora” she murmured. “But - but how could he know that I was here?”
Leonore shrugged. “I wasn’t curious enough to ask. But if - well, I’m right in taking him to be your smuggling friend, late of Maritime-Air?”
Emma nodded dumbly.
“Quite. Then isn’t it likely that he still has some associates among the pilots who could tell him where you were to be found? No particular difficulty about it, surely? As soon as he returned to Tangier he wouldn’t lack for news that Mark’s charity had done what it could for you. And as you see from the telephone number he gives, he is back again."
“Yes.” Fearing what Leonore could make of the admission, Emma stopped short of saying she already knew as much. She protested: “But I must ask you to believe that I have no wish to see Guy Trench again, and that there can be nothing about him which I badly need to know now.”
“Well, that is your affair,” returned Leonore. “My concern is that your contacts with him shall not be conducted with the apparent blessing of the Villa Mirador. Understand, please, that his calling you here is not welcome at all.”
“Certainly,” agreed Emma, quietly. “May I say that I would prefer, myself, to ignore the call as if it had not been made?”
“And have him continually again on the line? No, you had better arrange to see him, as he suggests. But of course, not here. There must be no breath of connection between this house and a man of the kind of reputation which, according to Ramón, your friend Trench had before he judged it was high time he left Tangier.”
“Very well. I will see him, though only to insist that neither you nor I are troubled again. But” - Emma hesitated on the fear that she might not have heard aright - “wasn’t it from Mr. Triton, not from Ramón Galatas, that you learned what you know about Guy Trench and my - my connection with him?”
“From Mark? No, from Ramón. Mark only said you had had an unfortunate love affair which had stranded you here. I heard the details later - and from Ramón.”
Emma choked back something very near exultation to ask: “But what could Ramón have known about Guy?”
“What but the whole of a gossip story which would have gone the round of every café-bar in the city at the time?” drawled Leonore.
“But one which Mr. Triton didn’t think it necessary to repeat to you?”
“I’ve told you - I accepted you into my employ on Mark’s mere word for you and on your English references. I heard the - scandal later, and I consider you should be grateful that I allowed it to make no difference to our relations when I did.”
“I am grateful, señora.” Emma could afford to be generous now, even to Leonore. But as if she had sensed Emma’s relief that it had not been Mark who had betrayed her, Leonore went on shrewdly: “Why should it matter to you that Mark clamped down on the story? He still knew it, didn’t he? And, after all his efforts on your behalf, I daresay you’ll be at pains to keep him from learning that Trench
has come back into your life.”
“Guy Trench has done nothing of the sort,” said Emma calmly. “On your advice, I will see him again. But only once, and only to underline the finality of a parting which took place months ago. ”
“Yes, well - you’ll do as you please,” yawned Leonore. “And I’ve no doubt that, in order to keep your credit high with Mark, you’ll make the meeting with Trench short and sweet. And yet, in your place, I shouldn’t want Mark to know that Trench had lost no time in getting in touch with me as soon as he ventured back.”
Emma’s chin went up. “I’m not afraid that Mr. Triton should learn it. In fact, I shall tell him myself.”
“Will you? I wonder. Do you know” - Leonore’s eyes narrowed in calculation - “I should say that the return of a near-criminal erstwhile fiancé, in quite probable danger of arrest, would be just one problem that you would be wise not to run with to Mark-?”
And there, thought Emma, not bothering to reply, you would be wrong. Quite, quite wrong. For, her faith restored, she felt she could trust Mark to act or to advise her for the best in whatever circumstances Guy had returned to Tangier.
Should she confide in Mark before she saw Guy? Or see Guy first? Ought she to find out what Guy wanted of her before she turned to Mark? Or could she afford to let the issue hang upon her ability to contact Mark quickly and to ask him to see her before she met Guy ?
Did it really matter which she did? At the time she believed not. And there was nothing to warn her that, faced with the decision, she was going to make the wrong choice....
CHAPTER EIGHT
GUY made their rendezvous a quiet cafe in the French quarter which had no romantic associations for them and, early the next evening, Emma went to meet him there.
As she crossed towards his table he rose to greet her, both hands outstretched. Her swift appraisal of him told her that he looked well - even bronzed now and far less tense - and she felt genuinely glad. But though, when he said: “Emma - it was good and generous of you to come!” his voice struck into her memory, neither it nor the sight of him awoke any response in her now.
At first, their diffidence kept their talk to a ripple of commonplaces. Then, in answer to Emma’s question, Guy told her that since leaving Tangier he had been working as a pilot for a charter-flight company, operating from Marseille. Throughout the summer, the tourist trade had kept the work steady and the pay good. But when it had eased off he had applied for and obtained a permanent job in South Africa, spraying crops from the air.
“Won’t that be rather a waste of your qualifications as pilot and navigator?” Emma queried.
“Could be. But it means working hours that I’ll know beforehand and sleeping in the same place at night. There’s a house thrown in. Important that, to a chap with a young wife to keep.”
Emma felt that Guy was watching her covertly to gauge the effect of this. But she raised calm eyes to his. “You are married, Guy?” she asked.
“Not yet. How much did I tell you about Lelie in that wretched letter I had to write?”
“Only that you were in love with her, not with me. But I did learn more about her than that, it doesn't matter how. She didn’t leave Tangier with you when you first went, did she?”
“Nor since, though I've been living in Marseille with her people. She is honest and as shrewd, bless her, as most French folk, and she persuaded me of the sense of our both going on working in order to pay off my Tangier debts. She regarded herself as a kind of hostage here, not to be freed until I was clear of what I owed. And now I am clear, and to collect her is one of the reasons which have brought me back. I had wondered,” Guy added diffidently, “whether you two would care to meet?”
Emma shook her head. “Lelie sounds nice, and I’m truly glad for you, Guy. But I think it would be better if we didn’t meet.”
“Perhaps you are right,” he agreed. “She said much the same. I only wanted you to know that I didn’t throw away your love merely for something worthless which hadn’t lasted for me.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” (But he can’t know, thought Emma, how impersonally and unreservedly I can wish him well now!) Aloud, she asked: “And you’ll be marrying and leaving straight away?”
“Yes. We’re leaving Tangier first thing in the morning. That is why I had to be pretty urgent about seeing you, Emma. I wanted to be frank with you about Lelie and to tell you about the job and that I was going straight. That is, if you were still here. I - I’ve had a conscience about you. If nothing else had brought me back, I had to find out what became of you after I walked out on you as I did.”
“And in coming back you hadn’t to fear any repercussions from the Maritime-Air affair?”
“No - thanks to Triton, of all people. The police recovered the consignments of diamonds I’d been fool enough to handle, and Triton saw to it that the case against me wasn’t pursued.”
“You were guilty, Guy?”
His glance met hers frankly. “Didn’t Triton tell you that I was?”
“Yes. He said he knew that you were.”
“And then?”
“Then he wanted to persuade me that your advice was good and that I ought to go back to England.”
“But you didn’t go?”
“No. It appeared as a matter of pride that I shouldn’t, turn and run, just because you had deserted me.” For Guy’s benefit she outlined the reasons and circumstances which had kept her in Tangier. And at the end, without realizing she had reached the decision, she heard herself saying: “I couldn’t have gone back to England then. But I shall go before long now.”
“How soon, Emma?”
“Pilar de Coria wants me to stay for her marriage to Lieutenant Nicholas. But if it is going to be long delayed I shall go before then.”
“Your job will be finishing? Wouldn’t you consider taking another in Tangier ? ”
“No. I’ve stayed long enough to work out my hurt pride. Besides, I owe it to my people to go back to show them that I’m all right.” But she knew she was going because she could not bear to stay within possible sight and news of Leonore and Mark after they were married. She had told herself she must be generous, and generosity would be easier from the safe distance of England.
Guy reached impulsively for her hand across the table. “Emma, I’m sorry! I brought all this upon you, and then wasn’t any good to you in the end.”
She smiled and gently withdrew her hand. “You certainly started something in my life when we met at Mary Carlow’s twenty-first! Without you, I should never have come upon Tangier, except perhaps for a short holiday. And even if I don’t come back I know I shall never forget my time here.” Nor, in the end, regret it, she added in her thoughts, foreseeing with courage that one day she would know herself enriched, not impoverished, by having known and loved Mark.
It was raining when she and Guy left the cafe together. While he went to fetch her car for her she stood watching the first rain she had seen since she left England, a sharp, tropical downpour which danced inches high in the gutters and which had cleared the streets as if by magic. And for her there was a symbolic poignancy about the breaking of the winter rains so much earlier than local weather-lore had forecast. The summer - the dangerous magic of its sun, moonlight and breathless, sapphire nights - was over. It was time for her to go....
When Guy returned and she took his place at the steering-wheel she gave him her hand through the lowered window. “Good luck, Guy,” she said. The catch in her voice was for all he had once meant to her and now meant no more.
He bent to touch her brow with his lips. “Bless you,” he said. “And - only au re voir!”
But they both knew it was really good-bye.
Leonore was to be out for the evening, so, on returning to the villa, Emma changed into housecoat and slippers for the dinner she would be eating alone. The temperature had dropped sharply with the coming of the rain,
and for the first time since the levante had blown she was glad for Ay
esha to draw the curtains and shut out the wild night.
While she was taking her coffee, the telephone rang. It was Pilar, her voice coming through none too well from Gibraltar.
“Leonore darling? Oh, it’s Emma - ? Emma, can I speak to Leonore?”
“Lovely to hear you, Pilar! Are you enjoying yourself? I'm afraid Leonore is out, dear. I believe she is joining a party to see a film. ”
“Oh - Oh dear. Well, Emma, my news just won’t keep. Juan is to get English leave at the end of the month. He has only just heard, and he wanted to ask Leonore’s permission for us to be married by then.”
Emma drew a long breath. The end of the month. So that was the measure of her own term in Tangier! She said into the mouthpiece: “Pilar dear, no wonder you are excited! I do hope Leonore will consent.”
“Juan says she must. For myself, I do not know what she will say —” Pilar’s voice trailed away a little dispiritedly. But then John Nicholas came on the line to ask Emma when Leonore might be back.
Emma did not know, and said so. But she promised to wait up for Leonore in order to tell her that they had called. And to save their ringing again to no purpose, she said she would ask Leonore to ring them.
She spoke again briefly to Pilar, only to be cut off in mid-sentence by a particularly bad spurt of “crackle” on the line. She kept the receiver at her ear, straining to hear whether' Pilar was still there or had rung off. While she waited, she was oblivious of any sound but the snapping salvo assailing her eardrums, and only when she cradled the receiver and turned about did she realize she was not alone in the room.
Ramón Galatas - of all unexpected visitors, since she believed he was still in Spain - was leaning against the closed door, his hands spread on its panels, a slightly fatuous smile curving his sensual mouth.
He said querulously: “So! Ayesha was right. It is La Inglesa who is alone, and Leonore is not at home. But why is she not? What of the telegram I sent her from Cadiz, telling her to prepare for my news?”