by Ann Bridge
The Episode at Toledo
By
Ann Bridge
To
FINA
with love
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
Chapter 1
‘Well, there’s the post at last,’ Mrs. Reeder said, coming into the library at Glentoran with a huge pile of letters. ‘Ronnie says the bus had a breakdown.’ She threw the mail on to a big oak table in the middle of the room, and sorted it into piles: ‘Philip, me; me, Philip.’ It was only when the last was in its place that she handed their post to her waiting guests, who sat in deep armchairs in front of a sputtering fire of logs. ‘Two for you, Mrs. H.; four for Julia—one from your Philip, I see.’ She picked up the biggest pile of all and carried it away to her husband’s business-room next door; then she returned and took her own heap over to a large workmanlike desk under the west window, against whose panes rain was beating savagely, borne on an Atlantic gale.
Julia—now Mrs. Philip Jamieson—and old Mrs. Hathaway, her godmother, seized on their letters and read them; Mrs. Reeder, seated at her desk, tore open envelopes, flung them into a capacious waste-paper basket, and placed most of their contents in wicker trays variously labelled ‘Bills’, ‘Receipts’, ‘House’, ‘Dairy’, ‘Tradespeople’. The busy wife of an active landlord who farmed his estate in the West Highlands himself, the bulk of her correspondence was not of a personal character. Having finished her task she lit a cigarette, slewed round on her desk chair, and asked——
‘Well, any news?’
‘Mine are not very interesting,’ Mrs. Hathaway replied mildly—in fact the correspondence of old ladies is not normally particularly absorbing. Julia Jamieson, however, had something of interest to report.
‘Yes, I’ve heard from both Luzia and Hetta—and I can’t quite make out what goes on.’
‘Luzia—now she’s that Portuguese Duke’s daughter who came over to be your bridesmaid, isn’t she? Has she got engaged yet to that old peer’s boy, who lives at Pau?’
‘How clever you are to remember!’ Julia said, in her slow tones. ‘No—Nick hasn’t gone to “renew his addresses” yet. But Richard and Hetta have just been to stay at Gralheira, and now Luzia is with them in Madrid.’
‘Now just let me get Hetta right,’ Edina said. ‘The Hungarian refugee girl, who ended up by marrying an English diplomat?’
‘Yes, Richard Atherley; he was Head of Chancery in our Lisbon Embassy then, and met Hetta; later they got married. Now he’s Counsellor in Madrid.’
‘Right. Carry on.’
Mrs. Hathaway needed no briefing about Countess Hetta Páloczy, now Mrs. Atherley; their first meeting had been unforgettable. When a car rammed her taxi in a Lisbon street, some years before, she had looked into it and seen a girl, unconscious and with a gag in her mouth, lying on the back seat; she had fetched the police, taken the girl to her own hotel, and brought her round from the overdose of drugs which the Communist thugs who were abducting her had administered. Later they stayed at Gralheira, the Duke of Ericeira’s country home, where Hetta and Richard became engaged; later still, when Atherley put in a spell at the Foreign Office, Mrs. Hathaway had seen a good deal of the young couple in London, and renewed her first affection for the Hungarian girl. She regretted it when Richard was sent to Paris, as an understudy to the English Nato representative, and then on to Madrid.
‘Julia, might I see Hetta’s letter?’ the old lady now asked.
‘Of course, Mrs. H.—I was going to ask you to read it, and see what you make of it.’
Mrs. Hathaway read the letter through twice, carefully; then, still holding it, she spoke.
‘If Hetta is asking whether Philip—your Philip, Julia—or Hugh Torrens could come out, there must be something serious going on, or likely to go on. Hetta is no fool. And who is this person Luxworthy, the important American?’
‘No idea,’ Edina said. She glanced at her watch. ‘Mrs. H., I must go down to the farm; would you like me to drop you off at the Stalker’s House for a little? Then I can bring you back to lunch.’
‘Oh thank you—it’s time I saw that poor little woman again. I’ll just get a coat.’
The interior of the Stalker’s House, to which Mrs. Hathaway was admitted after tapping on the door, was not in the least characteristic of the normal West Highland cottage. Copper cooking-pots, polished to a high degree of brilliance, hung from nails on the kitchen wall; more stood on the stove, emanating smells of a foreign deliciousness. In the little sitting-room to which this surprising stalker’s wife led her guest—after carefully lowering the heat under her pots—the tables and chairbacks were covered with exquisite drawn-thread work, totally unlike the hideous coloured embroidery, on stereotyped patterns, native to the place.
‘Well, Madame, how does it go?’ Mrs. Hathaway asked in French, sitting down.
‘Sufficiently well, chère Madame, I thank you. I have acquired twelve young hens, and a cock, so in the spring I shall have chickens; also I have bought some ancient fowls—one of them is in the casserole at this moment. My husband is making houses for the chickens; imagine, at the saw-mill they ask him nothing for the wood!’
They talked on. Presently Mrs. Hathaway asked the Frenchwoman if there was anything that she wanted?
‘Madame, yes. In this shop in the village the woman—very amiable du reste—has never heard of a round embroidery frame! If Madame could procure one for me I should be infinitely thankful.’
Struck by curiosity, Mrs. Hathaway allowed herself to ask why Mme. Bonnecourt wanted a wooden embroidery frame?
‘But for the mouchoirs of Madame Reeder! Voyons, Madame, sometimes I help in the laundry, and I see that Madame’s mouchoirs, though of good, pure linen, have no monograms on them; only these small red letters, sewn on little tapes. If I had an embroidery frame I could put pretty monograms, “E.R.”, on all her mouchoirs. I have experience as a brodeuse,’ the Frenchwoman said.
Mrs. Hathaway could well believe it, given the exquisite needlework all about her in the room. She promised to have a frame sent from London; just then Edina’s car-horn hooted outside the door; the old lady put on her coat and hurried away, promising to return soon.
‘Does she seem to be getting on all right?’ Mrs. Reeder asked. When her cousin Julia Jamieson had written to suggest that since Glentoran was short of stalkers, they should give employment to the Pyrenean climber and hunter, Bonnecourt—whose promptitude had saved Julia’s life and that of her child! by driving her down to Pau in the middle of the night from the mountain village where she was marooned, alone, during a premature labour—Edina had agreed at once; but she had become slightly anxious when it was presently explained to her that Madame Bonnecourt, who unlike her husband spoke no English, would presently join him. In fact Philip Jamieson—so tiresome that both their husbands should be called Philip, Edina often thought—had brought Mme. Bonnecourt over, complete with her earthenware casseroles and her copper cooking-pots, by sea from Bordeaux; the weight of her batterie decuisine made flight quite prohibitively costly. But so far it had all worked out better than Edina had expected. Mme. Bonnecourt helped in the dairy, and made beautiful butter; also in the laundry, where her treatment of Mrs. Reeder’s pretty underclothes seemed a special and uncovena
nted boon to her new employer. Many British country ladies, outwardly clothed in hard-worn tweeds and weather-stained Burberrys, derive a secret solace from delicious ‘undies’; Mrs. Reeder did, and found the Frenchwoman’s handling of these objects a delight.
‘Yes, she seems quite happy,’ Mrs. Hathaway now replied. ‘She’s going in for chickens; she’s bought a dozen pullets and a cock.’
‘Oh, good. Well let me know if you find out anything she wants.’
Mrs. Hathaway decided to keep the monograms a secret, and said no more.
Philip Reeder came in for lunch; he was getting burly in figure, and silver threads were beginning to show in the bushy brown beard which he had worn all his life in the Merchant Navy. Man-like, he was full of his own concerns, and after carving slices off a haunch of venison for everyone he sat down, took a pull at a tankard of ale, and began to talk about them.
‘Julia, I really am grateful to you for sending us that fellow Bonnecourt. He’s practically the best stalker we’ve ever had; he’s out at all hours, and I don’t believe he ever misses a shot.’
Julia said she was glad. ‘It was very good of you to take him on; his life was in danger in France then, after that mix-up with the O.A.S.’
‘Yes, I was a bit nervous before he came; a foreigner, and all—you never know. It was a risk, but it’s paid off. And MacHale tells me that he’s interested in sheep too, and very clever about them; he’s brought in three cast ewes already, that MacHale had missed. He’s getting on, poor old boy; he doesn’t get about the hill as much as he used to—or ought to—I think he relies rather too much on Bonnecourt’s activities. I hope to God British Intelligence—through your brother,’ he turned on his wife, ‘or your Philip, Julia—don’t go snatching him away from Glentoran.’
Julia and Edina both laughed.
‘Philip, it was in the contract that if Intelligence wanted Bonnecourt at any time, they were to have him,’ Julia stated firmly. ‘You needed a stalker, urgently, for your autumn tenants; well, you got a very good one. But I made it perfectly plain to Edina, from the start, that this was a cover-job, and that he would have to go whenever he was summoned by the Office.’
‘Don’t like that word “cover-job”—it doesn’t fit in with this sort of life,’ Philip Reeder said, with a dissatisfied expression.
‘Well, that is what we gave him, expressly,’ his wife said. Julia writes very lucid letters, and Colin explained it to you, all over again, when he brought the man up. Don’t pretend that you didn’t understand at the time, just because you don’t want to lose him now, since he’s being so useful,’ Edina pursued, with wifely frankness.
‘Oh, Colin!’ Reeder muttered into his beard. Like many other people he rather despised Colin Monro, his wife’s brother.
After a divine cheese soufflée, prepared by Edina’s Spanish cook Olimpia, they all repaired to the library for coffee. Here Edina once again asked Julia what was bothering Hetta Atherley? ‘I simply had to get down to the farm—I couldn’t wait to hear it all. What goes on?’
‘She doesn’t say—people brought up in Communist countries get so cautious. Only that there might be some danger; possibly to this important Yank.’
‘What Yank?’ Philip Reeder asked, handing a cup of coffee to Mrs. Hathaway.
‘Oddly enough she gives his name—Admiral Luxworthy. But I’ve no idea who or what he is,’ Julia said, folding Hetta’s letter up again.
‘My poor Julia, maternity seems to be impairing your I.Q.!’ Reeder said. ‘Do you never read the papers?’
‘Well not much,’ Julia admitted. ‘I’m too happy!’
‘Luxworthy—Henry P. Luxworthy—is top brass in the Pentagon,’ Philip said. ‘Surely even you must have seen that the U.S. is cutting down on her Saceur airfields, and concentrating on her naval bases for Polaris submarines, like our Holy Loch?’
‘What does “Saceur” stand for?’ his wife interjected. ‘These made-up names are so muddling and tiresome.’
‘Strategic Air Command Europe. You’re as bad as Julia,’ Philip replied impatiently.
‘Well why are the Yanks reducing these Saceur places?’ Edina pursued. She was not in the least intimidated by her rather formidable husband.
‘Because now submarine-launched missiles have practically superseded plane-launched ones,’ Philip said. ‘Less detectable, and much less vulnerable.’ He was quite happy to expatiate on a subject which interested him. ‘So America needs fewer bases, especially airfields; but the naval ones, which she still does need, she needs more. So she is tremendously keen on Rota, that huge place close to Cadiz, where the Americans have a vast maintenance staff.’
Mrs. Hathaway here broke in with a question.
‘Philip, are the submarines from these bases going to launch nuclear things?’
‘Yes, Mrs. H.—at least that is their purpose.’ Even Philip Reeder was never impatient with Mrs. Hathaway.
‘How appalling!’ the old lady said. ‘I believe Lord Rutherford was a very clever man; but why he wanted to go and split the atom, and open the door to all these horrors, I can’t think! He would have done much better to try to find out how to cure cancer.’
‘He was a physicist, not a Doctor, Mrs. H.,’ Philip said, pacifically.
‘Agreed. Well now go on, Philip—since you seem so well-informed,’ Edina said, half-mockingly. ‘How does good Admiral Luxworthy, who seems to be so much on Hetta’s mind, come into the Rota set-up?’
‘I can only speculate about that,’ her husband replied. ‘That he is about to go to Spain—may have already gone—I do know; it was in the papers, and on the wireless. And I conclude that one of his main concerns will be with Rota, since Washington regards it as so important. Franco has been most co-operative about the place, and the Americans, in their turn, have gone out of their way to be the same—for example strictly limiting how much per month their staff may spend out of their enormous dollar salaries, so as not to disrupt the local economy; and enforcing most careful respect, by the same staff, of Spanish social and religious customs. No wolf-calls to girls in the streets—heavy penalties for that.’
‘Goodness, why couldn’t they have done all that at their air-bases here!’ Julia exclaimed. ‘Franco must have something, to get rules like that enforced by the Yanks.’
‘I think it’s really the Spanish people who have something, rather than the old Caudillo himself,’ Philip answered her. ‘On the whole the English are very tolerant; the Spanish are thoroughly in tolerant, and someone must have tipped Washington off to watch their step if they wanted to keep Rota. Anyhow, things have gone quite well, so far.’
‘Then why Luxworthy’s friendly call now?’ Julia asked. ‘Just to cheer everyone along?’
‘Not entirely, I don’t think.’ Philip paused. ‘Here I fancy we come up against our old friend de Gaulle, and his anti-Nato theory of “l’Europe des Patries”; in fact his general anti-Americanism. And for some time past he has been plugging these ideas, really to quite a dangerous extent, in Spain: France and Spain, the last two right-wing Patries left in Europe!—with poor Portugal, of course, tagging along too.’
‘I can’t see Portugal “tagging along” with anyone,’ Julia exclaimed briskly. ‘She has her own ideas; mostly very sound ones, I think, and defends them by herself. But what does the General think to gain by plugging his anti-American ideas in Spain?’
‘I should like to know that too,’ Edina put in.
‘Not very internationally-minded, are you?—either of you,’ Reeder replied, mockingly—‘in spite of your family connections with Intelligence!’
‘Well go on and tell us, clever one,’ his wife replied, with equal mockery. ‘We may be too happy, like Julia, or too busy, like me, to keep au fait with foreign affairs; but we both like to know about them.’
‘So do I,’ Mrs. Hathaway added, with slight severity in her voice—she occasionally thought that Philip Reeder was becoming rather the heavy husband. That gentleman now drew in his horns a litt
le, sensing the old lady’s unexpressed disapproval.
‘Well, some of this is speculation, but not wholly, and not mine,’ Reeder said. ‘After the cattle-sale at Falkirk last week, in the Club in Edinburgh I ran into a man I used to know, who’s in Colin’s, and your Philip’s’—he nodded at Julia—‘line of business. He’d heard somehow that you were staying here, Julia, and asked after Philip; I suppose that opened his mouth a bit to me—he knows Colin, too.’
‘Name of?’ Julia asked.
‘Watherston.’
‘Never heard of him. Never mind. What did his semi-speculation amount to?’
‘Just that de Gaulle would be only too glad to detach Franco from his good-relations basis with the Americans, and drag him back into the “Patries” camp, especially since his own failure with Germany after Erhard came to power, replacing his old chum Adenauer.’
‘So what?’ Julia asked. ‘Why should de Gaulle’s propaganda in Spain be dangerous?’
‘Because the situation he’s trying to create there is a gift to the Communist bloc. If they could exploit it by any happening which roused the Spaniards violently against the Americans, or the Americans against the Spaniards, and threw Spain back into de Gaulle’s arms, it could disrupt the Western Alliance—for quite a time, anyhow. And Rota is vital to the whole Atlantic bloc, for defence purposes.’
‘But what sort of happening?’ Edina asked. Julia, who had long experience of Communist activities in many countries, was quicker.
‘Oh, do something nasty to the good Luxworthy somehow, while he’s in Spain, come merely to give a loving paternal glance at the good-working of the Rota base! Yes, that could be a real spanner in the Nato works—and the row and the recriminations would go on for ages! Thank you, Philip—this clears up a lot. I quite see why Hetta is worried.’
‘What does she say?’ Reeder asked.
‘That Luxworthy is about to come to Spain, and that she wondered whether my Philip, or Hugh Torrens, would be free to come out to help keep an eye on him. She didn’t say more than that, but the letter sounded quite urgent.’