by Ann Bridge
‘I broke my wrist in a car accident in Spain,’ she said briefly. ‘The chauffeur was a Communist agent whom I had seen in Hungary, and recognised.’
‘But how came you to be driven by such a person?’ He looked startled.
‘He was employed as chauffeur by the American Naval Attaché in Madrid.’
Now she had all Subercaseaux’s attention, and she told him the whole story: her suspicions of Luis, what she had overheard at the cigarral, the car crash, and the expression on the man’s face when in the sudden shock she had cried out in Hungarian. The Monsignor, looking grave, asked the questions one might expect.
‘Oh yes, Luis was deported to America—he had United States papers, because he went there as a refugee after the Rising; and some other Hungarians were imprisoned, I think Richard said.’
‘But he must have had Spanish associates. Were they also caught?’
‘I think not; certainly not all. This is why I seek your advice.’
‘Go on, my child.’
She told him of her two encounters with the strangers at Gralheira, and what the old gardener had said about their watching ‘who came and who went’ at the house. ‘They are certainly Spaniards,’ she said, and mentioned that they were now treading the wine. ‘I may be foolish, but I have the idea that they may be watching me—I am afraid now to go out alone. I am expecting my second child,’ she added flatly.
‘I am very glad. I hope it will be a boy this time,’ he said warmly. ‘But continue. Could any of this chauffeur’s Spanish accomplices know you by sight?’
Hetta hesitated; then she told the priest about the man who had brought flowers into her room at the clinic. ‘This never happened—and there was no name, or card, when we undid them. Luzia made light of it, but she was displeased, I could see; and it seemed very curious. Since I have seen these men here, I—I have wondered if he was sent to the clinic to know what I looked like.’
‘Have you told the Duke about this?—or Luzia?’
‘No. You see I cannot be sure if the men are really agents. Also I do not wish to trouble Luzia, just now that she is engaged.’
‘Oh, she is engaged, is she? To this young Scotsman from Pau?’ No one was more close to the international social grapevine than Mgr. Subercaseaux—he allowed himself to leave the main subject to ask Hetta her views on Nicholas Heriot, and how the Duke of Ericeira had reacted to the engagement? He was pleased with what he heard, especially of Nick’s desire to do all he could to be useful in running Gralheira, and his determination to learn Portuguese.
‘All this is excellent,’ he pronounced.
‘Yes, Monsignor, I too think so. But you see it is very awkward; I am afraid to go out alone, and if I walk with Nicholas and Luzia, they cannot be free to get to know one another as they should be doing. I am being a raspberry!’ Hetta said. The priest laughed.
‘Gooseberry,’ he corrected her. Then he looked grave again. ‘You have spoken to no-one about this?’
‘Not openly, no. I asked Gil de Castelo Branco, this cousin, what would happen to Communist agents, Spanish ones, if they were caught here, and he said they would be handed over to the Spanish Security Police.’ She went on, rather hesitantly, to explain her distaste for this—‘even if they are guilty, horrible things are done to them; and if they were innocent, horrible things might still be done, before their innocence was proved. I would not wish to have that on my heart, my Father.’
Her use of those words made him look very benevolently at her. He realised clearly that she had come to him, less for advice about her own safety than to resolve a problem of conscience. At first he spoke almost musingly.
‘Ah, yes. “It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto that man by whom the offence cometh”. I understand you, my child. Let me reflect.’
Hetta sat quietly while he did so, looking out of the small window at the view down the long sunlit valley. She was enormously relieved to have put her problem into other hands; and his whole manner, after those first few rather gushing sentences, caused her to feel that the Monsignor was wise as well as worldly-wise, as Father Antal had told her long ago.
At last Subercaseaux spoke.
‘I think you cannot keep silence about this any longer,’ he said. ‘One does not know how much is involved; others besides you may be threatened. It is important to try to establish the facts, too.’
‘Tell the Duque? He will act at once, and ruthlessly, I am afraid.’
‘Not in the first place. Tell Luzia; she has a splendid head on her shoulders, and all their people love her—she may well find out a great deal about these men, and rapidly. She can also drop a hint to the estate servants to be on the watch. This young Castelo Branco should be told—he is in a position to have the local police put on the qui vive, without taking any immediate action.’ He paused. ‘You have not written to your husband?’
‘No. He would be so worried, and he cannot leave Madrid at the moment, because this other important American is coming, to complete some arrangements about the naval base at Rota—and Sir Noël wished him to be there.’
‘Ah yes.’ Naturally the Monsignor knew all about the American politician’s impending visit. ‘All the same, it might be as well if the British Intelligence personnel in Madrid knew of the situation here.’ He considered, tapping his fingers on the shining surface of the table.
‘If only one knew whether it is a situation at all,’ Hetta said.
‘In all the circumstances I think we must assume that it is,’ he replied rather gravely. ‘It seems very probable that the Communists, now that they realise who you are, and that you speak Hungarian, will also have made an assumption—that you were in some way connected with the removal of this chauffeur. They will have a very full dossier on you. I think—yes, I think that perhaps I had better get a word to Madrid. I have channels!’ he said, smiling a little. ‘But do you speak to Luzia at once, and the cousin.’
Hetta pointed out that Gil would not be coming up till the week-end.
‘Tell Luzia that he should come sooner! She will arrange it,’ Subercaseaux said easily. ‘And let me know at once if there are any more positive developments.’ He gave her the telephone number of the convent. ‘There is an extension to my sitting-room.’
‘Thank you, Monsignor.’ She rose. ‘It was good of you to see me.’
‘No, wait a moment,’ the priest said. ‘Please sit down again.’ Hetta did so, wondering—she was anxious to get back to her party as soon as possible. But for some time Subercaseaux sat in silence, again drumming with his fingers on the table. At last he spoke.
‘If the situation is what I suspect it to be, things may happen quickly,’ he said slowly. ‘I should wish to be able to come at once, if my help were needed. But I have no car here. However, by good fortune a young priest is with me, Father Martinez, who is acting as my secretary; he has one of those dangerous motor-cycles, on which he travels at great speed; he could be at Gralheira within an hour.’ He paused. ‘Though he is still young, he has had much experience in difficult situations. He speaks Spanish fluently,’ he added, almost casually. ‘If the need should arise, you should telephone and ask him to come at once.’
Hetta was rather bothered by this suggestion. She recognised some of the implications behind the Monsignor’s words, but was not sure that she understood them all, or that she liked what she did understand. But her usual ingrained caution at once asserted itself.
‘If he is to come and take any part in dealing with these people, I ought to see him,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘But Monsignor, can you ask? To recognise him, of course.’
He smiled then.
‘Ah yes. You are right. I remember that you went to the airport in Lisbon to recognise Fr. Horvath when he was flown out from Spain.’ He drew out a very thin gold watch from the belt of his soutane, and looked at it. ‘How long can you stay here?’
‘Perhaps half an hour; it depends on the others.’
&n
bsp; ‘And where can we find you?’
‘I do not know—I left them in the outer cloister when I came to you. I had not spoken of this, even to Luzia. I know Professor de Freitas wished us to see the Treasure, and the Coro Baixo,’ Hetta said worriedly.
‘Ah, de Freitas is in the party? A wonderful guide! Well, I shall try to have Father Martinez found at once, and send him to you. If this fails, he shall ride over to call on you tomorrow morning. In either case he will be advised that he may be sent for, and I shall inform him about the whole situation.’
He rose. Hetta, to her surprise, found herself taking an almost affectionate farewell of a person she used to dislike so much; unasked, he formally gave her his blessing for herself, and for the child she was carrying. Comforted and reassured, she went out into the corridor, and managed to find her way downstairs to the entrance, where the old portress, still jingling her keys, let her out. She made for the Church, which, since it now serves the village as well as the Convent, is accessible from the road; the Treasury must adjoin it, she guessed, so the others would be somewhere there.
She found them in the Coro Baixo, really the nave, outside the grille which enclosed the nuns’ choir, the Coro Alto; Professor de Freitas was showing them the splendid 18th-century organ, and the carved stalls on both sides. Luzia saw her first.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked, hurrying to her side. She remembered how Hetta had once before slipped away at the cigarral to be sick.
‘Yes, perfectly. I will tell you afterwards,’ Hetta murmured. She looked about her, looked up. ‘Oh, but how glorious!’ she exclaimed.
Luzia too raised her eyes towards the roof. Looking down on the choir from niches on both sides were tremendous statues, more than life-size, of nuns in their habit—but painted; under the black folds of their granite veils the faces showed with faultless and life-like naturalness. The Professor overheard Hetta’s exclamation, and also came over to her.
‘Yes, they are the great glory of this place,’ he said. ‘Are they not wonderful? Eighteenth-century, of course, and unique.’ As the others gathered about him, eager to miss nothing—‘You would hardly credit it,’ he went on, ‘but some years back the Commission of Ancient Monuments seriously proposed to take the paint off them.’
‘But why?’ Hetta asked.
‘Why indeed? The same insane urge for simplicity which has ruined so many of our churches, stripping them of the accretions of centuries of piety. Here these gentlemen wished to leave the lifeless stone, instead of this inspired marvel!’ He spoke with actual passion. ‘Mercifully it was prevented,’ he added more calmly, and went on pointing out the perfection of the carved habits of the statued nuns, so stylised and so dignified.
‘I wish you had seen the Treasure,’ Luzia said to Hetta. ‘It is marvellous. And imagine—it was the country-people round about who preserved it! When the convent was about to be dissolved, in the last century, they came in and took it away and hid it, out of devotion to the Saint; and when the nuns were allowed to return, it was all brought back—but all!’
‘In some cases the original rescuers were already dead, so their children brought it back,’ Nick put in. ‘Isn’t that a nice touch?’
‘Very.’ Hetta thought it a nice touch in Nick himself to be so pleased with that part of the story and so, judging by her happy glance at him, did Luzia.
A certain amount of discussion and consulting of watches now took place. The Professor wished them to drive on a few kilometres down the valley to see another church, with a very rich and peculiar baroque façade, including elaboratelydressed figures on the roof; Nick on the other hand wanted to take a different road back over the Serra, in order to pass through what the Duke had described to him as ‘a Stone-Age village’, full of extremely primitive houses; Luzia was afraid that to do either might take too long, and risk making them late for luncheon—she was well broken in to her Father’s mania for rigid punctuality at meals. Hetta too looked at her watch, but for a different reason; she had told Monsignor Subercaseaux that she could remain at the Convent for half-an-hour in order to see Father Martinez, and there were still twelve minutes to go—her one wish was to delay their departure. She drew Luzia aside, meaning to ask her help about this, when a little side door in the grille separating the Nuns’ choir from where they stood suddenly opened, and a very small figure in a black soutane came out through it.
‘Ah, that will be he! Do just keep them for a moment,’ Hetta muttered to Luzia, and walked over to the little priest.
Luzia could always be relied on to do as she was asked at once, and leave questions till afterwards; she did so now, putting some query about the organ to Professor de Freitas. Hetta went up to the little priest, more than ever struck by his extreme smallness. ‘Father Martinez?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Is it Madame Atherley?’ he replied, in tolerable French.
‘The same. I am very glad to meet you,’ she said simply. Certainly he would not be easy to impersonate unless one dressed a child in a soutane, she thought—and smiled at the idea. The little priest smiled back at her.
‘So now we know one another by sight,’ he said easily.
‘Yes. Thank you for coming to find me. I will not delay you now—indeed I think my friends are about to leave. Goodbye, Father.’
‘Or possibly au revoir, Madame,’ the little man said; he bowed, and went back into the inner choir, locking the small door after him.
Chapter 8
In the end the party did no further sight-seeing, but took the de Freitas’ back to lunch at Gralheira. Hetta managed to snatch a moment alone with Luzia, while Mme. de Freitas and the niece were washing and tidying themselves up, and asked her to telephone to Gil and ask him to come up at once. ‘Could you not do it now, before lunch? I will take care of these ladies.’
‘He will be coming up on Saturday,’ Luzia said.
‘That is not soon enough. Monsignor Subercaseaux said he must come at once.’
‘Oh, it was he you strayed away to see?’
‘Yes—he said you would be able to make Gil come. But do hurry, Luzia!’ She spoke urgently—Luzia, without asking any more questions, went downstairs and put her call through, not from her Father’s study, but from an instrument outside the pantry, mostly used by Elidio. As they all reassembled in the drawing-room—‘He will drive up tomorrow morning,’ she said in a low tone. ‘But really, Hetta, must we wait till he comes to hear what goes on? I think I shall explode!’
‘No no,’ Hetta replied laughing. ‘I tell you when they have gone,’ with a glance in the direction of the guests.
After luncheon, accordingly, they settled down in a small morning-room which Luzia had more or less appropriated to her own use—she had installed shelves to hold her books, and a writing-table with pigeon-holes, which she kept as meticulously tidy as her Father did the huge desk in his study. ‘Does Nick come and hear also?’ she asked.
‘Oh yes—after all, he is now part of the family.’
However, Nick’s presence rather slowed matters down, since so much that was common ground between the two young women had to be explained to him. Hetta began by telling Luzia of her two encounters with the strangers, and her sense of being spied on—‘Also old Fernando said he had seen them, and thought they were watching to see who comes and who goes at the house. And when I learnt that they were Spaniards, I was—well, frightened to go out alone.’
Luzia gave a long ‘Aah’ of comprehension. ‘Did I not tell you that she would certainly have some good reason for wishing to walk with us?’ she said, wheeling round on Nick—the young man blushed at being given away. ‘But do you know for certain that they are Spaniards?’
‘Yes, because now they tread the wine with the ranchos’—she explained having recognised them at the adega, and what the foreman had told the Duke.
‘Why does their being Spaniards matter so much?’ Nick asked.
‘Oh, because Spaniards were probably mixed up with the Hungarians who tried to assassi
nate that American Admiral on the road from Toledo,’ Luzia flung out hastily. ‘This is how Hetta’s wrist was broken, when the Hungarian chauffeur drove too fast to try to keep his appointment with the assassins, and had a smash, you see.’
‘I don’t see, but I suppose I shall in time,’ the young man said resignedly.
‘The Admiral and Hetta were in the same car,’ Luzia said impatiently, as though that made everything clear.
‘Good God!’ Nick exclaimed, horrified.
‘Yes, well never mind now, Nick. But Hetta, these men should not stay here, working at the vintage—they must be sent away at once,’ she said energetically, getting up.
‘No—wait, Luzia; sit down again, and hear what Subercaseaux said.’
‘Oh well, he probably has good ideas, the old fox!’ She sat down again. ‘So what did he say?’
‘First, bad news for you and Nick!’ Hetta said, half-laughing. ‘The old fox, as you call him, says I am not to walk alone.’
‘Is this why he makes me send for Gil? I do not believe it!’
‘No, that is not the reason.’ Hetta spoke seriously again now. ‘First he wishes you, Luzia, to arrange with your people on the place to keep an eye on these men, and learn all you can about them—because really we know nothing for certain.’
‘This I can do without Gil!’
‘Of course. But Gil is also to arrange something.’
‘What?’
‘To have the police up here told to keep a watch on them, but not to do anything until—well, until they have instructions. The Monsignor said that Gil would be in a position to have this arranged.’
‘Oh yes, of course—through Colonel Marques, of the Security Police,’ Luzia said briskly. ‘He knows this house; he came here before, when you had been abducted, to collect the agent whom I found in the kitchen, and whom Nanny Brown drugged for Major Torrens. That was fun!’ She was full of animation at the recollection. ‘Oh, why did not Miss Probyn send Torrens this time?—he did all so energetically. Ah well, I suppose we must manage without him. And what is the dwarf for?’ she asked suddenly, turning to Hetta.