by Ann Bridge
‘Merci bien, Madame.’ ‘Mais comme tout est bien organisé dans cette maison,’ the Swiss murmured in an aside to her mistress. ‘On sera très-bien ici.’
While the children were being installed in their chairs, and bibs tied on Edina said—‘I thought Speranza had better eat up here, today; she’ll want to be doing your unpacking afterwards. Tomorrow we can settle whether she feeds up or down. Olimpia has shown her her room—it’s up on the top floor.’
‘Oh yes; thank you. Whatever you say,’ Hetta replied, rather abstractedly. She was thinking how intensely she agreed with Élise—everything in the house was so well organised that there would be no need for any special thought or effort on her part; and the sight of those small happy faces round the loaded table was somehow immensely reassuring. It would indeed be well with one here! Glentoran might be ugly externally, but within it had almost every advantage over Gralheira. Back in her pretty bedroom she took off her head-scarf, ran a comb through her hair, and washed her hands in that astonishingly well-equipped bathroom; then she went to the window, threw it up, and leaned out, gazing up the Sound at those blue island shapes. How sweet and soft the air was! She had never tasted air so soft; the colours of sea and shore were soft too, quite unlike the sharp glittering brilliance of Portugal and Spain. And how tranquil those cows looked, lying in a field below the house, chewing the cud. An extraordinary sense of peace and safety flooded over her; she dropped to her knees; her whole body felt relaxed almost to the point of weakness. (This, though Hetta did not know it, was partly the normal effect of the West Highland climate.) Presently, with an effort, she got up and went downstairs.
Philip Reeder had come in; he welcomed her with bluff but genuine warmth. ‘Very nice indeed to have you here. I hope you’ll be comfortable, and be able to relax a bit—you must need it,’ he said. Then they went in to lunch; Hetta noticed a side-board loaded with cold joints as she sat down to a perfect risotto—like all other new-comers to Glentoran she could not resist an exclamation over Olimpia’s food: ‘But this is too delicious!’
‘Yes, the old girl does pretty well,’ Philip said, pleased; then they talked about the journey. They waited on themselves; Julia and Philip whisked away the empty plates, while Edina took a dish with a silver cover from a hot-plate and set it down before her husband. As he re-seated himself he lifted the lid and examined it.
‘Oh, good—here they are at last,’ he said—‘and done on cabbage. Will you have a partridge, Mrs. Atherley?’
Hetta stared at the small birds lying on their couche of cabbage and gravy; the sight brought back such a sudden spate of memories as to give her an actual sense of revulsion. She glanced at the side-board.
‘Might I perhaps have something cold?’
‘Yes, of course—come and choose,’ Edina said pleasantly, though some of her old disquiet returned at this. What was wrong with partridges? ‘Venison pasty? Or cold beef?’
‘Oh, the venison pasty, please. I have not eaten that since I was a child.’
When she and Edina had sat down again—‘I’m sorry you don’t care for partridges,’ Philip Reeder said, conversationally. ‘We look on them as rather a treat up here; we don’t often get them.’
‘In Portugal I had rather too much of them,’ Hetta said lightly, and praised the venison pasty; Mrs. Hathaway gave her an approving glance. After lunch the old lady suggested that Julia should take her up to lie down till tea-time; Hetta agreed gratefully. When they had gone—‘I wonder what on earth she has against partridges?’ Edina speculated.
‘She made a great mistake; they were absolutely perfect,’ Philip said. ‘You were quite right to keep them that extra day, Edina.’
‘She got that wound in her forehead during a partridge-shoot,’ Mrs. Hathaway observed quietly.
‘No! Did she really?’
‘Yes. The Communists thought it a good opportunity, with people standing still during a drive, and shots going on to mask the sound of the rifle. But it is understandable, I think, that she might not care very much about partridges at the moment,’ Mrs. Hathaway said, dispassionately.
‘Good God no—I should think not! Did they get the man who shot her?’
‘I think so—I am not quite sure. She didn’t seem to want to talk much about it, and of course I didn’t ask her.’
‘Good God!’ Philip said again. ‘Poor girl. Did she tell you about the car smash too, Mrs. H.?’
‘No. I expect she will tell Julia.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose she’ll mind grouse—they don’t have them in Portugal,’ Philip said, getting up. ‘I’m glad she’s here—I hope she’ll rest now, and get over it. Any letters, Edina? I’m going down to the village.’
Up in her room Hetta obediently took off her skirt and lay down on the bed, while Julia folded back the counterpane and made up the fire. Speranza had unpacked her case, and everything was tidily set out on the dressing-table; she was making a start on one of the trunks, but ran to fill a hot-water bottle when she saw her mistress lie down.
‘Does she know where to get hot water?’ Julia asked.
‘I expect so—there is an electric kettle in the nursery. It is all so well arranged, here; your cousin has thought of everything. She must be a wonderful person,’ Hetta said.
‘She is uncommonly practical,’ Julia admitted.
‘Oh, but so kind, too; Mrs. Hathaway said that it was she, Mrs. Reeder herself, who suggested that we should all come, though she has never seen us.’
‘Yes, she did—I think she guessed that you’d had a pretty rough time, and wanted you to be able to take it easy for a bit.’
‘Well, that I can do better here than anywhere, I think—there is nothing left to me to think of, or arrange. Ah, muchas gracias, Speranza,’ as the Spanish girl put the bottle under the eiderdown near her feet.
‘I should tell her to leave the unpacking for now, and let you get a nap,’ Julia suggested.
‘Yes, I will.’ She spoke to the maid, who nodded and vanished. ‘But do not you go just yet, Julia. Oh, I am so glad that you are here—that makes it quite perfect. We shall be able to talk and talk!’ She leaned back on the pillows, and spread her arms out luxuriously. ‘Such a wonderful bed!’ Then she glanced a little anxiously at her friend. ‘I hope Mrs. Reeder will not have been vexed that I did not want to eat partridge. You see this,’ she touched her forehead—‘happened at a partridge-shoot.’
‘Was that what Luzia called your “narrow escape” at Gralheira in her letter?’
‘Yes. The man had a rifle, and how he missed me I cannot think, for he was hidden in a small wood not at all far away, and I was standing with the Ambassador, watching him shoot.’
‘Goodness! But he did hit you, didn’t he?’
‘No, the bullet hit the wall, and a piece of stone flew out, and went into my head. And then they took me back to the house in the game-van, and to make room they threw out the birds—dozens and dozens of them, on to the track, all feathers; somehow they looked a little horrible, lying in a heap like that! And the sun was hot, so the van still smelt of them, strongly. But I am sorry I did not eat them—another time I am sure I can. I hope Mrs. Reeder will not mind,’ she repeated.
‘I’m sure she won’t, especially if I may tell her the reason?’
‘Oh do. I thought it would be embarrassing if I spoke of it.’
‘Quite right. Anyhow I don’t suppose there’ll be another time; we haven’t any partridges at Glentoran. These came from a shoot at the Menteiths, down the coast. But what Ambassador?—the one from Lisbon?’
‘No, ours from Madrid.’
‘And were the thugs shooting at him or at you?’
‘Oh, at me! You see when we were spending a day at Toledo with an American Admiral—Luxworthy, such a dear man—I overheard some Hungarians planning an ambush to kill him; I suppose they spoke foolishly loud thinking that no one would understand. But I did understand….’ She went on to pour out the whole story of Luis and her suspicions
of him; of the curious way in which her prayer in the car was answered by the crash, and the man’s face when she cried out in Hungarian; then of his deportation. Mrs. Jamieson listened with fascinated horror; the very baldness and unemphatic flatness of Hetta’s account somehow added tension to what was in itself a sufficiently dramatic recital.
‘So then Richard took me to Gralheira, thinking that I should be safe there, but they came after me’.
‘Yes, Luzia wrote about that; she was terribly upset that they should have pursued you even there,’ Julia interjected. ‘But Hetta dear, don’t you think you had better have a nap now, and tell me the rest later on? We’ve got all the time in the world.’
‘Yes, perhaps that might be best. The journey was quite comfortable, but somehow there seemed to be a lot of walking, and standing.’
‘Oh, don’t I know it! Right; you have a shut-eye. Want your curtains drawn? I’ll tell Speranza not to come till you send for her, shall I? And I’ll come later and see if you’d like tea up here.’
‘Oh yes, do come back! It is such a luxury—more than you can imagine—to be able to talk quite freely to someone, after being careful for so long.’
Julia was struck by those last words. Surely, she thought as she went along to the nurseries, Hetta must have been able to talk freely to her Richard? Well no, perhaps not—she had probably had scruples about his worrying. She looked in on Élise and told her that Madame was going to sleep for a bit; Speranza was there, and was instructed not to disturb her mistress. Then she went and visited her Philipino, who was on the point of going out in his pram with Nannie Mackenzie—‘I’ll come to give him his feed at a quarter-past four, Nannie.’
‘Very well, Mistress Jamieson. I hope Mistress Atherley is going to get a rest? That Swiss nurse tells me she’s expecting again.’
‘Yes, she is, Nannie—I mean going to rest now, and another baby,’ Julia said; Nurse Mackenzie laughed.
‘I’m thankful she is here, away from all that wickedness,’ she said. ‘Shot at when she was standing still!—why, one wouldn’t treat a grouse so,’ the Scotswoman added, in a comminatory tone.
H’m—so Élise had been talking! Oh well, here it didn’t matter, thank goodness, Julia reflected as she went downstairs.
‘Yes, she’s going to have a nap,’ she replied to Edina’s enquiry. ‘I thought we might try to get her to have tea in bed, and only come down for dinner.’
‘Yes, why not? There’s a kettle and everything in Richenda’s nursery, and you can get a tray from Nannie Campbell to take the things along on, or the Spanish girl can do it—what’s this her name is?’
‘Speranza—means hope.’
‘Oh well, I expect they’ll soon be calling her Hope,’ Mrs. Reeder said cheerfully. ‘Philip’s so sorry he pressed her about the partridges,’ she went on. ‘Mrs. H. says it was at a partridge-shoot that she got shot in the face.’
‘Yes.’ Julia passed on Hetta’s account of this episode, including the heap of feathered bodies by the track, and the smell in the shooting-brake.
‘Ugh! I can imagine it. I shouldn’t think she’d ever want to eat one again as long as she lives.’
‘Well tell her that. She was tremendously apologetic at having refused them, and hoped you wouldn’t mind.’
‘I will. Did they get the man who shot at her? Mrs. H. didn’t know.’
‘Nor do I—I made her shut up and go to sleep. But I’m sure she will tell me later; I think she’s really longing to talk it all out.’
‘Best thing she can do—get it off her chest and out of her system. You’d better have your tea up with her, and give her a chance,’ Edina said.
‘Right—I’ll do that. Now, what can I do in the garden? I’ve got nearly two hours before I feed the creature again.’
‘Well either the last dead-heads off the roses, or pulling out those eternal sycamore seedlings up the glen. I should do the roses, I think—that will finish them for this year.’
‘The seedlings we have always with us!’ Julia grinned, and went off to get her basket and scissors. Snipping away in the soft autumn sunshine, she thought over this last talk with her cousin. Yes, it was going to be all right with Edina, she felt sure—and that was the important thing.
* * *
Some two hours later, after nursing her child in its own room, Julia collected a tray with milk and eatables in the main nursery, where the large party was already assembling, and gave it to Speranza to carry along to Richenda’s quarters; there she switched on the electric kettle, and added cups and plates off the shelf—then she went and tapped on Hetta’s door. Getting no reply, she went in; Hetta was asleep, but roused up when Julia partly drew back one curtain.
‘Ready for tea? It’s just coming,’ she said.
‘Here? Oh, how nice. Is it tea-time already?’
‘Yes. Have a good nap?’
‘Oh, I slept so well!’ She stretched out her arms. ‘I did not know one could sleep so in the day.’
‘You will here—it’s the air.’ She drew back the other curtains. ‘Now I’ll fetch the tea.’ She went and made it; then, giving the tray to Speranza, she went back and put a table and chair ready. Hetta was sitting up in bed; she had combed out her hair and put on a cardigan—she looked more refreshed and tranquil than Julia had seen her since her arrival.
‘You have it with me?’ Hetta enquired, glancing at the two cups.
‘Yes—Mrs. Reeder suggested it.’ She told Speranza in Spanish to go and have her tea with the others, and then poured out.
‘She is kind. I shall be happy here, I know. Oh, I feel quite hungry.’
‘Good.’
Over their tea Hetta, prompted by questions from Julia, did continue her account of what had happened when the Communists ‘came after her’ to Gralheira: her suspicions of the three strangers, her crisis of conscience about them, and the awkwardness of going out with Nick and Luzia when she was afraid to walk alone.
‘Oh yes, I saw in the Times that they had got engaged at last. How do Nick and the old Duque get on?’
‘Perfectly! It is wonderful to see the good old man so happy; and he is going to do all sorts of new things at Gralheira, that Nick has thought of. I will tell you about that presently.’
‘Yes, do; I’m so glad it’s being such a success. But now go on telling me about your three thugs. What did you do, in the end?’
‘I went to consult Subercaseaux!’
‘No! I thought you disliked him.’
‘Formerly I did not like him at all, but now I do—much more, at least.’ She went on to describe the excursion to La Trapa: the Monsignor’s instructions about sending for Gil de Castelo Branco, and her interview with Fr. Martinez; then the man’s attempt at suicide after the shooting, how she had sent for Fr. Martinez, and her struggles with Major Belmonte to ensure that the priest saw the assassin first—this made Julia laugh. Now and again she put in a question: when Hetta mentioned how craftily the little Father had passed her his notes in the book of devotion—‘But he couldn’t put down what he had heard in confession!’ Mrs. Jamieson objected.
‘Of course not. This was so fortunate, that the young man thought himself too much of a Communist to make a proper confession—he refused outright to do that. So of course Fr. Martinez could record what he said, and this enabled the Spanish Security Police to find all the rest of the gang. But all the same the poor creature made a good end, and was given Christian burial,’ Hetta said calmly. Then she went on to tell Julia about the details of the plot that had been uncovered, as reported to her by Major Day.
‘So after these people were caught, really everything was safe for this American Minister, and I suppose for me also; but Richard had got it into his head that nowhere was safe for me in Spain and Portugal. And I think the Ambassador felt the same.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Julia said emphatically. ‘After two such escapes, I should have been petrified of a third try. And I’m sure it’s far better for the child that you s
hould come right away, to a place where you need have no anxieties.’
‘Yes, I think so. I feel so peaceful and safe here, and Julia, it is such a luxury to have someone to whom I can talk quite freely! You may think this absurd, but you cannot imagine how tiring it is to have to be careful what one says all the time—especially when one’s head aches,’ she said flatly. ‘Careful with Belmonte, careful with the old Heriots, careful with the doctor, careful with the Duke!’
‘Why did you have to be careful with him?’ Julia asked, surprised.
‘The Monsignor thought he should not be told about the three men, in case he should do something impetuous before the truth about them was discovered. He was so cross when it all came out.’
‘I bet he was. Poor Duque!’
‘And in Madrid also I had to be careful, with everyone, so that the real reason for our coming away should not be known. The Ambassador made up such a story about my wrist needing special treatment!’ Hetta said, with a youthful giggle which Julia found very reassuring. ‘Physio-Something; three treatments every week, for months and months! You can perhaps give me this Physio-whatever-it-is, Julia!’
‘You silly!’ Julia stood up and gave her a kiss. ‘But your wrist is really all right now, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, only a little weak.’
Julia gave her another cup of tea, and cut her a slice of the immensely solid fruit cake, an invariable accompaniment to Scottish meals, which she had brought from the nursery.
‘Now that, I could not cut with my left hand,’ Hetta observed, as she bit off a piece.
‘I should think not—it’s all I can do to cut it with my right!’ Julia said. ‘Edina has to make these herself—it’s the one thing Olimpia can’t do; they horrify her!’ She sat silent for a moment or two, while Hetta munched away, reflecting on what she had heard.
‘But surely the Americans must have known where the information came from, that enabled the Spanish police to catch all those Communists?’ she asked.