by Ann Bridge
‘Oh, what a nice place! Our country csardas at home are like this.’ She fingered one of the check table-cloths almost lovingly. ‘I did not know that there were such places here.’
‘Oh yes, lots of them, in almost all countries,’ said Julia. ‘Look, the men haven’t come yet, I can’t think why they’re so late—but you and I might start on our drinks. Inside or outside?’
‘Oh, can we be outside? There, please.’
Julia had learned from Richard Atherley that Hetta had an aversion to cocktails, and it was a fine, dry Portuguese champagne that she caused to be brought out to the small table on the balcony. ‘I think cocktails before sea-food are a mistake,’ she said—‘and here one eats nothing else.’
‘Sea-food? What is this?’
‘Oh, it’s an American expression, but rather a good one—whatever comes out of the sea. Tonight we’re having bisque of langouste—well that doesn’t come out of the sea, it’s a sort of fresh-water lobster—and then crab, cold, and sole, hot, and cheese and salad to finish off with. But the cooking is rather good in this funny little place; I shall be interested to know what you think of it, as a professional.’
Hetta laughed.
‘Do not make fun! Me a professional! And as we have no “sea-food” in Hungary, I shall not be able to judge of it very well.’
‘I’m sure you will, Hetti. By the way, Townsend Waller is coming; he heard somehow that we were dining here, and he’s dying to meet you again, so I asked him.’
‘I am glad. He is so nice.’ But Hetta’s gaze was constantly straying seawards, where big breakers surged in to fall on a narrow stretch of sand between two points of rock. ‘Yulia, I wish so much to swim!’ she exclaimed. ‘Can I not? This water is so much more alive than at Estoril—I would love to swim in it.’
‘Have you brought bathing-things?’
‘No—but I can swim in my petticoat! I often swam in my nightdress in the Tisza.’
‘It’s frightfully cold, and pretty rough,’ said Julia doubtfully.
‘I swim strongly!’ Hetta pronounced firmly; ‘and at Estoril I swim every day—for the first time, here, I swim in the sea. Oh, I do wish to! Where can I undress?’
Rather unwillingly, Julia arranged for Hetta to undress in the bedroom of the proprietor’s wife; the girl emerged in a crêpe de chine slip under her pale tweed overcoat and ran gleefully down to the little sandy bay. But instead of plunging thence into the breaking waves she nipped up onto one of the rocky points, threw off her long coat, and entered the Atlantic in a clean dive just as Atherley, Townsend Waller, and Major Torrens arrived on the balcony.
‘Good God, who on earth is that diving in?’ Torrens exclaimed.
‘Hetta Páloczy.’
Atherley swung sharply round, and like the others stared towards the sea, where Hetta’s black head promptly reappeared.
‘What on earth did you let her do that for, Julia?’ he said brusquely. ‘It’s not a bit safe bathing here, in water as rough as this, except for very strong swimmers. Surely you know that?’
‘She says she is a strong swimmer,’ said Julia coolly— with a second’s wonder as to why Richard should be so cross. Anyhow, she was not going to excuse herself to him.
‘And how!—just look at her!’ Townsend exclaimed enthusiastically, watching that black head smoothly surmounting the great crests of the incoming waves. Indeed she seemed to be an eel, a fish, and the water her natural element—as she got farther out the watchers noticed that she took to turning onto her back to slide down feet foremost into the trough behind a wave, swinging over as the next approached to cross it with her powerful breast-stroke.
‘She seems thoroughly in control,’ said Torrens.
‘Yes. Have a drink,’ said Julia turning to the table, and filling their glasses with the delicate wine.
‘Just the same, I think we ought to yell to her to come back now,’ Townsend said after a few moments; ‘she may get into a current—she’s going pretty far out.’
‘Well, yell,’ Julia said. ‘She may pay attention to you— she wouldn’t to me.’
Townsend cupped his hands round his mouth and bellowed ‘Hetta!’
The black head turned on the summit of a green crest.
‘Come on in!’ Townsend roared. ‘We’re hungry!’
They could see her laughing face as she turned round and started to swim towards the shore. But it is much easier to swim out through big waves than to swim back with them; each one bears you forward, but after it has passed there is a strong suck-back in the trough until the next carries you on again. Atherley could see Hetta frowning as she encountered this phenomenon—glass in hand, they all stood at the rickety rail of the balcony, watching her progress with some anxiety. But she soon learned the trick of it, swimming vigorously with each overtaking wave, then relaxing till the next came along.
‘God, she is a good swimmer!’ Townsend said, watching appreciatively. ‘Half the people who get drowned in swimming do it coming back in water like this. She must have had a lot of practice.’
‘No, she says she never swam in the sea in her life till she came to Estoril,’ said Julia.
‘Well, really, Julia, I must say—’ Atherley was beginning angrily when Townsend exclaimed—‘Oh, watch out!’
The one thing that Hetta was not prepared for, strong and resourceful as she was in the water, was the merciless force of a breaking wave. The tumbling crest picks the swimmer up and flings him forward like a piece of wreckage, rolling him over and over till sand and water fill eyes, ears, and mouth; the only way to prevent this is to turn and dive backwards through each following wave till the water is so shallow that one can stand, and even then it is not easy to keep one’s feet. But all this the girl from the heart of Central Europe could not know. Even as the American shouted the watchers on the balcony saw Hetta picked up, thrown onto the sand, and tumbled over and over, helplessly, in the creamy surf—when the water dragged back again she did not rise, but was sucked back with it.
‘She’s stunned!’ Atherley exclaimed. He was down the wooden steps in a flash, and raced across the beach, flinging off his jacket as he went; by the time the next wave threw Hetta forward again he had waded in waist deep, to snatch her up and carry her to the land. On the sand he set her down, for she was wriggling in his arms like a captive fish.
‘Ow!’ the girl said, spitting out sand and sea-water, and rubbing at her eyes with her fingers. ‘This is horrible!’
‘Are you all right?’ the young man asked.
‘Yes, except for this sand!’ But she was in fact shaking slightly all over, with cold and shock. ‘I must wash my face,’ she said, starting back towards the sea.
‘No, do that at the pub,’ he said, catching her by the arm—as they passed up the beach he picked up his jacket and threw it round her shoulders.
‘Thank you—oh, now you are all wet!’ Hetta said, glancing at his soaked trousers. ‘I am so sorry. I do not know what happened; I—I was taken by surprise. These waves are so strong, when they come to the shore.’
‘They are. There’s a trick about getting back through them—I’ll teach it you some day.’
‘Will you? That I should like. But could you fetch my coat? It is up on those rocks.’ She waited while he brought it and then, modestly muffled, went up with him to the little inn.
Julia’s dinner was rather late that evening. Hetta had to be sponged down, her hair dried, and dressed—minus her petticoat; a pair of the proprietor’s trousers had to be borrowed for Atherley while his own were hung up to dry in the kitchen. Torrens and Townsend Waller, left to themselves on the balcony while Julia ministered to Hetta, became hungry, and in Torrens’ case rather impatient.
‘She’s a beautiful swimmer, our little Countess, but not very considerate,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘It’s nearly a quarter to nine.’
‘We started late ourselves, anyway,’ said Townsend, still rather resentfully conscious of having waited in Atherley’s ro
om at the Chancery for nearly half an hour for Torrens to appear; he had asked Richard why he didn’t call his friend up and tell him to come along, but Richard had been evasive, merely saying—‘No; he’ll be here presently.’ Anyhow he, Townsend, disliked any criticism of Hetta.
‘Yes, I was late—I couldn’t help it,’ the Englishman said readily. ‘Sorry. Do you feel like a whisky?—I do. I wonder if they have it here?’
But just as Townsend was explaining that rum or Pheysey gin were all that could be hoped for in the way of spirits at the Guincho, first Atherley, and a moment later the two girls, reappeared, followed by the proprietor’s wife with a second bottle of the local version of champagne. They had another glass, Hetta was dosed with hot rum-and-water, and then Julia hustled them indoors to dine. ‘Goodness, I do hope the soles aren’t ruined,’ she said.
Nothing was ruined. The bisque was divine, the crab cold anyhow; and the resourceful proprietor—who was also the chef—on finding that the gentlemen were very late and one of the ladies determined to swim had not started cooking his lovely soles till he saw how things were shaping—they, too, were perfect. They had the restaurant to themselves, always a pleasant thing, and two courses of food—Guincho food at that—restored Major Torrens’ equanimity; while the excitement of her swim (possibly aided by the rum) had put Hetta Páloczy into higher spirits than any of the others had so far thought her capable of. She sat between Torrens and Townsend Waller, her black hair hanging in damp elf-locks round her curious vivid face above her pretty cherry-coloured dress; she had already made profuse apologies, on returning to the balcony, for ‘keeping everyone hungry’, but now, in response to Townsend’s questions as to where she had learned to swim like that, she recounted her father teaching her to dive in the lake at Detvan, and later her solitary bathes in the Tisza on long hot summer afternoons, when for an hour or so quiet reigned on the Alfold. But she made it all natural, simple, and rather funny, told in her curious but expressive English—Townsend, it was evident, had fallen completely under her spell.
It was Hetta who urged that they should have coffee on the balcony, and when they went out from the small, rather steamy room to see whether it would be too chilly there, it was at once clear that she was right. The air was still warm, great stars and a young slip of moon hung in the sky, the Atlantic made a gentle thunder on the shore below.
‘Atherley, do you feel like a stroll?’ Major Torrens asked. ‘If Miss Probyn will excuse us?’ He directed a glance at Miss Probyn as he spoke which did not escape Hetta—she thought there was complicity in it.
‘Oh, very well,’ Richard replied. It had already occurred to him that there was probably some reason for Torrens having been half an hour late at the Chancery, and whatever it was he would have to hear it sooner or later. ‘May we leave you, Julia?’
‘Of course—but come back for a cuentra.’
The two men climbed down the rickety wooden stair. ‘Don’t let’s attempt to stroll in this hellish sand,’ Richard said.
‘Don’t let’s stroll at all—we can sit on that lump of rock over there,’ Torrens replied, walking towards one of the flower-set outcrops. As they approached it a figure sprang up out of a dark crevice at the foot and raced away towards the road—when it passed through the broad bands of light cast on the sand from the restaurant windows they saw that it was a youth, wearing one of the loud tartan shirts affected by Portuguese fishermen.
‘Hullo! Are we being watched?’ Torrens said.
‘Not at the Guincho, I shouldn’t imagine.’
‘I think I’ll just go and check on the cars,’ said Torrens, and strode up towards the road—before he reached it a third car, parked facing towards Lisbon, started its engine and roared off into the night, its headlights twisting and swooping till it disappeared.
‘That’s curious,’ Richard said, contemplating his and Julia’s cars, still standing by the roadside. ‘There was no one but ourselves in this place, and the others aren’t open yet.’
‘Have the people here a car?’ Torrens asked.
‘I don’t know, but we’ll soon find out.’ They went back to the restaurant, where Richard walked into the kitchen and put a question in his rather moderate Portuguese. Yes, the proprietor had an automovel, a small van for bringing out supplies; but it had been in Lisbon all the afternoon, and had not yet returned.
‘Um,’ said Torrens, when this was reported to him. ‘That wasn’t a van—it was a rather big open car. Ask if they know whose it was?’
The proprietor and his family knew nothing of any car having come; busy with preparing the dinner, and getting the Menina washed and dried, they had not even heard it drive up.
‘Looks as though we are observed,’ Richard said—‘or you, rather. Now, where shall we talk?’
‘In one of the cars, I think.’ He drove Julia’s large machine out into the middle of the road, well away from the scrubby growth of heath and cistus on both sides, and switched off; Richard got in too. ‘Well?’ he said.
‘Things are getting rather hot in Madrid—we must get our man out as soon as we can.’
‘How hot?’
‘They’ve tumbled to at least two of our people; they’re followed the whole time. Two flat tyres in traffic-blocks, and so on—a stiletto stuck into them, by the look of the marks. We think our passenger must either have been followed from Barcelona, or waited for when he was met at the station. Anyhow, the whole show there is compromised.’
‘Awkward,’ Richard commented.
‘It is, damned awkward. He’s got to come on here prontito’
‘How?’
‘By plane. But he’ll have to travel alone, and board the plane alone, the way things are.’
‘Well, I suppose he’s capable of that.’
‘Of course he is!’ Torrens said, rather impatiently. ‘But the point is that neither I nor anyone else here knows him by sight; and as you know, one of our friends’ favourite tricks is to abstract the person who’s expected, and plant one of their own agents on us instead—that’s why we usually try to have anyone like this escorted and handed over by a man we do know.’
‘Well, I don’t see how I can help you,’ Richard said, frowning in the darkness. It sounded as if this affair was going to be quite as troublesome as he had foreseen.
‘Oh, can’t you come off that line for a bit, Atherley? After all, we’re in the same show really—we work for the same country. And I need your help.’
‘All right—but how do you imagine I can help you?’
‘Estoril is stiff with Hungarian refugees, and I expect you know a lot of them, and how reliable they are,’ Torrens said. ‘It occurred to me that you might be able to get hold of someone who would be certain to recognise this type and would be willing to come to the airport and point him out—one of these Archdukes, or Counts, or someone.’
‘Is he the sort of person Archdukes would know by sight?’ Richard asked.
‘Oh, probably.’
Atherley was silent for a moment.
‘Look here, Torrens,’ he said at length—‘hadn’t I, at last, better be told who your mystery man is? I can’t, even if I were willing to, do anything till I know that.’
‘Yes, of course. He’s a Dr. Horvath; a considerable theologian, I’m told.’
‘Christian name? I’d better have the whole works.’
‘Antal.’
Richard started a little.
‘Where has he been in Hungary before he came out? In Budapest?’
‘No, down in the country somewhere, doing duty as a parish priest.’
‘Is he a friend of Mindszenty’s? Been in touch with him recently?’
‘Yes,’ Torrens said, surprise in his voice. ‘That’s rather the point, as a matter of fact. Why do you ask?’
Richard burst out laughing, his great resounding laugh.
‘What’s the joke?’ Torrens asked, slightly annoyed by this mirth.
‘Only that he’s the man that Countess Hetta has bee
n cooking for for the last six years!’
‘You don’t say so!’
‘Yes, it must be the one. She only calls him “Father Antal”, but she told Townsend that he was immensely learned, and she told us both that he constantly went in disguise to see the Cardinal. Anyhow I expect she knows his surname—if it’s whatever you said, there you are.’
‘Ye-es,’ Torrens said, rather slowly. ‘Yes,’ he repeated more firmly—‘and I imagine she’d be reliable.’
‘Look, Torrens! Who would be more so?’ Richard expostulated.
‘Sorry—you see you know her and I don’t. Well, we’d better talk to her—or you had,’ he said, opening trie car door. ‘I ought to let them have a signal in Madrid tonight —the sooner they get him off the better.’ He paused, standing in the road beside the car. ‘I’m sorry I was so late this evening, but all this was just coming in, and I had to wait to help decode it.’
‘I don’t quite see how we’re to talk to her tonight,’ Richard objected.
‘Oh, Julia’s as safe as houses—Miss Probyn, I mean.’
‘Yes, but there’s Waller. Or is he in on this?’
‘Good Lord no. The Americans want this man out, but they have left it to us to do it—we know Europe better, after all. But couldn’t you and I drive the little Countess back, and let Julia take the Yank?’