The Portuguese Escape

by Ann Bridge

  ‘Hold on,’ Torrens said, and spoke to Julia.

  ‘Of course. Lovely! The Duque will adore Mrs. H.!— and so will you. Say Yes.’

  Chapter 15

  Major Torrens thankfully left it to Julia to organise the reception of these extra guests. How on earth, without her, could all this have been managed? A perfect hide-out, too, with those high walls all round the place. In the circumstances he did not worry over-much about what the poor wretched little Countess might have given away.

  Julia took no immediate steps. The Duke was out on the farm, and Nanny usually had a shut-eye in the afternoon. She observed with amusement that both Hetta’s admirers showed every sign of remaining where they were—’ Oh very well!’ she muttered to herself, as she went in search of Father Antal.

  She found the dear old man in the priests’ study, just about to set out for a walk; he looked rather like Hilaire Belloc, arrayed in an extraordinary cloak with a shoulder-cape and a broad-brimmed hat, produced by the Monsignor as chaplain-disguise; he had a breviary in his hand.

  ‘Oh, you are going out?’

  ‘Yes—will you not come too? It is a most beautiful day,’ he said, smiling on her.

  ‘Well, just a little way—I have some good news for you,’ she said, stepping through the open French window. The sun stood high and hot over the knot-garden, bringing out the aromatic woody scent of the tiny box-bushes; men with rakes were smoothing the walks between them. ‘Let’s go into the park,’ Julia suggested.

  They descended by the flight of steps near the corner seat with the azulejo picture of the hunter being treed by a bear; as they walked over short pastures, where sheep were grazing, Julia told Father Antal that the girl at the Lucrezia was undoubtedly Hetta, that she was nearly recovered, and was coming up to Gralheira tomorrow. His delight at this news moved her a good deal. ‘Tell me more about Hetti, Father,’ she said.

  He told her, obviously happy to be asked, how Hetta had come to his country presbytery as the protégée of the poor incompetent old nun, and how promptly and energetically the girl of sixteen had taken over the running of the house, the cooking, and all the dealings with people who came for help or advice when he was out. ‘This poor Mother Scholastica could seldom get a message right!— but Hetta always had everything clear for me. In no time at all it was the old religieuse who was really her protégée; but she never failed in showing her all deference and respect. This dear child followed so completely the example of our Blessed Lord—she “took on her the form of a servant”. And so happily, and with obedience.’

  ‘That’s funny—I can’t see Hetti very obedient,’ Julia said.

  ‘In one thing she was not,’ the priest replied, smiling reminiscently. ‘I could not stop her, in summer, from going to swim in the Tisza—in her night-dress! She went in the afternoons, when in the great heat there was no one about in the fields, but it was unsuitable; however, in this she would not be controlled. She had the passion for water of a little fish!’

  Julia had begun to tell him of Hetta’s swimming at the Guincho when suddenly Father Antal stood still and held up his hand, enjoining silence. ‘What is this sound?’ he asked.

  Julia listened too. ‘Oh, that’s from the windmill,’ she said, now hearing the ‘clock, clock, clock, clock’ that filled the sunny air. ‘Look, there it is, just over the wall.’

  They had reached the eastern boundary wall of the demesne; a narrow iron gate, heavily padlocked, led through into the open country outside, where the four blunt-ended sails of a whitewashed windmill revolved rhythmically, clocking at each revolution. Father Antal went and stared through the iron bars.

  ‘Is this the mill of the miller whom they call The Blacksmith?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Julia said. ‘How on earth do you know that?’

  ‘Luzia told me.’ He continued to peer through the bars. ‘Is this he, this old man who digs?’ he asked.

  Julia also looked through the gate. A rather bent figure, using the outsize hoe which in Portugal takes the place of a spade, was diligently turning up the reddish-brown soil. Europe is divided into the races which dig away from themselves, as in France and England, and those who dig towards themselves, as in Portugal.

  ‘Yes, that’s him.’

  ‘It is true—he does not look round as he digs,’ Father Antal said. ‘Luzia was quite right.’

  ‘She’s usually right, about country things especially,’ Julia replied.

  The sound of their voices did cause the miller to look round, not at his mill, but towards the gate; seeing Julia he waved.

  ‘Boas tardes! (Good afternoon) Minha Menina,’ he called.

  ‘Como estai, O Ferreiro?’ Julia called back. Ferreiro is the Portuguese word for blacksmith; the old man, grinning at this greeting, shouldered his heavy tool and walked over to the small gate, quite ready to break his toil with a little gossip. He asked who the priest was?

  One of the Duke’s chaplains from the house, Julia told him promptly, but foreign—he spoke no Portuguese. The miller expressed regret. ‘I could have wished to speak with him; he has the countenance of a saint.’ Not being able to converse with the saint he asked after Luzia, and then broke into a paean of her praises. ‘Ah, there is one who has all the loving-kindness of a mãi and the intelligence of o pãi. A noble child!’

  Julia translated this for Father Antal as they turned homewards: loving as her mother, intelligent as her father; she knew it would please him.

  ‘Yes, she is a noble child,’ he said. After a moment’s silence he asked suddenly—‘How well do you know my little Hetta? Have you seen much of her?’

  His train of thought was obvious to Julia—for him Hetta was another noble child.

  ‘I haven’t seen as much of her as I should have liked,’ she said. ‘What I have seen I like very much.’ This sounded cold and inadequate, and she added quickly—’ I think she’s intelligent, and brave, and very honest; perhaps too honest for her own comfort, let alone that of the people about her.’

  He laughed. ‘You are very right! How often I have seen this in my own house. She would give me, as I told you, a perfectly clear message from some peasant; but when I asked what she had said in reply, nine times out of ten her answer would be—“I told him not to be a fool, and not to bother you!”’

  Julia could hear Hetta saying it.

  ‘And this young Englishman?’ Father Antal pursued— ‘What is he like? Is he serious, good? You must know him well—I notice that you call him Richard.’

  ‘That means nothing. Everyone calls everyone Richard or whatever their name is, if they don’t call them “darling”,’ Julia said rather impatiently. ‘I don’t know him particularly well, though I’ve known him for some time. He’s intelligent too, as you can see, and rather unusually open-minded for a diplomat, but I’ve no idea whether he’s “serious” or not; in fact I’m not sure that I know what you mean by serious. “Sérieux”, in the French sense?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, no, I shouldn’t have thought he was; rather volage, really. But I do think he’s seriously in love with Hetta—I suspect for the first time in his life! Funny, isn’t it? Because I imagine his other affairs have been with middle-aged married women who never put a foot wrong socially.’

  The priest stared at her.

  ‘You know of Madame de Vermeil, then?’ he asked in surprise.

  ‘No—who’s she? One of the middle-aged mistresses?’

  Julia had merely been guessing, rather shrewdly, at the component parts of Atherley’s love-life hitherto—she gurgled with pleasure when Father Antal burst out laughing at her last question.

  ‘Miss Probyn, I think you must be a witch!’ he said.

  ‘The last person who thought I was a witch was a half-caste bar-keeper in Tangier!’ she exclaimed gaily. ‘But one needn’t to be a witch to spot the normal line of a person like Atherley. All the same, I do think he’s really nice, underneath all the diplomatic stuff; if he were to marry Hetta, thoug
h they’d have a rough passage at first, I think she might be the making of him.’

  ‘You answer my questions before I put them,’ the old man said, bending a benignant smile on her. ‘Witches I believe wait to be asked; so probably you are something better than a witch—wise! I speak openly to you. While this child lived in my house I came to love her dearly; now she has left my care and my world, and I know as little of her new world, and the people in it, as I know of the great geographical New World to which I soon go, and of the people in that—though I confess that I dread this experience! So I seek to learn all I can about her surroundings.’

  ‘Well of course her mother is a perfectly pestilential woman, in my opinion,’ Julia said flatly. ‘Anything to get Hetta away from old Dorothée.’

  ‘You mean, even take something of a risk in marrying this young man? Is he, in your opinion, fundamentally able to love her and value her?’

  Julia reflected before answering.

  ‘He loves her, anyhow,’ she said. ‘You’d only to watch his face this morning to see that. I fancy he did something frightfully stupid which made her come rushing up here with Townsend—the American; and he’s been in agony over it. But as for being capable of valuing her—honestly, Father, one has to take some risks in any marriage; you can’t expect safety on a plate! If she’s in love with him— and I think she is—I should say they’d better marry as soon as possible, take a long honeymoon, and Richard get himself transferred to some other post in the meantime, out of the way of the old Countess.’

  He smiled at this blue-print for Hetta’s future. ‘Thank you. I believe I agree with you,’ he said.

  ‘Good.’ She paused for a moment and then added—‘As Hetta’s Father in God, couldn’t you tip her off to be a little less uncompromising herself, and bottle up her prejudices? It really won’t do in diplomacy for her to tell her husband’s visitors not to be fools!’

  ‘I had it in mind to do this,’ the priest said, smiling. ‘So much I see.’

  On their way back to the house they encountered the Duke deep in conversation with his head shepherd and the bailiff about some new rams from England, who were nibbling away in a small hurdled enclosure in the pastures; he joined them.

  ‘Duke, there’s good news,’ Julia told him.

  ‘Is she found?’

  ‘Yes, found and safe. And with your consent she will be coming up here tomorrow.’

  ‘Of course I consent! To whom do I say so?’

  ‘Well, in fact as you were out, and as you had asked her already, I gave your consent myself,’ Julia said. The Duke laughed.

  ‘Miss Probyn, I think you must never leave us again! You manage my affairs better than I do. I am delighted.’

  ‘Yes, but there’s just one thing,’ Julia pursued. ‘She’ll have to come with an escort.’

  He looked alarmed.

  ‘Not the mother?’

  ‘Oh Lord no—heaven forfend! With that English lady who found her. Would you mind? You see, no one in Portugal knows her by sight, so she’s good cover.’

  ‘Indeed I do not mind! I should like to meet this spirited lady, and as a friend of yours she is doubly welcome. Have you given my consent to this also?’ he asked slyly.

  ‘Well, yes, I have,’ Julia admitted.

  ‘Excellent! I will tell my sister. Really, how interesting it makes one’s existence to be involved in these matters!, Usually here at Gralheira we lead a life which is tranquil almost to the point of being a little dull,’ he said to Father Antal. ‘But since you and the Monsignor came we have the house full of handsome young men, we have alarms and excursions, the telephone ringing at all hours—and now a rescued heroine and her duenna! So amusing.’

  ‘You are all goodness; and so is this young lady,’ Father Antal said, with a benevolent glance at Julia.

  ‘There you are right!’ But the Duke raised a question which had not occurred to Julia.

  ‘Who pacifies the formidable Mama, whose daughter ran away from her yesterday morning with this so well-mannered young American? Has she been told?’

  ‘Good gracious, I never thought of that. Well whatever happens, don’t let us do the pacifying!’ Julia exclaimed. ‘I’ll talk to Major Torrens, but personally I think all that had much better be left to Colonel Marques; he’s on the spot, and after all he can cancel her residence permit tomorrow, if he wants to. Then she’d miss the wedding!’ Julia added cattily.

  ‘Ah yes—the wedding! Dear me, I had quite forgotten it, with all these other affairs. We shall have to go down on Friday, I suppose,’ the Duke said ruefully. ‘And you also, Miss Probyn?’

  ‘Yes, I must. I’d forgotten all about it too.’

  The Duke turned to Father Antal, with careful courtesy.

  ‘You will remain here, of course. The absence of my sister and myself will make no difference, and in any case we shall only be away for forty-eight hours; we return on Sunday.’

  ‘You are more than kind,’ Father Antal said, measuredly. ‘In fact I think I have almost completed my work with Monsignor Subercaseaux; my movements are in the hands of Major Torrens after that.’

  ‘Let us both leave it all to Miss Probyn, then,’ the Duke said, again slyly.

  At the house she promptly put the point about Dorothée to the Major. ‘We simply can’t have her coming storming up here, when the Duque is being such an angel; but he’s quite right—she’s got to be sorted somehow,’ Julia said, using the West Highland expression for dealing with a person. ‘Ring the Colonel, don’t you think?’

  Torrens did think; and the Duke being now in possession of his own study, he gloomily telephoned from outside the pantry, while Julia as usual sat on the case of wine.

  ‘Oh this mother!’ Colonel Marques barked angrily. ‘Well may you be worried about her; for two centavos I would send her out of the country tomorrow! I went myself to see her, to relieve her anxiety: she is playing Bridge with Madame la Comtesse de Vermeil, she can see no one! When I send word that I desire to examine her permis de séjour, out she comes flying! But she made great difficulties about the daughter: threatened to go to the American Embassy, and Heaven knows what! Since I cannot and will not tell her where her daughter is, or where she goes, this is very troublesome.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Torrens asked.

  ‘That her Father Confessor—you know who I mean— would come to explain matters to her; meanwhile, that her daughter was in his care. After all she will be tomorrow, so what difference does it make?’

  ‘Oh, none,’ Torrens said cheerfully. This Dunne-like treatment of time did not worry him in the least. ‘But have we got to send the old holiness down?’

  ‘Yes, mon cher, I am afraid you must do this. Brief him first, of course; but that one needs little briefing!—merely no indication of where la petite is or will be, and of what has happened. He is the one person who can keep her quiet. How soon can you send him?’

  Torrens, after consulting Julia, repeated her airy assurance of—‘Oh, Richard can drive him down first thing tomorrow; they can be there by lunch-time, in that car.’

  ‘Très-bien. Then I inform Madame la mère that she may expect her Director for luncheon tomorrow, and that he will explain everything.’

  When Marques had rung off Julia and Torrens went back to the smoking-room.

  ‘I suppose it’s all right letting him go,’ the Secret Service man said. ‘After all, they were watching his house on Friday night.’

  ‘Only to try and catch Father Antal,’ Julia said. ‘And he’ll be in a CD. car. Let’s go and tell him, and the wretched Richard. How furious he’ll be at being sent off, just when Hetta’s coming!’

  Neither the ecclesiastic nor the diplomat were in the least pleased at their assignment. The Monsignor took it best. ‘Yes, I understand,’ he said resignedly. ‘Of course maternal feelings must be placated, but how one wishes that in Americans they were not so pronounced! Very well —at what hour do we start tomorrow?’

  ‘At eight sharp,’ Ju
lia told him firmly.

  ‘Misèricorde! That means saying Mass at seven!’

  ‘I’ll see that Antonio calls you in good time,’ Julia assured him, not without malice.

  Richard was much more recalcitrant.

  ‘But it’s tomorrow that she comes up here!’ he exclaimed unguardedly. ‘Why do I have to drive him down? Can’t he go in one of the Duque’s endless cars?’

  ‘No. It’s much wiser that he goes in a CD. car,’ Torrens told him.

  ‘Well, Townsend has his car sitting in the praça at São Pedro: can’t he do it?’

  ‘No, Richard,’ Julia said firmly. ‘We’ve had quite enough of Townsend driving people about!—and his car’s nothing like as fast as yours. Anyhow, whose fault is all this Hetta thing?’

  The young man stared at her.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I’ll give you three guesses!’ she said. ‘No, Richard; you take him down.’

  Atherley capitulated.

  ‘Oh, very well. Must I stay down there to bring him back, or just dump him?’

  ‘Well oughtn’t you to get back to your Chancery? Of course that’s between you and your Ambassador,’ Julia said remorselessly. ‘I shouldn’t think the Monsignor will want to come up here again before the wedding; that’s on Saturday, and tomorrow is Wednesday. By the time he’s flattened Dorothée there’ll only be forty-eight hours before he has to put on his war-paint and assist at the Nuptial High Mass.’

  ‘Oh Lord, yes!’ Richard groaned. ‘I’d forgotten that infernal wedding. Haven’t you got to come down for it too?’ he asked rather sourly of Julia.

  ‘Of course. But I don’t really mind!’ she replied with a grin. ‘The Duke and Dona Maria Francisca are going, of course; I shall take a lift off them, in one of their endless cars.’

  ‘Damn you, Julia!’