by Burke, John
There was no reason why her father should not simply send him away.
But she knew he wouldn’t.
“And you?” he said.
“Me?”
“Your job,” he said. “Or perhaps you have never needed to work. Of course. With Johnson’s to look after you, and now a distinguished husband to take you over…”
“I worked in London,” she said hotly, “for a scientific publisher. And it was hard work. At the moment I’m freelancing — some technical sub-editing, and some indexing. And when we’re married I’m not just going to twiddle my thumbs while Martin works; we couldn’t afford it. I’ll carry on with the editorial side.”
“Ah, yes. And you will be able to help your husband.”
“I can certainly look after this records…”
“And one day he will write a big treatise on all those bugs of his. His life’s work.”
“How do you know?”
“They do,” said Peter. “These serious people — so admirable — they all do. They’re all bitten by the bug.” He let out a surprisingly high-pitched giggle.
“You make it sound silly,” said Brigid. “And dull. And it’s not.”
“He is fortunate, your Martin,” said Peter. His voice dropped to a seductive murmur. “Very fortunate.”
Brigid slammed the car into gear and jolted off the verge on to the road. She drove inland, letting him make what he chose of the villages and orchards they passed. They had gone for more than five minutes in silence when he let out an exclamation.
Brigid slowed. “What is it?”
“This building — please, we look?” They were approaching a large country pub. The inn sign stood in a small circular lawn surrounded by flowerbeds, and beyond a low red brick wall there was a garden with metal tables and chairs. It was The Dumb Woman. The picture on the inn sign, recently repainted, showed a fat woman huddled on the ground with two burly farmers sitting on her head trying to fit a muzzle over her face.
“So this is The Dumb Woman,” said Peter.
“You’ve heard of it?”
“It has been here a long time, I think.”
“Two or three hundred years.” Even this she couldn’t be sure of. She just knew that the old pub was referred to as being ‘historic’. “It’s been done up recently,” she said, “but I don’t think they’ve spoilt it.” She waited a moment, then asked again: “You’ve heard of it?”
“My grandmother mentioned it. I asked her once about England and how it was like home. Or not like home. I was always asking her about England. And she told me that my grandfather — this was a long time ago, before she told me the truth about him deserting her and that it was not true how she told us she was a widow … only of course now we know it was true, but…”
“All right,” said Brigid. “All right. We’ve gone all over that. It makes my head whirl. Go on.”
“Yes. Like I tell you, I ask all the time about England. I ask if the hostaria are like ours. And if the men stand outside in the street talking all the time — in my town, you know, they go in for a quick drink and then come out and lean against a wall in the piazza and talk. But my grandmother tell me that in England the men shut themselves inside these places and talk. They do not like to talk in the open. And she says that The Dumb Woman is a big place outside Lurgate where my grandfather comes. Especially when he has his big motor-car. I remember … I hear her voice now.” He put his head back and half-closed his eyes. “I ask her what it is like inside, and she says — I hear her say it — ‘He would not take a lady there’. Not a lady,” he mused. Then his eyes opened again and somehow became deeper and darker. He chuckled. “May I take you inside? I think it is a different world now. In England they are not so strict anymore.”
“But in England,” said Brigid, “they’re still strict about the licensing laws. It doesn’t open till six o’clock.”
“So. Twenty minutes only.”
“We ought to be turning back,” said Brigid.
She thought he was about to argue. Instead, he put his hand on her arm and let it slide a few inches towards her wrist.
“May I drive on the way back?”
“Well … I don’t know that Mummy…”
“Your mother’s car will be safely brought home to Lurgate. You ain’t never seen driving like mine, baby.”
She could not tell whether this was a send-up or whether the words came merely as an echo of something once picked up which he now thought would be appropriate.
She said: “If you’ll promise to be careful…”
“You think because I work in Rome I am a mad driver? All Italians are mad drivers?”
He got out of the car and walked round to her side. Brigid opened her door and slid across into the seat he had just been occupying. Peter stooped and got in. As he leaned over the wheel, his head darted suddenly forward and he kissed her. Brigid jolted backwards. His hand reached for her shoulder.
“No,” she said.
“Such a wonderful day,” he said. “And you, and the sunshine. The atmosphere — you do not feel it? You are not intoxicated by it?”
“No.”
“Ah.” He let himself slide back and face the wheel. He pulled his door shut. “But you must not blame me if I am carried away.”
“You weren’t carried away,” she said. “You’re a tryer-on. It’s just a reflex with you.”
He started the car and they moved smoothly away. “Like all Italian men,” he, sighed. “They drive like maniacs, and they have reflex actions when they see beautiful women. You do not take me seriously, no?”
“So soon?”
“Ah.” He pounced. “It is just a matter of time, then? It is only my timing is wrong?”
“No,” said Brigid. “It’s all wrong. You know the route? Turn left at the end here.”
He was a fast driver and a good one. Either he had a good sense of direction or, in spite of his apparent indifference, he had efficiently memorised the route on their journey out here: she did not need to dictate the turnings to him, but could feel him starting to slow just at the moment when she herself would have slowed for a particular corner. His right hand rested lightly on the wheel but was alive and alert, ready to act in a split second.
Airily he said: “You will inherit a lot of money, I think?”
“I don’t see what it’s…”
“In the old days,” he went on without turning his head, “they favoured the amalgamation of families at a time like this. A good idea, don’t you think? A swell idea. Unions of princes and princesses of industry, just as there were unions of royal families. They favoured alliance rather than war.”
“Meaning you expect to be at war with me sooner or later?” said Brigid uneasily.
“I hope not. I do not see any reason why we should be at war. Now, let us be serious for a minute. Just one minute. You know I do not like always to be too serious. But if we are sensible about an alliance…”
“I don’t know what kind of alliance you mean,” said Brigid. “And I’d remind you I’m getting married.”
“Of course. For you it is not the prince and princess story. It is the one about the peasant boy who wins the hand of the princess. But that is not the only possible happy ending, I think. When the rightful prince comes back from exile to claim his own, I think the peasant boy makes a noble farewell and walks off into the sunset.”
“I thought you were telling fairy tales,” said Brigid. “Now we seem to be mixed up in a bad film.”
“To me it is still a fairy tale. Jack the Insect-Killer.”
They were racing across the levels towards Lurgate. The sea wall ended in the steep incline of the cliff. The town hall tower, a spindly little belfry, shone against the sky. But not, thought Brigid, in any way like a fairy castle. She said: “I don’t see what you’re trying to do. Martin and I are going to be married. I love him.”
“The situation has changed.”
“It hasn’t changed. Not so far as I am concer
ned. All through this mess and gossip of the last couple of weeks Martin’s been just the same as ever. He’s loyal … ”
“Why should he not be loyal? The money’s still good. Though it’ll be interesting,” said Peter, “to see how he reacts when he finds there may not be quite as much for him as he expected.”
“He didn’t expect anything,” said Brigid. “He’s not marrying me for money.”
“It is so magnificent, how you spring to his defence.”
They reached the outskirts of the town. Brigid made him stop so that she could take the wheel once more. “Just in case.”
“You think I look too masterful, in charge of your mother’s car? It could be bad taste, taking charge so soon. I know the English worry always about the taste being bad.” Peter got out and paced round the car with an exaggeratedly stately tread. When he had moved in beside her and slammed the door he said: “I shall buy myself a big car. Very big, very fast. Bright red. When I can afford it.” He flashed her a smile. “When do you think that will be?”
“I’ve no idea.”
She drove him to the hotel. He had time to wash and change before coming to dinner with them.
“And I bring my testimonials for your Mr Farnham.”
When he got out of the car he bent as though to kiss her hand. Instead, he kissed the inside of her wrist and straightened up very slowly.
Brigid drove home.
She had a quick bath and put on a loose summer dress splashed with turquoise flowers. By the time she came downstairs, Mr Farnham had arrived. The door of the study was open and she could hear the intermittent, wobbly crackle of his voice as her father poured him a drink and they talked politely while they waited. The formalities were a strain. Her father wanted to get to grips with Peter Blythe and have everything settled, cut and dried; and Mr Farnham was dithering with impatient curiosity.
Her mother crossed the hall. Their paths converged. Nell was almost too elegant. She had encased herself in an armour of smartness. Everything about her was too tight, too tense, too aggressive.
“Cheer up, Mummy.”
Brigid kissed her.
The front door bell rang. Nell opened it, and Peter came in with his brief-case, bulging this time. They shook hands and made conventional noises. Peter looked Brigid up and down and said: “Charming. Oh, so charming.”
Nell offered to take the brief-case from him but he shook his head politely and tightened his grip on it, making it clear that he preferred to keep it with him.
Nell said: “I hope the hotel’s comfortable?”
“Comfortable, yes.”
“Mrs Hemming keeps up a very high standard.”
“Yes. I have only one complaint.”
“Oh?”
“My luggage has been searched. My luggage and the drawers where I put things.”
Brigid and Nell stared incredulously. “You do not believe me?” he said. “But I promise you it is so. Someone in the hotel has searched my cases — turned over everything. It is put back most carefully, but I know; I can tell.”
“I’m sure you must have made a mistake,” said Nell frigidly. “If you’ve mislaid something”
“No, no. Nothing is missing.” Peter tapped his brief-case. “I have it all with me.
“Then what would be the point of going through your things? Who’d have done such a thing?”
“That is what I ask myself.”
Peter looked ironically, quizzically at Brigid.
Next day the reporters were back and the telephone was ringing with renewed fervour.
“It was bound to happen,” said Brigid’s father. “I suppose Amy couldn’t keep her mouth shut. She must have had a pretty good idea of what’s been going on, and she’s been showing off to her friends.”
“Or that old fool Farnham,” said her mother. “He’ll have been doddering round telling all his cronies this morning.”
Nell did not try to hide her antagonism towards Mr Farnham. Brigid had watched it emerging at dinner the previous evening. Mr Farnham could not really be reproached: he had been objective and thorough, covering all the ground they had wanted him to cover; but the fact that he had robbed her of any lingering hope she might have had of the whole business collapsing had turned her mother against him.
Mr Farnham had been enthralled. He recognised the travelling clock — he and his late wife had seen it several times when visiting the Blythes — and there was no doubt about the identity of the young woman in the photographs. That was Serafina: no doubt about it. He questioned Peter at length, and the answers rang true. Mr Farnham made it clear that his own testimony ought to be sufficient for anyone. But if further proof were required, why not approach the police — or, if it was out of their province, at least telephone Rome and Palermo for confirmation. Peter laughed and agreed. It would take time — the carabiniere were suspicious of outsiders, the local police tended to be uncommunicative — “And it’s hardly a matter on which we can call on Interpol,” Arthur observed. But there were channels that could be used. Brigid sensed that her father was reluctant to push matters to such an extreme. The evidence was already enough for him. It was Peter who urged him to tie up every last thread.
“You speak to Rome. I give you the address of the tourist office and they will tell you who I am. And the Palermo office — they know that I am who I say I am. It is a lot of trouble to speak to my own town — you need an interpreter, I think — but you want to try, you try. They tell you who I am and where I live. And about my grandmother. Please, I wish you to be happy.”
Brigid, enmeshed in the growing complexities of the affair, wondered if his insistence was merely a bluff. He might be encouraging them with such apparent frankness simply in order to persuade them that it wasn’t really necessary to go any further. He had all the makings of a gambler, of the con man her mother would still prefer him to be. This could be his biggest gamble. Yet would he risk such a bluff being called? The layers of possibility and probability were too confusing: truth overlaid by exaggeration yet nevertheless basically the truth … or falsehood covered by plausibility and brightly veneered with additional falsehood?
Mr Farnham at any rate was convinced. In his view, nobody could have made all this up. The picture and documents were authentic. Everything fitted. He even claimed that he would have recognised the boy at once: he had Serafina’s face and Walter Blythe’s hair.
Peter played up to him as though revelling in the opportunity of showing how well he had mastered his role. He treated it all with the light seriousness of a skilled exponent of the most delicate tragi-comedy.
This, Mr Farnham asserted, was undoubtedly Walter Blythe’s grandson.
Brigid agreed with her mother that it was probably old Farnham who blabbed the story all over town as soon as he was up and about this following morning.
The reporters’ questions were like a resumed hammering, a head-aching noise that had abated but was now starting up again. Did Mr Johnson have a further statement to make? Was it true that a claimant had arrived and that he showed every sign of being genuine? What was the story behind it … could they say that an agreement had been reached … an agreement was being reached … Mr Johnson stood by his offer to make restitution … the name of Blythe would be restored to the firm…?
Peter arrived at the house, dodged a pimply young man from the Lurgate and Eastweald Gazette (with which were combined the Blackstable Advertiser, the Surriham Chronicle and the Tidway Gazette) and demanded to see Mr Johnson. Arthur had gone out to give instructions to the foreman on the new housing estate, but had promised to be back within the hour.
Nell and Brigid had coffee with Peter in the sitting room at the back of the house. The doorbell and telephone bell rang simultaneously. Amy dealt with the caller at the door and they let the telephone ring until it finally gave up.
Peter, said: “We must reach our decisions quickly.”
Nell made a slow ritual of opening the biscuit barrel and offering it to him. “I think
it’s for my husband to decide…”
“We want to prevent speculation. They will make such silly stories in the newspapers. Let us settle it so they cannot invent things.”
Brigid saw that his mood was toughening. This was not like the light-heartedness of the last few days. The taut wire was straining.
He had said he was not here to demand anything. His approach had been friendly and leisurely. But he had been sizing up the situation and, after Mr Farnham’s support last night, had doubtless decided he was in control. He knew his own strength and was now ready to apply the pressure.
Peter caught her eye. She was conscious of his making an effort to slip back into his old casual manner. He looked away, smiling at Nell.
“Maybe I ask for the hand of the princess in marriage as well? That is the accepted thing, is it not?”
Nell put her cup down with a bang. “I think you’re too late,” was all she could find to say.
“Much too late,” Brigid confirmed.
“There was a girl in one of the parties I showed round Rome,” said Peter lazily. “A very pretty girl. Not so pretty as Brigid, but pretty. She was on holiday with her mother. When they went home she was going to marry. She tell me all this. People tell me so much, you know. But there is another young man in the party, and I do not have to watch very carefully to see what is happening. I do not think she married the poor man at home. All the time I see people change … ”
There was the faint thud of the front door closing. Brigid’s father came in, opening and closing doors, looking for them. When he reached the sitting room, Peter was already standing.
“I think we must talk.”
The two of them went off to the study.
Afterwards, when Peter had gone, there was an awkward silence in which Brigid and her mother waited to hear what had been discussed. For once her father was uncommunicative. Under their enquiring gaze he said at last:
“This is for me to settle. It’s my responsibility.”
“What’s he up to?” demanded Nell at once. “If he’s trying to talk you into something, I want to…”
“He can’t make up his mind. He knows he’s on to a good thing and I think he’s not sure how to play it.”