The Governor's Lady (7 page)

Mr. Ngono poured out the last of the champagne.

‘But'—here he drew the corners of his mouth down and dropped his voice to the merest audible whisper— ‘also a most naughty goddess, so I have heard tell. A most extremely naughty one.'

He was leaning so far forward on his stool to impart this confidence that he accidentally slipped. He had to put both hands on Harold's shoulders to save himself.

‘But I should not have spoken,' he said. ‘If she should become your friend, I am ruined. Also my publishing house. Please altogether to forget my last remark. It is no more than idle hear-say, I don't damn well doubt. Not a single word of so-called truth from start to finish.'

It was there ready waiting for him on the tray when he got back from seeing Mr. Frith. One of the boys from the Residency must have delivered it.

The envelope had a Crown on the back, and inside was the crisply printed invitation card. It stated, formally enough, that Her Excellency, Lady Anne Hackforth, would be at home at 4.30 p.m. next Wednesday. His own name had been written at the top in a precise, impersonal kind of script. But in the bottom right-hand corner there were two words scribbled in a contrastingly bright ink.
‘Do come
were what they said.

‘So she's remembered about me, has she?' Harold asked himself. ‘I suppose that means that she's feeling bored again. Or perhaps she thinks that I am.'

He was, as it happened, not in the least bored. Sir Gardnor had found time to send him a line of thanks for the new presentation of the Trade Tables. And other people, too, in Arnimbo had just caught up with the fact that he was out there with them. At breakfast that morning there had been a letter from Establishment, confirming his appointment and thoughtfully enclosing an Overseas Allowances form; a roneo-ed sheet from the Milner Sports Club, requesting the sum of three guineas; and a black-rimmed card with deckle-edges inviting him to the memorial service in the Anglican Cathedral for poor Major Henderson.

There was also someone else who had remembered Harold: Mr. Ngono. His letter put on record how extremely much the writer had enjoyed meeting him the other evening, and proposed full dinner next time, with or without dancing just as Harold preferred. Mr. Ngono's own car could be available to call for Mm the earlier the so much better; and would Harold's official position, Mr. Ngono wondered, permit him to take a prominent seat on the board of a little syndicate that Mr. Ngono was about to form for the import of American fertilisers. He was ready, Mr. Ngono stressed, to come along to the bungalow at any
time for a few drinks and a most friendly chat if Harold would rather have things that way.

Harold took great pains to make himself presentable for Her Excellency's tea-party.

If he was going to meet the cream of Amimbo society he wanted to be looking at his very best. And the visit to the barber at the Royal Albert had not been entirely successful. The man had cropped, rather than merely cut; and, studying the result in the mirror, Harold decided that it made him look rather younger: it was an effect which he disliked intensely. On the other hand, he had already learnt the great secret of dressing in the tropics. It was simply to leave it all as late as possible, not putting on the jacket until actually leaving the front door, so that the sweat marks between the shoulders would have less time to work through.

The only thing that was still worrying him was the emerald-green hair-oil that the hotel barber had sold to him. The colour vanished magically as soon as it reached the scalp, but the smell remained. And it was a peculiarly powerful and pungent kind of smell. As he crossed the Residency threshold, he was still conscious of it.

This time, there was no A.D.C. waiting for him at the top of the stairs. The black servant with white jacket and the gold sash led him along the corridor towards the west wing. And, even when they reached it and turned sharply right by the last of the royal portraits, there was still that same endless expanse of blue carpet stretching ahead of them.

As he reached the doorway at the far end, Harold glanced down at his watch.

‘Oh, damn,' he reflected. ‘I'm punctual. I've bloody well done it again. I'm the first.'

The room into which he was shown was strikingly different from the Governor's library on the other side. For a start, it was feminine: all white and chintzy. There were a lot of photographs in silver frames, and the flowers looked as though they belonged there, rather than having simply been arranged. It was like any room in a pleasant, country house in Sussex.

Already there was someone coming forward across the large white rug to meet him. It was a thin, straw-coloured woman, and she was thrusting out a thin, straw-coloured hand.

‘Oh, Mr. Stebbs,' she said. ‘Her Excellency will be so glad that you were able to come.'

She paused for a moment, and then added in the same flat, rather high-pitched voice: ‘I'm Sybil Prosser.'

‘How d'you do?' he said. ‘I'm afraid I'm early.'

‘Not a bit,' Miss Prosser assured him, looking across at the Empire clock on the mantlepiece. ‘You're not. Really you're not. You're exactly on time. To the very minute.'

She broke off long enough to gather up some petals that had fallen onto the table from the flower vase beside her, and turned towards him.

‘Do sit down, won't you, Mr. Stebbs? Lady Anne ought to be here by now. She's only resting.'

It occurred to Harold as he sat himself in one of the small, cushiony chairs that he had never seen anyone quite so ill at ease as Miss Prosser. Even her new-looking, white dress did not fit properly. There was something wrong with the collar and, while she was talking, she kept tugging at it in an irritable, absent-minded kind of fashion. She had chosen the corner of the couch for herself, and she did not fit there, either. With no natural, built-in comforts, she could find nowhere to place her left arm. In the end, she left it hanging helplessly by her side and tried crossing her legs the other way. The gesture drew attention to her rather strangely oversize feet in their pointed white suede shoes.

‘Smoke if you want to,' she told him. They're beside you. I don't myself. I used to. But not any longer.'

He had not yet lit the cigarette when Sybil Prosser spoke again.

‘May I ask a favour?' she enquired. ‘A personal one, I mean.'

It was the voice that did it. On her lips, it did not sound like asking for a favour at all: there was the distinct note of a threat underlying it. He finished lighting his cigarette.

‘What is it?' he asked.

She leant forward, the collar of her dress rising still further from her long neck as she did so.

‘Don't stay too long,' she said. ‘Please just have tea, and then go away again. You don't understand, but it's my responsibility. Lady Anne isn't well, you see. She's been under great strain lately. That's why I took her away. Why I went with her, I mean. I wanted her to be away longer. But she insisted on coming back again. She'll be very glad to see you. I know she will. If only you don't stay…'

Harold put down his cigarette.

‘Would you rather I left now?'

It was not Miss Prosser who answered him. It was Lady Anne. She was standing in the far doorway. Her hands folded and her head inclined to one side, she was smiling. There was something in her attitude that made Harold wonder whether she had been there all the time, whether she had overheard the whole conversation.

‘Has Sybil been trying to get rid of you already?' she asked. ‘Whatever
have
you done to deserve it?'

She came forward, still smiling and walking rather slowly as though she were enjoying the situation and did not want to see it pass.

‘She should have been apologising, you know,' she went on. ‘For dragging you up here, I mean. Because this isn't a real do. There's no one else. It's only the three of us. Do you mind?'

The smell of the emerald hair-oil had just reached him again: he wondered if the others were aware of it, too.

‘Not a bit,' he replied. ‘It's nicer this way, isn't it? Not so many people, I mean.'

Lady Anne stopped smiling.

‘Do you know why I sent you one of those invitations?' she asked. ‘Because you'd have refused if I'd just written to you—you know you would. But you couldn't very well if I sent you an official card. And so you're here.'

She was facing him by now, and Harold was conscious again of what remarkably fine eyes she had. It was as though they were actually lit up from within and were shining outwards.

This was an entirely different woman from the one who had come over to the bungalow. She seemed somehow taller; tall, and composed and elegant. And beautiful. To his annoyance Harold found himself remembering Mr. Ngono's words, ‘like a photograph. A goddess. A veritable goddess.'

The little, withered-up locust of a butler came in to set out the tea table. Harold noticed that he did not allow the other servants anywhere near Lady Anne: there was an invisible line, and he stood on his side of it.

‘You'd better be prepared for it,' Lady Anne was saying. ‘It's no good searching for a decent bookshop in Amimbo because there isn't one. The only thing is to write back home to
The Times
. It takes weeks,
but at least you get what you ask for. Or sometimes you do. The last lot never got here at all.'

Miss Prosser took her cue.

‘They sent two copies of
The Green Hat
' she said. ‘And we never sent the second one back,' she added. ‘So they charged us for it. It's still about here somewhere.'

‘Then I shall lend it to Mr. Stebbs,' Lady Anne told her. ‘You'd like that, wouldn't you, Mr. Stebbs? It can be very dull here in the evenings if you haven't got anything to read. And when you've finished it you can bring it back, and tell me what you think of it.' She took a cigarette from the box that the butler was holding out to her. ‘We're nearly always here, aren't we, Sybil? All that Mr. Stebbs has to do is to telephone and come over.'

Miss Prosser did not answer immediately. She had been looking across at Harold. Whenever she thought that Lady Anne was not watching, she raised her sparse, straw-coloured eyebrows. But this time she was observed.

‘Oh yes,' she said hurriedly. ‘Nearly always. In the evenings, that is. Almost any evening. Unless Lady Anne is doing anything, of course.'

Harold could smell the hair-oil again.

‘It'd be very nice,' he heard his own voice answering. ‘Very nice indeed. I should enjoy that.'

‘Then you shall come,' Lady Anne told him. ‘And we shall sit in here after dinner and pretend that we're back in England again. We'll send the servants away and put the big centre light out and drink highballs and just talk. If Sybil finds that she's getting sleepy she can go to bed and leave us together. We shall be able to find plenty to talk about, shan't we, Mr. Stebbs?'

‘Thank you very much,' he said. ‘I shall look forward. But I really must be getting back now. It's late. I'm afraid I've got things to do.'

Lady Anne did not even look at him as she answered. She was staring right over his shoulder into space.

‘It can't have been any fun for you,' she said. ‘Not this afternoon, I mean. But there'll be plenty of other times. And Sybil is quite right. I haven't been well, you know. I'm not really well now. I get tired so quickly.'

Miss Prosser had uncrossed her legs and got up. Harold noticed that
she gave a little shooing motion as she approached him. He obeyed by holding out his hand to say good-bye.

Suddenly Lady Anne came to life again.

‘But he can't go without seeing the photograph, can he?' she asked. ‘He can't go without seeing my Timothy.'

She went over to her desk and came back with one of the little silver frames.

‘That's my Timothy,' she said. ‘Don't you think he's adorable?'

The face that regarded him from the frame was that of a small boy of seven or eight years of age. It had the Governor's high forehead and her enormous eyes.

‘He's jolly good-looking, isn't he?' Harold said truthfully. ‘When can I meet him?'

Lady Anne reached out her hand for the photograph. Because she thought that he was slow in giving it to her she almost snatched it from him.

‘You can't,' she said. ‘That's the whole point. And I can't either. He's in England, and I'm out here. Oh Timothy, Timothy darling, I do love you so. Some day, Timothy, I'll make it all come right. I promise I will.'

She was still hugging the photograph up against her bosom as she was speaking and seemed temporarily to have forgotten that Harold was standing there. He was relieved when Sybil Prosser, awkward and angular as ever, went across to the bellpull to summon one of the servants to show him out.

The houseboy who opened the door of the bungalow was wearing an expression of idiotic self-importance. Harold recognised the expression immediately: it meant that someone had telephoned.

As it turned out, the telephone had rung more than once. Three times, in fact; and, each time it had been Mr. Frith who was at the other end. Harold, he said, was to ring back immediately, at once, no delay, now, straightaway, very top urgent.

More to impress the houseboy than for any other reason, Harold took his time. He went through to the bathroom, washed, combed his hair and, quite unnecessarily, changed his tie. Then he walked slowly back to the hall—sauntering deliberately when he was sure that the houseboy was still peering through the bead-curtain, and picked up the receiver.

It was certainly an agitated Mr. Frith who answered.

‘Where have you been?' he demanded. ‘They've been looking every-where for you. The Governor wants you. Or, at least, he did. It's too late now. Nothing you can do about it. But for God's sake don't let it happen again. H.E.'s furious. Wanted to get on with the book, or something …'