The Portuguese Escape (36 page)

‘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,' Julia 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!'

Torrens weighed in.

‘You're going rather too fast, Julia. The Monsignor has got to come back here to finish off with Father A., and anyhow Marques has already told Countess Páloczy that he is looking after Hetta. That's in the future conditional tense, but we're bound to run into trouble if Subercaseaux stays in Estoril; he's sure to be seen, and she's sure to be told.'

‘Oh, ah, yes; I see your point,' Julia said blandly. ‘Very
well, let Richard bring him back tomorrow night. And the Monsignor can go down again on Friday with the Duque and me and all. Old Dorothée won't make any fuss
at
the wedding—she'll be much too excited! But I wish I could be a fly on the wall when he tackles her tomorrow.'

‘He'll win—you can bet on that,' Richard said.

Monsignor Subercaseaux did win, although he was playing on a bad wicket and the Countess on a good one. When he walked into the apartment at half-past one he saw at once that she was all set to give him a rough passage; but the Monsignor was not at all inclined to submit to rough passages, and did not on this occasion.

‘Well, Monsignor, I hope now you will have the goodness to explain to me what goes on about Hetta?' she began. ‘That quite
insufferable
Colonel Marques said you would.'

‘You dislike him?' the priest said, raising his bushy eyebrows. ‘I find him so intelligent, and invariably
courteous.
' He glanced towards the tray of drinks under the window; after being driven at nerve-wrecking speed by Atherley for five and a half hours he felt like a glass of sherry. The Countess saw his glance, and interpreted it; already a little cowed, she moved towards the tray.

‘A glass of Tio Pepe, Monsignor?'

‘Thank you, my daughter.' The last words put her back in her place as his spiritual child. He sipped, gently, and sniffed appreciatively at a bowl of roses.

‘Well?' the Countess asked sharply. ‘Why did she rush off like that? And was it with Townsend Waller or with Atherley? I know she went with a man—right from the door here! She has
no
sense.'

‘Do you remember a conversation we had about her, just after she arrived?' the Monsignor asked tranquilly. ‘You complained then of her independence, and I made certain recommendations as to your own course of behaviour. I am beginning to wonder if you have carried them out.'

‘Now look here, Monsignor, you're trying to put mein the dock, and I don't like it,' the angry woman said. ‘Are you really suggesting that this performance of hers is
my
fault?'

‘I am not sure. Your treatment of her might have been a contributing factor, let us say.'

‘No, let's not say that, or anything like it! I've been doing everything in the
world
for that child, gauche and difficult as she is, since she came.' In her anger the Countess's voice took on the rasping accents of the Middle West, and she reverted to her native idiom. ‘Quit stalling, Monsignor, and tell me where my daughter
is?
'

‘She is in my care,' he said, in tones of studied moderation. ‘She is well, and she will return to you presently; but I am not going to tell you her address, I am not going to send her back till I think fit, and I am, above all, not going to enter into explanations as to why she left, or with whom, at this stage. Later I may do so; but the present is not the moment.'

The calm authority in his voice checked Dorothy Páloczy momentarily; then her resentment flamed up afresh.

‘In fact you're taking my own child out of my hands? Is that it?'

‘No. Your child left your hands of her own free will and without my knowledge; you may ask yourself why. But now, I repeat, she is in
my
care.'

‘It's—it's absolutely outrageous!' the Countess said fuming, walking up and down the pretty flower-filled room. It was, of course, and no one knew it better than Mgr Subercaseaux. But security demanded that the wretched woman should be kept in the dark—to say nothing of their obligations to the Duke, to Father Antal, and to Hetta herself. The Monsignor had no qualms at all about the line he was taking. He drank some more sherry, and sat relaxed in his chair, waiting for the storm to blow itself out.

‘Well, when
is
Hetta coming back?'

‘Oh, soon after the wedding, I think. You do not want her to come before that, do you? Will you not be very much involved in your own preparations, till then?' There was a hint of irony in his tone, and Dorothée, who was not altogether a fool, realised that he was thinking—quite rightly—of all she would be having done to her clothes, her feet, her hands, her hair, her face. She gave an angry
laugh. ‘Oh very well—you win! But when what you call “the moment” for explanations comes I shall want a full one, remember!'

‘I shall not forget.' He pulled out a thin gold watch in a Cartier case from somewhere in his soutane, and glanced at it. ‘My dear Countess, I have to leave at three. Will you do me the honour of lunching with me downstairs?'

‘No, I won't!' the Countess said flatly. ‘We're lunching here, in the apartment, where the chef will send us something fit to eat.'

‘You are very kind. Do you wish me to ring?'

Dorothy Páloczy had been slower than most American women married to Europeans about learning to let things be done
for
her; after twenty-five years she was still liable to do them herself, especially when her nerves were out of order. She moved now to the telephone and ordered luncheon to be served immediately; then she poured out another glass of sherry for her guest. Subercaseaux was relieved by this promptitude. He had undertaken to walk up and meet Atherley outside the Casino sharp at three, but he was exceedingly hungry, and did not at all want to cut his meal short.

Atherley lunched more briefly, and rather less well. After dropping the Monsignor he raced in to Lisbon and from the Chancery rang up the Ambassador's residence to ask how soon he could see him? Sir Henry was in, and luckily had no luncheon-party; he sent a message to say that his First Secretary could come at two-fifteen.

‘Tomlinson, what can you get me to eat,
here
, in five minutes?' Richard asked, sitting at his desk, and groaning inwardly at the sight of three laden ‘In' trays.

‘Well in five minutes, Mr. Atherley, that isn't so easy; there aren't any restaurants close round here. Must it really be
five
minutes?'

‘Yes, Tomlinson, it must.'

The messenger reflected, wrinkling his pale forehead.

‘Well, Mr. Atherley, I hardly like to suggest it, but Mrs. Tomlinson and I often bring along some of her meat pies if we're liable to be busy; I could bring you up some of those at once, if you would fancy them. They're fresh-baked; she did them last night.'

‘That's very good of you, Tomlinson—the meat pies by all means. But what will
you
do?'

‘Oh, I can go out, Sir. We're not so rushed as we expected; the Messenger's plane was held up, so the bag isn't in. Would you like some wine, Sir? We can get that just round the corner, and it isn't too bad either—though not what you're accustomed to, of course.'

No district in Lisbon is without its small wine-shops, however lacking it may be in the matter of restaurants, and the Lapa quarter is no exception; in less than five minutes a tray was placed on Atherley's desk with a china jug of wine, tomatoes, and a plate of Mrs. Tomlinson's meat pies. These were the most English food the young man had eaten since he came to Portugal—stodgy, wholesome, and the pastry in fact rather good; he was ravenous, and helped down by the tomatoes and the rough cheap wine they made quite an adequate meal. Richard grinned as he ate, amused by this side-light on the domestic arrangements of the messenger and the telephonist—imagine that little thing going home, after her day's work in the head-phones, to roll out pastry and bake meat pies!