The Portuguese Escape (9 page)

‘Oh well, I don't think you are silly, only a little inexperienced, and perhaps rather too fierce,' he said, turning and smiling at her. ‘You will have to learn to take people as they come. Tell me,' he went on, ‘why you don't like Subercaseaux? You were just going to when the others came.'

‘He is part of it all,' Hetta said slowly, looking straight in front of her.

‘Part of all what?'

‘This life here. So much is false, I think—the importance of attending the marriage of a King's child, of being invited to an Embassy—or that politician who sacrifices his principles to gratify his wife's snobism! I cannot help
it—I have said I am sorry that I burst out at your table— but to me all this is incomprehensible,
despicable
. And for a priest to accept it all, take part in it!'

‘Oh, that's your quarrel with the Monsignor, is it? Well yes, he does take part, I agree. But can't he perhaps do good by doing so?'

‘Possibly. Back there, where I come from, compromise is not possible; our priests live in hourly danger. If you knew the risks Father Antal runs!'

‘Is he the priest you cooked for?' She nodded. ‘What special risks did he run?'

‘Going to see the Cardinal—' and she told him more of what she had told Townsend, ending up—‘But he at least does not compromise with evil.'

‘But, Hetti,
are
royal weddings and Embassy parties evil? Don't you exaggerate?'

‘Oh, there are those lovely ships!' the girl exclaimed, forgetting the argument as the car came in sight of thirty or more big schooners, lying at anchor out in the Tagus. ‘These are the ones which go to catch the salt fish, no?'

‘Yes; all the way to Newfoundland'—and Richard told her about the annual voyage of the Portuguese cod-fishing fleet to the foggy waters of the New World, to catch, salt on board, and bring home
bacalhau
, the dried fish which is a main part of the staple food of the nation, in town and country alike; at the next place they came to he made a détour through side streets to show her the flat triangular bodies hanging up in a grocer's shop. They were as hard as boards, and Hetta fingered one doubtfully. ‘Is it not very nasty?' she asked.

‘Yes, if it's badly cooked it's quite horrible, but properly prepared it can be delicious. Next time you come to lunch with me you shall have it; Joaquina does it wonderfully, especially with braised fried onions, buttered rice, and a very mild mustard sauce.'

‘You speak like a cook yourself!' said Hetta, laughing, as they drove on.

‘Yes, I'm interested in food. I completely agreed with what you said at lunch about the blasphemous nature of bad cooking—I liked you for that,' Richard said, again
turning to smile at her. ‘But do you know'—and he went on to tell her how every spring before the bacalhau fleet sailed the Cardinal-Patriarch of Lisbon said a special Mass for all the men of it, out on the quay-side if it was fine, in the great Jeronimos church at Belém if it was wet.

‘Oh, how I should like to see this,' Hetta said.

‘Get the Monsignor to take you—he always goes, and he'll get you a good seat.'

‘This he would
certainly
do!' the girl said ironically.

‘Hetti, I think you're taking Subercaseaux up all wrong,' Richard said. ‘Don't make up your mind in too much of a hurry. I think he's a splendid person.'

‘You are fond of him?' She sounded incredulous.

‘Yes, and I admire him. He adapts himself to his world, of course—which you will have to do, sooner or later—but he
does
do good in it, for that very reason.' He spoke with unusual earnestness; Hetta was silent.

Between the small towns strung out along the Tagus there are still open spaces of waste land, for the most part dry and sandy, where occasionally small flocks of sheep or goats, with tinkling bells, crop such scanty herbage as they can find—it is one of the charms of the environs of Lisbon, this artless penetration of the life of the country into the life of the town. In spring these waste spaces are misted over with the flowers of a minute dwarf iris, drifts of blue against the background of yellowish soil. A few moments after Atherley's last remarks about the Monsignor, which still remained unanswered, the car drew abreast of one such open space—‘Oh,
could
we stop?' Hetta asked.

He pulled in to the side at once, by no means unwilling to prolong this tête-à-tête. ‘Of course—what is it?' he asked.

‘The little lilies—for days I have wanted to pick them, but Mama is always in too much hurry for us to stop.' She began to get out of the car.

‘They die in five minutes,' he told her, thinking—How she runs away from a subject! But he did not believe that it was from cowardice—why was it?

The girl came back after a moment or so with her hands full of the lovely little things; in the car she sat looking at them in silent delight.

‘They aren't lilies really, they're irises,' he told her as they drove on.

‘So? The iris is the rainbow, isn't it?'

‘I believe so; but it's this kind of flower too.'

In a few minutes the small blossoms did indeed begin to wilt and shrivel together, as Richard had foretold; it is a fact that this particular species cannot endure separation from the soil.

‘Oh!—oh! they
do
fade,' Hetta lamented. ‘But it is so few minutes.'

‘I told you so,' Richard said, slowing down again; he looked at her as she sat beside him, ruefully contemplating the flowers in her hands, noticing for the first time how strong and shapely those hands were, but also—in spite of nail-varnish and other evidences of careful manicuring— that the skin on the inside of the fingers was still cracked and roughened, from, no doubt, hard kitchen work. They were strange hands to be associated with that pretty dress, the elegant shoes and hat, the careful make-up—somehow they moved him rather surprisingly.

‘They say that if flowers fade quickly on a person it means a warm heart,' he said. ‘But these anyhow fade the moment they are picked, so they tell me nothing about your heart.'

‘Do you want to know about my heart?' she asked, with a readiness that rather startled him. ‘Why? It is a most ordinary one.'

Why indeed?—if he did; and to his immense astonishment he found that he did in fact want to know if Hetta Páloczy's heart was or was not warm.

‘I think perhaps I might want to,' he said, starting the car again. ‘People's hearts are interesting, don't you think?'

‘I have never thought whether they are warm or not— if it is important, surely one knows this,' Hetta said casually. ‘Mr. Atherley, I believe we should hurry a little —Mama is taking me to tea with some people at Colares this afternoon. Tell me,' she went on, with one of her abrupt switches of subject—‘This Major Torrens and Miss Probeen: are they fiancés?'

‘I don't know. They could be. They have known one
another for some time, but for most of it he has been in Morocco and she here. What do you think?'

‘I think there is some sort of relationship between them, but I am not sure if it is this one,' said Hetta, as Richard swung the car round into the road alongside the public garden which led to the hotel. ‘Mr. Atherley, thank you
so
much—I have enjoyed my luncheon, and it was very good of you to bring me home.'

‘If I am allowed to call you Hetti, shouldn't you equalise it by calling me Richard?' he said, drawing up before the door of the hotel.

‘Possibly. I will ask your friend Monsignor Subercaseaux about this!' she said in a sudden laughing flash. ‘Goodbye.' She sprang out of the car and vanished into the hotel.

‘Lumme! Is she a coquette as well as all the rest?' the young man asked himself as he drove off. ‘That
would
be odd, in a convent-bred cook!'

At the same moment Hetta, going up in the lift, was also asking herself a question. When Atherley brought Miss Probyn to her mother's party, in her innocence she had assumed automatically that they were engaged; having seen Julia and Major Torrens together, and having just heard Atherley's detached assessment of the situation, she saw clearly that this, at least, was not the case. But why was she glad?

Mme de Fonte Negra's luncheon on Sunday was a very different affair from Richard's little party. She rang up in the morning to stress the fact that Hetta must be there ‘at 1.20—very precisely, please.'

‘How curious!—who can be coming?' Countess Páloczy said, when Hetta mentioned this. ‘All right, I will tell Oliveira.' Oliveira was the chauffeur. ‘She didn't say why?'

‘No—just what I told you.'

In fact the party included the Duke of Ericeira and his sister—both elderly and rather silent, though when they did speak to Hetta it was in excellent English; but also the Comte de Bretagne, the Pretender to the throne of Armorica, and his tall splendid wife. Her hostess warned Hetta of their advent the moment she arrived, and kindly
informed her as to the drill. ‘They are of the blood royal, but as he does not occupy the throne you merely sketch a curtsey to each; and you address him as Monseigneur, not Sire.'

Hetta was rather vexed, partly because she was to meet these royalties behind her mother's back, as it were—and was it not all rather what she called ‘false', this business of the degree of curtseying, and whether to say
Sire
or
Monseigneur?
While they waited she expressed this view in an undertone to Monsignor Subercaseaux, he only person she knew among the company.

‘But why?' he said, raising his rather bushy iron-grey eyebrows. ‘It is exactly like Bridge.'

‘Bridge?'

‘Yes, Contract Bridge—possibly you have never played it. But in this card-game there are certain “conventions”, as they are called—rules, if you like; and unless all the players observe them it spoils the game.'

‘So one's life is to be as a game of cards!' said Hetta, rather contemptuously.

‘Precisely. In effect, human life, particularly in its social aspects, is very like a game of cards! But the point of my observation, my dear young lady, is that it is as unfair to one's fellow-humans as to one's fellow-card-players not to observe the rules, and so to cause confusion or embarrassment. Did your Director at the Sacré-Cœur never tell you that courtesy is a part of charity?'

‘Of course he did,' Hetta said, flaring up. ‘But—'

‘There is no “but” in this case,' said Monsignor Subercaseaux, still urbanely. ‘Courtesy, and therefore charity, are to be applied to all human contacts. Our Blessed Lord never stated that one should be rude to Kings—on the contrary, He was rather specific about rendering the proper dues to Caesar, you may remember. Ah, here they are,' he said, getting up.

The Comte and Comtesse de Bretagne in fact entered with very little fuss or ceremony, except that all the women made tiny bobs to them; they seemed to know nearly everybody, took cocktails, and stood about chatting easily. Presently the Comte came over, glass in hand, to where Hetta and Subercaseaux still stood together.

‘Now, Monsignor, I am going to rob you of this young lady's company for a little while,' he said; ‘I want to talk to her. Countess, will you indulge me by sitting on this charming canapé? I hope it will bear us both'—as he sat down on a fragile gilt settee, patting the shining brocade beside him. ‘I am heavier than I look.'

‘You do not look at all heavy, Monseigneur,' Hetta said, remembering her instructions—her companion, though fairly tall, was far from stout.

‘No, but I have heavy bones. There, now we are comfortable, well arranged,
n'est-ce pas?
Now tell me—'

Hetta's prejudices about royal personages melted rapidly in the next few minutes. Her companion asked innumerable questions, but all extremely sensible ones, and apparently based on a degree of knowledge of conditions in Hungary that astonished her. Could the peasants make any sort of living on four-and-a-half hectares? How were the collective farms going?—were they at all popular, and was their population increasing or diminishing? What proportion, if any, of the people had a real enthusiasm for Communism? Who directed it in the villages?—and what class of person provided the Commissars—Russians, or Hungarians? How about religion? Could Mass be said freely?—and freely attended? What had become of the monks and nuns when they had to leave their Communities?—how did they manage? And what about the Cardinal?

Hetta was soon answering eagerly, warmed by the intelligent quality of these enquiries; as usual she was lucid and categorical, and her replies provoked further questions —at the lively frankness of some of her statements the Comte de Bretagne laughed out loud, causing heads to turn in the direction of the flimsy settee. Their hostess was finally obliged to come and separate them, very deferentially, in order that the company might go in to luncheon.

‘But this is a wonderful girl!' the Pretender said to Mme de Fonte Negra as he sat down at the head of her table— royalty, entertained, always takes the head of the table, and the hostess sits at his right hand. ‘She is so observant and so uninhibited. Imagine her cooking for a
curé de campagne!
'

‘Monseigneur, you have betrayed me!' said Mme de Fonte Negra. ‘I promised that if she came to my house she would be asked no questions.'

‘Oh, that is too bad! Why did you not warn me? Here, I will question her no more, but I shall ask her to come to our house, and there she shall talk to my family. She is immensely interesting.'

‘Her mother will not like that.'

‘
Pourquoi pas?
Do I know the mother?'

‘No, Monseigneur, you do not. She is that enormously rich Countess Páloczy who lives in the hotel at Estoril.'

‘Ah, yes.' He looked vague for a moment, a rather studied vagueness—then he turned to his hostess, his eyes twinkling.