And attend her they did! Lorenzo might be a sophisticated cabaclo who spoke Portuguese and English and had once worked in a hotel, but for a wife he had turned to the Xanti, that gentle primitive tribe renowned for their knowledge of plant lore and the pleasure they take in the daily rituals of life.
So now Maliki nodded and smiled and beckoned, setting her nose ornament a-jingle, and her welcoming gestures were echoed by her pig-tailed niece. It was awaiting her, this lovely thing, this bath — she might approach!
‘No,’ said Harriet loudly. ‘I don’t want a bath!’
They understood not her words, but her tone. A look of hurt, of despair passed over both faces. The aunt approached the niece; they conferred in low agitated voices… came to a conclusion… rallied. Maliki rushed to the bath taps, turned off the hot and ran the cold to full. Rauni replaced the stopper of the cut-glass jar, ran to fetch another, tipped out a handful of green crystals and held them under Harriet’s nose.
‘Yes,’ said Harriet. ‘Very nice. It smells lovely. Only I—’
But the change in her voice, the obvious pleasure she took in the scent of ‘Forest Fern’, wrought a transformation in her attendants. They smiled, they were transported with relief; they threw up their hands to show how silly they had been not to realise that she wanted the water cooler and did not care for the smell of frangipani. And before Harriet could gather herself together for another effort Maliki had come forward and pulled the loose sack-like dress over her head, while Rauni — bending tenderly to her feet — removed her stockings and shoes.
I suppose I should kick and scream and shout, thought Harriet. But she was very tired and the women — who had announced their names with ritual thumping of the chest — were very kind. And surely it could not be that the man who had been so much her friend in the garden might intend her any harm? Surely a vile seducer could not have pulled aside the thorny branches of an acacia to reveal for her a nest of fledgling flycatchers with golden breasts?
The water was lovely — cool, soft, up to her chin. In Scroope Terrace it had been bad manners even to be on the same floor as someone taking their weekly bath, but her attendants showed no signs of departure. On the contrary, this delightful experience was clearly one to be shared. Maliki picked up a loofah and rubbed her back. Rauni ran back and forth proffering a succession of brightly coloured soaps; then bent to massage the soles of Harriet’s feet with pumice stone…
And presently Maliki gathered up Harriet’s crumpled clothes and carried them carefully to the door which led to the corridor.
‘No!’ Harriet sat up suddenly. ‘No! Not my clothes. Leave them here!’
But this time the women did not panic. They knew now how to soothe her, how to make everything right. Of course they would not leave her without clothes, they gestured, sketching reassuring garments in the air. How could she think it?
And they did not! Maliki, removing Harriet’s brown foulard, returned almost immediately and together aunt and niece held up, with pardonable pride, what Harriet was to wear.
Everything in Verney’s house was of the best and so was this negligée — a confection of creamy Venetian lace with scalloped sleeves, soft ruffles at the throat and hem and a row of tiny satin-covered buttons.
What now? thought Harriet ten minutes later as she stood dried, powdered and perfumed in front of the largest of the mirrors, looking at a girl she did not recognise. Her eyes were huge, smudged with apprehension and fatigue; Maliki had brushed her loose hair forward to lie in damp strands across the creamy lace covering her breasts.
‘Oh, Marie-Claude, I have been such a fool,’ said Harriet, bereft and very frightened and homesick — not for the home she had never had, but for the company of her new-found friends.
But there seemed to be no way now but forward. Leaning towards the mirror she undid, with fingers she could scarcely keep from trembling, the top button of the negligée where it rested against her throat.
‘I am ready,’ said Harriet.
If she had still hoped that she might be mistaken, that hope was instantly dashed as her gratified attendants pushed her forward through the double doors and closed them behind her. The room, panelled in blue damask and richly carpeted, was dominated by the largest bed that Harriet had ever seen — a four-poster billowing with snow-white netting and covered with an embroidered counterpane the corners of which were undoubtedly turned back. And now rising from an armchair by the window was her host, Rom Verney, wearing over his dress shirt and evening trousers a black silk dressing-gown tied loosely — extremely loosely — with a silken cord.
Strangely it was not the way he was dressed that made the trembling which assailed her almost uncontrollable. It was the disdain, the hard look in the grey eyes. Was it a trick played by the shaded lamps or did he suddenly hate her?
‘I hope you enjoyed your bath?’ The voice was cold, icily mocking.
‘Yes, thank you.’
Was that part of what was to happen next — that he should detest her?
She managed to take a few more steps forward, to reach the bedpost to which she put out a hand. At the same time her bare feet under the frothy hem arranged themselves instinctively in the first position dégagé, as though she was about to begin a long and taxing exercise.
‘I don’t want to… make excuses,’ she brought out. ‘I understand that ignorance is no defence… and that one is punished just the same.’ And not wishing to be rude even in this extremity of fear, she added, ‘I mean, I know that there are consequences of being ignorant… and that one must not try to escape them.’
He had moved towards her and seen how she trembled, and a hope as intense as it was absurd leapt in his breast.
‘I’m afraid I don’t entirely follow you,’ he said, but the mockery had left his voice and she was able to say:
‘I mean you have only to look at Ancient Greece to see… that not knowing what you were doing didn’t let you off. Oedipus didn’t know that Jocasta was his mother when he married her, yet the punishment was terrible — gouging out his eyes. Not that this is as bad as that, I expect…’ She made a small forlorn gesture towards the bed and her impending fate. ‘And poor Actaeon — he didn’t mean to spy on Diana bathing with her nymphs; he didn’t even know she was there, he just wanted a drink — yet look what happened to him! Turned into a stag and torn to pieces by his own dogs!’
‘Go on.’ He had moved still closer, but the moment of her doom was seemingly not yet upon her and she took a gulp of air and went on:
‘I only mean… that I’m not trying to… get out of anything. If what I did… staying behind to talk to you… telling Marie-Claude I was taking the other boat… thinking I could go back with Manuelo’s wife when she takes the baby to be christened…’ She broke off and tried again. ‘Only I think you are going to be very disappointed because I don’t know what to do.’ Her voice was rising dangerously. She was very close to tears. ‘For example, if you were Suleiman the Great it would be correct for me to creep from the foot of the bed into your presence. Only I can’t believe…’
‘I would prefer you not to creep,’ he said gently.
But the return of the kindness he had shown her in the garden made everything somehow worse, and it was with tears trembling on her lashes that she said desperately, ‘I only mean that at Scroope Terrace there was never any opportunity for being… ruined and ravished… and so on. And I don’t know how to behave.’ She could hold back no longer now and the tears ran steadily down her cheeks. ‘I didn’t even know that you had to go to bed with the top button of your nightdress undone,’ sobbed Harriet, ‘not until Marie-Claude told me.’