'Miss Fielding — ?'
'Oh — ?' Jenny turned quickly towards the question: she had halted Ian, but Cathy Audley had progressed towards her father before she'd realized that she was alone, and had had to turn back to them ' — we're coming, dear . . . This is an amazing place — isn't it? All these lovely little flowers!' She grinned at the child. 'We saw a fox, Cathy — down there — '
She pointed ' — with great big ears . . . he's in the rocks down there, somewhere — '
'Did you? Gosh!' The child scanned the hillside. 'A fox — ?'
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'He's gone, dear — '
Audley was still waiting. Although now, after they'd taken such a time to reach him, he had managed to stand up, and had moved out of the shade of the monument into the full sunlight, so that she could see him clearly at last.
'Daddy — !'
What he looked like, length-and-breadth-and-face, was no great revelation: there had been that picture, which John Tully had uncovered, of David Audley in a line-out — Cardiff versus the Visigoths, on some dreadful rugger-playing day, when they'd all looked as though they'd been mud-wrestling: and Audley had been wearing a dirty headband, and a look of excited brutality, like an eager Saxon in the shield-wall at Hastings.
(But — God! the real-life image, of the man himself, jolted her as though she'd touched a live wire — )
'Daughter?' Standing up under the monument, Audley could look down on them, with the huge sky behind him: a sky shading down from purest blue to palest blue-grey, where the distant green line of trees on the next ridge divided it from the yellow cornfields, and he seemed ten-foot-tall for a moment, above them. 'What's this, then?'
But it wasn't that —
'What's this, then?' Audley smiled at his daughter as he repeated the question. And then he looked directly at Jenny.
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'Hullo, there!'
That made it worse. Or . . . not just worse — much worse!
'Daddy — this is Mr Robinson . . . and Miss Fielding. They know Willy Arkenshaw. And they write books, Daddy. And they want to talk to you.'
'Yes.' Audley stared at Jenny. 'I know.'
'Dr Audley — ' The jolt of the shock was still there: it shook her voice, just as it had shaken her hands that time, after she touched that wire beside the ancient Victorian light-switch in the cellar at home. 'Dr Audley.' The husky faltering repetition was almost worse: it was so far from the way she had intended to face up to him that it was almost laughable.
Except that, if she started to laugh, she was afraid she might go off into hysterics.
'Daddy — ?' As Audley continued to stare at her — as they both continued to stare at each other — the child picked up the vibration of something strange happening.
'Miss Fielding.' Audley spoke at last, drawing her back to him even as relief suffused her. 'I do recognize you, actually. I saw you on the television once. That time you escaped in Beirut.
And, of course, I've read your books.'
He had a nice voice. And, although the pictures of that rather battered face hadn't lied in any factual detail, he seemed much younger than Willy Arkenshaw had suggested: old was as much a slander with David Audley as it had been with Philly: old was in the mind —
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God! She was betraying Philly now —
'Oh, Daddy!' Cathy Audley exploded.
Jenny was aware that more of her hair was coming down; and there were beads of sweat crawling down the side of her face, and elsewhere —
But he was so very like — so very like, even though he was quite unlike — so very like Philly! And she bloody-well fancied him! And — what was so ultimately worse: what rocketed that betrayal into unimaginable orbit — was that he fancied her, too!
'Mr Robinson knows all about the battle, Daddy.' Cathy Audley's patience ran out. 'He wants to talk to you about General Le Marchant.'
'He does?' Audley let go of Jenny unwillingly. 'Does he?' The letting-go stretched itself until it had to snap. 'Mr Robinson . . . You are the writer, of course.' He smiled at Ian.
'And you have a rare grasp of good English. A quite unjournalistic grasp, if I may say so — ?' All the smile went out of Audley's face. 'But that would be because you were at Princess Mary's Grammar School, and brought up on the classics? Like Gibbon having the Bible hammered into him?'
Jenny looked at Ian, and caught him with his mouth open.
Audley nodded. 'Hennessey — Henworth — ? Henworthy ...
he was your High Master, of course. And he was taught by my old Latin Master, as an inky child, before he gravitated to higher things.' He nodded again. 'There's a descent in such dummy2
matters, among schoolmasters. Not quite as good as breeding through pedigree bulls, perhaps . . . but it leaves its mark, nevertheless, I'd like to think.' Another nod, but this time accompanied by a terrible cold smile. 'I particularly enjoyed your book on the Middle East. It had several interesting insights, as well as some quite deplorable flights of fancy.'
Jenny felt her own mouth open — Audley wasn't perfect: the
'rare grasp of English' and the Hennessey/Henwood one-upmanship was fair enough at a smart cocktail party; but if Audley thought he could patronize Ian Robinson, he had much mistaken his man! But then it was too late, because Ian was reacting —
In fact, Ian was smiling. 'Your daughter has told us about your ancestor, Dr Audley — who was killed in the charge here?' He gave Audley back a nod. 'But . . . was he just another bone-headed English dragoon? Or was he one of Wellington's "Research and Development" officers — the
"exploring" officers, were they called? Andrew Laith Hay — ?
Or John Waters, or Somers Cocks? Or Colquhoun Grant? Or Dr Paul Mitchell?'
Christ! That was giving him both barrels! thought Jenny.
Ian, being Ian, really had done his homework!
'You're interested in the battle of Salamanca, Mr Robinson?'
Audley, being Audley, was taking Ian's measure now.
'Not in the least, Dr Audley.' Ian smiled at Audley. 'But—'
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'Daughter!' Audley interrupted Ian rudely. 'Go and see how your mother is — ' He nodded past the monument, into a stone-quarried gap behind him, which divided the Greater Arapile super-tanker into two parts, fore and aft on its port side here, below the tall stone shaft. 'She's reading her book ... or sunbathing, or something — down there — yes?'
Cathy Audley stared at her father, the huge sunglasses concealing what would certainly be a frown.
'Go on, Cathy.' Audley's voice was gently level now, neither pleading or commanding.
The sunglasses turned towards Ian for an instant. But now the tightened lips and the anger-lines around the mouth told their own story.
'Off you go.' This time he actually smiled. 'There's nothing to worry about.'
Cathy came back to him. 'I told them you received a phone-call, I think they pretended not to be interested in it. I'm sorry.'
Audley shrugged. 'So I received a phone-call. That's nothing to be ashamed of, love. So — '
'Yes — "Off I go".' The child started to go, but then stopped.
'But I'm forgetting my manners — aren't I!' She swung towards Jenny. 'They all say "Don't talk to strangers — forget about good manners!" But, I forgot my lesson, didn't I, Miss Fielding?' No child now — not for her, and not for Ian, in his turn: for Ian, a look which, if he'd been a British dragoon, dummy2