“Oh dear!” Amanda gasped, stepping back. “Was I treading on your toe, sir?”
Giving the pained and astounded Garibaldi no time to reply, the School Swot bent and picked up the cigarette-holder.
Jerking away from Amanda, Garibaldi’s face darkened with anger. Then he observed the menacing attitudes displayed by the male members of the audience who had witnessed the incident. Something warned him that he had outraged public opinion too much already. Any attempt at taking reprisals upon the School Swot would meet with a more strenuous display of disapproval. Not only from the scowling men. Instincts, to which he ought to have been profoundly grateful, warned him that something even more painful and drastic might happen if he continued to press unwelcome attentions on the innocent-looking, baby-faced girl.
Although Amanda did not retain the holder for longer than it took her to pick it up and hand it back to its owner, she had given it a thorough examination. It was, she had discovered, nothing more sinister, nor dangerous, than a simple—if ostentatious—device for preventing the tobacco’s nicotine from staining the smokers fingers.
Studying the Italian, as he accepted the holder and edged hurriedly away, Amanda pouted a little from the depth of her cogitations. She wondered if she was allowing first impressions to influence her against Garibaldi. It was possible that she might be misjudging him, or even wrong in her theory concerning the head girl’s defeat. To mention her thoughts, without the solid backing of unshakeable proof, would do far more harm than good.
“Is Penelope badly injured, Amanda?” Spender inquired, adding his voice to the many who were asking the same question from all sides.
“It’s nothing serious, I hope,” Miss Benkinsop went on, gazing worriedly to where the gym mistress was carrying the head girl in her arms towards the exit.
Coming from the headmistress, the words called for an immediate reply from the School Swot. Conscious that other people were listening, Amanda framed her words carefully. Whatever else happened, there must be no breath of scandal over the incident.
“Just exhausted, ma’am,” Amanda answered and noticed Miss Benkinsop’s eyes narrow slightly, boring into her own. “Nothing more, that I could tell.”
From the inflexion of the School Swot’s voice as she said the words, Miss Benkinsop read a whole volume, of unspoken doubts.
“She’s not seriously injured, though?” Miss Benkinsop insisted.
“No, ma’am,” Amanda confirmed. “May I go and make sure that she’s comfortable, please?”
“Trot along, dear,” Miss Benkinsop told her.
“Well,” Fiorelli said, walking up to the headmistress and rubbing his hands. “It looks like I win our bet.”
“Oh, Alf!” Rosalie protested indignantly. “Don’t be so mean. Surely you weren’t serious about that.”
“I was serious about it, Rosalie,” Miss Benkinsop informed her blushing former head girl. “Although I’m grateful to you for the thought. Why don’t you trot along to the Dispensary, dear? I’m sure you’ll meet some of your old class-mates, Miss Pedlar will most certainly expect to see you.”
“Ooh yes!” Rosalie enthused. “I’d forgotten that old Peach-pips was working here—”
“Not working,” Miss Benkinsop corrected. “She has been appointed to a position on the school’s staff.”
“You’ve got a good music teacher then,” Rosalie declared, accepting the mild rebuke and guessing correctly to which post Miss Pedlar had been appointed. “It’ll be fab. seeing her again.”
“I think I’d better tell Miss Dinks to keep a watchful eye on her ‘hoisting knickers’,” Miss Benkinsop smiled. “With you two together again, they might be in jeopardy.”
“As if we’d do a thing like that,” Rosalie protested, marvelling at the headmistress’s attitude of complete unconcern over the loss of the schools Petty Cash Fund, “again.”
“I won from you as well, Maxie,” Fiorelli grinned, as his “wife” strolled away in search of her friends.
“You don’t expect me to have ten grand on me,” Spender growled, “do you?”
“No,” Fiorelli admitted. “There’s no hurry about paying me. just so long as I get it before dinner tomorrow.”
“Noon or evening?” Spender sniffed.
“Evening,” answered Fiorelli, impervious to sarcasm. “Like I said, between friends like us, there’s no hurry.”
Grunting something under his breath which, all things being considered, Miss Benkinsop was pleased she did not hear, Spender walked away. Fiorelli watched him go, then swung his eyes towards the headmistress.
“How about you, Miss Benkinsop?” he asked and fell badly in her estimation.
While Miss Benkinsop was an extremely tolerant person, and rarely even mentally criticised any ex-pupil who had contracted a respectably solvent matrimonial alliance, she could not help but conclude that Rosalie Fieldbank had married beneath herself.
Fully aware of the necessity to settle debts of honour promptly, and being more than willing to relieve her indebtedness to Fiorelli, the headmistress had meant to do so before he took his departure. To have done otherwise would have been unthinkable and completely against everything in Miss Benkinsop’s nature; even though she was certain that the School Swot suspected foul play, which implied that Fiorelli had been involved.
Being a foreigner and definitely “of the people”, Fiorelli might have been excused for suspecting Miss Benkinsop’s motives. Unfounded as his suspicions might have been, Miss Benkinsop could not help thinking that he was displaying a most ungentlemanly eagerness to obtain his winnings.
Instead of being willing to join the other guests in the Dispensary, for drinks—in moderation—and light conversation, Fiorelli’s whole attitude hinted that he wished to conclude their business.
Miss Benkinsop might have excused his haste if he had some form of public transportation to catch. However, he had flown from Cyprus in the Mediterranean Syndicate’s executive jet aeroplane. It was waiting at the private airfield near Middle Grebe and its pilot, not having a set schedule to maintain, would remain there until Fiorelli’s party wished to leave.
So the headmistress considered that her senior guest of honour, unlike his predecessor in the Syndicate, was no gentleman and behaved in a most unseemly fashion. Fiorelli’s behaviour was—despite his social status—in itself a social error worthy of relegation to the third, or even fourth, row if he should attend another Debating Evening.
What Fiorelli did next was even worse. In fact, it Tendered him liable for a full “ego-deflating” treatment, from both Amanda and Miss Benkinsop, if he returned. He signalled to his enforcers to accompany them to the study.
Being a perfect lady, Miss Benkinsop did not display her annoyance immediately. Not until she and Fiorelli were in the privacy of her study did she indicate the reasons for her annoyance.
“I really don’t understand why you felt the need to bring Mr. Carrela and Mr. Schulze,” Miss Benkinsop declared, with what—to anybody who knew her—amounted to savage asperity and disapproval.
To Fiorelli, who was not sensitive to atmosphere, the words sounded little different in timbre to the headmistress’s comments on the weather, or inquiries as to how he had found the flight from Nicosia.
“What?” the executive growled. “With the crowd you’ve got here tonight?”
Once again, inadvertently but definitely, Fiorelli had overstepped the bounds of polite conversation and reached the dangerous marshlands of being ill-mannered, insulting and boorish.