She had no idea, until then, why she was acting as she was, or what she suspected, or why, indeed, she should suspect anything but a straight pick-up, and one so simply and attractively engineered as to be quite unalarming; a normal minor wolf on the prowl, with a long weekend to while away, and an eye cocked for congenial company, preferably intimate, but in any case gratifying. And yet she held her breath as she leaned out from the cover of the first-floor corridor, and hung cautiously over the oak rail.
Mrs Lane was there just below her; she could see the top of the round, erect, crisply waved head of iron-grey hair, and the bountiful bulges, fore and aft, of the pocket-clipper figure below. Mrs Lane was the miniature goddess who controlled her large, tolerant, good-humoured menfolk, and made this whole organisation work. And at this moment she had a finger threading the maze of the register, and one hand already vaguely gesturing towards the key-board.
‘Well, yes,’ said the comfortable border voice, pondering, ‘I can give you a single room, but only for two nights, I’m afraid. Weekends we’re usually booked up in advance, you see, even in the close season. There’s a club meeting here for a social weekend—I think they like to keep their places warm here for when coarse fishing starts again. Number 12, if two nights is any good to you?’
‘Better than nothing,’ said Gus Hambro’s voice heartily, but with circumspect quietness. ‘I’ll take it, and gratefully. This is a dream of a position you’ve got here, with the path down-river. You ought to keep rooms for archaeologists as well as fishermen.’
‘They’re not so predictable,’ said Mrs Lane practically, ‘and they do so tend to camp, you know. The fishermen are good men for their comforts, and then they do patronise the bar. After all, you need an audience when you talk about fish, and salmon especially. You don’t fish yourself now, Mr Hambro?’
‘I never really had time,’ said the winning baritone voice. ‘You might convert me, at that! Number 12, you said? And I can move my car round into the garage? Fine, I’ll find my way. I’ll sign in when I’ve put her away for the night.’
Charlotte withdrew into cover, and hoped no one on the upper deck had fallen over her discarded shoes. Gus was plunging away out of the door, contented with his dispositions, and Mrs Lane, apparently satisfied of his bona fides—and Mrs Lane had an inbuilt crystal globe, and took some satisfying—had subsided into her private enclosure and was lost to sight. Charlotte climbed the stairs to her own room, and let herself in silently, with considerable doubts about her own situation.
She sat on the edge of her bed and thought it out. It need not, after all, be so abstruse, or so deeply suspect. He was young, alert, very much aware of the opposite sex, and with a personal taste which apparently inclined strongly towards her type. When she had revealed that she was staying here, he had simply decided to hook up and join on. But no, that wouldn’t do! She chilled, remembering. She had told him where she was booked, and at that stage he hadn’t reacted at all. Not until she had signed her name in the book, at his request, and his long-sighted eyes had read it over her shoulder. Only after that had he said: ‘Let me drive you back, I’m staying there, too’. As he had certainly not been, it seemed; not until now.
But what could her name mean to him? It wasn’t Morris, it wasn’t identifiable, even to a keen archaeologist—not unless he happened to be all too well informed about the experts who had interested themselves in Aurae Phiala, and even in their heirs and heiresses, down to herself.
But why? What could he be after, where could he fit in, if this was true? No, she was imagining things. He had simply hesitated to take the plunge and stake on a worthwhile weekend with her, and it was pure chance that he had made up his mind just after he had learned her name. Logic argued the case for this theory, but instinct rejected it. Unless she was much mistaken in that young man, pure chance played very little part in his proceedings. His manipulation of impudence and deference was too assured for that. Whatever he was about, there was method in his madness.
Well, she thought, it won’t be difficult to judge how right I am, if I pay out a few yards of line for him. If he isn’t just amusing himself, then I can expect total siege. And I shan’t be making the mistake of attributing it to any charms of mine, either. And even if I’m wrong—well, I might find it quite amusing, too.
She had not intended changing for the evening, country inns being the right setting for good tweed suits; but now she took her time about dressing, and chose a very austere frock in a dark russet-orange shade that touched off the marmalade lights in her eyes. Why not use what armoury one has? If he was setting out to find out more about her, she could certainly do with knowing a little more about him, and her chances were at least as good as his.
He was sitting in the bar with a drink and the evening paper when she came down, and though he appeared not to notice her quiet descent until she was at the foot of the stairs, she had seen him shift his weight some seconds before he looked up, ready to spring to his feet and intercept her. The look of admiration and pleasure, she hoped, was at any rate partly genuine.
‘May I get you a drink? What would you like?’ No doubt about it, he meant to corner her for the evening. If he had been simply playing the girl game, she reasoned, he would be getting steadily more intimate, and here he is reverting to deference. Because I’m Uncle Alan’s niece? But she could not believe in him as that kind of reverent fan, whatever his enthusiasm for his subject.
‘Since we’re both alone here,’ said Gus, coming back from the bar with her sherry, ‘will you be kind enough to have dinner with me? It would be a pity to eat good food in silence, don’t you think?’
‘Thank you,’ she said gravely, ‘I’d like that very much.’ Not that she intended accepting any favours from him, but she knew he was booked in for two nights, which gave her time to return his hospitality if she could not manipulate tonight into a Dutch treat.
‘When you get bored with my conversation,’ he said, ‘I promise to shut up. There’s even a telly tucked away somewhere.’
Boredom, thought Charlotte, as she made her way before him across the small panelled dining-room, is one thing I don’t anticipate.
By the time they reached the coffee stage it had become clear that he was doing his best to pump her, though she hoped he had not yet realised how little result he was getting, or how assiduously she was trying, in her turn, to find out more about him. The process would have been entirely pleasant, if the puzzling implication had not lingered in her mind throughout, like a dark shadow without a substance. And his method had its own grace.
She saw fit to admit to her musical background. Why not, since some of her midland concerts would be advertised in the local press, and inevitably come to his notice? ‘I call that one of the supreme bits of luck in life,’ he said warmly,‘ to be able to make your living out of what you love doing.’
‘So do I. One you enjoy, too, surely? Don’t tell me you don’t love your archaeology. But how does one make a living at it? Apart from teaching? Are you attached to one of the universities?’ Her tone was one of friendly and candid interest, but she wasn’t getting many bites, either. We should both make better fish than fishermen, she thought.
‘There aren’t enough places to go round,’ he said ruefully, ‘and I’m not that good. Some of us have to make do with jobs on the fringe.’
‘Such as what? What do you do, exactly?’ No need for her to be as subtle as he was being. She had, as far as he knew, no reason to be curious, and therefore no reason to dissemble her curiosity. It was an unfair advantage, though; it made it harder for him to evade answering.
‘Such as acting as consultant and adviser on antiques generally—or in my case on one period. Valuer—research man—I even restore pieces sometimes.’