Dobson talked easily and pleasantly. Harriet found his presence in Predeal reassuring. It was true that as a diplomat, especially protected, he had less to worry about than they had, but it was unlikely he would leave Bucharest if danger were imminent. Harriet, nearly two days away from the tensions of the capital, was beginning to feel like a patient propped up for the first time after an operation; Guy asked if anything had happened since they left Bucharest.
‘Well,’ said Dobson, ‘Friday, as you probably know, was the anniversary of the death of Calinescu. The Guardists spent the day marching about.’
They were in sight of a hollow from which the golden domes of the Russian church rose among trees.
Abruptly changing from the subject of the slaughtered Calinescu, Dobson said: ‘This convent was started by a Russian princess, an abbess who came here after the revolution with a following of nuns. Queen Marie gave them the land. They collected a crowd of refugees; a lot of them are still living. Some dark tales of intrigue and murder are told about this community. What a novel they would make!’
The Pringles had known Dobson as an agreeable man who treated them and their orders to leave the country with a vague serenity. Now that he felt more was expected of him, they were experiencing the active charm of his attention and they found it delightful.
Watching him as he walked before her with his plump, incurved back, his softly drooping shoulders, his rounded backside rising and falling with each tripping step, Harriet wondered why she had once decided he would not be easy to know. Who would be easier? And here, it occurred to her, was opportunity to intercede for Sasha! Yet, she hesitated – she scarcely knew why.
She had felt an instinctive trust of Foxy Leverett. Reckless and casual though he had been, he seemed a natural liberal. Dobson, for all his geniality, was something apart. Supposing the diplomatic code required him to betray the boy? Feeling no certainty he would not do it, she kept silent and was fearful Guy might speak. Guy, however, made no mention of Sasha and probably did not give the boy a thought.
They were descending into the hollow where the atmosphere was humid and warm and the tall feathery grasses were still soaked with dew. Dobson led them into the shade of a vast apple orchard where there was no sound but a ziss of wasps and the creak of boughs bending beneath their weight of fruit. They walked through a compost of rotted fruit.
Beyond the orchard was a flat field and a river running level with flat banks. The church stood amid silver birch trees, the leaves of which were yellow as satinwood. To Harriet it seemed that not only the church, but the river reflecting the light among birch trees, and the trees massed around the buildings in a mist of reddish gold, all had a look of Russia. The place was not unfriendly, but it was strange. ‘A distant land,’ she thought, though distant from what she could not have said. In this country, wherever they were, they were far from home.
They crossed the bridge and took the path to the convent. The church and main buildings, of stone, were surrounded by dismal wooden hutments, the living-quarters of the lay community. Four women in black, heads tightly bound up in black handkerchiefs, were approaching the church along a path, each keeping her distance from the others. As the first of them, a very thin, old lady, stared with interest at the visitors, her dark, wrinkled, toothless face, eaten into by suffering, took an expression ingratiating and cunning. She gave a half-bob at them before turning into the church.
Guy came to a stop, frowning his discomfort, but Dobson went on without glancing round and entered through the heavy, wooden doors.
Harriet said: ‘Come on, darling, let us look inside,’ and led him after Dobson. She received, however, no more than a glimpse of the candle-lit interior where a priest, hands raised, was making gestures over two nuns who lay on the ground before him like little, black-clad, fallen dolls. Guy gave a gasp, then bolted, letting the door crash behind him. The old women of the congregation started round, the priest looked up, even the nuns stirred.
Much shocked, Harriet hurried out after him. Before she could remonstrate, he turned on her: ‘How could you go into that vile place where that mumbo-jumbo was going on?’
A few minutes later, Dobson came out, sauntering, his face bland, giving the impression that nothing could surprise him – but he had less to say on the way home.
Harriet walked in complete silence, knowing that Guy might, by his action, have antagonised the whole powerful world of the Legation. Guy, too, was silent, probably in reaction from the scene that had so revolted him inside the church.
They returned through a shabby area of untidy, uneven grass where flimsy châlets declared themselves to be pensions and private sanatoria. The road crossed a stream of clear, shallow water that purled over rusted cans and old mattresses. Harriet paused to look down and Dobson, perhaps conscious of her discomfort, leaned beside her on the parapet and said: ‘If you were some great lady of the eighteenth century, Lady Hester Stanhope for instance, you would be standing on the boundary line between the Austrian and Turkish empires,’ and as Harriet grew slightly pink at this analogy, Dobson smiled in reassuring admiration.
He joined them at their table for luncheon and tea. After tea he invited them to drive with him to Sinai.
When he brought his car out of the hotel garage, it proved to be Foxy Leverett’s De Dion-Bouton. Claret-coloured, picked out in gold, with a small, square bonnet, its large body opened out like a tulip to display claret-coloured upholstery of close-buttoned leather. The brass headlamps and large tuba-like horn were beautifully polished. Dobson eyed the car with a smile of satisfaction. ‘I think she’ll get there,’ he said. ‘She’s in spanking shape.’
On the road to Sinai, he was as talkative as ever. Pointing across the plateau towards some bald, ashen hills, he said: ‘Did you ever see such mean hills? They look as though they had something to hide, don’t they? They’ve a bad reputation among the peasants here. I remember when Foxy and I came here to ski last winter, we thought we’d try out those hills. When we told our cook, Ileana, where we were going, she flopped down on her knees and gave an absolute howclass="underline" “No, no, domnuli, no one ever goes there. They’re bad lands.” Foxy said: “Get up and stop being an ass.” All the time she was cutting our sandwiches, she was snivelling away. She kissed our hands as though certain she’d never see us again.
‘Anyway, we drove over there and had a long climb up – they’re higher than they look. The snow was magnificent. When we got to the top, Foxy said: “It’s ridiculous to say no one ever comes here. Look at all these dogs’ footprints.” Then it struck us. We strapped on our skis and got down that hill-side faster than we’d ever got down anything in our lives before. When we arrived back Ileana had all the cooks in the neighbourhood holding a wake for us. They screamed their heads off when they saw us. They thought we were ghosts.’ Dobson had been increasing speed as he talked and he now pointed with pride to the indicator. ‘Doing forty,’ he said. The car trembled with the effort.
The conversation now was all about Foxy: Foxy killing bear in the Western Carpathians, Foxy shooting duck at the Delta, Foxy taking ‘a record bag of ptarmigan’.
Harriet burst out: ‘I hate all this shooting.’
‘So do I,’ Dobson cheerfully agreed, ‘but it’s nice to keep a bit of bird in the larder. Something to peck at when you come in late.’
They passed a cart-load of peasants who pointed at the De Dion, the men bawling with laughter, the women giggling behind their hands.