‘But what’s the cause of all this?’ she asked. ‘The poor aren’t born dishonest any more than we are.’
Bella looked startled. This was the first time Harriet had attempted to combat her. She tilted back her head and drew her fingers down her full, round throat. ‘I don’t know.’ She spoke rather sulkily. ‘All I know is, that’s what they’re like.’ She bridled slightly and a flush spread down her neck.
In the uncomfortable pause that followed, Harriet saw Sophie enter. Hoping for diversion, she sat up, prepared to greet the girl, feeling she had come to terms with her; but when she raised a hand, she realised that only she had come to terms. Sophie had not. Sweeping past, with the sad averted smile of one who has been mortally wounded, Sophie joined some women friends on the other side of the room.
Rather out of countenance, Harriet turned back to Bella, who, given time to reflect, was saying defensively: ‘I know things aren’t too good here. I noticed it myself when I first came, but you get used to it. You’ve got to, if you want to live here. You can’t let things upset you all the time. There’s nothing you can do about them. I mean, is there?’
Harriet shook her head. Bella was no reformer, but even if she had been prepared to beat out her brains against oppression, here she would not have changed anything. Having revealed her uncertainty in her situation, she looked rather shamefaced and for this reason Harriet warmed to her.
‘No one can do much,’ said Harriet. ‘Nothing short of a revolution could force these people to change things. But why should you accept their absurd conventions? You are an Englishwoman. You can do what you like.’
‘You know,’ confided Bella, ‘when we talked that afternoon you came to tea, I remembered how free I was before I came here. And next day I wanted some things and I thought, “Why shouldn’t I go out and get them myself?” and I just took a shopping-basket from the kitchen and went out with it in my hand. I met Doamna Popp and didn’t she stare!’ Bella gave one of her vigorous laughs and Harriet liked her the more. Bella had felt satisfaction in instructing Harriet, and Harriet might find satisfaction in releasing Bella. To Harriet it seemed that to have found a sound basis for friendship with anyone as different from herself as Bella was a triumph over her own natural limitations.
When the snow stopped falling at last, the city was revealed white as a ghost city agleam beneath a pewter sky. The citizens crowded out again and the beggars emerged from their holes.
Beggars now were more plentiful than ever. Hundreds of destitute peasant families, their breadwinners conscripted, had been driven by winter into the capital, where, it was believed, a magical justice was dispensed. They would stand for hours in front of the palace, the law courts, the prefecture or any other large, likely-looking building. They dared not enter. When cold and hunger defeated them at last, they would wander off in groups to beg – women, children and ancient, creeping men. Lacking the persistence of professionals, they were easily discouraged. Many of them did no more than crouch crying in doorways. Some sought out the famous Cişmigiu, that stretched from its gates like a vast sheeted ballroom. Some slept there at night beneath the trees; others took themselves up to the Chaussée. Few of them survived long. Each morning a cart went round to collect the bodies dug from the snow. Many of these were found in bunches, frozen inseparable, so they were thrown as they were found, together, into the communal grave.
On the first morning that the air cleared, Guy and Clarence were called by Sheppy to the Athénée Palace. At mid-day, when they were expected to leave the meeting, Harriet, anxious and curious, crossed the square to join them in the English Bar.
Wakening that morning she had seen the white light reflected on to the ceiling from the snowbound roofs. Emerging with a sense of adventure, she had been met by the crivat, blowing on a wire-fine note. In the centre of the square the snow was heaped like swansdown, its powdery surface lifting in the wind, but at the edge, where the traffic went, it was already as hard as cement. She walked round the statue of the old King, a giant snowman, shapeless and wild. The snow squeaked under her boots.
The cold hurt the flesh, yet even the most cosseted Rumanians had ventured out for the first sight of the city under snow. They trudged painfully, making for some café or restaurant, the men in fur-lined coats and galoshes, the women wrapped in Persian lamb, with fur snow-bonnets, gloves and muffs, and high-heeled snow boots of fur and rubber.
Outside the hotel the commissionaire stood, obese with wrappings, but the beggars were, as ever, half-naked, their bodies shaking fiercely in the bitter air.
As she passed the large window of the hair-dressing salon, Harriet saw inside, lolling on long chairs among the chromium and glass, Guy and Clarence having their hair cut. She went in to them and said: ‘Your meeting could not have lasted long.’
‘Not very long,’ Guy agreed.
‘Well, what was it all about?’
He gave a warning glance towards the assistants and to deflect her interest said: ‘We are going to give you a treat.’
‘What sort of treat? When? Where?’
‘Wait and see.’
When they left the salon, Guy put on a grey knitted Balaclava helmet lent him, he said, by Clarence. It was part of an issue of Polish refugee clothing.
Clarence said: ‘Of course it must be returned.’
‘Really?’ Harriet mocked him. ‘You imagine the Poles will miss it?’
‘I am responsible for stores.’
‘It’s a ridiculous garment,’ she said, dismissing it, and returned to the subject of Sheppy: ‘Who was he? What did he want? What was the meeting about?’
‘We’re not at liberty to say,’ said Guy.
Clarence said: ‘It’s secret and confidential. I’ve refused to be in on it.’
‘But in on what?’ Harriet persisted. She turned crossly on Guy. ‘What did Sheppy want with you?’
‘It’s just some mad scheme.’
‘Is it dangerous?’ She looked at Clarence, who, self-consciously evasive, said: ‘No more than anything else these days. Nothing will come of it, anyway. I think the chap’s crazy.’
As they would tell her nothing, she decided she would somehow find out for herself. With this decision she changed the subject.
‘Where are we going?’
‘For a sleigh-ride,’ said Guy.
‘No!’ She was delighted. Forgetting Sheppy, she began hurrying the pace of the two men. They were approaching the Chaussée, that stretched broad and white into the remote distance. At the Chaussée kerb stood a row of the smartest trǎsurǎs in town. The owners had removed the wheels and fitted them with sleighs. The horses were hung with bells and tassels. Nets, decorated with pom-poms and bows, were stretched over the horses’ hindquarters to protect the passengers from up-flung snow.
People were bargaining for sleigh-rides and about them were sightseers, and beggars battening on everyone.
‘The important thing,’ said Harriet, ‘is to choose a well-kept horse.’ When they had found one rather less lean than the rest, she said: ‘Tell the driver we have chosen him because he is kind to his horse.’