'I can't think what got into me last night. I behaved like a sentimental schoolgirl. This morning I was in half a mind not to come; but I couldn't quite bring myself to have you arrested without first having heard what you have to say.'
'I'm glad of that,' Gregory replied with becoming seriousness, 'because if you had I am quite sure that for ages to come you would have suffered the most terrible remorse from having sent me to my death.'
'You seem to be more concerned for me than about yourself.'
'Naturally.' He grinned suddenly. 'Once dead I wouldn't have anything to worry about.'
She gave him a reluctant half smile. 'Aren't you even a little bit afraid that I might put my duty before sentiment, and tell the police I know you to be a British secret agent?'
From the higher step on which he stood he smiled down on her, then shook his head. 'No, not even a little bit. You are far too nice a person to betray an old friend; and, anyhow, you're quite wrong about me being here as a spy.'
'I wish I could believe that; but knowing the sort of man you are, how can I?'
'What's come over you this morning? I suppose it must be that having me on your conscience gave you a bad night. Come on; let's go inside and bathe. Then we'll have our talk and, if you really feel you must, you can put the police on to me afterwards.'
'I'm not going to bathe with you. And you're right about my having had a bad night. I've been worrying myself silly over this thing, and I want to get it settled right away.'
Gregory saw now that he would have to go all out to win her round again, otherwise she might prove a really serious danger to him; so he said earnestly: 'Listen, Sabine. I may have been exaggerating a bit when I said that if you denounce me I will be shot. You must know that I'm not the sort of man to allow myself to be arrested while there is a fighting chance of keeping my freedom. But I might quite well be caught before I could get across the frontier. If I were, there would be nothing you could do about it afterwards. Like it or not, you would be compelled to give evidence that I am an Englishman and that, coupled with the fact that I am here under a false identity, would certainly lead to my being condemned as a spy; and in wartime spies are shot. So for both of us this is a really serious matter, and you will feel much more capable of taking a right decision about it after you have freshened yourself up with a swim.'
'I haven't brought a swimsuit.'
'That's no difficulty. I'll hire one for you.'
I… I don't like wearing things other people have used.'
'Nonsense! You know perfectly well that in a place like this they are thoroughly sterilized. What you really mean is you would prefer to display that lovely figure of yours to me in a swimsuit chosen by yourself. That is quite unnecessary when I remember so well all the hidden charms beneath anything you wear including that tiny mole on the left side of your tummy.'
A faint blush coloured her magnolia cheeks for a moment and she stamped a small well shod foot. 'Really, Gregory! It's: not fair to rake up the past; and I didn't mean to let you talk to me about that sort of thing.'
'Am I to take it, then, that you neglected to say your prayer this morning?'
Her eyes widened. 'My prayer? What d'you mean? I have no special prayer.'
'Oh yes, you have. At least, you used to say one in the old days. It went: "Holy Mary, I believe, that without Sin Thou didst conceive. And now I pray, in Thee believing, that I may Sin without conceiving".'
Too late he realized that, by implying that she might have said that prayer before coming to meet him, he had fully committed himself as aspiring again to become her lover. But the merry little rhyme did the trick. Throwing back her head she suddenly burst out laughing. Then she cried:
'Of course I remember. And every morning you used to buy flowers to set before my little statue of the Virgin, just to show that we didn't really mean to take her name in vain. What fun it was.'
Taking her gently by the arm he led her unresisting up the steps into the baths; and she made no further protest while he bought their tickets.
It was the last Friday in August and a day of brilliant sunshine; so there were far fewer people in the Roman bath than up round the Blue Pool on the higher level, yet the horseshoe terrace there was by no means as crowded as Gregory remembered it in peacetime. To bathe there was as expensive as to swim from the Excelsior on the Lido or the Bar du Soleil at Deauville, and although Budapest's hotels were full it was not with wealthy holidaymakers from other countries; but the terrace was a favourite haunt of those in the capital's smart set who remained in it for a part of the summer, so as Sabine came out to the Pool several acquaintances waved greetings to her.
Gregory took note of these salutations with silent satisfaction. She had already compromised herself the night before at the Piccadilly by accepting him as a friend, and she was doing so again. It could now be pointed out to her that, should conscience drive her to the police, she might explain away her failure to act the previous night as being due to reluctance to create a scene in public, but it would not be, easy to laugh off having come swimming with him the following morning. That, coupled with a disclosure that he had formerly been her lover, might make things decidedly awkward for her with Ribbentrop. He was in good hopes now that she would not force him to resort to such shifts in defence of his safety; but he knew from the past that she was, like so many Hungarians, fanatically patriotic and, as a woman, distinctly unpredictable; so he got down to the work of setting the clock back by every means he could think of.
It was work that entailed little effort and no hardship. There she was with her golden brown body made the more striking from having chosen a white elastic swimsuit, and looking more like a million dollars than most things one sees in Vogue. She could swim like a fish and dive like a heron. In the great bath there were rubber seahorses, dolphins and a huge coloured ball to play with. As a background there were a. score of other bathers and two score more lounging round the pool, with a lot of pretty women among them; but they served only to throw her up as their superior. Laughing and romping they went in and out until after half an hour they had just pleasantly tired themselves. Then Gregory piloted her to a rubber mattress that was out of earshot from other people and, as she stretched herself on it, sat down on a cushion beside her. Signalling a waiter he sent for two champagne cocktails, and as the man went off said to Sabine:
'Now, tell me about yourself.'
'It's for you to tell me about yourself,' she replied with a sudden return to gravity.
He shook his head. 'Not just yet. I don't think we are going to quarrel, but we might; and I'm much too fond of you to run the least risk of that before I've learnt what has been happening to you these past few years.'
'If you were all that interested you could have written to find out.'
'No. You know as well as I do that we agreed we wouldn't write because letters would only make our craving for one another greater.'
'That's true. And they probably wouldn't have found me anyway; because after our brief romance I travelled quite a lot mostly in Italy.'
'Tell me about your marriage.'
'That was in the autumn of nineteen thirty-eight. Kelemen Tuzolto was a nice person. He was cultured, intelligent and very distinguished looking. I can't honestly tell you that I worshipped the ground he walked on, but he was a man a woman could respect, and I had a great fondness for him.'
'It sounds as if he was a good bit older than yourself.'
'He was.'
'For that matter, I am. You can't be much more than twenty-eight, and I'm over forty.'
She gave him a contemplative look from under her long lashes. 'I think you will still be attractive to women when you are sixty. It's not your lean face and muscular body so much as your mental vitality. No one would ever be bored while in your company. Anyhow, twelve years or so isn't much between a man and a woman, and personally I've always hated being pawed by empty-headed children who think they are irresistible because they have just put on their
first uniform. No, Kelemen wasn't terribly exciting and he was a little on the wrong side of fifty, but he was one of the nicest people I've ever known.'
'From the way you speak of him I take it that he is dead?'
'Yes. He died about eighteen months ago from a heart attack. It was an awful shock, and I've been terribly restless ever since.'
'Poor you. But why the restlessness? Did he leave you badly off?'
'Oh no. I receive quite a big income from our stud farm down on the Hortabagy, and as Kelemen had no legitimate children I have the life tenancy of the Tuzolto palace on the
Szinhay Utcza. It is one of the smaller ones, but a very pleasant house. And I've a villa on Lake Balaton.'
'Your making a wealthy marriage must have been a great relief to your mother after the difficult time she had in making two ends meet while you were a girl. Is she still alive?'
'Yes. When I married, Kelemen insisted that she should come to live with us, and she has her rooms in my three houses. But for most of the year she lives down on the Hortabagy, and we don't see much of one another these days.'
'Why? Don't you get on together?'
Sabine sat up, shrugged, turned over and lay down again on her tummy. 'I wasn't very clever about my early life, as I think I once told you. My morals were no worse than those of other girls of my class, but the trouble was that they were rich and I was not. They could afford to have their affaires and still make good marriages. My only asset was my looks, so I ought to have made them the bargaining price of marriage, but I didn't; and by the time I met you I had got myself the sort of reputation that doesn't induce a rich young man of good family to lead a girl to the altar for her looks alone. It was that which caused the breach between mother and myself.
'I met Kelemen in Italy, and being older he did not have to have his family's approval to marry me; and, of course, when I returned like a sheep to the fold as a Baroness, mother was delighted. Kelemen's having made an honest woman of me, she naturally expected that after his death I would make another good marriage, but I disappointed her by becoming Ribb's mistress instead. She wouldn't have minded so much if I had gone back to having brief affaires with anyone who took my fancy, but a permanent liaison with such a prominent statesman is impossible to conceal, and she is such a hypocrite that she refuses to recognize that living out of wedlock with one man is much less reprehensible than going to bed with half a dozen in the course of a year. So, once again, my name with her is mud.'
As Sabine lay face down on the mattress her chin was resting on her crossed arms. She had taken off her, bathing cap and her dark hair fell on either side of her face leaving a central parting down the back of her head. Where the parting ended there was one small curl about the size of a farthing on the nape of her neck. Looking down on her Gregory felt an almost irresistible desire to bend forward and kiss it; but, forcing the thought from his mind, he said:
'Tell me, why did you enter on this affaire with Ribbentrop?'
'Because I prefer it to playing hole in the corner games with men that I don't really love.'
'Surely you can't love him. Even decent Germans consider him an awful blackguard.'
'I don't love him; but he has something else to offer. He provides me with an intensely interesting life. He is not much of a lover, but he is clever, amusing, tolerant and a charming companion; so I like him quite a lot. As for being a blackguard, that is a matter of opinion. Most men who climb to such a high position in the world have to put the end before the means at times; and when he was Ambassador to Britain there were plenty of people among the English aristocracy who did not regard him as too much of a blackguard to court his friendship. He became a great favourite with the Cliveden set.'
'That's true,' Gregory admitted thoughtfully. 'And I can quite understand how fascinating you find it to be on the inside of all that's going on. Have you ever met Hitler?'
'Oh yes. I have twice stayed at Berchtesgaden.'
'Do tell me about it.'
Suddenly she turned over and sat up. 'No. That's the sort of thing I don't talk about to any one and you are the very last person to whom I'd risk giving something away. Anyway, now I've told you all about myself it's quite time you came clean with me.'
It was now half past twelve, and the terrace was much more crowded than when they had first come out on to it. Two groups of sunbathers had settled themselves quite near enough to overhear anything Gregory and Sabine said unless they kept their voices very low, so he said:
'Look, I'm not trying to stall on you, and we'll stay here if you like. But we don't want to run the risk of anyone reporting this conversation; so don't you think it would be wiser if we went somewhere a bit more private.'
She considered for a moment. 'Well, perhaps you're right. But where?'
'Let's go up to the Harmashatarhegy.'
'It's quite a long way.'
'What matter? You have a car, and I imagine that you are immune from such annoyances as petrol rationing. The shortage makes it all the more likely that it will be almost deserted. Anyhow, the tables in the garden are set far enough apart for us to talk freely.'
'When we have dressed we could go down and talk in the car.'
'What I have to say will take quite a long time. It will be close on one before we're dressed, and by the time I'm through we are going to be jolly hungry. It would be much more sensible to have our talk while we lunch.'
'But I didn't mean to lunch with you.'
'You've got to lunch somewhere, and this is just the day to lunch up on the mountainside among the birchwoods. Come along!' She was already sitting up; taking one of her hands, he stood up himself and pulled her to her feet. Then he added, with a grin, 'If we were alone in a sandy cove I'd give you a good spanking for being so obstreperous.'
She smiled at that. It called up another memory. They had gone for the weekend to a small hotel on a little frequented part of Lake Balaton. A good-looking American had been staying there on his own and had tried to get off with her. Gregory had told her that he did not want to have to take the fellow outside and give him a lesson; so she must not encourage him by returning his glances, and that if she did he would give her a spanking. She was not the least interested in the American, but out of devilment she had smiled at him that night as they were leaving the dining room. Gregory had not appeared to notice, but he had suggested a walk in the moonlight and taken her down to the little cove a good half mile away from the hotel. There, after a brief struggle, he had got her in a wrestler's lock with his left knee under her stomach and his right leg crooked over her calves to keep her legs down, Then he had torn off her drawers and spanked her until she had yelled for mercy. It had really hurt, but all the same she had loved it; and when, with the tears still wet on her cheeks, he had made love to her afterwards that had been absolutely marvellous.
In the pale blue and silver Mercedes they roared along the bank of the Danube, turned into the valley between the St. Gellert and main Buda hills and out into the country. The way wound up through woods that at times formed cool tunnels and at others dappled the road with sunlight. Moving at such speed along an almost empty road, the drive did not take long, and by half past one they were seated at a table in the garden of the inn.
Only half a dozen tables were occupied so they were able to get one between two others that were empty, but adjacent to the rustic railing that ran round the little plateau which had been made into an outdoor restaurant. The ground dropped away below them and from where they sat they could see for many miles. In the distance the capital, with its innumerable domes and spires, looked like a fairy city, and to either side of it the Danube wound away to disappear in the faint haze of the summer heat.
Gregory ordered a cup, made half from sparkling and half from still wine with pricked fresh peaches in it, and they ate cold Fogas, the most delicious of the Lake Balaton fish, garnished with freshwater prawns. But while the waiter took their order and served them they kept off the subject they had come there t
o talk about.
He asked her if she had again run across Lord Gavin Fortescue the dwarf with the distorted body and mind who had very nearly had both of them murdered and she replied that she thanked all her gods that she had not. He told her then that he had heard rumours that for some years past Lord Gavin had been living in South America.
She enquired affectionately after Sir Pellinore who had been very kind to her during the difficult time she had spent in England and he was able to tell her that the elderly Baronet was as hale and hearty as ever. Then, for a good part of the meal, they talked about the extraordinary adventure that had first brought them together.
With their wood strawberries they drank Tokay. It was not Imperial, as that had left the Imperial cellars only as a personal gift of the Emperor to other crowned heads on their birthdays, or to Ambassadors on their departure after many years en post in Vienna. But the wine waiter dug out for them a little bottle of 1874 from the vineyards of the Duke of Windezgratz. Its grade of Five Puttanos indicated that five small barrels the maximum number of grapes that had been left on the vines until they were almost raisins had gone into the big cask of earlier vintaged wine; and age had taken off its original cloying sweetness. This nearest thing to bottled sunshine had the flavour of honey diluted with fine dry sherry, and it provided the perfect complement to their two heaped plates of little red, highly perfumed Fraises des Bois.
When they were halfway through them Gregory said, 'Now for the awful truth about my nefarious activities.' Then he told her the object of his mission, but he made no mention of how he had progressed with it.
She listened to him with grave wide eyes, and When he had done asked:
'What conclusion have you come to as a result of your enquiries?'
'That I have been wasting my time,' he lied, returning her gaze without the tremor of an eyelid. 'Of course, there are a certain number of people in every country who would like peace at any price; but from those I've talked to there doesn't seem to be much hope of getting Hungary out of the war.'
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