Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 15

• Предыдущая
• 15/116
• Следующая

advance!" he called, and with a cheery wave they jogged away up

town.

"It looks as though we are on our own, sir," said Gregorius, and

Jake grunted, still staring after the departing ricksha. "I think I

should also find accommodation," and Jake roused himself.

"Come along, lad. You can doss down in my tent for the few days before

we leave." And then he grinned. "I hope you won't be offended if I

wish it was Miss Camberwell rather than you, Greg." The boy laughed

delightedly. "I understand your feelings but perhaps she snores,

sir."

"No girl who looks like that could possibly snore," Jake told him. "And

another thing don't call me "sir", it makes me nervous. My name's

Jake." He picked up one of Greg's bags. "We'll walk," he said. "I

have a horrible hollow feeling that it's going to be a long weary wait

until next the eagle screams." They set off along the dusty unpaved

verge of the road.

"You said you own a Morgan? "Jake asked.

"That's right, Jake." you know what makes it move?"

"The internal combustion engine."

"Oh brother," applauded Jake. "That is a flying start. You have just

been appointed second engineer get your sleeves rolled up." Gareth

Swales had a theory about seduction which in twenty years he had never

had reason to revise.

ladies liked the company of aristocrats, they were all of them

basically snobs and a coat of arms usually made the coldest of them

swoon. No sooner had they settled into the padded seats of the

ricksha, than he turned upon Vicky Camberwell the full dazzling beam of

his wit and charm.

No one who had built up an international reputation in the hard field

of journalism by the age of twenty-nine could be expected to lack

perception, or be naive in the wicked ways of the world. Vicky

Camberwell had made a preliminary judgement of Gareth within minutes of

meeting him.

She had known others with the same urbane good looks and meticulous

grooming, the light bantering tone and the steely glint in the eye.

Rogue, she had decided and every second in his company confirmed the

initial judgement but damned good-looking rogue, and very funny rogue

with the exaggerated accent and turn of speech which she had recognized

immediately as a huge put-on. She listened with amusement as he set

out to impress with his lineage.

"As the colonel used to say we always referred to my old man as the

colonel." Gareth's father had indeed died a colonel, but not in an

illustrious regiment, as the rank suggested. He had worked his way up

from the lowly rank of constable in the Indian police.

"Of course, the family estates were from my mother's side-" His mother.

had been the only daughter of an unsuccessful baker, and the family

estate had comprised the mortgaged premises in Swansea.

"The colonel was always a bit of a rogue, and moved with a wild crowd,

you know. Fast ladies and slow horses. The estates went to the block,

I'm afraid." Victims themselves of the grinding injustices of the

British class system, mother and father had devoted themselves to

lifting their only son beyond that invisible barrier that divides the

middle from the upper classes.

"Of course, I was at Eton and he was mostly on foreign service.

Wish I'd got to know the old devil better. He must have been a

wonderful character-" Entrance to the school had been assisted by the

Commissioner of Police, himself an old Etonian. The mother's small

inheritance and the greater part of the father's salary went into the

costly business of turning the son into a gentleman.

"Killed in a duel, would you believe it. Pistols at dawn.

He was a romantic, too much fire in his veins." When the cholera took

the mother, the father's salary was insufficient to meet the bills that

a young man casually ran up when he mixed sociably with the sons of

dukes. In India, bribery was a convention, a way of living but the

colonel was found out. It was indeed pistols at dawn. The colonel

rode out into the dark Indian forest with his Webley service pistol,

and his bay mare trotted back to the stables an hour later with an

empty saddle and the reins trailing.

"Had to leave Eton, naturally." Under considerable duress.

It was coincidence that Gareth's friendship with the house master's

daughter took place at the same time as the colonel's last ride, but at

least it allowed Gareth to leave in a blaze of glory, as

Lij Mikhael remarked, rather than as a nobody whose fees had not been

met.

He went out into the world with the speech, the manners and the tastes

of a gentleman but without the means to support them.

"Luckily they were having this war at the time " and even a regiment

like the Duke's were not enquiring too deeply into the private means of

their new officers. Eton was sufficient recommendation, and,

with the help of the German machine guns, promotion was swift.

However, after the armistice, things were back to normal and it

required three thousand a year for an officer to support himself in the

style the regiment expected. Gareth moved on, and had kept moving ever

since.

Vicky Camberwell listened to him, fascinated despite herself She knew

that this was the cobra dance before the chicken, she knew herself well

enough to realize that part of the attraction he held for her was the

very devilry and roguishness she had so readily recognized.

There had been others like this one. Her job took her to the trouble

spots of the world, and men of this breed were attracted to the same

hot spots. With these men there was always the excitement and danger,

the thrill and the fun but inevitably there was also the sting and the

pain in the end.

She tried not to respond, wishing the ride would end, but Gareth's

sallies were too much for her and as the ricksha drew up in front of

the Royal Hotel entrance, she could not resist the almost suffocating

urge to laugh. She threw back her head, shaking her shining pale hair

in the wind as she let it ring out.

Gareth had learned also to use the calibre of a woman's laughter as a

yardstick. Vicky laughed with an unaffected gaiety, a straightforward

physical response that he found reassuring, and he took her arm

possessively as he helped her out of the ricksha.

He showed her through the royal suite with a proprietorial air.

"Only one suite in the place. Balcony looks out over the gardens, and

you get the sea breeze in the evening." And, "Only private loo in the

building, even one of those French jobs for sluicing the old

privates,

you know." And, "The bed is quite extraordinary, like sleeping on a

cloud and all that rot. Never experienced anything like it."

"Is this where I am to stay?" Vicky asked, with a small-girl

innocence.

"Well, I thought we could make some sort of arrangement, old girl." And

she was left with no doubts as to the type of arrangement Gareth Swales

had in mind.

"You are very kind, major," she murmured, and crossed to the handset of

the telephone.

"This is Miss Camberwell. Major Swales is vacating the royal suite for

me. Please have a servant move his clothes to alternative

accommodation."

• Предыдущая
• 15/116
• Следующая