The Breadth of Heaven (17 page)

“Yes
...
yes, I’m here.” He thought that her voice sounded rather muffled; and decided that it was probably a bad line. “I’ll be ready at twelve o’clock.” Thinking swiftly, she added: “I’ll walk down to the main gate.”

“Well, if you’d rather
...
but are you sure? I mean, won’t you have a fair amount of luggage?”

“No—no,
I
won’t have very much luggage.” She would arrive back in London with the clothes she had already possessed when she left London. Nothing on earth would persuade her to take any of the things she had bought with money paid her by the Karanskas. “And thank you,” she said again. “I didn’t intend to put you to so much trouble—I just thought you might be able to advise me.”

“Well, if you want some advice I’ll do my best to give it to you ... when I see you. But don’t worry about your journey home. I’ll see to that.”

After that, the morning seemed to pass very swiftly. She packed the one and only suitcase she intended to take with her, and then sat alone in her room, and waited. During the night, while she had lain awake, tossing and turning, for hours, she had decided that she couldn’t possibly face a farewell, explanatory interview with Natalia. As soon as she got back to England she would write her—but she couldn’t talk to her now. Fortunately, the Princess had given orders to the effect that she was not to be disturbed until noon, and by the time she felt able even to sit up and sip a cup of coffee Kathy would probably be well on her way to Genoa airport.

She had been rather afraid that at any moment she might receive a message from the Prince, informing her that he, or his secretary, had made arrangements for her flight home, and although she was relieved when no such message came, she was also surprised. Leonid, she knew, had such a strong sense of
duty
...
she had always felt that, whatever happened, he would always be considerate. Especially to insignificant female employees upon whom he could scarcely find it worthwhile to vent his anger.

But she had obviously offended him seriously—so seriously that he did not even intend to offer her any assistance where the question of her journey home was concerned
...
despite the fact that the night before he had said: “My chauffeur will drive you to the airport!”

At exactly twenty minutes to twelve, she picked up her suitcase, and took a last look around the bedroom she had occupied for the last three weeks. On the dressing-table she had left a note for Natalia, and one for her hostess, Signora Albinhieri, and she had also left a wad of travellers’ cheques, securely encased in a separate sealed envelope. They represented what was left of the advance salary she had received—quite a considerable amount—and she was heartily thankful that so much of it had been left untouched. At least she owed them nothing. She was leaving without giving formal notice to Natalia, but at least she had not robbed anybody of anything, and before she even reached London the Princess would know why she had left, and would probably feel that it had been the only course open to her.

She managed to slip out of the house completely unobserved—which was fortunate, since she didn’t quite know what she would have said if she had encountered anyone—and it occurred to her, as she stepped out into the rain and erected the light
umbrella which she was taking with her, that this was the second time since she became involved with the Karanska family that she had set forth on a journey in a stealthy and secretive manner.

She proceeded down the drive at a fairly brisk pace, and by the time she arrived at the main gates it was still not quite twelve o’clock. As she stood waiting, rain dripped relentlessly on to her shoulders from the branches of the tall, dark cypresses guarding the entrance, and every so often she glanced nervously back along the winding, tree-shaded drive, half expecting to see the white Jaguar or the grey Mercedes come creeping soundlessly towards her perhaps with Leonid or even Natalia inside.

But there was no movement from the direction of the Villa. Kathy began to shiver, and to wish that she had not been quite so determined to be on time, and not keep Robert Markham waiting. The road which ran past the gates was probably one of the busiest in Italy, and as she stood there heavy traffic roared past her in an unending stream. There were sports cars and buses, articulated lorries and even oil tankers, all apparently trying to get somewhere in the shortest possible space of time, and when the slightest hold-up was occasioned there arose from dozens of assorted motor-hooters the most ear-splitting cacophony of protesting sound that Kathy had ever heard in her life. The air was heavy with the nauseating smell of petrol fumes, and in addition to being cold and wet and decidedly miserable, she began to feel slightly sick.

And then, quite suddenly, a very smart w
hi
te sports car detached itself skilfully from the stream of north-bound traffic, and slipped inside the open Villa gates, to come to a standstill beside the forlorn figure of Kathy.

“I say, I’m sorry.” As he spoke Robert Markham jumped out of the car, and took Kathy’s suitcase from her. “You must have been waiting for ten minutes—I daresay you’re soaked to the skin. But I got held up a mile or so back ... Get into the car.” He held the nearside door open fo
r
, her, and surveyed her in a worried fashion as s
h
e climbed inside. “You’re sure you wouldn’t like to slip back to the house and change? We’ve a forty-minute drive ahead of us, and you must be feeling like a drowned rat—”

“No, thank you.” Kathy shook her head. “I’m perfectly all right. I stood under the
trees, and escaped the worst of it.”

“You escaped the worst of it!” He grinned at her as he let in the clutch, and started to execute a cautious turn. “You’re wet through, and I’m really awfully sorry to have kept you hanging about like that.”

They slid through the gates, and paused for just a few moments on the edge of the busy coast road. And then, as soon as an opportunity arose, they joined the frightening line of traffic, and were off on their way to Genoa. Robert Markham bent down and switched on the heater, then looked sideways at Kathy with a touch of curiosity.

“I’ve booked you a seat on the plane,” he told her. “You’ll be back in London by six o’clock this evening.”

“Thank you,” she said gratefully. “It’s
...
really awfully kind of you.” She added uncomfortably: “I oughtn’t to let you help me like this.”

He smiled at her. “My dear, you could say it’s my job. I’m at the Consulate, and you’re a British subject ... a British subject in need of assistance. Not that this sort of thing is exactly part of the regular service, of course, but you’re rather a special case. And in any case, you’re not at all the sort of girl who should be alone and unprotected in a foreign country!”

She smiled, and made an effort to look reasonably light-hearted, since she felt that the least she could do in the circumstances was to be a fairly amusing travelling-companion; and in any case, she didn’t want the Englishman beside her to guess at her unhappiness. If he did, he might begin to speculate about the causes that lay behind it, and since his grey eyes had the appearance of being decidedly shrewd he would probably make quite an accurate guess.

He drove very fast, at times alarmingly fast, and it took considerably less than the forty minutes he had allowed to get them to the handsome modern airport at which Kathy and the Princess Natalia had landed—unexpectedly—three weeks earlier. She paid for her ticket, and he went with her into the departure lounge. By the time she had spent some ten minutes in the cloakroom, attending to her appearance, she looked considerably less bedraggled, but her bright hair, confined beneath a cream-coloured silk scarf, was still a little damp, and her small black court shoes were spattered with mud.

Robert Markham, however, thought that she could hardly have looked more attractive, as she lay back in a deep armchair, and looked up at him with a rather wan little smile. The only thing about her
that worried him was the fact that the smile
was
so wan, and that her small face looked so alarmingly white. He didn’t know why she was running away from the Karanskas—he hadn’t asked her, and he didn’t intend to do so, although he had an uneasy feeling that she was badly in need of advice—but whatever the reason it was causing her a great deal of unhappiness, and he didn’t like to see it. Apart from anything else she was one of the most fascinating little things he had ever seen, with her huge violet eyes and her glorious hair, and he found himself wishing with profound and unaccustomed vehemence, that she had been staying in Italy a little longer—or at least that he had been more successful in his various attempts to see something of her while she was in Italy. Of course, she was going home to England, and he, too, would be going home some time
...
But the Katherine Grants of this world didn’t usually remain unattached for very long, and there might even be someone waiting for her. Somehow, he didn’t think that he would stand very much of a chance
...

A little after one o’clock her flight was called, and she stood up and held out her gloved right hand to him. He gripped it very firmly, and she wished he would not look so searchingly into her face.

“Thank you ... thank you very, very much,” she said, smiling at him as warmly as she could. “You’ve been so—”

“Kind to you. Yes, I know ... you said so! But what I’ve really been doing, you know, is pleasing myself.” She blushed faintly, and he laughed. “Have a good trip, and if ever you’re in Italy again ... well, get in touch with me.”

It was still raining quite hard as she crossed the tarmac, but in no time at all she was mounting the steps of the aircraft, and then a smiling stewardess was relieving her of her umbrella and showing her to her seat beside a comfortable, middle-aged American matron. The atmosphere was warm, and oddly peaceful, and the American matron beamed at her as they both fastened their seat belts.

Despite the rather poor weather conditions, they made a very smooth take-off, and although for most of the way they were flying through dense cloud the journey was remarkably uneventful. Kathy accepted a pile of glossy magazines from the stewardess, and pretended to become absorbed in them, although in actual fact for most of the time she scarcely saw the pages before her eyes. The American woman at her side turned out to be of a sociable disposition, but fortunately she derived considerably more pleasure from talking than from listening, and it was entirely unnecessary for Kathy to contribute more than an occasional monosyllable to the conversation. She heard about the other’s fairly extensive travels described in great detail—Venice, Rome, the Greek islands and the Yugoslavian coast filling in the time until they touched down in Paris, and the glories of Andalusia and the north coast of Africa colouring the final stage between Paris and London. When they parted at the Customs barrier, the older woman pressed her hand as if they had known one another for some considerable time, and before she was forced to turn away bestowed a curious smile on Kathy.

“I don’t really know what’s troubling you, honey, but I could make a
guess
...
And
my
advice is, forget
him!” Then she smiled again, and was swallowed up in the huge concourse of incoming travellers.

Feeling startled, disconcerted, and more than a little annoyed with herself, Kathy got herself through Customs and passport control, and then boarded a bus which was headed for London.

She had laid her plans before leaving Italy, and she knew exactly what she was going to do. There was a girls’ hostel in Central London at which she had known she could be reasonably certain of obtaining accommodation—just to set her mind at rest on that point she had telephoned the hostel immediately after her arrival at the airport—and she would stay there for a few days, while she looked around for a job. She hadn’t a great deal of money left, but she had enough to keep herself for a month or two if it should be necessary—provided, of course, that she wasn’t at all extravagant. And she had every hope that she would be able to find a job in a very much shorter space of time than a month.

In London it was very cold, and rain was falling with depressing persistence from a sullen grey sky. She supposed that she should at least feel some sort of relief at being home, but she didn’t; she simply felt a strange sense of numbness, and a complete inability to do more, at the moment, than plan for her immediate future.

Very early the following morning she set out to do a round of the employment agencies, and by lunchtime, to her considerable astonishment, she was already in possession of a job
...
the position of private secretary to a director of one of London’s most important estate agencies. It was a job which called for efficiency, a good appearance and a pleasant manner; and the shrewd-looking grey-haired woman who interviewed Kathy seemed to feel that she represented the embodiment of these virtues. On the next morning she started work, and within a week she was fairly well settled in
...
although there was still something about her which her employer, a benevolent but not usually particularly perceptive elderly man, frequently found puzzling. He wouldn’t have expected her, as a responsible, hard-working young woman, to bubble over with an unceasing flow of high spirits, but it seemed to him that her attractive mouth had a curious droop to it; and then there was the lack-
l
ustre expression that stole into her eyes whenever she imagined she wasn’t being watched. He was extremely pleased with her work, into which she appeared to be throwing herself with an almost unnatural zest, but he hoped that there wasn’t anything too serious on her mind, and he suggested to her that she might indulge in rather more recreation than he fancied she had been indulging in just lately. A day in the country, he told her, would do her all the good in the world, and she nodded and smiled politely, and said that she’d probably try it. But she had no intention of doing anything of the kind, for leisure meant having time to think, and that was the last thing she dared to do. She avoided thinking of anything at all that could have a connection with her own personal life, and she was heartily thankful that, generally speaking, her new job was a demanding one and left her little time during the day to consider her own affairs, even if she had wanted to consider them. And at night she was too tired to think, and after a makeshift supper went straight to bed.