Buried in the Country Page 4

  “I’ll come in with you.” Nick pulled up in front of the portico.

  “You don’t need to—”

  “If only to make sure you don’t blow away. The wind is something fierce.”

  Since Eleanor was having trouble opening the car door against the blast, she couldn’t deny it. While Nick came round to help, Teazle scrambled between the seats, over the gear lever, and hopped onto her lap, ready to spring out. Eleanor hugged her tight against her shoulder.

  Nick opened the door. Eleanor got out. Half-sheltered from the gale by the car door, she hesitated for a moment. The hotel’s front door was as yet unlit and under the porch it was dark as night.

  A white blob resolved into a shirt-front as a man in black stepped forward.

  “Good evening, madam.”

  “Oh, it’s you, Norton!” The Bellowes’ butler. Teazle yipped a welcome that suggested memories of treats slipped to her on the sly. “Good evening. Were you waiting for me?”

  “Yes, madam. Sir Edward realised he had omitted to inform you that our party is accommodated in the northwest tower. Perhaps the gentleman wouldn’t mind driving you to the side entrance, in view of the inclement weather. You will see the entrance at the rear, sir. There is a light above the door.”

  “Sorry I can’t give you a lift, old chap, but as you see, I’ve got the back laid flat.”

  “Thank you, sir. I shall proceed on foot, as it is undesirable that I should be observed entering the tower from the lobby. It is a very short distance.”

  Restarting the Traveller, Nick observed, “And I bet his hair arrives unruffled.”

  “Of course. He’s a very superior butler.”

  “It looks as if your host has brought his staff with him. In the service of secrecy, I suppose.” He drove round the corner and stopped in front of the door to the northwest tower. “You stay in the car till the superior butler arrives. I’ll get your case out.”

  Norton rejoined them a moment later. He opened the passenger door. Eleanor stepped out, Teazle still clutched to her, and was practically blown into his arms. He steadied her as she leaned down to shout against the roar of the wind, “Thanks, Nick, and for pity’s sake, be careful driving home.”

  He waved. She had no free hand to wave back, so she nodded, then turned to go with Norton. However superior, he was more manservant than butler, really, for in these servantless days his duties weren’t limited to traditional butlerian pursuits, though he played that part on occasion. Pre-war, he would have had a minion to carry her suitcase, but he picked it up without any lessening of his air of dignity.

  “If you will please come this way, madam.” Unlocking and opening the door, he managed not to let it crash back against the wall, quite a feat. Eleanor let the wind blow her inside. With some difficulty, Norton closed the door behind them, relocked it, and presented her with the key. “And here is the key for your room, madam. I expect you will wish to go up before joining her ladyship in the drawing room.”

  Knowing she must look as if she’d been dragged backwards through a bush, Eleanor gratefully accepted the suggestion.

  The narrow entrance hall and the stairs were haphazardly updated Victorian, clean and well polished, but somewhat oppressive. Most of the walls had been painted cream, but one in an unobtrusive corner still had crimson-flocked wallpaper. The overhead light was an elaborate electrified chandelier. Norton pointed out a nook containing a telephone, and two doors. One led to the rest of the hotel, the other to a small service courtyard, “where you can take the little dog, madam,” he said delicately, “while the rain continues.”

  “She prefers a bit of grass, but any port in a storm.”

  “Both doors use the same key as the door through which madam entered.”

  Two keys fewer to remember, Eleanor thought thankfully, but she mustn’t forget to lock the doors after her. “This is a bit of a change for you from the Bellowes’ London house or the Scillies. Did they bring all their staff?”

  “Not all, madam, but enough. Sir Edward trusts us not to talk about his business. The hotel staff are mostly foreigners, but a few are local people so gossip would be inevitable. We are, perhaps, a trifle understaffed for the number of guests expected, but you will not notice any deficiency in service, I hope.”

  “I’m sure I shan’t.” Eleanor nearly asked him whether he knew who else was expected, but she’d find out soon enough.

  Her bedroom on the second floor was the same uneasy mixture of Victorian and modern. A gas fire took the edge off the chill, though the room could not be described as warm. Norton intercepted her gaze at the four-poster bed and hastened to assure her, “Interior spring mattress, madam.”

  Not that she hadn’t slept in everything from grass huts on stilts to mud huts with a smoke hole in the roof, but still … “Good.”

  He set her suitcase on a low table and bowed slightly. “Shall I send Lady Bellowe’s maid, madam?”

  “No. No, thanks.”

  “The … ah … conveniences are just opposite. This being a hotel, they have signs on the doors.” Norton did not approve.

  “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  He bowed again and withdrew. The moment she was alone, she heard the wind whistling round the building and noticed the curtains stirring in draughts from the window. Why on earth would anyone build a hotel on a bare height exposed to everything the Atlantic could throw at it?

  She went to the window, parted the drawn curtains, and found it open half an inch at the top. Closing it, she peered out. It was over an hour before sunset, but the low black clouds had brought premature darkness. Eleanor couldn’t see much. She wasn’t even sure which way her room faced until raindrops suddenly splattered against the glass. The way they hit and spread suggested she was looking out into the face of the storm as it blasted in over the invisible sea. She should have a marvellous view in daylight if the weather cleared.

  The rain started to hammer on the windowpanes. Worrying about Nick’s homeward drive through the storm, she closed the curtains and prepared herself for afternoon tea with Sir Edward and Lady Bellowe.

  Norton appeared the moment Eleanor set foot on the landing below. He led her to the first-floor sitting room and ushered her in. She barely had time to register an eclectic combination of every style since the 1890s before she was enveloped in the large tweed-costumed embrace of Georgina, Lady Bellowe.

  “Eleanor, I’m so glad you’re here. I do dislike being the only woman in the party, even if it’s not really a party, just politics.”

  “Just politics!” exclaimed Sir Edward, a man of middling height, whose spare build was dwarfed by his wife’s generous bulk. “My dear Gina, it’s neither love nor money that makes the world go round; it’s politics. I’m very grateful that you’ve come, Eleanor.” He shook hands with her. They sat down, and he leaned forward earnestly. “I do hope your stay will be comfortable as well as interesting and of great service to the Crown.”

  “Let her settle in, Edward, before you start on the ‘service to the Crown’ part. Tea, Eleanor? Or would you prefer a little drinkie?”

  “Tea would be perfect,” Eleanor assured her, and on cue Norton, assisted by a maid, appeared with a tea tray.

  Tea featured splits with strawberry jam and clotted cream. Having poured tea for all, Gina helped herself liberally, absently feeding a scrap of the soft roll to Teazle. “I shouldn’t go near the cream, I know, but I’ve been dashing up and down three flights of stairs, trying to make the hotel—our part of it—feel homely. I’m sure that used up an immense number of calories.”

  “Unquestionably.”

  “As for dinner tonight, my poor cook is trying to cope in a kitchen the size of a galley. I’m told the groups that rent the tower in summer don’t expect much in the way of cooking facilities, but at this time of year we can’t take a picnic out on the cliffs! Thank goodness you didn’t have far to come, Eleanor; I hope the drive wasn’t too dreadful in this weather?”

  “The wind
didn’t come up till we were nearly here. In any case, I wasn’t driving.” Eleanor explained about her poor dead Incorruptible. Then she had to explain the nickname, which amused Sir Edward no end.

  “Robespierre, eh?” he chortled. “The sea-green incorruptible. And now your car is as dead as its namesake. I’m sorry to hear that. I should have sent a car for you; I knew it. You’ll be reimbursed for car hire, of course.”

  “It’s all right. A friend was quite happy to bring me.”

  “You didn’t tell him what we’re here for!” Sir Edward yelped in alarm.

  “I don’t know what we’re here for. And I think it’s about time you told me.”

  “Ah, yes. In a word, Rhodesia. Or Zimbabwe, if you prefer.”

  “Rhodesia! Don’t tell me you’ve got Ian Smith to—”

  “No, no, no. He’s nowhere near ready to admit that a couple of hundred thousand whites can’t continue indefinitely to lord it over millions of blacks in this day and age.”

  “Except in South Africa.”

  “Sanctions may work there, too, in the end, if everyone stands firm, but they look like they’re taking a long time.”

  “If not Smith, then who?”

  “How much do you know about the situation?”

  “Only what anyone can read in the paper or hear on the six o’clock news. LonStar never had much to do with Southern Rhodesia. The colonial government, whatever its faults, was one of the best at famine relief. I did meet Joshua Nkomo and Ndabaningi Sithole.” Eleanor might forget her keys, but she never forgot people. “They’re both in prison, aren’t they? Or has Smith released them?”

  “Not much chance of that,” Sir Edward said despondently, “as long as their ZANU and ZAPU colleagues who got away to Zambia are waging guerrilla warfare across the border. As well as fighting with one another. We’re constantly trying to talk sense into them, of course, but it’s China and the Soviets they turn to for help and advice.”

  “So who’s left? Whom are you wooing now?”

  “More tea, Eleanor? And may I give the dog some cream?”

  “The merest smidgeon. I’d hate her to be sick on the hotel’s carpet. And yes, thanks, Gina, I’d love another cup.”

  Sir Edward also passed his cup, and helped himself to a second split, piling on jam and cream before he answered Eleanor’s question. “We’re taking a shot—bad choice of words!—at the next generation. Quite a few are in exile in Britain, many on student visas. We’re hoping they may be more amenable to reason. If we can persuade the younger people to unite and to pursue nonviolent means to achieve their aims, we can help them to support Bishop Muzorewa’s party rather than ZANU or ZAPU. Perhaps by the time sanctions start really biting and Smith is willing to come to the table, they’ll be in charge of his flock, or at least influential.”

  “You’ve invited students? You’re expecting slow progress!”

  “Only to sound them out. Besides, they’re older than the general run of undergrads. In their mid-twenties, I believe, having taken their A-level exams after arriving in Britain.”

  “How many are coming?”

  “Just two,” Gina put in.

  “One from LSE—”

  “The London School of Economics? Aren’t they the most turbulent students in the nation?”

  “Probably,” Sir Edward agreed gloomily.

  “And wasn’t there some sort of fuss about Marxist lecturers?”

  “Er … yes.”

  “And you expect me to talk sense into—”

  “Not at all. The political part is mine. If you can just keep peace between the two of them—”

  “Who is the other?”

  “He’s up at Oxford. Brasenose.”

  “Oxford must be more conservative, surely.”

  “All young people are revolting these days, even at Oxbridge. If they’re not intellectual revolutionaries, they’re National Front louts.”

  Looking amused at this sweeping condemnation of a generation, Gina said, “I don’t recall hearing of Oxford students rioting in the streets, dear.” She added hot water to the silver teapot.

  “Less turbulent than LSE, perhaps. They vent their unrest in debates instead of in the street, and provide the pseudo-intellectual justifications for the rioting elsewhere.”

  “Don’t Oxbridge people tend to look down on the rest of the academic world?” Eleanor asked. “London University included?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Oh dear! And I suppose, just to help matters along, one of your guests is Shona and the other Matabele?”

  “Ndebele they call themselves now. But yes, I’m afraid so. ZAPU and ZANU aren’t strictly tribal, though, and that’s the division we need to overcome.”

  “You’re so good at smoothing ruffled feathers,” said Gina.

  Eleanor sighed. “It would be easier if they weren’t adversaries in so many respects. What are their names?” She passed her cup to Gina for another refill and helped herself to a second split.

  “Tariro and Nontando. We’re using first names only, for security.”

  “What is all this fuss about security? What are you afraid of?”

  “We don’t want Smith to catch wind of this latest undertaking. The Rhodesian settlers have many sympathisers in this country. That’s why the two of them will arrive at night and stay out of sight. My private secretary—”

  “Is that different from your personal secretary? Civil-service language is so confusing.”

  “Yes, Payne is my assistant. The other is a receptionist-stenographer type. Payne took the train from London to meet Tariro at Reading, off the train from Oxford, to travel the rest of the way together. A local plainclothes policeman will pick them up from Launceston and drive them here. A Scotland Yard plainclothesman will drive the other down from London. We didn’t want the two travelling together.”

  “Paranoia,” said Gina, smiling at Eleanor. “Pure paranoia.”

  “It seems to me,” Eleanor pointed out, “that of all the places where a couple of Africans would be bound to attract attention, Cornwall is probably near the top of the list. They’d be much less conspicuous in one of the big industrial cities.”

  “But so would snoopers,” Sir Edward retorted irritably.

  “Very true.” Eleanor reminded herself that her role was peacekeeper, not devil’s advocate. So far, she wasn’t doing much of a job. She could only hope to do better when face-to-face with the intellectual debater and the turbulent rioter.

  FIVE

  Nick had watched with a frown as Eleanor went off cheerfully with the butler. He wished she had explained her reasons for coming to Tintagel. She had a tendency to involve herself in dangerous situations, and the fact that so far she had come to no harm was no guarantee that she would come through safely this time.

  The door closed behind them. Nick set off homeward, shrugging. There was nothing he could do about it except turn up tomorrow as promised and hope she remembered he’d told her he would. Weather permitting.

  He’d feel responsible, though, if anything happened to her. And Megan would no doubt consider him responsible. He wished he hadn’t offered her beloved Aunt Nell a lift. But dammit, he was very fond of the old girl, too. He hadn’t known when they set out that there was anything fishy about her destination. Megan could hardly expect him to have turned back as soon as Eleanor started talking about spies.

  Spies! What on earth had Eleanor got herself mixed up in? Perhaps he’d find out tomorrow.

  Or perhaps not, given the weather. While he drove through the village, the wind wasn’t too bad, but beyond shelter of the houses it shook the car, the steering wheel juddering in his hands. As usual, the heater didn’t work.

  When he reached the spot where the B3263 made a sharp left turn, he noticed a bed-and-breakfast sign pointing the other way. Unlike the others he had passed, it had neither a CLOSED nor a NO VACANCY sign swinging below it. On impulse he turned right, towards the sea, just in time to catch a downpour flung by the wi
nd directly at his windscreen.

  The wipers couldn’t cope with it. Half-blind, he drove on cautiously along a narrow but straight lane with low drystone walls on each side. He passed a farm track on his left, and shortly he came to a nameless hamlet.

  Dimly, through sluicing rain and the semidark, he spotted another B and B sign. He found himself in a still narrower lane, with grass and weeds growing down the centre. He would have given up if there had been anywhere to turn. What might be a delightful solitude with sea views in the height of summer seemed likely to be a desolate, windswept isolation in a raging storm.

  At the back of beyond, just as the lane petered out into a cart track, a low building appeared on the right. Built of the local grey stone, its rectangularity blurred by the rain, it merged into the landscape like an outcrop of granite.

  All Nick cared about was the B and B sign fastened to the zigzag slate wall round the front garden and the lit window in the side wall, near the back.

  Between the wall and the lane was a gravelled area, half-occupied by a bright blue Range Rover. Nick drove past and backed in ahead of it. He pulled up the hood of his anorak and made a dash for the front door.

  His vigorous knocking brought no immediate response. Then a slight movement of the curtain in the large window next to the door made him conscious of being observed. While he appreciated the need for caution in this lonely spot, the jutting lintel gave next to no protection and he was rapidly getting soaked through. He knocked again, wishing he’d taken the time to change out of his paint-stained jeans. Dammit, he hadn’t known he’d need to look respectable!

  The door opened a few inches, on the chain. The face that appeared was obviously a woman’s, though he couldn’t make out much of the visible strip, with the light behind her. He thought he heard footsteps in the hall, receding, but the noise of wind and rain made him uncertain.

  “Yes?”

  “I saw your sign out by the main road—”

  “Sorry, I forgot to take it down. I’m not really open at this time of year.”

  Nick seized on the “not really.” “Look, I’m soaked to the skin and chilled to the bone. The wind is shaking my car to pieces and it’s only going to get worse as I reach higher ground, if I try to drive home. I’m willing to pay whatever you ask for a room.” He crossed his fingers in his pockets, not sure how much he had in his wallet. “I’m throwing myself on your mercy. If you really can’t accommodate me for the night, at least let me come in to get warm and dry off a bit.”