The Portuguese Escape by Ann Bridge Read Free Book Online

you’ll meet her all right! I’m sure Dorothée still means to cash in on her—though hoping for the best, poor woman, I expect after this morning!’ said Townsend, with a rueful grin.
    But in fact it was well over a week before Hetta Páloczy next appeared in public, and Atherley had the chance of meeting her. The interval was filled with endless visits to M. Lilas, the French-trained tailor, to Mme Azevedo, who produced blouses fine as cobwebs covered with what the French call
travail
, most delicate openwork and embroidery; to ‘Hélène’ in the Chiado, one of the best shoe-shops in the world, for elegant confections in lizard- and alligator-skin, and to Le Petit Paris, also in the Chiado, for simplebecoming frocks. The Chiado (whose real name is the Rua Garrett) must be the steepest shopping street in the world; one pants going up, and is apt to slip going down on the tiny polished cobbles of the pavement—the shops are minute, yet produce superb craftsmanship. It is all very Portuguese; they are the most unobtrusive of races, preferring performance to advertisement. All this amused Hetta; and as she was dutifully anxious to please her mother she tried also to be interested in her new clothes— she ended, quite naturally and girlishly, in enjoying her pretty outfits.
    She eventually made her début at a cocktail-party at the hotel, for which her mother had sent out the invitations on the same day that Hetta met the journalists. In theory it was a purely social affair; in fact the Countess had invited Mr. Nixon, some of the better-known correspondents, and a pretty clever girl representing Radio Free Europe, hoping that on a less formal occasion they might contrive to ‘draw’ her daughter. She therefore responded favourably when Mr. Atherley rang up in the morning to ask if she would perhaps allow him to bring a young Englishwoman who had just arrived in Lisbon to ‘cover’ the royal wedding for an English newspaper.
    â€˜Of course I shall be delighted to see her, Mr. Atherley. What is her name?’
    â€˜Miss Julia Probyn, Countess. That’s very good of you.’
    â€˜Where is she staying? I might get a card to her.’
    â€˜Oh please don’t bother—I’ll bring her. She’s staying with some Portuguese friends.’ Atherley astutely refrained from mentioning that these friends were the Ericeiras; he knew that they were among the members of the
sociedad
of Portugal whose acquaintance Countess Páloczy had long sought in vain. Julia Probyn had spent some months teaching English to the Duke of Ericeira’s only child, Luzia, and had become intimate with the family, and slightly acquainted with Atherley himself.
    Hetta was about as inexperienced in social matters as a European young woman of twenty-two could possibly be, but perhaps just because of this she had the sharpened perceptions of a child or a clever dog. As she stood beside her mother, in a pretty and highly becoming cherry-redfrock which exactly matched her new lipstick, and accentuated her clear pallor and the darkness both of her eyes and of her now beautifully-arranged hair, she registered with considerable acuity which people her parent considered important, and to which she, Hetta, was supposed presently to talk. The young lady from Radio Free Europe began asking questions at once; Hetta was wise enough to leave her mother to indicate to the girl that she should do this later on—‘When the receiving is over, my daughter will enjoy talking to you.’
    There were some other very concrete indications which Hetta did not miss. A short, brisk, cheerful Portuguese lady, greeted by the Countess as Mme de Fonte Negra, said as she shook hands, rather late—‘Well, my dear friend, so this is the daughter! You must send her to lunch with me one day; I should like to talk to her.’ She glanced round the rooms. ‘I see the Regent is not