A questioning "Um?" was Henry's only response to this.
Struck by his manner, Clarissa asked, "Henry, is anything the matter?"
"Well, yes, in a way," he told her.
"Something wrong?" she queried. "Is it Miranda?"
"No, no, there's nothing wrong, really," Henry assured her. "I should say quite the contrary. Yes, quite the contrary."
"Darling," said Clarissa, speaking with affection and only a very faint note of ridicule, "do I perceive behind that impenetrable Foreign Office fa?ade a certain human excitement?"
Henry wore an air of pleasurable anticipation. "Well," he admitted, "it is rather exciting in a way." He paused, then added, "As it happens, there's a slight fog in London."
"Is that very exciting?" Clarissa asked.
"No, no, not the fog, of course."
"Well?" Clarissa urged him.
Henry looked quickly around, as though to assure himself that he could not be overheard, and then went across to the sofa to sit beside Clarissa. "You'll have to keep this to yourself," he impressed upon her in a very grave tone of voice.
"Yes?" Clarissa prompted him hopefully.
"It's really very secret," Henry reiterated. "Nobody's supposed to know. But, actually, you'll have to know."
"Well, come on, tell me," she urged him.
Henry looked around again, and then turned to Clarissa. "It's all very hush-hush," he insisted. He paused for effect, and then announced, "The Soviet Premier, Kalendorff, is flying to London for an important conference with the Prime Minister tomorrow."
Clarissa was unimpressed. "Yes, I know," she replied.
Henry looked startled. "What do you mean, you know?" he demanded.
"I read it in the paper last Sunday," Clarissa informed him casually.
"I can't think why you want to read these low-class papers," Henry expostulated. He sounded really put out. "Anyway," he continued, "the papers couldn't possibly know that Kalendorff was coming over. It's top secret."
"My poor sweet," Clarissa murmured. Then, in a voice in which compassion was mixed with incredulity, she continued, "But top secret? Really! The things you high-ups believe."
Henry rose and began to stride around the room, looking distinctly worried. "Oh dear, there must have been some leak," he muttered.
"I should have thought," Clarissa observed tartly, "that by now you'd know there always is a leak. In fact, I should have thought that you'd all be prepared for it."
Henry looked somewhat affronted. "The news was only released officially tonight," he told her. "Kalendorff's plane is due at Heathrow at eight-forty, but actually..." He leaned over the sofa and looked doubtfully at his wife.
"Now, Clarissa," he asked her very solemnly, "can I really trust you to be discreet?"
"I'm much more discreet than any Sunday newspaper," Clarissa protested, swinging her feet off the sofa and sitting up.
Henry sat on an arm of the sofa and leaned towards Clarissa conspiratorially. "The conference will be at Whitehall tomorrow," he informed her, "but it would be a great advantage if a conversation could take place first between Sir John himself and Kalendorff. Now, naturally the reporters are all waiting at Heathrow, and the moment the plane arrives, Kalendorff's movements are more or less public property."
He looked around again, as though expecting to find the gentlemen of the press peering over his shoulder, and continued, in a tone of increasing excitement, "Fortunately, this incipient fog has played into our hands."
"Go on," Clarissa encouraged him. "I'm thrilled, so far."
"At the last moment," Henry informed her, "the plane will find it inadvisable to land at Heathrow. It will be diverted, as is usual on these occasions – "
"To Bindley Heath," Clarissa interrupted him. "That's just fifteen miles from here. I see."
"You're always very quick, Clarissa dear," Henry commented rather disapprovingly. "But yes, I shall go off there now to the aerodrome in the car, meet Kalendorff, and bring him here. The Prime Minister is motoring down here direct from Downing Street. Half an hour will be ample for what they have to discuss, and then Kalendorff will travel up to London with Sir John."
Henry paused. He got up and took a few paces away, before turning to say to her disarmingly, "You know, Clarissa, this may be of very great value to me in my career. I mean, they're reposing a lot of trust in me, having this meeting here."
"So they should," Clarissa replied firmly, going to her husband and flinging her arms around him. "Henry, darling," she exclaimed, "I think it's all wonderful."
"By the way," Henry informed her solemnly, "Kalendorff will be referred to only as Mr. Jones."
"Mr. Jones?" Clarissa attempted, not altogether successfully, to keep a note of amused incredulity out of her voice.
"That's right," Henry explained, "one can't be too careful about using real names."
"Yes – but – Mr. Jones?" Clarissa queried. "Couldn't they have thought of something better than that?" She shook her head doubtfully and continued, "Incidentally, what about me? Do I retire to the harem, as it were, or do I bring in the drinks, utter greetings to them both and then discreetly fade away?"
Henry regarded his wife somewhat uneasily as he admonished her, "You must take this seriously, dear."
"But Henry, darling," Clarissa insisted, "can't I take it seriously and still enjoy it a little?"
Henry gave her question a moment's consideration before replying gravely, "I think it would be better, perhaps, Clarissa, if you didn't appear."
Clarissa seemed not to mind this. "All right," she agreed, "but what about food? Will they want something?"
"Oh, no," said Henry. "There need be no question of a meal."
"A few sandwiches, I think," Clarissa suggested. She sat on an arm of the sofa and continued, "Ham sandwiches would be best. In a napkin to keep them moist. And hot coffee, in a thermos jug. Yes, that'll do very well. The chocolate mousse I shall take up to my bedroom to console me for being excluded from the conference."
"Now, Clarissa," Henry began disapprovingly, only to be interrupted by his wife as she rose and flung her arms around his neck. "Darling, I am being serious, really," she assured him. "Nothing will go wrong. I shan't let it." She kissed him affectionately.
Henry gently disentangled himself from her embrace. "What about old Roly?" he asked.
"He and Jeremy are dining at the clubhouse with Hugo," Clarissa told him. "They're going to play bridge afterwards, so Roly and Jeremy won't be back here until about midnight."
"And the Elgins are out?" Hugo asked her.
"Darling, you know they always go to the cinema on Thursdays," Clarissa reminded him. "They won't be back until well after eleven."
Henry looked pleased. "Good," he exclaimed. "That's all quite satisfactory. Sir John and Mr. – er – "
"Jones," Clarissa prompted him.
"Quite right, darling. Mr. Jones and the Prime Minister will have left long before then." Henry consulted his watch. "Well, I'd better have a quick shower before I start off for Bindley Heath," he announced.
"And I'd better go and make the ham sandwiches," Clarissa said, dashing out of the room. Picking up his briefcase, Henry called after her, "You must remember about the lights, Clarissa." He went to the door and switched off the concealed lighting. "We're making our own electricity here, and it costs money." He switched off the wall-brackets as well. "It's not like London, you know."
After a final glance around the room, which was now in darkness except for a faint glow of moonlight coming in through the windows, Henry nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN THE three men arrived at the golf club, Hugo was busily complaining about Clarissa's behaviour in making them test the port. "Really, she ought to stop playing these games, you know," Hugo said as they made their way to the bar. "Do you remember, Roly, the time I received that telegram from Whitehall telling me that I was going to be offered a knighthood in the next Honours List? It was only when I mentioned it in confidence to Henry one evening when I was dining with them both, and Henry was perplexed but Clarissa started giggling – it was only then that I discovered she'd sent the bloody thing. She can be so childish sometimes."
Sir Rowland chuckled. "Yes, she can indeed. And she loves play-acting. You know, she was actually a damned good actress in her school's drama club. At one time I thought she'd take it up seriously and go on the stage professionally. She's so convincing, even when she's telling the most dreadful lies. And that's what actors are, surely. Convincing liars."
He was lost in reminiscence for a moment, and then continued, "Clarissa's best friend at school was a girl called Jeanette Collins, whose father had been a famous footballer. And Jeanette herself was a mad football fan. Well, one day Clarissa rang Jeanette in an assumed voice, claiming to be the public relations officer for some football team or other, and told her that she'd been chosen to be the team's new mascot, but that it all depended on her dressing in a funny costume as a rabbit and standing outside the Chelsea Stadium that afternoon as the customers were queuing up to get in. Somehow Jeanette managed to hire a costume in time, and got to the stadium dressed as a bunny rabbit, where she was laughed at by hundreds of people and photographed by Clarissa, who was waiting there for her. Jeanette was furious. I don't think the friendship survived."
"Oh, well," Hugo growled resignedly, as he picked up a menu and began to devote his attention to the serious business of choosing what they would eat later.
Meanwhile, back in the Hailsham-Browns' drawing-room, only some minutes after Henry had gone off to have a quick shower and change his clothes before setting out for the aerodrome, Oliver Costello entered the empty room stealthily through the French windows, leaving the curtains open so that moonlight streamed in. He shone a torch carefully around the room, then went to the desk and switched on the lamp that was on it. After lifting the flap of the secret drawer, he suddenly switched off the lamp and stood motionless for a moment as though he had heard something. Apparently reassured, he switched the desk lamp on again, and opened the secret drawer.
Behind Costello, the panel in the bookshelf slowly and quietly opened. He shut the secret drawer in the desk, switched the lamp off again, and then turned sharply as he was struck a fierce blow on the head by someone behind the panel. Costello collapsed immediately, falling behind the sofa, and the panel closed again, this time more quickly.
The room remained in darkness for a moment, until Henry Hailsham-Brown entered from the hall, switched on the wall-brackets, and shouted, "Clarissa!" Putting his spectacles on, he filled his cigarette-case from the box on a table near the sofa as Clarissa came in, calling, "Here I am, darling. Do you want a sandwich before you go?"
"No, I think I'd better start," Henry replied, patting his jacket nervously.
"But you'll be hours too early," Clarissa told him. "It can't take you more than twenty minutes to drive there."
Henry shook his head. "One never knows," he declared. "I might have a puncture, or something might go wrong with the car."
"Don't fuss, darling," Clarissa admonished him, straightening his tie as she spoke. "It's all going to go very smoothly."
"Now, what about Pippa?" Henry asked anxiously. "You're sure she won't come down or barge in while Sir John and Kalen – I mean, Mr. Jones – are talking privately?"
"No, there's no danger of that," Clarissa assured him. "I'll go up to her room and we'll have a feast together. We'll toast tomorrow's breakfast sausages and share the chocolate mousse between us."
Henry smiled affectionately at his wife. "You're very good to Pippa, my dear," he told her. "It's one of the things I'm most grateful to you for." He paused, looked embarrassed, and then continued speaking. "I can never express myself very well... I... you know... so much misery... and now, everything's so different. You..." Taking Clarissa in his arms, he kissed her.
For some moments they remained locked in a loving embrace. Then Clarissa gently broke away, but continued to hold hands with him. "You've made me very happy, Henry," she told him. "And Pippa is going to be fine. She's a lovely child."
Henry gazed at her fondly. "Now, you go and meet your Mr. Jones," she ordered him, pushing him towards the hall door. "Mr. Jones," she repeated. "I still think that's a ridiculous name to have chosen."
Henry was about to leave the room when Clarissa asked him,"Are you going to come in by the front door? Shall I leave it unlatched?"
He paused in the doorway to consider. Then, "No," he said. "I think we'll come in through the French windows."
"You'd better put on your overcoat, Henry. It's quite chilly," Clarissa advised, pushing him into the hall as she spoke. "And perhaps your muffler as well." He took his coat obediently from a rack in the hall, and she followed him to the front door with a final word of advice. "Drive carefully, darling, won't you?"
"Yes, yes," Henry called back. "You know I always do."
Clarissa shut the door behind him and went off to the kitchen to finish making the sandwiches that she had begun to prepare earlier. As she put the sandwiches on a plate, wrapping a damp napkin around the plate to keep them fresh, she could not help thinking of her recent unnerving encounter with Oliver Costello. She was frowning as she carried the sandwiches back to the drawing-room, where she put them on the small table.
