Decision at Delphi (22 page)

“I didn’t know you were arriving so soon. You vaccinate very quickly.”

“I was practically yanked off a plane to Mexico City, so I was all complete for travel. I only hope clothes for Mexico will be right for Greece, that’s all. But didn’t Lee Preston tell you I was coming?”

“Only vaguely. Or else I’d have met you at the airport.”

“Oh, that was all right. The travel agency had a man to steer me in the right direction. But how like Lee!” She shook her head. “He left the breaking of the bad news to me.”

“What bad news?” he asked.

“Me.”

“Now—” he began awkwardly.

“But,” she said quickly, “you didn’t really want me here, did you? I know that. But don’t worry, it won’t be so difficult to work with me. I do try to keep tantrums to a minimum. I hardly ever stamp my foot.” She was watching his face. “And I promise not to breathe down the back of your neck.”

He recognised himself. “Where did you get that phrase?”

“Lee. That’s why you liked working with Steve, wasn’t it? How is he, by the way?”

He was grateful to the waiter for arriving at that moment. “Lee seems to have briefed you very fully about me. What else?”

“You don’t like mixing business and pleasure. But I don’t, either.”

“He got that slightly wrong. I don’t like business interfering with pleasure.”

“Oh!” She showed the first sign of embarrassment, and the nervousness which she had been hiding so gaily forced itself to the surface. “I can be
very
businesslike,” she said. “I can be so impersonal that you’ll call me Hillard quite naturally.”

“Heaven forbid!” he said with such dismay that she broke into a real smile. “We’ll manage this job,” he told her, “we’ll manage it very nicely.”

“If my work is good enough—” she began, worriedly.

“It is,” he said “Everyone knows that, except you, seemingly. But that’s all right, too. There’s only one direction for people who know they’re damned good, and that is backward. You’re hired, Miss Hillard. Will you take the job?”

“Yes.”

“And what about me—am I hired?”

“Yes.”

“See,” he said, “how simple it all was!”

“Not what I expected,” she admitted, and glanced at the doorway. “When I stood there, I was beginning to wonder when the next plane back to Rome would leave.”

“Not what I expected, either,” he admitted, frankly, in turn. And if anyone had told him an hour ago that he would even now be planning an evening with actual enjoyment—“Incredible,” he said.

“What is?”

“I am.”

“How?”

He smiled and shook his head.

She was wise enough not to trespass, and changed the subject. “I’d love to see your sketches of Sicily and Paestum. And Lee told me you had a set of Steve’s first prints. He said you liked them.”

He nodded. When do I tell her about Steve? he wondered. Now? No, don’t spoil her first day in Athens. “We could look at them before we go on to dinner,” he said. “But that will be some time away. Ten o’clock is about the usual hour.”

“Ten?” She was horrified. “Don’t restaurants open before that?”

“About half past eight, I’m told.”

“And I am starving,” she said.

“So am I. My last proper meal was in Taormina.”

She gave that small quick glance which he was beginning to recognise. It will be difficult to keep all the truth about Steve from this girl, he thought, partly because she has a bright little intelligence burning behind those deceptively gentle eyes, partly because I don’t want to mislead her. She’s someone I want to keep liking me, somehow. No lies. They’re the deadliest sin between two people. No lies. But how? I can’t tell her much, that’s certain. What shall I tell her, and how?

“When my father had a problem,” she said, “he used to take a long walk. Why don’t we do just that? I’d like to have my first look at the Acropolis.” Watching his face, she added, “But perhaps you’ve been spending all day wandering over it?”

“No, I haven’t seen it yet. Not this trip.”

She did more than glance at him this time, but she only said, walking lightly over the unknown ground, “Last time, you saw it by night, didn’t you?”

“Who told you about that?”

“Tom Wallis and Matt O’Brien. They make a very good story out of it.”

“Don’t believe all they tell you,” he warned her.

“No?” She looked at him thoughtfully. “But I just loved the bit about why you were chosen to go along with them and the J.G. on that mission.”

“They have three versions of that story.” He sounded alarmed.

“Then I was given the one about the lieutenant thinking you
could speak Greek because you had a copy of Homer in your locker.”

He could laugh over that memory. Then he frowned.

“All right, I shan’t believe everything Matt and Tom told me. Is that better?”

“Yes. Memories are always exaggerated.” His voice had hardened unexpectedly. “Either they leave you in a rosy glow or they cover you with blue murk. There’s no balance in them.”

She said nothing at all to that. She had memories of her own, perhaps, which she did not want attacked. Her eyes looked away to the billowing curtains over the dark windows.

“One thing is certain,” he said, easing his voice. “You know more about me, however romanticised, than I know about you. Let’s even things up, shall we? What’s your name?”

She looked back at him, blankly. “Oh, that C. L. Hillard business? It’s protective colouring. If you want yourself accepted as a serious photographer, you have got to have something serious in the way of a name.”

“C is for—?”

“Cholmondely, spelled C h u m l e y.”

“Come on, now,” he said with a grin. “Give me a name. I need it.”

“Cecilia. Cecilia Loveday Hillard. How is that for a professional name competing with Kupheimer, Kladas, and Sean O’Malley?”

“It’s a very pretty mouthful.” He thought over it. “I see what you mean. It really belongs to a young girl who writes poetry and wouldn’t venture to publish it.”

“Or photographs old girls who write poetry and insist on publishing.”

“Or takes studies of moonlight through mist.”

“Or of bright-eyed twins hugging a flop-eared puppy which belongs to the dear old doctor next door.”

“How would you fit the horse and buggy into that? An interesting problem in composition.”

“The horse could be looking over the white picket fence.”

“Oh, there’s a garden?”

Suddenly, she wasn’t joking any more. She nodded. “With masses of roses and phlox and Sweet William. And somewhere, up at the left-hand corner of the picture, an apple tree.” Her face was serious. She could talk herself into sad thoughts, too, it seemed.

“You know,” he said, “you made that sound rather attractive?”

“Did I?” She had recovered.

“I’ve an idea,” he said. “We can bribe someone to cook something early. And after dinner, we’ll go exploring around the Acropolis.”

“But first of all, your drawings. And Steve’s photographs,” she reminded him.

“First before first of all, you’d better tell me what to call you. It’s very disturbing to walk around with a nameless girl. Cecilia? It’s good enough for an ode to be written about it.”

“That’s where it came from,” she said gloomily. “But please don’t quote it against me. It has been done too often.”

“And Loveday?”

“It’s one of those family things.”

And a very nice tradition, too, he thought as he signed the waiter’s check and added a tip in real money. “My name is no problem. People hack it down to handling size. But I wouldn’t
like to tamper with Dryden. So Cecilia it is. And I’m glad I don’t stutter.”

She began to laugh. Then she tried to be serious to make a correct exit from the room. But the laugh kept breaking out; and, even when it was controlled at last, still shimmered in her voice. “Why don’t you just call me Jane?” she asked.

“Who calls you that?” he asked quickly.

“No one. I just thought of it. I’ve an essentially simple mind.”

Jane and roses and phlox and an apple tree. “Thank heaven for that,” he said, most seriously. “But I’ll stay with Cecilia.”

Christophorou was leaving just ahead of them. She had noticed him, too. She said, “What does he do?”

“He’s a journalist.”

“Newspaper or freelance?”

“A little of either, I’d imagine.”

She had detected something in Strang’s voice. “Don’t you like him?”

“I have liked him a lot,” he said carefully. “What was your first impression of him?”

“He would photograph well.” She hesitated. “Is he the same Christophorou whom you and Matt and Tom—”

“The same.”

“The Homeric hero—” she said delightedly.

“Yes. You must photograph him as that.” But whether as Achilles or the wily Odysseus, might be more difficult to decide. Strang avoided the quick glance that swept his way from under dark eyelashes. “There’s Thomson,” he said, glad to find a diversion. “Nice old guy.” Tommy was talking to another scholarly type, forming a solid blot right in the middle of the exit from the room. “He’s lived so long here, he’s caught
the Athenian habits. What’s a better place to talk than bang in the middle of a doorway, unless it’s in the centre of a crowded sidewalk?”

As they squeezed past, Tommy said, “But how pleasant to see you, Strang! I was just leaving, too.” He broke away from his friend and came into the lobby with them. “Hillard,” he repeated thoughtfully, after the introduction. “I knew some Hillards once. They came from Wessex.”

“We are completely Wyoming,” Cecilia said.

“Ah! Horses!” said Tommy, quite enchanted. “Then you will enjoy the Parthenon frieze. I once wrote a paper on the affinity of the fifth-century Greek with your West American cowboys. They would have got on very well together, these young men. And are you staying long, Miss Hillard?”

“Miss Hillard is a photographer,” Strang began explaining, but only partly, for Tommy was running as mettlesome as any Parthenon horse. His own affinity was with dark-blue eyes which really listened.

“Indeed? How interesting. I used to take a great number of snapshots. You must come and see them. Perhaps tea, tomorrow? Half past four? Strang knows where I live.”

“I don’t,” said Strang.

“Dimocritos Street.” Tommy searched abstractedly in his pockets. “It’s easy to remember.”

“Street of the Laughing Philosopher,” Strang said.

Tommy found his card case at last. “Now,” he said, as he presented Strang with a neat little piece of embossed cardboard, “you will have no excuse to forget. The printed word is always so. impressive. Tomorrow, then? Splendid; splendid.” And on that up-beat note, he left, his grey tweed jacket flapping open,
his fine white hair raised in a startled aura around his amiable red face.

“Tea and snapshots,” Strang said with some misgiving, looking at Cecilia.

“I’d like it,” she said, and pleased him. “Any man who sees a likeness between Greek horsemen and cowboys is worth visiting.”

“Good.” And I’ll have a little talk with Tommy, he thought. Perhaps Tommy can put me in touch with George Ottway. Ottway could help the experts with Steve’s photographs, possibly. After all, Ottway had fought in the mountains along with Steve. It was an idea certainly worth exploring.

“Tell me about Mr. Thomson,” Cecilia said. “I’m the stranger here.”

Aren’t we all? he thought. But he told her what he knew. It didn’t take long; it was quicker, in fact, than either of the elevators. She smiled to someone, as they waited, and he turned to see who it was. But it was only Yorghis, the travel-agency man, bowing now to them both, between reassuring phrases to a bewildered tourist and his nervous wife. “So he met you at the plane,” Strang said, as they were loaded into a crowded car. “That is more than he managed to do for me.”

“He was terribly upset about that,” she said soothingly. “Seemingly, he—” But a broadly built gentleman, breathing heavily (either a claustrophobic, or too tightly corseted, or a passionate lover en route—Strang couldn’t decide which) inserted his well-braced bulk between them. She raised her eyebrows and fell silent with a helpless shrug.

“Evkharisto,”
Strang said to the attendant as they left the elevator. The man bowed, answered,
“Parakalo,”
with a
sudden gleam of teeth in a sombre face.

“He’s my friend,” Strang explained as they walked down the long stretch of corridor. “He is the only one who lets me practise Greek. Everyone else is too busy practising his English on me.”

“Evkharisto
—that’s ‘thank you.’ And he said?”

“‘Please.’ In our language, ‘you’re welcome.’ Or, as Tommy would say, ‘not at all.’”

“
Evkharisto,”
she said carefully.

“Parakalo.”

She laughed. “You make it seem so easy. Which it isn’t. I’m still trying to memorise the alphabet. It’s lucky for me that
Perspective
is so rich. Lee has hired a car and an English-speaking guide to take me around the Peloponnese. That’s my first project.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I begin there, the day after tomorrow,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “You are planning to concentrate here first, aren’t you?”

“I was. But I probably shan’t start any real work for another week or so. In fact, I was preparing myself to telephone Preston about that.”

She hesitated. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Then, “Sorry.” She was annoyed with herself.

He opened the door to his room. It was neat enough, thank heaven. “About this Peloponnese trip—I hope you’ve got a reliable guide. It isn’t Yorghis, by any chance?”

“It might be. He is really quite a nice little man. Businesslike. I wouldn’t have any trouble with him.”

“I’m sure you could deal with him. But businesslike? I doubt
that. Unless you mean he has a knack of making extra money.” He didn’t like the idea of Yorghis, somehow. “You’d do better to travel alone, provided you have a first-rate driver. You’ll find the Greeks polite and helpful; they are a good people, on the whole. Do you know, there were hundreds and hundreds of stray British soldiers left stranded here after the German invasion, and not one of them was betrayed? The Greeks fed and hid them, and neither was easy.”

“Then why worry about Yorghis?”