[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Aisha was sure she was one of those busy-bodies who wanted to know all about celebrities so that she could convince her friends that she knew everything there was to know about everybody.‘She is just like the Countess of Dartwood,’ Aisha told herself, ‘and thank goodness they’ve not arrived yet.’She thought with any luck that she and her father would have left before they came and she was quite certain that the Countess, if she had the slightest suspicion of what her father had been doing, would chatter about it – or if it was sensational enough, would shout it from the roof-tops.‘The sooner we get back to England,’ she thought, ‘the better.Then Papa will be free from The Great Game, and from the kind of people who suspect something must be happening if they have not been told all about it and therefore they are tiresomely inquisitive.’She walked away alone to the swimming pool.As she did so, she was saying a heartfelt prayer of thankfulness that her father was safe and now she could be with him alone as she wanted to be.‘No one has done more than he has for England,’ she mused, ‘and now he will be able to enjoy himself.’It was still impossible not to feel the shadow of danger and she had been acutely aware of it ever since she had arrived at Peterhof.However reassuring both the Viceroy and Lord Kenington had been, she knew instinctively that they were extremely worried about her father.They had only pretended to be confident because they did not want her to feel as alarmed as they did.‘Now we will go home,’ she thought, ‘and I will persuade Papa to stay at our house in the country until the summer is over.Then, if he has to go to London, we will find a nice little house near the river and there will be no more ears listening at keyholes or a feeling of apprehension every time the door opens.’When she reached the swimming pool, she was pleased to see that there was no one else there and she sat down in the seat under the trees.‘I do hope that Papa will not be long,’ she said to herself.‘I have so much more I want to say to him.’*In the Viceroy’s sitting room, Major Warde was telling him and Lord Kenington exactly what he believed were the weak spots in the defences of India and what additional forces and equipment he thought necessary.The Viceroy was writing it all down, whilst Lord Kenington knew his own memory was the safest place in which to store the secret information he was hearing.He then asked several questions that the Viceroy thought were extremely intelligent.Major Warde was able to answer them with copious information and reasons that would undoubtedly support the Prime Minister against the Opposition.They talked for nearly an hour and then the Viceroy sat back in his seat and said,“All I can say to you, Warde, is that you have been brilliant, not only in what you have done but in what you have planned for the future.I only wish you would stay here and organise it.”“It is always wise to know when one should close the door and pull down the curtain,” the Major replied.“As you are aware, my Lord, there are several very weak spots in our defence and I am quite certain Lord Kenington will explain these when he returns to London.”“I know how grateful the Prime Minister will be to you,” Lord Kenington said.“At the same time everything will be pooh-poohed and talked down by the Opposition.”“I suppose really that is what they are there for,” the Viceroy replied.“If you ask me, if we did not have a competent Opposition, we would not have even half the resources we have at the moment.”“That is a paradox but true,” Major Warde said.“When I think how difficult it has been to get anything from England in the past, I am grateful, very grateful, for even what we have at present.”“Yet you will want more,” Lord Kenington added.“That might be said of everything in life.If one was completely content with things as they are, we would sink into an apathy that would undoubtedly end in disaster both for ourselves and for the nation.”He spoke in a way that made Lord Kenington think of Aisha – it was the way she had talked when she sounded more like an elderly politician than a young and pretty girl.Her father was an exceptionally good-looking man and Lord Kenington could only understand that Aisha had inherited from him not only her beauty but a part of his brain and his superb powers of perception and imagination
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]