‘She put petrol on the tail of his shirt.’
‘Petrol!’
‘Lighter-fluid, and then she struck a match. We think she must have been smoking in secret.’
‘It’s a most extraordinary story.’
‘I guess you don’t know Milly then. I must tell you, Mr Wormold, our patience has been sadly strained.’
Apparently, six months before setting fire to Earl, Milly had circulated round her art-class a set of postcards of the world’s great pictures. ‘I don’t see what’s wrong in that.’
‘At the age of twelve, Mr Wormold, a child shouldn’t confine her appreciation to the nude, however classical the paintings.’ ‘They were all nude?’
‘All except Goya’s Draped Maja. But she had her in the nude version too.’
Wormold had been forced to fling himself on Reverend Mother’s mercy he was a poor non-believing father with a Catholic child, the American convent was the only Catholic school in Havana which was not Spanish, and he couldn’t afford a governess. They wouldn’t want him to send her to the Hiram C. Truman School, would they? And it would be breaking the promise he had made to his wife. He wondered in private whether it was his duty to find a new wife, but the nuns might not put up with that and in any case he still loved Milly’s mother. Of course he spoke to Milly and her explanation had the virtue of simplicity.
‘Why did you set fire to Earl?’
‘I was tempted by the devil,’ she said.
‘Milly, please be sensible.’
‘Saints have been tempted by the devil.’
‘You are not a saint.’
‘Exactly. That’s why I fell.’ The chapter was closed -at any rate it would be closed that afternoon between four and six in the confessional. Her duenna was back at her side and would see to that. If only, he thought, I could know for certain when the duenna takes her day off.
There had been also the question of smoking in secret.
‘Are you smoking cigarettes?’ he asked her.
‘No.’
Something in her manner made him rephrase the question. ‘Have you ever smoked at all, l Milly?’
‘Only cheroots,’ she said.
Now that he heard the whistles warning him of her approach he wondered why Milly was coming up Lamparilla from the direction of the harbour instead of from the Avenida de Belgica. But when he saw her he saw the reason too. She was followed by a young shop assistant who carried a parcel so large that it obscured his face. Wormold realized sadly that she had been shopping again. He went upstairs to their apartment above the store and presently he could hear her superintending in another room the disposal of her purchases. There was a thump, a rattle and a clang of metal. ‘Put it there,’ she said, and, ‘No, there.’ Drawers opened and closed. She began to drive nails into the wall. A piece of plaster on his side shot out and fell into the salad; the daily maid had laid a cold lunch.
Milly came in strictly on time. It was always hard for him to disguise his sense of her beauty, but the invisible duenna looked coldly through him as though he were an undesirable suitor. It had been a long time now since the duenna had taken a holiday; he almost regretted her assiduity, and sometimes he would have been glad to see Earl burn again. Milly said grace and crossed herself and he sat respectfully with his head lowered until she had finished. It was one of her longer graces, which probably meant that she was not very hungry, or that she was stalling for time.
‘Had a good day, Father?’ she asked politely. It was the kind of remark a wife might have made after many years.
‘Not so bad, and you?’ He became a coward when he watched her; he hated to oppose her in anything, and he tried to avoid for so long as possible the subject of her purchases. He knew that her monthly allowance had gone two weeks ago on some ear-rings she had fancied and a small statue of St Seraphina. ‘I got top marks today in Dogma and Morals.’
‘Fine, fine. What were the questions?’
‘I did best on Venial Sin.’
‘I saw Dr Hasselbacher this morning,’ he said with apparent irrelevance. She replied politely, ‘I hope he was well.’ The duenna, he considered, was overdoing it. People praised Catholic schools for teaching deportment, but surely deportment was intended only to impress strangers. He thought sadly, But I am a stranger. He was unable to follow her into her strange world of candles and lace and holy water and genuflections. Sometimes he felt that he had no child.
‘He’s coming in for a drink on your birthday. I thought we might go afterwards to a nightclub.’
‘A nightclub!’ The duenna must have momentarily looked elsewhere as Milly exclaimed, ‘O Gloria Patri.’
‘You always used to say Alleluia.’
‘That was in Lower Four. Which nightclub?’
‘I thought perhaps the Nacional.’
‘Not the Shanghai Theatre?’
‘Certainly not the Shanghai Theatre. I can’t think how you’ve even heard of the place.’
‘In a school things get around.’
Wormold said, ‘We haven’t discussed your present. A seventeenth birthday is no ordinary one. I was wondering…’
‘Really and truly,’ Milly said, ‘there’s nothing in the world I want.’ Wormold remembered with apprehension that enormous package. If she had really gone out and got everything she wanted… He pleaded with her, ‘Surely there must be something you still want.’
‘Nothing. Really nothing.’
‘A new swim-suit,’ he suggested desperately.
‘Well, there is one thing… But I thought we might count it as a Christmas present too, and next year’s and the year after that.’ ‘Good heavens, what is it?’
‘You wouldn’t have to worry about presents any more for a long time.’
‘Don’t tell me you want a Jaguar.’
‘Oh no, this is quite a small present. Not a car. This would last for years. It’s an awfully economical idea. It might even, in a way, save petrol.’ ‘Save petrol?’
‘And today I got all the etceteras -with my own money.’ ‘You haven’t got any money. I had to lend you three pesos for Saint Seraphina.’
‘But my credit’s good.’
‘Milly, I’ve told you over and over again I won’t have you buying on credit. Anyway it’s my credit, not yours, and my credit’s going down all the time.’
‘Poor Father. Are we on the edge of ruin?’
‘Oh, I expect things will pick up again when the disturbances are over.’
‘I thought there were always disturbances in Cuba. If the worst came to the worst I could go out and work, couldn’t I?’
‘What at?’
‘Like Jane Eyre I could be a governess.’
‘Who would take you?’
‘Senor Perez.’
‘Milly, what on earth are you talking about? He’s living with his fourth wife, you’re a Catholic…
‘I might have a special vocation to sinners,’ Milly said. ‘Milly, what nonsense you talk. Anyway, I’m not ruined. Not yet. As far as I know. Milly, what have you been buying?’
‘Come and see.’ He followed her into her bedroom. A saddle lay on her bed; a bridle and bit were hanging on the wall from the nails she had driven in (she had knocked off a heel from her best evening shoes in doing it); reins were draped between the light brackets; a whip was propped up on the dressing-table. He said hopelessly, ‘Where’s the horse?’ and half expected it to appear from the bathroom.