‘In a stable near the Country Club. Guess what she’s called.’
‘How can I?’
‘Seraphina. Isn’t it just like the hand of God?’
‘But, Milly, I can’t possibly afford…’
‘You needn’t pay for her all at once. She’s a chestnut.’
‘What difference does the colour make?’
‘She’s in the stud-book. Out of Santa Teresa by Ferdinand of Castile.
She would have cost twice as much, but she fouled a fetlock jumping wire.
There’s nothing wrong, only a kind of lump, so they can’t show her.’
‘I don’t mind if it’s a quarter the price. Business is too bad, Milly.’ ‘But I’ve explained to you, you needn’t pay all at once. You can pay over the years.’
‘And I’ll still be paying for it when it’s dead.’
‘She’s not an it, she’s a she, and Seraphina will last much longer than a car. She’ll probably last longer than you will.’
‘But, Milly, your trips out to the stables, and the stabling alone.. ‘I’ve talked about all that with Captain Segura. He’s offering me a rock-bottom price. He wanted to give me free stabling, but I knew you wouldn’t like me to take favours.’
‘Who’s Captain Segura, Milly?’
‘The head police officer in Vedado.’
‘Where on earth did you meet him?’
‘Oh, he often gives me a lift to Lamparilla in his car.’
‘Does Reverend Mother know about this?’
Milly said stiffly, ‘One must have one’s private life.’
‘Listen, Milly, I can’t afford a horse, you can’t afford all this stuff. You’ll have to take it back.’ He added with fury, ‘And I won’t have you taking lifts from Captain Segura.’
‘Don’t worry. He never touches me,’ Milly said. ‘He only sings sad Mexican songs while he drives. About flowers and death. And one about a bull.’ ‘I won’t have it, Milly. I shall speak to Reverend Mother, you’ve got to promise…’ He could see under the dark brows how the green and amber eyes contained the coming tears. Wormold felt the approach of panic; just so his wife had looked at him one blistering October afternoon when six years of life suddenly ended. He said, ‘You aren’t in love, are you, with this Captain Segura?’
Two tears chased each other with a kind of elegance round the curve of a cheek-bone and glittered like the harness on the wall; they were part of her equipment too. ‘I don’t care a damn about Captain Segura,’ Milly said. ‘It’s just Seraphina I care about. She’s fifteen hands and she’s got a mouth like velvet, everybody says so.’
‘Milly dear, you know that if I could manage it…, ‘Oh, I knew you’d take it like this,’ Milly said. ‘I knew it in my heart of hearts. I said two novenas to make it come right, but they haven’t worked. I was so careful too. I was in a state of grace all the time I said them. I’ll never believe in a novena again. Never. Never.’ Her voice had the lingering resonance of Poe’s Raven. He had no faith himself, but he never wanted by any action of his own to weaken hers. Now he felt a fearful responsibility; at any moment she would be denying the existence of God. Ancient promises he had made came up out of the past to weaken him.
He said, ‘Milly, I’m sorry..
‘I’ve done two extra Masses as well.’ She shovelled on to his shoulders
all her disappointment in the old familiar magic. It was all very well talking about the easy tears of a child, but if you are a father you can’t take risks as a schoolteacher can or a governess. Who knows whether there may not be a moment in childhood when the world changes for ever, like making a face when the clock strikes?
‘Milly, I promise if it’s possible next year.
Listen, Milly, you can keep the saddle till then, and all the rest of the stuff.’
‘What’s the good of a saddle without a horse? And I told Captain Segura…’
‘Damn Captain Segura-what did you tell him?’
‘I told him I had only to ask you for Seraphina and you’d give her to me. I said you were wonderful. I didn’t tell him about the novenas.’ ‘How much is she?’
‘Three hundred pesos.’
‘Oh, Milly, Milly.’ There was nothing he could do but surrender. ‘You’ll have to pay out of your allowance towards the stabling.’ ‘Of course I will.’ She kissed his ear. ‘I’ll start next month.’ They both knew very well that she would never start. She said, ‘You see, they did work after all, the novenas, I mean. I’ll begin another tomorrow, to make business good. I wonder which saint is best for that.’
‘I’ve heard that St Jude is the saint of lost causes,’ Wormold said.
It was Wormold’s day-dream that he would wake someday and find that he had amassed savings, bearer-bonds and share-certificates, and that he was receiving a steady flow of dividends like the rich inhabitants of the Vedado suburb; then he would retire with Milly to England, where there would be no Captain Seguras and no wolf-whistles. But the dream faded whenever he entered the big American bank in Obispo. Passing through the great stone portals, which were decorated with four leaved clovers, he became again the small dealer he really was, whose pension would never be sufficient to take Milly to the region of safety. Drawing a cheque is not nearly so simple an operation in an American bank as in an English one. American bankers believe in the personal touch; the teller conveys a sense that he happens to be there accidentally and he is overjoyed at the lucky chance of the encounter. ‘Well,’ he seems to express in the sunny warmth of his smile, ‘who would have believed that I’d meet you here, you of all people, in a bank of all places?’ After exchanging with him news of your health and of his health, and after finding a common interest in the fineness of the winter weather, you shyly, apologetically, slide the cheque towards him (how tiresome and incidental all such business is), but he barely has time to glance at it when the telephone rings at his elbow. ‘Why, Henry,’ he exclaims in astonishment over the telephone, as though Henry too were the last person he expected to speak to on such a day, ‘what’s the news of you?’ The news takes a long time to absorb; the teller smiles whimsically at you: business is business.
‘I must say Edith was looking swell last night,’ the teller said.
Wormold shifted restlessly.
‘It was a swell evening, it certainly was. Me? Oh, I’m fine. Well now, what can we do for you today?’
‘Why, anything to oblige, Henry, you know that… A hundred and fifty thousand dollars for three years… no, of course there won’t be any difficulty for a business like yours. We have to get the 0.1K. from New York, but that’s a formality. Just step in any time and talk to the manager. Monthly payments? That’s not necessary with an American firm. I’d say we could arrange five per cent. Make it two hundred thousand for four years? Of course, Henry.’ Wormold’s cheque shrank to insignificance in his fingers. ‘Three hundred and fifty dollars’ the writing seemed to him almost as thin as his resources. ‘See you at Mrs Slater’s tomorrow? I expect there’ll be a rubber. Don’t bring any aces up your sleeve, Henry. How long for the O. K.? Oh, a couple of days if we cable. Eleven tomorrow? Any time you say, Henry. Just walk in. I’ll tell the manager. He’ll be tickled to death to see you.’
‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Wormold.’ Surname again. Perhaps, Wormold thought, I am not worth cultivating or perhaps it is our nationalities that keep us apart. ‘Three hundred and fifty dollars?’ The teller took an unobtrusive glance in a file before counting out the notes. He had hardly begun when the telephone rang a second time.
‘Why, Mrs Ashworth, where have you been hiding yourself? Over at Miami? No kidding?’ It was several minutes before he had finished with Mrs Ashworth. As he passed the notes to Wormold, he handed over a slip of paper as well. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Mr Wormold. You asked me to keep you informed.’ The slip showed an overdraft of fifty dollars.