Tremor by Winston Graham

Author:Winston Graham [Graham, Winston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

VI

The Thibaults were about to leave for lunch with the Governor, M. Bouamrani. Henri Thibault had made certain that his arrival in Agadir should not go unnoticed. Although convinced that his own eminence was not likely to be overlooked in France, there was just the risk that in the less civilized parts of the old empire there might be a slip-up. So his secretary had written to the Governor’s secretary. And the newly elected senator for the department of Nievre, a M. François Mitterrand, had been prevailed upon to drop an enlightened line, which would ensure he, Thibault, was accorded proper deference and hospitality. Indeed M. Mitterrand had suggested to Thibault that before he left Morocco he would do well to seek an audience of the King, who naturally would want to meet one of France’s leading bankers and philanthropists.

Thus it had been arranged, though Estrella did not know. Thibault had been saving it as a pleasant surprise; but this disagreeable contretemps with the egregious Laura had soured the situation. Estrella, herself the daughter of a banker, whose benevolent intervention had contributed to Henri’s rise, had once been a very pretty girl. As a rich man’s youngest daughter, she had been quite the catch of the season, vivacious, sexy and playful. Lucien Costals had not thought much of the young man she finally took up with – pompous little fellow with shifty eyes – but Henri had turned out fairly well, had fathered three girls, taken advantage of every business opportunity offered him; had known how to cultivate people in high places and altogether had carved a career for himself.

So far as one could tell, he had also made a good husband. The trouble at quite an early stage was that Estrella had not adjusted her attitude to her loss of looks. At fifty she still wore the clothes of a thirty-year-old. She continued to treat men coquettishly and to expect them to respond. In the best society in Paris much older women than she could still dominate their circle, but she had neither the personality nor the intellect.

She was showing, in her husband’s eyes, neither personality nor intellect in her attitude towards his encounter with Laura Legrand. She had blown the whole thing up into a great balloon of indignation and contempt. He was disgusted with his ill-luck and disgusted with his wife. Every woman knew that men sometimes had little affairs on the side: from the interchange she knew absolutely nothing of the details (fortunately).

Yet he had no wish to make this a serious quarrel between them: the old father, Lucien Costals, still existed at eighty-seven, and though no doubt he would have laughed aloud if told the whole truth, he still doted on his daughter. And with his banking holdings he still controlled some of the purse strings. There were two brothers-in-law.

They had been invited for one o’clock at the Governor’s House, and it was now after twelve thirty. Estrella, provokingly, was taking an age to make up her face.

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