Our walk back to the hotel passed quite eventlessly. Captain Carter commented once or twice with amazement on how much quieter and safer the dark streets had apparently become since he’d passed through. I mh-hmed and tried not to flush. Once or twice, I saw dark figures out of the corner of my eye, behind us, to our left, our right - everywhere. It probably wasn’t the entire group of guards, but at least part had split off to see me safely back to the hotel.
I wasn’t particularly reassured by this. My brain was whirring like a mad spinning wheel, trying to figure out a way to manufacture a grandmother within approximately five minutes. So far, I had come up blank.
We reached the hotel by just about eleven pm. At the bottom of the stairs, I turned to Captain Carter with a charming smile.
‘Thank you, Captain. It was so nice of you to escort me this far. But you don’t need to come inside, really. I can manage the rest of the way fine by myself.’
‘But then I wouldn’t meet your grandmother! I’ve been looking forward to making her acquaintance.’
Blast! May worms nest in your stomach and nibble at your insides! Why do you have to be so infernally nice?
‘You’re too kind, Captain,’ I told him, and never had I meant anything more literally. ‘Please come in. I’ll introduce you.’
Cursing myself and the blasted goddess of fate responsible for bringing us together in that dark alley, I led him up the stairs and into the lobby. Desperately, I looked around for something, anything - and my eyes fell on my salvation!
‘Grandmother!’ With a fake smile on my face that hurt my cheeks, I scuttled towards the deaf little old lady I had noticed before in the dining hall. ‘Grandmother, how nice to see you again!’
With bated breath, I waited for the axe to fall. I had a fifty-fifty chance…
‘Eh?’ Blinking up at me, the old lady raised a hand to her ear. ‘What? You’ll have to speak up, dearie! I can’t hear you.’
Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes! Deaf as a post! Yes!
‘Captain Carter,’ I said, gesturing him closer, my grin now a hundred per cent genuine as relief welled up inside me. ‘Meet my grandmother, Frederica Linton. Grandmother, this is Captain Carter, a good friend of mine.’
‘What?’ The old lady leaned forward a bit more. ‘Who has kept it harder?’
‘Carter,’ the captain said, in a slightly raised voice. ‘Not harder. Carter. Captain Carter!’
‘What larder, young man? What are you talking about? We’re not in a larder! This is the lobby of a first class hotel, in case you haven’t noticed!’
‘Charming, isn’t she?’ I asked the captain
with a smirk.
‘Absolutely dazzling, Miss Linton. I hardly know what to say.’
‘Pay?’ the old lady demanded. ‘What would I want you to pay for? I’ve got my own money and can take very good care of myself, you know! Young people nowadays…! Who are you anyway?’
‘Carter, Madam. Captain James Carter!’
The old lady shook her head. ‘No, we’re not in a larder! How many times do I have to tell you that?’
Captain Carter and I had a nice chat with my ‘grandmother’. By the end of it, he was completely exhausted, and the old lady had had a fabulous time explaining to us how frivolous today’s youth was and saying ‘What?’ about three dozen times. Finally, Captain Carter decided to take his leave.
‘You won’t mind if I go already, Miss Linton? You see, I have a long way back to my own hotel. But if you think it would be rude of me to leave already I could-’
‘Oh, no, no, nononono. Not rude at all! Put your mind at rest, Captain.’
‘Well, if you think so…’
‘Definitely!’
He smiled at me. A genuine, warm smile that made me feel a little guilty for how I had been trying to get rid of him. ‘May I look in on you, to see how you’re doing?’
Yes, of course you may. I’d love to see you, really. The only problem with that is that I’m staying here as a married woman, under an assumed name!
‘I’m afraid my aunt and I will be leaving soon for a trip down the Nile, or some other expedition.’