I heard the slight clatter of the globe sliding into its socket, then a muttered curse as, I suppose, the wick went out again. Seconds later came the scrape of another match.
It couldn’t be morning yet, and it certainly wasn’t William Blake. The curse had been in French, and in a voice I thought I recognised. Bernard’s. The hunt was up with a vengeance.
The lamp was burning now. I could see, here and there, tiny threads of light between the ceiling-boards. He was moving about, with a slow deliberation that was far more terrifying than haste. Only his breathing still hurried, and that, surely, should have been under control by now. …
I found that I was shaking, crouched together in my form of blankets. It wasn’t the climb up the mountain-side that had hurried Bernard’s breathing and made his big hands clumsy on the lamp. It was excitement, the tongue-lolling excitement of the bound as it closes in. He knew we were here.
He crossed the floor to the base of the ladder.
But he was only making for the scullery. I heard the door open, then more sounds of that deliberate exploration. A bolt scraped: he was barring the back exit. He was coming back.
My bitten lips tasted salt; my hands were clenched so tightly on a fold of blankets that my nails scored the stuff. I hadn’t told Philippe about Bernard, had I? If he should wake, he might not be frightened … but let him sleep, dear Lord, let him sleep … Perhaps Bernard doesn’t know about the loft; perhaps he won’t notice the ladder … if only Philippe doesn’t wake up and give us away …
He came out of the scullery and shut the door. This time he didn’t pause to look round. He took two unhurried strides across to the ladder. I heard the wood creak as he laid hold of it.
Someone trod rapidly across the verandah outside. I heard Bernard jerk out an oath under his breath. The door opened again. A strange voice said: ‘Que diable? Oh, Bernard, it’s you. What the devil are you doing up here?’
The ladder creaked again as Bernard released it ‘Holà, Jules.’ He sounded sober enough, but his voice was thick and not too steady. He seemed disconcerted, almost shaken. ‘I might ask you the same, mightn’t I? What brings you up here at this hour?’
The other shut the door and came across the room. ‘Night patrols, a curse on it. Ever since we had that fire up in Bois-Roussel we’ve had them. The boss is convinced it’s wilful damage and he won’t listen to anything else. So I have to tramp up and down between Bois-Roussel and Soubirous the whole bloody night, and me only a fortnight wed. Dawn’s a lousy time to be out in anyway, and when I think where I might be—’
Bernard laughed and moved away from the ladder. ‘Hard luck, friend. I expect you make out, tout de même.’
‘As to that,’ said Jules frankly, ‘I can go to bed the whole bloody day, can’t I? Here, let’s make this stove up … aha, that’s better! Now, tell me what brings you up here at this hour? It’s gone five, surely? If you’re wanting the Englishman he’s down at the Coq Hardi for the night. What’s he done?’
Bernard said, so slowly that I could almost hear the calculation clicking behind the words: ‘No, it’s not the Englishman.’
‘No? What then? Don’t tell me you’re my fire-raiser, Bernard?’ Jules laughed. ‘Come now, what’s up? Come clean or I’ll have to take you in for trespass. It’s bound to be either duty or a woman, and I’m damned if I can see why either should bring you up here.’
‘As it happens, it’s both,’ said Bernard. ‘There’s queer doings at the Château Valmy tonight. You’ve heard of young Philippe’s governess; Martin’s her name?’
‘The pretty little thing that’s been dangling after Monsieur Raoul? Who hasn’t? What’s she done?’
‘She’s disappeared, that’s what she’s done, and—’
‘Well, what if she has? And what the devil would she be doing up here anyway? There’s an obvious place to look for her, my friend, and that’s in Monsieur Raoul’s bed, not the Englishman’s.’
‘For God’s sake can’t you keep your mind out of bed for two minutes?’
‘No,’ said Jules simply.
‘Well, try. And let me finish what I was telling you. Here. Have a cigarette.’
A match snapped and flared. The sharp smell of the Gauloise came up through the boards to where I lay. I could see the two men as plainly as if the ceiling were of glass, their dark faces lit by the crackling stove, the blue smoke of the cigarettes drifting up through the warm air to hang between them. Bernard said, still in that queer note of over-measured thoughtfulness: ‘The boy’s gone, too.’
‘The boy?’
‘Young Philippe.’
A pause, and a long soft whistle. ‘Great God! Are you sure?’
‘Damn it, of course we’re sure! They’ve both vanished. Madame went along a bit ago to have a look at the boy – he’s not strong, you know, and it seems she’s been worried about him. She’s not sleeping very well … anyway, she went along, and he wasn’t in his room. She went to rouse the governess and found her gone, too. No word, no note, no nothing. We’ve searched the château from cellar to roof, the Master and I. No sign. They’ve gone.’
‘But what in the world for? It doesn’t make sense. Unless the girl and Monsieur Raoul—’
‘You can leave him out of it,’ said Bernard sourly. ‘I’ve told you she’s not snug in his bed. For one thing, what would she want with the boy if that’s where she’s bound? He’d not be a help, would he?’
‘No, indeed,’ said Jules, much struck. ‘But – well, the thing’s crazy! Where would they go, and why?’
‘God knows.’ Bernard sounded almost indifferent. ‘And they’ll probably turn up very soon anyway. The Master didn’t seem very worried, though Madame was properly upset. It’s made her ill – she has a bad heart, you know – so the Master told me to get out and scout around the place for them. I’ve been down to Thonon, but there’s no sign …’ He paused, and then I heard him yawn.
Beside me Philippe moved a little and stretched in his sleep. His shoes must have been lying near him, and through the blankets his knee touched one of them and pushed it with a small scraping sound over the boards. It was the slightest of noises, but it seemed to fill the pause like thunder.
But Bernard had heard nothing. He was saying, indifferently: ‘Ten to one it’s all nonsense anyway. I probably shouldn’t have told you about it, but since you’ve caught me on your land—’ He laughed.
‘But why should they be up here?’
‘The Master’s idea. It seems the girl was seen in Thonon with the Englishman. I tell you, the whole thing’s crazy. It stands to reason it’s only one of two things; either they’re both off together on some silly frolic, or the boy’s gone out adventuring on his own and the girl’s found him gone and set off to fetch him back.’
Jules sounded dubious. ‘It doesn’t seem very likely.’
Bernard yawned again. ‘No, it doesn’t, but boys are queer cattle – almost as queer as women, friend Jules. And he and the Martin girl are very thick. The two of them had a midnight feast the other night, so I’m told. They’ll not have gone far … the boy hasn’t got his papers. Depend on it, it’ll be some silly lark or other. What else could it be?’
‘Well, as long as Monsieur isn’t worried,’ said Jules doubtfully. There was a little silence, through which I heard the hiss of the stove and the shifting of a man’s feet. Then Bernard said briskly: ‘Well, I think I’d better be off. Coming?’
Jules didn’t answer directly. He said, in a voice which had a tentative, sidelong sound: ‘That girl Martin … There was talk. A lot of talk.’
‘Oh?’ Bernard didn’t sound interested. As if you didn’t know, I thought, lying in my form not four feet from his head.
‘People were saying,’ said Jules hesitantly, ‘that she and Monsieur Raoul were fiancés.’
‘Oh, that,’ said Bernard. A pause. ‘Well, it’s true.’
‘Diable! Is it really? So she got him?’
‘If you put it that way.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Well,’ said Bernard, sounding amused, ‘I imagine Monsieur Raoul may have had something to say in the matter. You can’t tell me that any girl, however pretty, could lead that one up the garden path unless he very much wanted to go.’
‘There’s ways and ways,’ said Jules sagely. ‘He knows what he’s about, of course, but damn it, there comes a time … He laughed. ‘And she’s nothing like his usual. That gets us every time, doesn’t it? Fools.’
‘He was never a fool,’ said Bernard. ‘And if he wants to marry her – well, that’s what he wants.’
‘You don’t persuade me he’s really fallen, do you? For the little English girl? Be your age, man. He wants to sleep with her and she won’t let him.’
‘Maybe. But it’s quite a step from that to marriage … for such as him.’
‘You’re telling me. Well, perhaps the reason’s more pressing still. Perhaps she has slept with him and now there’s a little something to force his hand. It has been done,’ said Jules largely. ‘I should know.’
‘Oh? Congratulations.’ Bernard’s voice sounded almost absent. ‘But I doubt if that’s it.’
That’s big of you, I thought, biting my knuckles above him while Jules’ words crawled like lice along my skin. The stove-top clanked as someone lifted it to drop a cigarette-butt on the logs. Bernard said again: ‘Look, I must go. Are you coming?’
‘Bernard …’ Jules had dropped his voice for all the world as if he knew I was listening. He sounded urgent and slightly ashamed. The effect was so queer, so horrible almost, that my skin prickled again.
‘Well?’ said Bernard, impatiently.
‘The girl—’
‘Well?’ said Bernard again.
‘Are you so sure … that she’ – Jules paused and I heard him swallow – ‘that she means well by the boy?’
‘What the devil d’you mean?’
‘Well … I told you there’d been talk. People have been saying that she … well, has ambitions.’
‘Ambitions? Who hasn’t? Very likely she has, but why should that make her “not mean well” by the brat? What d’you—’ Bernard’s voice tailed off and I heard him draw in his breath. He said on a very odd note: ‘You can’t mean what I think you mean, friend Jules.’
Jules sounded defiant. ‘Why not? Why should her ambitions stop at marrying Monsieur Raoul? What does anyone know about her after all? Who is she?’
‘An English orphan – I think of good family. That’s all I know.’ A pause. ‘She’s fond of the boy.’
Jules said: ‘The boy will not make her Madame la Comtesse de Valmy.’
A longer pause. Bernard’s laugh, breaking it, sounded a little strained. ‘The sooner you get back to that bed of yours the better, mon ami. The night air’s giving you fancies. And I must get back. Ten to one the thing’s over and they’re both safely back in bed. I hope Monsieur gives them hell in the morning for all the trouble they’ve caused. Come now—’
Jules said stubbornly: ‘You may laugh. But I tell you that Monsieur Garcin said—’
‘That old woman of a chemist? You should have better things to do than listen to village clack.’
‘All the same—’
Bernard said irritably: ‘For God’s sake, Jules! You can’t make every pretty girl a criminal because she makes a play for her betters. Now look, I’ve got to go. Which way are you bound?’
Jules sounded sulky. ‘Down towards Soubirous. It’s wearing on for morning.’
‘And your trick’s over? Right. I’ll go down that way with you. I brought the brake up to the end of the track, so I’ll run you down. You go on now while I turn the lamp down and close up.’
‘Okay.’ The stove-top clanked again as the second cigarette-butt followed the first. I heard Jules tread heavily towards the door. Beside me Philippe stirred again and muttered something in his sleep. The footsteps stopped. Jules said sharply: ‘What was that?’
‘What?’
‘I heard something. Through there, perhaps, or—’
Bernard said softly: ‘Open the door. Quickly.’ Jules obeyed. The fresh grey-morning smell pierced the blue scent of cigarettes and woodsmoke. ‘Nothing there.’ Jules’ voice came as if from a distance. I imagined him out on the verandah peering round the wall.
Bernard, just below us still, laughed his short hard laugh. ‘A mouse, friend Jules. You’re seeing a tiger in every tree tonight, aren’t you?’ He stretched noisily and yawned. ‘Well I’m for bed as well, though mine’ll not be as warm as yours, I’m afraid. What time does the Englishman get up here as a rule?’
‘Pretty early – that is, if he’s coming up here this morning. I wouldn’t know.’
‘Ah. Well, let’s be going. I hope to God the excitement’s over down at Valmy. Why the hell the Master should send me up here anyway I can’t imagine. Go on, mon ami. I’ll turn the lamp down and close up. I’ll follow you.’
‘I’ll wait for you.’
‘Eh? Oh, very well … there, that’s it. I suppose the stove’s safe? Yes, well … I’d have thought that bed of yours would have put a bit of hurry into you, friend Jules.’ He was going. His voice dwindled towards the door. Beside me Philippe moved his head and his breath touched my cheek softly.
Jules’ voice said, with the good temper back in it: ‘Ah, that bed of mine. Let me tell you, copain …’
The door shut quietly, lopping off Jules’ embroidery of his favourite motif. I heard his voice faintly, fading off into the dawn-hush that held the forest. I hadn’t realised how quiet it was outside. Not a bough moved; not a twig brushed the shingles. Philippe breathed softly beside me. From somewhere a woodpigeon began its hoarse roucouling.
Soon the sun would be up. It would be a lovely day. I lay back beside Philippe, shaking as if I had the fever.
The reprieve from terror had been so sudden that it had thrown me out of gear. All through that conversation I had crouched, straining every sense to interpret the two men’s intentions, but with my mind spinning in a useless, formless confusion. At one moment it seemed to me that I ought to call out and disclose our presence to Jules, who was not a Valmy employee, and who would at any rate save us from any harm that Bernard might intend. At the next moment I found myself dazedly listening to Jules accusing, Bernard defending me. And what he’d had to say was odd enough: Léon de Valmy was not perturbed; it was known that I was fond of the boy; and Monsieur Raoul ‘could be left out of it’ … Bernard, in fact, had taken some pains to suppress the very gossip that I had imagined he and Albertine had engineered. No wonder I was shaken and confused. Had I been wrong? Could I possibly have been wrong? Surely Léon de Valmy, if he were guilty, must know from my flight with Philippe that I suspected him. If he were guilty, he couldn’t be unperturbed; and if he were guilty, why should Bernard defend me to Jules? And Raoul was out of it. Dear Lord, had I been wrong?
But something fretted at me still. The whole conversation had had about it a curious air of inversion, something off-key that had sounded in Bernard’s defence of me and in that slow, deliberative tone he had used.
I lay there quietly, savouring our safety and the stillness of Dieudonné, while the pigeon cooed peacefully in the pine-tops outside, and the racing blood in my body slowed down to normal. Philippe stirred again and said: ‘Mademoiselle?’ and relaxed once more into sleep. I smiled a little, thinking with another quick uprush of relief that, had he spoken so clearly before, Bernard must surely have heard him. After all, he had been standing just below us, while Jules was almost at the door …
On the thought I came upright in the darkness, dry-lipped, my heart going wild again in my breast.
Bernard must surely have heard him. Of course Bernard had heard him.
Bernard had known we were there.
So that was it. No other explanation would fit the facts and explain the curious overtones to that conversation. No wonder it had seemed off-key. No wonder I had been bogged down between friend and enemy.
Bernard had known. And it hadn’t suited him to find us while Jules was there. That was why, though he’d been interrupted on his way up to the loft, he hadn’t finished the search. That was why he had refused to ‘hear’ what Jules had heard; why he had tried to get Jules to go on ahead while he stayed behind to ‘close up’.
It also explained very effectively his playing-down of the effect of our flight at Valmy. Whatever was discovered in the morning, it was obvious that Bernard’s presence in the forest would have to be explained. The simplest and safest thing to do was obviously to tell some version of the truth. With me crouched not four feet above his head he’d had to play a very careful game. I was listening, and he didn’t want to flush the quarry … not before he had a chance to come back alone.
Because of course he would come back. I was out of my blankets almost before the thought touched me, and creeping soundlessly across the floor to the trapdoor. For all I had heard Jules talking away down the forest path I was taking no risks of a door that closed to leave the enemy inside and waiting. I lay flat beside the trap and slowly, slowly, eased it up till the tiniest crack showed between it and the floor. I peered through as best I could. Some light through the badly-fitting shutters showed an empty room.
I flew back to Philippe’s side, but as I put out a hand to shake him awake I checked myself. I knelt beside him, my hands clutched tightly together, and shut my eyes. I could not wake the child on this wave of shaking terror. I must take control again. I must. I gave myself twenty seconds, counting them steadily.
He would come back. He would take Jules home in the shooting-brake, let himself be seen starting for Valmy, and then he would come back. He would be as quick as he could, because the night was wearing on for morning, and the night and the day were all they had.
I didn’t take the thought further; I didn’t want it put into words. I left it formless, a beat of fear through my body. How they would get away with it I couldn’t – wouldn’t – imagine, but in my present state of mind and in that dark hole at the top of the lonely forest anything seemed possible. I knelt there and made myself count steadily on through perhaps the worst twenty seconds of my life, while the terror, pressing closer, blew itself up into fantasy … the Demon King watching us from behind that bright window a mile away, hunting us down from his wheelchair by some ghastly kind of radar that tracked us through the forest. … I whipped the mad thought aside but the image persisted; Léon de Valmy, like a deformed and giant shadow, reaching out for us wherever we happened to be. Why had I thought I could get the better of him? Nobody ever had, except one.