The silly tears were running down my face. I bent to rouse Philippe.
Seventh Coach
16
Oh Sammy, Sammy, vy worn’t there a alleybi!
Dickens: Pickwick Papers.
He came awake instantly. ‘Mademoiselle? Is it morning?’
‘Yes. Get up, chicken. We’ve got to go.’
‘All right. Are you crying, mademoiselle?’
‘Good heavens, no! What makes you think that?’
‘Something fell on me. Wet.’
‘Dew, mon p’tit. The roof leaks. Now come along.’
He jumped up straight away, and in a very short space of time we were down that ladder, and Philippe was lacing his shoes while I made a lightning raid on William Blake’s cupboards.
‘Biscuits,’ I said cheerfully, ‘and butter and – yes, a tin of sardines. And I brought cake and chocolate. Here’s riches! Trust a man to look after himself. He’s all stocked up like a squirrel.’
Philippe smiled. His face looked a little less pinched this morning, though the grey light filtering through the shutters still showed him pale. God knows how it showed me. I felt like a walking ghost.
‘Can we make up the stove, mademoiselle?’
‘Afraid not. We’d better not wait here for Monsieur Blake. There are too many people about in the wood. We’ll go on.’
‘Where to? Soubirous? Is that where he is?’
‘Yes, but we’re not going towards Soubirous. I think we’ll make straight for Thonon.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Without breakfast?’ His mouth drooped and I’m sure mine did too. There had been a tin of coffee in the cupboard and the stove was hot; I’d have given almost anything to have taken time to make some. Almost anything.
I said: ‘We’ll find a place when the sun’s up and have breakfast outside. Here, put these in your pockets.’ I threw a quick glance round the hut. ‘All right, let’s go. We’ll make sure no-one’s about first, shall we? You take that window … carefully now.’
We reconnoitred as cautiously as we could from the windows, but anyone could have been hidden in the trees, watching and waiting. If Bernard had taken Jules down to Soubirous he wouldn’t be back yet, but even so I found myself scanning the dim ranks of the trees with anxious fear. Nothing stirred there. We would have to chance it.
The moment of leaving the hut was as bad as any we had yet had. My hand on the latch, I looked down at Philippe.
‘You remember the open space, the ride, that we came up? It’s just through the first belt of trees. We mustn’t go across it while we’re in sight of Valmy. We must go up this side of it, in the trees, till we’ve got over the top of the ridge. It’s not far. Understand?’
He nodded.
‘When I open this door, you are to go out. Don’t wait for me. Don’t look back. Turn left – that way – uphill, and run as fast as you can. Don’t stop for anything or anyone.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll be running with you. But if – anything – should happen, you are not to wait for me. You are to go on, across the hill, down to the nearest house, and ask them to take you to the police station in Thonon. Tell them who you are and what has happened. Okay?’
His eyes were too big and bright, but he nodded silently.
On an impulse, I bent and kissed him.
‘Now, little squirrel,’ I said, as I opened the door – ‘run!’
Nothing happened, after all. We slipped out of the hut unchallenged, and still unchallenged reached the summit of the ridge. There we paused. We had broken out of our hiding-place with more regard for speed than silence, but now we recollected ourselves and moved quietly but still quickly for a hundred yards more of gentle downhill before we halted on the edge of the ride.
Peering through a convenient hazel bush we looked uphill and down. The ride was straight and empty. On the far side the trees promised thick cover.
We ran across. Pigeons came batting out of the pine-tops like rockets, but that was all. We scurried deep into the young forest of larch and spruce, still so thickly set that we had to brush a way between the boughs with hands constantly up to protect our eyes.
The wood held the wet chill of early morning, and the boughs dripped moisture. We were soon soaked. But we held on doggedly on a long northward slant that I hoped would eventually bring us to a track or country road heading towards Thonon.
It was Philippe who found the cave. I was ahead of him, forging a way through the thick branches and holding them back for his passage, when I pushed through a wet wall of spruce, to find myself on the edge of an outcrop of rock. It was a miniature cliff that stuck out of the half-grown trees like the prow of a ship. The forest parted like a river and flowed down to either side, leaving the little crag with its mossy green apron open to the sky. I could hear the drip of a spring.
I said: ‘Watch your step, Philippe. There’s a drop here. Make your way down the side. That way.’
He slithered obediently down. I followed him.
‘Miss Martin, there’s a cave!’
I said thankfully: ‘And a spring. I think we might have a drink and a rest, don’t you?’
Philippe said wistfully: ‘And breakfast?’
‘Good heavens. Yes, of course.’ I had forgotten all about food in the haste that was driving me away from Bernard, but now I realised how hungry I was. ‘We’ll have it straight away.’
It wasn’t really a cave, just a dry corner under an overhang, but it provided some shelter from the grey forest-chill, and – more – gave us an illusion of safety. We ate without speaking, Philippe seemingly intent on his food, I with my ears straining for sounds that were not of the forest. But I heard nothing. The screech of a jay, the spattering of waterdrops off the trees, the clap of a pigeon’s wing and the trickle of the spring beside us … these made up the silence that held us in its safety.
And presently the sun came up and took the tops of the springtime larches like fire.
It may sound a silly thing to say, but I almost enjoyed that morning. The spell of the sun was potent. It poured down, hot and bright, while in front of it the wet greyness streamed off the woods in veils of mist, leaving the spruces gleaming darkly brilliant and lighting the tiny larch-flowers to a red flush along the boughs. The smell was intoxicating. We didn’t hurry; we were both tired, and, since we had followed no paths, it would only be the purest chance that would put Bernard onto our trail. And on this lovely morning it was impossible to imagine that such an evil chance existed. The nightmare was as good as over. We were free, we were on our way to Thonon, and Monsieur Hippolyte arrived tonight … And meantime the sun and the woods between them lent to our desperate adventure, not the glamour of romance, but the everyday charm of a picnic.
We held hands and walked sedately. In the older belt of the forest the going was easy. Here the trees were big and widely spaced, and between them shafts of brilliant sunlight slanted down onto drifts of last year’s cones and vivid pools of moss. Ever and again the wood echoed to the clap and flurry of wings as the ringdoves rocketed off their roosting-places up into the high blue.
Presently ahead of us we saw brighter sunlight at the edge of the mature forest. This ended sharply, like a cliff, for its whole steep length washed by a river of very young firs – babies, in all the beauty of rosy stems and a green as soft as woodsorrel. They split the older forest with a belt of open sunshine seventy yards wide. Between them the grass was thick and springing emerald already through the yellow of winter. On their baby stems the buds showed fat and pink.
We halted again at the edge of the tall trees before braving the open space. The young green flowed down the mountain-side between its dark borders, plunging into the shadow that still lay blue at the bottom of Dieudonné valley. Looking that way I could see the flat fields where cattle grazed; the line of willows that marked a stream; a scatter of houses; a farm where someone – tiny in the distance – stood among swarming white
dots that must be hens.
No-one was on the hillside. The inevitable woodpigeon played high above the treetops, riding the blue space like surf in ecstatic curved swoops and swallow-dives, wings raked back and breast rounded to the thrust of the air.
Nothing else moved. We plunged – Philippe was chest-high – across the river of lovely young trees. The fresh green tufts brushed hands and knees softly, like feathers; they smelt of warm resin. Halfway across Philippe stopped short and cried: ‘Look!’ and there was a fox slipping like a leaf-brown shadow into the far woods. He paused as he reached them and looked back, one paw up and ears mildly inquiring. The sun was red on his fur. Along his back the fine hairs shone like gold. Then he slid quietly out of sight and the forest was ours again.
All morning the enchantment held, our luck spinning out fine and strong, like the filigree plot of a fairytale. Almost, at times, we forgot the dark and urgent reason for our journey. Almost.
Some time before noon we came, after a slowish journey of frequent stops, and one or two forced diversions, on the road I had hoped to find. This was a narrow road between steep banks, that wound stonily the way we wanted to go, high above the valley which carried the main traffic route to the south. Our last stage had taken us through a rough tract of thorns and dead bracken, so it was with some thankfulness that we clambered through the wire fence and negotiated the dead brambles that masked the ditch.
Our luck had made us a little careless. As I landed on the gravel surface of the road, and turned to reach a hand to Philippe, the clang of metal and the swish of a car’s tyres close behind me brought me round like a bayed deer.
A battered Renault coasted round the bend in a quiet whiffle of dust that sounded a good deal more expensive than it looked. She slithered – with a few bangs and rattles that belied that expensively silent engine – to a stop beside us. The driver, a stout grey-stubbled character in filthy blue denims, regarded us benevolently and without the least curiosity from under the brim of a horrible hat.
He was a man of few words. He jerked a thumb towards the north. I said: ‘S’il vous plâit, monsieur.’ He jerked the thumb south. I said: ‘Merci, monsieur,’ and Philippe and I clambered into the back seat to join the other passengers already there. These were a collie-dog, a pig in what looked like a green string bag, and a rather nasty collection of white hens in a slatted box. A large sack of potatoes rode de luxe beside the farmer in the front seat. As I began, through the embraces of the collie-dog, to say rather awkwardly: ‘This is very kind of you, monsieur,’ the Renault lurched forward and took a sharp bend at a fairly high speed and still without benefit of engine, but now with such a succession of clanks and groans and other body-noises that conversation – I realised thankfully – was an impossibility.
He took us nearly two miles, then stopped to put us down where a farm track joined the road.
To my thanks he returned a nod, jerked his thumb in explanation down towards the farm, and the Renault after it. The track down which he vanished was a dirt road of about one in four. We watched, fascinated, until the Renault skated to a precarious standstill some two inches from the wall of a Dutch barn, and then turned to go on our way, much heartened by an encounter with someone who quite obviously had never heard of the errant Comte de Valmy, and who was apparently content to take life very much as it came. He might also, I thought cheerfully, be deaf and dumb. Our luck seemed to be running strongly enough even for that.
Our road ran fairly openly now along the hillside, so we kept to its easier walking. The lift had done something to cheer Philippe’s flagging spirits; he walked gamely and without complaint, but I could see that he was tiring, and we still had some way to go … and I had no idea what we might yet have to face.
He set off now cheerfully enough, chatting away about the collie and the pig. I listened absently, my eyes on the dusty length of road curling ahead of us, and my ears intent on sounds coming from behind. Here the road wound below a high bank topped with whins. I found myself watching them for cover as we passed.
Half-a-mile; three-quarters; Philippe got a stone in his shoe and we stopped to take it out. We went on more slowly after that. A mile; a mile-and-a-quarter; he wasn’t talking now, and had begun to drag a bit; I thought apprehensively of blisters, and slackened the pace still further.
I was just going to suggest leaving the road to find a place for lunch when I heard another car. An engine, this time, coming from the north. She was climbing, and climbing fast, but for all that, making very little more noise than the old Renault coasting. A big car: a powerful car … I don’t pretend I recognised the silken snarl of that engine, but I knew who it was. The sound raked up my backbone like a cruel little claw.
I breathed: ‘Here’s a car. Hide, Philippe!’
I had told him what to do. He swarmed up the bank as quick and neat as a shrew-mouse, with me after him. At the top of the bank was a thicket of whins, dense walls of green three or four feet high with little gaps and clearings of sunlit grass where one could lie invisibly. We flung ourselves down in one of these small citadels as the Cadillac took a bend three hundreds yards away. The road levelled and ran straight below us. He went by with a spatter of dust and the hush of a gust of wind. The top was down and I saw his face. The little claw closed on the base of my spine.
There was no sound in the golden noon except the ripple of a skylark’s song. Philippe whispered beside me: ‘That was my cousin Raoul, mademoiselle.’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought he was in Paris?’
‘So did I.’
‘Is he – couldn’t we have – wouldn’t he have helped us?’
‘I don’t know, Philippe.’
He said, on a note of childish wonder: ‘But … he was so nice at the midnight feast.’
A pause.
‘Wasn’t he, mademoiselle?’
‘I – yes. Yes, Philippe, he was.’
Another pause. Then, still on that terrible little note of wonder: ‘My cousin Raoul? My cousin Raoul, too? Don’t you trust him, mademoiselle?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and then, desperately: ‘No.’
‘But why—?’
‘Don’t Philippe, please. I can’t—’ I looked away from him and said tightly: ‘Don’t you see, we can’t take risks of any kind. However sure we are we’ve got to be – we’ve got to be sure.’ I finished a bit raggedly. ‘Don’t you see?’
If he saw anything odd in this remarkably silly speech he didn’t show it. With a shy but a curiously unchildlike gesture he put out a hand and touched mine. ‘Mademoiselle—’
‘I’m not crying, Philippe. Not really. Don’t worry. It’s only that I’m tired and I didn’t get much sleep last night and it’s long past time for food.’ Somehow I smiled at him and dabbed at my face while he watched me with troubled eyes. ‘Sorry, mon p’tit. You’re standing this trek of ours like a Trojan, and I’m behaving like a fool of a woman. I’m all right now.’
‘We’ll have lunch,’ said Philippe, taking a firm hold of the situation.
‘Okay, Napoleon,’ I said, putting away my handkerchief, ‘but we’d better stay where we are for a little while longer, just to make sure.’
‘That he’s really gone?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that he’s really gone.’
Philippe relaxed obediently into the shelter of the whins, and lay chin on hand, watching the road below him through a gap in the thick green. I turned on my back so that the sun was on my face, and closed my eyes. Even then I didn’t want to face it. I wanted to go on, blind, cowardly, instinct-driven … but as I lay there listening for the engine of his car the thing that I had been trying to keep back, dammed out of mind, broke over me. And before I had thought further than simply his name I knew how very far I was – still was – from jettisoning him along with the others. Instinct might make me shrink from Léon de Valmy, and keep me a chilly mile away from Héloïse, but – it seemed – whatever evidence, whatever ‘proof’ I was offered, I still sprang
without thought straight to his defence.
Because you want it that way. Haven’t you been enough of a fool, Cinderella? I stirred on the warm grass with sharp discomfort, but still somewhere inside me hammered the insistent advocate for the defence …
Everything that had happened since Raoul had entered the affair, everything he had said and done, could bear an innocent interpretation as well as a guilty one … or so I told myself, groping wearily, confusedly, back through the fogs of memory. A word here, a look there – never did frailer witnesses plead more desperately. He had not known of the attempts to get a non-French-speaking governess; he hadn’t been worried, only amused, at the thought that I might have eavesdropped on his father’s conversation; he had seemed as shocked as I was over the shooting in the wood; his sharp questions about William Blake, and that curiously touchy temper he had shown, might have been due to jealousy or some other preoccupation, and not to the realisation that the ‘friendless’ orphan was in touch with a tough-looking Englishman in the neighbourhood; and that blast of the horn that brought Philippe out onto the balcony – that might have been fortuitous. Bernard hadn’t spoken of it. As for Bernard’s flat statement to Berthe that it had been Raoul who had shot at Philippe in the wood, I didn’t regard that as evidence at all. Even in his drunken mood, and however sure he had made himself of Berthe, Bernard might well hesitate to admit that kind of guilt to her. Then at the dance …