Nine Coaches Waiting (10 page)

"I'm all right," I said.

But when I tried to move towards the car I found that my knees were very shaky still, and I was thankful for his support.

He said quickly: "You're limping. You
are
hurt."

I found myself reassuring him. "Not by you. I slipped and fell when I tried to jump out of the way. It's only a bumped knee or something. Honestly, that's all."

He said, sounding worried: "Well, I think the sooner I get you up to the château and find you a drink, the better. You'll have to get in by the driver's door, I'm afraid. The other one's rather difficult of access just at present."

This was, I saw, only too true. The big car, in swerving to avoid me, had skidded slightly on the damp tarmac, and run up onto the right-hand verge of the road beyond the bridge. The verge at this point was a muddy grass bank, mercifully not very steep, but quite steep enough to cant the car at a crazy-looking angle.

I looked at it guiltily, and then up at Raoul de Valmy's impassive face. "I-it isn't damaged, is it?"

"I don't think so. Would you rather wait on the road while I straighten her out, or had you better get in and sit down?"

"I think if it's all the same to you I'll sit down."

"Of course." He opened the nearside door. I got in-with just a little difficulty, as my knee was undoubtedly stiff, and got myself somehow past the wheel and into the passenger's seat. He leaned into the car and groped in the darkness under the dash. There was a click, and the headlamps flashed on, so that just in front of the car the first bend and slope of the zigzag strode forward at us, a ragged white wall of tree and rock, not six feet from the front bumper.

He didn't even glance at it. "Just a minute," he said. He slammed the door and went round to the back of the car I closed my eyes to shut out the sight of that looming rock-wall, and lay back in the deep seat, relaxing as well as I could. The car was very big and very comfortable, even tilted as it was at that odd angle. It smelled faintly of cigarettes and expensive leather. I opened my eyes again. In the light reflected back off the rock ahead the bonnet gleamed long and black-plenty of horses under that, I thought, and remembered Mrs. Seddon's description:
"As long as the Queen Mary and a horn like the Last Trump"
I wondered what Raoul de Valmy's lucky number was…

I settled my shoulders back in the luxurious seat. The shaky feeling had almost gone. Suddenly out of nowhere I remembered something I had once heard at the Constance Butcher-a piece of servant-girls' lore which had amused me at the time and now came back with an added point.
If you ever get run over, be sure
and pick a Rolls-Royce
… Well, there was something in that, I reflected… and a Cadillac was perhaps not a bad second choice, especially when it had as good a driver as Raoul de Valmy at the wheel. Now that the first shock had subsided I realised perfectly well how near I had been to being badly hurt, through my own silliness. Moreover it was no thanks to me that Monsieur Raoul's expensive Cadillac hadn't smashed itself against the parapet.

I became aware that Raoul de Valmy was still behind the car. I peered back through the swirls of mist to see him bending over a rear wing, while torchlight moved slowly over the metal. I bit my lip, but before I could speak he had straightened up, switched off the torch, and come swiftly round to the driver's door.

He slanted a quick look at me as he slid in beside me. "All right?" I nodded. "We'll soon get you home. Hold tight."

He touched the starter button and the engine snarled to life. He thrust the big car very gently forward and to the left; she moved, jerked, hesitated, and then the front wheels swooped down with a plunge to the level of the road. The back wheels seemed to mount for a moment, then slid down after them, and the car rolled onto the level road and stopped there, rocking gently on her superb springs.

“
Et voilà
," said Raoul de Valmy, and smiled at me.

As his hand moved on the hand-brake I said, in a small voice: "Monsieur de Valmy."

The hand paused. "Yes?"

"Before you take me back I-I'd like to apologise. I'm most awfully sorry, really I am."

"Apologise? And for what? My dear, ma'am-"

I said: "Don't be so
nice
about it,
please!
I know it was really my fault and you're making me feel a
worm
!" I heard him laugh, but I went on doggedly and not very clearly: "I had no business to be in the road and you saved my life by doing what you did and then I went and was rude to you and you were nothing but nice to me when ninety-nine drivers out of a hundred would have blasted me from here to Madagascar, and it's true, I do feel a worm. An utter
crawling
worm! And"-I took breath and finished idiotically-"if you've damaged your car you can stop it out of my wages!"

He was still laughing at me. "Thank you. But it's not damaged, as it happens."

"Is that the truth?" I asked suspiciously.

"Yes. Not a scratch. I thought I heard something as she skidded, but it was only a bit of a fallen branch hitting the wheel. Not a mark. So no apologies please, Miss Martin. If anybody should apologise, it's I. I believe I swore at you. I'm sorry."

"That's all right," I said, a little awkwardly. "We were both a bit shaken up, I suppose. I didn't quite know where I was or what I was saying."

He said nothing. He seemed to be waiting. He made no move to start the car. I stole a sidelong look at him and saw that he was watching me steadily, with the amusement gone from his face. It was an oddly daunting look, and, though he had been much nicer to me than I deserved, I found that I was gripping my hands between my knees to give myself courage to go on.

I said: "I knew so little about what I was saying that I'm afraid I gave myself away to you."

"When you spoke to me in French." It was not a question.

"Yes."

His hand moved to the ignition, and the engine died. He cut off the headlights, so that the car stood islanded in the little glow of side and tail-lamps. He half-turned towards me, his shoulder propped back against the door. I couldn't see his face now, and his voice told me, nothing. He said: "This is interesting. So I was right?"

"That they didn't know I was partly French when I got the job? Yes."

He said: "I'm not your employer, you know. You don't have to explain. But as a matter of curiosity, do I understand that you did deliberately deceive my father and Madame de Valmy over this?"

"I-I'm afraid so."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted the job."

"But I don't see why-"

I pressed my hands tightly together, and said carefully: "I
needed
the job. I-I'll try and tell you why, though I don't suppose you'll understand…" He started to say something but I went on quickly and not very coherently: "I'm partly French and I was brought up in Paris. When I was fourteen Maman and Daddy were killed in a plane crash. Daddy was writing a script for a film to be made in Venice, and Maman went with him for the holiday. The-oh, the details don't matter, but I finished up in an orphanage in London… I don't know if you've ever been inside an orphanage?"

"No."

"Well, the details don't matter there, either. They were very kind to me. But I wanted-oh, to
live
, to find some place in the world that was mine, and somehow I seemed to be getting nowhere. My schooling was all to blazes, what with the war and -and everything, so I can't do much, but I got a job at a small private school. I-I wasn't very happy there, either. Then when one of our governors heard that Madame de Valmy wanted an English governess it seemed like a gift from heaven. I told you I'm not qualified to do much, but I can look after children and I knew I could make a good job of Philippe's English and I thought it would be so wonderful to be in France and living in a real home again."

He said, very dryly: "So you came to Valmy."

"Yes. That's all."

There was a pause. He said: "I do understand, I think. But there was no need to explain all this to me, you know. I've no right to question you."

I said shyly: "I felt I sort of owed you something. And you did ask me why I wanted the job."

"No. You misunderstand me. I asked you why you had deceived my father and Héloïse about it."

I began, rather stupidly: "I told you-"

"I should have said, rather, why you
had
to deceive them. I'm not concerned in the least with the fact that you did do so." I caught the glimmer of a smile. "I merely find myself wondering why it was necessary. Are you trying to tell me that you concealed the fact you were partly French because you wouldn't in that case have got the job?"

"I-yes, more or less."

A little silence. "Indeed."

"It wasn't put like that," I said hastily, “not said in so many words. But-but I honestly did get the impression that it might have mattered. I mean, once we had got past the point where I should have told Madame de Valmy I couldn't very well go back and confess or she'd have thought there was something queer about me and she'd never have looked at me. And she'd made rather a lot of the fact that I wouldn't be tempted to lapse into French when I was talking to Philippe-I'm supposed always to talk to him in English, you see. I didn't really see that it mattered, myself, because I could have taken care to speak English with him anyway, but-well, she was so emphatic about it that I-oh, I just let it slide. I know I was silly," I finished miserably, "and it's such a stupid little thing, but there it is."

"And I suppose I'm to understand," he said, still rather dryly, "that they still don't know."

"Yes."

"I see." To my relief he was beginning to sound amused again. "Haven't you found that such a deception-I'm sorry I started by using such a harsh term for it-has its socially embarrassing moments?"

"You mean overhearing things I'm not meant to? No, because Monsieur's and Madame's manners are too good." Here he laughed outright, and I said rather confusedly: "I mean- when I meet them without Philippe they always talk English, and when I take Philippe to see them they talk about his lessons, which I know about anyway; and in any case I don't listen."

He said: "Well, I should stop worrying about it. As far as I can see it can hardly matter one way or the other." He turned in his seat and started the engine. The lights sprang up. I could see him smiling. "And I certainly didn't mean to add insult to injury by turning this into an inquisition! Forgive me; it's not my affair."

"Monsieur," I said quickly, in a rather small voice.

"Yes?"

"I-I wonder if you'd not-I mean-" I floundered and stopped.

He gave me a quick glance. "You wondered if I'd not give you away?"

"Yes. Please," I added, feeling even smaller.

There was a fractional pause. "For what it's worth," said Raoul de Valmy, slowly, "I shan't… And now I think we'd better make tracks…"

The car moved forward and took the first slope at a decorous speed.

He drove in silence, and I had time to reflect with wry surprise that shock produces some very odd after-effects. What on earth had impelled me to blurt out that naive and stumbling betrayal of my pathetic needs to Raoul de Valmy's no doubt hard-bitten sophistication?
Daddy and Maman… they were very kind to me at the orphanage…
What did it matter to him? A dreary little fool, that was what he'd think of me. And that's what I was, anyway, I thought, remembering my depression of earlier that evening. I bit my lip. What did it matter anyway? He probably hadn't even been listening. He had more important things than Philippe's governess on his mind. Bellevigne, for instance, or whatever had driven him up to see his father in the face of what appeared to be his normal welcome at the Château Valmy.

I found myself remembering Florimond's presence with a species of relief, and then felt amused. Raoul de Valmy would hardly need the same kind of protection as Philippe.

I said: "Monsieur Florimond's here this evening."

"Oh? Is he staying long?"

"I think he only came to dine, but if the mist gets thicker he'll probably stay."

"Ah," said Raoul, "that's something else to put down to the fog's account. It's an ill wind, they say."

I was still working that one out when the Cadillac swung off the last rise and came to a whispering halt at the foot of the steps.

Seddon was crossing the hall as we came in. He turned when he saw Raoul and came hurrying to meet him, then his eye fell on me, and a slight twitch of dismay crossed his impassive features.

"Mr. Raoul! Miss Martin! Has there been an accident?"

"I nearly ran Miss Martin over on the Valmy bridge. I suggest that you get her some brandy now, and send someone up-stairs-"

"No, please," I said quickly, "I don't want any brandy. I’m all right now, Seddon. Mr. Raoul never touched me; I slipped and fell as I was getting out of the way. It was all my fault. I'll just go upstairs and have a bath and then make some tea in the pantry."

Seddon hesitated, glancing at Raoul, but I said firmly: "It's all right, really it is. I don't want a thing."

"Well, miss, if you're sure…" He looked at Raoul. "I'll have your things taken straight up, sir. You're in your usual room."

"Thank you. How are you, Seddon? And Mrs. Seddon? The asthma keeping away?"

"Yes, thank you, sir, we're both well."

"That's fine. I'll come upstairs in a moment. Where's everyone? The small salon?"

"Yes, sir. Monsieur Florimond is here, sir, and he's staying the night. Shall I tell Madame you've arrived?"

"If you will. Say I'll join them in a few minutes."

"Very good, sir." And, with a final glance at me, he went. As I turned to follow him, Raoul said: "You've torn your frock."

I looked down, unable to suppress a movement of dismay. My coat was open. At the hem of my frock a tear showed.

"Oh, yes. I remember now. I felt it catch on something. But it's nothing much. It'll mend."

He was frowning. "The bumper must have caught you. I really am most-"

"Raoul?"

The voice came from behind me. I jumped and spun round. Raoul must have been inured to his father's methods of approach, for he merely turned, said "How d'you do, sir?" and held out a hand. As Leon de Valmy took it his brilliant dark gaze turned to me.