Nine Coaches Waiting (14 page)

For better or worse, I was head over ears in love with Raoul de Valmy.

It was to have been expected. It would be a very odd Cinderella indeed who could be thrown out of such dreary seclusion as the orphanage had offered me, into contact with Raoul de Valmy, without something of the sort happening. A man whose looks and charm were practically guaranteed to get him home without his even trying, had exerted himself to give a very lonely young woman a pleasant evening.
An evening to remember
.

That it was no more than that I was fully aware. In spite of a quantity of romantic reading and a great many wistfully romantic (and very natural) dreams, I had retained a good deal of my French commonsense. That, along with the nastily-named English quality called phlegm, would have to help me to control the present silly state of my emotions. I had had my evening. Tomorrow would be another day.

It was. Soon after breakfast the big Cadillac disappeared down the zigzag; Raoul, I supposed, gone back to Bellevigne. I tore my thoughts resolutely away from a Provencal idyll where he and I drove perpetually through moonlit vineyards with an occasional glimpse of the Taj Mahal and the Blue Grotto of Capri thrown in, and concentrated rather fiercely on Philippe.

Nobody owned to the rifle incident, and there was little hope of tracing the culprit. But Philippe seemed to have got over his fright so the matter was allowed to drop. Life fell back into its accustomed pattern, except for the exciting prospect of the Easter Ball, which now provided a thrilling undercurrent to conversation below stairs. This function had for many years been held at Valmy on Easter Monday. Mrs. Seddon and Berthe, when they were about the schoolroom domain, delighted to tell me of previous occasions when the Château Valmy had been
en f
ȇ
te
.

"Flowers," said Berthe (who seemed to have taken serenely for granted my sudden acquisition of fluent French), "and lights everywhere. They even used to string lights right down the zigzag to the Valmy bridge. And there's floodlights in the pool and they turn the big fountain on, and there are little floating lights in the water, like lilies. Of course," pausing in her dusting to look at me a little wistfully, "it isn't as grand as it used to be in the old days. My mother used to tell me about it when the old Comte was alive; they say he was rolling in money, but of course it's not the same anywhere now, is it? But mind you, it'll be pretty grand, for all that. There's some as says it's not quite the thing to have a dance this Easter seeing as Monsieur le Comte and Madame la Comtesse were killed last year, but what I says is them that's dead is dead (God rest their souls)"- crossing herself hastily-"and them that's alive might as well get on with the job. Not wanting to sound hard-hearted, miss, but you see what I mean?"

"Of course."

"Anyway, Madame says it'll be just a small private party- not but what
they
call a small private party'd make your eyes stand out on stalks, as the saying is… if you'll excuse the expression, miss. But"-here she brightened, and picked up a brass tray which she began to polish with vigour-"we'll have
our
dance just as usual."

"You have one, too?"

"Oh yes. All the tenants and the château staff. It's the night after the château dance, on the Tuesday, down at Soubirous. Everybody goes."

This, not unnaturally, left me wondering which dance I would be invited to attend, but it was very soon made clear to me by Madame de Valmy that for this occasion at any rate I was above the salt… So I, too, succumbed to the universal feeling of pleased anticipation, a pleasure shot through with the worry of not having a dance frock to wear. I didn't worry about this for long. I am French enough where my needle is concerned, and I had been-there was nothing else to do with it-saving the greater part of my salary for the last weeks. I didn't doubt that I could achieve something creditably pretty, even though it might not stand comparison with the Balmains and Florimonds with which the ballroom would probably be crowded. It would be pretty enough to sit out in, I told myself firmly, thrusting back a vision of myself
en grande tenue
,
dancing alone with Raoul in a ballroom about the size of Buckingham Palace. But it would
not
(this with a memory of Jane Eyre's depressing wardrobe and Léon de Valmy's mocking eye) it would
not
be "suitable". I wasn't down to bombazine yet.

My next half-day off fell some three days after the incident with the rifle, and I went down to Thonon on the afternoon bus, with the object of buying stuff and pattern for a dance-frock. I didn't think it would be much use looking for a ready-made in so small a place as Thonon, and Évian or Geneva prices were beyond me. So I hunted happily about for the best material I could afford, and at last was rewarded with a length of some pretty Italian stuff in white, webbed with gossamer silver threads, at what the saleswoman called a bargain price, but to me represented a horrifying proportion of my savings. I fought a swift losing battle with the remnants of my commonsense, and firmly planted the money down on the counter with no trace of regret. Then, clutching the parcel to me, I pushed my way out through the shop door into the windy street.

It was almost five o'clock, one of those dark, rain-laden April days with a warm gusty wind blowing. There had been showers earlier, but now a belated gleam from the west glissaded over the wet housetops and etched the budding chestnuts of the square in pale gold against a slaty sky. Many of the shop-windows were bright already, harshly-lit grocery-stores and boucheries mirrored to soft orange and copper in the damp pavements. Over the flower-stall where Raoul had bought me the freesias a naked gas-jet hissed and flared in the gusty wind, now a snake-long lash of brilliant flame, now a flattened moths- wing of cobalt and sulphur-yellow. The tyres of passing cars hissed softly on the wet tarmac. Here and there among the bare chestnuts an early street-lamp glowed.

I was longing for a cup of tea. But here my sense of economy, subconsciously outraged, no doubt, by the recent purchase, stepped in to argue the few francs' difference between tea and coffee. A
salon de thé
would be expensive, while coffee or an aperitif were at once far better quality and half the price.

I abandoned the tea and walked across the square towards a restaurant where a glass screen protected the tables from the fitful wind.

As I gained the pavement and paused to choose a table, a diffident voice spoke beside me.

"Miss Martin?"

I turned in some surprise, as the voice was unmistakably English. It was the fair young man of my encounter in Soubirous. He was dressed in a duffel coat supplemented by a shaggy scarf. His thick fair hair flopped in the wind. I had forgotten what an enormous young man he was. The general effect was that of a huge, shy blond bear, of a bigness incredible, as Philippe would have said.

He said: "D'you remember me? We met in Soubirous on Monday."

"Of course I remember you, Mr. Blake." I could have added that I was hardly likely to have forgotten him-the one English lamb in my pride of French tigers-but thought it was, perhaps, not tactful… "I hope you haven't had to use any of those bandages and things?"

He grinned. "Not yet. But I expect to daily. Were you- were you thinking of going in here for a drink? I wonder if you would-may I-I mean I'd be awfully glad if-"

I rescued him. "Thank you very much. I'd love to. Shall we sit out here where we can watch what's going on?"

We settled ourselves at a table next to the glass screen, and he ordered coffee in his laborious English-French. His look of triumph when in actual fact coffee did arrive, made me laugh. "You're coming on fast," I said.

"Aren't I? But really, you know, it's hard to go wrong over
café.”

"Are you managing your shopping all right today?"

"Oh, yes. You can usually find someone who understands English in Thonon. Besides," he said simply, "it's cheaper. I usually shop in the market. I don't need a lot."

"Are you living up at the hut now?"

"For the time being. I sleep at the Coq Hardi in Soubirous a couple of nights in the week, and I have the odd meal there, but I like the hut. I get a lot of work done, and I can come and go and eat and sleep when I like."

I had a momentary and irresistible vision of him curling up in straw, nuts in the pocket, like a bear, for the winter. This made me think of Philippe. I said: "Does anyone from your side of the valley ever bring a gun over to Valmy?"

"Only if invited. There are shooting-parties in the autumn, I believe."

"I didn't mean that. Would the foresters or keepers or anyone ever go stalking foxes or chamois or something with a rifle?"

"Good Lord, no. Why?"

I told him in some detail just what had occurred on Tuesday afternoon with Philippe. He listened with great attention, shocked out of his shyness by the end into sharp expostulation.

"But that's frightful! Poor kid. It must have been a beastly shock-and for you, too. The best you can say of it is that it's bl-er, criminal carelessness! And you say they've found no trace of the chap?"

"No-one admits it, even now it's known that nobody was hurt. But that's easy to understand; he'd lose his job just like
that,
and jobs aren't all that easy to come by up here."

"True enough."

"What's more," I said, "when Monsieur de Valmy sent a couple of men down to look at the place where it happened, they found that the bullet had been dug out of the tree."

He whistled. "Thorough, eh?"

"Very. D'you see what it means? Those men were sent down there as soon as Philippe and I got back to the house. It means, first, that the chap with the gun knew what had happened when he loosed it off; and, second, that he didn't run away. He must have sat tight waiting for Philippe and me to go, then skated down to remove the evidence." I looked at him. "The thought of him hiding up there in the wood watching us is rather- nasty, somehow."

“I’ll say. What's more, the man's a fool. Accidents do happen, and if he'd done the decent thing and come tearing down to apologise and see you both home the odds are he'd have got off with just a rocket from the boss. He must have lost his head and then not dared own up. As it is, I hope they do get him. What's de Valmy doing about it?"

"Oh, he's still having inquiries made, but I don't think they'll produce anything now. All we've got so far is lashings of alibis, but the only two I'm prepared to believe are Monsieur de Valmy's and the butler's."

William Blake said: "The son was here, wasn't he?"

His tone was no more than idle, but I felt the blood rushing hotly to my cheeks. Furious with myself, I turned away to look out through the glass at the now twilit square. If I was going to blush each time his name was mentioned, I wouldn't last long under the Demon King's sardonic eye. And this sort of nonsense I couldn't expect him to condone. I fixed my gaze on the brilliant yellows and scarlets of the flower-stall, and said indifferently: "He was; he went away the morning after it happened. But you surely can't imagine-" In spite of myself my voice heated. "It certainly couldn't have been
him!"

"No? Cast-iron alibi?"

"No. It-it just couldn't!" Logic came rather late in the wake of emotion: "Dash it
, he'd
have no reason to sneak about digging bullets out of trees!"

"No, of course not."

I said, rather too quickly: "How are the weevil-traps?"

That did it. He was the last person to see a reference to his work, however abruptly introduced, as a mere red herring. Soon we were once more happily in full cry… I listened, and asked what I hope were the right questions, and thought about the Valmy dance. Would he be there? Would he?
Would
he?

I came out of my besotted dreaming to hear William Blake asking me prosaically which bus I intended to take back to Valmy. "Because," he said, "one goes in about twelve minutes, and after that you wait two hours."

"Oh Lord, yes," I said, "I mustn't miss it. Are you getting the same one?"

"No. Mine goes just before yours. I'm sloping off this weekend to meet some friends at Annecy." He grinned at me as he beckoned the waiter. "So forget you saw me, will you, please? This is A.W.O.L. but I couldn't resist it. Some pals of mine are up in Annecy for the week and they want me to go climbing with them."

"I won't give you away," I promised.

Here the waiter came up, and Mr. Blake plunged into the dreadful struggle of The Bill. I could see all the stages; understanding the waiter's total, translating it mentally into English money, dividing by ten for the tip, reckoning to the nearest round number for simplicity, slowly and painfully thumbing over the revolting paper money, and finally handing over a sheaf of it with the irresistible feeling that so much money cannot possibly be the fair amount to pay for so little.

At last it was over. He met my eyes and laughed, flushing a little. "I'm all right," he said defensively, "until they get to the nineties, and then I'm sunk. I have to make them write it down."

"I think you're wonderful. By the time you've been here another month you'll talk it like a native." I stood up. "Thank you very much for the coffee. Now you'd better not bother about me if you want to dash for that bus."

"You're right. I'm afraid I'll have to run." But he still hesitated. "It was-awfully nice meeting again… Could we-I mean, when do you have your next afternoon off?"

"I don't quite know," I said, not very truthfully. Then I relented. "But I'm often in Thonon on a Friday afternoon and -look, for goodness' sake… isn't that your bus? The driver's getting in! Go on, run! Is this yours? And this?… Goodbye! Have a good week-end!"

Somehow he dragged his paraphernalia up from the floor, lurched, with rope and rucksack perilously swaying, between the crowded tables, thrust his way through the swing door I grabbed and held wide for him, then waved a hand to me and ran. He reached the bus just as the driver's door slammed, and the engine coughed noisily to life. Then wedged-it seemed inextricably- on the narrow steps of the bus, he managed to turn and wave again cheerily as the vehicle jerked and roared away.