Nine Coaches Waiting

CHAPTER 9

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 fȇte.

"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.

Feeling breathless myself, I waved back, then turned hurriedly to cross the road to where my own bus waited. But before I could step forward a big car slid to a halt beside me with a soft hush of wet tyres. A Cadillac. My heart, absurdly, began to race.

The door was pushed open from inside. His voice said: "Going my way?"

He was alone in the car. I got in beside him without a word, and the car moved off. It swung round the corner of the square where the Soubirous bus still stood beside its lamp, and turned into the tree-lined street that led south.

It was odd that I hadn't really noticed till now what a beautiful evening it was. The street-lamps glowed like ripe oranges among the bare boughs. Below in the wet street their globes glimmered down and down, to drown in their own reflections. He hangs in shades the orange bright, like golden lamps… and on the pavements there were piles of oranges, too, real ones, spilled there in prodigal piles with aubergines and green and scarlet peppers. The open door of a wine-shop glittered like Aladdin's cave with bottles from floor to roof, shelf on shelf of ruby and amber and purple, the rich heart of a hundred sun-drenched harvests. From a brightly-lit workmen's café nearby came music, the sound of voices loud in argument, and the smell of new bread.

The last lamp drowned its golden moon in the road ahead. The last house vanished and we were running between hedgeless fields. To the right a pale sky still showed clear under the western rim of the rain-clouds, and against it the bare trees that staked the road stood out black and sheer. The leaves of an ilex cut the half-light like knives. A willow streamed in the wind like a woman's hair. The road lifted itself ahead, mackerel-silver under its bending poplars. The blue hour, the lovely hour…

Then the hills were round us, and it was dark. Raoul was driving fast and did not speak. I said at last, a little shyly: "You're back soon. You haven't been to Bellevigne, then?"

"No. I had business in Paris."

I wondered what kettles of fish he'd (in Mrs. Seddon's unlikely idiom) been frying. "Did you have a good time?"

He said "Yes", but in so absent a tone that I hesitated to speak again. I leaned back in silence and gave myself up to the pleasure of being driven home.

It was not for some time that I-absorbed in my dreaming-noticed how he was driving. He always travelled fast and there was a slickness about the way the big car sliced through the dark and up the twisting valley that demonstrated how well he knew the road; but there was something in his way of handling her tonight that was different.

I stole a glance at his silent profile as we whipped round and over a narrow bridge that warped the road at right-angles. He had done nothing that was actively dangerous; in the dark we would have had ample warning of an approaching car, but we were skirting danger so closely that it now occurred to me a little sickeningly to wonder if he were drunk. But then our headlamps swung across a curve of rock overhanging a corner and in the meagre light that was reflected back into the car I saw his face. He was sober enough; but that something was the matter was quite evident. He was frowning at the road ahead, his eyes narrowed in the flying dark. He had forgotten I was there. It seemed quite simply as if something had put him into a bad temper and he was taking it out on the car.

"What were you doing down in Thonon?" The question was no more than a quid pro quo, but he spoke so abruptly out of the silence that it sounded like an accusation, and I jumped and answered almost at random.

"What? Oh, it's my afternoon off."

"What do you usually do on your afternoon off."

"Nothing very much. Shopping-a cinema, anything."

"You go out to friends sometimes?"

"No," I said, surprised. "I don't know anyone. I told you when we… I told you on Tuesday."

"Oh. Yes. So you did."

We had run into another shower, and big drops splashed and starred the windscreen. The car slewed overfast round a sharp bend in the road, and rubber whined on the wet tarmac. The headlights brushed a brilliant arc across a wall of rock. Reflected light swirled through the car, showing his face abstracted, still frowning. He hadn't once so much as glanced at me. He was probably hardly aware of who it was he had in the car. So much for Cinderella.

I sat quietly beside him and nibbled the bitter crusts of commonsense.

We had gone two-thirds of the way to Valmy before he spoke again. The question was sufficiently irrelevant and surprising.

"Who was that chap?"

I was startled and momentarily at a loss. I said stupidly; "What chap?"

"The man you were with in Thonon. You left the café with him."

"Oh, him."

"Who else?" The phrase, brief to the point of outness, made me glance at him in surprise.

I said shortly: "A friend of mine."

"You told me you didn't know anyone hereabouts."

"Well," I said childishly, "I know him."

This provoked a glance, quick and unsmiling. But he only said: "How is Philippe?"

"All right, thank you."

"And you? No more mishaps?"

"No."

My voice must have sounded subdued and even sulky, but I was having a fight to keep it level and unbetraying. Pride had joined forces with commonsense, and the two were flaying me. The phantoms of those idiotic dreams wavered, mockingly, in the dark… I don't know quite what I had expected, but… that man, and this: the change was too great; it was unnerving.

I was also making a grim little discovery that frightened me. The dreams might be moonshine, but the fact remained. I was in love with him. It hadn't been the wine and the starlight and all the trappings of romance. It hadn't even been the charm that he'd been so lavish with that night. Now I was undoubtedly sober and it was raining and the charm wasn't turned on… and I was still in love with this cold-voiced stranger who was making futile and slightly irritated conversation at me. At least I'd had the sense all along to try and laugh at my own folly, but it was no longer even remotely amusing.

I bit my lip hard, swallowed another choking morsel of that bitter bread, and wished he would stop asking questions that needed answering. But he was persisting, still in that abrupt tone that made his queries-harmless enough in themselves- sound like an inquisition.

It seemed he was still curious about William Blake, which, in view of my promise to say nothing, was awkward.

"Who is he? English?"

"Yes."

"He took the Annecy bus, didn't he? A climber?"

"He's climbing from Annecy this week-end."

"Staying there?"

"Yes."

"Did you know him in England?"

"No."

"Oh. Then he's been to Valmy?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Is he staying hereabouts for long?"

"Look," I said, concerned, "does it matter? What's the inquisition for?"

A pause. He said, sounding both stiff and disconcerted: "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware I was trespassing on your private affairs."

"They're not private. It's just-I-I didn't mean… I didn't want to tell you…" I floundered hopelessly. He threw me an odd look. "Didn't want to tell me what?"

"Oh-nothing. Look," I said desperately, "I don't want to talk. D'you mind?"

And now there was no doubt whatever about his mood. I heard him say "God damn it," very angrily under his breath. He wrenched the Cadillac round the Valmy bridge and hurled her up the zigzag about twice as fast as he should have done. The car snarled up the ramp like a bad-tempered cat and was hauled round the first bend. "You mistake me." Still that note of barely-controlled exasperation. "I wasn't intending to pry into what doesn't concern me. But-"

"I know. I'm sorry." I must have sounded nearly as edgy as he did, shaken as I was, not only by his anger and my failure to understand it, but by a humiliation that he couldn't guess at. "I expect I'm tired. I trailed about Thonon for a couple of hours looking for some dress-material-oh!" My hands flew to my cheeks. "I must have left it-yes, I left it in the café. I put it on the ledge under the table and then William had to run for the bus and-oh dear, how stupid of me! I suppose if I telephone-oh!"

His hand had moved sharply. The horn blared. I said, startled: "What was that?" "Some creature. A weasel, perhaps."

The trees lurched and peeled off into darkness. The next corner, steeply embanked, swooped at us.

I said: "Do you have to go so fast? It scares me."

The car slowed, steadied, and took the bend with no more than a splutter of gravel.

"Did you tell him about the shooting down in the beech- wood?"

"What? Who?"

"This-William."

I drew a sharp little breath. I said clearly: "Yes, I did. He thinks that probably you did it yourself."

The car whispered up the slope and nosed quietly out above the trees. He was driving like a careful insult. He didn't speak. The devil that rode me spurred me to add, out of my abyss of stupid self-torment: "And I didn't know that I was supposed to account to my employer for everything I said and did on my afternoon off!"

That got him, as it was meant to. He said, between his teeth: "I am not your employer."

"No?" I said it very nastily because I was afraid I was going to cry. "Then what's it to do with you what I do or who I see?"

We were on the last slope of the zigzag. The Cadillac jerked to a stop as the brakes were jammed on. Raoul de Valmy swung round on me.

"This," he said, in a breathless, goaded undertone. He pulled me roughly towards him, and his mouth came down on mine.

For a first kiss it was, I suppose, a fairly shattering experience. And certainly not such stuff as dreams are made on… If Cinderella was out, so decidedly was Prince Charming…

Raoul de Valmy was simply an experienced man shaken momentarily out of self-control by anger and other emotions that were fairly easily recognisable even to me. I say "even to me" because I discovered dismayingly soon that my own poise was a fairly egg-shell affair. For all my semi-sophistication I emerged from Raoul's embrace in a thoroughly shaken state which I assured myself was icy rage. And certainly his next move was hardly calculated to appease. Instead of whatever passionate or apologetic words should have followed, he merely let me go, re-started the car, opened the throttle with a roar, and shot her up the slope and onto the gravel sweep without a word. He cut the engine and opened his door as if to come round. I didn't wait I whipped out of the car, slammed the door behind me and in a silence to match his own I stalked (there is no other word) across the gravel and up the steps.

He caught up with me and opened the big door for me. He said something-I think it was my name-in an undervoice sounding as if it were shaken by a laugh. I didn't look at him. I walked past him as if he didn't exist, straight into a blaze of light, and Léon de Valmy, who was crossing the hall.

He checked his chair in its smooth progress as I came in, and turned his head as if to greet me. Then his eyes flicked from my face to Raoul's and back again, and the Satanic eyebrows lifted, ever so slightly. I turned abruptly and ran upstairs.

If it had needed anything else to shake me out of my daydreams, that glance of Léon de Valmy's would have done it I leaned back against the door in my darkened bedroom and put the back of my hand to a hot cheek. There was blood bittersweet on my tongue from a cut lip… Léon de Valmy would have seen that too. The whip flicked me again. Not only my face, my whole body burned.

I jerked myself away from the door's support, snapped on the light, and began to tug savagely at my gloves. Damn Raoul; how dared he? How dared he? And Léon de Valmy-here the second glove catapulted down beside the first-damn Léon de Valmy, too. Damn all the Valmys. I hated the lot of them. I never wanted to see any of them again.

On the thought I stopped, half-way out of my coat.

It was more than possible that I wouldn't have the chance. The Demon King didn't have to be en rapport with me to guess what had happened tonight, and it was quite probable that he would take steps to dismiss me.

It didn't occur to me at once that, if there were any hint of trouble, Raoul would certainly tell his father the truth, that I had been kissed against my will, and that since for the greater part of the year Raoul was not at Valmy to trouble the waters I would probably be kept on.

I only know that as I hung my coat with care in the pretty panelled wardrobe I felt depressed-more, desolate-at the prospect of never seeing any of the hated Valmys again.

My lip had stopped bleeding. I put on fresh lipstick carefully, and did my hair. Then I walked sedately out and across my sitting-room to the schoolroom door.

I opened it and went in. The light was on, but no-one was there. The fire had burned low and the room had an oddly forlorn look. One of the french windows was ajar and the undrawn curtains stirred in a little breeze. On the rug lay an open book, its pages faintly vibrant to the same draught.

Puzzled, I glanced at the clock. It was long past time for Philippe's return from the salon. Madame de Valmy would be upstairs, dressing. Well, I reflected, it wasn't my affair. On this night of all nights I wasn't going to see why he was being kept late below stairs. No doubt he would come up when his supper did.

I was stopping for a log to throw on the fire when I heard the sound. It whispered across the quiet room, no more loudly than the tick of the little French clock or the settling of the woodash in the grate.

A very slight sound, but it lifted the hair on my skin as if that, too, felt the cold breath from the open window. It was no more than a voiced sigh, but, horribly, it sounded like a word…

"Mademoiselle…"

I was across the schoolroom in one leap. I ran out onto the dark balcony and turned to peer along the leads. To right and left the windows were shut and dark. From behind me the lighted schoolroom thrust a bright wedge across the balcony, making my shadow, gigantic and grotesque, leap and posture before me over the narrow leads.

"Philippe?"

The ends of the balcony were in deep darkness, invisible. I plunged out of my patch of light and ran along past the windows. The balcony floor was slippery with rain.

"Philippe? Philippe?"

That terrible little whisper answered me from the darkest corner. I was beside it, kneeling on the damp leads. He was crouched in a tiny huddle up against the balustrade.

Or rather, where the balustrade had been. It was no longer there. In its place was merely the workman's ladder I had wedged that very day across below the unsteady coping. Beyond this frail barrier was a gap of darkness and a thirty-foot drop to the gravel and that terrible line of iron spikes…

My hands were on him, my voice hoarse and shaking.

"Philippe? What happened? You didn't fall. Oh, God, you didn't fall… oh my little Philippe, are you all right?"

Small cold hands came up and clung. "Mademoiselle…"

I had him in my arms, my face against his wet cheek. "Are you all right, Philippe? Are you hurt?" I felt his head shake. "Sure? Quite sure?" A nod. I stood up with him in my arms. I am not big myself, but he seemed a feather-weight, a bundle of birds'-bones. I carried him into the schoolroom, over to the fireplace, and sat down in a wing-chair, cuddling him close to me. His arms came up round my neck and clung tightly. I don't know what I was saying to him: I just hugged and crooned rubbish over the round dark head that was buried in my neck.

Presently he relaxed his strangle-hold and stopped shivering. But when I tried to stoop for a log to put on the fire he clutched me again.

"It's all right," I said quickly, "I'm only going, to build the fire up. We must get you warm, you know."

He suffered me to lean forward, throw some faggots onto the sullen fire, and stir it until some little tongues of flame crept up around the new wood and began to lick brightly at it. Then I sat back in the chair again. It seemed to me that the reassurance of my arms was of more importance at that moment than food or hot drinks or any of the remedies that would follow shortly. I said gently: "Was it the car, Philippe?"

That little nod again.

"But I warned you the stone was loose. I told you not to go galloping along there, didn't I?"

He said in a voice that sounded thinner and more childish than ever: "I heard the horn. I thought… Daddy always used, to… on the drive… to tell me he was coming…”

I bit my lip, then winced. Of course, the horn. I remembered that arrogant blare on the zigzag. I had seen nothing on the road. It had merely been part, no doubt, of the flare of temper and excitement that had driven Raoul to kiss me… and driven Philippe out into the darkness, running in a stubborn, passionate hope to fling himself against the rotten stone.

I said, as much to myself as him: "I'd no idea the coping was as dangerous. It only seemed to move such a little. I thought it would hold. Thank God I put the ladder across. Why I did… oh, thank God I did!" Then a thought struck me. "Philippe, where was Berthe? I thought she was with you."

"Bernard came for her. Something she'd forgotten to do."

"I see," I waited for a moment, holding him. "Look, Philippe, we've got a lovely fire now. What about warming those frozen paws?"

This time he unclasped himself without demur, and slipped down onto the rug beside me, holding out his hands obediently to the now bright blaze of the fire. I ruffled his hair. "This is wet, too. What a beastly night to go running out in! You are a little ass, aren't you?"

He said, his voice still too tight and sharp: "I hit the stone and then it wasn't there. It went over with a bang. I bumped into something. I couldn't see it. I fell down. I couldn't see anything."

"It was the ladder you bumped into, Philippe. You couldn't have fallen over, you know. There wasn't really a gap. You couldn't see the ladder, but it's a very solid one. It was really quite safe. Quite safe."

"It was awful. I was frightened."

"I don't blame you," I said, "I'd have been scared stiff. It was awfully sensible of you not to move."

“I didn’t dare. I knew you'd come." The plain, pale little face turned to me. "So I waited."

Something twisted inside me. I said lightly: "And I came. What a good thing I came up in your cousin Raoul's car instead of waiting for the bus!" I got up and bent over him, slipping my hands under his arms. "Now, come and get these things off. Up with you." I swung him to his feet. "Goodness, child, you've been lying in a puddle! What about a hot bath and then supper in bed with a fire in your bedroom as a treat?"

"Will you be there?"

"Yes."

"Have your supper in my room?"

"I'll sit on your bed," I promised.

The black eyes glinted up at me. "And play Peggitty?"

"Oho!" I said. "So you're beginning to make capital out of this, are you? What's more, you're getting too dashed good at Peggitty. All right, if you'll promise not to beat me." I swung him round and gave him a little shove towards the door. "Now go and get those things off while I run the bath."

He went off obediently. I rang the bell for Berthe, and then went to turn on the bath. As I watched the steam billowing up to cloud the tiles I reflected a little grimly that now I should have to face Léon de Valmy again tonight.

Above the noise of the taps I heard a knock on the door that led from my sitting-room. I called: "Come in." Berthe had been very quick.

I turned then in surprise, as I saw that it wasn't Berthe, but Madame de Valmy. She never came to these rooms at this hour, and as I caught sight of her expression my heart sank. This, then, was it. And I hadn't had time to think out what to say.

I twisted the taps a little to lessen the gush of water, and straightened up to meet whatever was coming.

"Miss Martin, forgive me for interrupting you while you're changing-" Hardly a frightening opening, that; her voice was apologetic, hurrying, almost nervous: "I wondered-did you remember to get me my tablets in Thonon this afternoon?"

I felt myself flushing with relief. "Why, yes, madame. I was going to give them to Berthe to put in your room. I'm sorry, I didn't realise you'd want them straight away."'

"I'm out of them, or I wouldn't trouble you."

"I'll get them now," I said. "No, really, it's no trouble, madame. You're not interrupting me; this bath isn't for me. Philippe!"

I bent to test the water, then turned off the taps. "Oh, there you are, Philippe. Hop in, and don't by-pass your ears this time… I'll get your tablets straight away, madame. My bag's through in my sitting-room."

As I came out of the bathroom and shut the door behind me I was wondering how to tell her about the recent near-tragedy. But as I looked at her all idea of this melted into a different consternation. She looked ill. The expression that I had thought forbidding was revealed now as the pallor, set lips, and strained eyes of someone on the verge of collapse.

I said anxiously: "Are you all right? You don't look well at all. Won't you sit down for a few minutes? Shall I get you some water?"

"No." She had paused by the fireplace, near a high-backed chair. She managed to smile at me; I could see the effort it took. "Don't worry, my dear. I-I didn't sleep well last night, that's all. I don't manage very well nowadays without my medicine."

"I'll get it straight away." Throwing her another doubtful look I ran towards my sitting-room, only to remember that the tablets were after all still in the pocket of my coat. I turned swiftly.

"Madame!" The horrified anxiety of the cry was wrenched out of me by what I saw.

She had put a hand on the chair-back, and was leaning heavily on it. Her face was turned away from me, as if she were listening to Philippe splashing in the bathroom, but her eyes were shut, and her cheeks were a crumpled grey. No beauty there. She looked old.

At my exclamation she started, and her eyes flew open. She seemed to make an effort, and moved away from the chair.

I ran back to her. "Madame, you are ill. Shall I call someone? Albertine?"

"No, no. I shall be all right. My tablets?"

"In my coat-pocket in the wardrobe. Yes, here they are… She almost grabbed the box I held out to her. She managed another smile. "Thank you. I'm sorry if I alarmed you… these things pass. Don't look so worried, Miss Martin." In the bathroom Philippe had set up a shrill tuneless whistling that came spasmodically between splashes. Héloïse glanced towards the noise and then turned to go. She said, with an obvious attempt at normality: "Philippe sounds… very gay."

"Oh, yes," I said cheerfully, "he's fine."

I opened the door for her, straight onto Berthe who had paused outside, one hand lifted to knock…

"Oh, miss, you startled me! I was just coming." Her eyes went past me and I saw them widen. I said quickly: "Madame isn't too well. Madame de Valmy, let Berthe see you to your room. I only rang for her to light Philippe's bedroom fire, but I'll do that myself. Berthe," I turned to the girl, who was still looking curiously at Héloïse de Valmy's drawn face, "take Madame to her room, ring for Albertine and wait till she comes. Then come back here, please."

"Yes, miss."

As I knelt to light Philippe's bedroom fire my mind was fretting at a new problem-a minor one, which I suppose I had seized on almost as a relief from the other worries that beat dark wings in my brain. What were those tablets that were apparently the breath of life to Madame de Valmy? Did she drug? The ugly thought swirled up through a welter of ignorant conjectures, but I refused to take it up. The things were only sleeping-tablets, I was sure; and presumably some people couldn't live without sleeping-tablets. But-the flames spread merrily from paper to sticks and took hold with a fine bright crackling-but why did she want the tablets now? She had looked as if she were suffering from some sort of attack, heart or nerves, that needed a restorative or stimulant. The sleeping-tablets could hardly be the sort of life-savers that her anxiety had implied.

I shrugged the thoughts away, leaning forward to place a careful piece of coal on the burning sticks. I was ignorant of such matters, after all. She had certainly seemed ill, and just as certainly old Doctor Fauré must know what he was about…

Another burst of whistling and a messy-sounding splash came from the bathroom, and presently Philippe emerged, his hair in damp spikes, and his usually pale cheeks flushed and scrubbed-looking. He had on his nightshirt, and trailed a dressing-gown on the floor behind him.

Something absurd and tender took me by the throat. I looked austerely at him. "Ears?"

He naturally took no notice of this poor-spirited remark, but came over to the hearthrug beside which the fire now burned brightly. He said, with palpable pride: "I escaped death by inches, didn't I?"

"You did indeed."

"Most people would have fallen over, wouldn't they?"

"Decidedly."

"Most people wouldn't have had the presence of mind to stay quite still, would they?"

I sat back on my heels, put an arm round his waist, and hugged him to me, laughing. "You odious child, don't be so conceited I And look, Philippe, we won't tell Berthe when she comes back, please."

"Why?"

"Because your aunt isn't well, and I don't want any alarming rumours getting to her to upset her,"

"All right. But you'll-you'll tell my uncle Léon, won't you?"

"Of course. It's a marvel to me that he didn't hear the coping fall himself. He was in the hall when I got in, and that was only a few moments after-ah, Berthe. How is Madame?"

"Better, miss. She's lying down. Albertine's with her and she knows what to do. She says Madame will be well enough to go down to dinner."

"I'm glad to hear it. She… she took her tablets, Berthe?"

"Tablets, miss? No, it was her drops. She keeps them in the cabinet by her bed. Albertine gave her them."

"I-see. By the way, Berthe, weren't you supposed to be around the schoolroom wing while I was out?"

"Yes, miss, but Bernard came for me." She shot me a sidelong glance. "There was some linen I'd been sewing. Bernard wanted it for the Master, and couldn't find it, though I'd told him where it was."

"I see. Well, that shouldn't have kept you very long."

"No, miss. But it wasn't where I'd put it. Somebody'd moved it. Took me quite a while to find." She was eyeing me as she answered, obviously wondering why I questioned her so sharply.

I said: "Well, Master Philippe went outside to play on the balcony and got wet, so he's had a bath and is to have supper in bed. Do you mind bringing it in here, Berthe, and mine as well, please?"

"Not a bit, miss. I'm sorry, miss, but you see Bernard was in a hurry and-" She broke off. She was very pink now and looked flustered.

I thought: "But in no hurry to let you go, that's obvious. And I don't suppose you insisted." I said aloud: "It's all right, Berthe, it doesn't matter. Master Philippe's not a-baby, after all. It was his own fault he got a wetting, and now he gets the reward, and you and I have the extra work. That's life, isn't it?"

I got up, briskly propelling Philippe towards the bed. "Now in you get, brat, and don't stand about any longer in that nightshirt."

I had supper with Philippe as I had promised, and played a game with him and read him a story. He was still in good spirits, and I was glad to see that his own part in the accident was assuming more and more heroic proportions in his imagination. At least nightmares didn't lie that way.

But when I got up to go out to the pantry to make his late- night drink he insisted a little breathlessly on coming with me. I thought it better to let him, so he padded along in dressing- gown and slippers and was set to watch the milk on the electric ring while I measured the chocolate and glucose into the blue beaker he always used. We bore it back to the bedroom together and I stayed with him while he drank it. And then, when I would have said goodnight, he clung to me for a moment too long, so that I abandoned my intention of seeing Léon de Valmy that night, and spent the rest of the evening in my own room with the communicating doors open so that the child could see my light.

When finally I was free to sit down beside my own fire I felt so tired that the flesh seemed to drag at my bones. I slumped down in the armchair and shut my eyes. But my mind was a cage gnawed by formless creatures that jostled and fretted, worries-some real, some half-recognised, some unidentified and purely instinctive-that wouldn't let me rest. And when, very late, I heard a car coming up the zigzag I jumped to my feet, nerves instantly a-stretch, and slid quietly through the shadows to the door of Philippe's room.

He was asleep. I went wearily back into my bedroom and began to undress. I was almost ready for bed when someone knocked softly on the door.

I said in some surprise: "Who is it?"

"Berthe, miss."

"Oh, Berthe. Come in."

She was carrying a parcel, across which she looked at me a little oddly. "This is for you, miss. I thought you might be in bed, but I was told to bring it straight up."

"No, I wasn't in bed. Thank you, Berthe, Goodnight."

"Goodnight, miss."

She went. I sat down on the bed and opened the parcel in some mystification.

I sat there for some time, looking down at the silver-webbed folds of Italian stuff that glimmered against the coverlet. Then I saw the note.

It read:

"For the kiss I can't honestly say I'm sorry, but for the rest I do. I was worried about something, but that's no excuse for taking it out on you. Will you count the fetching of your parcel as penance, and forgive me, please?

R.

PS. Darling, don't be so Sabine about it. It was only a kiss, after all”

Before I got to sleep that night, I'd have given a lot, drugs or no, for some of Madame de Valmy's tablets.

Chapter 10

Next morning it might all have been illusion. Raoul left Valmy early, this time for the south and Bellevigne. I didn't see him go. Whether or not he and Léon had spoken of last night's incident I never discovered; certainly nothing was said or even hinted to me. When I braved my employer in the library to tell him about Philippe's second escape, he received me pleasantly, to darken as he listened into a frowning abstraction that could have nothing to do with my personal affairs.

He was sitting behind the big table in the library. When I had finished speaking he sat for a minute or two in silence, the fingers of one hand tapping the papers in front of him, his eyes hooded and brooding. I had the feeling that he had forgotten I was there.

When he spoke it was to say, rather oddly: "Again.”

I said, surprised: "Monsieur?"

He glanced up quickly under his black brows. I thought he spoke a little wearily. "This is the second time in a very few days, Miss Martin, that we have had cause to be indebted to you for the same rather terrible reason."

"Oh. I see," I said, and added awkwardly: "It was nothing. Anyone-"

"Anyone would have done the same?" His smile was a brief flash that failed to light his eyes. "So you said earlier, Miss Martin, but I must insist as I did before that we are lucky to have so…” a little pause… "so foresighted a young woman to look after Philippe. When did you put the ladder there?"

"Only yesterday."

"Really? What made you do it?"

I hesitated, choosing my words. "The other day I went out myself along the balcony to-to wait for a car coming. I remembered the coping had felt a bit loose before, and tried it. It was loose, but I’d have sworn not dangerously. I intended to mention it to you, but honestly I'd no idea it was as bad. Then the car came, and… I forgot about it."

I didn't add that the day had been Tuesday and the car Raoul's. I went on: "Then yesterday, just before I was due to leave for Thonon I went out again, to see if it was going to rain. The ladder was lying on the balcony and I wondered if workmen had been there. I remembered then about the coping, but I was in a tearing hurry for the bus, so I just shoved the ladder along in front of the balustrade and went. I-I vowed I'd remember to tell you as soon as I got back. I-I'm terribly sorry." I finished lamely.

"You needn't be. You were not to know that the stone was as rotten as that. I did have a report on the stonework of that balcony some time ago, but there was no suggestion that the repair was urgent. There'll be trouble about this, you may be sure. But meanwhile let us just be thankful for whatever inspired you to put the ladder across."

I laughed, still slightly embarrassed. "Perhaps it was Philippe's guardian angel."

He said dryly: "Perhaps. He seems to need one."

I said: "There's a phrase for it, isn't there? 'Accident-prone'."

"It seems appropriate." The smooth voice held a note that, incongruously, sounded like amusement. I looked sharply at him. He returned my look. "Well? Well, Miss Martin?"

"Nothing," I said confusedly. "I-it's just that-you take it so calmly. I'd have expected you to be angry."

"But I am," he said, "very angry." And meeting his eyes squarely for the first time during the interview I realised with a shock that he spoke a little less than the truth. He smiled again, and quite without amusement, "But being a rational man, I keep my anger for those who are to blame. It would ill become me, mademoiselle, to vent it on you. And I cannot spend it in protests, because that is… not my way."

He swung the wheel-chair round so that he was turned a little away from me, looking out of the window across the rose- garden. I waited, watching the drawn, handsome face with its fine eyes and mobile mouth, and wondering why talking with Léon de Valmy always made me feel as if I were acting in a play where all the cues were marked. I knew what was coming next, and it came.

He said, with that wry calmness that was somehow all wrong: "When one is a cripple one learns a certain… economy of effort, Miss Martin. What would be the point of raging at you here and now? You're not to blame. How's Philippe?"

The question cut across my thoughts-which were simply that I'd have liked him better indulging in some of that profitless rage-so abruptly that I jumped.

"Philippe? Oh, he's all right, thank you. He was frightened and upset, but I doubt if there'll be any ill effects. I imagine it'll soon be forgotten-though at the moment he's inclined to be rather proud of the adventure."

He was still looking away from me across the garden. "Yes? Ah well, children are unpredictable creatures, aren't they? Le pauvre petit, let's hope he's at the end of his 'adventures', as you call them."

"Don't worry, Monsieur de Valmy. He's having a bad spell, but it'll get over." I added, inconsequentially: "When does Monsieur Hippolyte get home?"

He turned his head quickly. The chair moved at the same moment so suddenly that the arm struck the edge of the desk. His exclamation was lost in my cry.

"You've knocked your hand!"

"It's nothing."

"The knuckle's bleeding. Can I get you-"

"It's nothing, I tell you. What were you saying?"

"I forget. Oh yes, I wondered if you knew just when Philippe's Uncle Hippolyte gets home?"

"I have no idea. Why?"

My eyes had been on his grazed hand. I looked up now to see him watching me, his face as usual calmly shuttered, but with something in that quiet gaze that held me staring without reply.

Then the brilliant eyes dropped. He moved a paper-knife an inch or two and repeated casually: "Why do you ask?"

"Just that Philippe keeps asking me, and I wondered if you'd heard from Monsieur Hippolyte.”

"Ah. Yes. Well, I don't know exactly, I'm afraid. My brother has always been slightly unpredictable. But he'll be away for another three months at least. I thought Philippe knew that. I believe his scheduled lecture-tour finished just before Easter, but he plans to stay for some time after that to assist the excavations at-as far as I remember-Delphi." He smiled. "My brother is a remarkably poor correspondent… I imagine that Philippe knows just about as much as I do." He lifted the paper-knife, placed it exactly where it had been before, looked up at me and smiled again, charmingly. "Well, Miss Martin, I won't keep you. I still have to divert some of that anger into its proper channels."

He was reaching for the house-telephone as I escaped. It occurred to me with wry surprise that "escape" was exactly the right word for my relieved exit from the library. The discovery annoyed me considerably. Damn it, the tiger played velvet-paws with me, didn't he?

But, unreasonable as it was, I couldn't rid myself of the impression that some of that much-discussed anger had been- whatever he said, whatever the probabilities-directed straight at me.

It was only a fortnight now to the Easter Ball, and I had to work fast. The weather was bad, so walks with Philippe were not obligatory, and though I took him several times to the stables to play on wet afternoons, we had a good deal of spare time indoors when I cut and sewed. Philippe and Berthe both appeared fascinated by the idea of making a dance-dress, and hung over me, fingering the stuff and exclaiming over every stage in its manufacture. Berthe was of rather more practical help than Philippe, as she gave me the use of her machine, and-since she was of my height and build-let me fit the pattern on her, never tiring of standing swathed in the glinting folds while I pinned and pulled and experimented.

As the days went by the chateau hummed with activity and pleased expectation. If there was indeed any shortage of money here, it could not have been guessed at. I did gather, from odd snippets of gossip to which I was careful to pay no attention, that much of the cost for the ball must be borne by Monsieur de

Valmy himself. Monsieur Hippolyte, it was whispered, didn't care for such things, and whereas in past years Philippe's father had willingly financed the affair and had invariably, with his wife, come from Paris to attend it, now that Monsieur Hippolyte was Philippe's co-trustee he was (I gathered) inclined to sit down rather tightly on the money-bags. Whatever the case, it seemed that Monsieur de Valmy was determined to recall at least some of the splendours of "the old Comte's" time. To my unaccustomed eye the preparations seemed lavish in the extreme. Rarely-used bedrooms were opened and aired-for there were to be guests over Easter week-end-the great ballroom and the big drawing-room were thrown open, chandeliers were washed, lustre by lustre, mirrors were polished, furniture and rugs spirited from one place to another, all, it seemed, under the eagle eye of Monsieur de Valmy. His chair was everywhere; if a servant dropped a piece of silver he was cleaning, the Master heard it; if a table was pushed along a parquet floor instead of being lifted, the Master spoke angrily from a corner of the room; he was even to be seen constantly on the upper corridors, swiftly propelling himself in and out of bedrooms and along corridors not commonly used by the family.

And so, bit by bit, corner by corner, the great house was prepared for the event of the year, and excitement seemed to thicken in the air as Easter drew nearer. Then came the final touches; flowers were carried in from the hot-houses, camellias and lilies and gorgeous blooms I didn't recognise, with tub after tub of bluebells and narcissi and tulips looking cool and virginal among the heavy-scented exotics. In one of the galleries there was even a miniature grove of willows over a shallow basin where goldfish glided, with cyclamens clustering like butterflies at the water's edge. Outside, floodlights had been fitted up, and a fountain like a firework shot its sparkling trails thirty feet towards Saturday's big yellow moon. For on Easter Eve the weather cleared, and Easter itself came in bright and beautiful, with a soft wind blowing that set the wild daffodils dancing in the woods, and put the seal on the success of the affair.

The Chateau Valmy was en fȇte.

On Saturday night after Philippe had gone to bed I put the finishing-touches to my frock. Berthe had stayed to help me, and now paraded it delightedly before me, while I sat on the floor among a scatter of pins and watched her with critical eyes.

“Ye-es," I said. "Turn round again, will you? Thanks. It’ll do, I think, Berthe."

Berthe twirled a curtsy in it, gay and graceful. It was amazing how she had shed her prim servant-maid attitude along with her uniform. In the shimmering dress she looked what she was a pretty country-girl, slim and young and-just now-flushed with excitement.

"It's lovely, miss, it's really lovely." She spun round so that the full skirt swirled and sank. She lifted a fold and fingered it almost wistfully. "You'll look beautiful in it."

"I've an awful feeling it'll look pretty home-made alongside the collection downstairs."

"Don't you believe it," said Berthe stoutly. "I’ve seen some of them; Mariette and me did most of the unpacking. The prettiest frock I think belongs to the Marquise in the yellow guest-room, and she's no oil-painting herself by a long chalk."

"Hush, Berthe," I protested, laughing, "you mustn't say things like that to me!"

She began to waltz round the room, humming a tune. "Of course Madame's always nice. She looks lovely in grande toilette -like a Queen. And that Madame Verlaine gets herself up very smart, doesn't she? Hers is black."

"Is Monsieur Florimond here?"

"Oh, he always comes. He says he wouldn't miss it for worlds. He dresses half the ladies, anyway."

I began to pick up the scattered pins, asking casually: "And Monsieur Raoul? Does he come to this affair as a rule?"

There was a tiny pause. At the edge of my vision I saw Berthe's circling form check and turn. I looked up to catch a sidelong glance before her eyes slid from mine. She plucked at a fold of the skirt. "He hasn't been for years. But they're expecting him-this time."

I said nothing, and picked up pins.

She came over to where I sat, her voice warming into naturalness again. "Why don't you try it on now, miss? Don't bother with those, I'll pick them up after."

"It's done," I said. 'There, that's the lot, I think."

"Don't you believe it," she said darkly. "We'll be finding them for weeks. Go on, miss, put it on, do. I want to see you in it, with the silver shoes and all."

I laughed and got up. "All right."

"It's a shame you haven't got a decent mirror. That one in the wardrobe door's no good at all, not for a long frock."

"It's all right. I told Madame I was making a frock and she said I might use the glass in her room. I'll just go along now and give it the final check-up. Tomorrow night I’ll have to make do in here."

She followed me into my bedroom, speaking a little shyly. "May I help you to dress tomorrow?"

"Why, Berthe, how nice of you! But you'll have so much to do! And I could manage quite well, really. I'm not used to luxuries, you know."

"I'd like to. I would really."

"Then thank you very much. I'd be awfully glad to have you."

Back in her uniform, she helped me pleasedly with the dress. At last I stood surveying myself in the narrow wardrobe mirror.

"Oh, miss, it's lovely!"

"We put a lot of work into it, Berthe. I'm terribly grateful to you for helping. I couldn't have managed without you."

I turned this way and that, eyeing the line and fall of the material, and wondering just how amateurish it was going to look against the other gowns downstairs. Then I saw Berthe's eyes in the glass. They were brilliant with uncomplicated excitement and pleasure. Her delight, it was obvious, wasn't fretted by the shades of Balenciaga and Florimond. "Oh, miss, it's lovely! There won't be one prettier! You'll look a picture! Wait, I'll get the shoes!"

She was scurrying towards a cupboard but I stopped her impulsively. "Berthe…"

She turned.

"Berthe, would you like to wear it too, for your own dance on Tuesday? You've probably got another just as pretty, but if you'd like it-"

"Oh, miss!" Her eyes grew enormous and she gripped her hands together. "Me? Oh, but I couldn't…Could I?"

"Why not? You look lovely in it, and it was practically made on you, after all. If you'd really like it, Berthe, I'd be terribly pleased for you to take it I don't suppose anyone'll recognise it.”

"No, they won't," she said ingenuously. "It'll be hired waiters here tomorrow, and Ber-the servants won't be about. If-if you really mean it-" She began to thank me again, but I said quickly:

"Then that's settled. Fine. Now I'll better fly if I'm to get to that looking-glass before Madame comes upstairs."

Berthe dived once more for the cupboard. "Your shoes! Put on your new shoes with it! "

"No, no, don't bother," I said hastily, making for the door, “I must run. Thanks again, Berthe! Goodnight!"

Madame de Valmy's bedroom adjoined a small sitting-room which she used in the mornings. I went through, leaving the connecting-door ajar.

Her bedroom was a beautiful room, all soft lights and brocade and elegant Louis Seize, with a positively fabulous glitter of silver and crystal on the toilet-table. An enormous Venetian mirror flanked the bathroom door, apparently held to the silk panelling by the efforts of the whole cherub choir.

I stood in front of this. The long window-curtains mirrored behind me were of rose-coloured brocade. The lighting was lovely. As I moved I saw the gleam of the cobwebbed silver thread shift and glimmer through the white cloud of the skirt the way sunlight flies along blown gossamer.

I remember that the thought that surfaced first in my mind was that now Cinderella had no excuse to stay away from the ball. And-at midnight?

Impatiently I shook my thoughts free, angry that I could still fool around even for a moment with the myth that I knew was nonsense. I'd burned myself badly enough on that star already.

Someone was at the sitting-room door. Berthe must have come along with the silver sandals. I called: "Come in. I'm through here," and made a face at myself in the glass. Here were the glass slippers. Damn it, I didn't stand a chance…

A quick tread across the sitting-room. Raoul’s voice said: "Héloïse, did you want me?"

Then he saw me. He stopped dead in the doorway.

"Why-hullo," he said. He sounded a little breathless, as though he'd been hurrying.

I opened my mouth to answer him, then swallowed and shut it again. I couldn't have spoken if I'd tried. I must just have gaped at him like a schoolgirl caught out in some escapade. I know I went scarlet.

Then I gathered up my skirts in clumsy hands and moved towards the doorway which he still blocked.

He didn't give way. He merely leaned his shoulders back against the jamb of the door and waited, as if prepared to settle there for the evening.

I took two more hesitating steps towards him, and then stopped.

"Don't run away. Let me look at you."

"I must. I mean, I'd better-"

He said: "Sabine," very softly, and the laugh in the word brought hotter colour to my face and my eyes up to his.

I'm not sure what happened next. I think he moved a little and said: "All right. So you really want to run

away?” And I think I said, somehow: "no," and then "Raoul," as his shoulders came away from the doorpost in a kind of lunge, and then he was across the room and had me in his arms and was kissing me with a violence that was terrifying and yet, somehow, the summit of all my tenderest dreams.

I pushed away from him at last, both hands against his chest. "But Raoul, why?”

"What d'you mean why?"

"Why me? Your father called me ‘Jane Eyre', and he wasn't far wrong. And you-you could have anyone.

So… why?"

"Do you want to know why?" His hands turned me round to face the mirror again, holding me back against him. I could feel his heart hammering against my shoulder-blade. His eyes met mine in the glass. "You don't have to be humble, ma belle. That's why."

An odd sensation took me, part triumphant and part forlorn. I said nothing. The cherubs peered at us blind-eyed. Behind us the rose and gold and crystal of the lovely room glowed like the Bower of Bliss. Raoul was watching my face.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could speak there came a slight sound from the other room. He turned his head sharply, and for a moment his hands tightened on my shoulders. Then he let me go and turned, saying coolly; "Ah, Héloïse. I was looking for you. I believe you wanted me."

I jumped and spun round. I felt the quick heat wash and ebb in my cheeks, leaving me cold and pale. We had been standing in full view of anyone entering the sitting-room. Héloïse de Valmy was there now, just inside the door, with Albertine beside her. She was speaking over her shoulder to someone- presumably one of the guests-behind her in the corridor, beyond my range of vision.

A woman's voice returned a soft reply and I heard skirts rustle away. It was impossible to tell if Madame de Valmy had seen Raoul holding me, but I knew Albertine had. Avoiding her dark malicious eyes I came quickly out of the bedroom with Raoul behind me.

I said, stammering: "Madame… I was using your glass to -to try my frock. You said I might…

It was still impossible to tell whether she had seen. Her light- grey eyes looked me up and down without expression. As usual, they were unsmiling, but I could detect no hint of displeasure in her face.

She said, in her cold composed voice: "Of course. Is that the dress you have made, Miss Martin? It's very pretty. You must be an accomplished needlewoman. Perhaps one day you might do some work for me?"

So she had seen. I felt Raoul, beside me, make a little movement. The burning colour washed back into my face. I said quickly: "It would be a pleasure, madame. Goodnight, madame. Goodnight, monsieur."

I didn't look at him. I slipped past Héloïse de Valmy into the welcome dimness of the corridor, and ran back to my room.

The next day passed in a whirl. I spent all my time with Philippe, who, alone of all the people in the house, seemed untouched by the general excitement, and was, indeed, indulging in a bout of the sulks at being left out of the Easter revels.

Luckily I didn't have to face Madame de Valmy. Just after lunch Albertine-was there a spark of malice in the smooth voice and face as she said it?-brought me a message which asked if we could please direct our afternoon's walk to the village to make some small purchases, as none of the servants (had she or had she not hesitated on the phrase "other servants"?) could be spared?

I agreed politely, and chided myself, as I took a reluctant, foot-trailing Philippe down to Soubirous, for being over-sensitive, Madame de Valmy would surely not put me so brutally in my place a second time, and as for Albertine, a servant's malice couldn't affect me.

But I began to wonder, a few minutes later, if this last was true. As I paused in the sunshine outside Monsieur Garcin's shop to fish in my bag for Albertine's note, the bead curtains over the chemist's doorway rattled aside, and Albertine herself came out. Albertine, who "could not be spared" today; for whom I was playing errand-boy. She must have set out for Soubirous almost immediately after briefing me.

I stared at her in amazement. She showed no sign of confusion, but slipped by me with one of her dark sidelong looks and small- lipped Mona Lisa smiles. She went into the confiserie just beyond the café.

When I pushed through the swinging beads myself into the spicy dimness of the shop, I was tense and nervous and very ready to discover in Monsieur Garcin's voice and attitude that same sidelong malice that I had now certainly seen in Albertine.

I told myself firmly that this was only fancy. But as I emerged from the pharmacy I came face to face with Madame Rocher, the curé's housekeeper, and this time there was no doubt about the chilliness of the greeting. If the good Madame could have passed by on the other side she would undoubtedly have done so. As it was she simply stared, nodded once, and gave me bonjour in a tone nicely calculated (as from virtuous matron to viper-in- the-bosom) to keep me in my place, while at the same time allowing just the faintest loophole for a possibly legitimate future. Philippe she greeted, quite simply, with pity.

And later, when I bought some chocolate in the confiserie I thought Madame Decorzent's fat smile was a little stiff today and her prune-black eyes were curious, almost avid, as she said glancing from Philippe to me: "And when are you leaving us mademoiselle?”

I said coolly, through the sudden hammering of my heart: "We don't go to Thonon for a good while yet, madame. Monsieur Hippolyte doesn't get back for three more months, you know."

And I almost swept Philippe out through the tinkling curtain of beads into the hot sunlight. Albertine had done her work all right. The news, with its attendant rumours, was all over Soubirous.

I ran the gauntlet of sundry other stares and whispers before I reached the bridge and faced-with poor Philippe maddeningly a-whine beside me-the long trudge up through the water-meadows.

I hadn't realised before what hard going it must have been for Cinderella.

After tea I went to look for Mrs. Seddon, to talk to her about whatever rumours were being put about below stairs, only to be told that the fuss and overwork occasioned by the ball had brought on "one of her attacks", and that she had gone to bed, unfit to speak to anyone. So I stayed with Philippe, my mind hovering miserably between remembered (and surely disastrous?) ecstasy, and my apparently imminent dismissal from Valmy. I am glad to remember that some of my worry was on behalf of Philippe…

By the time Berthe came up that evening to serve Philippe's supper, I was in a fairly lamentable state of nerves, and more than half inclined to shirk facing my host and hostess downstairs. Then Philippe chose to throw a tantrum, and refused with tears to go to bed at all unless I would come up later "in the middle of the night" and take him to peep at the dancing from the gallery. I promised, and, satisfied, he disappeared quietly enough with Berthe.

I shut the door on them, and went to run my bath.

Dressing for my first dance… and Raoul somewhere among the throng of dancers… I should have been happy, eager, excited. But my fingers shook as I opened a fresh tablet of scented soap, and later on when I was sitting in my petticoat brushing my hair, and a knock sounded on the door, I turned to face it as if it were a firing-squad.

"I'll go," said Berthe, who had disposed of Philippe and was helping me. She opened the door a little way, had a short muffled colloquy with whoever was outside, then shut the door and came back into the room holding a box.

I was still sitting at the dressing-table, hair-brush suspended. Berthe came over to me. She looked a little flushed as she handed me the box, and she avoided my eye.

"This is for you." Her tone-like her whole bearing that evening-was subdued and a little formal.

For a moment I thought of asking her what was being whispered, then I held my tongue. I didn't want to meet him- and Monsieur and Madame-fresh from Albertine's brand of backstairs gossip. The woman's glance had been smirch enough.

Et tu, Berthe, I thought, and took the box from her.

It was light and flat, with a cellophane lid glassing the dark heartshaped leaves and fragile blossoms of white violets; milk- white blooms, moth-white, delicate in dark-green leaves. There was the faintest veining of cream on throat and wing.

A card was tucked among the leaves. Without opening the lid I could see the single letter in an arrogant black scrawl: -R.

I finished dressing in silence.

Then I pinned the violets on, said quietly: "Thank you, Berthe," and went towards the music and the laughter.

Chapter 11

The ball was well under way, and I was thankful to see that Monsieur and Madame de Valmy had finished receiving. Their place near the banked flowers at the foot of the great staircase was empty. Now the hall was brilliant with a shifting mass of people. I hesitated on the gallery, having no mind to make an entrance alone down that impressive flight of steps; then three young women came chattering past me from some room along the corridor, and I followed as inconspicuously as I could in their wake.

It was easy enough to slip unremarked through the throng and into the ballroom itself, where I found a corner sheltered by a pillar and a bank of azaleas, and settled down quietly to watch the dancers.

I couldn't see Léon de Valmy's chair anywhere, but Héloïse, looking wonderful in a gown the colour of sea-lavender, was dancing with an elderly bearded man on whose breast the blue ribbon of an Order showed. I saw Florimond over by one of the windows talking, or rather listening, to a terrifying-looking old woman with a beak of a nose and improbable blue hair. He was leaning forward slightly, that flattering air of his assuring her that she was the most amusing and intelligent woman in the room. For all I know she may have been. But had she been the dreariest hag on earth I am sure that Florimond would have looked exactly the same.

I turned to look for Raoul. On a swirl of music the dancers near me swung and parted and I saw him. He was dancing with a blonde girl with slanting eyes and a beautiful mouth. She was in black, with a high neck and a straight-cut skirt that spoke of Madame Fath and made her look incredibly slender and fragile. She was dancing very close to him and talking rapidly, with flickering upward glances through her long lashes. I didn't see him speak, but he was smiling. They were a striking couple, and danced so beautifully that more than one glance was thrown in their direction and-I had nothing else to do but see it-more than one significant eyebrow lifted in their wake. It would seem that Mrs. Seddon had been right: where Raoul went, rumour walked. I wondered who the girl was. When-if-he danced with me, what would the eyebrows do then? Who's the new girl? My dear, nobody, obviously. And my dear, the dress… The governess?… Oh… Oh, I see…

The music stopped, and people drifted to the sides of the ballroom. I was hidden by the crowd. Nobody had noticed me. I sat still, glad of the sheltering pillar and the massed azaleas. Beside me a trickle of water ran down a little scale, soulless as the music of a spinet. There was a tank of fish here, too, and the water dripped into it from a bank of moss. The azaleas threw patterns on the water, and gold and silver fish moved warily underneath.

The music started again, obliterating talk, laughter, and the tiny tinkle of water. The glittering dresses took the floor. This time he led out an elderly woman with a dreadful gown of royal blue and magnificent diamonds. And then a dark hawk of a woman with a clever hungry face and hands like yellow claws. And then the lovely blonde girl again. And then a well-corseted woman with dyed hair who wore dramatic black with emeralds. And then a white-haired woman with a gentle face. And then the blonde again.

The fish hung suspended in water green as serpentine, fins moving rhythmically. A petal, loosed from a pink azalea, floated down to lie upon the surface. I remembered my promise to Philippe. I got up, shaking out the folds of my skirt. The fish, startled, shuttled about the tank under the hanging mosses.

When a voice said: "Mademoiselle," just behind me, I started like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons, and dropped my handbag, missing the tank by millimetres.

The owner of the voice stooped a little ponderously to pick it up for me. I might have known he would come sooner or later to comfort the wallflower.

"Monsieur Florimond!" I said. "You startled me."

"I'm sorry." He handed me the bag with a smile. "But you must not fly away now, mademoiselle. I'm depending on you for an alibi.”

"An alibi?"

He made one of his wide gestures. "My dear, I don't dance and I've talked myself to a standstill. I thought perhaps if I cornered you quickly we could resume our flirtation, which is something I can do at any time without effort."

"And," I said, watching how his hand hovered already over his pocket, "have a quiet smoke at the same time? All right Monsieur Florimond. I’ll be your chimney-corner."

"A sympathetic woman," said Florimond, unabashed, taking out his case, "is above rubies."

"Don't you believe it. No woman is above rubies," I said, sitting down again. "No thank you, I don't smoke."

"Above diamonds, pearls, and rubies," said Florimond lowering himself into the chair beside me with a sigh, and proceeding, as to an elaborate ritual, to light a cigarette. He beamed at me through the resultant cloud of smoke. "That's a very pretty gown, my dear."

I laughed at him. "Shakespeare," I said, "congratulating Minou Drouet on a neat phrase? Thank you, monsieur."

His eyes puckered at the corners. "I meant it. But you're rather hiding your light under a bushel, aren't you? I've been watching for you, but I haven't seen you dancing."

"I don't know anyone."

"Oh, là-là! And didn't Héloïse introduce any young men?"

"I haven't seen her to speak to. I came down late."

"And now she is-ah, yes, there she is, dancing with Monsieur de St. Hubert." He scanned the floor. "Then where's Raoul? He knows everybody. Perhaps he-"

"Oh, no, please!" The exclamation burst out quite involuntarily. I met Florimond's eye of mild inquiry and finished lamely: "I-I was just going upstairs. I promised Philippe to go and see him. I-don't bother Monsieur Raoul, please?"

"Upstairs? And not to come down again, is that it?" The kind eyes surveyed me. "And is that also why you came down so late and then hid among the flowers?”

"I don't-what d'you mean?"

His gaze fixed itself on the violets. He didn't answer. My hand moved in spite of me to cup the flowers, a curiously defensive gesture and quite futile. I said: "How did you know?" and touched the violets with a finger-tip. "These?"

He shook his head. "My dear," he said gently, "haven't you learnt yet that every breath the Valmys take is news in the valley?"

I said bitterly: "I'm learning." I looked away from him. A fish was nosing at the azalea-petal, butting it gently from underneath. I watched it absorbedly. The dance-music seemed to come from a great way off. Here among the flowers was a little walled garden of silence broken only by the liquid arpeggios of the dripping mosses.

At length he spoke. "You're very young."

"Twenty-three." My voice tried hard not to sound defensive.

"Mademoiselle"-he seemed to be choosing his words-"if you ever thought of leaving Valmy, where would you go?"

I stared at him through a moment of whirling silence. Here, too. It was true. It hadn't been imagination to see those dragon's-teeth of scandal springing up in Albertine's malicious wake. Madame de Valmy or (something caught at my breathing) Monsieur himself had said something, hinted something about dismissing me. And Florimond the kind had sought me out to talk to me about it. Everybody, it seemed, was making my connection with Raoul their business.

I don't quite know what I was thinking about it myself. I couldn't see beyond the fact that I loved him; that he had kissed me; that he was here tonight. I wanted to see him; dreaded seeing him. About Raoul's feelings and purpose-his "intentions"-I didn't think at all. He was here, and I loved him. That was all.

I pulled myself together to hear Florimond saying, kindly: "Have you friends in France, or are you on your own over here, mademoiselle?”

I said in a tight little voice: "I don't know anyone in France, no. But I am not on my own, monsieur."

“What do you mean?"

"Monsieur Florimond, you are being very kind, and don't think I don't appreciate it. But let's be frank, now that we've gone so far. You are concerned about me because I was seen kissing Raoul de Valmy, and I'm to be dismissed. Is that it?”

"Not quite."

I said, surprised: "Then what?"

He said gently: "Because you are also in love with Raoul de Valmy, child." I said, rather breathlessly: "So-what?"

"What I said. You are too young. You have nobody here to run to. You are too much alone."

"No. I told you. I'm not alone."

He looked a query.

I said very evenly: "Is it so very impossible that I should be able to run-as you put it-to Raoul?"

There was a pause. The words seemed to repeat themselves into the silence. The clasp of my bag was hurting my fingers when I gripped it. I looked at him. "Yes, monsieur. We are being frank, you and I. Is it so very impossible that Raoul should-care for me?" "My dear-" said Florimond, and stopped. "Yes, monsieur?"

He took a deep breath. "You and Raoul?… No, mademoiselle. No and no and no."

I said, after a little pause: "Just how well do you know him, monsieur?"

"Raoul? Well enough. Not intimately, perhaps, but-" he stopped again and one large hand tugged at his collar. He didn't meet my eyes. He said: "Hell!" unexpectedly and explosively, and began to grind out his cigarette in the earth of the azalea-tub.

I was too angry to let him off. "Then since you don't know him so very well, perhaps you'll explain what you meant."

He looked at me then. "My dear, I can't. I should never have said it. I've already done the unforgivable. I mustn't go farther."

"Monsieur de Valmy being your host?" He almost jumped. "You're a little too quick for me, my dear. Yes, that and other reasons."

I was still angry. I said: "Since we're talking in riddles, monsieur, what makes you think that all tigers breed true."

"Mademoiselle-"

"All right," I said, "we'll leave it. You've warned me. You've eased your conscience and it was very kind of you to bother. Shall we just wait and see?"

He breathed a great, gusty sigh. "I was wrong," he said. "You're not as young as I thought." He was groping for another cigarette, grinning amiably at me. "Well, I've said my piece-unwarranted cheek, and you've been very nice about it. And don't forget, when you do do that running, you've got at least one other person in France to run to."

My anger died. "Monsieur Florimond-"

"There," he said, "and now we'll drop the subject. What about that flirtation we were in the middle of? Do you remember just where we'd got to? Or would you rather have a quick game of chess?"

I gave a shaken little laugh. "It would certainly be quick. Compared with me, Philippe's a master. You'd mop me up in three minutes."

"A pity. There's nothing like chess and tobacco, judiciously mixed, for taking the mind off the advice of a doddering old fool who ought to know better." A large hand patted mine paternally, and was withdrawn. "Forgive me, child. I couldn't help it, could I, if the advice came too late?"

I smiled at him. "Monsieur Florimond, even if this isn't the right moment in our flirtation to say so, you are a darling. But yes… much too late."

Raoul's voice said, above me: "So here you are! Carlo, what the devil d'you mean by hiding her away in this corner. Damn it, I've been watching the doors for a couple of hours I I'd no idea she was finding you and the goldfish such fascinating company. What was the sombre discussion, mon vieux? What's much too late?"

"You, for one thing," said Florimond, calmly. "Now take Miss Martin away and dance with her and try and atone for leaving her to the goldfish."

Raoul grinned. "I'll do that. Linda, come here."

Florimond's eyes followed me, still with the pucker of trouble about them. Then I forgot them as the music took us.

His voice said at my ear: "It's been an age. Had you been there long?"

"Not really."

"Why were you so late?"

"I was scared to come down."

"Scared? My God, why? Oh, of course, Héloïse."

"She saw us; you know that."

"Yes." He laughed. "D'you mind?"

"Of course."

"You'll have to learn not to."

My heart was beating anyhow up in my throat. "What d'you mean?"

But he only laughed again without replying and swept me round with the music in a quick turn. A pillar swirled past, a group of men, a wheel-chair…

Léon de Valmy.

He was watching us, of course. A shadow at the centre of the kaleidoscope; a spider at the knot of the bright web… the stupid fancies rose from nowhere in a stinging cloud. I shook my head a little, angrily, as if that would dispel them. Damn the man, I wasn't afraid of him… was I?

As, momentarily, the dance took me round to face him again, I looked straight at him and gave him a brilliant smile.

He was taken aback: there was no doubt about that. I saw the black brows lift sharply, then his mouth twitched and he smiled back.

The other dancers came between us and cut him off from view. I was left with the sharp impression that my employer's smile had been one of quite genuine amusement, but that it was amusement at some joke I couldn't see. It was an impression that was quite particularly unpleasant.

"Raoul," I said suddenly, urgently.

"Yes?"

"Oh-nothing."

"Just Raoul?"

"Yes."

He slanted a look down at me and smiled. “Soit,” was all he said, but I had the odd feeling that he understood.

When the dance finished we were at the opposite end of the room from Léon de Valmy, and beside one of the long windows. Raoul showed no sign of leaving me. He waited beside me in silence. He seemed to be oblivious of the crowd surrounding us, though the eyebrows were certainly at work. I caught a few curious looks cast at us, but I wasn't worrying about them. I was busy trying to locate Madame de Valmy in the crowd, and to see her without actually catching her eye. But she wasn't there.

The music started again. Raoul turned back to me.

I said feebly: "Now look, you don't really have to bother about me. I'm-"

"Don't be idiotic," said he crisply, taking hold of me.

This lover-like speech naturally reassured me completely. I laughed. I forgot Héloïse de Valmy, the raised eyebrows, even Léon and his amusement. I said meekly: "No, monsieur," and was swept out onto the floor again.

"I've done more than my share tonight, by God," said Raoul with feeling. "I've danced with every dowager in the place. Don't try and thwart me now, my girl… It's just as well I couldn't find you before or I might have neglected my duty."

We were dancing at the edge of the room, near the french windows which stood open to the mild night.

"As," he finished, "I am about to neglect it now…"

And before I knew quite what he was about we were out of the ballroom and on the loggia, slipping as easily and unnoticeably out of the throng as a floating twig slides into a backwater. The music followed us through the long windows; and there was the Easter moon and the ghosts of jonquils dancing in the dark garden. My skirt brushed the narcissi on the terrace's edge. Raoul's shoulder touched jasmine and loosed a shower of tiny stars. We didn't speak. The spell held. We danced along the moonlit arcade of the loggia, then in through the dark windows of the salon, where firelight warmed the deserted shadows, and the music came muted as if from a great way off.

We were in the shadows. He stopped and his arms tightened round me. "And now…" he said.

Later, when I could speak, I said shakily: "I love you. I love you. I love you." And, of course, after that singularly ill-advised remark it was impossible to speak or even breathe for a very long time indeed.

When at length he let me go and spoke, I hardly recognised his voice. But, slurred and unsteady as it was, it still held that little undertone of laughter that was unmistakably his. "Well aren't you going to ask it?"

"Ask what?"

"What every woman in the world asks straight away. The vow returned. ’Do you love me?’"

I said: "I'll settle for whatever you want to give."

"I told you before not to be humble, Linda."

"I can't help it. It's the way you make me feel."

He said: "Oh God!" in that queer wrenched voice and pulled me to him again. He didn't kiss me but held me tightly and spoke over my head into the darkness. "Linda… Linda, listen."

"I'm listening."

"This love thing. I don't know. This is honest. I don't know."

Something twisted at my heart that might-if it were not absurd-have been pity. "It doesn't matter, Raoul. Don't"

"It does. You have to know. There've been other women- you know that. Quite a few."

"Yes."

"This is different." A silence. The ghost of a laugh. "I'd say that anyway, wouldn't I? But it is. It is." His cheek moved against my hair. "Linda. That's the hell of a name for a Frenchwoman, isn't it? So now you know. I want you. I need you, by God I do. If you'd call that love-"

"It’ll do," I said. "Believe me, it'll do."

Another silence. The fire burned steadily, filling the room with shadows. In one of the logs I could hear the whine and bubble of resin.

He gave a queer little sigh and then loosed me, holding me at arm's length. His voice was his own again, cool, casual, a little hard. "What were you and Carlo talking about?"

The question was so unexpected that I started. "I-why, I hardly remember. Things. And-oh, yes, my frock. Yes, we talked about my frock."

I saw him smile. "Come now, confess. You talked about me."

"How did you know?"

"Second sight."

"Oh, murder," I said. "Don't tell me you've got it as well."

"As well?"

"Your father's a warlock; didn't you know?*'

"Oh? Then shall we just say that I've got excellent hearing. Did Carlo warn you that my intentions were sure to be dishonourable?"

"Of course."

"Did he, by God?"

"More or less. It was done by implication and with the nicest possible motives."

"I'm sure of it. What did he say?"

I laughed at him and quoted: " 'You and Raoul, no and no and no.' And you are not to be angry. I adore Monsieur Florimond and he was only talking to me for my own good."

He was looking down at me soberly. "I'm not likely to be angry. He was too damned near right. I don't mean about my motives, but that probably you and I-" He stopped. "I've told you how I feel. But you; you say you love me."

I said: "Yes and yes and yes."

I saw him smile. "Again thrice. You're very generous."

"I was cancelling Carlo out. Besides, we have a poem in English which says: 'What I tell you three times is true'."

Another pause. Then he said, still holding me: "Then you will take a chance on marrying me?"

I began to tremble. I said huskily: "But your father-"

His hands moved so sharply that they hurt me. "My father? What's it to him?"

"He'll be so angry. Perhaps he'll do something about it- make you leave Bellevigne, or-"

"So what? I'm not tied to him or to Bellevigne." He gave a short, half-angry laugh. "Are you afraid of harming my position? My prospects? By God, that's rich!"

I said falteringly: "But you love Bellevigne, don't you? You told me you did, and Mrs. Seddon said-"

"So she's been talking about me, too, has she?"

"Everybody does," I said simply.

"Then did she tell you I hadn't any future except Bellevigne, and that only until Philippe gets Valmy?"

"Yes."

"Well, she's right." He added more gently: "Does that three-times-true love allow you to take a chance on a barren future?"

"I said I'd settle for what you had to give, didn't I?"

Another of those little silences. "So you did. Then you’ll marry me?"

"Yes."

"In the teeth of the warnings?"

"Yes."

"And without prospects?"

"Yes."

He laughed then, still on that curious note of triumph. "You needn't worry about that," he said cryptically. "Fair means or foul, I'll always have prospects."

"An adventurer, that's what you are," I said. He was looking down, and the black eyes were veiled again. "Aren't you?"

I said slowly: "Yes, I believe I am."

"I know you are," said Raoul. "Diamond cuts diamond, my darling. Kiss me and seal the bargain."

Afterwards he let me go. I said uncertainly: "Do we have to-tell them?"

"Of course. Why not? I'd like to shout it from the housetops now, but if you like we'll wait till tomorrow."

"Oh yes, please.”

I saw his teeth gleam. "Does it need so much hardihood, ma mie? Are you afraid of my father?"

"Yes."

He gave me a quick, surprised look. "Are you? You've no need. But I'll tell them myself if you'd rather. You can just keep out of the way until it's done."

I said: "They'll be-so very angry."

"Angry? You undervalue yourself, my dear."

"You don't understand. I'm-I was due to be sacked anyway. That doesn't make it any easier to tell them."

"Due to be sacked? What on earth do you mean?"

"What I say. I was rather expecting to be told tomorrow. That's why I didn't want to come down to the dance."

"But-why? What's the crime?"

I looked up at him and gave a little smile. "You."

It took him a moment to assimilate this. "Do you mean because Héloïse saw me kissing you? You were to be sacked for that? Rubbish," he said curtly.

"It's true. At least I think so. You-well, you heard how Madame spoke to me just afterwards, and when I went into Soubirous today it was quite obvious that the story had got round." I told him about the reception I had had in the village. "Albertine-the maid-may just have been scandalmongering because she doesn't like me, but I think she probably knows what Madame intends to do."

He lifted a shoulder indifferently. "Well, it doesn't matter, does it? You needn't let it worry you now. In any case I'm sure you're wrong. Héloïse would never want to let you go."

I said rather shyly: "I thought that myself. I did think it- odd, because of Philippe."

He said quickly: "Philippe?"

"Yes. I-don't get me wrong; I don't think I did anything very great for Philippe. The shooting business in the wood was nothing. I just didn't lose my head and fuss him too much, but I-well, I did save him the time he nearly fell off the balcony, and your father said-"

Raoul said: "What time? What are you talking about?"

"Didn't you know?" I said, surprised. I told him about the grim little incident that had crowned my shopping trip to Thonon. He listened, his face turned away from me towards the fire. In the flickering light I couldn't read his expression. He reached abstractedly for a cigarette and lit it. Over the flare of the match I could see he was frowning. I finished: "And your father knew that night that you'd kissed me. I'm sure he did. You remember?"

A glint through the frown. "I remember."

"There wasn't any talk then about sending me away. But there is now, really."

He laughed: "Well, my love, we've given them more cause, haven't we? Let that be a comfort to you. It's very probable that everybody in the ballroom knows by this time that you've gone out with me, and is speculating wildly on the whys and wherefores."

I said tartly: "I don't suppose they have any doubt at all about the whys and wherefores. It's all very well you carrying off your love affairs en grand seigneur, Monsieur de Valmy, but I'm only the governess. No, don't laugh at me. I've got to face them tomorrow."

"With me, chérie, remember. And now let's forget tomorrow. This is tonight, and we are betrothed." He took my hands. "If we can't shout it from the housetops at least we can celebrate it to ourselves. Let's go and get some champagne."

"And some food," I said.

"You poor child! Haven't you fed?"

"Not a bite. I sat in my corner while you danced and drank and enjoyed yourself-"

"More fool you," said Raoul unsympathetically. "You had only to show yourself to be trampled to death by partners avid to let you dance and drink and enjoy yourself with them. Come on, then. Food."

The great dining-room was brilliant with people and gay with chatter and the popping of corks. Raoul made his way through the crowd with me in his wake. Several people hailed him, and I saw a few curious glances cast at me, but he didn't stop. As we reached the big table all a-gleam with silver I remembered something and touched his sleeve.

"Raoul, I'd forgotten. I promised to go up and see Philippe half-way through the dance. I must go."

He turned quickly, almost as if I had startled him. "Philippe? What on earth for?"

"I think he felt left out of things. At any rate I did promise to go up at 'dead of night'. I can't disappoint him."

"You… do look after him a little beyond the line of duty, don't you?"

"I don't think so. Anyway I think I ought to go straight away, in case he goes to sleep and thinks I've forgotten."

"But I thought you were starving?"

"I am." I looked wistfully at the laden table. There was a silver dish of crab patties just beside me, creaming over pinkly under their crimped fronds of parsley. "But a vow's a vow."

"And you always keep your vows?"

"Always."

"I'll remember that."

I laughed. "They're only valid if you'll let me keep the one I made to Philippe. His came first."

"Then I suppose I must. But I insist on coming too, and I'm not letting you faint with hunger by the wayside." He glanced at his wrist. "It's close on midnight-that's ‘dead of night', isn't it? Why don't we break a few more rules and take some food upstairs. Then Philippe will get his excitement and we our celebration."

"Oh, Raoul, that's a wonderful idea! Let's do that!"

"All right. I'll fix some food and drink. What d'you like?"

I looked again at the table. "Everything," I said simply.

He looked startled. "You must be hungry!"

"I am. Even if I weren't"-I sighed-"I couldn't by-pass that. I never saw anything so wonderful in my life."

He was looking at me with a curious expression. "Do you mean to say you've never been to a dance before?"

"This sort of thing? Never."

"One forgets," he said.

"I try to," I said lightly, "at any rate the dreary past never produced anything like this. May I have one of those meringues?"

"If you must. And I suppose you've never had champagne either? That's a thought… Well, you shall have it tonight. Meringues and champagne, may God forgive me. Well, you go along up to Philippe and I'll follow as soon as I've organised the food. I'll bring a bit of everything."

"That's a vow," I told him, and made my way out through the crowd.

My main fear was of coming across Léon de Valmy. I turned away from the hall and main staircase and ran down a corridor towards the secondary stair that Philippe and I commonly used.

But I needn't have worried. I reached the stairs unnoticed and mounted them hurriedly, holding up my filmy skirts. The staircase gave onto the upper corridor almost opposite Madame de Valmy's bedroom door. I was nearly at the top when I half- tripped as the catch of my sandal came loose. The sandal came off. I had to stop to pick it up.

As I straightened up, sandal in hand, two women came out of Madame de Valmy's sitting-room. My heart seemed to catch in mid-beat, then I saw that neither was Héloïse. They were elderly women who had not been dancing. I recognised one of them as an inveterate eyebrow-raiser-first at the blonde, then at me. I wondered how high her overworked brows would go if she knew I had an assignation with Raoul upstairs, however closely chaperoned by Philippe.

The sandal was my alibi. I waited politely for them to pass me before I proceeded to my own room for the ostensibly-needed repairs. I smiled at them, receiving in return two courteous and beautifully-calculated inclinations as they sailed by me, making for the main staircase.

The corridor emptied itself of the last rustle. With a wary eye on Héloïse's door I picked up my skirts again and turned towards Philippe's room.

Somewhere a clock whirred to strike. Midnight. I smiled. Dead of night exactly. I hoped Philippe was still awake.

The clock was beating twelve as I moved quietly along the corridor. Then a thought touched me out of nowhere and I stopped short, staring down at the sandal in my hand. Midnight. The dropped slipper. The escape from the ball.

I realised that I was frowning. The thing was so absurd as to be obscurely disquieting. Then I laughed and shrugged.

"Bring on your pumpkins," I whispered cheerfully, and laid a hand on Philippe's door.

CHAPTER 12

Philippe was awake. When I let myself quietly into his bedroom I found him sitting bolt upright in bed in his dressing-gown, with his eyes on the door. The fire, which should have been out hours ago, was burning merrily. The curtains over the long balcony windows were drawn back, so that the moonlight flowed in bright dramatic slant across the head of the bed.

Full in its path sat the little boy, his skin blanched to a waxy pallor by the white light, the black eyes huge and brilliant. He looked very frail.

But he seemed animated enough. He said immediately: "You've been ages."

"You said 'dead of night', remember. It's just midnight now."

"Midnight? Is it really?" He looked pleased. "I kept the fire on. I knew you'd come."

"Of course I came. How d'you manage to be so wide awake at this hour?" I saw the untouched tumbler of chocolate on the bedside table, and laughed. "Oh, I see. Cunning, aren't you? Didn't you feel sleepy at all?"

"I did a bit," he confessed, "but it kept me awake looking after the fire."

"Is that why you kept it on?"

The big eyes slid sideways from mine and he plucked at the coverlet. "I sort of hoped-I wondered if you'd stay for a bit now you've come."

I sat down on the bed. "Why, Philippe? Is anything the matter?"

A vigorous shake of the head was followed by one of those little sidelong looks that contradicted it. I reached out and laid a hand over his. "What is it, brat?"

He said in a sort of furious mutter: "Nightmares."

"Oh dear, I didn't know. How beastly! What sort of nightmares?"

"People coming in," said Philippe, "and touching me."

This, oddly enough, was more shocking than any more usual horror of pursuit and desperately hindered flight could be. I shifted my shoulders a little, as if with cold, and said rather too heartily: "Oh well, it's only dreams, after all. It's not real- unless you mean me. I come in sometimes after you're asleep."

"No," said Philippe rather wanly, "not you. I wouldn't mind you."

"Do you have the same dream often?" He nodded.

"It doesn't wake you up? If it does, you should call. I'd come."

"I do call, but there's no noise."

I patted the hand. It seemed very small and cold. "That means you're still asleep. It's a horrid feeling, but it is only a dream. And it might easily be me, Philippe; I usually do look in last thing at night. You're always sound asleep."

"Am I?"

"Like a top. Snoring."

"I bet I'm not."

"I bet you are. Now listen, I've a treat for you, Monsieur le Comte de Valmy. Since your honour wouldn't deign to come down for supper on the night of the ball, would you like supper to come up to you?"

"Supper? But I've had supper!"

"That was hours ago," I said, "and I haven't had mine. Wouldn't you like to entertain your cousin Raoul and me to a midnight feast?"

"A midnight feast? Oh, Miss Martin." The big eyes sparkled in the moonlight, then looked uncertain. "Did you say my cousin Raoul?"

I nodded. "He said he'd bring the food, and-oh, here he is."

The door had opened quietly and now Raoul came in, delectably laden with bottles, and followed by one of the hired waiters with a tray. Raoul lifted a gold-necked aristocrat of a bottle in mock salute. "Bon-soir, Monsieur le Comte. Put the tray down there, will you? Thanks. Do you suppose you could collect the debris later on? Secretly, of course."

Not a muscle of the man's face moved. "Of course, monsieur."

Something passed from Raoul's hand to his. "Excellent. That's all, then. Thank you."

"Thank you, sir. M'sieur, 'dame." The man sketched a bow, aimed between the bed and me, and went out, shutting the door.

"Then it really is a midnight feast?" said Philippe, eyeing his cousin a little shyly.

"Undoubtedly." Raoul was dealing competently with the gold- topped bottle. "As clandestine and-ah, that's it! A grand sound, eh, Philippe?-cosy as one could wish it. That's an excellent fire. Are you warm enough,

Linda?"

"Yes, thank you."

He was pouring champagne. Philippe, his doubts forgotten, came out of bed with a bounce. "Is that

lemonade?"

"The very king of lemonades."

"It's jolly fizzy, isn't it? It went off like a gun."

"Gun or no, I doubt if it's your tipple, mon cousin. I brought some real lemonade for you. Here."

"That's more like it," said Philippe, accepting a tall yellow drink that hissed gently. "Mademoiselle, wouldn't you like some of mine?"

"It looks wonderful," I said, "but I daren't hurt your cousin's feelings."

Raoul grinned and handed me a glass of champagne. "I doubt if this is your tipple either, my little one, but I refuse to pledge you in anything less."

"Pledge?" said Philippe. "What's that?"

"A promise," I said. "A vow."

"And there's our toast," said Raoul, lifting his glass so that the firelight spun and spangled up through its million bubbles. "Stand up, Philippe; clink your glass with mine…now Miss Martin's…so. Now drink to our vows, and long may we keep them!"

Philippe, puzzled but game, drank some lemonade, then, hesitating, looked from Raoul to me and finally down at the tray which the servant had set on a low table before the fire. "When do we start?"

"This minute," I said firmly, and sat down.

Even without the influence of the king of lemonades it would have been a wonderful feast. My betrothal supper, held between firelight and moonlight in a little boy's bedroom-to me a feast every bit as magical as the banquet Porphyro spread for his Madeleine on that 'ages long ago' St. Agnes' Eve. And the food was a lot better. I don't remember that St. Agnes' lovers-perhaps wisely-ate anything at all, but Philippe and I demolished an alarming number of the delicates that Raoul's glowing hand had heaped upon the tray.

He had made a very creditable attempt to bring "everything". I remember thin curls of brown bread with cool, butter-dripping asparagus; scallop-shells filled with some delicious concoction of creamed crab; crisp pastries bulging with mushroom and chicken and lobster; petits fours bland with almonds; small glasses misty with frost and full of some creamy stuff tangy with strawberries and wine; peaches furry and glowing in a nest of glossy leaves; grapes frosted with sugar that sparkled in the firelight like a crust of diamonds…

Philippe and I ate and exclaimed, and chatted in conspiratorial whispers, while Raoul lounged beside the first and smoked and drank champagne and watched us indulgently for all the world as if I and Philippe were of an age, and he a benevolent uncle watching us enjoy ourselves.

"Or an overfed genie," I said accusingly, having told him this, "bringing a feast to Aladdin starving in his garret, or was it cellar?"

"As far as I recollect he was still," said Raoul lazily, "in his mother's wash-house. Romance is running away with you tonight, Miss Martin, is it not?"

"Remind me to resent that another time when I feel more earthly."

He laughed. "More champagne?"

"No, thank you. That was wonderful. Wonderful champagne, wonderful supper. Philippe, if you get a nightmare after this, let it comfort you to know that you've asked for it I"

"I rather think," said Raoul, "that Monsieur le Comte is all but asleep already."

Philippe, curled up on the rug with his head against my knee, had indeed been rather silent for some time. I bent over him. The long lashes were fanned over the childish cheeks, and he was breathing softly and evenly. I looked up again at Raoul and nodded. He rose, stretched, and pitched his cigarette into the dying fire.

"We'd better put him to bed." He stood for a moment looking down at the child. He looked very tall in the firelight with Philippe curled at his feet. "Does he have nightmares?"

"He says so. People come in in the night and touch him. Rather horrid."

His eyes rested on me for a moment, but I had the odd impression that he didn't see me.

"As you say." He stopped then and picked the child up, holding him easily in his arms. He carried him towards the bed.

The side of the room where we had been sitting was in deep shadow, lit warmly by the now-fading fire. Behind us the white shaft from the moonlit windows had slowly wheeled nearer. The bed lay now full in the sharp diagonal of light.

Raoul carried the sleeping child across the room. He was just about to step into the patch of light-a step as definite as a chessman's from black to white-when a new shadow stabbed across the carpet, cutting the light in two. Someone had come to the window and stopped dead in the path of the moon.

The shadow, jumping across his feet, had startled Raoul. He swung round. Philippe's face, blanched by the moon, lolled against his shoulder. Héloïse de Valmy's voice said, on a sharp note of hysteria: "Raoul! What are you doing here? What's wrong?"

She was backed against the light, so I couldn't see her face, but the hand gripping the curtain was tight as a hawk's claw. The other hand went to her heart in a gesture I had seen before.

He said slowly, his eyes on her: "Nothing. What should be wrong?"

She said hoarsely: "What's the matter with Philippe?"

"My dear Héloïse. Nothing at all. He's asleep."

I thought it better not to wait for discovery. I got to my feet.

The movement of my white dress in the shadows caught her eye and she jerked round. "Oh!" It was a little choked scream.

"Easy," said Raoul. "You'll wake him up."

I came forward into the moonlight. "I'm sorry I startled you, madame."

"You here? What's going on? Is there something wrong?"

Raoul grinned at her. "A carouse, that's all. An illicit night out à trois. Philippe was feeling a bit left out of the festivities, so Miss Martin and I tried to include him in, that's all. He's just gone to sleep. Turn the bed down, Linda, and help me get his dressing-gown off."

Héloïse de Valmy gave a rather dazed look about her. "Then I did hear voices. I thought I heard someone talking. I wondered…" Her eye fell on the tray at the fireside, with its bottles and empty glasses and denuded silver dishes. She said blankly: "A carouse? You really did mean a carouse?"

Raoul pulled the bedclothes up under Philippe's chin and gave them a final pat before he turned round. "Certainly. He may suffer for those lobster patties in the morning, but I expect he'll vote it worth while." He looked across the bed at me. "Let me take you down again now."

His eyes were confident and amused, but I looked nervously at Madame de Valmy. "Were you looking for me, madame?"

"I? No." She still sounded rather at a loss. "I came to see if Philippe was asleep."

"You-don't mind our coming up here… bringing him some of the supper?”

"Not at all." She wasn't even looking at me. She was watching Raoul.

He said again, rather abruptly: "Let me take you downstairs," and came round the bed towards me.

Downstairs? Léon de Valmy, Monsieur Florimond, the eyebrows? I shook my head. "No, thank you. I-it's late. I'll not go down again. I'll go to bed."

"As you wish." He glanced at Madame. "Héloïse?"

She bent her head and moved towards the door. I opened it and held it for her. As she passed me I said hesitantly: "Goodnight, madame. And thank you for… the dance. It was-I enjoyed it very much."

She paused. In the dim light her face looked pale, the eyes shadowy. She had never looked so remote, so unreachable. "Goodnight, Miss Martin." There was no inflection whatever in the formal words.

I said quickly, almost imploringly: "Madame…" She turned and went. The rich rustle of her dress was as loud in the silence as running water. She didn't look back.

Raoul was beside me. I touched his sleeve. "It was true after all. You see?"

He was looking away from me, after Héloïse. He didn't answer.

I said urgently, under my breath: "Raoul… don't tell them. I can't face it. Not yet. I-just can't." I thought he hesitated. "We'll talk about it tomorrow." I said quickly: "Let them send me away. I'll go to Paris. I can stay there a little while. Perhaps then we can-"

His hands on my shoulders turned me swiftly towards him, interrupting me. "My dear, if I'm not to tell Héloïse tonight, I'd better leave you now. Don't worry, it'll be all right. I'll say nothing until we've talked it over." He bent and kissed me, a brief, hard kiss. "Goodnight, ma mie. Sleep well…"

The door shut behind him. I heard him walk quickly down the corridor after Héloïse, as if he were in a hurry.

CHAPTER 13

"Yes," I answered you last night;

"No," this morning, sir, I say.

Colours seen by candlelight

Will not look the same by day.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: The Lady's Yes.

Next morning a note was brought up to the schoolroom at breakfast-time by Bernard, Léon de Valmy's man.

It looked as if it had been written in a tearing hurry, and it read:

My dear,

I can't stay today as I'd hoped. I find I must go back to Paris-a damnable "must". Forgive me, and try not to worry about anything. I'll be back on Thursday morning without fail, and we can get things worked out then.

Héloïse said nothing to me, and (as I'd promised you I wouldn't) I didn't talk to her. I don't think you need worry too much about that side of it, m'amie; if they have anything to say they'll undoubtedly say it to me, not you. Till Thursday, then, pretend, if you can-if you dare!-that nothing has happened. I doubt if you'll see much of Héloïse anyway. She overdid things, and I imagine she'll keep her bed.

Yours,

R.

As a first love-letter, there was nothing in it to make my hands as unsteady as they were when I folded it and looked up at the waiting Bernard. He was watching me; the black eyes in that impassively surly face were shrewd and somehow wary. I thought I saw a gleam of speculation there, and reflected wryly that it was very like Raoul to send his messages by the hand of the man who hadn't been out of Léon de Valmy's call for twenty years. I said coolly: "Did Monsieur Raoul give you this himself?"

“Yes, mademoiselle."

"Has he left already?"

"Oh yes, mademoiselle. He drove down to catch the early flight to Paris."

"I see. Thank you. And how is Mrs. Seddon today, Bernard?"

"Better, mademoiselle, but the doctor says she must stay quiet in her bed for a day or two."

"Well, I hope she'll soon be fit again," I said. "Have someone let her know I was asking after her, will you please?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"Bernard," said Philippe, putting down his cup, "you have a dance tonight, don't you?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Down in the village?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Do you have supper there as well?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"What sort of things do you have for supper?"

The man's dark face remained wooden, his eyes guarded- unfriendly, even. "That I really couldn't say, monsieur."

"All right, Bernard," I said. "Thank you."

As he went I wondered, yet again, what pretty little Berthe could see in him.

It was a very unpleasant and also a very long day. I felt curiously bereft. Raoul had gone. Florimond left soon after breakfast. Mrs. Seddon did as Bernard had prophesied and kept her room, and Berthe went about her tasks all day with that withdrawn and rather shamefaced expression which seemed- if it were possible-faintly to image Bernard's sullen mask.

Small wonder, then, that when Philippe and I were out for our afternoon walk, and a jeep roared past us carrying several men and driven by William Blake, I responded to his cheerful wave with such fervour that Philippe looked curiously up at me and remarked:

"He is a great friend of yours, that one, hein?"

"He's English," I said simply, then smiled at myself. "Do you know what irony is, Philippe? L’ironie?"

"No, what?"

I looked at him doubtfully, but I had let myself in for a definition now and plunged a little wildly at it. “L'ironie.… I suppose its Chance, or Fate (le destin), or something, that follows you around and spies on what you do and say, and then uses it against you at the worst possible time. No, that's not a very good way of putting it. Skip it, mon lapin; I'm not at my best this afternoon."

"But I am reading about that this morning," said Philippe. "It has a special name. It followed you comme vous dȋtes and when you do something silly it-how do you say it?-came against you. It was called Nemesis."

I stopped short and looked at him. I said: "Philippe, my love, I somehow feel it only wanted that… And its practically the Ides of March and there are ravens flying upside down on our left and I walked the wrong way round Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts last Thursday afternoon, and-"

"You didn't," said Philippe. "It was raining."

"Was it?"

"You know it was." He chuckled and gave a ghost of a skip. "You do say silly things sometimes, don't you?"

"All too often."

"But I like it. Go on. About the ravens flying upside down. Do they really? Why? Go on, mademoiselle."

"I don't think I can," I said. "Words fail me."

On our way in from the walk we met Monsieur de Valmy. Instead of coming up the zigzag itself we took the short cut which ran steeply upwards, here and there touching the northerly loops of the road. We crossed the gravel sweep at the top. As we went through the stableyard archway, making for the side door, the wheel-chair came quietly out of some outbuilding and Léon de Valmy's voice said, in French: "Ah, Philippe. Good afternoon, Miss Martin. Are you just back from your walk?"

The quick colour burned my face as I turned to answer. "Good afternoon, monsieur. Yes. We've just been along the valley road, and we came back up the short cut."

He smiled. I could see no trace of disapproval or coolness in his face. Surely if I were privately under sentence of dismissal, he wouldn't act quite so normally-more, go out of his way to greet us in this unruffled friendly fashion? He said, including Philippe in the warmth of his smile: "You've taken to bypassing the woods now, have you?"

"Well, we have rather." I added: "I'm nervous, so we keep near the road."

He laughed. "I don't blame you." He turned to Philippe with a pleasant twinkle. "And how are you this morning, after your excesses of last night?"

"Excesses?" said Philippe nervously.

"I'm told you had a midnight feast last night… an 'illicit night out à trois' was the phrase, I believe. No nightmares afterwards?"

Philippe said: "No, mon oncle. The amused dark gaze turned to me.

I said, almost as nervously as Philippe: "You don't mind? Perhaps it was a little unorthodox, but-"

"My dear Miss Martin, why should I? We leave Philippe very completely to your care and judgment, and so far we've been amply proved right. Please don't imagine that my wife and myself are waiting to criticise every move that's out of pattern. We know very little about the care of children. That's up to you. And a 'special treat' now and again is an essential, I believe? It was kind of you to spare time and thought to the child in the middle of your own pleasure… I hope you enjoyed the dance?"

"Yes, oh yes, I did! I didn't see you last night to thank you for inviting me, but may I thank you now, monsieur? It was wonderful. I enjoyed it very much."

"I'm glad to hear it. I was afraid you might feel rather too much a stranger among us, but I gather that Raoul looked after you."

Nothing but polite inquiry. No glint of amusement. No overtone to the pleasant voice.

"Yes, monsieur, thank you, he did… And how is Madame de Valmy this afternoon? She's not ill, is she?"

"Oh no, only tired. She'll be making an appearance at the dance in the village tonight, so she's resting today."

"Then she won't expect us-Philippe and me-in the salon tonight?"

"No. I think you must miss that.'* The smile at Philippe was slightly mischievous now. "Unless you'd like to visit me instead?"

Philippe stiffened, but I said: "As you wish, monsieur. In the library?"

He laughed. "No, no. We'll spare Philippe that. Well, don't let me keep you." The wheel-chair swivelled away, then slewed back to us. "Oh, by the way…

"Monsieur?"

"Don't let Philippe use the swing in the big coach-house, Miss Martin. I see that one of the rivets is working loose. Keep off it until it's mended. We mustn't have another accident, must we?"

"No, indeed. Thank you monsieur, we'll keep out of there." He nodded and swung the chair away again. It moved off with that disconcertingly smooth speed towards the gate to the kitchen garden. Philippe ran ahead of me towards the side door with the air of one reprieved from a terrible fate.

He wasn't the only one. I was reflecting that once again my imagination had betrayed me. That smile of Monsieur de Valmy's last night… Madame's coldness… my interpretation of them had been wildly wide of the mark. A guilty conscience, and a too-ready ear for gossip had given me a few bad hours. It served me right. There was obviously no idea of dismissing me; if there had been Monsieur de Valmy would never have spoken to me as he had. All was well… and even if there were snags in the future, Raoul would be here beside me.

"Mademoiselle," said Philippe, "you look quite different. Qu'est ce que c'est?"

"I think I've seen a raven," I said, "flying the right way up."

The rest of the day limped through without incident. I put Philippe to bed a little earlier than usual, and later on, as soon as I had taken him his late-night chocolate, I went thankfully to bed myself and slept almost straight away. I don't remember waking. Straight out of deep sleep, it seemed, I turned my head on the pillow and looked with wide-open eyes towards the door. The room was dark and I could see nothing, but then there came the stealthy click of the door dosing, and soft footsteps moved across the carpet towards the bed. I think that for a moment or two I didn't realise I was awake, but lay still listening to the ghostly approach in a sort of bemused half-slumber.

Something touched the bed. I heard breathing. I was awake and this was real. My heart jerked once, in a painful spasm of fear, and I shot up in bed, saying on a sharply rising note: "Who's that?"

As I grabbed for the bedside switch a voice that was no more than a terrified breath said: "Don't put the light on. Don't!" My hand fell from the switch. The intruder's terror seemed to quiver in the air between us, and in the face of it I felt myself growing calm. I said quietly: "Who is it?"

The whisper said: "It's Berthe, miss."

“Berthe?"

There was a terrified sound that might have been a sob. "Oh, hush miss, they'll hear!"

I said softly: "What's the matter, Berthe? What's up?" Then a thought touched me icily and I put a hand to the bedclothes.

"Philippe? Is there something the matter with Philippe?"

"No, no, nothing like that I But it's-it's-I thought I ought to come and tell you-"

But here the distressful whispering was broken unmistakably by gulping sobs, and Berthe sat down heavily on the end of the bed.

I slipped from under the covers and padded across the room to lock the doors. Then I went back to the bed and switched on the bedside lamp.

Berthe was still crouched on the bottom of my bed, her face in her hands. She was wearing the silver-netted frock, with a coat of some cheap dark material thrown round shoulders which still shook with sobs.

I said gently: "Take your time, Berthe. Shall I make you some coffee?"

She shook her head, and lifted it from her hands. Her face, usually so pretty, was pinched and white. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and her eyes looked dreadful.

I sat down beside her on the bed and put an arm round her. "Don't, my dear. What is it? Can I help? Did something happen at the dance?" I felt the shoulders move. I said on a thought: "Is it Bernard?"

She nodded, still gulping. Then I felt her square her shoulders. I withdrew my arm but stayed beside her. Presently she managed to say, with rather ragged-edged composure: "You'd better get back into bed, miss. You'll get cold like that."

"Very well." I slipped back into bed, pulled the covers round me, and looked at her. "Now tell me. What is it? Can I help?"

She didn't answer for a moment. Nor did she look at me. Her eyes went round the room as if to probe the shadows, and I saw terror flick its whiplash across her face again. She licked her lips.

I waited. She sat for a moment, twisting her hands together. Then she said fairly calmly, but in a low, hurried voice: "It is Bernard… in a way. You know I'm-I'm going to marry Bernard? Well, he took me to the dance tonight, and I wore your frock and he said I looked a princess and he started-oh, he was drinking, miss, and he got… you know-"

"I know."

"He was drunk," said Berthe, "I’ve never seen him that way before. I knew he'd taken a good bit, of course; he often does, but he never shows it. I-we went outside together." Her eyes were on her fingers, plaited whitely in her lap. Her voice thinned to a thread. "We went to my sister's house. She and her man were at the dance. It-I know it was wrong of me, but-" She stopped.

I said, feeling rather helpless and inadequate: "All right, Berthe. Skip that part. What's frightened you?"

"He was drunk," she said again, in that thin little voice. "I didn't realise at first… he seemed all right, until… he seemed all right. Then… afterwards… he started talking." She licked her lips again. "He was boasting kind of wild-like about when we were married. I'd be a princess, he said, and we'd have money, a lot of money. I'd-I'd have to marry him soon, now, he said, and we'd buy a farm and be rich, and we'd have… oh, he talked so wildly and silly that I got frightened and told him not to be a fool and where would the likes of him get money to buy a farm. And he said-"

Her voice faltered and stopped.

I said, wondering where all this was leading: "Yes? He said?"

Her hands wrung whitely together in the little glow of the lamp. "He said there'd be plenty of money later

on… when Philippe-when Philippe-"

"Yes?"

"-was dead," said Berthe on a shivering rush of breath.

My heart had begun to beat in sharp slamming little strokes that I could feel even in my finger-tips. Berthe's eyes were on me now, filled with a sort of shrinking dread that was horrible. There was sweat along her upper lip.

I said harshly: "Go on."

"I-I'm only saying what he said. He was drunk… half- asleep. He was-“

"Yes. Go on."

"He said Monsieur de Valmy had promised him the money-"

"Yes?"

"-when Philippe died."

"Berthe!"

"Yes, miss," said Berthe simply.

Silence. I could see sweat on her forehead now. My hands were dry and ice-cold. I felt the nails scrape on the sheets as I clutched at them. The pulse knocked in my fingertips.

This was nonsense. It was nightmare. It wasn't happening. But something inside me, some part of brain or instinct listened unsurprised. This nightmare was true: I knew it already. On some hidden level I had known it for long enough. I only wondered at my own stupidity that had not recognised it before. I heard myself saying quietly: "You must finish now, Berthe. Philippe… so Philippe is going to die later on, is he? How much later

on?"

“B-Bernard said soon. He said it would have to be soon because Monsieur Hippolyte cabled early today that he was coming home. They don't know why-he must be ill or something; anyway, he's cancelling his trip and he'll be here by tomorrow night, so they'll have to do it soon, Bernard says. They've tried already, he says, but-" I said: "They?"

"The Valmys. Monsieur and Madame and Monsieur-"

"No," I said. "No."

"Yes, miss. Monsieur Raoul," said Berthe.

Of course I said: "I don't believe it." She watched me dumbly.

"I don't believe it!" My voice blazed with the words into fury. But she didn't speak. If she had broken into protestation perhaps I could have gone on fighting, but she said nothing, giving only that devastating shrug of the shoulders with which the French disclaim all knowledge and responsibility.

"Berthe. Are you sure?"

Another lift of the shoulders. "He said so? Bernard said so?"

"Yes." Then something in my face pricked her to add: "He was drunk. He was talking-"

"I know. Kind of wild. That means nothing. But this can't be true! It can't! I know that! Berthe, do you hear me? It -simply-isn't-true."

She said nothing, but looked away.

I opened my lips, then shut them again, and in my turn was silent.

I don't intend-even if I could-to describe the next few minutes. To feel something inside oneself break and die is not an experience to be re-lived at whatever merciful distance. After a while I managed, more or less coherently, to think, spurred to it by the savage reminder that Philippe was what mattered. All the rest could be sorted out, pondered, mourned over, later; now the urgent need was to think about Philippe.

I pushed back the bedclothes. Berthe said sharply: "Where are you going?"

I didn't answer. I slipped out of bed and flew to the bathroom door. Through the bathroom… across the child's darkened bedroom… Bending over the bed, I heard his breathing, light and even. It was only then, as I straightened up on a shaking wave of relief, that I knew how completely I had accepted Berthe's statement. What was it, after all? A frightened girl's version of the drunken and amorous babbling of a servant? And yet it rang so true and chimed in with so many facts that without even half a hearing it seemed I was ready to jettison the employers who had shown me kindness and the man with whom an hour ago I had been in love.

Stiffly, blindly, like a sleep-walker, I went back to my own room, leaving the connecting-doors ajar. I climbed back into bed.

"Is he all right?" Berthe's whisper met me, sharp and thin.

I nodded.

"Oh, miss, oh, miss…" She was wringing her hands again. I remember thinking with a queer detached portion of my mind that here was someone wringing her hands. One reads about it and one never sees it, and now here it was. When at length I spoke it was in a dead flat voice I didn't recognise as my own. "We'd better get this clear, I think. I don't say that I accept what Bernard says, but-well, I want to hear it… all. He says there's a plot on hand to murder Philippe. If that's so, there's no need to ask why; the gains to Monsieur and Madame and-the gains are obvious."

The words came easily. It was like a play. I was acting in a play. I didn't feel a thing-no anger or fear or unhappiness. I just spoke my lines in that dead and uninfected voice and Berthe listened and stared at me and twisted her hands together.

I said: "You say 'they've tried already'. I suppose you mean the shot in the woods and the balcony-rail?"

"Y-yes."

"So." I remembered then the white expectancy on Madame de Valmy's face as Philippe and I came up from the woods that day. And the night of the balcony-rail; she hadn't come upstairs that night to get any tablets; she had come because she couldn't stand the suspense any longer. Léon de Valmy, stationed in the hall, must have heard the crash from the forecourt. My mind leaped on from this to recollect those two interviews with my employer in the library. I said harshly: "This could be true. Oh, my dear God, Berthe, it could be true. Well, let's have it. Who fired the shot? Bernard himself?"

"No. That was Monsieur Raoul. Bernard dug the bullet out."

I forgot about its being a play. "I don't believe it!"

"Miss-"

"Did Bernard say so?"

"Yes."

"In so many words?"

"Yes."

"Then he's lying. He probably did the shooting himself and-" But here I saw her face and stopped. After a while I said fairly calmly: "I'm sorry. I did ask you to tell me just what he said, after all. And I-I'm pretty sure that what he said is true in the main. It's just that I can't quite bring myself to-to believe-"

"Yes, miss. I know."

I looked at her. "Oh, Berthe, you make me ashamed. I was so wrapped up in my own feelings that I forgot the way you'd be feeling, too. I'm sorry. We're both in the same boat, aren't we?"

She nodded wordlessly.

Somehow the knowledge steadied me. I said: "Well, look, Berthe. We've got to be tough about this for Philippe's sake, and because there isn't much time. Later on we can work it out and-and decide who's guilty and who isn't. At present I suppose we must assume they're all in it, whether or not we can believe it in our heart of hearts. And I'm pretty sure that Monsieur and Madame are guilty-in fact I know they are. I'm very much to blame for not seeing it before, but who on earth goes about suspecting an impossible outlandish thing like murder? That's something that happens in books, not among people you know. I suppose I ought to have seen it straight away, when Philippe was shot at in the woods. And Raoul…Raoul was out there; he admitted it himself, and Bernard was sent straight out, and I suppose he removed the bullet then and went back later with someone else to 'discover’ it. Yes, and I was right in thinking that Monsieur de Valmy knew I spoke French; I'd shouted it at-at the murderer in the beech-wood, and talked it to Philippe all the way home. Then the affair of the balcony-rail, Berthe-I suppose that and the swing in the barn were extras? Off-chances? Booby-traps that might work sooner or later?"

"Yes."

"And then the Cadillac's horn blasting at-perhaps at nothing -brought Philippe out to his death?" I added shakily: "Do I have to believe that, too?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, miss. What horn? Bernard never said anything about any horn."

"Oh? Well, skip it. It's over, thank God, without harm. Now we have to think what to do."

I looked down at my hands while I tried to marshal my thoughts. And the pattern was forming in a way I didn't want to examine too closely. It was all there. I tried to make myself look at it all quite coldly and in order, from the time when Philippe had been sent up to Valmy and so delivered by the unsuspecting Hippolyte straight into the hands of murder…

The first step-and it was taken immediately-had been to get rid of the only person close to Philippe and trusted by Hippolyte-the child's nurse. Someone must replace her, and it was judged better to find a young woman without family or guardian who, in the event of an "accident" to her pupil, wouldn't be able to call upon friends and relatives to exonerate her from possible charges of carelessness (or worse) should there be a mistake and doubts arise. So Madame de Valmy had made inquiries of a friend in London who was known to supply her friends with domestic help from an orphanage. Who better than an orphan, and a foreigner at that-someone who, in the accumulated bewilderments of a new job, a new country, and a foreign language, would hardly be in a position to observe too much or defend herself too readily… There had in sober fact been that slight over-emphasis on my Englishness…my instinct to hide my Continental origin had, absurd though it had seemed, been right.

So the scapegoat had been found and brought to France. They waited. There was plenty of time. I had been allowed to settle in; my life with Philippe formed its own quiet pattern, an ordinary day-to-day pattern which appeared pleasantly normal except that Monsieur de Valmy couldn't quite keep his bitter tongue off the child who stood between him and so much. So it had gone on. I had stayed there three weeks, settled and happy, though still not quite at ease with my employers. Then the attempt was made and, by the purest chance, it failed. The second was a longer chance, but quite safe for them-the rotten coping had already been reported, so Bernard had made sure of the stone's collapse and then waited for an accident to happen when none of the interested parties was anywhere near. And the second "accident" failed too, because of me. If the first, or even the second, had come off, "accident" would almost certainly have been the verdict… and no doubt an entirely baffling series of alibis was in any case available. Certainly the one person who couldn't be found guilty was the interested party, Léon de Valmy. It would have been a tragedy, and it would have blown over, whispers and all, and Léon would have had Valmy. It was even possible that there'd have been no whispers at all… Léon was highly thought of, and a first-rate landlord: the country folk would for many years past have regarded him as the seigneur, and they might have been only too pleased when the custody of Valmy passed unequivocally into his hands.

Berthe was still crouching at the foot of my bed, watching me dumbly. I said: "And now, Berthe, what's next?"

"I don't know. I don't know."

"You must. This is what matters. Think. Bernard let so much out; he must have told you that."

"No. I don't think he knew himself. I think it wasn't to be him. That's all." She floundered, gulped, and began to sob again.

Out of nowhere, unbidden, unwanted, a picture flashed onto the dark screen of my mind. Philippe's sleeping head lolling back against Raoul's shoulder, and Héloïse's voice saying hoarsely: “What's the matter with Philippe?" And Raoul giving her that hard quelling look. "Nothing at all. He's asleep.”

I said shakily: "And Bernard said nothing to indicate when? Or how?"

"No, honestly he didn't. But it was to be soon because of Monsieur Hippolyte coming back. The cable came early this morning and it really put the Master out, Bernard said."

"And Hippolyte's coming back tomorrow?" I caught my breath. "Today, Berthe. It's today, d'you realise that? Today?"

"Why-yes, I reckon it is. It's nearly one o'clock, isn't it? But I don't rightly know when Monsieur Hippolyte'll get here. I think it won't be till night, and then he mayn't get up to Valmy till Thursday."

I said quietly: "Monsieur Raoul has gone to Paris till Thursday, Berthe. If the cable came 'early' this morning he would probably know about it, but he still went to Paris. So he can't be in it, can he? Bernard was wrong."

She said in that dull voice that was stupid with shock and succeeded in sounding stubborn: "Bernard said he was in it. Bernard said he fired the shot."

It was useless-and cruel-to spend myself in protests. I said: "All right. The point is that if we're to decide, how to protect Philippe we must have some idea where the danger's coming from. I mean, nobody's going to listen to us unless we have some sort of a case which, God knows, we haven't got yet. Let's begin with the things we know. You say it's not to be Bernard."

She gulped and nodded. She was steadier now, I saw, and her breathing was less ragged. Her hands had stopped wrenching at each other. She was listening with some sort of attention.

I said: "I think we can count out the idea that there are any more booby-traps waiting about. They've got to make quite certain this time; they can't wait for chance to act for them. And in any case, too many 'accidents' of the same kind might make people begin to think. That was why Monsieur de Valmy warned me about the swing in the barn… yes, he did that this afternoon, after he'd heard that Hippolyte was coming back. He was as nice as ninepence, though I'd been quite sure that he and Madame-oh, well, that doesn't matter. Well, Bernard's out, and booby-traps are out. There are limits to what Monsieur de Valmy can do himself, and from the way things have gone up to here, so it can't be Raoul." In spite of myself my voice lightened on the words. I said almost joyously: "That leaves Madame, doesn't it."

"Are you sure?" said Berthe.

"That it's Madame? Of course I'm not. But-"

"That he's gone," said Berthe.

I stared at her. "What do you mean?"

She gave a little boneless shrug. "It's a big place."

Something crept over my skin like a cold draught. "You mean… he may still be here somewhere… hiding?"

She didn't speak. She nodded. Her eyes, watching me painfully, were once more alive and intelligent.

I said almost angrily: "But he went. People must have seen him go. Bernard said-oh, that's not evidence, is it? But his car's gone. I noticed that when we came through the stableyard this afternoon."

"Yes. He left. I saw him. But he could have come back. There's such things," added Berthe surprisingly, "as alibis."

I said slowly: "Yes, I suppose there are. But that he should be here-hiding-no, it's too far-fetched and absurd."

"Well," said Berthe, "but it's absurd to think Madame would do it, isn't it?"

"Oh God," I said explosively, "it's absurd to think anyone would do it I But I can't believe the thing hinges on Raoul. No"-as she was about to speak-"not only for the reason you think, but because if he is in it, I can't see where I come in at all. That's fantastic if you like."

"How d'you mean?"

"If he was involved in this murder thing, why get involved with me? You know he was, of course?"

"Everybody knew."

I said bitterly: "They did, didn't they? Well, why did he? Surely it was a dangerous and unnecessary thing to

do?"

"Perhaps," she said disconcertingly, "he just can't help it. You're awfully pretty, aren't you, and Albertine says that when they were in Paris she heard-"

“Ah, yes, “I said. “Albertine hears an awful lot doesn’t she? You mean that he automatically turns the power on for every young female he meets? His father’s like that, have you noticed? He's got a technique all his own of disarming you with his affliction and then switching on charm like an arc-light. Well, it could be, but I don't think so. Raoul's not like his father; he's got no need to waste himself where it doesn't matter. And in this case it might have been actually dangerous to get involved with me if he was.… Third Murderer."

"If he's in it with them, and he started to-well, to-"

"To make love to me?"

"Yes, miss. If he did that, and, like you said, it wasn't safe, mightn't that be why Monsieur and Madame were so annoyed about it?"

"I thought they were at first, but they weren't. I told you. Monsieur was awfully nice to me this afternoon."

"Oh, but they were, miss. Albertine said you were to be sent away. Everyone knew. They were all talking about it. And why should they bother to send you away, unless Monsieur Raoul was in with them, and it wasn't safe, like you said. Otherwise you'd hardly think they'd trouble their heads about his goings-on, because-oh, I'm sorry, miss, I do beg your pardon, I'm sure."

"It's all right. 'Goings-on' will do. Well, they might be annoyed even so, because Philippe was in their charge and I-no that won't do. If they're all set to murder the child they won't give a damn about the moral code of his governess. But no, Berthe, it won't fit. It doesn't make sense. I still can't throw Monsieur Raoul in, you know. And not just because of the way I feel either. It went too far, our affair-beyond all the bounds of reason if he was involved in his father's game. He asked me to marry him at the ball."

"Yes, I know."

"You know?"

"Yes, miss. Everybody does."

I don't think I spoke for a full five seconds. "Do they? Second sight or just more gossip?"

"I don't know what you mean. Bernard told Albertine and she told the rest of us."

"When was this?"

She looked uncomfortable. "Well, she'd been saying things about you for quite a time. She'd been saying you were, well-"

"Yes?"

"She said you were out to get him, miss, and that Monsieur and Madame were furious and you were going to be sent away. And then yesterday she was saying it had happened, like."

"Yesterday? You mean after the ball?"

"That's right."

"Did she say she knew for certain?"

"I don't know. She was sounding sure enough about it. She said-oh, well, never mind. She's a nasty one sometimes, that one."

"Yes. Let it pass. I've had my fill of Albertine. But let's think," I said a little desperately, "if she and everyone else were talking about our engagement, then, even if they hadn't been actually told, you'd think Monsieur and Madame would know too?"

"That's right, you would."

"But you said they were genuinely furious before that-when it was known that he and I were, well, interested in each other."

"Oh yes. I'm sure of that."

"But I tell you it doesn't make sense. I told you, I saw Monsieur de Valmy yesterday-when presumably he knew as much about it as everyone else-and he was extremely nice to me. And neither of them sent for me to ask me about it or- or anything. I-I can't work it out, Berthe. My head's spinning ' and it feels as if it's going to burst. If they knew and didn't mind, then Raoul can't be in it, can he? When I saw him, Monsieur Léon must have already laid his plans because he'd already had Hippolyte's cable…"

My voice trailed away into nothing. I swallowed hard. I repeated, unrecognisably: "He'd already had Hippolyte's cable!”

In the silence that followed she stirred and the bed creaked.

I said slowly: "He and Madame were angry with me before; I know they were. I believe they were planning to send me away.

But Hippolyte's cable changed all that. They had to make a plan in a hurry and that plan included me. How does that fit?"

"Well-"

"It does, you know. But how? How? Are you sure Bernard said nothing?"

"I'm sure," she said desperately. "Don't you fret, miss. I’d go bail you'll be in no danger."

"What makes you think I'm worrying about that?" I said, almost sharply. "But we must get this straight, don't you see? It's the only way we'll be able to do anything to help Philippe. What can they be planning to do that includes me? What the sweet hell can they be planning?"

She said: "Maybe you've nothing to do with it at all. Maybe they just think it'd look funny if something happened to Philippe the day you were sent off, so they've decided they'll have to keep you.

"Yes, but marriage is a bit-"

"Maybe they want to make sure you'll hold your tongue if you suspect anything," said Berthe.

"Oh, dear God," I said wearily, "they surely can't imagine that I’d suspect a child was murdered and do nothing about it?"

"But if you were going to marry him, and everyone knew-"

"What difference would that make? They'd never be idiot enough to think I'd help them? No, it's nonsense. They'd never use marriage as a bait to make me hold my tongue. Why, good heavens-"

"I wasn't going to say that." There was some new quality in Berthe's voice that stopped me short. She was still speaking softly, but there was some curious vibrancy in the tones that held me. She said: "Everybody knows you're engaged to Monsieur Raoul. If Philippe died, you'd be Madame la Comtesse de Valmy one day. If the cable really came before the ball-"

"What do you mean?" Then I saw. I finished in a voice that wasn't a voice at all: "You mean that when the cable came and they made their plan, it did include me? That they've given me a motive for murder? That they can't risk another 'accident' without a scapegoat ready to hand in case things go wrong and people ask questions? Is that what you mean?"

Berthe said simply: "Why else should he ask you to marry him?”

"Why else indeed?" I said.

I had checked up again on Philippe. He still slept peacefully. The house was quiet. I tiptoed back into my bedroom and reached for my dressing-gown.

Berthe said: "Is he all right?"

I was putting the dressing-gown on with hands that shook and were clumsy. "Yes. You realise, I suppose, that the likeliest time for anything to happen is tonight, now, and everybody's out at the dance except Mrs.

Seddon?”

" Mr. Seddon didn't go. He stayed with her."

"Oh? Well, I'd trust them all right, but she's ill and I doubt if he'd be much use-even if they'd believe us, which isn't likely." I found my slippers and thrust my feet hastily into them. "Will you stay with Philippe and mount guard over him? Lock his door and window now."

"What are you going to do?"

"The only possible thing. What's the time?"

"Going on quarter past one. I-we came away early."

"Did Bernard come up with you?"

"Yes." She didn't look at me. "I persuaded him to bring me up in the brake. It wasn't difficult. He-he's asleep now in my room." She finished in a thin little voice: "It was awful, driving up that zigzag with him so drunk still…"

I was hardly listening. I was reflecting that, apart from the Seddons, we were alone in the house with Léon de Valmy and Bernard. Thank God the latter still had to sleep it off. I said: "Was Madame de Valmy at the dance?"

"Yes, but she'll have left by now. She never stays long."

"I see. Now can I get to the telephone in Seddon's pantry without being heard or seen? Does he lock it?"

"No, miss. But he goes to bed at midnight and he always switches it through to the Master's room then."

Something fluttered deep in my stomach. I ignored it. "Then I'll switch it back again. How d'you do it?"

There’s a red tab on the left. Press it down. But-he might hear it. Miss-what are you going to do? "

"There's only one thing I can do. We must have help. D'you mean that if I use the telephone it'll ting in the Master's room or something? Because if so I can't use it. And I can't go out and leave Philippe. You may have to go for the police yourself if you can-"

"The police?"

I was across at the door that gave on to the corridor, listening. I turned and looked back at her in surprise.

"Who else? I must tell the police all this. They may not believe me, but at least I can get them up here and if there's a fuss it'll make it impossible for another attempt on Philippe to be made. And tonight or tomorrow Monsieur Hippolyte gets back and he can take care of Philippe when the row's over and I've been sent-home."

"No!" said Berthe so violently that the syllable rang, and she clapped a hand to her mouth.

"What d'you mean?"

"You're not to go to the police! You're not to tell anyone! "

"But my dear girl-"

"I came to tell you because you've been kind to me, because I liked you and Philippe. You've been so good to me-always so nice, and there was the dress and-and all. I thought you might have got mixed up in it somehow, with Monsieur Raoul and all that… But you mustn't let on I told you! You mustn't!"

The new fear had sharpened her voice, so that I said urgently: "Be quiet, will you! And don't be a fool! How can you expect me to say nothing-"

"You are not to tell them about Bernard! You can go away if you're afraid!"

I must have looked at her blankly. "Go away?”

"If it's true what we said, and you're likely to be blamed for a murder! You can make an excuse in the morning and leave straight away! It's easy! You can say you don't want to marry him after all, and that you know you can't stay as governess after what's happened. It's likely enough. They can't make you stay anyway, and they won't suspect."

"But, Berthe, stop! That’s only guesswork! And even if it’s true you can't seriously suggest that I should run away and leave Philippe to them?"

"I'll look after him! I'll watch him till Monsieur Hippolyte gets back! It's only one day! You can trust me, you know that. If you upset their plans and they've nobody to blame, maybe they won't do anything."

"Maybe they will," I rejoined grimly, "and blame you in-stead, Berthe."

"They wouldn't dare. Bernard wouldn't stand for it."

"You're probably right. But I'm not risking Philippe's life on any 'maybes'. And you don't understand, Berthe. The thing to be stopped isn't my being involved, but Philippe's murder! I know you came to warn me, and I'm grateful, but there's simply no question of my leaving. I'm going to ring the police now."

Her face, paper-white, had flattened, featureless; starched linen with two dark holes torn for eyes. "No! No! No!" Hysteria shook her voice. "Bernard will know I've told you! And Monsieur de Valmy! I daren't! You can't!"

"I must. Can't you see that none of these things matter? Only the child."

"I'll deny it. I'll deny everything. I'll swear he never said a word or that I spoke to you. I'll say it's lies. I will! I will!"

There was a little silence. I came away from the door. "You'd do-that?"

"Yes. I swear I would."

I said nothing for a bit. After a few seconds her eyes fell away from mine, but there was a look in her face that told me she meant what she said. I fought my anger down, reminding myself that she had lived all her life in Valmy's shadow, and that now there was the best of reasons why Bernard should still be willing-and free-to marry her. Poor Berthe; she had done a good deal: more I could hardly expect…

"Very well," I said, "I'll leave you out of it and I won't mention Bernard. We'll let the past die and just deal with the future. I'll put it to the police as simply my own suspicions. I'll think of something. And then I'll go straight along to Léon de Valmy and tell him that I've spoken to them. That should put paid to him as effectively."

She was staring at me as if I were mad. "You'd-dare?”

I had a sudden inner vision of Philippe in Raoul's arms. "Oh yes," I said, "I'd dare."

She was shivering now, and her teeth were clenched as if she was cold. "But you mustn't. He'd guess about Bernard-and me. Someone'd tell him Bernard was drunk tonight. He'd know. You can't do it."

"I must and will. Don't be a fool, Berthe. You know as well as I do that I've got to…"

"No, no, no! We can look after him! With two of us he'll be all right. It's only for one day. We can watch Bernard-"

"And Madame? And Léon de Valmy? And God knows who else?"

She said blindly, hysterically: "You are not to tell! If you don't swear not to go to the police I shall go to Bernard now! He'll be sober enough to stop you! "

I took three strides to the bedside and gripped her by the shoulders. "You won't do that, Berthe! You know you won't! You can't!”

Under my hands her shoulders were rigid. Her face, still pinched and white, was near my own. My touch seemed to have shaken the hysteria out of her, for she spoke quietly, and with a conviction that no scream could have carried: "If you tell the police, and they come to see the Master, he'll guess how you found out. And there'll be a fuss, and he'll just deny everything, and laugh at it. They'll say that you-yes! they'll say you tried to marry Monsieur Raoul and were slighted and you're doing it out of spite, and then the police will laugh too and shrug and have a drink with the Master and go away…"

"Very likely. But it'll save Philippe and a bit more slander won't hurt me."

"But what do you suppose will happen to me when it's all over?" asked Berthe. "And Bernard? And my mother and my family? My father and my brothers have worked at Valmy all their lives. They're poor. They've got nothing. Where can they go when they're dismissed? What can we do?" She shook her head. "You must please-please -do as I say. Between us we can keep him safe all right. It's best, miss, honestly it's best."

I let my hands drop from her shoulders.

"Very well. Have it your own way. I’ll keep my mouth shut." I looked at her. "But I swear to you that if anything happens to Philippe-or if any attempt is made-I'll smear this story, and the Valmys, across every newspaper in France until they-and Bernard-get what they deserve."

"Nothing will happen to Philippe."

"I pray God you're right. Now go, Berthe. Thank you for coming as you did." She slid off the bed, hesitating.

"The frock?" I said wearily: "Keep it. I'll have no use for it where I'll be going. Goodnight."

"Miss-"

"Goodnight, Berthe."

The door clicked shut behind her, and left me alone with the shadows.

Chapter 14

There was only one possible plan that would make certain of Philippe's safety. He had to be removed from Léon de Valmy's reach and hidden till help came.

There wasn't a minute to lose. Léon de Valmy might well assume that one-thirty would be a dead hour in the schoolroom wing. And the servants would be coming back from the dance between three and four. If anything was to be done tonight it would be done soon.

I was back at my bedside, tearing off my dressing-gown with those wretchedly shaky hands, while my mind raced on out of control. I couldn't think; I didn't want to think; there were things I didn't want to face. Not yet. But Philippe had to be got away. That was all that mattered. I had decided that I didn't dare use the telephone; it might somehow betray me to Léon de Valmy, and besides, it was possible that Berthe would wait to see if I approached the pantry-and in her present shaken and terrified mood I couldn't answer for her reactions. And there was no help in Valmy. Mrs. Seddon was ill; Seddon himself was elderly, conventional and (I suspected) none too bright. Berthe and I between us might have guarded Philippe if we had only known from what danger, but as it was…no, he had to be got away to the nearest certain help, and then, as soon as possible, to the police. I didn't let the promise Berthe had blackmailed from me weigh with me for a second; being a woman, I put commonsense in front of an illusory "honour", and I'd have broken a thousand promises without a qualm if by doing so I could save Philippe.

I had flung my dressing-gown down and was reaching for my clothes when I heard the sound from the corridor.

Even though I had been listening for it I didn't at first know what it was. It came as the thinnest of humming whispers through the turmoil of my brain. But at some level it must have blared a warning, for my hand flashed to the bedside light and switched it off just as Philippe's door opened very quietly, and I knew what the whisper had been. The wheel-chair.

I stayed where I was, frozen, one hand still on the light-switch. I don't think I was even breathing. If there had been the slightest sound from the other room I think I'd have been through there like a bullet from a gun, but the wheel-chair never moved, so I stayed still, waiting.

Nothing. No movement. After a while Philippe's door shut once more, very softly. The whisper was in the corridor again.

I don't know what instinct thrust me back into my bed and pulled the clothes up round me, but when my bedroom door opened I was lying quite quietly with my back to it.

He didn't come in. He simply waited there in silence. The seconds stretched out like years. I thought: I wonder what he'd do if I turned over, saw him, and screamed? The employer caught creeping into the governess's bedroom, the lights, the questions, the scurrying feet in the corridor… could you laugh that one off, Monsieur de Valmy? Tiny bubbles of hysteria prickled in my throat at the thought of Léon de Valmy pilloried in the role of vile seducer-then I remembered how pitifully he was insured against the risk, and lay still, all my perilous amusement gone. In its stead came a kind of shame and a pity that rather horribly, did nothing to mitigate my fear. There was something curiously vile about the mixture of emotions. My muscles tensed themselves against it and I started to tremble.

He had gone. The door had closed noiselessly behind him I heard the whisper of the wheels fade along the corridor towards his room.

I slipped out of bed and padded across to the door, where I stood listening until, far down the corridor, I thought I heard another door shut softly. Seconds later, I heard the faint whine of the lift. He had been checking up, that was all. But he had also told me all I wanted to know. The story was true. And I had to get Philippe out of it, and fast. Somehow I was calm again. I shut and locked my door, then with steady hands drew the curtains close and turned on the bedside light. I dressed quickly, picked up my coat and strong shoes, and went through the bathroom into Philippe's room.

This was going to be the hardest part of the job. I put the coat and shoes down on the chair where I had sat for last night's midnight feast, then, with a glance at the sleeping child, I crossed to the door and locked it.

Deliberately, I refused to hurry. If this was to succeed at all it must be taken calmly.

The room was light enough. The long curtains hung slightly apart, and between them a shaft of light fell, as it had done last night, to paint a bright line across the carpet. Something struck my foot as I crossed the floor, and rolled a little way, glittering. A frosted grape. Berthe had scamped the cleaning today, it seemed.

I pushed aside the heavy curtain, and latched the window. Behind me Philippe moved and sighed, and I paused and looked over my shoulder towards the bed, with one hand still on the window-catch, and the other holding back the curtain.

The shadow falling across me brought me round again like a jerked puppet to face the window. Someone had come along the balcony, and was staring at me through the gap in the curtains. I stood there, held rigid in the noose of light that showed me up so pitilessly. I couldn't move. My hand tightened on the window-catch as if an electric current held it there. I looked straight into Héloïse de Valmy's eyes, a foot from my own.

She showed no surprise at my presence, nor even at the fact that I was fully dressed. She merely put a hand to the window-fastening, as if expecting to find it open. She shook it, and then her hands slid over the glass as if trying to push a way in. Then she took hold of the latch once more, rattling it almost impatiently.

I could hardly refuse to let her in. I noticed that there were no pockets to her long ivory-coloured robe, and that her hands were empty. Besides, if she was here to harm Philippe she would hardly demand entry from me in this unruffled fashion. Wondering confusedly how I was going to explain the fact that I was up and dressed.at one-thirty in the morning, I opened the window. I said, as coolly as I could: "Good evening, madame."

She took no notice, but walked calmly past me into the room. Her robe whispered across the carpet. She stopped near the head of the bed. In the dim room her shadow threw a yet deeper darkness over the sleeping child. She put out a hand slowly, almost tentatively, to touch his face. It was a gentle touch, a meaningless gesture, but I recognised it. This was Philippe's nightmare. This had happened before.

If she had had some weapon, if her approach had been at all stealthy-anything but this apparently calm and routine visit- no doubt I would have moved more quickly. As it was, her hand was still hovering over the boy's face when I flew after her. I reached Philippe just as her fingers touched him. He didn't move. She drew her hand back, and straightened up. I went round the bed and reached a protective hand to draw the sheet up to the child's face. I faced her across the bed. Whatever my feelings towards the Demon King, I was not afraid of his wife. I said: "What is it, madame? What do you want?"

She didn't answer. She hadn't even acknowledged my presence. This was carrying ostracism a bit too far. I began to say something angry, then stopped, bewildered, to watch her.

She had turned to the little table that stood beside the bed. Her hands moved now over the clutter of objects on the table-a lamp, a book, a little clock, the tumbler that had held Philip’s chocolate, a couple of soldiers, a biscuit… I thought she was going to switch the light on, and made a half-movement of protest. But her hands, groping in a curious blind fashion passed the lamp, moved softly over the clock and the tin soldiers' and hovered over the tumbler. She picked this up. I said: "Madame de Valmy-"

She turned at that. She had lifted the tumbler as if to drink from it, and across the rim her eyes met mine again. With her back to the moonlight, her face was a pale blur, her eyes dark and expressionless, but as I looked at her, bewildered and beginning once more to be frightened, I understood. The goose-pimple cold slid, ghost-handed, over my skin.

The open eyes, no less than the smooth stealthy hands, were indeed blind… I stared into the woman's expressionless face for one eerie moment longer, while the child breathed gently between us, then, very quietly, I moved to one side, down to the foot of the bed.

She stood still, with the tumbler held to her face, staring at the place where I had been… You see, her eyes are open; Ay, but their sense is shut…I stood and watched her as if she were a ghost on a moonlit stage. The verses marched on through my brain as if someone had switched on a tape-recorder and forgotten it. I remember feeling a sort of numb surprise at their aptness. Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise, and upon my life, fast asleep…

So Héloïse de Valmy, like Lady Macbeth, had that weighing on her heart which sent her sleep-walking through the night to Philippe's room. And would she, like that other murderess, give away what she had seen and known? I knew nothing about sleep-walkers except what I remembered of that scene in Macbeth. And Lady Macbeth had talked. Was it possible that I could get Héloïse de Valmy to do the same? Observe her, stand close.

I was gripping the rail at the foot of Philippe's bed. Without it, I think I would have fallen. I said hoarsely: "Madame."

She took no notice. She put the tumbler down surely and quietly, and turned to go. The moonlight rippled along the lovely folds of her robe; it caught her face, gleaming back from eyes wide and glossy as a doll's.

I said: "Héloïse de Valmy, answer me. How will you kill Philippe?"

She was on her way to the window. I walked with her. She went smoothly, and at the right moment her hand went up to the curtain. For one fearful moment I thought I had been mistaken and she was awake, but then I saw her fumble the curtains and hesitate as a fold tangled in her robe. The fixed eyes never moved, but she fetched a sigh and faltered. Heaven knows what she has known. The obsessive question burst from me. "Is Raoul helping you to kill Philippe?"

She paused. Her head inclined towards me. I repeated it urgently in her ear: "Is Raoul helping you?"

She turned away. It wouldn't work. She was going, and her secrets with her, still locked in sleep. I reached an unsteady hand and drew the curtain aside for her.

She walked composedly past me and out of sight along the balcony.

But she had told me one thing. I saw it as soon as I turned.

God, God forgive us all. I stood over Philippe in the moon- dappled darkness, with the tumbler in my hand.

I woke him quietly. I used a trick I had read about somewhere in John Buchan-a gentle pressure below the left ear. It seemed to work; he opened his eyes quite naturally and lay for a moment before they focused on me in the moonlight. Then he said, as if we were resuming a conversation: "I had another nightmare."

"I know. That's why I came in."

He lifted his head, and then pushed himself into a sitting position. "What's the time?"

"Half-past one."

"Haven't you been to bed yet? Have you been to the dance in the village. You didn't tell me."

"No, I haven't been out. I got dressed again because-"

"You're not going out now?" The whisper sharpened so abruptly that my finger flew to my lips.

"Quiet, Philippe. No-that is, yes, but I'm not leaving you alone, if that's what you're afraid of. You're coming too."

"I am?"

I nodded, and sat down on the edge of the bed. The big eyes watched me. He was sitting very still. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. God knows what my voice sounded like. I know my lips were stiff. I said: "Philippe."

"Yes, mademoiselle?"

"Do you-feel all right? Not-not sleepy or anything?"

"Not really."

"Quite fit and wide-awake?"

"Yes."

I said hoarsely: "Did you drink your chocolate?"

His eyes slid round in that narrow sidelong look towards the tumbler, then back to me. He hesitated. "I poured it away."

"You what? Why?"

"Well… he said uncertainly, eyeing me, then stopped.

"Look, Philippe, I don't mind. I just want to know. Was it nasty or something?"

"Oh no. At least I don't know." Again that look. Then a sudden burst of candour: "They left the bottle last night and I found it and kept it. I didn't tell you."

I said blankly: "Bottle?"

"Yes," said Philippe, "that smashing lemonade. I had that instead. It wasn't fizzy any more but it was fine."

"You… never said anything when I went to make your chocolate."'

"Well," said Philippe, "I didn't want to hurt your feelings. You always made the chocolate and-what's the matter?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Oh, Philippe."

"What is it, Miss Martin?"

"I guess I'm tired," I said. "I had a late night last night and I haven't slept much tonight,"

"You don't mind?" "No, I don't mind."

"Why haven't you slept tonight?"

I said: "Now listen, mon p'tit. Did you know your Uncle Hippolyte is coming home tomorrow-today?"

I saw the joy blow across his face the way a gleam runs over water and felt, suddenly, a deep and calm thankfulness. There was port in this storm, it seemed.

Philippe was saying in a quick, excited whisper: "When is he coming? Why is he coming back? Who told you? When can we get to see him?"

"That's what I came to wake you for," I said, as if it was the most reasonable thing in the world. "I thought that we might go straight away. The-the sooner the better," I finished lamely, all my half-thought-out excuses dying on my lips under that steady wide stare.

"Do you mean we are going to the Villa Mireille now? To meet my Uncle Hippolyte?"

"Yes. He won't be there yet, but I thought-"

Philippe said, devastatingly: "Does my Uncle Léon know?"

I swallowed. "Philippe, my dear, I don't expect you to understand all this, but I want you to trust me, and come with me now as quickly and quietly as you can. Your Uncle Léon-"

"You are taking me away from him." It was a statement, not a question. His face was expressionless, but his eyes were intent, and he was breathing a little faster.

"Yes," I said, and nerved myself for the inevitable. "Why?" But it didn't come. The child supplied the terrible answer for himself.

He said in that sombre, unsurprised little voice: "My Uncle Léon hates me. I know that. He wishes I was dead. Doesn't he?"

I said gently: "Philippe, mon lapin, I'm afraid he might wish you harm. I don't like your Uncle Léon very much either. I think we'll both be better away from here, if you'll only trust me and come with me."

He pushed back the bedclothes without a second's hesitation, and grabbed at the back of his nightshirt, ready to haul it over his head. In the act he stopped. "The time I was shot at in the wood, that was not an accident?"

The question, coming grotesquely out of the folds of the nightshirt, made me gasp. There was no need, it appeared, to pretend, even about this. I said: "No, it wasn't an accident. Here's your vest."

"He tried to kill me?"

"Yes." The word sounded, so flat that I added quickly: "Don't be afraid, Philippe."

"I'm not afraid." He was fighting his way into his shirt now. As he emerged from the neck of it I saw that he spoke the truth. He was taut as a wire, and the long-lashed black eyes-Valmy eyes-were beginning to blaze. "I've been afraid for a long time, ever since I came to Valmy, but I didn't know why. I've been unhappy and I’ve hated my Uncle Léon, but I didn't know why I was afraid all the time. Now I know, and I'm not frightened any more." He sat down at my feet and began to pull his socks on. "We'll go to my Uncle Hippolyte and tell him all this, and then my Uncle Léon will be guillotined."

"Philippe!"

He glanced up at me. "What would you? Murderers go to the guillotine. He's a murderer."

Tigers breed true, I thought wildly, tigers breed true. He had even, for a flash, had a look of Léon de Valmy himself. But he was only a child; he couldn't know the implications of what he was saying. I said: "He's not, you know. You're still alive, and going to stay that way. Only we must hurry, and be terribly quiet. Look, your shoes are here. No, don't put them on. Carry them till we get out."

He picked them up and got up, turning towards me, then, with a sudden duck back into childhood, he reached for my hand. "Where are we going?"

"I told you. To your Uncle Hippolyte."

"But we can't go to the Villa Mireille till he's there," he said uncertainly. "That's where they'll look for us straight away in the morning."

"I know." His hand quivered in mine, and I pulled him against my knee and put an arm round him. "But we'll be quite safe. We'll follow our star, Philippe. It'll not let us down. D'you remember Monsieur Blake, the

Englishman?”

He nodded.

"Well, he has a cabin up in Dieudonné woods where he spends the night sometimes. I know he's there tonight, because I saw his light shining like a star before I went to bed. We'll go up there straight away, and he'll look after us and take us to your uncle's house tomorrow. It'll be all right, you'll see. I promise you it will."

"All right. Shall I take this scarf?”

"Yes. Was that your warm jersey you put on? Good. We'll lock the balcony window, I think… Okay now? Be terribly quiet."

I paused by the door, my hand on the key and listened. Philippe drifted to my elbow like a ghost. His eyes looked enormous in a pale face. I could hear nothing. Beyond the door the great house stretched dark and almost untenanted. And Madame de Valmy was certainly asleep, and Bernard was drunk, and the tiger himself-waiting down there for death to be discovered-the tiger himself was crippled…

With a hand that slipped a little on the doorknob I eased the door open, then took Philippe's hand and tiptoed with him out into the dark corridor. Past the clock that had sounded midnight for us, down the stairs where I had lost my slipper, along the dim stretches of corridor walled with blind doors and the sidelong painted eyes of portraits… the great house slid past us in the darkness as insubstantial as scenery in a Cocteau fantasy, until our breathless and ghostly flight was blocked by the heavy door that gave onto the stableyard and freedom.

It was locked. There must be some other way left for the servants to come in, but I didn't dare turn aside to explore. The heavy key turned easily and quietly, but still the door wouldn't move. My hands slid over the studded wood in the darkness, searching for a bolt. Beside me I heard Philippe take a little breath and began to shiver. Standing on tiptoe, groping above my head, I found the bolt, and pulled. It moved with a scream like a mandrake torn up in a midnight wood. The sound seemed to go on and on, winding back along the corridor in a creeping echo. I pulled at the door with shaking hands, listening all the time for the whine of the wheel-chair. The door wouldn't budge. Still it wouldn't budge. I tried to feel if it had a spring lock beside the key, but couldn't find one. He would be coming any minute now, to find us cornered in this dark passage-way. It didn't need the shrieking bolts to tell him where we were and what we were doing. I could almost hear my panic-stricken thoughts pouring down the corridor to shout it at him. He would know. Oh yes, he would know. We were en rapport, the Demon King and I…

"It's all right,” whispered Philippe, "I brought my torch. Look.”

He stooped down to the other bolt, drew it quietly, and the door opened. We went out into the night air.

Chapter 15

Enter these enchanted woods,

You who dare.

George Meredith: The Woods of Westermain.

I had no idea how to find William Blake's forest hut, but from my window at Valmy I had noticed that the light seemed to be very near a broad, straight ride that slashed up through the pines from somewhere near the Valmy bridge. Philippe and I had only to cross the bridge and climb up from the road, bearing slightly right, and we were bound to strike the open ride. Once in this we must follow it up towards the first ridge, and no doubt sooner or later the light itself would guide us to the hut.

It sounded easy, but in practice it was a long and exhausting climb. I dared not use Philippe's torch so near the road, nor later in the ride, open as this was to every window on Valmy's west front.

In the forest it was very dark. My eyes had by now adjusted themselves, and we were able to pick our way between the trees without actual mishap, but very slowly, and with many stumbles and grazes, as the thick carpet of pine-needles was criss-crossed, and in places piled, with dead and spiky branches left when the woods were thinned. Once Philippe tripped and was only saved from falling by my hand, and once I had to bite back a cry of pain as I stumbled against some fallen snag of wood that stabbed at my leg for all the world like a sword. But Philippe made no complaint and, crazy though it may sound, I myself, with every yard of midnight wood put between me and Valmy, felt safer and happier. This wild mountain-side, tingling with the smell of the pines, was for all its secret and murmurous life no place of fear: that was Valmy with its lights and luxury. I realised that once again the word in my mind was "escape": it was as if the brilliance and comfort of life at Valmy had been closing in, subtle, stifling, over-sophisticated. Now I was free… The darkness took us. The air was cool and the silence was thick with peace.

My guess had been right. After perhaps twenty minutes of our steep, stumbling progress we came at a climbing angle upon the open ride. This was some fifteen yards wide, and ran in a dead- straight slash from top to bottom of the hillside. I supposed it was a fire-break, or a road left open for tractors-whatever its purpose, it would be easier going for Philippe and myself.

It was, we found, very little better underfoot, as here, too, the dead boughs were thickly strewn. But at least we could see to pick our way. Clutching at my hand, and panting, Philippe climbed gamely beside me. We turned once to look at Valmy. On the far side of the valley the chateau, catching the moon, swam pale above its own woods, its side stabbed with a single light. Léon de Valmy still waited.

With a little shiver I turned my face back towards the sweet-smelling wild mountain of Dieudonné, and we plodded on up the moonlit canyon between the pines.

"All right, Philippe?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

If any other creature moved in the forest that night, we never saw it. The only eyes that glittered at us were the stars, and the million drops of stardew that shivered on the fallen boughs. The breeze was failing, and in its pauses the breaking of the dead stuff under our feet sounded like thunder. I found myself, absurdly, with a quick over-the-shoulder glance at Léon de Valmy's remote little light, trying to tread more softly, and eyeing in some dread the gaunt black shadows that the moon flung streaming behind us down the open ride.

But no new terror waited under the swimming moon, and, when we stopped to rest, no sound came to us except the laboured sound of our own breathing, and the age-old singing of the pines, and the rustle of wind-made showers as the dew shook down from the boughs.

It was Philippe who saw the hut. I had been straining eyes upwards through the trees on our left for a glimpse of William's light, and as we neared the summit of the hill, had begun to worry to myself in case we had already passed it hidden from us by the thick pines.

Then, as we stopped for one of our now frequent breathers Philippe tugged at my hand.

"There," he said breathlessly, and nodded towards a break in the southern wall of trees.

I turned thankfully, only to pause and stare, while a little chill slid over me.

It was certainly a hut-the hut, as it was placed pretty well where I had expected to find it. It was small and square, beautifully made, chalet-fashion, of hewn pine-logs, with a railed verandah round it, a steep-pitched overhanging roof, and slatted wooden shutters. At back and sides the pines crowded so closely up to the eaves that you would have thought a lamp would be burning even by day.

But now the windows showed no light at all. At one there was a tiny glow, as of firelight, but the welcoming lamp-the star-was out. I stood clutching the boy's hand, and staring at those blank windows.

I noticed all at once how black the trees were and how they crouched and crowded over the hut. I saw how our shadows streamed back from us grotesque and ink-black down the open ride. I moved, and a giant gesture mocked me. The night was full of whispering.

"He'll be fast asleep," said Philippe cheerfully, and not whispering at all.

I almost jumped, then looked down at him. I had to control an impulse to hug him. "Why, of course," I said, not too steadily. "Of course. I-I was forgetting it'll soon be daylight. I hope he doesn't mind being knocked up again! Come along, Monsieur le Comte!"

He set off sturdily, ahead of me this time, for the hut. I followed him thankfully. We were here, safe, at our star. It was Valmy now whose alien glimmer showed a crow's mile away. I spared a last quick glance for that cold point of light. Already it seemed remote, distance-drowned. I would never go there again.

I found my eyes were full of tears. Not one, but a swarm of stars swam in the liquid distance. Angrily, I put up a hand to brush the tears away, and looked again.

Not one, but a swarm of stars.

Three lights now glared from the white bulk that was Valmy. And even as I stared, with the quick hot thrill twisting belly-deep inside me, another window sprang to life, and another. My bedroom, my sitting-room, the schoolroom… and then I saw two tiny lights break from the shadows below and slide away as a car came out of the courtyard. The alarm had been given. Dear God, the alarm had been given. He hadn't waited till morning. He'd checked on us again, and now Valmy was up. I could almost hear the quick footsteps, the whispering, the whine of the wheel-chair, the humming telephone-wires. The bright windows stared with their five eyes across the valley. Then, even as I wondered through my sick panic why he should have roused the place, the lights went out quickly, one by one, and Valmy sank back into quiet. Only the single point of brilliance still showed, and below, the car's lamps dropped down two quick flickering curves of the zigzag and then vanished as they were switched off.

I'd been wrong. There had been no alarm. He'd found us gone, made sure, and then gone back to wait by his telephone. He had the rest of the night, and his hound was out after us. Bernard, drastically sobered? Raoul?

I turned and ran in under the darkness of the pines, as Philippe's soft rapping sounded on the door of the hut.

Half a minute went by; three-quarters. I stood beside Philippe, trying to still that little twist of terror deep inside me. In a moment now it would be over; the Englishman's feet would tread comfortably towards the door; the hinges would creak open; the firelit warmth would push a wedge into the cool night across the verandah floor.

The forest was still. The air breathed cold at my back. A minute; a minute and a half. No sound. He would be still asleep.

"Shall I knock again?”

"Yes, Philippe. Harder."

My nerves jumped and angled to the sharp rap of knuckles on wood. The sound went through the stillness like the bang of a drum. It seemed to me that it must startle the whole forest awake.

In the backwash of the silence that followed I heard, away below us on the road, the snarl of a car going fast.

There was no sound from the hut.

"There's no one in." The quiver in the child's voice-he must be very tired after all-made me pull myself together.

"He's sound asleep," I said calmly. "Let's see if we can get in. He won't mind if we wake him."

Philippe lifted the latch and pushed. A little to my surprise the door opened immediately. He took a step forward, hesitating, but I propelled him gently in front of me straight into the room. The sound of that engine reiterated from the valley was making my skin crawl.

"Mr. Blake!" I called softly as I shut the door. "Mr. Blake! Are you there?"

Silence met us, the unmistakably hollow silence of an empty house.

I knew from what William had told me that the hut only had one room, with a pent-house scullery at the back. The door which presumably led to this was shut. The room in which we now stood was the living, eating, and sleeping-room of the place.

He could not have been gone long. It didn't need the memory of the lighted window to prove that he had been there and until quite late. The wood-stove still glowed faintly, and the smell of food hung in the air. He must have been working up here, made himself a meal, and then decided, late as it was, to go down to the Coq Hardi. The blankets on the bed in the corner were neatly folded in a pile.

It was a bare little room, its walls, floor and ceiling all of pine, still, in the heat from the stove, smelling faintly of the forest. There were a sturdy, hand-made table, a couple of wooden chairs, and a hard-looking bed with a box underneath. A small cupboard hung in one corner, and a shelf over the bed held a few books. On pegs near the stove was a miscellany of things-ropes, a rucksack, an old khaki coat. Some spare tools lay beneath on a pile of clean sacking. In the far corner an upright ladder led to a small square trap-door.

"Can't we stay here?" There was the faintest suspicion of a whine in Philippe's voice; he must be very nearly exhausted, and indeed, the thought of going further appalled me. And where could we go? This must be what the mired fox felt like when it found its way to earth with the last calculated ounce of strength. I glanced at the shut door, at the glowing stove, at Philippe.

"Yes, of course." The car would be raking the road to the Villa Mireille. They would never look for us here. I said: "D'you think you could climb that ladder?"

"That? Yes. What's up there? Why do we have to go up there?"

"Well," I said, "there's only one bed down here, and that's Mr. Blake's. He may come back and need it. Besides, we'd be better hidden away up there, don't you think? Can you keep as still as a mouse if anybody comes in?"

He looked up at me, big eyes in a pinched little face. He was biting his lip. He nodded. I think if Léon de Valmy had come in at that moment I could have killed him with my bare hands. As it was I said briskly: "Well, we mustn't leave any sign we've been here, just in case somebody else comes looking for us before Mr. Blake gets home. Are your shoes wet? Ah, yes, they are a bit, aren't they? So are mine. We'll take them off-no, stay on the mat, petit- that's fine. Now, you carry them and perch here by the stove while I reconnoitre the loft."

Luckily the trap-door was light, and, it seemed, in frequent use. At any rate it opened easily and quietly, and, standing on the ladder with my head and shoulders through the opening, I raked the loft with the beam of Philippe's torch. I had been praying fervently as I climbed that the place would be not too bad. Now I gave a sigh of relief. The loft was almost as clean as the living-room, and quite dry. It was used as a store-room, and I could see some boxes and canisters, some more rope, a drum of wire, and-what was more to the purpose-a pile of tarpaulins and sacking on the chimney side of the steep-roofed little chamber.

I went quickly down again and reported this to Philippe. "It's beautifully warm," I said cheerfully, "right over the stove. Can you shove your shoes in your pockets and swarm away up while I collect some blankets? I'll pass them up to you. I can't spare the torch for a moment, so don't explore too far."

As I had hoped, there were extra blankets in the box under the bed. I dragged these out with wary flashes of the torch, and with some little trouble got them one by one up the ladder and into Philippe's waiting grasp. At last I pulled myself up beside him, and sent a final beam raking the little room… Nothing betrayed us; the floor was dry, the bed undisturbed, the door shut but not locked…

We shut the trap-door quietly and crawled-only in the centre of the loft could one stand-to make our bed. The warmth from the chimney was pleasant, the blankets thick and comforting; the little dark loft with its steep-pitched roof gave an illusion of safety.

So presently, having shared a stick of chocolate and said our prayers, from both of which exercises we derived immense comfort, we settled down for what remained of the night.

Philippe went to sleep almost immediately, curled in his usual small huddle up against me. I tucked the blankets thankfully round him, and then lay listening to his light breathing, and to the million tiny noises of the large silence that wrapped us in.

The breeze seemed finally to have dropped, for the forest- so close to us lying up under the shingles-was still. Only a faint intermittent murmur, like a long sigh, came from the pines. Inside the cottage came, from time to time, the tiny noises of a building stirring in its sleep; the creak of a settling board, the fall of charred wood in the stove, the tiny scratting of a mouse in the wall. I lay there, trying to empty my mind of worry and speculation about the coming day. It was Wednesday; only the one day to go and then I could deliver my charge, either at the Villa Mireille itself, or, if that proved difficult, by any telephone. The thing was easy. Easy.

And if, as seemed likely, William Blake called at the mountain-hut in the morning, then it became easier still. Once we had him as escort the last shred of danger vanished. All I had to do now was relax and try to sleep. Neither Léon de Valmy nor Bernard would think of looking for us here. I had once spoken of "William" to Raoul (the thought brought me momentarily awake again) and he might connect the name-but of course Raoul wasn't in it. Raoul was in Paris. He had nothing to do with it. We were safe here, quite safe… I could sleep…

The lifting of the door-latch sounded, in that sleepy silence, like a pistol-shot.

Even as one part of my mind stampeded in panic like the mice now scurrying from die sound, the other rose light and dizzy with relief. It was William Blake, of course. It couldn't be anyone else. I must have slept longer than I'd thought, and now it was early morning, and He had come back.

I lifted my head to listen, but made no other movement Something else which had nothing whatever to do with my mind and its conclusions kept me clamped down like a hare in her form.

I waited. Philippe slept.

Below us the door shut very softly. The newcomer took two or three steps, then stopped. I could hear him breathing hard, as if he'd been hurrying. He stood perfectly still for a long time. I waited for the homely sounds of a log in the stove, the rasp of a match, the opening of the scullery door, but there was nothing except the stillness, and the rapid breathing. And then there was a pause of complete silence, as even the breathing stopped.

I think mine did too. I knew now it wasn't William Blake. I knew why he had paused with held breath, standing with ears at the stretch and probably a torch-beam raking the darkness. He had been listening for sounds of the quarry. It couldn't be true, but it was. The hound was here already.

Then his breath came out again with a gasp, and he moved across the floor.

Now came the quiet chunk of closing shutters, the chink of the lamp-globe, the scrape of a match; but the sounds were about as homely as the click of a cocked gun.

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 hound 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 méme"

"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 English-man 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 dean 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: Leon 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 Leon 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 trap-door. 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 wheel-chair 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.

The silly tears were running down my face. I bent to rouse Philippe.