I said nothing.
He slanted that look at me again and said in English: "That is what they said. It means-"
"No, Philippe, don't try and translate," I said gently, "I don't suppose you were meant to hear it."
"N-no. But I wish I had not had to leave my Uncle Hippolyte."
"You're fond of him?"
“Of course. He has gone to la Grèce . I wanted to go with him but he could not take me."
"He'll come back soon."
"Yes, but it is a long time."
"It'll pass," I said, "and meanwhile I'll look after you for him, and your Uncle Léon’ll look after Valmy."
I paused and looked at the uncommunicative little face. I didn't want to sound pompous or to alienate Philippe, but I was after all in charge of his manners. I said, tentatively: "He does it very well, Philippe. Valmy is beautiful, and he cares for it, ça se voit. You mustn't be ungrateful."
It was true that Philippe had no cause to complain of his uncle's stewardship. Léon seemed to me to spend his whole time, indeed, his whole self, on the place. It was as if the immense virility that was physically denied its outlet was redirected onto Valmy. Day after day the wheel-chair patrolled the terraces and the gravel of the formal gardens, the conservatories, the kitchen gardens, the garages… everywhere the chair could possibly go it went. And in the château itself the hand of a careful master was everywhere apparent. No plan was too large, no detail too small, for Léon de Valmy's absorbed attention.
It was also true that, as Comte de Valmy, Philippe might legitimately claim that he was a cypher in his own house, but he was only nine, and moreover a Paris-bred stranger. His uncle and aunt did ignore him to a large extent, but his daily routine with its small disciplines and lack of what one might call cosy family life was very much the usual one for a boy in his position.
I added, rather lamely: "You couldn't have a better trustee."
Philippe shot me one of his looks. The shutters were up in his face again. He said politely and distantly: "No, mademoiselle," and looked away.
I said no more, feeling myself unable to deal with what still seemed an unreasonable dislike.
But one day towards the end of my second week at Valmy the situation was, so to speak, thrust on me.
Philippe and I had, as usual, been down for our five-thirty visit to Madame de Valmy in the small salon. Punctually at six she dismissed us, but as we went she called me back for some reason that I now forget. Philippe didn't wait, but escaped without ceremony into the corridor.
A minute or so later I left the salon, to walk straight into as nasty a little scene as I had yet come across.
Philippe was standing, the picture of guilt and misery, beside a table which stood against the wall outside the salon door. It was a lovely little table, flanked on either side by a Louis Quinze chair seated with straw-coloured brocade. On one of the chair- seats I now saw, horribly, a thick streak of ink, as if a pen had rolled from the table and then across the silk of the chair, smearing ink as it went.
I remembered, then, that Philippe had been writing to his uncle Hippolyte when I called him to come downstairs. He must have come hurriedly away, the pen still open in his hand, and have put it down there before going into the drawing-room. He was clutching it now in an ink-stained fist, and staring white- faced at his uncle.
For this time of all times he hadn't managed to avoid Monsieur de Valmy. The wheel-chair was slap in the middle of the corridor, barring escape. Philippe, in front of it, looked very small and guilty and defenceless.
Neither of them appeared to notice me. Léon de Valmy was speaking. That he was angry was obvious, and it looked as if he had every right to be, but the cold lash of his voice as he flayed the child for his small-boy carelessness was frightening; he was using -not a wheel, but an atomic blast, to break a butterfly.
Philippe, as white as ashes now, stammered something that might have been an apology, but merely sounded like a terrified mutter, and his uncle cut across it in that voice that bit like a loaded whip.
"It is, perhaps, just as well that your visits to this part of the house are restricted to this single one a day, as apparently you don't yet know how to behave like a civilised human being. Perhaps in your Paris home you were allowed to run wild in this hooligan manner, but here we are accustomed to-"
“This is my home," said Philippe.
He said it still in that small shaken voice that held the suggestion of a sullen mutter. It stopped Léon de Valmy in full tirade. For a moment I thought the sentence in that still little voice unbearably pathetic, and in the same moment wondered at Philippe, who was not prone to either drama or pathos. But then he added, still low, but very clearly: "And that is my chair."
There was a moment of appalling silence. Something came and went in Léon de Valmy's face-the merest flick of an expression like a flash of a camera's shutter-but Philippe took a step backwards, and I found myself catapulting out of the doorway like a wildcat defending a kitten.
Léon de Valmy looked up and saw me, but he spoke to Philippe quietly, as though his anger had never been.
"When you have recovered your temper and your manners, Philippe, you will apologise for that remark." The dark eyes lifted to me, and he said coolly but very courteously, in English: "Ah, Miss Martin. I'm afraid there has been a slight contretemps. Perhaps you will take Philippe back to his own rooms and persuade him that courtesy towards his elders is one of the qualities that is expected of a gentleman."
As his uncle spoke to me, Philippe had turned quickly, as if in relief. His face was paler than ever, and looked pinched and sullen. But the eyes were vulnerable: child's eyes.
I looked at him, then past him at his uncle.
"There's no need," I said. "He'll apologise now." I took the boy gently by the shoulders and turned him back to face his uncle. I held him for a moment. The shoulders felt very thin and tense. He was shaking.
I let him go. "Philippe?" I said.
He said, his voice thin with a gulp in it: "I beg your pardon if I was rude."
Léon de Valmy looked from him to me and back again.
"Very well. That is forgotten. And now Miss Martin had better take you upstairs."
The child turned quickly to go, but I hesitated. I said: "I gather there's been an accident to that chair, and that Philippe's been careless; but then, so have I. It was my job to see that nothing of the sort happened. It was my fault, and I must apologise too, Monsieur de Valmy."
He said in a voice quite different from the one with which he had dismissed Philippe: "Very well, Miss Martin. Thank you. And now we will forget the episode, shall we?"
As we went I was very conscious of that still, misshapen figure sitting there watching us.
I shut the schoolroom door behind me, and leaned against it. Philippe and I looked at one another. His face was shuttered still with that white resentment. His mouth looked sulky, but I saw the lower lip tremble a little.
He waited, saying nothing.
This was where I had to uphold authority. Curtain lecture by Miss Martin. Léon de Valmy had been perfectly right: Philippe had been stupid, careless, and rude…
I said: "My lamb, I'm with you all the way, but you are a little owl, aren't you?"
"You can't," said Philippe, very stiffly, "be a lamb and an owl both at the same time."
Then he ran straight at me and burst into tears.
After that I did help to keep him out of his uncle's way.
Chapter 5
Ay, now the plot thickens very much upon us.