Tall, dark and handsome… the romantic cliché repeated itself in my head-so automatically and irresistibly that I braced myself to dislike him on sight.
He said sharply: "Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Did I hit you?”
"No."
"Not even touch you?"
I was smoothing my coat down with unsteady fingers. "N-no."
"You're sure you're all right?"
"Yes. I-yes. Thank you."
I heard his breath expelled in quick relief. He relaxed and his voice warmed then into anger. "Then will you kindly tell me what the bloody hell you were doing standing in the middle of the road in a fog? You came damned near being killed and if you had you'd have deserved it I"
Shock was reacting on me too, and I wasn't used to being sworn at I stopped fussing with my clothes and lifted my head to glare straight back at him. "It's not a public road and I've a perfect right to stand in the middle of it or sit in the middle of it or lie in the middle of it if I want to I wasn't expecting you-at least I'd quite forgotten you were coming and in any case you've no business to come at that speed, whether it's a private road or not I"
There was a fractional pause, during which I had the impression that he was distinctly taken aback. Then he said mildly: "I was only doing fifty, and I know the road like the back of my hand."
"Fifty!" I heard my voice rise to a squeak, and was furious. "Why, that's-oh, kilometres, of course."
"What else?"
"It's still far too fast and there was mist."
"I could see the way quite well and that car sits down on the corners like a broody hen." He was beginning to sound amused, and that made me angrier.
I snapped: "Broody hen or no, it very nearly ran me down!"
"I'm quite aware of that. But I would hardly expect to find anyone standing on the bridge at this time of night-"
He stopped and then went on, the amusement now clear in his voice: "I'm damned if I see why I should have to stand here defending myself for not having run you over! Perhaps now you'll be good enough to tell me why you consider you've a perfect right to stand-or was it lie down?-in the middle of this particular private road? This is my-this is the Valmy estate, you know."
I was busy wiping my muddy hands on a handkerchief. "Yes," I said, "I live here."
He made a little movement of surprise, and I saw his eyes narrow on me in the moonlight. "Surely," he said, "you're not one of the, er-?"
"Servants? In a way," I said. "I'm Philippe's governess."
"But," said Raoul de Valmy, slowly, "they told me she was to be an English girl."
I felt as if he had dealt me a sharp blow in the stomach. For the first time I realised that the whole of the exchange had been in French. Literally thrown off my balance as I had been, I had answered him without thinking in the tongue that he had first used.
I said feebly: "I-I forgot"
"You are English?" he said, in a tone of great surprise.
I nodded. "Linda Martin, from London. I've been here three weeks."
His voice was a little dry. "Then allow me to congratulate you on your progress, Miss Martin."
But this second shock had shaken me quite out of all composure. The dry note in his voice was so like Léon de Valmy's that I found myself saying, in a taut little voice that was pitched a shade too high: "You must know perfectly well that I haven't learned all my French in the last three weeks, Monsieur de Valmy, so don't add insult to injury by baiting me as well as knocking me down!"
This was palpable injustice and I half-expected the annihilation I deserved. But he merely said: "I'm sorry. And now do you feel recovered enough to move? I shouldn't keep you here talking any more. You must have had a nasty shaking. We'll get you into the car and I'll drive you up to the house."
Like his father, he knew how to disarm… I found myself obediently sliding off the parapet to my feet, while he put a steadying hand under my elbow.
"I'm all right," I said.
But when I tried to move towards the car I found that my knees were very shaky still, and I was thankful for his support.
He said quickly: "You're limping. You are hurt."
I found myself reassuring him. "Not by you. I slipped and fell when I tried to jump out of the way. It's only a bumped knee or something. Honestly, that's all."
He said, sounding worried: "Well, I think the sooner I get you up to the château and find you a drink, the better. You'll have to get in by the driver's door, I'm afraid. The other one's rather difficult of access just at present."
This was, I saw, only too true. The big car, in swerving to avoid me, had skidded slightly on the damp tarmac, and run up onto the right-hand verge of the road beyond the bridge. The verge at this point was a muddy grass bank, mercifully not very steep, but quite steep enough to cant the car at a crazy-looking angle.
I looked at it guiltily, and then up at Raoul de Valmy's impassive face. "I-it isn't damaged, is it?"
"I don't think so. Would you rather wait on the road while I straighten her out, or had you better get in and sit down?"
"I think if it's all the same to you I'll sit down."
"Of course." He opened the nearside door. I got in-with just a little difficulty, as my knee was undoubtedly stiff, and got myself somehow past the wheel and into the passenger's seat. He leaned into the car and groped in the darkness under the dash. There was a click, and the headlamps flashed on, so that just in front of the car the first bend and slope of the zigzag strode forward at us, a ragged white wall of tree and rock, not six feet from the front bumper.
He didn't even glance at it. "Just a minute," he said. He slammed the door and went round to the back of the car I closed my eyes to shut out the sight of that looming rock-wall, and lay back in the deep seat, relaxing as well as I could. The car was very big and very comfortable, even tilted as it was at that odd angle. It smelled faintly of cigarettes and expensive leather. I opened my eyes again. In the light reflected back off the rock ahead the bonnet gleamed long and black-plenty of horses under that, I thought, and remembered Mrs. Seddon's description: "As long as the Queen Mary and a horn like the Last Trump" I wondered what Raoul de Valmy's lucky number was…
I settled my shoulders back in the luxurious seat. The shaky feeling had almost gone. Suddenly out of nowhere I remembered something I had once heard at the Constance Butcher-a piece of servant-girls' lore which had amused me at the time and now came back with an added point. If you ever get run over, be sure and pick a Rolls-Royce… Well, there was something in that, I reflected… and a Cadillac was perhaps not a bad second choice, especially when it had as good a driver as Raoul de Valmy at the wheel. Now that the first shock had subsided I realised perfectly well how near I had been to being badly hurt, through my own silliness. Moreover it was no thanks to me that Monsieur Raoul's expensive Cadillac hadn't smashed itself against the parapet.
I became aware that Raoul de Valmy was still behind the car. I peered back through the swirls of mist to see him bending over a rear wing, while torchlight moved slowly over the metal. I bit my lip, but before I could speak he had straightened up, switched off the torch, and come swiftly round to the driver's door.
He slanted a quick look at me as he slid in beside me. "All right?" I nodded. "We'll soon get you home. Hold tight."
He touched the starter button and the engine snarled to life. He thrust the big car very gently forward and to the left; she moved, jerked, hesitated, and then the front wheels swooped down with a plunge to the level of the road. The back wheels seemed to mount for a moment, then slid down after them, and the car rolled onto the level road and stopped there, rocking gently on her superb springs.
“Et voilà," said Raoul de Valmy, and smiled at me.