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?"