"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.