We halted again at the edge of the tall trees before braving the open space. The young green flowed down the mountain-side between its dark borders, plunging into the shadow that still lay blue at the bottom of Dieudonné valley. Looking that way I could see the flat fields where cattle grazed; the line of willows that marked a stream; a scatter of houses; a farm where someone -tiny in the distance-stood among swarming white dots that must be hens.
No-one was on the hillside. The inevitable wood pigeon played high above the treetops, riding the blue space like surf in ecstatic curved swoops and swallow-dives, wings raked back and breast rounded to the thrust of the air.
Nothing else moved. We plunged-Philippe was chest-high- across the river of lovely young trees. The fresh green tufts brushed hands and knees softly, like feathers; they smelt of warm resin. Half-way across Philippe stopped short and cried: "Look!" and there was a fox slipping like a leaf-brown shadow into the far woods. He paused as he reached them and looked back, one paw up and ears mildly inquiring. The sun was red on his fur. Along his back the fine hairs shone like gold. Then he slid quietly out of sight and the forest was ours again.
All morning the enchantment held, our luck spinning out fine and strong, like the filigree plot of a fairytale. Almost, at times, we forgot the dark and urgent reason for our journey. Almost.
Some time before noon we came, after a slowish journey of frequent stops, and one or two forced diversions, on the road I had hoped to find. This was a narrow road between steep banks, that wound stonily the way we wanted to go, high above die valley which carried the main traffic route to the south. Our last stage had taken us through a rough tract of thorns and dead bracken, so it was with some thankfulness that we clambered through the wire fence and negotiated the dead brambles that masked the ditch.
Our luck had made us a little careless. As I landed on the gravel surface of the road, and turned to reach a hand to Philippe, the clang of metal and the swish of a car's tyres close behind me brought me round like a bayed deer.
A battered Renault coasted round the bend in a quiet whiffle of dust that sounded a good deal more expensive than it looked. She slithered-with a few bangs and rattles that belied that expensively silent engine-to a stop beside us. The driver a stout grey-stubbled character in filthy blue denims, regarded us benevolently and without the least curiosity from under the brim of a horrible hat.
He was a man of few words. He jerked a thumb towards the north. I said: "S'il vous plâit, monsieur.” He jerked the thumb south. I said: "Merci, monsieur" and Philippe and I clambered into the back seat to join the other passengers already there. These were a collie-dog, a pig in what looked like a green string bag, and a rather nasty collection of white hens in a slatted box. A large sack of potatoes rode de luxe beside the farmer in the front seat. As I began, through the embraces of the collie-dog, to say rather awkwardly: "This is very kind of you, monsieur," the Renault lurched forward and took a sharp bend at a fairly high speed and still without benefit of engine, but now with such a succession of clanks and groans and other body-noises that conversation-I realised thankfully-was an impossibility.
He took us nearly two miles, then stopped to put us down where a farm track joined the road.
To my thanks he returned a nod, jerked his thumb in explanation down towards the farm, and the Renault after it. The track down which he vanished was a dirt road of about one in four. We watched, fascinated, until the Renault skated to a precarious standstill some two inches from the wall of a Dutch barn, and then turned to go on our way, much heartened by an encounter with someone who quite obviously had never heard of the errant Comte de Valmy, and who was apparently content to take life very much as it came. He might also, I thought cheerfully, be deaf and dumb. Our luck seemed to be running strongly enough even for that.
Our road ran fairly openly now along the hillside, so we kept to its easier walking. The lift had done something to cheer Philippe's flagging spirits; he walked gamely and without complaint, but I could see that he was tiring, and we still had some way to go… and I had no idea what we might yet have to face.
He set off now cheerfully enough, chatting away about the collie and the pig. I listened absently, my eyes on the dusty length of road curling ahead of us, and my ears intent on sounds coming from behind. Here the road wound below a high bank topped with whins. I found myself watching them for cover as we passed.
Half-a-mile; three-quarters; Philippe got a stone in his shoe and we stopped to take it out. We went on more slowly after that. A mile; a mile-and-a-quarter; he wasn't talking now, and had begun to drag a bit; I thought apprehensively of blisters, and slackened the pace still further.
I was just going to suggest leaving the road to find a place for lunch when I heard another car. An engine, this time, coming from the north. She was climbing, and climbing fast, but for all that, making very little more noise than the old Renault coasting. A big car: a powerful car… I don't pretend I recognised the silken snarl of that engine, but I knew who it was. The sound raked up my backbone like a cruel little claw.
I breathed: "Here's a car. Hide, Philippe!"
I had told him what to do. He swarmed up the bank as quick and neat as a shrew-mouse, with me after him. At the top of the bank was a thicket of whins, dense walls of green three or four feet high with little gaps and clearings of sunlit grass where one could lie invisibly. We flung ourselves down in one of these small citadels as the Cadillac took a bend three hundreds yards away. The road levelled and ran straight below us. He went by with a spatter of dust and the hush of a gust of wind. The top was down and I saw his face. The little claw closed on the base of my spine.
There was no sound in the golden noon except the ripple of a skylark's song. Philippe whispered beside me: "That was my cousin Raoul, mademoiselle."
"Yes."
"I thought he was in Paris?"
"So did I."
"Is he-couldn't we have-wouldn't he have helped us?"
"I don't know, Philippe."
He said, on a note of childish wonder: "But… he was so nice at the midnight feast."
A pause.
"Wasn't he, mademoiselle?"
"I-yes. Yes, Philippe, he was.”
Another pause. Then, still on that terrible little note of wonder: "My cousin Raoul? My cousin Raoul, too? Don’t you trust him, mademoiselle?"
“Yes," I said, and then, desperately: "No."
"But why-?"
"Don't Philippe, please. I can't-" I looked away from him and said tightly: "Don't you see, we can't take risks of any kind. However sure we are we've got to be-we've got to be sure." I finished a bit raggedly. "Don't you
see?”
If he saw anything odd in this remarkably silly speech he didn't show it. With a shy but a curiously unchildlike gesture he put out a hand and touched mine. "Mademoiselle-"
"I'm not crying, Philippe. Not really. Don't worry. It's only that I'm tired and I didn't get much sleep last night and it's long past time for food." Somehow I smiled at him and dabbed at my face while he watched me with troubled eyes. "Sorry, mon p'tit. You're standing this trek of ours like a Trojan, and I'm behaving like a fool of a woman. I'm all right now."
"We'll have lunch," said Philippe, taking a firm hold of the situation.
"Okay, Napoleon," I said, putting away my handkerchief, "but we'd better stay where we are for a little while longer, just to make sure."
"That he's really gone?"
"Yes," I said, "that he's really gone."