"I'm afraid we can't. Well, that's wonderful, Philippe. We're practically there! And with you as guide"-I smiled at him-"we can't go far wrong, can we? Later we'll see how much I can remember of what you told me about the Villa Mireille, but just for the moment I think we'll stop and rest."
"Here?"
"Right here."
He sat thankfully down on the fallen birch. "My legs are aching.
"I'm not surprised."
"Are yours?"
“Well, no. But I did miss my sleep last night and if I don't have a rest this minute I shall go to sleep on my feet."
"Like a horse," said Philippe, and giggled, albeit a little thinly.
I flicked his check. "Exactly like a horse. Now, you get tea ready while I make the bed."
"English tea?"
"Of course."
The grass was quite dry, and the sun stood hot overhead in the calm air. I knelt down beside the birch-log and carefully removed two dead boughs, a thistle, and some sharp stones from our "bed", then spread out my coat. Philippe, solemn-eyed, was dividing the last of William's biscuits into equal parts. He banded me mine, together with half a stick of chocolate. We ate slowly and in silence.
Presently I said: "Philippe."
"Yes, mademoiselle?"
"We'll be down in Thonon pretty soon now. We really ought to go straight to the police."
The big eyes stared. He said nothing.
I said: "I don't know where the nearest British Consul is, or we'd go to him. I don't suppose there's one in Évian, and we can't get to Geneva because you've no passport. So it should be the police."
Still he said nothing. I waited. I think he knew as well as I did that the first thing the police would do would be to face us both with Léon de Valmy. After a while he asked: "What time will my Uncle Hippolyte get home?"
"I've no idea. He may be here already, but I think we may have to wait till late… after dark."
A pause. "Where is this Monsieur Blake?"
"I don't know. He may be out somewhere in Dieudonné, or he may have gone back up to the hut. But we-we couldn't very well wait for him there." He gave me a quick look and I added hastily: "We might telephone the Coq Hardi from Thonon. They might be able to give him a message. Yes, that's a good idea. We can try that."
Still he said nothing. I looked at him a little desperately. "You want to go and look for your uncle first? Is that
it?"
A nod.
"Philippe, you'd be quite safe if we went to the police, you know. We-we should do that. They'd be frightfully nice to you, and they'd look after you till your Uncle Hippolyte came- better than I can. We really should."
"No. Please. Please, Miss Martin."
I knew I ought to insist. It wasn't only the eloquence of Philippe's silences, and the clutch of the small cold hand that decided me. Nor was it only that I was afraid of facing Léon de Valmy… though, with the anger spilt out of me and dissolved in weariness, my very bones turned coward at the thought of confronting him in the presence of the police.
There was another reason. I admitted it out of a cold grey self-contempt. I might have braved Léon de Valmy and the police, but I didn't want to face Raoul. I was a fool; moreover, if I allowed any more risk to the child I was a criminal fool… but I would not go to the police while there was any chance that Raoul might be involved. I wasn't ready, yet, to test the theories of that advocate for the defence who pleaded still so desperately through today's tears. I couldn't bring the police in… not yet. If they had to be told, I didn't even want to be there. I was going to wait for Monsieur Hippolyte and, like a craven, hand the whole thing to him. Let the deus ex machina fly in out of the clouds and do the dirty work. I was only a woman, and a coward, and not ready, even, to face my own thoughts.
I gave a little sigh. "All right. We'll go to the Villa Mireille first. In any case they've already searched it."
"How d'you know?"
"Eh? Oh, well, I imagine they have, don't you? But your uncle won't be there yet, petit, of that I'm sure. We'll stay here a little while and rest. I don't feel fit for very much more just yet. Here, you may as well finish the last of the chocolate."
"Thank you." He gave me a watery smile. "I'm sleepy."
"Well, curl up there and sleep. I'm going to."
"I'm thirsty, too."
"I imagine the stream's all right. It comes straight down the hillside. Let's risk it anyway."
We drank, and then lay down in the sun, curled close together on my coat, and soon we slept.
I needn't have been afraid that any restless ecstasy of the mind would keep me awake. Sleep fell from nowhere like a black cloud and blotted me out. I never stirred or blinked until the sun had his chin on the hilltop beyond Dieudonné valley, and the shadows of the naked trees stretched long-fingered across the glade to touch us with the first tiny chill of evening.
Philippe was awake already, sitting with knees drawn up and chin on them, gazing a little sombrely at the distant housetops, purpling in the fading light. The lake was pale now as an opal, swimming under the faint beginnings of mist. In the distance on the further shore we could see, touched in with rose and apricot, the snows of Switzerland.
Brightness falls from the air… I gave a little shiver, then cot to my feet and pulled the silent Philippe to his. "Now," I said briskly, "you show me that path of yours, petit, and we'll be on our way."
His memory proved accurate enough. The path was there, and the narrow country road, and the corner with the garage and the shop, past which we hurried in case anyone should recognise him from his previous visits. He never spoke, and his hand in mine had become perceptibly more of a drag. I watched him worriedly. His frail energy was running out visibly now, sand from the brittle glass. I thought of the long wait that probably still lay ahead of us, and bit my lip in a prolonged pain of indecision.
The dusk had fairly dropped now over the town. We walked along a high-walled street where the pavements were bordered with lopped willows. The lamps had come on, and festoons of gleaming telegraph wires pinned back the blue dusk. Few people were about. A lorry started up from the garage and drove off with a clatter, its yellow lights like lion's eyes in the half-light. A big car purred by on its own hasty business. Two workmen on bicycles pedalled purposefully home. From a side street came the raucous voice of a radio and the smell of frying.
Philippe stopped. His face, lifted to mine, looked small and pale. He said: "That's the way, mademoiselle."
I looked to my right where a vennel led off the street between two high ivy-covered walls. It was narrow and unlighted, vanishing into shadow within twenty yards. A loose spray of ivy tapped the wall; its leaves were sharp and black and clicked like metal.
From the opposite side of the road came a burst of laughter, and a woman's voice called something shrill and good-natured. The cafe door clashed, and with the gush of light came once again the heavenly hot smell of food.
The child's hand clutched mine. He said nothing.
Well, what was luck for if it was never to be tempted?
I turned my back on the black little alley. Two minutes later we were sitting at a red-topped table near the stove while a long thin man with a soiled apron and a face like a sad heron waited to be told what we would have to eat.
To this day I vividly remember the smell and taste of everything we had. Soup first, the first delicious hot mouthful for almost twenty-four hours… It was crȇme d'asperge, and it came smoking-hot in brown earthenware bowls with handles like gnomes' ears, and asparagus-tips bobbed and steamed on the creamy surface. With the soup came butter with the dew on it, and crusty rolls so new that where they lay on the plastic table-top there was a tiny dull patch of steam.