It would. Presently Philippe lifted a face flushed with pride and effort and liberally festooned with cobwebs, from a business-like rubber dinghy whose fat sausage-like sides would certainly stem any wandering draughts. I praised him lavishly, managed to parry offers to blow up the horse, the duck, and the beach-ball as well ("just to show you"), and finally got us both disposed in our draught-proof but decidedly cramped bed, curled up for warmth together in our coats and preparing to sit out the last three hours or so of our ordeal.
The ghastly minutes crawled by. The night was still, held in its pall of mist. I could hear the occasional soft drip of moisture I from the boughs that hung over us, and once some stray current I of air must have stirred the trees, for the budded twigs pawed at the roof. Below in the boat-house the hollow slap and suck of water told of darkness and emptiness and a world of nothing…Compared with this burial in the outer dark last night's lodging had had a snug homely quality that I found myself I remembering-Bernard or no Bernard-with longing.
And it was cold. Philippe seemed warm enough, curled in a ball with his back tucked into the curve of my body and my arms I over him; at any rate, he slept almost straight away. But as I the minutes halted by I could feel the deadly insidious cold creeping through me, bone by bone. It struck first at my exposed I back, then, slowly, slithered through my whole body, as if the blood were literally running cold through the veins and arteries that held me in a chilled and stiffening network. Cramped as I was, I dared not move for fear of waking the child. He had had, I judged, just about as much as he could take. Let him sleep out I the chilly minutes before the final rescue.
So I lay and watched the darkness beyond my canvas barrier for a glimpse of light from the villa, and tried not to think, not to think about anything at all.
It was the beach-ball that put an end to the beastly vigil. Disturbed from its winter's rest and moved, I suppose, by some erratic draught, it finally left its place on a pile of boxes and rolled, squashily elliptical in its half-deflated state, off its perch and down onto the floor. It fell on me out of nowhere with a silent, soggy bounce, and jerked me with a yelp out of my stiff, half-dozing vigil. I sat up furiously. Philippe's voice said, sounding scared: "What was that?"
I reached clumsily for the torch. “The beach-ball, confound it. I'm sorry, Philippe. Don't be frightened. Let's have a look at the time…Quarter to twelve." I looked at him. "Are you cold?"
He nodded.
I said: "Let's get out of here, shall we? There's no light up at the villa yet, so I vote we try that terrace window. Only a few minutes more now…”
The mist was thicker now. Our little torch-beam beat white against it. It lay heavy as a cloudbank among the trees, but over the lawn near the house it showed only a pale haze that thinned and shifted in the moving torchlight.
The lamp still glowed over the front door. Its circle of light seemed to have shrunk as the trees crowded and loomed closer in the mist. No other light showed.
We slipped quietly across the lawn and up the terrace steps. The long window stood ajar, and we went in.
The salon was a big room, and in the light of a cautious torch it looked even bigger. The little glow caught the ghostly shapes of shrouded furniture, the gleam of a mirror, the sudden glitter of the chandelier that moved with a spectral tinkle in the draught from the window. The meagre light seemed only to thicken the shadows and make the room retreat further into dusk. It smelt of disuse, melancholy, dry-as-dust.
We hesitated just inside the window.
I whispered: "We'll go to your Uncle Hippolyte's room. That'll have been prepared, surely? There'll be a fire or a stove. And is there a telephone in it? "
He nodded and led the way quickly across the salon. If he was scared he didn't show it. He moved almost numbly, as if in a bad dream. He pushed open a massive door that gave onto the hall and slipped through it without a look to right or left into the shadowed corners. I followed.
The hall was a high dim square where I could just make out a graceful branching staircase. Tiles echoed our quick footsteps hollowly. No other sound. We fled upstairs. Philippe turned left along a wide gallery and finally stopped before a door.
"It's Uncle Hippolyte's study," he whispered, and put a hand to the knob.
The room, sure enough, was warm. Like pins to a magnet we flew across the carpet to the big stove and hugged it as closely as we could with our chilled bodies. I said, sending the torchlight raking round the room: "Where does that door lead?"
"There's another salon. Bigger. It's never used now."
I went across and pushed the door open. The torchlight once more probed its way over the ghosts of furniture. Like the room downstairs, this was still shrouded in its winter covers. It smelt musty, and the silk-panelled walls, as I put up a gentle finger, felt dusty and brittle, like a dead moth's wing. From the empty darkness above came the now familiar phantom tinkling of a chandelier.
I crossed the carpet softly and paused by a shrouded shape that seemed to be a sofa. I lifted the dust-cover and felt underneath it… damask cushions fraying a little, silk that caught on the skin and set the teeth on edge. "Philippe," I called softly.
He appeared beside me like a smaller, frailer ghost. He was shivering a little. I said very matter-of-factly: "I don't suppose it'll be needed, but every fighter has to have a possible line of retreat worked out. If for any reason we still want to hide, I'd say this is as good a place as any. Under the dust-cover. It makes a tent, see? And you'd be pretty snug underneath and quite invisible."
He saw. He nodded without speaking. I cast him a look as I covered the sofa again and followed him back into the study. I pulled the salon door almost, but not quite, shut behind me.
I glanced at my wrist. Five minutes to twelve. One of the windows looked out over the drive. No sign of a car. I turned to Hippolyte's desk and picked up the telephone.
CHAPTER 19
So, uncle, there you are.
Shakespeare: Hamlet.
A man's voice said: "Coq Hardi."
At least it was not the same unpleasant and suspicious voice, but there was no harm in trying to disarm it further. It was five minutes to twelve, but just in case…
I said quickly, eagerly; "Guillaume? Is that you, chéri? It's Clothilde."
He said blankly: "Clothilde?"
"Yes, yes. From Annecy. You haven't forgotten? You told me to-
The voice was amused. "Mademoiselle, a moment. Who is it you want?"
"I-isn't that Guillaume? Oh mon dieu, how silly of me!" I gave a nervous giggle. "I am sorry, monsieur. Perhaps-if he isn't in bed?-if you will have the goodness to fetch him-"
He was patience itself. "But of course. With the greatest of pleasure. But Guillaume who, Mademoiselle Clothilde? Guillaume Rouvier?"
"No, no. I told you. Monsieur Blake, the Englishman. Is he there? He did tell me-"
"Yes, he's here. Content yourself, Mademoiselle Clothilde. He's not gone to bed. I'll fetch him." I heard him laugh as he moved away from the telephone. No doubt William's stock would soar at the Coq Hardi…
Philippe had moved up close to me. In the faint glow that the front door light cast up through the uncurtained window his face looked small and pale, the eyes enormous. I winked and made a face at him and he smiled.