Howard remembered the wine waiter at the Dickens Hotel in Russell Square. He said a word or two of meagre comfort and optimism to the woman; presently he escaped into the bedroom. It was impossible for him to give her any help in her great trouble.
She had made him quite a comfortable bed on a mattress laid on the floor. He went over to the children's bed and took a look at them; they were sleeping very deeply, though Sheila still seemed hot. He sat for a little reading in the arm-chair, but he soon grew tired; he had not slept properly the night before and he had had an anxious and a worrying day. Presently he undressed, and went to bed on the floor.
When he awoke the dawn was bright; from the window there came a great groaning clatter as a tank got under way and lumbered up the road. The children were awake and playing in the bed; he lay for a little, simulating sleep, and then got up. Sheila was cool, and apparently quite well.
He dressed himself and took her temperature. It was very slightly above normal still; evidently, whatever it was that had upset her was passing off. He washed them both and set Ronnie to dress himself, then went downstairs to order breakfast.
The hotel routine was already disarranged. Furniture was being taken from the restaurant; it was clear that no more meals would be served there. He found his way into the kitchen, where he discovered the femme de chambre in depressed consultation with the other servants, and arranged for a tray to be sent up to his room.
That was a worrying, trying sort of day. The news from the north was uniformly bad; in the town people stood about in little groups talking in low tones. He went to the station after breakfast with Ronnie, to enquire about the trains to Paris, leaving Sheila in bed in the devoted care of la petite Rose. They told him at the station that the trains to Paris were much disorganised 'a cause de la situation militaire,' but trains were leaving every three or four hours. So far as they knew, the services from Paris to St Malo were normal, though that was on the Chemin de L'Ouest.
He walked up with Ronnie to the centre of the town, and ventured rather timidly into the children's department of a very large store. A buxom Frenchwoman came forward to serve him, and sold him a couple of woollen jerseys for the children and a grey, fleecy blanket. He bought the latter more by instinct than by reason, fearful of the difficulties of the journey. Of all difficulties, the one he dreaded most was that the children would get ill again.
They bought a few more sweets, and went back to the hotel. Already the hall was thronged with seedy-looking French officials, querulous from their journey and disputing over offices. The girl from the desk met Howard as he went upstairs. He could keep his room for one more night, she said; after that he must get out. She would try and arrange for meals to be sent to the room, but he would understand - it would not be as she would wish the service.
He thanked her and went up upstairs. La petite Rose was reading about Babar to Sheila from the picture-book; she was curled up in a heap on the bed and they were looking at the pictures together. Sheila looked up at Howard, bright and vivacious, as he remembered her at Cidoton.
'Regardez,' she said, 'voici Jacko climbing right up the queue de Babar on to his back!' She wriggled in exquisite amusement. 'Isn't he naughty!.'
He stopped and looked at the picture with them. 'He is a naughty monkey, isn't he?' he said.
Sheila said: 'Drefully naughty.'
Rose said very softly: 'Qu'est-ce que monsieur a dit?'
Ronnie explained to her in French, and the bilingual children went on in the language of the country. To Howard they always spoke in English, but French came naturally to them when playing with other children. It was not easy for the old man to determine in which language they were most at home. On the whole, Ronnie seemed to prefer to speak in English. Sheila slipped more naturally into French, perhaps because she was younger and more recently in charge of nurses.
The children were quite happy by themselves. Howard got out the attaché case and looked at it; it was very small to hold necessities for three of them. He decided that Ronnie might carry that one, and he would get a rather larger case to carry himself, to supplement it. Fired by this idea, he went out of the bedroom to go to buy a cheap fibre case.
On the landing he met the femme de chambre. She hesitated, then stopped him.
'Monsieur is leaving tomorrow?' she said.
'I have to go away, because they want the room,' he replied. 'But I think the little girl is well enough to travel.
I shall get her up for déjeuner, and then this afternoon she can come out for a little walk with us.'
'Ah, that will be good for her. A little walk, in the sun.' She hesitated again, and then she said: 'Monsieur is travelling direct to England?'
He nodded. 'I shall not stay in Paris. I shall take the first train to St Malo.'
She turned her face up to him, lined and prematurely old, beseechingly. 'Monsieur - it is terrible to ask. Would you take la petite Rose with you, to England?'
He was silent; he did not quite know what to say to that. She went on hurriedly.
'I have the money for the fare, monsieur. And Rose is a good little girl - oh, she is so good, that one. She would not trouble monsieur, no more than a little mouse.'
Every instinct warned the old man that he must kill this thing stone dead - quick. Though he would not admit it to himself, he knew that to win through to England would take all his energy, burdened as he was with two little children. In the background of his mind lurked fear, fear of impending, absolute disaster.
He stared down at the tear-stained, anxious face, and temporised. 'But why do you want to send her to England?' he asked. 'The war will never come to Dijon. She will be quite safe here.'
The woman said: 'I have no money, monsieur. Her father is in England, but he cannot send money to us here. It is better that she should go to England, now.'
He said: 'Perhaps I could arrange to help him to send money.' There was still a substantial balance on his letter of credit. 'You do not want her to leave you, do you?'
She said: 'Monsieur, things are happening in France that you English do not understand. We are afraid of what is coming, all of us...'
They were silent for a moment.
'I know things are very bad,' he said quietly. 'It may be difficult for me, an Englishman, to get to England now. I don't think it will be - but it may. Suppose I could not get her out of the country for some reason?'
She wrinkled her face up and lifted the corner of her apron to her eyes. 'In England she would be safe,' she muttered. 'I do not know what is going to happen to us, here in Dijon. I am afraid.' She began to cry again.
He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. There,' he said. 'I will think about it this afternoon. It's not a thing to be decided in a hurry.' He made his escape from her, and went down to the street.
Once out in the street, he quite forgot what he had come for. Absent-mindedly he walked towards the centre of the town, wondering how he could evade the charge of another child. Presently, he sat down in a café and ordered himself a bock.
It was not that he had anything against la petite Rose. On the contrary, he liked the child; she was a quiet, motherly little thing. But she would be another drag on him at a time when he knew with every instinct of his being that he could tolerate no further drags. He knew himself to be in danger. The sweep and drive of Germany down in France was no secret any longer; it was like the rush through Belgium had been in the last war, only more intense. If he delayed a moment longer than was necessary, he would be engulfed by the invading army. For an Englishman that meant a concentration camp, for a man of his age that probably meant death.