Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart
‘Bernard came for her. Something she’d forgotten to do.’
‘I see,’ I waited for a moment, holding him. ‘Look, Philippe, we’ve got a lovely fire now. What about warming those frozen paws?’
This time he unclasped himself without demur, and slipped down onto the rug beside me, holding out his hands obediently to the now bright blaze of the fire. I ruffled his hair. ‘This is wet, too. What a beastly night to go running out in! You are a little ass, aren’t you?’
He said, his voice still too tight and sharp: ‘I hit the stone and then it wasn’t there. It went over with a bang. I bumped into something. I couldn’t see it. I fell down. I couldn’t see anything.’
‘It was the ladder you bumped into, Philippe. You couldn’t have fallen over, you know. There wasn’t really a gap. You couldn’t see the ladder, but it’s a very solid one. It was really quite safe. Quite safe.’
‘It was awful. I was frightened.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ I said, ‘I’d have been scared stiff. It was awfully sensible of you not to move.’
‘I didn’t dare. I knew you’d come.’ The plain, pale little face turned to me. ‘So I waited.’
Something twisted inside me. I said lightly: ‘And I came. What a good thing I came up in your cousin Raoul’s car instead of waiting for the bus!’ I got up and bent over him, slipping my hands under his arms. ‘Now, come and get these things off. Up with you.’ I swung him to his feet. ‘Goodness, child, you’ve been lying in a puddle! What about a hot bath and then supper in bed with a fire in your bedroom as a treat?’
‘Will you be there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have your supper in my room?’
‘I’ll sit on your bed,’ I promised.
The black eyes glinted up at me. ‘And play Peggitty?’
‘Oho!’ I said. ‘So you’re beginning to make capital out of this, are you? What’s more, you’re getting too dashed good at Peggity. All right, if you’ll promise not to beat me.’ I swung him round and gave him a little shove towards the door. ‘Now go and get those things off while I run the bath.’
He went off obediently. I rang the bell for Berthe, and then went to turn on the bath. As I watched the steam billowing up to cloud the tiles I reflected a little grimly that now I should have to face Léon de Valmy again tonight.
Above the noise of the taps I heard a knock on the door that led from my sitting-room. I called: ‘Come in.’ Berthe had been very quick.
I turned then in surprise, as I saw that it wasn’t Berthe, but Madame de Valmy. She never came to these rooms at this hour, and as I caught sight of her expression my heart sank. This, then, was it. And I hadn’t had time to think out what to say.
I twisted the taps a little to lessen the gush of water, and straightened up to meet whatever was coming.
‘Miss Martin, forgive me for interrupting you while you’re changing—’ Hardly a frightening opening, that; her voice was apologetic, hurrying, almost nervous: ‘I wondered – did you remember to get me my tablets in Thonon this afternoon?’
I felt myself flushing with relief. ‘Why, yes, madame. I was going to give them to Berthe to put in your room. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you’d want them straight away.’
‘I’m out of them, or I wouldn’t trouble you.’
‘I’ll get them now,’ I said. ‘No, really, it’s no trouble, madame. You’re not interrupting me; this bath isn’t for me. Philippe!’
I bent to test the water, then turned off the taps. ‘Oh, there you are, Philippe. Hop in, and don’t by-pass your ears this time … I’ll get your tablets straight away, madame. My bag’s through in my sitting-room.’
As I came out of the bathroom and shut the door behind me I was wondering how to tell her about the recent near-tragedy. But as I looked at her all idea of this melted into a different consternation. She looked ill. The expression that I had thought forbidding was revealed now as the pallor, set lips, and strained eyes of someone on the verge of collapse.
I said anxiously: ‘Are you all right? You don’t look well at all. Won’t you sit down for a few minutes? Shall I get you some water?’
‘No.’ She had paused by the fireplace, near a high-backed chair. She managed to smile at me; I could see the effort it took. ‘Don’t worry, my dear. I – I didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all. I don’t manage very well nowadays without my medicine.’
‘I’ll get it straight away.’ Throwing her another doubtful look I ran towards my sitting-room, only to remember that the tablets were after all still in the pocket of my coat. I turned swiftly.
‘Madame!’ The horrified anxiety of the cry was wrenched out of me by what I saw.
She had put a hand on the chair-back, and was leaning heavily on it. Her face was turned away from me, as if she were listening to Philippe splashing in the bathroom, but her eyes were shut, and her cheeks were a crumpled grey. No beauty there. She looked old.
At my exclamation she started, and her eyes flew open. She seemed to make an effort, and moved away from the chair.
I ran back to her. ‘Madame, you are ill. Shall I call someone? Albertine?’
‘No, no. I shall be all right. My tablets?’
‘In my coat pocket in the wardrobe. Yes, here they are …’
She almost grabbed the box I held out to her. She managed another smile. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry if I alarmed you … these things pass. Don’t look so worried, Miss Martin.’ In the bathroom Philippe had set up a shrill tuneless whistling that came spasmodically between splashes. Héloïse glanced towards the noise and then turned to go. She said, with an obvious attempt at normality: ‘Philippe sounds … very gay.’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said cheerfully, ‘he’s fine.’
I opened the door for her, straight onto Berthe who had paused outside, one hand lifted to knock …
‘Oh, miss, you startled me! I was just coming.’ Her eyes went past me and I saw them widen. I said quickly: ‘Madame isn’t too well. Madame de Valmy, let Berthe see you to your room. I only rang for her to light Philippe’s bedroom fire, but I’ll do that myself. Berthe,’ I turned to the girl, who was still looking curiously at Héloïse de Valmy’s drawn face, ‘take Madame to her room, ring for Albertine and wait till she comes. Then come back here, please.’
‘Yes, miss.’
As I knelt to light Philippe’s bedroom fire my mind was fretting at a new problem – a minor one, which I suppose I had seized on almost as a relief from the other worries that beat dark wings in my brain. What were those tablets that were apparently the breath of life to Madame de Valmy? Did she drug? The ugly thought swirled up through a welter of ignorant conjectures, but I refused to take it up. The things were only sleeping-tablets, I was sure; and presumably some people couldn’t live without sleeping-tablets. But – the flames spread merrily from paper to sticks and took hold with a fine bright crackling – but why did she want the tablets now? She had looked as if she were suffering from some sort of attack, heart or nerves, that needed a restorative or stimulant. The sleeping-tablets could hardly be the sort of life-savers that her anxiety had implied.
I shrugged the thoughts away, leaning forward to place a careful piece of coal on the burning sticks. I was ignorant of such matters, after all. She had certainly seemed ill, and just as certainly old Doctor Fauré must know what he was about …
Another burst of whistling and a messy-sounding splash came from the bathroom, and presently Philippe emerged, his hair in damp spikes, and his usually pale cheeks flushed and scrubbed-looking. He had on his nightshirt, and trailed a dressing-gown on the floor behind him.
Something absurd and tender took me by the throat. I looked austerely at him. ‘Ears?’
He naturally took no notice of this poor-spirited remark, but came over to the hearthrug beside which the fire now burned brightly. He said, with palpable pride: ‘I escaped death by inches, didn’t I?’
‘You did indeed.’
‘Most people would have f
‘Decidedly.’
‘Most people wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to stay quite still, would they?’
I sat back on my heels, put an arm round his waist, and hugged him to me, laughing. ‘You odious child, don’t be so conceited! And look, Philippe, we won’t tell Berthe when she comes back, please.’
‘Why?’
‘Because your aunt isn’t well, and I don’t want any alarming rumours getting to her to upset her.’
‘All right. But you’ll – you’ll tell my uncle Léon, won’t you?’
‘Of course. It’s a marvel to me that he didn’t hear the coping fall himself. He was in the hall when I got in, and that was only a few moments after – ah, Berthe. How is Madame?’
‘Better, miss. She’s lying down. Albertine’s with her and she knows what to do. She says Madame will be well enough to go down to dinner.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. She … she took her tablets, Berthe?’
‘Tablets, miss? No, it was her drops. She keeps them in the cabinet by her bed. Albertine gave her them.’
‘I – see. By the way, Berthe, weren’t you supposed to be around the schoolroom wing while I was out?’
‘Yes, miss, but Bernard came for me.’ She shot me a side-long glance. ‘There was some linen I’d been sewing. Bernard wanted it for the Master, and couldn’t find it, though I’d told him where it was.’
‘I see. Well, that shouldn’t have kept you very long.’
‘No, miss. But it wasn’t where I’d put it. Somebody’d moved it. Took me quite a while to find.’ She was eyeing me as she answered, obviously wondering why I questioned her so sharply.
I said: ‘Well, Master Philippe went outside to play on the balcony and got wet, so he’s had a bath and is to have supper in bed. Do you mind bringing it in here, Berthe, and mine as well, please?’
‘Not a bit, miss. I’m sorry, miss, but you see Bernard was in a hurry and—’ She broke off. She was very pink now and looked flustered.
I thought: ‘But in no hurry to let you go, that’s obvious. And I don’t suppose you insisted.’ I said aloud: ‘It’s all right, Berthe, it doesn’t matter. Master Philippe’s not a baby, after all. It was his own fault he got a wetting, and now he gets the reward, and you and I have the extra work. That’s life, isn’t it?’
I got up, briskly propelling Philippe towards the bed. ‘Now in you get, brat, and don’t stand about any longer in that nightshirt.’
I had supper with Philippe as I had promised, and played a game with him and read him a story. He was still in good spirits, and I was glad to see that his own part in the accident was assuming more and more heroic proportions in his imagination. At least nightmares didn’t lie that way.
But when I got up to go out to the pantry to make his late-night drink he insisted a little breathlessly on coming with me. I thought it better to let him, so he padded along in dressing-gown and slippers and was set to watch the milk on the electric ring while I measured the chocolate and glucose into the blue beaker he always used. We bore it back to the bedroom together and I stayed with him while he drank it. And then, when I would have said goodnight, he clung to me for a moment too long, so that I abandoned my intention of seeing Léon de Valmy that night, and spent the rest of the evening in my own room with the communicating doors open so that the child could see my light.
When finally I was free to sit down beside my own fire I felt so tired that the flesh seemed to drag at my bones. I slumped down in the armchair and shut my eyes. But my mind was a cage gnawed by formless creatures that jostled and fretted, worries – some real, some half-recognised, some unidentified and purely instinctive – that wouldn’t let me rest. And when, very late, I heard a car coming up the zigzag I jumped to my feet, nerves instantly a-stretch, and slid quietly through the shadows to the door of Philippe’s room.
He was asleep. I went wearily back into my bedroom and began to undress. I was almost ready for bed when someone knocked softly on the door.
I said in some surprise: ‘Who is it?’
‘Berthe, miss.’
‘Oh, Berthe. Come in.’
She was carrying a parcel, across which she looked at me a little oddly. ‘This is for you, miss. I thought you might be in bed, but I was told to bring it straight up.’
‘No, I wasn’t in bed. Thank you, Berthe, Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, miss.’
She went. I sat down on the bed and opened the parcel in some mystification.
I sat there for some time, looking down at the silver-webbed folds of Italian stuff that glimmered against the coverlet. Then I saw the note.
It read:
‘For the kiss I can’t honestly say I’m sorry, but for the rest I do. I was worried about something, but that’s no excuse for taking it out on you. Will you count the fetching of your parcel as penance, and forgive me, please?
P.S. Darling, don’t be so Sabine about it. It was only a kiss, after all.’
Before I got to sleep that night, I’d have given a lot, drugs or no, for some of Madame de Valmy’s tablets.
10
I told my love, I told my love,
I told him all my heart …
William Blake: Poem from MSS.
Next morning it might all have been illusion. Raoul left Valmy early, this time for the south and Bellevigne. I didn’t see him go. Whether or not he and Léon had spoken of last night’s incident I never discovered; certainly nothing was said or even hinted to me. When I braved my employer in the library to tell him about Philippe’s second escape, he received me pleasantly, to darken as he listened into a frowning abstraction that could have nothing to do with my personal affairs.
He was sitting behind the big table in the library. When I had finished speaking he sat for a minute or two in silence, the fingers of one hand tapping the papers in front of him, his eyes hooded and brooding. I had the feeling that he had forgotten I was there.
When he spoke it was to say, rather oddly: ‘Again.’
I said, surprised: ‘Monsieur?’
He glanced up quickly under his black brows. I thought he spoke a little wearily. ‘This is the second time in a very few days, Miss Martin, that we have had cause to be indebted to you for the same rather terrible reason.’
‘Oh. I see,’ I said, and added awkwardly: ‘It was nothing. Anyone—’
‘Anyone would have done the same?’ His smile was a brief flash that failed to light his eyes. ‘So you said earlier, Miss Martin, but I must insist as I did before that we are lucky to have so …’ a little pause … ‘so foresighted a young woman to look after Philippe. When did you put the ladder there?’
‘Only yesterday.’
‘Really? What made you do it?’
I hesitated, choosing my words. ‘The other day I went out myself along the balcony to – to wait for a car coming. I remembered the coping had felt a bit loose before, and tried it. It was loose, but I’d have sworn not dangerously. I intended to mention it to you, but honestly I’d no idea it was as bad. Then the car came, and … I forgot about it.’
I didn’t add that the day had been Tuesday and the car Raoul’s. I went on: ‘Then yesterday, just before I was due to leave for Thonon I went out again, to see if it was going to rain. The ladder was lying on the balcony and I wondered if workmen had been there. I remembered then about the coping, but I was in a tearing hurry for the bus, so I just shoved the ladder along in front of the balustrade and went. I – I vowed I’d remember to tell you as soon as I got back. I – I’m terribly sorry.’ I finished lamely.
‘You needn’t be. You were not to know that the stone was as rotten as that. I did have a report on the stonework of that balcony some time ago, but there was no suggestion that the repair was urgent. There’ll be trouble about this, you may be sure. But meanwhile let us just be thankful for whatever inspired you to put the ladder across.’
I laughed, still slightly embarrassed. ‘Perhaps it was Phil
He said dryly: ‘Perhaps. He seems to need one.’
I said: ‘There’s a phrase for it, isn’t there? “Accident-prone”.’
‘It seems appropriate.’ The smooth voice held a note that, incongruously, sounded like amusement. I looked sharply at him. He returned my look. ‘Well? Well, Miss Martin?’
‘Nothing,’ I said confusedly. ‘I – it’s just that – you take it so calmly. I’d have expected you to be angry.’
‘But I am,’ he said, ‘very angry.’ And meeting his eyes squarely for the first time during the interview I realised with a shock that he spoke a little less than the truth. He smiled again, and quite without amusement. ‘But being a rational man, I keep my anger for those who are to blame. It would ill become me, mademoiselle, to vent it on you. And I cannot spend it in protests, because that is … not my way.’
He swung the wheelchair round so that he was turned a little away from me, looking out of the window across the rose garden. I waited, watching the drawn, handsome face with its fine eyes and mobile mouth, and wondering why talking with Léon de Valmy always made me feel as if I were acting in a play where all the cues were marked. I knew what was coming next, and it came.
He said, with that wry calmness that was somehow all wrong: ‘When one is a cripple one learns a certain … economy of effort, Miss Martin. What would be the point of raging at you here and now? You’re not to blame. How’s Philippe?’
The question cut across my thoughts – which were simply that I’d have liked him better indulging in some of that profitless rage – so abruptly that I jumped.
‘Philippe? Oh, he’s all right, thank you. He was frightened and upset, but I doubt if there’ll be any ill effects. I imagine it’ll soon be forgotten – though at the moment he’s inclined to be rather proud of the adventure.’
He was still looking away from me across the garden. ‘Yes? Ah well, children are unpredictable creatures, aren’t they? Le pauvre petit, let’s hope he’s at the end of his “adventures”, as you call them.’