Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart
At last we had finished. The Englishman, weighed down with enough pills and boluses to satisfy the most highly-strung malade imaginaire, stood back from the doorway and waited for me to precede him into the sunlight.
As I picked up my own parcels and turned to go the chemist’s voice said, as dry as the rustle of dead leaves: ‘You are forgetting the drops for Madame de Valmy.’ He was holding out the package across the counter.
When I reached the sunny street the young man said curiously: ‘What’s biting him? Was he being rude? You’re – forgive my saying so – but you’re as pink as anything.’
‘Am I? Well, it’s my own fault. No, he wasn’t rude. It was just me being silly and getting what I deserved.’
‘I’m sure you weren’t. And thank you most awfully for being such a help. I’d never have managed on my own.’ He gave me his shy grin. ‘I still have to get the cognac. I wonder if you’d help me to buy that too?’
‘I thought you said you could ask for that yourself.’
‘I – well, I rather hoped you’d come with me and let me buy you a drink to thank you for taking all that trouble.’
‘That’s very nice of you. But really, there’s no need—’
He looked down at me rather imploringly over his armful of packages. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Apart from everything else, it really is wonderful to talk English to someone.’
I had a sudden vision of him up in his lonely hut at four thousand feet, surrounded by pills and boluses and thermometers in degrees Centigrade.
‘I’d like to very much,’ I said.
He beamed. ‘That’s fine. In here? It’s Hobson’s choice anyway – I think this is the only place apart from the Coq Hardi half-a-mile away.’
The bistro with its gay awning was next door to the pharmacy. Inside it looked dim and not very inviting, but on the cobbles outside there were two or three little metal tables, and some old cane chairs painted bright red. Two small clipped trees stood sentinel in blue tubs.
We sat down in the sun. ‘What will you have?’ He was carefully disposing his life-saving parcels on an empty chair.
‘Do you suppose they serve coffee?’
‘Surely.’ And it seemed, indeed, that they did. It arrived in large yellow cups, with three wrapped oblongs of sugar in each saucer.
Now that we were facing one another more or less formally across a café table, my companion seemed to have retreated once more behind a rather English shyness. He said, stirring his coffee hard: ‘My name’s Blake. William Blake.’ On this last he looked up with a trace of defiance.
I said: ‘That’s a good name to have, isn’t it? Mine’s only Belinda Martin. Linda for short – or for pretty, my mother used to say.’
He smiled. ‘Thank you.’
‘For what? Making you free of my name?’
‘Oh – yes, of course. But I meant for not making a crack about the Songs of Innocence.’
‘“Little lamb, who made thee?”’
‘That one exactly. You’d be surprised how many people can’t resist it.’
I laughed. ‘How awfully trying! But me, I prefer tigers. No thank you, Mr. Blake’ – this to a proffered cigarette – ‘I don’t smoke.’
‘Mind if I do?’
‘Of course not.’
Across the spluttering flare of a French match he was looking a question. ‘If one may ask – what are you doing in Soubirous? Not a holiday, I take it?’
‘No. I’m here on a job, too. I’m a governess.’
‘Of course. You must be the English girl from the Château Valmy.’
‘Yes. You know about me?’
‘Everybody knows everybody else hereabouts. Anyway I’m a near neighbour, as things go round here. I’m working on the next estate, in the plantations west of the Merlon.’
‘Oh,’ I said, interested. ‘Dieudonné?’
‘That’s it. The château – it’s only a country-house really, a quarter the size of Valmy – lies in the valley a bit beyond the village. The owner’s hardly ever there. His name’s St. Vire. He seems to spend most of his time in Paris or down near Bordeaux. Like your boss, he gets a lot of his money from his timber and his vineyards.’
‘Vineyards? Valmy?’
‘Oh, yes. They own chunks of Provence, I believe.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Bellevigne. But that’s Monsieur de Valmy’s own property, and Valmy isn’t. Even he wouldn’t spend its income on Valmy.’
‘Even he?’
To my surprise my voice sounded defensive. ‘I believe he’s an awfully good landlord.’
‘Oh, that. Yes, second to none, I imagine. He’s pretty highly thought of hereabouts, I can tell you. And the gossip goes that most of the Bellevigne income did get diverted up here until a few years back; there used to be plenty of money, anyway.’
‘There still is,’ I said, ‘or so it seems.’
‘Yes. Things are waking up again, I gather. Two good vintages, and you get the roof repaired. …’ He laughed. ‘Funny how everyone in these places minds everyone else’s business, isn’t it?’ He looked at me. ‘Governessing. Now that’s a heck of a life, isn’t it?’
‘In story-books, yes; and I suppose it could be in real life. But I like it. I like Philippe – my pupil – and I love the place.’
‘You’re not lonely – so far from home, I mean, and England?’
I laughed. ‘If you only knew! My “home in England” was seven years in an orphanage. Governessing or not, Valmy’s a wild adventure to me!’
‘I suppose so. Is that what you want, adventure?’
‘Of course! Who doesn’t?’
‘Me, for one,’ said Mr. Blake firmly.
‘Oh? But I thought all men saw themselves hacking their way with machetes through the mangrove swamps and shooting rapids and things. You know, all hairy knees and camp-fires and the wide wide world.’
He grinned. ‘I got over that pretty young. And just exactly what is a machete?’
‘Goodness knows. They always have them. But seriously—’
‘Seriously,’ he said, ‘I don’t know. I’d like to get around, yes, and I like travel and change and seeing new things, but – well, roots are a good thing to have.’ He stopped himself there and flushed a little. ‘I’m sorry. That was tactless.’
‘It’s all right. And I do see what you mean. Everybody needs a – a centre. Somewhere to go out from and come back to. And I suppose as you get older you enjoy the coming back more than the going out.’
He gave me his shy, rather charming smile. ‘Yes, I think so. But don’t listen to me, Miss Martin. I have a stick-in-the-mud disposition. You go ahead and chase your tigers. After all, you’ve done pretty well up to now. You’ve found one already, haven’t you?’
‘Monsieur de Valmy?’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘You were quick onto that. He is a tiger, then?’
‘You did mean him? Why?’
‘Only that he seems a little fierce and incalculable by reputation. How do you get on with him? What’s he like?’
‘I – he’s very polite and kind – I’d even say charming. Yes, certainly he’s charming. He and Madame seem terribly anxious that I should really feel at home here. I don’t see an awful lot of them, of course, but when I do they’re awfully nice …’
I looked away from him across the square. Two women came out of the boulangerie, and paused to glance at us curiously before they moved off, their sabots noisy on the stones. Someone called, shrilly, and the group of children broke up, chattering and screaming like jays. Two of them raced past us, bare feet slapping the warm cobbles. The clock in the church tower clanged the half-hour.
I said: ‘And what made you come here? Tell me about your job.’
‘There’s nothing much to tell.’ He was drawing little patterns on the tabletop with the handle of his spoon. And indeed, the way he told it, his life had taken a very ordered course. A pleasant, reasonably well-to-do suburban home; a small public school; two years in the A
But here he recollected himself and flushed slightly, grinning at me. ‘Well, anyway,’ he finished, ‘that’s why I’m here. I’m busy getting the best of both worlds – thanks to Monsieur de St. Vire, who’s a remarkably decent chap for a Frenchman.’ He added, seeming to think this phenomenon worth explaining: ‘My father knew him in the War. He’s given me a job here of a sort – at any rate I’m paid a bit for doing what’s really my own research programme anyway. I’m getting some valuable material as well as experience, and I like working in this country. It’s small-scale stuff hereabouts, but these people – at any rate the Valmys and St. Vires, really do care about their land. But there’s a lot to learn.’ He looked wistful. ‘Including the language. It seems to escape me, somehow. Perhaps I’ve no ear. But it would be a help.’
‘If you’re living alone, with thermometers,’ I said, ‘I can’t see why.’
‘Oh, I’m not up at the hut all the time. I work up there mostly, because it’s near the plantation I’m “on” at present, and it’s quiet; I keep all my stuff up there, and I sleep there when I’m short of cash.’ He grinned. ‘That’s quite often, of course. But I do come down to the Coq Hardi pretty frequently. It’s noisy, but the boss speaks English and the food’s good … ah, is that your little boy?’
From where we were sitting we could see the high wall of the presbytery garden, and now the gate in it opened, and Philippe appeared in the archway, with the broad figure of the curé’s housekeeper behind him.
‘Yes, that’s Philippe,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to go.’
I got to my feet, and the child saw me, said something over his shoulder to the woman, and then ran across the square in our direction.
‘I’m glad you waited. I told Madame Rocher you would go – would have gone for a walk. But here you are.’
‘Here I am. You’re early, aren’t you, Philippe? Did Monsieur le Curé get tired of you?’
‘I do not know tired of.’
‘Ennuyé.’
He was solemn. ‘No. But he is not very well. He is tired, but not at – of – me. Madame Rocher says I must come away.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said. ‘Philippe, this is Monsieur Blake, who works for Monsieur de St. Vire. Mr. Blake, the Comte de Valmy.’
They shook hands, Philippe with the large gravity that sat on him rather attractively.
‘What do you work at, monsieur?’
‘I’m a forester.’
‘Forest – oh, yes, I understand. There are foresters at Valmy also.’
‘I know. I’ve met one or two of them. Pierre Detruche, Jean-Louis Michaud, and Armand Lestocq – he lives next door to the Coq Hardi.’
‘As to that,’ said Philippe, ‘I do not know them myself yet. I have not been here very long, vous comprenez.’
‘Of course not. I – er, I suppose your uncle manages these things.’
‘Yes,’ said Philippe politely. ‘He is my trustee.’
The look he shot me was merely one of minor triumph that he should have remembered the word, but it tinged the reply with a sort of smug stateliness that brought the beginnings of amusement to Mr. Blake’s face. I said hastily: ‘We’d better go, I think. Mr. Blake, thank you so much for the coffee. I’m awfully glad we met.’ I held out my hand.
As he took it, he said quickly: ‘I say, please – don’t just vanish. When can we meet again?’
‘I’m not a very free agent. Sometimes I’ve a morning, but I don’t often get as far as this.’
‘Are you free in the evenings?’
‘No, not really. Only Fridays, and a Sunday here and there.’
‘Then that’s no good,’ he said, sounding disappointed. ‘I’ve arranged to meet some pals of mine this weekend. Perhaps later on?’
Philippe had given a little tug to my hand. ‘I really must go,’ I said. ‘Let’s leave it, shall we? We’re sure to meet – the valley isn’t all that big. And thank you again …’
As we crossed the square I glanced back, to see him laboriously gathering up the bandages and the sticking-plaster and all the homely remedies which were to reassure life at four thousand feet.
I hoped he would remember to get the cognac.
6
Something will come of this. I hope it mayn’t be human gore.
Dickens: Barnaby Rudge.
That evening the quiet run of our existence was broken. Nursery tea was over; the early April dusk had drawn in against the uncurtained windows where lamp and firelight were cheerfully reflected. Philippe was on the hearthrug playing in a desultory fashion with some soldiers and I was sitting, as I often did at that time, reading aloud to him, when I heard a car climbing the zigzag. It was a mild evening, and one of the long balcony windows was open. The mounting engine roared, changed, roared again nearer. As I paused in my reading and glanced towards the window, Philippe looked up.
‘Une auto! Quelqu’un vient!’
‘English,’ I said automatically. ‘Philippe, what are you doing?’
But he took no notice. He jumped up from the rug, while his toys scattered unheeded. Then he flew out of the window like a rocket and vanished to the right along the balcony.
I dropped the book and hurried after him. He had run to the end of the balcony where it overlooked the gravel forecourt, and was leaning over eagerly and somewhat precariously. I stifled an impulse to grab him by the seat of his pants and said instead, as mildly as I could: ‘You’ll fall if you hang over like that … Look, the dashed thing’s loose anyway – this coping moved, I’m sure it did. This must be one of the bits they were talking about repairing. Philippe—’
But he didn’t seem to be listening. He still craned forward over the stone coping. I said firmly: ‘Now come back, Philippe, and be sensible. What’s the excitement for, anyway? Who is it?’
The car roared up the last incline, and swung with a scrunch of tyres across the gravel. She had her lights on. They scythed round, through the thin dark thorns of the rose garden, the flickering spear-points of the iron railings below us, the carefully-planted pots on the loggia, came to rest on the stableyard archway, and were switched off.
A door slammed. I heard a man’s voice, low-pitched and pleasant. Another voice – I supposed the driver’s – answered him. Then the car moved off softly towards the stableyard, and the newcomer crossed the gravel and mounted the steps to the great door.
I waited with mild curiosity for the door to open and the light from the hall to give body, as it were, to the voice. But before this happened Philippe ducked back behind me and retreated along the balcony towards the schoolroom windows. I turned, to see in the set of the thin back and shoulders the suggestion of some disappointment so sharp that I followed him in without a word, sat down again in my chair by the fire, and picked up my book. But Philippe didn’t settle again to his toys. He stood still on the hearthrug, staring at the fire. I think he had forgotten I was there.
I leafed through a few pages of the book and then said very casually: ‘Who was it, did you know?’
The thin shoulders lifted. ‘Monsieur Florimond, I think.’
‘Monsieur Florimond? Do you mean the dress-designer?’
‘Yes. He used to visit us a lot in Paris and he is a friend of my aunt
‘Of course.’ Even in the Constance Butcher Home we had heard of the great Florimond, whose ‘Aladdin’ silhouette had been the rage of Paris and New York years before and had, it was rumoured, caused Dior to mutter something under his breath and tear up a set of designs. I said, impressed: ‘Is he coming to stay?’
‘I do not know.’ His voice sufficiently also expressed that he did not care. But the general impression of poignant disappointment prevailed so strongly that I said: ‘Did you expect someone else, Philippe?’
He glanced up momentarily, then the long lashes dropped. He said nothing.
I hesitated. But Philippe was my job: moreover, he was a very lonely little boy. Who was it who could expect that head-long welcome from him?
I said: ‘Your cousin Raoul, perhaps?’
No answer.
‘Is anyone else supposed to be coming?’
He shook his head.
I tried again. ‘Don’t you like Monsieur Florimond?’
‘But yes. I like him very much.’
‘Then why –?’ I began, but something in his face warned me to stop. I said gently: ‘It’s time we went down to the salon, petit. I haven’t been told not to, so I suppose, guests or not, that we’ll have to go. Run and wash your hands while I tidy my hair.’
He obeyed me without a word or look.
I went slowly across to shut the balcony window.
In a small salon a log fire had been lit, and in front of it sat Madame de Valmy and Monsieur Florimond on a rose-brocaded sofa, talking.
I looked with interest at the newcomer. I don’t know what I expected one of fashion’s Big Five to look like; I only know that the great Florimond didn’t look like it. He was vast, baldish, and untidy. His face in repose had a suggestion of tranquil melancholy about it that was vaguely reminiscent of the White Knight, but no-one could ever doubt Monsieur Florimond’s large sanity. Those blue eyes were shrewd and very kind: they also looked as if they missed very little. He wore his conventional, superbly cut clothes with all the delicate care one might accord to an old beach-towel. His pockets bulged comfortably in every direction, and there was cigar-ash on his lapel. He was clutching what looked like a folio-society reprint in one large hand, and gestured with it lavishly to underscore some story he was telling Madame de Valmy.