"Mary Stewart - Madam Will You Talk [txt]" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

"I should like it very much, thank you," he said formally. "And I don't think my step-mother will object at all. It isn't her kind of thing, you know," naively enough, ''but she doesn't much mind what I do."

When we reached the hotel, people were gathering for aperitifs in the cool courtyard. I came down from my room to find Mrs. Bristol already installed at a table beside an orange tree. She smiled at me, and made a gesture of invitation, so I went over and sat down at her table.
"I hear you have been with David," she said to me, "so very kind of you to trouble."
"Not at all. We met by accident--I enjoyed the morning immensely." I murmured commonplaces, and she thanked me charmingly for what she called my kindness.
She bought me a drink and we talked nothings about the heat, and the town, and the shops for some time. She was very charming and talkative, but I noticed that the worried lines round her mouth seemed rather more pronounced to-day, and that whenever David's name cropped up in the conversation, there seemed to darken in her eyes the same shadow--of wariness, was it?--that had crossed David's face when I spoke of the trip to the arena at Nimes.
"I had thought of taking the car to the Pont du Card tomorrow," I said at length, "and then on to Nimes, to look round a bit. If you have no objection, I should like to take David with me? I don't know whether my friend will want to go, and I should very much like to have David's company."
She was lighting a cigarette when I spoke, and she paused with the flame of the lighter an inch from the cigarette-end, in the queerest, most exact repetition of David's own deliberation. I saw her assimilate the question, look at it carefully, hesitate, and then decide. For the life of me I couldn't understand why a proposal for a day's sight-seeing tour (which was surely what one came to Roman France for anyway?) should raise such problems as mine apparently did.
"It's so very kind of you," said Mrs. Bristol, and the lighter finally made contact with the cigarette. "I'm sure David will enjoy it." She made a charming grimace. "These antiquities-- they are not for me.; I am for Paris, the cities, the people-- places where one amuses oneself . . . you understand?"
"Oh yes--but I rather like it both ways," I laughed. "And I'm afraid I adore sight-seeing. I'm a born tourist, but I don't like to go in a crowd. But what on earth do you find to do in Avignon if you don't like--er, antiquities?"
She hesitated again, and sent me a quick look from under her darkened lashes.
"We do not stay long--we pass through to Monte Carlo. We rest a few days in Avignon on the way."
"Well, thank you for the drink, Mrs. Bristol," I said, getting to my feet. I had caught sight of Louise, who had taken a corner table, and was looking at the lunch menu. We murmured more civilities, and I turned to go, but the strap of my bag caught on the back of the chair, and as I swung round again quickly to disentangle it, I saw Mrs. Bristol staring at me, with her lovely eyes narrowed against the smoke of her cigarette, and in them a look of half-pleased, half-apprehensive speculation that puzzled me considerably.

That evening, as Louise was no more inclined than formerly to go for a walk, I left her sketching in a cafe in the city square, and went alone up the little dark street that leads to the Popes' palace and the gardens among the pines, high up on the Rocher des Doms.
Unlike the main square, the Place du Palais was almost empty, the buildings on three sides dark and blank, while on the right the great facade of the Palace soared up out of the living rock, shadowy yet luminous in the starlight. I lingered for a while gazing up at it, then went slowly up the sloping zigzag walk through the pines towards the high gardens, which lie at the very edge of the city, and are girdled in by the city wall itself. Very few people appeared to be up there that evening, and only occasionally, it seemed, I heard the murmur of voices and the soft scrunch of the gravel under someone's foot. The air was still, and the cicadas were quiet at last, but the pines kept up a faint continuous murmuring overhead, almost as if, in sleep, they yet gave back the sound of the wind that sweeps down the river all winter, and, in summer, lingers in them still.
Climbing slowly up through the winding alleys of evergreens, I came at length to the topmost edge of the gardens, above the Rhone, and leaned over the low battlemented wall to rest. Below me the wall dropped away vertically, merging into the solid cliff which bounded the river. The Rhone, beneath, slipped silently under the darkness on its wide and glimmering way.
It was very quiet.
Then suddenly, from somewhere behind me, came a man's voice, speaking low, in French.
"So this is where you are!"
Startled, I turned my head, but behind me was a thick bank of evergreen, and I could see nothing. I was alone in my little high corner of the wall. He must be on the lower walk, screened by the bushes. A woman's voice answered him.
She said: "You're late. I've been here a long time. Have you a cigarette?"
I heard the scrape of a match, then he said in a voice which sounded sullen: "You weren't here when I passed ten minutes ago."
"I got tired of waiting, and went for a walk." Her voice was indifferent, and I heard the gravel scrape, as if he made an angry movement.
I had no intention of letting myself be marooned in my corner while a love scene went on within hearing, and I determined at this point that, as I would have to pass them to get back to the main path, I had better emerge before anything passed that might make my appearance embarrassing. But as I turned to move, the woman spoke again, and I realized, suddenly, two things: one, that the voice was that of Mrs. Bristol, and secondly, that she was very much afraid. I suppose I had not recognized the voice immediately because I had previously only heard her speak in English, but as her voice rose, edged with fear, I recognized it.
She said: "It's happened. I knew it would happen. I knew.. .."
His voice cut in sharply, almost roughly: "What's hap pened?"
"He's here. He's come. I had to see you, I -"
He interrupted again.
"For God's sake, pull yourself together. How do you know he's here?"
She spoke breathlessly, still with the tremor in her voice.
"I got a phone call to-night. His car's been seen. They traced it as far as Montelimar. He must be coming this way. He must have found out where we are -"
"Loraine -"
"What are we going to do?" It was a desperate whisper. I leaned against the wall in my little corner; not for anything could I have come out now. I could only trust they would not seek its greater privacy for themselves.
I heard the man (I think it was he) draw in a long breath. Then he spoke quietly and with emphasis.
"There is nothing that we can do, yet. We don't know for certain where he is, he may be anywhere in Provence. When was he seen in Montelimar?"
"Yesterday."
He exploded with wrath. "God in heaven, the clumsy fools! And they only telephoned tonight?"
"They weren't sure. It was a big grey car with a GB plate, and they think it was his. It was the first glimpse they'd had since Chartres."
"They should have been sure. What the hell are they paid for?" he said angrily.
"Can't we find out where he is? I--I don't think I can stand much more of this--this suspense."
"No, we must do nothing. We'll find out soon enough, I've no doubt." His voice was grim. "And for God's sake, Loraine, take hold of yourself. You shouldn't have got me up here tonight, you don't know who's about, and this is such a tiny place. Anybody from the hotel -"
Her voice was sharp with new alarm: "You don't think he's got someone planted in the hotel? Do you mean . . .?"
"I don't mean anything," he returned shortly. "All I'm saying is, that we mustn't be seen together. You know that as well as I do. Anyone might see us, they might mention it to David, and he has little enough confidence in you anyway, as far as I can see."
"I do try, I really do."
"I know you do," he said more gently. "And I know David's not easy. But it's not David I'm thinking about, so much as him. If he ever got to know we were connected I'd be a hell of a lot of use to you, wouldn't I? He'd find a way to get me out of the road first, and then -"
"Don't, please!"
His voice softened: "Look, my dear, stop worrying. It'll be all right, I promise. I got you out of the mess before, didn't I? I got you away from England, didn't I? and the boy too?"
She murmured something I couldn't catch, and he went on: "And it'll be all right again, I swear it. I know it's hell just sitting around wondering what's going to happen, but I'm in charge and you trust me, don't you? Don't you?"
"Yes. Yes, of course."