"Nine Coaches Waiting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

Chapter 3

At first I did not see the woman who waited for us a few paces inside the great door.

The hall seemed immense, but this was mainly because it was very high and full of shadows. The floor was a chilly chessboard of black and white marble, from which, opposite the door, a staircase rose to a wide landing lit by a window whose five tall lancets poured the sun downwards in dazzling shafts. At the landing the staircase divided, lifting in twin graceful curves towards a gallery. So much I saw, but the light, falling steeply through the speartips of the high windows, threw all but the centre of the hall into deep shadow.

I was still blinking against the glare when I heard a voice greeting Madame de Valmy, and then a woman came towards us in welcome. I supposed she was the housekeeper. She was a stout body of sixty-odd, with a fat comfortable face and grey hair worn neatly in an old-fashioned bun. She was dressed in severe black, her only ornament-if it could be called that- being a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez which stuck out of a pocket high on her bosom, and were secured by a chain to a plain gold pin. Her pleasant face, her plodding walk, her whole appearance were solid respectability personified. This was no secret dark Savoyard, at any rate.

She looked at me curiously as she greeted Madame de Valmy. She had a cheerful voice that sounded perpetually a little out of breath, and surprisingly, her French, though fluent, was atrociously bad.

Madame answered her greeting absently. In that merciless cascade of light the lines in her face showed up clearly. She said abruptly, her eyes sliding past the woman in black towards the dimmer background of the hall: "The Master: he's well?"

"Oh yes, madame. He's been-oh, quite his old self the last few days, madame, if you'll forgive my saying so… interested in what's going on, the way he hasn't been for long enough, and full of plans. Oh, quite like old times, madame."

She spoke with the ease of an old servant, and her face showed her very real pleasure in the good news she could give her employer. More pleasure, indeed, than Madame de Valmy's own face reflected. I thought I saw a shadow pass over it as she said: "Plans?"

"Yes, madame. I don't rightly know what they are, myself, but he and Armand Lestocq were talking it over for long enough, and I do know there's extra hands busy in the garden, and a man came today to look round the place and give his estimate for the jobs the Master was talking about last winter. He's here now, as it happens, madame. He went up to take a look at the stonework on the west balcony, and I think the Master went with him. The Master's lift wasn't at the ground floor when Seddon made up the library fire."

Madame de Valmy was pulling off her gloves with quick nervous movements. She said abruptly: "Do you know if he has heard from Monsieur Hippolyte?"

"I think so, madame. There was a letter a week ago, on Tuesday… no, it was Wednesday; it was your letter came from London on Tuesday about the young lady." She paused, puffing a little, and then nodded. "That's right. The one from Athens came on the Wednesday, because I remember Armand Lestocq was up here that very day, and-"

"Very well, Mrs. Seddon, thank you." Madame de Valmy might hardly have been listening. "You said the Master was upstairs? Please send someone to tell him I'm here with Miss Martin."

"I've already done that, madame. He most particularly asked to be told the minute you arrived."

"Ah, thank you." Madame de Valmy turned then towards me, still with those abrupt, slightly nervous movements, and spoke in English. "Now, Mrs. Seddon, this is Miss Martin. I wrote to you about her when I informed the Master. Miss Martin, Mrs. Seddon is the housekeeper here. She is English so you need not feel too much alone. Her husband is our butler and he and Mrs. Seddon will do what they can to help you." '

"That we will," said Mrs. Seddon warmly. She beamed at me and nodded, so that the gold chain on her bosom bobbed and glittered. "You're very welcome, I'm sure."

"Miss Martin's rooms are ready?"

"Oh, yes, madame, of course. I'll take her up now, shall I, and then show her round myself, seeing that perhaps she's a little strange?"

"Thank you, yes, if you will, but not straight away. She will come upstairs presently. Perhaps you will wait for her?"

“Of course, madame." Mrs. Seddon nodded and beamed again, then retreated, puffing her way steadily up the stairs like a squat determined tug.

Madame de Valmy turned as if to speak to me, but I saw her eyes go past my shoulder, and her hands, which had been jerking her gloves between them, stilled themselves.

"Léon."

I heard nothing. I turned quickly. Even then it was a second or so before I saw the shadow detach itself from the other shadows and slide forward.

Though I had known what to expect, instinctively my eye went too high, and then fell-again by instinct, shrinkingly- to the squat shape that shot forward, uncannily without sound, to a smooth halt six feet away.

Pity, repulsion, curiosity, the determination to show none of these… whatever feelings struggled in me as I turned were swept aside like leaves before a blast of wind. The slightly dramatic quality of his entrance may have contributed to the effect; one moment a shadow, and the next moment silently there… But, once there, Léon de Valmy was an object for no-one's pity; one saw simply a big, handsome, powerful man who from his wheel-chair managed without speaking a word to obliterate everybody else in the hall-this literally, for almost before the wheel-chair stopped, the servants had melted unobtrusively away. Only Mrs. Seddon was still audible, steaming steadily up the right-hand branch of the staircase towards the gallery.

It was a tribute to Léon de Valmy's rather overwhelming personality that my own first impression had nothing to do with his crippled state; it was merely that this was the handsomest man I had ever seen. My experience, admittedly, had not been large, but in any company he would have been conspicuous. The years had only added to his extraordinary good looks, giving him the slightly haggard distinction of lined cheeks and grey hair that contrasted strikingly with dark eyes and black, strongly- marked brows. The beautifully-shaped mouth had that thin, almost cruel set to it that is sometimes placed there by pain. His hands looked soft, as if they were not used enough, and he was too pale. But for all that, this was no invalid; this was the master of the house, and the half of his body that was still alive was just twice as much so as anybody else's…

He was smiling now as he greeted his wife and turned to me, and the smile lit his face attractively. There was no earthly reason why I should feel suddenly nervous, or why I should imagine that Héloïse de Valmy's voice as she introduced us was too taut and high, like an over-tight string.

I thought, watching her, she's afraid of him… Then I told myself sharply not to be a fool. This was the result of Daddy's intriguing build-up and my own damned romantic imagination. Just because the man looked like Milton's ruined archangel and chose to appear in the hall like the Demon King through a trapdoor, it didn't necessarily mean that I had to smell sulphur.

It was disconcerting to reach downwards to shake hands, but I hoped I hadn't shown it. My self-command, as it happened, was a mistake. He said gently: "You were warned about me?" The dark eyes, with a question in them, slid to his wife standing beside me.

I felt rather than saw her small movement of dissent. A glance passed between them and his brows lifted. He was too quick by half. With a guilty memory of my own secret I said uncertainly: "Warned?"

"About Lucifer's fall from heaven, Miss Martin."

I felt my eyes widen in a stare. Was the man a thought-reader? And was he determined I should smell sulphur? Or…did he really see himself as the thunder-scarred angel he quoted? Oddly, the last thought made him more human, more vulnerable.

Before I could speak he smiled again, charmingly. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have tried to be so cryptic. I was referring to the accident that, as you see…”

I said hastily and a bit too ingenuously: "I know. I was only surprised because that's what I was thinking myself."

"Was it indeed?" His laugh held a tiny note of self-mockery, but I thought he looked pleased. Then the laugh died and his eyes were on me, intent, appraising. I remembered perhaps rather late that I was a servant and this was my employer. I felt myself colour, and said quickly, almost at random: "Someone told me about your accident-someone I met on the plane from London."

"Oh? An acquaintance of ours, perhaps?"

"I think so. We talked. When I told her I was coming here she remembered having met you."

"She?" said Héloïse de Valmy.

I said: "I never knew her name. She was elderly, and I think she came from Lyons or somewhere like that. I don't remember."

Léon de Valmy abandoned the catechism abruptly. "Whoever it was, it's just as well she told you." He hesitated a moment, looking down at his hands, then went on slowly: "You must think this very odd of us, Miss Martin, but I believe my wife does not care to speak of my-deformity. Consequently it is apt to meet people with a shock. And I myself-even after twelve years-am absurdly sensitive of meeting new people and seeing it in their eyes. Perhaps both my wife and I are foolish about this… Perhaps already you are condemning me as a neurotic… But it is a very human folly, Miss Martin. We all of us spend some of our time pretending that something that is , is not-and we are not grateful to those who break the dream."

He looked up and his eyes met mine. "One day, perhaps, it will cease to matter." He shrugged, and smiled a little wryly. "But until then…"

He had spoken quite without bitterness: only that small wryness touched his voice. But the speech was so little what I would have expected from him that I found myself, embarrassed and disarmed, shaken into some stupid and impulsive reply.

I said quickly: "No, please-you mustn't mind. Deformity's the wrong word, and it's the last thing anybody'd notice about you anyway… honestly it is."

I stopped, appalled. From Linda Martin to Monsieur de Valmy the words would have been bad enough. From the new governess to her employer they were impossible. I didn't pause then to reflect that it was the employer who had-deliberately, it seemed-called them up. I stood biting my lip and wishing myself a thousand miles away. Through my sharp discomfort I heard myself stammering: "I-I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that… I only meant-"

"Thank you, my dear." His voice was still grave, but I saw the unmistakable flash of amusement in his eyes. Then he was saying easily: "It seems, Héloïse, that your excessively silly friend Lady Benchley has justified her existence at last in recommending Miss Martin to us. We were indeed lucky to find you, Miss Martin, and we're delighted to welcome you to Valmy. I hope we'll manage to make you feel at home." He paused. That gleam again. "Not perhaps quite a felicitous expression. Shall I say rather that I hope Valmy will become a home for you?"

I said rather stiffly: "Thank you. You're very kind. I was happy to have the chance to come, and I'll try my best to-"

"Endeavour to give satisfaction? That's the usual bromide, isn't it? What are you staring at?"

"I'm sorry. It was impertinent of me. It was just-your English is so frightfully good," I said lamely. Damn the man; was I never to regain my lost poise? I finished the sentence coldly-"Sir."

He laughed outright then, a quite delightful laugh that at once conceded a point and abandoned the game, whatever it was. He began then to inquire quite naturally and very kindly about the journey and my impressions of the valley; Madame de Valmy joined in, smiling, and soon, under their renewed phrases of welcome, I found my embarrassment relaxing into naturalness once again. More, into liking. The man's charm was palpable, and he had taken the trouble to turn it on full blast… and I was all the more vulnerable for being tired, lonely, and a bit bewildered. By the time the three of us had talked for a few minutes longer I was back on top of the world again with my shattered poise restored and all the tensions and uneasinesses of the past half-hour dismissed as figments. Monsieur and Madame de Valmy were a handsome and delightful couple and I was going to like them and love living at Valmy and belonging even in this humble sort to a family again.

Sulphur? Poppycock.

But all the same, I reflected, it hadn't taken me long to see what had been implied in that remembered snatch of conversation. "You wouldn't,” Daddy had said, and I saw what he meant. The man was damnably attractive, no doubt of that…and I used the adverb deliberately; it was the mot juste. And charm or no, the faintest of resentments still pricked me. Léon de Valmy had played a game with me, and I hadn't liked it. I had been shaken into offering pity and comfort where none was needed… and he had been amused.

Nor did I attempt to explain, even to myself, why I had launched so unerringly on that sea of lies about the elderly lady from Lyons, or how I knew I would never, never have the courage to tell Léon de Valmy that I spoke French even better than he spoke English, and had understood perfectly well what he said to Héloïse when, at length dismissed, I had gone upstairs to meet Mrs. Seddon on the gallery landing.

He had said softly, and I knew he was staring after me: "All the same, Héloïse, it is possible that you've made a very great mistake…"

My rooms were lovelier than anything I had imagined, certainly than any I had ever been in. They had tall windows facing west, which gave onto a balcony and the view across the valley.

This drew me straight away. I stood leaning on the stone balustrading and looking out over that incredible view. So high-perched we were that I seemed to be looking level at the crest of the Dieudonné forest beyond the Merlon; below, along the zigzag, the bare tree-tops moved like clouds. The balcony was afloat in a golden airy space. Soubirous, to the south, glinted like a jewel.

I turned. Mrs. Seddon had followed me to the window, and waited, smiling, plump hands clasped under plump bosom.

"It's-wonderful,'" I said.

"It's a pretty place," she said comfortably. "Though some don't like the country, of course. Myself, I've always lived in the country. Now I'll show you the bedroom, if you'll come this way."

I followed her across the pretty sitting-room to a door in the corner opposite the fireplace.

"These rooms are built in a suite," she said. "All the main rooms open onto this corridor, or the south one. You saw how the balcony runs the whole length of the house. These rooms at the end have been made into the nursery suite, and they open out of one another as well. This is your bedroom."

It was, if possible, prettier than the sitting-room. I told her so, and she looked pleased. She moved to a door I had not noticed, half-concealed as it was in the ivory-and-gold panelling. "That door's to the bathroom and Master Philip's bedroom opens off it the other side. You share the bathroom with him. I hope you don't mind?"

At the Constance Butcher Home we had queued for baths. "No," I said, "I don't mind. It's beautifully up-to-date, isn't it? Baths behind the panelling. Did all the ghosts leave when the plumbing was put in, Mrs. Seddon?"

"I never heard tell of any," said Mrs. Seddon, sedately. "This was a powder-closet in the old days; it runs the whole way between the two rooms. They made half of it into a bathroom and the other half's a little pantry with an electric stove for making nursery tea and Master Philip's chocolate at night." I must have looked surprised, because she added: "This was always the schoolroom wing; the Master and his brothers were brought up here, you see, and then these alterations, with the electricity and all that, were done when Mr. Rowl was born."

"Mr…Raoul?" I queried.

"The Master's son. He lives at Bellyveen. That's the Master's place in the Midi."

"Yes, I knew about that. I didn't know there was a son, though. Madame de Valmy didn't-well, she didn't talk to me much. I know very little about the family."

She gave me a shrewd look, and I thought she was going to make some comment, but all she said was: "No? Ah well, you'll find everything out soon enough, I dare say. Mr. Rowl isn't Madame's son, you understand. The Master was married before. Mr. Rowl's mother died twenty-two years ago this spring, when he was eight. It's sixteen years ago now that the Master married again and you can't blame him at that. It's a big place to be alone in, as you may well imagine. Not that," said Mrs. Seddon cheerfully, chugging across the room to twitch a curtain into place, "the Master was ever one in those days for sitting alone in the house, if you take my meaning. Fair set Europe alight between them, him and his oldest brother, if all tales be true, but there, wild oats is wild oats, and the poor Master'll sow no more of them even if he wanted to, which I doubt he doesn't, and poor Mr. Étienne's dead, God rest him, and long past thinking of the world, the flesh and the devil, or so we'll hope……" She turned to me again, a little out of breath with these remarkable confidences; it appeared that Mrs. Seddon, at any rate, didn't share Madame de Valmy's habit of reticence. "And now would you like to see over the rest of the place, or will you wait till later? You'll be tired, I dare say."

“I’ll leave it till later, if I may."

"It's as you wish." Again the shrewd twinkling glance. "Shall I send Berthe to unpack for you?"

"No, thank you." That look meant that she knew quite well that I wouldn't want a maid exploring my meagre suitcase. Far from resenting the thought, I was grateful for it. "Where's the nursery?" I asked. "Beyond Master Philip's bedroom?"

"No. His bedroom's the end one, then yours, then your sitting- room, then the nursery. Beyond that come Madam's rooms, and the Master's are round the corner above the library."

"Oh, yes. He has a lift there, hasn't he?"

"That's so, miss. It was put in soon after the accident. That'd be, let's see, twelve years ago come June."

"I was told about that. Were you here then, Mrs. Seddon?"

"Oh, yes, indeed I was." She nodded at me with a certain complacency. "I came here thirty-two years ago, miss, when the Master was first married."

I sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her with interest. "Thirty-two years? That's a long time, Mrs. Seddon. Did you come with the first Madame de Valmy, then?"

"That I did. She was from Northumberland, the same as me."

"Then she was English?" I said, surprised.

"Indeed, yes. She was a lovely girl, Miss Deborah. I’d been in service at her home ever since she was a little girl. She met the Master in Paris one spring, and they was engaged in a fortnight, just like that. Oh, very romantic it all was, very romantic. She said to me, she said: 'Mary'-that's my name, miss-'Mary,' she said, 'you'll come with me, won't you? I won't feel so far from home then,' she said." Mrs. Seddon nodded at me, with an easy sentimental moistening of the eye. "So, seeing as I was courting Arthur-that's Mr. Seddon- meself at the time, I married him and made him go along too. I couldn't let Miss Debbie adventure all by herself to foreign parts, like."

"Of course not," I said sympathetically, and Mrs. Seddon beamed, settling her arms together under the plump bosom, obviously ready to gossip for as long as I would listen. She gave the appearance of one indulging in a favourite pastime whose rules were almost forgotten. If I had been delighted to see her pleasant English face after the secret countenances of Albertine and Bernard, it was obvious that Mrs. Seddon had been equally pleased to see me. And the governess, of course, was not on the proscribed list: this could not be called Gossiping with the Servants. I supposed that, for me, Mrs. Seddon was hardly on the proscribed list either. At any rate I was going to gossip all I could.

I prompted her: "And then when your Miss Debbie… died, you didn't go back to England? What made you stay on, Mrs. Seddon?"

As to that, it seemed that she was not quite sure herself. Miss Debbie's father had died meanwhile and the house in England had been sold, while here at Valmy Mrs. Seddon and her husband had excellent jobs which "the Master" seemed quite disposed to let them keep… I also gathered that Miss Debbie's interest had lifted them into positions which in another house they might never have filled; Seddon himself had been on my one sight of him impeccably polished, neutral and correct; Mrs. Seddon too, had all the trappings of the competent and superior housekeeper; but her voice and some of her mannerisms had, gloriously defying gentility, remained the homely and genuine voice and ways of Mary Seddon, erstwhile second-gardener's daughter.

I listened to a long description of Miss Debbie, and others of Miss Debbie's home, father, pony, clothes, jewellery, wedding, wedding-presents and wedding-guests. When we appeared to be about to launch (via how much Miss Debbie's mother would have liked to be at the wedding if only she had been alive) on a description of Miss Debbie's mother's clothes, jewellery, wedding, and so on, as observed by Mrs. Seddon's mother-then I thought it was time to prod her gently back to foreign parts.

"And there was Miss Debbie's son, wasn't there? Of course you wanted to stay and look after him?"

"Mr. Rowl?" She primmed her lips a little. "French nurses they had for him. Such a quiet little boy as he was, too-a bit like Master Philip here, very quiet and never a mite of bother. You'd never have thought-" But here she stopped, sighing a little wheezily, and shook her head. "Eh, well, miss, he's half foreign, say what you will."

There was all rural England in the condemnation. I waited, gravely expectant, but she merely added, maddeningly: "But there, I never was one to gossip. And now, if you'll excuse me, I’ll have to be getting about my work and leaving you to unpack. Now, miss, if there's anything you want you've only to ask me or Seddon and we'll do our best to help you."

"Thank you very much. I'm awfully glad you're here, Mrs. Seddon," I added naively.

She looked pleased. "Well, now, that's very nice of you, miss, I'm sure. But you'll soon feel at home and pick things up. I couldn't speak a word of French when I came here first, and now I can talk it as fast as they can."

"I heard you. It sounded wonderful." I stood up and clicked back the lodes of my suitcase. "As you say, thirty years is a long time, especially when one's away from home. You didn't feel tempted to go back to England, say, when Monsieur de Valmy married again?"

"Oh, we talked of it, Seddon and I," she said comfortably, "but Seddon's that easy-going, and we liked the new Madam, and she was satisfied, so we stayed. Besides, I've had the asthma terrible bad since a girl, and, say what you like, none of these new-fangled things they give you, anti-hysterics and such-like, seem to do me any good. I used to get it terrible bad at home, but up here it cleared up something wonderful. It still comes now and again, but it soon goes off. It's the air. Wonderful healthy it is up here, and very dry."

"It's certainly lovely."

"And then," said Mrs. Seddon, "after the Master had his accident, she wouldn't hear of us going. He couldn't stand changes, you see."

"I did gather that from what he said to me in the hall. Does he-does he have much pain, Mrs. Seddon?"

"Pain? No. But he has his days," said Mrs. Seddon cryptically. "And you can't blame him, the way things are."

"No, of course not. He's bound to get depressed at times."

"Depressed?" She looked at me blankly. "The Master?"

I was still trying to equate the self-confessed "neurotic" with the impression of easy and competent power that Leon de Valmy gave. "Yes. Does he get sort of sorry for himself at times?"

She gave a sound suspiciously like a snort. "Sorry for himself? Not him! Mind you, this last few years he's not been just as sweet-tempered as he might be, but he's all there, miss, you may be sure. He'd never be the one to give up because of a little thing like being crippled for life!"

"I think I can see that. In fact you never think of that when you talk to him." (I didn't add 'unless he reminds you', but the thought persisted.)

"That's so." She nodded at me again. "And he forgets it himself* most times. What with that electric chair of his, and the lift, and the telephone to every corner of the place, and that there Bernard to be the legs of him, there's nothing he can't do. But now and then, just like that, something'll bring it home to him, and then…

I said, still thinking of the scene in the hall: "What sort of thing?"

"Dear only knows. It might be a bad night, or a report coming in that something's gone wrong or been neglected in some place he can't get to himself to see to it, or something that needs doing and no money to do it with, or Mr. Rowl-" before, she stopped abruptly.

I waited. She pulled unnecessarily at a chair-cover to straighten it. She said vaguely: "Mr. Rowl runs the other estate for him Bellyveen, in the Midi, and there's always trouble over money, and it upsets the Master, and besides… ah, well, he's not often here, which is as it should be, seeing he's the one that reminds the Master most often that he's a helpless cripple for all the powerful ways he has with him."

I stirred. "Reminds him? That's rather beastly."

She looked shocked. "Oh, not on purpose, you understand. I didn't mean that! It's only that he-well, Mr. Rowl might be the Master like he was twenty years ago, you see."

"Oh, I see what you mean. He does all the things his father used to like doing. Polo, for instance?"

She shot me a surprised look. "Did they tell you about that?"

"No. I heard it from someone who knew them-someone I met on the plane."

"Oh, I see. Yes, that sort of thing. He could put his hand to anything, the Master." She smiled reminiscently and a little sadly. "Miss Debbie always did say he'd break his neck one day. He was such a one for sport-all sorts, motor-cars, horses, speed-boats… fighting with swords, even. He's got a shelf of silver cups for that alone."

“Fencing?”

“That's it. But cars and horses were the chief thing. I've often thought he'd break his own neck and everyone else's, the way he'd come up that zigzag from the Valmy bridge. Sometimes," added Mrs. Seddon surprisingly, "you'd think a devil was driving him… like as if he had to be able to do everything- and do it better than anybody else."

Yes, I thought, I can believe that. And even crippled he has to be a crippled archangel…

I said: "And now he has to sit and watch his son riding and driving and fencing-?”

"As to that," said Mrs. Seddon, "Mr. Rowl hasn't got the money… which is just as well, or maybe he'd go the same way as his father. And like I said, he's not here very often anyway. He lives at Bellyveen. I've never been to Bellyveen myself, but I've heard tell it's very pretty."

I said "Oh?" with an expression of polite interest as she began to tell me about Bellevigne, but I wasn't really listening. I was reflecting that if Raoul de Valmy was really a younger copy of his father it was probably just as well he visited Valmy only rarely. I couldn't imagine two of Léon de Valmy settling at all comfortably under the same roof… I stirred again. There was that same damned romantic imagination at work still… And what had I to go on, after all? A vague snatch of memory twelve years old, and the impression of an overwhelming personality in some odd way playing with me for its own amusement, for some reason concerned to give me a picture of itself that was not the truth…

It struck me then, for the first time, that there had been a notable omission from my welcome to the Chateau Valmy.

And that was the owner of all this magnificence, the most important of the Valmys, Monsieur le Comte, Philippe.

And now Mrs. Seddon was preparing to go about her own affairs.

She plodded firmly away to the door, only to hesitate there and turn. I bent over my case and began to lift things out onto the coverlet. I could feel her eyeing me.

She said: "You… the Master… he seemed all right with you, did he? I thought I heard him laugh when I was waiting upstairs for you."

I straightened up, my hands full of folded handkerchiefs. "Perfectly all right, Mrs. Seddon. He was very pleasant."

"Oh. That's good. I'd like to have been able to have a word with you first and warn you what he sometimes was like with strangers."

I could well understand her slightly anxious probing. It was obvious that the emotional temperature, so to speak, of the Chateau Valmy, must depend very largely on Léon de Valmy and "his days".

I said cheerfully: "Thanks very much, but don't worry, Mrs. Seddon. He was awfully nice to me and made me feel very welcome."

"Did he now?" Her eyes were anxious and a little puzzled. "Oh, well, that's all right, then. I know he was very pleased when Madam's letter came about you, but as a rule he hates changes in the house. That's why we were so surprised when Master Philip's Nanny was dismissed after being with the family all those years, and they said a new girl was coming from England."

"Oh, yes, Madame de Valmy told me about her." I put the handkerchiefs down and lifted some underwear out of the suitcase. "But she wasn't dismissed, surely? I understood from Madame that she didn't want to live in the wilds of Valmy and, as Madame was in London at the time, Monsieur de Valmy wrote urgently and asked her to find an English governess while she was there."

"Oh, no." Mrs. Seddon was downright. "You must have misunderstood what Madam said. Nanny was devoted to Master Philip, and I'm sure she broke her heart when she had to go."

"Oh? I was sure that Madame said she'd left because the place was so lonely. I must have been mistaken." I found myself shrugging my shoulders, and hastily abandoned that very Gallic gesture. "Maybe she was just warning me what it would be like. But she did seem very anxious to engage someone to teach him English."

"Master Philip's English is excellent," said Mrs. Seddon, rather primly.

I laughed and said: “I’m glad to hear it. Well, whatever the case, I suppose if Philippe's nine he's old enough to graduate from a Nanny to a governess of sorts. I gathered from Monsieur de Valmy that that was the idea. And for a start I'm going to try and remember to call the nursery the 'schoolroom'. I'm sure one's too old for a nursery when one's nine."

"Master Philip's very young for his age," she said, "though there's times when he's too solemn for my liking. But there, you can't expect much after what's happened, poor mite. He'll get over it in the end, but it takes time."

"I know," I said.

She eyed me for a moment and then said, tentatively: "If I might ask-do you remember your own folks,

now?”

”Oh, yes." I looked across the room and met the kindly inquisitive gaze. Fair was fair, after all. She must be every bit as curious about me as I was about the Valmys. I said: "I was fourteen when they were killed. In an air accident, like Philippe's. I suppose Madame de Valmy told you I'd been at an orphanage in England?"

"Indeed, yes. She wrote that she'd heard of you through a friend of hers, a Lady Benchley, who comes up every year to Évian, and Lady Benchley thought very highly of you, very highly."

"That was very nice of her. Lady Benchley was one of the Governors at the orphanage for the last three years I was there. Then when I left to be assistant at a boys' school it turned out she had a son there. She came up to me on Visitors' Day and talked to me, and when I told her I hated the place she asked me if I'd ever considered a private job abroad, because this friend of hers-Madame de Valmy-was looking for a governess for her nephew and had asked her if she knew of anyone from the Home. When I heard the job was in France I jumped at it. I- I'd always fancied living in France, somehow. I went straight up to London next day and saw her. Lady Benchley had promised to telephone about me, and-well, I got the job." I didn't add that Madame must have taken Lady Benchley's recommendation to be worth a good deal more than it actually was. Lady Benchley was a kindly scatterbrain who spent a good deal of her time acting as a sort of private labour-exchange between her friends and the Constance Butcher Home, and I doubt if she had ever known very much about me. And I had certainly got the impression that Madame de Valmy had been so anxious to find a suitable young woman for the post during her short stay in London that she hadn't perhaps probed as far back into my history as she might have done. Not, of course, that it mattered.

I smiled at Mrs. Seddon, who was still eyeing me with that faintly puzzled look. Then all at once she smiled back, and nodded, so that the gold chain on her bosom glittered and swung. "Well," she said, "well," and though she didn't actually add "You'll do," the implication was there. She opened the door. "And now I really will have to be going. Berthe'll be up soon with some tea for you; she's the girl that looks after these rooms and you'll find she's a good girl, though a bit what you might call flighty. I expect you'll make yourself understood to her all right, and Master Philip'll help."

"I expect I shall," I said. "Where is Master Philip, Mrs. Seddon?"

"He's probably in the nursery," said Mrs. Seddon, her hand on the door. "But Madam particularly said you weren't to bother with him tonight. You were to have a cup of tea-which I may say is tea, though it took near thirty years to teach them how to make it-and settle yourself in before dinner and you'll be seeing Master Philip tomorrow. But not to bother yourself tonight."

"Very well," I said. "Thank you, Mrs. Seddon. I shall look forward to that tea."

The door shut behind her. I could hear the soft plod of her steps along the corridor.

I stood where I was, looking at the door, and absently smoothing the folds of a petticoat between my hands.

I was thinking two things. First that I was not supposed to have heard Mrs. Seddon mentioning the lift in her conversation with Madame de Valmy, and that if I was going to make mistakes as easily as that I had better confess quickly before any real damage was done.

The second thing was Mrs. Seddon's parting admonition: "not to bother with him tonight" Had that really been Héloïse de Valmy's phrase? "Not to bother with him." And he was "probably" in the nursery… I laid the petticoat gently in a drawer, then turned and walked out of my pretty bedroom, across the roses-and-ivory sitting-room, towards the schoolroom door. There I hesitated a moment, listening. I could hear nothing.

I tapped gently on the door and then turned the gilded handle. It opened smoothly.

I pushed it wide and walked in.