Nine Coaches Waiting

I had flung my dressing-gown down and was reaching for my clothes when I heard the sound from the corridor.

Even though I had been listening for it I didn't at first know what it was. It came as the thi

I stayed where I was, frozen, one hand still on the light-switch. I don't think I was even breathing. If there had been the slightest sound from the other room I think I'd have been through there like a bullet from a gun, but the wheel-chair never moved, so I stayed still, waiting.

Nothing. No movement. After a while Philippe's door shut once more, very softly. The whisper was in the corridor again.

I don't know what instinct thrust me back into my bed and pulled the clothes up round me, but when my bedroom door opened I was lying quite quietly with my back to it.

He didn't come in. He simply waited there in silence. The seconds stretched out like years. I thought: I wonder what he'd do if I turned over, saw him, and screamed? The employer caught creeping into the governess's bedroom, the lights, the questions, the scurrying feet in the corridor… could you laugh that one off, Monsieur de Valmy? Tiny bubbles of hysteria prickled in my throat at the thought of Léon de Valmy pilloried in the role of vile seducer-then I remembered how pitifully he was insured against the risk, and lay still, all my perilous amusement gone. In its stead came a kind of shame and a pity that rather horribly, did nothing to mitigate my fear. There was something curiously vile about the mixture of emotions. My muscles tensed themselves against it and I started to tremble.

He had gone. The door had closed noiselessly behind him I heard the whisper of the wheels fade along the corridor towards his room.

I slipped out of bed and padded across to the door, where I stood listening until, far down the corridor, I thought I heard another door shut softly. Seconds later, I heard the faint whine of the lift. He had been checking up, that was all. But he had also told me all I wanted to know. The story was true. And I had to get Philippe out of it, and fast. Somehow I was calm again. I shut and locked my door, then with steady hands drew the curtains close and turned on the bedside light. I dressed quickly, picked up my coat and strong shoes, and went through the bathroom into Philippe's room.

This was going to be the hardest part of the job. I put the coat and shoes down on the chair where I had sat for last night's midnight feast, then, with a glance at the sleeping child, I crossed to the door and locked it.

Deliberately, I refused to hurry. If this was to succeed at all it must be taken calmly.

The room was light enough. The long curtains hung slightly apart, and between them a shaft of light fell, as it had done last night, to paint a bright line across the carpet. Something struck my foot as I crossed the floor, and rolled a little way, glittering. A frosted grape. Berthe had scamped the cleaning today, it seemed.

I pushed aside the heavy curtain, and latched the window. Behind me Philippe moved and sighed, and I paused and looked over my shoulder towards the bed, with one hand still on the window-catch, and the other holding back the curtain.

The shadow falling across me brought me round again like a jerked puppet to face the window. Someone had come along the balcony, and was staring at me through the gap in the curtains. I stood there, held rigid in the noose of light that showed me up so pitilessly. I couldn't move. My hand tightened on the window-catch as if an electric current held it there. I looked straight into Héloïse de Valmy's eyes, a foot from my own.

She showed no surprise at my presence, nor even at the fact that I was fully dressed. She merely put a hand to the window-fastening, as if expecting to find it open. She shook it, and then her hands slid over the glass as if trying to push a way in. Then she took hold of the latch once more, rattling it almost impatiently.

I could hardly refuse to let her in. I noticed that there were no pockets to her long ivory-coloured robe, and that her hands were empty. Besides, if she was here to harm Philippe she would hardly demand entry from me in this unruffled fashion. Wondering confusedly how I was going to explain the fact that I was up and dressed.at one-thirty in the morning, I opened the window. I said, as coolly as I could: "Good evening, madame."

She took no notice, but walked calmly past me into the room. Her robe whispered across the carpet. She stopped near the head of the bed. In the dim room her shadow threw a yet deeper darkness over the sleeping child. She put out a hand slowly, almost tentatively, to touch his face. It was a gentle touch, a meaningless gesture, but I recognised it. This was Philippe's nightmare. This had happened before.

If she had had some weapon, if her approach had been at all stealthy-anything but this apparently calm and routine visit- no doubt I would have moved more quickly. As it was, her hand was still hovering over the boy's face when I flew after her. I reached Philippe just as her fingers touched him. He didn't move. She drew her hand back, and straightened up. I went round the bed and reached a protective hand to draw the sheet up to the child's face. I faced her across the bed. Whatever my feelings towards the Demon King, I was not afraid of his wife. I said: "What is it, madame? What do you want?"

She didn't answer. She hadn't even acknowledged my presence. This was carrying ostracism a bit too far. I began to say something angry, then stopped, bewildered, to watch her.

She had turned to the little table that stood beside the bed. Her hands moved now over the clutter of objects on the table-a lamp, a book, a little clock, the tumbler that had held Philip’s chocolate, a couple of soldiers, a biscuit… I thought she was going to switch the light on, and made a half-movement of protest. But her hands, groping in a curious blind fashion passed the lamp, moved softly over the clock and the tin soldiers' and hovered over the tumbler. She picked this up. I said: "Madame de Valmy-"

She turned at that. She had lifted the tumbler as if to drink from it, and across the rim her eyes met mine again. With her back to the moonlight, her face was a pale blur, her eyes dark and expressionless, but as I looked at her, bewildered and begi

The open eyes, no less than the smooth stealthy hands, were indeed blind… I stared into the woman's expressionless face for one eerie moment longer, while the child breathed gently between us, then, very quietly, I moved to one side, down to the foot of the bed.

She stood still, with the tumbler held to her face, staring at the place where I had been… You see, her eyes are open; Ay, but their sense is shut…I stood and watched her as if she were a ghost on a moonlit stage. The verses marched on through my brain as if someone had switched on a tape-recorder and forgotten it. I remember feeling a sort of numb surprise at their aptness. Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise, and upon my life, fast asleep…

So Héloïse de Valmy, like Lady Macbeth, had that weighing on her heart which sent her sleep-walking through the night to Philippe's room. And would she, like that other murderess, give away what she had seen and known? I knew nothing about sleep-walkers except what I remembered of that scene in Macbeth. And Lady Macbeth had talked. Was it possible that I could get Héloïse de Valmy to do the same? Observe her, stand close.