Nine Coaches Waiting

Hippolyte de Valmy interrupted her. "Monsieur Raoul is here?"

"Not yet, monsieur. He came this evening, and then left for Évian. He said he would be back at midnight to see you. It is after-"

"His car's outside."

Raoul moved at that, almost idly. He said: "Good evening, mon oncle."

Madame Vuathoux gaped up at him, at last stricken dumb. Hippolyte turned, eyebrows raised. Héloïse said: "Raoul!" just as I had done, and with no less horror in her voice. New lines etched themselves in her face and she swayed on her feet, so that Hippolyte tightened his grip on her arm. Then she saw me shrinking behind Raoul against the banister and she cried my name, almost on a shriek: "Miss Martin!"

Madame Vuathoux found her voice again at that. She echoed the cry. "La voilà! There she is! In this very house! Monsieur Raoul-"

Hippolyte said curtly: "That will do. Leave us, please."

There was silence until the door had shut behind her. Then he turned again to look up at us. He surveyed me without expression, then he gave a formal little nod and looked at Raoul. "You found them?"

"Yes, I found them."

"Philippe?"

"He's here."

Héloïse said hoarsely: "Safe?"

Raoul's voice was very dry. "Yes, Héloïse. Safe. He was with Miss Martin."

Her eyes fell before his and she gave a little moaning sigh Hippolyte said: "I think we had better talk this thing out quietly. Come up to the study. Héloïse, can you manage the stairs, my dear?"

No-one looked at me, or spoke. I was a shade, a ghost, a dead leaf dropped by the storm into some corner. My story was over. Nothing would happen to me now. I would not even be called upon to explain to Hippolyte. I was safe, and I wished I was dead.

Héloïse and Hippolyte were coming slowly up the stairs. Raoul turned past me as if I didn't exist and began to mount the flight to the gallery. I went after him quietly. I had stopped crying, but my face still stung with tears, and I felt tired, so tired. I found I was pulling myself up by the banisters as if I were an old woman.

Raoul had opened the study door and switched on the light He was waiting. I didn't look at him. I passed him with my head bent, and went straight across the study to the door that gave onto the salon.

I pushed it open.

I said wearily: "Philippe? It’s all right, Philippe, you can come out." I hesitated, conscious that Raoul, too, had crossed the room and was standing just behind me. Then I said: "You're quite safe now. Your Uncle Hippolyte's here."

For some reason-no reason at all-the others had followed us into the salon, ignoring the comfort of the study stove.

Hippolyte had taken the cover from the sofa, and now sat there, with Philippe in the crook of his arm. On the other side of the empty grate Héloïse sat huddled in a small chair of golden brocade. Someone had twitched the dust-sheet off that and it lay in a bundle at her feet.

With its light on, the salon seemed more ghostly than ever. The light of the big chandelier dripped icily from its hundred glittering prisms. It fell coldly on the white shrouds that covered the furniture, and struck back from the pale marble of the fire- place where Raoul stood, one elbow on the mantelpiece, as I had seen him stand in the library at Valmy.

I sat as far away from them as possible. At the end of the long room was a piano, a concert-sized grand encased in green baize; to this I retreated in silence, and sat down on the long piano-bench with my back to the instrument. My hands clutched at the edge of the bench. I felt numb and unutterably weary. There was talking to be done-well, let them do it, the Valmys, and get it over and let me go. It was no longer anything to do with me. I raised my head and looked at them down the length of that beautiful dead room. They might have been a million miles away.

Hippolyte was talking to Philippe in an undertone. In him, too, the Valmy likeness was strong; he was a younger, gender edition of Léon de Valmy-Lucifer before the fall. He looked kind, and his voice as he talked softly to Philippe sounded pleasant. But for all the gentleness, and the marks of anxiety and fatigue, I thought I could see in him the same hard force as in the other men-cooler, perhaps, and slower, but in the circumstances none the worse for that. My deus ex machina would be capable enough, thank God.

He looked up at Raoul and said in his quiet voice: "As you may have guessed, Héloïse drove into Geneva to meet my plane. She has told me a rather… odd story."

Raoul was selecting a cigarette. He said without raising his eyes. "You'd better tell me what it was. I've heard several versions of this odd story lately, and I confess I'm a little confused. I'd like to know which one Héloïse is trying to sell now."

She made a little sound, and Hippolyte's lips tightened. "My dear Raoul-"

"Look," said Raoul, "this thing has gone a long way beyond politeness or the conventions of-filial duty. We'll get on a lot better if we simply tell the truth." His eyes rested indifferently on Héloïse. "You know, you may as well cut your losses, Héloïse. You must know my father was pretty frank with me this morning. I suppose he may intend to deny it all now, but I confess I can't see where that'll get him-or you. I don't know what he sent you down to Geneva to say, but the thing's over Héloïse. You can abandon your-attitudes. There are no witnesses here that matter, and you'll certainly need my Uncle Hippolyte to help you if the hell of a scandal is to be avoided. Why not give it up and come clean?"

She made no reply, but sat there in a boneless huddle, not looking at him.

He watched her for a moment without expression. Then his shoulders lifted a fraction and he turned back to Hippolyte. "Well," he said, "since it appears that Héloïse isn't playing, you'd better let me start."

Hippolyte's face, as he glanced from one to the other looked suddenly very tired. "Very well," he said. "Go ahead. You rang me up in Athens on Monday night to ask me to come home as you were anxious about Philippe. You spoke of accidents, and insisted that Philippe might be in some danger. You also said something not very clear about Philippe's governess. Héloïse, too, spoke of her tonight-also not very clearly. I take it that this is the young woman in question, and that there have been recent and alarming developments which Héloïse has been attempting to explain to me. I must confess to some confusion. I am also tired. I hope you will be very brief and very lucid."

Raoul said: "You can forget Philippe's governess." (That was me-"Philippe's governess." He hadn't even glanced at me. He was a million miles away.) He went on: "She never was in it, except incidentally. The story begins and ends with my father. That was why I said this thing had gone beyond convention. Because your starting-point, mon oncle, is this: your brother-my father-with the help or at any rate the co

I heard Héloïse give a faint sound like a moan, and I saw the child turn his head to look at her from the shelter of Hippolyte's arm. I said in a hard little voice I didn't recognise as my own: "Philippe is only nine years old. Also he has just been through a considerable ordeal and is very tired and probably hungry. I suggest that you allow me to take him downstairs to some reliable person in the kitchen."

They all jumped as if one of the shrouded chairs had spoken, then Hippolyte said: "Certainly he should go downstairs. But I should like you to remain here, if you will. Ring the bell, please, Raoul."

Raoul glanced at me, a look I couldn't read, and obeyed.

We waited in silence, and presently the door opened. It wasn't Madame Vuathoux who stood there, but an elderly manservant with a pleasant face.