He turned obediently off the bridge onto the wide level path that led along the hillside deeper into the trees. ‘All right. To look for wolves?’
‘Wolves?’
He was trotting ahead of me. He turned, laughing. ‘Mademoiselle, you sounded quite frightened! Did you think there were really wolves?’
‘Well, I—’
He gave a crow of laughter and a comic little skip that shuffled up last year’s dead leaves. ‘You did! You did!’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve never lived in a place like this before. For all I know Valmy might be crawling with wolves.’
‘We have got bears,’ confided Philippe, in the tone of one inviting congratulations. He looked earnestly up at me. ‘We truly have. This is not a blague. Many bears of a bigness incredible.’ His scarlet-gloved hands sketched in the air something of the dimensions of an overgrown grizzly. ‘I have never seen one, vous comprenez, but Bernard has shot one. He told me so.’
‘Then I hope to goodness we don’t meet one today.’
‘They are asleep,’ said Philippe comfortingly. ‘There is no danger unless one treads on them where they sleep.’ He jumped experimentally into a deep drift of dead leaves, sending them swirling up in bright flakes of gold. The drift was, fortunately, bearless. ‘They sleep very sound,’ said Philippe, who appeared to find it necessary to excuse this failure, ‘with nuts in the pocket, like an écureuil.’
‘Squirrel.’
‘Skervirrel. Perhaps you prefer that we do not look for bears?’
‘I would really rather not, if you don’t mind,’ I said apologetically.
‘Then we will not,’ he said generously. ‘But there are many other things to see in the woods, I think. Papa used to tell me of them. There is chamois and marmottes and the foxes, oh, many. Do you think that when I have ten years—’
‘“When I am ten”.’
‘When I am ten years I can have a gun and shoot, mademoiselle?’
‘Possibly not when you’re ten, Philippe, but certainly when you’re a bit older.’
‘Ten is old.’
‘It may be old, but it’s not very big. You wouldn’t be of a bigness – I mean you wouldn’t be big enough to use the right gun for a bear.’
‘Skervirrels, then.’
‘Squirrel.’
‘Skervirrel. I could have a small gun for skervirrel when I am ten?’
‘Possibly, though I should doubt it. In any case, it’s what they call an unworthy ambition.’
‘Plaît-il?’ He was still jigging along slightly in front of me, laughing back over his shoulder, his face for once flushed and bright under his scarlet woollen ski-cap. He said cheekily: ‘English, please.’
I laughed. ‘I meant that it’s a shame to shoot squirrels. They’re charming.’
‘Char-ming? No, they are not. They eat the young trees. They cause much work, lose much money. The foresters say it. One must shoot them.’
‘Very French,’ I said dryly.
‘I am French,’ said Philippe, skipping gaily on ahead, ‘and they are my trees, and I shall have a gun when I am older and go out every day to shoot the skervirrels. Look! There’s one! Bang!’ He proceeded, with gestures, to shoot down several squirrels very loudly, singing meanwhile an extremely noisy and shapeless song whose burden was something like:
Bang, bang, bang,
Bang, bang, bang,
Got you, got you,
Bang, bang, bang.
‘If you don’t look where you’re going,’ I said, ‘it’ll be you who’ll – look out, you silly chump!’
Then three things happened, almost simultaneously.
Philippe, laughing back at me as he jigged along, tripped over a tree root and fell headlong. Something struck the tree beside him with the sound of a hand smacking the bark, and, a fraction later, the sharp crack of a rifle split the silence of the woods.
I don’t know how long it took me to grasp just what had happened. The unmistakable crack of the gun, and the child’s body flat in the path … for one heart-stopping moment terror zigzagged like pain through my blood. Then even as Philippe moved the significance of that sharp smack on the tree’s bole struck me, and I knew he was not hit.
I found myself shouting into the silent woods that sloped above us: ‘Don’t shoot, you fool! There are people here!’ Then I was beside Philippe, bending over him, making sure …
The bullet had not touched him, of course; but when I looked up and saw the hole in the tree just above where he lay, I realised how nearly he had been missed. The silly little jigging song that had tripped him up had saved his life.
He lifted a face from which all the bright gaiety and colour had gone. There was mud on one thin little cheek and his eyes were scared.
‘It was a gun. Something hit the tree. A bullet.’
He spoke, of course, in French. This was no moment to insist either on his English or my own false position. In any case he had just heard me shouting in French at the owner of the gun. I put my arms round him and spoke in the same tongue. ‘Some silly fool out with a rifle after foxes.’ (Did one shoot foxes with a rifle?) ‘It’s all right, Philippe, it’s all right. A silly mistake, that’s all. He’d hear me shout and he’ll be far more scared than we were.’ I smiled at him and got up, pulling him to his feet. ‘I expect he thought you were a wolf.’
Philippe was shaking, too, and I saw now that it was with anger as much as fright. ‘He has no business to shoot like that. Wolves don’t sing, and in any case you don’t shoot at sounds. You wait till you can see. He is a fool, and imbecile. He should not have a gun. I shall get him dismissed.’
I let him rage on in a shaken shrill little voice, a queer and rather touching mixture of scared child and angry Comte de Valmy. I was scanning the slopes of open wood above us for the approach of an alarmed and apologetic keeper. It was quite a few seconds before I realised that the wood was, apparently, empty. The path where we walked ran between widely-spaced trees. Above us sloped some hundred yards of rough grass – an open space of sunlight and sparse young beeches, where brambles and honeysuckle tangled over the roots of felled trees. At the crest of the rise was a tumble of rock and the dark ridge of a planted forest. Nothing moved. Whoever was at large there with a rifle had no intention of admitting the recent piece of lunatic carelessness.
I said, my jerking heart shaking my voice a little: ‘You’re right. He shouldn’t be allowed out, whoever he is. You wait here. Since he won’t come out I’m going to see—’
‘No!’ It was no more than a breath, but he caught hold of my hand and held it fast.
‘But Philippe – now look son, you’ll be all right. He’s miles away by now and getting further every second. Let me go, there’s a good chap.’
‘No!’
I looked up through the empty wood, then down at the small pinched face under the scarlet cap.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘we’ll go home.’
We were hurrying back the way we had come. I still held Philippe’s hand. He clutched at me tightly. I said, still shaken and angry: ‘We’ll soon find out, Philippe, don’t worry, and your uncle’ll dismiss him. Either he’s a careless fool who’s too scared to come out, or he’s a lunatic who thinks that sort of thing’s a joke, but your uncle can find out. He’ll be dismissed, you’ll see.’
He said nothing. He half-trotted, half-shuffled along beside me, silent and sober. No skipping now, or singing. I said, trying to sound calm and reasonable above the blaze inside me: ‘Whatever the case, we’re going straight to Monsieur de Valmy.’
The hand tucked in mine twitched slightly. ‘No.’
‘But, my dear Philippe –!’ I broke off, and glanced down at the averted scarlet cap. ‘All right, you needn’t, but I must. I’ll get Berthe to come and give you some five-o’clock and stay with you till I get back to the schoolroom. I’ll ask Tante Héloïse if she’ll visit you upstairs instead of making you go down to the salon, and then we’ll play Peggitty till bedtime. How’s
that?’
The red cap merely nodded. We trudged on in silence for a bit. We came to the bridge where we had counted the trout, and Philippe walked straight over it without a glance at the pool below.
The blaze of anger licked up inside me again. I said: ‘We’ll get the stupid criminal fool dismissed, Philippe. Now stop worrying about it.’
He nodded again, and then stole a queer little look up at me.
‘What is it?’
‘You’ve been talking French,’ said Philippe. ‘I just noticed.’
‘So I have.’ I smiled at him. ‘Well, I could hardly expect you to remember your English when you were being shot at like a skervirrel, could I?’
He gave the ghost of a little smile.
‘You say it wrong,’ he said. ‘It’s squirrel.’
Then, quite suddenly, he began to cry.
Madame de Valmy was alone in the rose garden. Early violas were already budding beside the path where she walked. There were daffodils out along the edge of the terrace. She had some in her hands.
She was facing in our direction, and she saw us as soon as we emerged from the woods. She had been stooping for a flower, and she stopped in mid-movement, then slowly straightened up, the forgotten daffodil trailing from her fingers. Even at that distance – we were still some hundred yards away – she must have been able to see the mud on Philippe’s coat and the general air of dejection that dragged at him.
She started towards us.
‘Philippe! What in the world has happened? Your coat! Have you fallen down? Miss Martin’ – her voice was sharp with real concern – ‘Miss Martin, not another accident, surely?’
I was breathless from the hasty ascent, and still angry. I said baldly: ‘Someone shot at Philippe in the wood down there.’
She had been half-bending towards the little boy. At my uncompromising words she stopped as if she had been struck.
‘Shot … at Philippe?’
‘Yes. They only missed him because he tripped and fell. The bullet hit a tree.’
She straightened up slowly, her eyes on my face. She was very pale. ‘But – this is absurd! Who could … Did you see who it was?’
‘No. He must have known what had happened, because I shouted. But he didn’t appear.’
‘And Philippe?’ She turned shocked eyes to him. ‘Comment ça va, p’tit? On ne t’a fait mal?’
A shake of the red cap and a quiver of the hand in mine were the only answers. My own hand closed on his.
‘He fell down,’ I said, ‘but he didn’t really hurt himself. He’s been very brave about the whole thing.’ I didn’t feel it necessary to insist in front of the child that, but for the tumble, he would probably now be dead. But Madame de Valmy understood that. She was so white that I thought she would faint. The pale eyes, watching Philippe, held a look, unmistakably, of horror. So she did care after all, I thought, surprised and a little touched. She said faintly: ‘This is … terrible. Such carelessness … criminal carelessness. You – saw nothing?’
I said crisply: ‘Nothing. But it shouldn’t be too hard to find out who it was. I’d have gone after him then and there if I’d been able to leave Philippe. But I imagine Monsieur de Valmy can find out who was in the woods this afternoon. Where is Monsieur, Madame?’
‘In the library, I expect.’ She had one hand to her heart. From the other the daffodils fell in an unheeded scatter. She really did look dreadfully shocked. ‘This is – this is a dreadful thing. Philippe might have – might have—’
‘I think,’ I said, ‘that I’d better not keep him out here. Will you excuse us from coming down tonight, madame? Philippe had better have a quiet evening and early bed.’
‘Of course. Of course. And you, too, Miss Martin. You have had a shock—’
‘Yes, but I’m angry too, and I find it helps. I’ll go and see Monsieur de Valmy as soon as I’ve taken Philippe in.’
She was nodding in a shocked, half-comprehending way. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. Monsieur de Valmy will be terribly – annoyed. Terribly annoyed.’
‘I hope,’ I said grimly, ‘that that’s an understatement. Come on, Philippe, let’s go and find Berthe. Madame …’
As we left her I glanced back to see her hurrying away, towards the corner of the terrace. To tell Léon de Valmy herself, no doubt. Well, the sooner the better, I thought, and swept Philippe into the house and upstairs to the haven of the schoolroom.
Berthe was in the pantry, busy with some cleaning. After a swift explanation that shocked her as much as it had Héloïse, I would have left Philippe with her, but he clung to me, and looked so suspiciously like crying again that I stayed with him. Madame de Valmy had certainly taken the tale straight to her husband, who would, no doubt, put the necessary machinery in motion to discover the culprit. For me, Philippe was the first concern.
So I stayed with him and talked determinedly light-hearted nonsense to distract him till at length, fresh from a hot bath, he was safely ensconced with a book on the rug by the schoolroom fire. He made no objection when Berthe brought in her mending and prepared to keep him company while I went down to see his uncle.
Léon de Valmy was alone in the library. I had not been in the room before. It was a high room, lit with two long windows, but warmed and made darker by the oak bookshelves lining it from floor to ceiling. Above the fireplace a huge portrait glowed against the panelling; my first glance told me that it was a young portrait of Raoul de Valmy, looking very handsome in riding-clothes, one hand holding a whip, the other the bridle of a grey Arab pony with large soft eyes and a dark muzzle. I wondered why his father kept it there. Below the portrait a log fire burned in the open hearth, which was flanked by a single armchair. The room contained, apart from its thousands of books and a big desk beside one window, very little furniture. I realised the reason for this as Léon de Valmy’s wheelchair turned from a side-table where he had been leafing through a pile of papers, and glided towards the fire, there to stop in the vacant place opposite the single armchair.
‘Come and sit down, Miss Martin.’
I obeyed him. The first rush of my anger had long since ebbed, but nervousness tightened my throat and made me wonder a little desperately how to start.
Not that there was anything even slightly intimidating about him today. His voice and face were grave and friendly as he turned towards me. It came to me then, with a sense of almost physical shock, that the portrait above the mantel was not of his son, but of Léon himself.
He must have caught my involuntary glance upwards, for his own followed it. He sat in silence for a moment, regarding the picture sombrely, then he turned to me and smiled. ‘It seems we are an ill-starred race, we Valmys.’
There was the same wryness in voice and smile that I remembered from our first encounter. The slightly dramatic phrasing, no less than the repeated and deliberate reference to a state he ostensibly wanted ignored, jarred on me sharply. Did he see everything then, purely in relation to his own misfortune? I said nothing, but looked away from him to the fire.
He said: ‘I am told we have barely escaped another tragedy this afternoon.’
I looked up. (Another tragedy.) I said stolidly: ‘Has Madame de Valmy seen you?’
‘She came straight to me. She was very much shocked and upset. It has made her ill. Her heart, I am afraid, is not robust.’ He paused and the dark eyes scanned my face. There was nothing now in his own but gentleness and concern. ‘You, too, Miss Martin. I think you had better have a drink. Sherry? Now supposing you tell me what happened.’ He reached a hand to the tantalus at his elbow.
‘Thank you.’ I took the glass gratefully. My nervousness had gone. I was left with an empty feeling of reaction and fatigue. In a voice drained of any emotion I told him briefly of the afternoon’s events. ‘Do you know who was out with a gun today?’ I asked in conclusion.
He lifted his sherry glass. ‘Off-hand, no. Armand Lestocq told me – no, that won’t do. He went to Soubirous this afternoon to the sawmill. In
any case Armand is never careless with a gun.’
‘But you’ll be able to find out, won’t you? He shouldn’t be allowed—’
‘I am doing my best.’ A glance. ‘My active work is mainly done by telephone. And when I do find out he’ll be dismissed.’
He was turning the glass round and round in his long fingers, watching the gleam and shift of the firelight in the amber liquid. Behind him the mellow brown-and-gold of the books glinted in the firelight. Outside the dusk fell rapidly; the windows were oblongs of murky grey. Soon Seddon would come to draw the curtains and turn on the lights. Now in the flickering glow of the logs the room looked rich and pleasant, even – in this book-lined bay where the fire burned – cosy.
I said: ‘Someone’s been out already to look around?’
He glanced up. ‘Of course. But the chances are that the culprit would make straight back when he saw what he had done – or nearly done. He wouldn’t want to be caught out with the gun.’ He gave a little smile. ‘You do realise that whoever it is is going to take quite a bit of trouble to cover his tracks, don’t you? Good jobs aren’t as easy to get as all that round here.’
‘If he’d been going to come forward he’d no doubt have come running when he heard me shout,’ I said. ‘But I quite see why he’s scared to. It might even be a question of police proceedings.’
The dark brows rose. ‘Police? If there had actually been an accident – yes. But as it is—’
‘I don’t think it was an accident.’
He looked considerably startled. ‘What in the world are you suggesting, then?’ Then, as I made no immediate reply, he said in a voice where anger flickered through derision and disbelief: ‘What else, Miss Martin, what else? Deliberate murder?’
Mockery – but through it I felt anger meeting me, palpable as the beat of a hot wind. The words bit through the air between us. I merely gaped at him, surprised.
Then it drew off. He said, his voice smooth and cold: ‘You’re being a little hysterical, aren’t you? Who would want to kill a child? Philippe has no enemies.’
No, I thought, and no friends either. Except me. I sat up and met Léon de Valmy’s hard stare. I said coolly: ‘You take me up too quickly, Monsieur de Valmy. I wasn’t suggesting anything quite as silly as that. And I am not hysterical.’