“Excited?” he teased. “I believe you are.”
“I have two excitements inside me,” said Frances, and smiled back. It was like being a child again, when a deep secret (cross your lips and heart) churned in your stomach, and the intoxication of knowing you were important, even if no one else thought you were, made your eyes shine. Frances controlled her exhilaration and tried to look bored. She remembered Richard’s words last night. “Keep cool, don’t worry. Don’t talk about anything important, even when you think it’s safe. Don’t speak on impulse. Don’t show any alarm even when you’ve just had an attack of woman’s intuition. I can tell from your eyes when you are really worried. We can talk things over at night when we get to bed. We won’t lose by being careful.” We won’t lose! She had chased away the exhilaration, and now she knew it had been guarding her against fear. We won’t lose. The certainty of the words panicked her. She heard Richard order tea. Won’t lose, won’t lose, won’t lose, mocked the wheels of the train. She suddenly knew that Richard and she had never been so alone before, in all their lives.
“That’s better,” said Richard as he lit a cigarette. “The compartment was much too crowded. Now what do you want to see in Paris?”
It was strange, she thought, how people seemed to change in a foreign train. More than half in this coach were English, but already they seemed so different. She became aware that Richard was watching her carefully. She smiled to him and calmed her imagination. Nice beginning, indeed, when every stout Swiss commercial traveller seemed to be a member of the Ogpu, or that pinched little governess looked like a German agent. I’ve seen too much Hitchcock lately, she thought; at this rate I’ll be worse than useless.
Richard was talking continuously as if he had sensed her stage fright. She concentrated on listening to him; he had helped her this way before. Like the time she had climbed her first mountain, and had got badly stuck, so badly that she accepted the fact that she was going to be killed, actually accepted it with a peculiar kind of resignation—but Richard had talked so calmly, had compelled her attention so thoroughly, that she forgot she was already dead at the bottom of a precipice, and her feet followed his to safety. He was talking now about the French peasants. A French peasant, he was proving, would not be able to understand The Grapes of Wrath.
Frances, watching the farmhouses which seemed to grow from the earth as much as the little orchards which guarded them or the fields so carefully planned to the last inch, was inclined to agree. She thought of the despair of peasants similar to these during the last war, when they saw their fields shell-wracked, torn with barbed wire, poisoned with gas, evil-smelling with death… And yet, a few hours later and these fields were again persuaded into neat rows of earth, new trees were planted, new houses built.
“It is strange how little credit we give to the courage of quiet people,” she said. “We sympathise most with those who find someone to champion their woes. We take all this for granted.” She pointed to the farms. “We never think that this could be a wilderness. We look at it and think how pleasant to live here, and yet to live here would mean back-breaking work and a continual struggle, if we wanted it to stay this way.”
“There’s nothing like self-pity for thoroughly dissipating a man. And when a nation indulges in that luxury it finds itself with a dictator. Wrongs and injustices come in at the door and reason flies out the window. It’s a solution which does not flatter the human race.” He paused. “But what on earth brought this up?”
Frances nodded to the fields. “The earth itself.”
People were now crowding into the restaurant car, looking reproachfully at their empty plates.
“Feeding time at the Zoo,” said Richard. “Let’s move.” As he concentrated on the problem of francs and centimes, she caught sight of the grey-suited man and girl in a mirror. This is how we look to strangers, she thought. Richard had noticed the direction of her glance. His eyes were laughing.
“Beauty and the beast?” he suggested.
In their compartment the two young men uncrossed their legs to let Frances and Richard pass. Frances had the feeling that they were interrupting a discussion. The dark-haired undergraduate seemed depressed and worried. She didn’t look at the other, because she knew he was observing her in his detached way. She tried to concentrate on her magazines. She resisted the feeling of sleep which the train rhythm invited… She never slept in the afternoon, but four hours’ sleep last night could be an excuse. She looked at the fields, she looked at the magazines, she looked at three pairs of brown suede shoes. When she awoke they were in Paris. Richard was handing his rucksack and her hand-case with voluble instructions to a blue-overalled porter.
He smiled down at her. “Time to powder your nose, my pet.” Frances in confusion grabbed her handbag. She hated to arrive so disorganised.
The undergraduates were leaving. Frances’ eyes were startled into looking at them over her compact mirror as she heard them say goodbye to Richard, and then, more shyly, to her. She hid her surprise enough to smile and bow and say goodbye to them in turn, before they disappeared.
Richard was still smiling. “Had a good sleep?”
“Marvellous. I’ve really got to admit I feel better. Did I make any peculiar noises?”
“No, you slept like a child. It quite won all our hearts.”
A bulky shadow fell across the doorway. It belonged to a man with a neat black beard and a neat black suit, making his way slowly down the corridor. He was decidedly large, and he carried a suitcase in each hand, so that he had to walk crabwise. He gazed benevolently into their compartment over his pince-nez. Richard didn’t seem aware of him.
He chose this moment to ask, “What about dinner at the Cafe Voltaire tonight?” Frances was enthusiastic. Her clear voice carried well down the corridor.
“Oh, yes; do. And we’ll have decent Vouvray.”
Their porter waited patiently. The platform was remarkably crowded, thought Richard, for this year of grace. His eyes searched for the two Englishmen. He saw them striding towards the main entrance, their felt hats in their hands. Behind them, at some distance, was a fat black figure, carrying two bags… And then the crowd closed in again. He felt a sudden wave of relief. In the taxi he avoided discussing anything except the streets and buildings.
* * *
Their hotel was one of the small ones on the Left Bank. They had stayed there on their first visit to Paris together, when they had little money to spend, and they always returned to it.
Inside their bedroom Frances paused and said, as she always did, “It’s just the same, even the wallpaper.” Unconsciously, she always got the same note of surprise into her voice each year. Richard had come to the conclusion that she was surprised over anyone continuing to endure such wallpapers she was probably right about that. It was hideously artistic. Frances was already in the bathroom, unpacking toothbrushes. He leaned against the door and watched her disapprovingly.
“Help me, darling,” she said, throwing a sponge and talcum powder tin at him.
“I’m damned if I am going to unpack now. I’m hungry.”
“Richard, you know we’ll be late tonight before we get back—we always are—and it will be too late to unpack then, and I hate going to sleep without washing or teeth-brushing. I’ll shake out my Paris clothes now, if you’ll run my bath, like a darling.” She went back into the bedroom, and he heard her moving about with her light step.
“It’s just the thin edge of the wedge, if you ask me,” he said. “First it is only a toothbrush, and then it’s Paris clothes, and I bet you are starting on the whole suitcase by this time. You’ve too much damned energy, Frances. After last night I thought you would never want to look at another piece of tissue paper for days.”
“That sleep on the train made me all right.” She slipped off her grey-flannel suit. “Talking about the train, who were your young friends? The blond was just too beautiful for words, wasn’t he? I felt sorry somehow for the dark ugly one: he was fe
eling grim about something.”
Richard came back into the room, and stretched himself along the chaise longue which stood in front of the tall windows. He propped the rose-embroidered cushion under his head, and watched Frances unfasten her suspenders.
“If you want to know you can come here. The bath can wait five minutes. It’s too hot anyway. You’d only come out a rich lobster colour.”
Frances looked across the room at him, and smiled as she slipped the smooth silk of her dressing-gown round her. She knew Richard, by this time. The bath would have to wait.
From the chaise longue they could watch the green leaves in the small courtyard outside the windows. The fears and uncertainty which had suddenly attacked Frances that afternoon seemed so remote now that they were almost silly. She lay feeling safe and warm and comfortable. Dangers and cruelty didn’t exist; nor did lies and treachery, or hatred and jealousy. It was fine just to lie like this, just to feel safe and warm and comfortable.
Richard watched the smile on her lips. “How do you feel, darling?” So he had been worried too about that sleepiness this afternoon.
“Wonderful, Richard. Like a contented cow.” He laughed. He knew now that everything was all right. When he got round to telling his story, there wasn’t much to tell. The men had been undergraduates—Cambridge men. They had been vague about their holiday. The fair-haired man had said something about Czechoslovakia, but the dark one had shut him up rather abruptly, Richard had thought. What had actually started them talking was the man in the black suit. He had passed the compartment door twice, each time looking benevolently at Frances asleep in her corner seat.
“And that,” said Richard, “aroused all our protective instincts. The dark-haired undergraduate muttered something about being haunted by black beards since Victoria. The other suggested it might only be a touch of Blackbeard’s old bladder trouble again. That sort of broke the ice. I capped that suggestion, and then we just talked. Mostly the fair-haired glamour boy and myself. It turned out that he was the brother of Thornley who was up at Oxford in my time. A friend of Peter’s. As a matter of fact, Peter visited them for a couple of days this week.”
At the mention of Peter’s name Frances had stiffened. She didn’t like it somehow, and for all Richard’s calm voice she knew he didn’t either. She kept her voice low like his. “Complications?” she asked.
“You can’t tell. I’ve been thinking about that. The dark-haired chap was certainly jumpy, but that doesn’t prove anything. Probably they really are quite oblivious of anything except their own holiday, and our meeting them was just another of these coincidences. On the other hand, Peter might have roped them in just like us, or used them as decoys, and perhaps Blackbeard was trailing them. If so, then we had downright bad luck meeting them. All we can do is to disinterest anyone who might have become interested in us through them.” Richard smiled wryly. “You see, young Thornley didn’t mention his brother or Peter until we had reached the station. So there we were, talking for most of the journey, and anyone who passed the door of the compartment might have thought we were all together. The joke was on me.”
Frances kissed him. “It probably is only a harmless incident. What about throwing off suspicion with dinner?”
Half an hour later they left the hotel. The streets were quiet, the restaurants and cafes crowded. A worried Frenchman, hurrying past them, caught sight of a girl’s laughing face under a pert white hat with a red rose, and turned to watch. English, he guessed, as he marked the cut of the man’s suit and that peculiar stride which goes with such a suit. And without a care in the world, he thought. He hurried on, speculating on that peculiar people.
At that moment he was right. Frances and Richard had abandoned care. Their holiday had begun.
5
PAWN TO KING’S FOURTH
June ended with their first week in Paris. They were very much on holiday. They rose late and breakfasted at their open window in the warm sunlight which then invaded the small courtyard. The insignificant little man who had watched them from the shadows of his room since their first morning at the hotel still sat far back from his window, but his interest was waning. He wasn’t a romantic, and the appearance each morning of a pretty blonde girl in a dressing-gown pouring coffee for a tall young man who lazily stretched himself on a couch at the open window was beginning to bore him. The leisurely manner in which they breakfasted and dressed annoyed him as much as the sound of their laughter and their English voices. He was wasting his time, he thought angrily, as he watched them leave their room after midday as they always did. The chamber-maid could take care of them.
The second insignificant man who took over at this point was equally bored. His feet hurt and he had never been interested in history anyway. He followed Frances and Richard from one church to another, from exhibition to exhibition, from palaces to slums. Towards the end of the week he was beginning to wait for them in a cafe and let them visit the inside of the buildings themselves. For he too had become convinced he was wasting his time.
The third insignificant man, who joined Richard and Frances while they were having dinner, had slightly better luck. He liked theatres and night clubs. Even the two evenings which they spent more soberly, just sitting at a table in the Café de la Paix, were pleasant, because by that time he was convinced that the Englishman and his wife weren’t going to complicate life for him. So he relaxed and enjoyed the thought that his expenses were paid. He was the only one of the insignificant men who was sorry to receive instructions at the end of the week to switch over to a newly arrived American. He had become so accustomed to their obvious approval of drinking their coffee and liqueur on the pavement in the French manner that he would not have been surprised to see them approach the Café de la Paix again, on Saturday night. He would have approved the fair-haired girl’s black dress and the small white hat with its gay red rose perched over her right eye.
Frances was nervous, so she talked constantly as they walked up the Avenue de l’Opéra.
“I’ve enjoyed this week, even if my feet feel two sizes bigger,” was how she summed it up.
Richard nodded. “It hasn’t been so bad. Life has been simpler than I thought it would be. I begin to feel I was over-suspicious of Blackbeard.”
Frances stared. “I haven’t seen him again; have you?”
“No, nor any possible relatives either.” Which would have pleased the insignificant men; no tribute to their ingenuities could have been handsomer. Richard piloted Frances carefully across the Boulevard des Capucines, and gave her an encouraging smile. “Cheer up, old girl. The first bathe is always the coldest.”
They had arrived between the dinner and the after-theatre crowds. There were a few vacant tables. Richard led the way to one on the left-hand side. As they sat down, a waiter appeared like the traditional white rabbit out of a hat.
“Coffee,” said Richard, “and Cointreau for you as usual, Frances? I think I’ll have one too. Yes, coffee and two Cointreaux.”
Frances repressed a wifely smile. He always enjoyed ordering in French, even in moments like these. Poor old Richard, how he hated Cointreau.
They settled comfortably in their chairs, lit cigarettes, and looked at the traffic with the right amount of interest. The people at the other tables were the usual mixture of foreigners and Frenchmen. Two nights ago the same kind of crowd had seemed gay and harmless. Tonight they seemed gay. Frances shook herself out of her imagination to admire the way in which the waiter poured the Cointreau.
“Penny for them,” said Richard:
“I was thinking how people with guilty consciences develop persecution mania.”
“Yes, they could, couldn’t they? I felt the same.” But what worried them most was how long they had to wait. Frances sipped her Cointreau. She noticed with amusement that Richard was restricting himself to coffee. As she listened to him, making conversation with one eye on his watch, she repeated to herself just what she had to say when the time came. She was the a
mateur actress taking one last look at her script as she waits in the wings. Her cue came sooner than she had expected.
A large, expensively draped woman was making her way with difficulty past their table. It seemed to Frances that it might have been the large lady who had brushed against the table, and sent the coffee swilling into the saucer. Yet Richard’s Cointreau glass lay carefully pointed away from them, so that the liquor trickled slowly over the other side of the table. Richard looked at it with some annoyance and resignation. The large lady continued oblivious on her way, trailing clouds of expensive perfume. The waiter staged his arrival from nowhere. He wiped and apologised with equal vigour.
Frances sat very still. She was conscious of the smile on her lips which had settled there and wouldn’t come off, as if she were having her photograph taken. She watched a man enter. Richard’s back was turned towards him, and he hadn’t noticed him yet. She let her eyes travel slowly back to their own table; she sensed, rather than saw, him making his way out of the restaurant. He was walking unhurriedly, and he would pass their table. Now he was almost behind the waiter, whose broad back blocked the narrow passage effectively as he bent to pick up the coffee cups. Richard was watching her. He was waiting.
“I was telling you about Mrs. Rose.” As she spoke she flipped her cigarette case open. “She told me to be sure to go to Le Lapin Agile. Mrs. Rose said we would like it.”
“Why?” Richard seemed more interested in ordering another drink.
That’s just my sweet husband, she thought a trifle bitterly, and lighted her cigarette. She noticed the rug vendor with the turban who was silently offering his wares at another table.
“She was born in India,” she said. Now let’s see what Richard can make of that.
The waiter became aware of the man who was trying to edge impatiently past him. He stepped aside, but not in time. He must have knocked the man’s elbow, for the cigarette fell from his hand on to their table. The man caught it as it rolled and picked it up. There was just time for them to notice the peculiar way he wore the watch on his wrist and the peculiar time it showed on its clearly marked face.