And Be Thy Love (15 page)

subject of Robert de Bergerac—Caroline sipped her coffee and listened, and was only brought up short when Monique introduced her own purely personal affairs. “It is because I would do anything—anything!—for the Comte that I wish to make his guests happy, and to feed them in the way he would wish. If their stay here is not all that he would desire for them, then I—and I alone!— will be to blame, and that is something that must not happen! For, mademoiselle.,” lowering her voice confidentially, although Thibault was banging so loudly with his spoon that it was difficult to hear, “Monsieur le Comte has been to me and mine so good that I find it difficult to speak of it.” She certainly seemed to be struggling with a sudden uprush of emotion. “It is not only my husband—he did all that he could to provide for him the right kind of defence, although,” sadly, “no real defence was possible! But there was my eldest girl, Madeleine, who was so sick that she had to be sent away for care and treatment, and Monsieur paid for her to become well again at a very special sanatorium in the mountains. She is so much better now that soon she will be coming home to me, and it is all— all— due to Monsieur le Comte.When I had not a franc to buy bread for Thibault and Marie-Josette he not only filled my purse, but put money into the bank—the bank!—for me, Monique Benoit. And there is money there still, although I do not need to touch it while I am working like this. So you see, mademoiselle” the tears rolling blindly down her face as they had rolled once before, “it is because of these things that it would grieve me very much if his guests were not fed as they should be fed, their rooms looked to, and their comfort assured...” Caroline sat as if she. had been turned all at once to stone, and deep down inside her a kind of dismay was spreading—dismay that she didn’t know how to combat.

“Whatever some people might say of Monsieur le Comte—and even in such a remote, small town as Le Fontaine people do talk!— all that I will ever have said of him is that he is goodness itself, and that his generosity is such as few people would understand.” Monique concluded, “Very few people!”

“I—I am glad you told me all this, Monique,” Caroline managed, at last, in a voice that was unlike her normal voice. “You have

every reason to feel grateful to the Comte de Marsac, and that you do feel so very grateful is very much to your credit.”

Monique’s eyes flashed in surprise.

“To feel gratitude is not enough when so much has been done!” she exclaimed. “There must be some return made! That is what I wish to do—to make some return!”

Caroline finished her coffee, and then left the kitchen, leaving Monique once more busying herself at the stove. Thibault slipped from his high-chair and made off into the great outside world, and Marie-Josette went on stuffing her celluloid doll with crumbs of stale cake.

At lunch-time there was only Lady Pen and Caroline to enjoy the savoury omelette and the green salad with which Monique served them, for all four of the others had gone off on some sort of expedition in the Comte’s car. Lady Pen said it was very nice there being just the two of them, and smiled at Caroline across the little table that was laid in the small card-room, and afterwards she rested in her room while Caroline wandered alone in the tangled wilderness that had once been an orchard, and where the gnarled boughs where loaded with fruit in spite of rank weeds growing at the base of the trees.

Caroline tried not to think of anything as she walked beneath the trees—at least, she tried not to remember what Monique had told her that morning. For when she did so the sharp sensation of dismay not merely persisted, but grew steadily sharper, and more inclined actually to upset her. So she preferred, since it was next door to impossible to keep her mind a blank, to dwell upon the mental picture of Armand at the wheel of his sleek cream car, with Diane beside him in a silk suit the colour of early-morning sunlight, her burnished black hair banded about her head like a cap, a huge pouch handbag on her lap which she grasped with her brilliantly tinted fingernails, while the other two sat in the back and were merely passengers.

It was easier thinking of Armand like that, eternally with Diane, or with some other woman equally as desirable, and as equally smart, perhaps later on, when he returned to Paris.

For smart women and Armand surely went together?

About four o’clock Monique came into the orchard looking for Thibault.

“Sometimes he plays here,” she said, “and sometimes he hides from me in one of the trees.” She looked up amongst the branches, and called loudly. “Thibault, Thibault! It is time that you shall have a wash, for I have much to do later and I will not be free to attend you! Thibaut!”

But Thibault, if he was anywhere in the orchard, preferred to remain quiet amidst the leaves.

Caroline told Monique not to worry, and said she would look for him, and she spent half an hour after that searching everywhere for the small boy with the honey-coloured hair who was so frequently to be seen staggering along with Jacqueline in his arms. But for once Thibault had found a hiding place in which he was safe from such things as face flannels and combs that restored order to his tangled locks, and when Caroline finally reported to the kitchen she had to admit failure. Monique was scraping new potatoes with the amazing speed and dexterity that indicated she could perform the same task with as much efficiency even in her sleep, and she didn’t pause as she looked up enquiringly at Caroline. But behind the enquiry a little look of anxiety appeared.

She clicked her tongue impatiently.

“He is the bad one,” she declared, “and when he is found I will see to it that he goes straight to bed! He shall not defy me like this!”

But an hour later Thibault was still missing, and an hour after that Monique was inclined to wring her hands.

“He never wanders far,” she said. “I have never known him to do this before, and he is such a small gargon. Always he is with Jacqueline, or Jacqueline is with him, and now the two of them are missing!” Her motherly eyes became filled with anxiety. “There is so much to do here that I do not know which way to turn, with Denise Gargouf, who normally helps me with the vegetables, called to the bed of her sick grandmother, and yet he must be found! Someone must look for him!”

“Don’t worry,” Caroline strove to reassure her. “I’ll go on looking for him, and of course he can’t really be very far away!”

But after another half-hour’s search even she began to think that somehow or other he must have strayed, and become lost in unfamiliar surroundings. The woods seemed very silent at that hour of the day, with the sun slipping steadily westwards, and although there was plenty of daylight to be counted on for quite a while yet, if Thibault was genuinely lost they might need every second of that daylight to find him before the deep green gloom beneath the trees became the stygian gloom of night, unpricked by even a gleam of starshine.

And having searched the garden and grounds of the chateau thoroughly, there remained only the woods in which to search for him. Caroline was not really afraid of the silence, and the spreading loneliness, for such a small boy, since after all he was country born and country bred, but she did have a few uneasy moments when she thought of the slimy green strip of water in the very heart of the woods, which Thibault had once described as “The big sea”. The “big sea” had seemed to hold a certain fascination for him, particularly as he had seen a boat moored to its edge, and although he did not know that the boat was rotten he had expressed a desire to be taken out in it. When it had been explained to him that the boat was not seaworthy he had still thought it would be wonderful to play at being a sailor on such a wide expanse of water, and as it was Caroline to whom he confided these nautical ambitions it was not surprising, when she recalled them, that her own anxiety quickened.

There seemed nothing for it but that she must make her way to the lake. But before she made her way to the lake she must return to the house for a torch, in case night closed down while she was still in the woods. And hurrying back to the house she was immensely relieved to see a car come to rest before the impressive entrance front.

It was Armand’s car, and he seemed to sense that something was wrong as soon as he saw her emerging from one of the yew alleys.

She was hatless, and already tugged at by brambles, and her. relief at his sudden appearance showed in her face.

“Something is wrong?” he asked, and it was her own face he searched, as if his instincts were warning him that whatever had happened had happened to her personally, and therefore had to be dealt with immediately. (Which should have filled her with secret satisfaction, if there had been any opportunity to feel secret satisfaction just then.)

As it was, she explained quickly about Thibault, and while his expression didn’t altogether grow relieved, it lightened a little.

From the car Diane called out a little peevishly, for she was collecting together a lot of parcels, and preparing to step out on to the drive:

“Please help me, Armand...! And if the child is missing it is hardly your business to go looking for him! Let Pierre conduct a search, or someone like that. And I don’t suppose he’s really lost, anyway.”

But Armand ignored her, and even Christopher Markham, when he had slipped out of the car and joined the other two on the drive, looked in a concerned way at Caroline.

“That little curly-headed boy who is always carrying a huge cat about?” he demanded. “And you say he’s vanished? How long has he been missing?”

Caroline explained afresh for his benefit, and he nodded thoughtfully and looked at the Comte.

“Then, in that case, we’d better start searching the woods, hadn’t we?” he suggested. “You take one end, and I’ll take the other!”

“I—I’d like to come with you,” Caroline said, looking almost pleadingly at the Comte. “I’ve a sort of idea I know where he might be found, and as a matter of fact I was just returning for a torch, in case it got dark while I was still looking for him.”

“Then, in that case, it’s just as well we returned when we did,” the Comte returned, in a far sharper tone than any she had yet known him to use to her, and his brow grew almost black as he looked at her. “We can’t have you wandering about in the woods alone at night, and even at this hour of the day it was not a search

for you to undertake unaccompanied.”

“But I can come with you?” she asked.

She felt Christopher Markham’s eyes on her, while Armand seemed to hesitate.

“You’d better go with the Comte, Caroline,” he said, after a moment of complete silence. “He knows his own woods better than I do, and you’re less likely to flounder into a bog, or something of the sort, if you’re with him.” But there was such a strong tinge of regret in his tones that she couldn’t miss it.

The Comte went on frowning for half a second or so longer, and then he nodded his head almost curtly.

“Very well,” he said, as if he had a right to bestow permission. “If you think you have some idea where the small pestilence can be found! And also if you have the right sort of shoes on,” looking at them doubtfully, “and will be quick about fetching a coat. It turns cool when the sun sets, and it is not so very long since you had pneumonia.”

Caroline felt her heart leap queerly at his consideration, tersely expressed though it was, and she knew that Christopher’s eyes developed a faintly surprised expression as he glanced at each of their faces in turn. And then he left them to fetch a pocket-torch for himself, and also to enlist another searcher in the person of Helen Mansfield, who had only just realised that something was wrong.

Caroline flew up to her room to remove her open-toed sandals and put on brogue shoes, and when she rejoined Armand she was wearing a chunky white cardigan over her slim green linen dress. He was standing waiting for her where she had left him, and there was no sign of Diane, who had evidently departed into the house in high dudgeon.

Caroline didn’t realise it but, in spite of the anxiety she felt for Thibault’s safety, for the first time for days there was something almost eager in her look as she lifted it to meet the intent dark eyes of the Comte. And for the first time for days he smiled at her in the old winning way.

“I will forgive that fellow countryman of yours for calling you Caroline,” he said, “because it is you and I who are to search together! Now, keep close to me, and be careful where you put your feet, because it will soon be quite dark in the woods!”

CHAPTER XII

THERE was still enough light when they reached the shore of the lake to see the sinister green expanse stretching in front of them with a kind of sluggish glow on it at that hour, caused by the reflected light of the sunset striking through the trees. In less than another quarter of an hour it would be an inky pool of blackness, and Caroline shuddered a little as she looked at the reeds bending above the turgid water like lonely sentinals conducting an endless vigil. Then she looked for the boat where she had seen it at last, and realised immediately that it was not there. Armand, when she pointed the fact out to him, nodded.

He looked across the water at a tiny island in the middle of it, and without much difficulty he made out the boat lying upturned within a foot or so of the island. And then a faint cry came drifting to them—a thin, terrified, childish cry.

Armand’s lips tightened, and he frowned.

“You have the right sort of feminine intuition, my Carol! Unless I am making a very bad mistake the little one is on the island, probably hiding there, or else hurt in some way. He is calling for help, and we mustn’t withhold it from him. We must do something at once!”

“But—but what?” she asked, her voice shaken with doubt.

The doubt strengthened when she saw him smile curiously, and start to strip off his coat.

“It won’t be the first time I have swum in that unpleasant strip of water,” he told her. “When I was a boy my father forbade me to use the boat that in those days was quite watertight because of my unhealthy interest in the island, and the hours I spent on it alone enacting a Robinson Crusoe role that appealed to me strongly at the time. So, without a boat, I used to strip myself naked and leave my clothes on this farther bank, and then dive into the water and reach the island in record time. Those were great days!”