by Nevil Shute
She eyed him for a moment. “Monsieur is going away, then, the day after to-morrow?”
“Yes, if the little girl is well enough to travel.”
She said awkwardly, “I am desolated, but it will be necessary for monsieur to go then, at the latest. If the little one is still ill, we will try to find a room for monsieur in the town. But we have heard this afternoon, the hotel is to be taken over to-morrow by the Bureau Principal of the railway, from Paris.”
He stared at her. “Are they moving the offices from Paris, then?”
She shook her head. “I only know what I have told you, monsieur. All our guests must leave.”
He was silent for a minute. Then he said, “What did you say was the name of the garage?”
“The Garage Citroën, monsieur. I will telephone and ask them, if you wish?”
He said, “Please do.”
She turned away and went into the box; he waited at the desk, worried and anxious. He felt that the net of circumstances was closing in on him, driving him where he did not want to go. The car to St. Malo was the knife that would cut through his difficulties and free him. Through the glass of the booth he saw her speaking volubly into the telephone; he waited on tenderhooks.
She came back presently. “It is impossible,” she said. “There is no car available for such a journey. I regret — Monsieur Duval the proprietor of the garage regrets also — but Monsieur will have to go by train.”
He said very quietly, “Surely it would be possible to arrange something? There must be a car of some sort or another?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Monsieur could go to see Monsieur Duval perhaps, at the garage. If anybody in Dijon could produce a car for such a journey it would be he.”
She gave him directions for finding the garage; ten minutes later he was in the Frenchman’s office. The garage owner was quite positive. “A car, yes,” he declared. “That is the least thing, monsieur; I could find the car. But petrol — not a litre that has not been taken by the army. Only by fraud can I get petrol for the car — you understand? And then, the roads. It is not possible to make one’s way along the road to Paris, not possible at all, monsieur!
“Finally,” he said, “I could not find a driver for a journey such as that. The Germans are across the Seine, monsieur; they are across the Marne. Who knows where they will be the day after to-morrow?”
The old man was silent.
The Frenchman said, “If Monsieur wishes to get back to England he should go by train, and he should go very soon.”
Howard thanked him for the advice, and went out into the street. Dusk was falling; he moved along the pavement, deep in thought. He stopped by a café and went in, and ordered a Pernod with water. He took the drink and went and sat down at a table by the wall, and stayed there for some time staring at the garish advertisements of cordials upon the walls.
Things had grown serious. If he left now, at once, it might be possible to win through to St. Malo and to England; if he delayed another thirty-six hours it might very well be that St. Malo would be overwhelmed and smothered in the tide of the German rush, as Calais had been smothered, and Boulogne. It seemed incredible that they could still be coming on so fast. Surely, surely, they would be checked before they got to Paris? It could not possibly be true that Paris would fall?
He did not like this evacuation of the railway offices from Paris. That had an ugly sound.
He could go back now to the hotel. He could get both the children up and dress them, pay the bill at the hotel, and take them to the station. Ronnie would be all right. Sheila — well, after all, she had a coat. Perhaps he could get hold of a shawl to wrap her up in. True it was night time and the trains would be irregular; they might have to sit about for hours on the platform in the night waiting for a train that never came. But he would be getting the children back to England, as he had promised Cavanagh.
But then, if Sheila should get worse? Suppose she took a chill and got pneumonia?
If that should happen, he would never forgive himself. The children were in his care; it was not caring for them if he went stampeding to the station in the middle of the night to start on a long, uncertain journey regardless of their weakness and their illness. That wasn’t prudence. That was . . . fright.
He smiled a little at himself. That’s what it was, just fright — something to be conquered. Looking after children, after all, meant caring for them in sickness. That’s what it meant. It was quite clear. He’d taken the responsibility for them, and he must see it through, even though it now seemed likely to land him into difficulties that he had not quite anticipated when he first took on the job.
He got up and went back to the hotel. In the lobby the girl said to him,
“Monsieur has found a car?”
He shook his head. “I shall stay here till the day after to-morrow. Then, if the little girl is well, we will go on by train.”
He paused. “One thing, mademoiselle. I shall only be able to take one little bag for the three of us, that I can carry myself. If I leave my fishing rods, would you look after them for me for a time?”
“But certainly, monsieur. They will be quite safe.”
He went into the restaurant and found a seat for dinner. It was a great relief to him that he had found a means to place his rods in safety. Now that that little problem had been solved, he was amazed to find how greatly it had been distressing him; with that disposed of he could face the future with a calmer mind.
He went up to the bedroom shortly after dinner. The femme de chambre met him in the corridor, the yellow, dingy corridor of bedrooms, lit only by a low power lamp without a shade. “I have made Monsieur a bed upon the floor,” she said in a low tone. “You will see.” She turned away.
“That was very kind of you,” he said. He paused, and looked curiously at her. In the dim light he could not see very clearly, but he had the impression that she was sobbing.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked gently.
She lifted the corner of her apron to her eyes. “It is nothing,” she muttered. “Nothing at all.”
He hesitated, irresolute. He could not leave her, could not just walk into his bedroom and shut the door, if she was in trouble. She had been too helpful with the children. “Is it Madame?” he said. “Has she complained about your work? If so, I will speak to her. I will tell her how much you have helped me.”
She shook her head, and wiped her eyes. “It is not that, monsieur,” she said. “But — I am dismissed. I am to go to-morrow.”
He was amazed. “But why?”
“Five years,” she said. “Five years I have been with Madame — in all seasons of the year, monsieur — five years continuously! And now, to be dismissed at the day! It is intolerable, that.” She began to weep a little louder.
The old man said, “But why has Madame done this?”
She said, “Have you not heard? The hotel is closing to-morrow. It is to be an office for the railway.” She raised her tear-stained face. “All of us are dismissed, monsieur, every one. I do not know what will happen to me, and la petite Rose.”
He was dumbfounded, not knowing what to say to help the woman. Obviously if the hotel was to be an office for the railway staff there would be no need for any chambermaid; the whole hotel staff would have to go. He hesitated, irresolute.
“You will be all right,” he said at last. “It will be easy for so good a femme de chambre as you to get another job.”
She shook her head. “It is not so. All the hotels are closing, and what family can now afford a servant? You are kind, monsieur, but it is not so. I do not know how we shall live.”
“You have some relations, or family, that you can go to, no doubt?”
“There is nobody, monsieur. Only my brother, father of little Rose, and he is in England.”
Howard remembered the wine waiter at the Dickens Hotel in Russell square. He said a word or two of meagre comfort and optimism to the woman; presently he escaped into the bed
room. It was impossible for him to give her any help in her great trouble.
She had made him quite a comfortable bed upon a mattress laid upon the floor. He went over to the children’s bed and took a look at them; they were sleeping very deeply though Sheila still seemed hot. He sat for a little reading in the armchair, but he soon grew tired; he had not slept properly the night before and he had had an anxious and a worrying day. Presently he undressed, and went to bed upon the floor.
When he awoke, the dawn was bright; from the window there came a great groaning clatter as a tank got under way and lumbered up the road. The children were awake and playing in the bed; he lay for a little simulating sleep, and then got up. Sheila was cool, and apparently quite well.
He dressed himself and took her temperature. It was very slightly above normal still; evidently whatever it was that had upset her was passing off. He washed them both and set Ronnie to dress himself, then went downstairs to order breakfast.
The hotel routine was already disarranged. Furniture was being taken from the restaurant; it was clear that no more meals would be served there. He found his way into the kitchen, where he discovered the femme de chambre in depressed consultation with the other servants, and arranged for a tray to be sent up to his room.
That was a worrying, trying sort of day. The news from the north was uniformly bad; in the town people stood about in little groups talking in low tones. He went to the station after breakfast with Ronnie to enquire about the trains to Paris, leaving Sheila in bed in the devoted care of la petite Rose. They told him at the station that the trains to Paris were much disorganized “à cause de la situation militaire,” but trains were leaving every three or four hours. So far as they knew, the services from Paris to St. Malo were normal, though that was on the Chemin de L’Ouest.
He walked up with Ronnie to the centre of the town, and ventured rather timidly into the children’s department of a very large store. A buxom Frenchwoman came forward to serve him, and sold him a couple of woollen jerseys for the children and a grey, fleecy blanket. He bought the latter more by instinct than by reason, fearful of the difficulties of the journey. Of all difficulties, the one he dreaded most was that the children would get ill again.
They bought a few more sweets, and went back to the hotel. Already the hall was thronged with seedy-looking French officials, querulous from their journey and disputing over offices. The girl from the desk met Howard as he went upstairs. He could keep his room for one more night, she said; after that he must get out. She would try and arrange for meals to be sent to the room but he would understand — it would not be as she would wish the service.
He thanked her, and went on upstairs. La petite Rose was reading about Babar to Sheila from the picture book; she was curled up in a heap on the bed and they were looking at the pictures together. Sheila looked up at Howard, bright and vivacious as he remembered her at Cidoton.
“Regardez,” she said, “voici Jacko climbing right up the queue de Babar on to his back!” She wriggled in exquisite amusement. “Isn’t he naughty!”
He stooped and looked at the picture with them. “He is a naughty monkey, isn’t he?” he said.
Sheila said, “Drefully naughty.”
Rose said very softly, “Qu’est-ce que monsieur a dit?”
Ronnie explained to her in French, and the bilingual children went on in the language of the country. To Howard they always spoke in English, but French came naturally to them when playing with other children. It was not easy for the old man to determine in which language they were most at home. On the whole, Ronnie seemed to prefer to speak in English. Sheila slipped more naturally into French, perhaps because she was younger and more recently in charge of nurses.
The children were quite happy by themselves. Howard got out the attaché case and looked at it; it was very small to hold necessities for three of them. He decided that Ronnie might carry that one, and he would get a rather larger case to carry himself, to supplement it. Fired by this idea, he went out of the bedroom to go to buy a cheap fibre case.
On the landing he met the femme de chambre. She hesitated, then stopped him.
“Monsieur is leaving to-morrow?” she said.
“I have to go away, because they want the room,” he replied. “But I think the little girl is well enough to travel. I shall get her up for déjeuner, and then this afternoon she can come out for a little walk with us.”
“Ah, that will be good for her. A little walk, in the sun.” She hesitated again, and then she said, “Monsieur is travelling direct to England?”
He nodded. “I shall not stay in Paris. I shall take the first train to St. Malo.”
She turned her face up to him, lined and prematurely old, beseeching. “Monsieur — it is terrible to ask. Would you take la petite Rose with you, to England?”
He was silent; he did not quite know what to say to that. She went on hurriedly,
“I have the money for the fare, monsieur. And Rose is a good little girl — oh, she is so good, that one. She would not trouble Monsieur, no more than a little mouse.”
Every instinct warned the old man that he must kill this thing stone dead — quick. Though he would not admit it to himself he knew that to win through to England would take all his energy, burdened as he was with two little children. In the background of his mind lurked fear, fear of impending, absolute disaster.
He stared down at the tear-stained, anxious face, and temporized. “But why do you want to send her to England?” he asked. “The war will never come to Dijon. She will be quite safe here.”
The woman said, “I have no money, monsieur. Her father is in England, but he cannot send money to us here. It is better that she should go to England, now.”
He said, “Perhaps I could arrange to help him to send money.” There was still a substantial balance on his letter of credit. “You do not want her to leave you, do you?”
She said, “Monsieur, things are happening in France that you English do not understand. We are afraid of what is coming, all of us. . . .”
They were silent for a moment.
“I know things are very bad,” he said quietly. “It may be difficult for me, an Englishman, to get to England now. I don’t think it will be — but it may. Suppose I could not get her out of the country for some reason?”
She wrinkled her face up, and lifted the corner of her apron to her eyes. “In England she would be safe,” she muttered. “I do not know what is going to happen to us, here in Dijon. I am afraid.” She began to cry again.
He patted her awkwardly upon the shoulder. “There,” he said. “I will think about it this afternoon. It’s not a thing to be decided in a hurry.” He made his escape from her, and went down to the street.
Once out in the street, he quite forgot what he had come for. Absent-mindedly he walked towards the centre of the town, wondering how he could evade the charge of another child. Presently he sat down in a café and ordered himself a bock.
It was not that he had anything against la petite Rose. On the contrary, he liked the child; she was a quiet, motherly little thing. But she would be another drag on him at a time when he knew with every instinct of his being that he could tolerate no further drags. He knew himself to be in danger. The sweep and drive of Germany down in to France was no secret any longer; it was like the rush through Belgium had been in the last war, only more intense. If he delayed a moment longer than was necessary, he would be engulfed by the invading army. For an Englishman that meant a concentration camp, for a man of his age that probably meant death.
From his chair upon the pavement he stared out upon the quiet, sunlit Place. Bad times were coming for the French; he and his children must get out of it, damn quick. If the Germans conquered they would bring with them, inevitably, their trail of pillage and starvation, gradually mounting towards anarchy as they faced the inevitable defeat. He must not let his children be caught in that. Children in France, if she were beaten down, would have a terrible time.
<
br /> It was bad luck on little Rose. He had nothing against her; indeed, she had helped him in the last two days. He would have found it difficult to manage Sheila if Rose had not been there. She had kept the little girl, hardly more than a baby, happy and amused in a way that Howard himself could never have managed alone.
It was a pity that it was impossible to take her. In normal times he might have been glad of her; he had tried in Cidoton to find a young girl who would travel with them to Calais. True, Rose was only eight years old but she was peasant-French; they grew up very quickly. . . .
Was it impossible to take her?
Now it seemed desperately cruel, impossible to leave her behind.
He sat there miserably irresolute for half an hour. In the end he got up and walked slowly back to the hotel, desperately worried. In his appearance he had aged five years.
He met the femme de chambre upon the landing. “I have made up my mind,” he said heavily. “La petite Rose may come with us to England; I will take her to her father. She must be ready to start to-morrow morning, at seven o’clock.”
4
THAT NIGHT HOWARD slept very little. He lay upon his bed on the floor, revolving in his mind the things he had to do, the various alternative plans he must make if things should go awry. He had no fear that they would not reach Paris. They would get there all right; there was a train every three or four hours. But after that — what then? Would he be able to get out of Paris again, to St. Malo for the boat to England? That was the knotty point. Paris had stood a siege before, in 1870; it might well be that she was going to stand another one. With three children on his hands he could not let himself be caught in a besieged city. Somehow or other he must find out about the journey to England before they got to Paris.
He got up at about half past five, and shaved and dressed. Then he awoke the children; they were fretful at being roused and Sheila cried a little, so that he had to stop and take her on his lap and wipe her eyes and make a fuss of her. In spite of the tears she was cool and well, and after a time submitted to be washed and dressed.
