Anything but Valmy. I don't think it was mentioned once.
And we did do everything. We had a wonderful dinner somewhere; the place wasn't fashionable, but the food was marvellous and my clothes didn't matter. We didn't dance there, because Raoul said firmly that food was important and one must not distract oneself with gymnastics, but later, somewhere else, we danced, and later still we drove back towards Thonon, roaring along the straight unenclosed road at a speed which made my blood tingle with excitement, yet which felt, in that wonderful car, on that wonderful night, like no speed at all. The frontier checked us once, twice, momentarily, then the big car tore on, free, up the long hill to Thonon. Along the wide boulevard that rims the slope to the Lake, through the now-empty market-place, past the turning that led up to Soubirous…
"Hi," I said, "you've missed the turning."
He glanced at me sideways.
"I'm following one of my dangerous inclinations."
I looked at him a little warily. "Such as?"
He said: "There's a casino at Évian."
I remembered Mrs. Seddon, and smiled to myself. "What's your lucky number?"
He laughed. "I don't know yet. But I do know that this is the night it's coming up."
So we went to the casino, and he played and I watched him, and then he made me play and I won and then won again and then we cashed our winnings together and went out and drank café-fine and more café-fine, and laughed a lot and then, at last, drove home.
It was three in the morning when the great car nosed its way up the zigzag, and-whether from excitement or sleepiness or the fines-I might have been floating up it in a dream. He stopped the car by the side-door that opened off the stableyard, and, still dreamily and no doubt incoherently, I thanked him and said goodnight.
I must have negotiated the dark corridors and stairways to my room still in the same trance-like daze. I have no recollections of doing so, nor of the process by which eventually I got myself to bed.
It wasn't the brandy; the coffee had drowned that effectively enough. It was a much more deadly draught. There was one thing that stood like stone among the music and moonfroth of the evening's gaieties. It was stupid, it was terrifying, it was wonderful, but it had happened and I could do nothing about it.
For better or worse, I was head over ears in love with Raoul de Valmy.
SIXTH COACH
CHAPTER 9
Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be.
William Blake: Poem from MSS.
It was to have been expected. It would be a very odd Cinderella indeed who could be thrown out of such dreary seclusion as the orphanage had offered me, into contact with Raoul de Valmy, without something of the sort happening. A man whose looks and charm were practically guaranteed to get him home without his even trying, had exerted himself to give a very lonely young woman a pleasant evening. An evening to remember.
That it was no more than that I was fully aware. In spite of a quantity of romantic reading and a great many wistfully romantic (and very natural) dreams, I had retained a good deal of my French commonsense. That, along with the nastily-named English quality called phlegm, would have to help me to control the present silly state of my emotions. I had had my evening. Tomorrow would be another day.
It was. Soon after breakfast the big Cadillac disappeared down the zigzag; Raoul, I supposed, gone back to Bellevigne. I tore my thoughts resolutely away from a Provencal idyll where he and I drove perpetually through moonlit vineyards with an occasional glimpse of the Taj Mahal and the Blue Grotto of Capri thrown in, and concentrated rather fiercely on Philippe.
Nobody owned to the rifle incident, and there was little hope of tracing the culprit. But Philippe seemed to have got over his fright so the matter was allowed to drop. Life fell back into its accustomed pattern, except for the exciting prospect of the Easter Ball, which now provided a thrilling undercurrent to conversation below stairs. This function had for many years been held at Valmy on Easter Monday. Mrs. Seddon and Berthe, when they were about the schoolroom domain, delighted to tell me of previous occasions when the Château Valmy had been en fȇte.
"Flowers," said Berthe (who seemed to have taken serenely for granted my sudden acquisition of fluent French), "and lights everywhere. They even used to string lights right down the zigzag to the Valmy bridge. And there's floodlights in the pool and they turn the big fountain on, and there are little floating lights in the water, like lilies. Of course," pausing in her dusting to look at me a little wistfully, "it isn't as grand as it used to be in the old days. My mother used to tell me about it when the old Comte was alive; they say he was rolling in money, but of course it's not the same anywhere now, is it? But mind you, it'll be pretty grand, for all that. There's some as says it's not quite the thing to have a dance this Easter seeing as Monsieur le Comte and Madame la Comtesse were killed last year, but what I says is them that's dead is dead (God rest their souls)"- crossing herself hastily-"and them that's alive might as well get on with the job. Not wanting to sound hard-hearted, miss, but you see what I mean?"
"Of course."
"Anyway, Madame says it'll be just a small private party- not but what they call a small private party'd make your eyes stand out on stalks, as the saying is… if you'll excuse the expression, miss. But"-here she brightened, and picked up a brass tray which she began to polish with vigour-"we'll have our dance just as usual."
"You have one, too?"
"Oh yes. All the tenants and the château staff. It's the night after the château dance, on the Tuesday, down at Soubirous. Everybody goes."
This, not unnaturally, left me wondering which dance I would be invited to attend, but it was very soon made clear to me by Madame de Valmy that for this occasion at any rate I was above the salt… So I, too, succumbed to the universal feeling of pleased anticipation, a pleasure shot through with the worry of not having a dance frock to wear. I didn't worry about this for long. I am French enough where my needle is concerned, and I had been-there was nothing else to do with it-saving the greater part of my salary for the last weeks. I didn't doubt that I could achieve something creditably pretty, even though it might not stand comparison with the Balmains and Florimonds with which the ballroom would probably be crowded. It would be pretty enough to sit out in, I told myself firmly, thrusting back a vision of myself en grande tenue , dancing alone with Raoul in a ballroom about the size of Buckingham Palace. But it would not (this with a memory of Jane Eyre's depressing wardrobe and Léon de Valmy's mocking eye) it would not be "suitable". I wasn't down to bombazine yet.
My next half-day off fell some three days after the incident with the rifle, and I went down to Thonon on the afternoon bus, with the object of buying stuff and pattern for a dance-frock. I didn't think it would be much use looking for a ready-made in so small a place as Thonon, and Évian or Geneva prices were beyond me. So I hunted happily about for the best material I could afford, and at last was rewarded with a length of some pretty Italian stuff in white, webbed with gossamer silver threads, at what the saleswoman called a bargain price, but to me represented a horrifying proportion of my savings. I fought a swift losing battle with the remnants of my commonsense, and firmly planted the money down on the counter with no trace of regret. Then, clutching the parcel to me, I pushed my way out through the shop door into the windy street.