Howard stared at him. 'My dear chap,' he said, 'I should be only too glad to do anything I can to help. But I must tell you, that at my age I don't stand travel very well. I was quite ill for a couple of days in Paris, on my way out here. I'm nearly seventy, you know. It would be safer if you put your children in the care of somebody a little more robust.'
Cavanagh said: 'That may be so. But as a matter of fact, there is nobody. The alternative would be for Felicity to take the children back to England herself.'
There was a pause. The old man said: 'I see. She doesn't want to do that?'
The other shook his head. 'We want to be together,' he said, a little pitifully. 'It may be for years.'
Howard stared at him. 'You can count on me to do anything within my power,' he said. 'Whether you would be wise to send the children home with me is something that you only can decide. If I were to die on the journey it might cause a good deal of trouble, both for your sister in Oxford and for the children.'
Cavanagh smiled. 'I'm quite prepared to take that risk,' he said. 'It's a small one compared with all the other risks one has to take these days.'
The old man smiled slowly. 'Well, I've been going seventy years and I've not died yet. I suppose I may last a few weeks longer.'
'Then you'll take them?'
'Of course I will, if that's what you want me to do.'
Cavanagh went away to tell his wife, leaving the old man in a flutter. He had planned to stay in Dijon and in Paris for a night as he had done on the way out; it now seemed to him that it would be wiser if he were to travel straight through to Calais. Actually it meant no changes in his arrangements to do that, because he had booked no rooms and taken no tickets. The changes were in his plans; he had to get accustomed to the new idea.
Could he manage the two children by himself, or would it be wiser to engage a village girl from Cidoton to travel with them as far as Calais to act as a bonne? He did not know if a girl could be found to come with them. Perhaps Madame Lucard would know somebody...
It was only later that he realised that Calais was in German hands, and that his best route across the Channel would be by way of St Malo to Southampton.
He came down presently, and met Felicity Cavanagh in the salon. She caught his hand. 'It's so very, very kind of you to do this for us,' she said. It seemed to hun that she had been crying a little.
'Not in the least,' he said. 'I shall enjoy having them as travelling companions.'
She smiled. 'I've just told them. They're simply thrilled. They're terribly excited to be going home with you.' It was the first time that he had heard her speak of England as home.
He broached the matter of a girl to her, and they went together to see Madame Lucard. But Cidoton proved to be incapable of producing anybody willing to go with them to St Malo, or even as far as Paris. 'It doesn't matter in the least,' said Howard. 'After all, we shall be home in twenty-four hours. I'm sure we shall get on famously together.'
She looked at him. 'Would you like me to come with you as far as Paris? I could do that, and then go back to Geneva.'
He said: 'Not at all - not at all. You stay with your man. Just tell me about their clothes and what they say, er, when they want to retire. Then you won't need to worry any more about them.'
He went up with her that evening to see them in bed. He said to Ronald: 'So you're coming back to England with me, eh, to stay with your auntie?'
The little boy looked up at him with shining eyes. 'Yes, please! Are we going in a train?'
Howard said: 'Yes, we'll be a long time in the train.'
'Will it have a steam engine, or a 'lectric one?'
'Oh - a steam engine, I think. Yes, certainly, a steam engine.'
'How many wheels will it have?' But this was past the old man's capacity.
Sheila piped up. 'Will we have dinner in the train?'
'Yes,' he said, 'you'll have your dinner in the train. I expect you'll have your tea and your breakfast in it too.'
'Oo... Oo,' she said. And then, incredulously, 'Breakfast in the train?'
Ronald stared at him. 'Where will we sleep?'
His father said: 'You'll sleep in the train, Ronnie. In a little bed to yourself.'
'Really sleep in the train?' He swung round to the old man. 'Mr Howard, please - may I sleep next to the engine?'
Sheila said: 'Me too. I want to sleep next to the engine.'
Presently their mother got them settled down to sleep. She followed the men downstairs. 'I'm fixing up with Madame Lucard to pack a hamper with all your meals,' she said. 'It'll be easier for you to give them their meals in the wagon lit than to bother with them in the restaurant car.'
Howard said: 'That's really very kind. It's much better that way.'
She smiled. 'I know what it is, travelling with children.'
He dined with them that night, and went early to bed. He was pleasantly tired, and slept very well; he woke early, as he usually did, and lay in bed revolving in his mind all the various matters that he had to attend to. Finally he got up, feeling uncommonly well. It did not occur to him that this was because he had a job to do, for the first time in many months.
The next day was spent in a flutter of business. The children were taking little with them in the way of luggage; one small portmanteau held the clothes for both of them. With their mother to assist him the old man learned the intricacies of their garments, and how they went to bed, and what they had to eat.
Once Mrs Cavanagh stopped and looked at him. 'Really,' she said, 'you'd rather that I came with you to Paris, wouldn't you?'
'Not in the least,' he said. 'I assure you, they will be quite all right with me.'
She stood silent for a minute. 'I believe they will,' she said slowly. 'Yes, I believe they'll be all right with you.'
She said no more about Paris.
Cavanagh had returned to Geneva, but he turned up again that night for dinner. He took Howard aside and gave him the money for their journey. 'I can't tell you how terribly grateful we are to you,' he muttered. 'It just makes all the difference to know that the kids will be in England.'
The old man said: 'Don't worry about them any more. They'll be quite safe with me. I've had children of my own to look after, you know.'
He did not dine with them that night, judging it better to leave them alone together with the children. Everything was ready for his journey; his portmanteaux were packed, his rods in the long tubular travelling-case. There was nothing more to be done.
He went up to his room. It was bright moonlight, and he stood for a while at his window looking out over the pastures and the woods towards the mountains. It was very quiet and still.
He turned uneasily from the window. It had no right to be so peaceful, here in the Jura. Two or three hundred miles to the north the French were fighting desperately along the Somme; the peace in Cidoton was suddenly unpleasant to him, ominous. The bustle and the occupation that his charge of the children had brought to him had changed his point of view; he now wanted very much to be in England, in a scene of greater action. He was glad to be leaving. The peace of Cidoton had helped him over a bad time, but it was time that he moved on.