The Dangerous Years (17 page)

These ministrations reassured the boy, and he removed his head from Joan's stomach and examined the stranger. Boys was again conscious of the shrewd grey eyes. He found himself replying as to a grown-up when the boy said, coolly:

“Who are you?”

Adrian pondered after Boys had introduced himself.

“Then you live with Joan?” he asked.

“In a way, yes.”

“Which way?”

He was following a pattern of ideas; perhaps composing round this matter which intrigued him by its newness and oddness. He was glancing from one to other of the giants towering over him, weaving his vivid little communicating themes, and binding them together in the process.

“And have you got a flat like ours?”

“Yes,” said Boys, eagerly. He believed that this infant was an advocate for him.

“And how many children are there; just two like me and Jeannette?”

In the hesitation that followed, Boys floundered, and Joan stared over the boy's head at the farther wall, while she pressed the small figure to her convulsively, a gesture to which the precocious infant responded with fervour. The thread of interest broke, and Adrian turned to another theme.

“But I thought this was Uncle Tom's room. I came after him, you see, because he went home with the key of my engine. Jeannette saw him put it in his pocket when Father spoke to him about the American. And he forgot to give it to me.”

“What is all this about an American?” asked John,
trying to speak through closed lips so that the boy should not be included in the enquiry.

“I can't tell you now,” said Joan, pointing down at the child.

“I'll tell him,” said Adrian, looking up and putting his hand in hers again. “Father says I must not give a recital, and Uncle Tom and the American want me to.”

Boys looked blankly from his wife to the child.

“He plays the piano,” said Joan, lamely, afraid to enlarge in front of the boy.

“Oh, I see,” said John. But he didn't see. The information meant little to him.

“And Father was angry about it. I know when he is angry. He is so quiet, and everybody is frightened, even Mother, and Uncle Tom who was a soldier.”

“I see,” said John again. And this time he did see; but he saw wrongly. He thought that the boy's father was quite naturally objecting to so effeminate an occupation in a healthy boy's life.

Joan knew what his reaction would be, and was ready to accuse him again.

“That's what Mother feels, I believe,” she said, having read her husband's mind. “But it is not that. Dr. Batten wants to be sure that the talent shall not be abused. He is musician enough, and wise enough, to see that danger. I believe he is right. You don't realise the possibilities of this. But I can't say more now. We must get Adrian home.”

“But I wanted to see you too, Joan,” the boy insisted. “I played to you, didn't I, at our party? I play to people when I love them.”

“Thank you, Adrian,” she said, wondering what it all meant. She was determined not to be caught. She must not encourage this. But at the same time, she could not hurt him. “Now let us go.”

“I wish you had a piano here,” said the child, ignoring
her efforts to jockey him towards the door—though she still had to find her own outdoor clothes. “I could explain things. Father is too cross about it. Why can't I play for the American? He wants me to go to Brussels and play there, in a big hall. I'd like to do that. I like the sound in a big hall. I have heard Monsieur Cortot, and it makes the music clear; grander, grander!” He was excited again, and waved his arms upwards, knocking John Boys aside in the process.

“My God,” said that worthy. “You'd better get him home, Joan. He's got a touch of temperature, I should say.”

“But I want my engine-key from Uncle. Can we find his room, Joan?”

“Perhaps we can,” she said. “He is on the floor above. Maybe his room is over this one. If so, he must be in, for I can hear somebody moving about.”

“I'll see you through with this,” said John. “It's a cold night.”

Joan withdrew herself from the embrace of the child, disappeared into the next room, and returned without a coat, and only a scarf over her head.

“Mother took my coat when she went, didn't she?”

John picked up Mrs. Winterbourne's fur coat, but it was much too small, and he had to put it round Joan's shoulders with the sleeves dangling.

They conducted the child up the two flights of stairs round the lift.

“Now do you know the room?” asked Joan.

“It's there,” said Adrian, pointing along the corridor.

“It is over ours then,” she said, to John. “So he will be there.”

As she spoke, the door opened, and her mother appeared carrying Joan's coat over her arm.

She did not at first see the party emerging from the dark staircase, and she turned back to say something to the
occupant of the room. Then she recognised Joan, with John and the boy. Her discomfiture was momentary, and quickly disguised. The poor light in the corridor hid the change in her appearance, the suggestion of ease, a careless touch here and there in her clothes, her hair slightly disarranged, but only the more attractive thereby.

“Darlings,” she said, a general embrace in her voice, warm, impulsive. “I was freezing to death down there, when the colonel came in. He insisted on my coming and waiting by his fireside.” She gave the impression of a baronial hearth, vast in respectable antiquity. “And I took your coat, Joan. We were so upset, of course. But that is over now, my dears. I can
feel
it is. So much can happen in half an hour!” She paused, deterred, perhaps, by the silence of the three figures in the dim light. The daughter and son-in-law said nothing even then. It was Adrian who spoke, while Mary Winterbourne advanced and took her coat from Joan's shoulders, replacing it with the tweed garment which she had carried out of the colonel's room. Joan shuddered, but said nothing. She was frightened. John took the coat again and held it for her to put her arms through the sleeves.

“No!” she said, drawing away from it.

“But what is little Adrian doing here?” said her mother, now in command of the situation. John, who suspected nothing, replied.

“His uncle has come away with the key of his toy locomotive. That's a serious matter, Mother darling. If you were a boy you would realise that.”

Mary flushed, and became urgent.

“Of course! We will get it for him. Come, Adrian, let me go with you and ask him for the key. Don't you bother, you two. Go down and we'll come back to you.”

Joan hesitated, looking intently at her mother. Then she turned, without a word, and walked slowly down the stairs, followed by her husband, who carried her coat.

Mary watched them for a moment, perplexed. Then she took Adrian by the hand, and led him back to the door from which she had emerged so discreetly. Knocking on the panel with her knuckles, she opened it a few inches, keeping the child behind her. She thrust her head in.

“Adrian is here,” she whispered. “Can he come in?”

The colonel hurried into his dressing-gown and came forward. He touched her face tenderly with his fingers, drawing them down her temple and over her cheek, before replying, and ushering her and his nephew into the room.

It had begun to rain. John Boys picked up the child and carried him, half-protected under his overcoat, striding along so swiftly that Joan had almost to trot to keep level with him. She was silent, but again and again she began to speak, breathless because of the pace. She could not find the words, however. Finally, as they turned out of the boulevard into the Rue Boissanade, she put out a hand timidly and touched her husband on the sleeve.

“John,” she whispered. “I don't know what… Something … But I am willing to come with you.”

He looked back at her, over the child's shoulder.

“What, d'you mean to St. Moritz?”

The boyish hopefulness in his voice made things easier for her.

“Of course. I want to get away from here, at any rate.”

“My dear girl,” he said, bewildered by this sudden change of mood. But he was happy to accept this new one. “That's grand, Joan. We'll have a good time. I'll see to that. The snow ought to be just right.”

Here Adrian intervened. He had been quiet during the walk from the hotel, except for little hummings to himself, and occasional joggings to accentuate the movement of his gigantic human steed.

“I'm riding a camel,” he cried, suddenly. “Look, up
… down … up … down. But it breaks, it breaks! I've got a tune for that. I'll write it down when we get home. There's a break!” This appeared to excite him almost to frenzy.

“Hold tight, kid,” said Boys, pulling him down under the coat, from which he had struggled in his excitement. “Don't kick your slippers off.”

But he had already lost one. The party paused, and Joan groped about, walking back a pace or two before she found it. Stooping down to pick it up, she retched, and was suddenly sick; violently sick in the gutter.

John was helpless, for he could not put Adrian down on the wet pavement, where the rain was now splashing up in a mist of spray. He was embarrassed by the possibility of passers-by observing them.

“I say, Joan!” he exclaimed, almost angrily, “what on earth? Are you all right?”

“Quite all right,” she gasped, recovering from the unexpected attack. “I can't think what happened. I was quite all right a moment ago. Perhaps it is hurrying. Don't bother. I'm quite better now.”

“You don't sound better. Damned shaky, I think. Look here, how much farther is it?”

“Don't say anything. It's only a few yards now. I'll sit down for a while when we get there. Don't say anything to the doctor, will you?”

“You sound mysterious. What d'you mean, old girl? I can't make you out. Why don't you let me help? Surely it's my place to …”

“No, John. Has he seen? Don't let him know.”

But of course Adrian had seen. He saw everything. Fortunately, he was still entranced by the rhythm of what he called the camel-ride, to which he was finding a music to be written down as soon as he got home.

“Come along, Joan!” he called, for Boys had turned and hidden Joan from him.

“It's this damned French food, I expect,” said Boys, as they resumed their rush through the rain.

“Yes, it must be that,” said Joan, with despair in her heart. She had never felt so alone in the world. She wanted only to get away, to leave her mother until she had thought this thing out; if it
could
be thought out. Something dreadful had happened; but also something that roused her to an increased bitterness and envy. It was horrifying. She tottered after her husband, longing to cry out to him; knowing that it would be useless.

They found the household almost disturbed. Nothing, perhaps, could absolutely disrupt that smooth
ménage
, which worked at such high pressure, like the dynamos in a power station. The doctor was at the telephone when they entered, with his wife hovering near, her bland serenity faintly interrupted.

Their appearance, with young Adrian exultant in John's arms, caused the doctor to ring off abruptly. He came forward and took the boy from the human camel. Joan lamely delivered the wet slipper to Mrs. Batten. Not a word was said. Dr. Batten disappeared with Adrian, but returned instantly, having left the child with the French nurse. He was a little paler than usual, perhaps. He looked intently at both the visitors, and took Boys aside.

“I am grateful to you,” he said, almost inaudibly. “We were telephoning to the hotel. Jeannette told us about the engine-key, and that made us happier, for we knew he would have gone after it. He is a one-thing-at-a-time character. But the trouble is, that he makes that one thing of universal dimensions, and himself an Atlas to carry it. Rather an exhausting process for an immature young creature, don't you think?”

Boys could not agree more. Both men found consolation in each other, and the doctor looked with sympathy at the giant beside him, who stood, inarticulate but obviously to be relied upon.

“I have much to do with human nerves,” said Dr. Batten. “Maybe I can't see wood for trees. Professionalism is always a dangerous point of view.”

“Ah yes, the expert!” said Boys. “That's not a weakness with us English, though. We tend to keep him in his place, even inside ourselves. A second interest; that is our salvation.”

“And yours?” enquired the doctor.

“We're just on our way down to the winter sports at St. Moritz,” said Boys. He deliberately said it aloud, so that Joan could be included, and encouraged to hide under the generalisation, after the recent disturbance. “A bit of skiing, you know. We might do some climbing, if conditions are suitable.”

“And you are, otherwise …?”

“Oh, I'm doing a job at Cambridge. Messing about with the atom, you might say.”

The doctor studied him almost humorously, and with a touch of benevolence.

“Ah, yes! Just like that,” he murmured. “I wish I could induce the French to take that point of view. And my brother Tom. Did you meet him at the hotel? He has detachment enough; but not quite of the same kind. Not quite …!”

“No, I didn't meet him. My mother-in-law took your son in to get the key.”

“I see, I see!” The doctor digested this bit of information. Then he smiled.

“And your wife? She looks tired.”

“Oh, as fit as a fiddle! Joan's all right, sir. But she needs a holiday. Been overworking, I should say. She has her job, you know, and we are hard at it during term.”

This bluff did not succeed, however, for Joan suddenly jumped up from the chair into which she had collapsed, and made for the door. Mrs. Batten saw that she was in distress, and bustled her out, half-supporting her to the
bathroom. During the second bout of sickness Joan was thus attended by expert hands. When it was over, and Mrs. Batten had made her drink a dose of restorative, she sat on the bathroom chair with her head in her hands.