The Truant Spirit (6 page)

The curtains were drawn and the lamp turned low in Sabina’s room, and Bunny lingered deliberately to watch the meeting of these two.

“Well, mam’zelle, this is not a very pretty prank,” Marthe said, standing at the foot of the bed with her hands on her broad hips.

Sabina raised an anxious face. She seemed better, but the colour was suddenly back in her cheek-bones and her eyes were apprehensive.

“I’m sorry, Marthe,” she said. “I did not mean to lose my ticket and my luggage and oblige strangers to take me in.”

“But you ran away,” said Marthe. “You ran away when my back was turned, and now I cannot trust you out of my sight until Madame returns.”

“It was only for a little while,” Sabina pleaded. “I—I wanted to see the house.”

“And could that not wait for M. Bergerac? The house is his concern, not yours.”

“But it belongs to me.”

“Zut!”
And what matter does that make? You have only caused trouble to everyone, and now are under the obligation to perfect strangers. Is that gentil? Is it, in any way, how you have been brought up?”

“I’m very happy to have Miss Lamb here,” said Bunny unexpectedly. “And it is a misfortune rather than a crime to lose one’s ticket and one’s luggage.”

Sabina shot her a surprised look of gratitude, but Marthe was not pleased.

“You are too amiable, madame,” she said, without appreciation. “But Mademoiselle knows well her obligations. It is

a matter which will displease Madame, her aunt, very deeply. You have forgotten, perhaps, mam’zelle, the sacrifices that have been made for you—the care that has been exercised for your future? You have, after all, the English ingratitude at heart and think only of yourself.”

“No,” said Sabina, and looked as if she were going to cry. “I did nothing wrong, Marthe ... I only wanted to see my house ... I didn’t know that one could not stay at every village inn ... if I had not lost my ticket ...”

“If you had not lost your ticket, where in this uncivilised countryside would you have stayed?”

“I don’t know,” said Sabina wearily, and Bunny observed: “Well, you are safe here at the rectory, so neither of you need speculate as to what might have happened. Marthe, Miss Lamb should settle down for the night, soon. Her temperature is still up and talking is not advised by the doctor.”

Marthe turned to look at her. Removed from that shabbily dressed but disconcerting person downstairs, she was easily recognisable for what she was, and Marthe had no intention of relinquishing her supremacy in the sick room.

“Thank you madame, I do not need to be told the obvious,” she said, her small eyes snapping. “Now, if you will please to leave us I will see that Mademoiselle has all she requires, after which I shall go to my own room if you will be so civil as to acquaint me of its direction. I shall need hot-water bottles and a
tisane,
for this house is cold and you do not, I observe, have the central heating.”

“You will find what you need in the kitchen,” Bunny said a little sharply, and with a brief good night to Sabina, left the room.

Alone with Marthe, Sabina let her heavy lids fall, hoping to postpone the catechism that must follow, but Marthe would not leave her to sleep until she was fully satisfied.

“Who is this man?” she demanded. “And why is he here?”

“Mr. Brockman?” asked Sabina with surprise. “This is his home when he’s on holiday.”

“On holiday from what? What is his business?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him since last night.”

“Last night—when you allowed a stranger to bring you home—like any
demi-mondaine. ”

“Oh, Marthe, it wasn’t like that at all. He was only kind, as he would have been to any stray cat. He didn’t even like me very much—neither does his governess.”

“His governess!”

“Bunny—Mrs. Fennell—was once his governess. I think he spends his holidays with her.”

Marthe began to laugh, relieved, but a little contemptuous. They did not know how to snatch the opportunities, these English
demoiselles.

“As I thought,” she said. “No background—no
panache
—the
bourgeois
young man who stays with the governess because, doubtless, he can afford nothing better. I can picture Madame’s scorn; for a country gentleman, look you, has the tweeds most expensive and the handsome shoes and linen of the most impeccable. A country gentleman of wealth, she always says, you will know immediately by his clothes, for it is a fad of the British to affect the sporting at all times. And Madame, the governess—one can see at a glance that she has married above her station and too late in life. I have told them, of course, mam’zelle, that you are already promised.”

Sabina opened her eyes. She thought that Marthe was probably talking a great deal of nonsense, but it was, she supposed, her method of warning Sabina to behave circumspectly until her future was resolved.

“I told them, too,” she said. “Mr. Brockman seems to know or know of M. Bergerac.”

Marthe frowned, remembering the fluent French which had momentarily so surprised her.

“That is possible,” she replied carelessly. “If one has travelled, the name is well known, and M. Brockman is no stranger to France. He speaks the language like a native.”

“Does he?” Sabina sounded surprised, then she added sleepily: “Then I can practise my own French while I’m here.”

“You will not remain long enough,” Marthe replied sharply, wondering if, after all, the girl had not cherished some romantic notions from this unexpected meeting.

“I suppose not,” Sabina said indifferently, and her eyes closed again. Her head was aching and she wished Marthe would go away and leave her to sleep.

“
Alors
—you are tired,” the woman said, speculating as to whether the unconcern was feigned or not. “I will leave you, for I, too, am tired. The journey was terrible, and this house—no lights, no heating and graves in the very garden! You will make haste and get well, mam’zelle, for I cannot stand many days of such an existence. At the door she paused to add with irritation: “The
toilette
, where it is?”

Having explained, Sabina had the satisfaction of hearing

Marthe fall down the bathroom steps, just as she herself had done in the night, and the knowledge comforted her. Comfort came too from the fine snow-capped summits of Kanchenjunga, the nearest photograph on the wall by her bed. It was the last thing she remembered before she drifted into a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER THREE

BUNNY found the Frenchwoman a perpetual irritant. Marthe would give no help in the house that was not concerned with her own and Sabina’s welfare, and she refused to share the company in the kitchen of the daily woman who gave a few hours help in the mornings. She would sit by the fire in the living-room, complaining incessantly of draughts, and watch Bunny dust and polish with contemptuous indifference.

“Why do you not let the woman do this work?” she asked, regarding her hostess’s efforts with a critical eye.

“This is a big house and she has enough to do in the time,” Bunny replied, striving to be pleasant. “Besides, I don’t care to idle, and it keeps my hand in for the summer.”

Marthe grunted, a comment very French and very ambiguous, and Bunny felt bound to explain:

“In the summer I take a few paying guests; it all helps with the living expenses. Of course in the winter months no one comes to such a remote spot, and it’s then I like to catch up with household chores.”

“This an ’otel!” exclaimed Marthe with such scorn that Bunny had to smile.

“Well, scarcely that,” she said. “I can only take two or three people at a time and we are too much off the beaten track for casual holiday-makers.”

“And Monsieur, your husband, he reconciles such matters with his work in the parish?”

“My husband is dead,” said Bunny quietly. The woman probably did not mean to be impertinent; she merely had the insatiable curiosity of her kind.

“Pardon
...” Marthe muttered, then added irrepressibly: “But I see no church, only the graves which, look you, cannot be healthy so near at hand.”

“The church is modern and up on the hill,” Bunny replied. “After my husband died it was more convenient to build a smaller house close by for the new rector. The cemetery is here, yes, but in the Middle Ages the church was here, too. You can still see the ruins from the upstairs windows. Perhaps you would be kind enough to give me a hand with this bookcase,

Marthe. It is rather heavy to move alone.”

The woman got up reluctantly. She did not see why M. Brockman, who appeared to have so much time on his hands, should not be summoned to make himself useful in such matters, or the imbecile boy who worked in the garden, but she half-heartedly helped Bunny shift the bookcase away from the wall and stood watching while a long-handled brush was thrust behind it to remove cobwebs.

“He is not strong, M. Brockman?” she hazarded.

“Perfectly, to the best of my knowledge.”

“But one cannot help noticing the leg—it is an old war wound, hein?”

“No. It was an accident.”

“Tiens
... And Monsieur’s business—it brings him here much?”

Bunny withdrew the brush and dusted her hands on her overall. She tied her head up in an unbecoming handkerchief while she was working and under it her face looked prim and pinched and rather absurd.

“Mr. Brockman is on holiday,” she observed discouragingly. “You should ask him these things yourself, Marthe, if you are interested.”

Marthe grunted again and returned to her seat by the fire, leaving her hostess to replace the bookcase as best she might. She recognised and resented the snub, knowing, as did Bunny, that she would not have the temerity to question Brock. She despised his shabbiness and the unconcern with which he would help with the evening wash-up, but there was a quality about him that made her uneasy. She kept a civil tongue when those frosty, dispassionate eyes were upon her, and when he spoke to her sharply in her own tongue she was not so sure in what category he might be placed.

“M. le docteur
gives permission for us to return soon, yes?” she said, but Bunny shook her head.

“Miss Lamb is only getting up tomorrow for the first time,” she said. “You will have to be patient for another few days, Marthe.”

Bunny knew that Dr. Northy, who had also taken a dislike to Marthe, was prolonging the period of convalescence more than was necessary, but she had herself conceived a fondness for Sabina in the last few days. She did not care for the way Marthe spoke to the child, nor did she approve of the friendless life of neglect she appeared to lead in London.

Sabina had not asked for Brock, but on the third day, when her temperature was down again, he had gone upstairs to see her. She welcomed him doubtfully, very conscious that she had turned him out of his room for too long, and his expression as he stood at the foot of the bed, regarding her, was not reassuring.

“I’m afraid I’ve been a lot of trouble,” she said, and as he did not reply, fidgeted nervously with the ribbons of her bed jacket, very conscious all at once of the alien masculine presence by her bed.

He continued to observe her, his hands in the pockets of his old slacks, and as the colour began to mount in her cheeks, he smiled suddenly, altering the whole expression of his face.

“Was I staring rudely?” he mocked gently. “It’s the first time I’ve seen you properly—by daylight, I mean.”

He came and sat on the side of the bed, and observed, as Bunny had done, how sharply defined were her bones and how light and immature she looked against the pillows.

“How do you feel?” he asked, frowning. “Northy doesn’t seem very satisfied with you.”

She smiled shyly.

“That’s only because he thinks I’m too thin.”

“You are—much too thin. You look as though you need country air and a lot of feeding.”

“I’ve always been thin,” she said apologetically. “I expect it’s because I’ve just finished growing, but Tante says it s unbecoming. I hope she hasn’t given M. Bergerac a— a false impression. The photograph she sent him a little while ago wasn’t a bit like me.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No. It was flattering of course, and sort of vague and smudgy in an artistic kind of way, and Marthe had dressed my hair very elaborately.”

She was talking too much, she knew, but she was nervous, and as she saw his eyes travel to her hair, which lay soft and childishly straight on her shoulders, she put up a hand to administer an ineffectual twist to the ends.

“So you weren’t inventing, after all, he said. M. Bergerac is real and you are prepared to go through with this marriage to oblige your aunt.”

“Marthe told you, I suppose.”

“Oh, yes, Marthe made things very clear. Are you going to like living in France with a stranger?”

“I don’t know, but Tante says that part of the Alpes Maritimes is very beautiful.”

“It has its charm, certainly.”

“Is it like that?” She nodded to the photographs on the wall, and he smiled.