Dorothy Eden (5 page)

But the night passed in this uneasy, half-conscious dozing, and when the first light crept through the edges of the drawn blinds her head was still tight with exhaustion and her eyes felt full of grit. She sat up to reach for her hair brush, and at that moment the pandemonium started outside her door.

It was those wretched schoolchildren again. There were their concerted voices, all speaking at once, and above them that of one of the mistresses who was obviously begging for quiet.

“Now, if you’ll all just stop talking for a moment and listen to me. Mary, you say Annabelle was beside you when you went to sleep.”

“I thought she was. Miss Rickerby, but Helen says she saw her go to look out of the windows at the other end of the corridor.”

“But she came back, Miss Rickerby, because I saw her fixing her coat to put her head on.”

The mistress was obviously getting a little panicky.

“Didn’t I tell you all to stay here and not move.”

“But sometimes we had to go—”

“Oh, I understand that. Annabelle isn’t there now, is she?”

“No, we told you. There’s a man in there shaving. He’s taking simply ages.”

“Never mind him. We must find Annabelle. Miss Jones has Laura and Jennifer and Caroline, and there are four in the compartment at the end of the corridor where some kind people let them sleep on the floor. How many of you here?”

“Eleven.”

“So Annabelle is missing. Then she must be in one of the compartments. I’m afraid we’ll have to knock politely at doors and ask people.”

At this stage, Kate climbed out of her bunk, and pulling on her sweater and skirt, opened the door.

“Are you in trouble? Can I help?”

The young mistress, whose round, freckled face was hot and flushed again—had it remained so all night, or was it permanently so?—looked up quickly.

“One of my charges seems to be missing, but she can’t be far away. It’s all right, really.”

“You poor thing,” said Kate sympathetically. “I have only one to look after, and that’s responsibility enough. You with all these.”

“It would have been all right if our reservations hadn’t been muddled. Still, we’re through the night, aren’t we, children? When we find Annabelle and we’ve all had some breakfast we’ll be as right as rain.”

“What does Annabelle look like?”

“She has red hair—”

“And freckles,” echoed the children.

Kate smiled. “She should be conspicuous enough. I’m sorry I haven’t got her under my bunk. Shall I help you look?”

“Oh, no, thank you. We can manage very well. She wouldn’t possibly have left this carriage. Actually she’s rather a timid child. I thought she was dead asleep when I saw her last. She must be in one of the compartments. I’ll just take a quick look. I’ll give you a shout when I’ve found her, if you like.”

“Yes, do.”

Temporarily giving up ideas of a wash, Kate went back into her compartment and shut the door. Francesca would wake any minute, but one might as well let her sleep as long as possible. It was only six o’clock. She would leave the blinds drawn and rest a little longer herself. The poor girl with all those children to look after. No wonder one of them had gone astray.

But she couldn’t be far away. Children didn’t disappear off trains unless someone deliberately pushed them off.

And now it was tomorrow, and there was Francesca, and the Eiffel Tower, and later the ferry to Folkestone, and perhaps a glimpse of Lucian Cray somewhere in the crowd, perhaps that flashing smile of his across a multitude of heads.

Kate dreamed pleasantly as the light grew, and through the chink of the blind she could see the stubble and the faded tawny look of the gentle French fields. Grey clusters of houses, leaf-stripped trees, white horses browsing on the autumn grass, and occasional fairy-tale turrets, or the glimpse of a white château among groves of beeches.

But a little later her reverie was broken by an apologetic tap on her door.

“Who is it?”

The young mistress, even hotter of face, slid the door back and put her head in.

“I’m so sorry, but there absolutely isn’t a sign of Annabelle. Do you mind awfully if I look in here? I’m sure she wouldn’t hide herself away uninvited, but just in case—”

“Of course. Look where you like. But there’s only Francesca here. She’s still asleep. You can see.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry—honestly I’m at my wit’s end—”

“It’s time Francesca woke up anyway,” said Kate, and pulled the blinds up with a clatter. “There, now you can see for yourself that I’ve no redhead—”

But her words died on her lips. For the sound and the light had woken the child in the bunk, and she turned sleepily, lifting her tawny head, opening pale green eyes, and showing clearly her face with its comic mask of sandy freckles!

The child was not Francesca at all. She was the missing Annabelle, who, recognizing her hot-and-bothered schoolteacher, began to smile, revealing two missing front teeth. Smiling an idiot’s grin, Kate thought frantically, as she began to realize the dreadful implication.

It was not the tow-haired Annabelle who was missing. It was Francesca!

T
HE GIRL WAS AN
idiot, Kate thought furiously. For she seemed to have no idea how she had come to sleep the night comfortably in a first-class compartment while her schoolmates huddled miserably in the corridor. She said she had gone to sleep beside Mary and just woken up here. That was all.

“What was your little girl like?” the schoolmistress asked sympathetically.

The past tense, thought Kate, with renewed anger. As if Francesca were dead!

“She’s dressed in a white organdie dress, and she has a large blue bow in her hair. She’s Italian and speaks almost no English.”

She was aware of the young mistress, smug now that she had the full count of her pupils, eyeing her with the faintest scepticism. Perhaps it did sound an unlikely description of a child on a long journey, but that wasn’t her fault. Anyway, she had Francesca’s modest suitcase, with the more conventional clothes in it, to prove that everyone wasn’t quite mad.

She dived under the bunk to produce it. But it wasn’t there. At least, not where she had put it. It must be in the rack—or somewhere. In her exhaustion last night she had moved it, and forgotten.

“What are you looking for?” asked the other girl.

“Francesca’s suitcase. I thought I put it under the bunk. It must be here somewhere.”

In a panic she was dragging the blankets off the bed, lifting the mattress.

But there was nowhere in a small railway compartment that a suitcase could be completely concealed. The fact was too obvious to deny. Both Francesca and her belongings were gone. They had simply vanished into thin air.

“How very odd!” murmured the young mistress, the scepticism in her eyes. In the narrow doorway she was now surrounded by curious, peeping children. Frantically, Kate searched their faces, round ones, long ones, heavy ones, grubby ones. But there was no small Mona Lisa, no hooded, secretive eyes that told nothing.

“She must be on the train somewhere,” Kate said.

“Well, she shouldn’t be hard to find in those clothes. But she’s not in this carriage, because I’d have noticed her when I looked for Annabelle. Would you like me to help you?”

“Oh, if you would!”

“Of course I will. The children will help.”

“Her name’s Francesca, and I’m taking her to London to her mother. She doesn’t even belong to me, you see. That makes it more awful. I left her in the bunk fast asleep when I went to have dinner last night, and when I came back she hadn’t moved. At least—” That must have been when the strange thing had happened, when the sandy-haired Annabelle had got into Francesca’s bunk and Francesca had gone off—or been taken off. Because she could swear no one had come into the compartment during the rest of the night.

“It’s a pity Annabelle doesn’t remember anything,” the other girl said. “But she always was a sleepyhead. I’ll get Miss Jones to help, too. Surely with all of us we’ll soon find her.”

The children thought it was a game. They surged through the train like a small tornado, shouting, “Francesca!” and bursting unceremoniously into compartments, squalid in the growing light, with tossed bedding, luggage, and half-awake, unshaven, tousle-headed travellers.

Kate, following in their wake, asked politely but urgently if anyone had seen the little girl in the white organdie dress. Everywhere she was met with blank faces. No, no one had seen such a child. A white organdie dress! But that one would remember. What had happened? Had the child been kidnapped? But that would be impossible on a train. She must be somewhere.

Yes, Kate agreed feverishly. She must be somewhere. But where? And why had she disappeared?

An irate guard, trying to stop the avalanche of children, demanded to know what was happening, and Kate explained what the trouble was, first in English and then, seeing he was only half understanding, in her careful French.

“You say the child was in the bed when you woke this morning?”

“But not the same child, I’m trying to tell you.”

His eyes popped slightly. He was short and rotund, and looked quite stupid.

“M’selle, children do not change overnight.”

“You don’t believe me! But it’s true! Someone must have changed them over. One of the schoolchildren, a completely strange child, was in the bunk.”

“Ah-ha! A joke, m’selle. You have a friend on this train who likes to play jokes?”

“I don’t have any friends on this train,” Kate snapped impatiently. “And it isn’t a joke. Or if it is, it’s a monstrous one.”

“You have the little girl’s bags, perhaps?”

“No, they’re gone, too.”

The little round, popping eyes surveyed her with what was now becoming familiar scepticism.

“M’selle, you are sure you began the journey with a child? You did not just imagine a little girl in a white dress with a blue ribbon in her hair?” A creature from a fairy tale, a figment of the imagination… That was what he was saying to her.

“Or perhaps she flew out of the window!” he suggested with heavy jocularity.

There was a hand on Kate’s shoulder.

“Kate! Is there some trouble?”

It was Lucian. Kate almost flung herself into his arms.

“Yes, there is. I’ve lost Francesca.”

His forehead creased with concern. But even his concern, she could see at once, was not serious. Or was she getting into the state where she suspected everyone?

“You didn’t tell me anything about a Francesca last night. Who is she? Your poodle?”

“No, she’s not a poodle. She’s a child. Seven years old, and dressed in white organdie, with a large blue bow in her hair.” She went over the familiar description wearily, and waited for the inevitable reaction.

But she was grateful to see that he didn’t think the description so improbable. He said quite seriously, “A child of seven wouldn’t get off the train by herself, unless she fell off, and that’s even more unlikely. Have you looked right through the train?”

“Almost.”

“Then let me help you with the rest. Which way?”

“This. It’s awfully good of you. I
must
find her before we get to Paris because there, in the crowds, it wouldn’t be so difficult for someone to whisk her away.”

He turned in the swaying corridor to look at her.

“Why should anyone do that?”

“She’s the child of divorced parents, and they’re fighting over her. I was bringing her to England.”

“Ah! Spies!”

“Lucian, don’t joke! It’s serious.”

“I’m not joking.” He put his hand back to take hers. She found the pressure of his cool, strong fingers immensely reassuring. In that moment, in the muddle and worry and exhaustion, she fell very briefly in love with him.

Suddenly she was remembering the man whom she had bumped into in the corridor the previous night, standing near her compartment and turning to give her that long, insolent look.

Perhaps he was the person who had substituted Annabelle for Francesca, and then, with enormous confidence, lingered to see whether she would notice the change-over when she went to bed.

But why would he do it? And if he had done, he must have Francesca on the train somewhere. Unless he had left at one of the stops during the night, when the phantom voices had called, and everything had seemed to be happening in a dream.

The children came bursting back to say that there was absolutely no sign of any little girl in a white dress on the train. They had looked
everywhere
, even in the toilets, and the guard’s van.

One of the mistresses followed, nodding her confirmation. “I’m awfully sorry. But it does all seem so strange, doesn’t it?”

She meant that none of it was real. And neither did it seem real, in the cool, growing dawn, with fatigue-marked passengers making their way to the restaurant car for coffee and rolls, and others snapping suitcases shut, and preparing for their arrival in Paris.

Kate pressed her hands to her forehead. Was she awake or in a nightmare?

“Kate—you did have this child with you?”

The schoolmistress had looked sceptical, the little French guard, stout and stupid, had looked sceptical, the passengers with their dull, sleepy eyes had shaken their heads with a polite lack of belief. Now, as the last straw, Lucian, who might at least have been the one to help her, looked disbelieving also.

“Do you think I was drunk and imagining things? Of course I had her with me.”

He was not smiling now. His face had its sombre, rather gaunt look.

“You didn’t mention her at dinner last night. I thought you were travelling alone.”

“I’d put her to bed. She was fast asleep. I didn’t tell you everything last night. Should I have?” Her brows were raised haughtily. She was no longer in love with him. She hated him. He must know she was frantically worried, and yet he chose to think she was inventing a fantastic story about travelling with a child and losing it.

“You have her luggage, perhaps, her passport?” he said gently.

“No, I haven’t. That’s disappeared, too. Believe it or not!”

Curious passengers were listening now. She seemed to have eyes staring at her from all directions. She thought she would lose her difficult self-control and begin to scream.