Pray for a Brave Heart (21 page)

She stood at the side of the doorway, urging her charges to hurry and wash their hands and be down-stairs in the dining-room in five minutes. “Five minutes,” she kept saying in her beautiful French (did she come from Tours?), and she gently pushed the girls through the door. (Perhaps she was counting them.) She gave Denning a quick look, in between two polite pushes. He bowed and raised his hat.

“Quite a responsibility, Mademoiselle Dupre. May I congratulate you?”

Mademoiselle looked at him in astonishment, and forgot to count. And there was Emily, the last of all, quickening her dragging pace as she saw Denning.

“Emily!” he said, taking hold of her hand and shaking it violently. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Your mother would have been so disappointed if I hadn’t seen you. And how are you? Mademoiselle Dupre, may Emily come to lunch with me?”

Mademoiselle first shoved the flock of curious girls inside. “Five minutes,” she warned them, and sent them scattering.

A gaggle of geese, a giggle of girls. Denning said to the wide-eyed Emily, “Well, it’s good to see you. And how’s your sister?”

Mademoiselle pushed a stray wisp of her straight bobbed hair under her grey cloche hat, pulled down her neatly tailored grey flannel jacket, and said, “Who is this gentleman, Emily?”

“He’s Bill. My cousin. My American cousin.” In her delight, Emily flashed a smile she forgot to cover with her hand.

“In French, Emily, if you please.”

In French, even in Emily’s French, it sounded more authentic.

“Yes,” Denning said quickly, “Emily’s sister married my brother officer. You see?”

“You do not speak French, monsieur?”

“Denning. Bill Denning. I’d be frightened to speak French in front of you. You come from Tours?”

“How did you know?”

Denning smiled (and when he smiled like that, naturally, with all wariness gone from his eyes, his face relaxed, then—as Paula Waysmith had often remarked to Andy—he could charm a gatepost into putting forth green shoots) and he shrugged his shoulders with his best Paris accent. “I heard Emily’s sister speak of you—the family is so delighted that Emily is being taught the best French. I hope that Emily is learning it as thoroughly as you teach her?” And Mademoiselle let herself smile.

“May I go to lunch?” Emily asked.

“I don’t think so.” Mademoiselle’s thin white face was worried again.

Denning looked at his watch. “I’ve an appointment for one o’clock. So I’m afraid it would be a very quick lunch.”

“I can eat lunch in twenty minutes,” said Emily.

“Emily! I’m afraid we must go in, Monsieur Denning. But perhaps you could arrange a visit next week-end at school. Sunday afternoon, for tea?”

“I’m leaving this district quite soon. I’m making a tour of museums, you see. My interest is Renaissance art.”

“Oh?” Mademoiselle was disbelieving.

“I’ve looked at the Nicolas Manuel altarpiece in the museum, and of course the choir stalls in the Minster. But now I’d like to see the influence of the Italian Renaissance at Lugano.”

“Ah, yes—San Lorenzo,” Mademoiselle Dupre murmured, with a flash of interest approaching the point of friendliness. Besides, anyone who studied museums and churches was definitely in a trustworthy class. But she still hesitated.

“Why don’t you lunch with us, Mademoiselle?” he asked.

“Impossible, I’m afraid,” she said, sweeping an arm towards the hotel lobby and the rest of the schoolgirls who stood watching.

“Then perhaps some other time?”

“If we don’t go now,” Emily said, “then I shan’t even have twenty minutes to eat
anything.
Oh, please, Mademoiselle Dupre—I shall be back, in the lobby, by one o’clock. I promise.”

“I’ll see she keeps her promise,” Denning said. He raised his hat and bowed.

It may have been his politeness, or the museums and churches, or Emily’s promise (one reliable thing about Emily— when she contemplated mischief, she never gave any promises), or the fact that Mademoiselle Dupre was tired, hungry, and saw the rest of her schoolgirls already losing all discipline in the lobby, for suddenly she said, “Please don’t be late, Emily. You know how I worry.”

She looked at Denning, and he smiled, and she seemed reassured. For she hurried indoors to gather her scattered brood.

“Poor Mademoiselle,” Denning said.

“Oh, now,” Emily said in dismay, “you can’t be taking her side!”

“For a moment, I was.”

Emily considered that. “Are we so awful?”

“I don’t think you’re so awful. Or I shouldn’t have asked you to lunch. But where?”

Emily took off her Panama hat. She made a conscious effort to turn out her toes. “Yes, where?” she asked, suddenly languid.

“And keep your toes straight—just as they were,” he told her. “That’s the way dancers and athletes walk. Besides, I loathe splay-footed women.”

“Do you?” She let herself walk naturally, easily. Her voice became natural, too. “Then you wouldn’t mind if we had an ice-cream soda for lunch?”

“Would you like that?” He hoped he hadn’t flinched.

“I’d adore it. Besides, it’s very nourishing, isn’t it?”

“Sustaining,” he admitted. “But I—”

“There’s a little shop just round this corner—they have all kinds of American things as well as the most smashing cream horns and apple tarts with pink speckles all over the baked meringue. Do you mind?”

He looked into eyes suddenly anxious, as if they felt a mistake had been made. “That sounds fine,” he said, and the large brown eyes were sparkling again.

“Bliss,” Emily said. “What bliss!” She pushed aside her second ice-cream soda. “Except I really can’t eat anything more. How odd. Every time I’ve passed this shop, I’ve always wanted to come in and taste so many things. And now, I can’t. I can’t
possibly.” She looked sadly at a half-eaten cream puff. “Perhaps it was a mistake to have two eclairs.”

“That’s one of the strange things about growing up,” Denning said. Then he bit his lip. He hadn’t meant to let that phrase slip out: the young were always so vulnerable about their youth. Was no one ever satisfied with the age he had?

“What is?”

“When I was a kid—”

“My age?” Emily asked coldly.

“Oh, heavens, years younger than you are. How old are you, anyway?”

“I’m sixteen. Almost. Fifteen years ten months. And four days.”

He stared at her.

“Yes,” Emily said dejectedly. “And I wear black stockings, and my hair like this, and this kind of dress, and hat, and no powder or lipstick. Why, this is the first ice-cream soda I’ve ever tasted!” She sighed. “I can’t even smile properly.” She clicked her forefinger angrily against the silver bands over her teeth.

“I bet that hurt.”

“More than I expected,” she admitted. She began to laugh, then covered her mouth with her hand.

“In a year or so, you’ll be darned glad you suffered,” he told her. “But I didn’t know our British cousins had adopted that dentist’s version of the Iron Maiden.”

“They haven’t. Not unless they’ve got an American relative with helpful ideas.”

“Ah, so the general suggested this?”

“Yes. But you can’t blame Pimmy, really. Priscilla, that’s my sister, was
always
talking about my teeth. I suppose Pimmy just
had to quieten her, somehow.” She looked down at the marble-topped table.

“He could have braces put on
her
teeth.”

Emily imagined that picture. “Thank you,” she said at last. “Thank you for that vision of judgment. Priscilla with braces—” She began to laugh again. Then she looked at him, her brown eyes merry, no longer earnest at being important. “Why,” she asked, and she was very honest and very young, “why did you want to see me? Did you have a question to ask?”

Denning, who had been preparing a few remarks about the Riviera, a side approach to the monster who looked so hairy when he went bathing, returned her frank look. “Yes,” he admitted.

“The same question as the policemen asked this morning?”

“Policemen?”

“Two policemen. In plain clothes, of course.” She giggled. “They were so serious. And Mademoiselle Dupre was so flustered. And all the rest of the girls were rather impressed.”

“I think you’ve had a most successful visit to Bern.”

“Don’t you want to know what the policemen asked me?”

“Yes,” he admitted again.

“They asked all about the monster.”

“And you told them.” Well, that angle was taken care of. Keppler and Inspector Bohren must have had the same ideas he had had, only several hours earlier.

She frowned, pushed aside a lock of red hair, and then studied the table top again.

“You didn’t tell them,” Denning said. “Why?”

She flushed. “They treated me like a child. So I gave them childish answers.” She raised her large brown eyes. “Yes, I’m
afraid I behaved badly. They were really quite nice men.”

“You didn’t tell them the monster’s name?”

“I couldn’t remember it. I suppose,” she added dejectedly, “I didn’t try, really. They were
so
off-putting.”

“You’ve forgotten his name?”

“Is it important?”

“Yes.”

Emily smiled. “I’ve remembered it. You see, you gave his name to Mademoiselle Dupre. Then I remembered everything.”

“You’re way ahead of me. I gave his name?”

“When you were talking about an altarpiece.”

“Manuel?”

“No. The other bit of that name.”

“His name is Nicolas?”

“You look so astounded,” Emily said, with a giggle.

“I am.” He stared at her. “Are you sure, Emily?”

“Of course I’m sure.” She was hurt. “One does not mislead one’s friends.” And she was suddenly stiltedly grown-up, voice thinning coldly, eyes looking with distaste at some invisible object above his right shoulder. “After all, he was so
unlike
Father Christmas. That’s how I’m quite sure of his name.”

“Of course,” he said quickly, not even wasting time to struggle with that one.

“It always amused us,” Emily went on, everything quite clear in her mind. “I’m sure he’d steal the presents out of the children’s shoes.”

He looked at his watch. “We’ve a promise to keep,” he said.

“But you haven’t told me why you wanted to know about him.”

“He went off very quickly and borrowed my car. Without
my permission.”

“Aren’t you a detective?”

“No. Not at all. I’m just a man who is looking for his car.”

“And I thought he’d done something really—really—” Words and expression failed her.

“Really monstrous? Oh, I don’t think so. He’s just absent-minded, I guess.”

Emily shook her head violently. “He’s a complete toad.”

“How do you know?” He smiled as he watched her honest protest.

“He looks like one. Even his neck swells out at the side like a croaking toad.”

“Perhaps he suffers from sideways goitre.”

Emily’s brown eyes widened. “Is there such a—” she began. Then, saying “Oh!” indignantly, she rose. “Do you always tease people?”

“Only if they have a sense of humour,” he assured her.

She gave him a slow, measuring look. Then she smiled and said, “I suppose Mademoiselle is now throwing a pink and purple fit.”

“We’ve still got five minutes,” he reassured her.

In the distance, at the door of the Aarhof, Mademoiselle was waiting.

“She’s seen us,” Denning said. “So now we can all relax. No need to hurry.”

“Where do you come from?” Emily asked, suddenly anxious as she watched Mademoiselle Dupre’s small figure, an ominous sentinel, an impatient Charon waiting to sweep
her away from this world. Emily remembered to stick her hated hat back in place on her head. “This awful elastic,” she said angrily.

“New York.” He watched Emily’s face. “Mademoiselle will ask questions?”

“Indubitably.” Emily was nonchalant, profile-showing; her voice was fluting into its Oscar Wilde notes again.

He whistled.

“Yes?” the grand duchess asked, with an upraised eyebrow.

“Wish I could do that,” he said. “Indubitably…”

“It’s my special word,” Emily said, “meanwhile. I use it only for the most formidable occasions.” She smiled suddenly, giving him a side glance. “New York…” she added thoughtfully. “Is that really quite enough?”

“My address is the Princeton Club. Got that? Princeton.”

“Because you travel so much?” Emily’s answers to Mademoiselle’s questions were already being born behind those large dark eyes. “Are you really interested in churches and things?”

“Yes.”

Emily sighed. That was hard to take, seemingly. “I have a cousin who does rubbings,” she said, trying her best.

“What’s your address?” he asked quickly. Mademoiselle Dupre was looming larger and larger.

“The school is called ‘The Hermitage’. Near Moosegg.” Then as he looked at her, she repeated. “Moosegg. That’s near Moosbad. Can you remember?”

“I’m afraid it’s going to haunt me.”

“Then at home, my address is Upper Slaughter, Gloucestershire. That’s all. And I’m Emily White Hyphen Cooper, spelled Cowper.”

“And I suppose Upper Slaughter is near Lower Slaughter?” he asked, with a smile he couldn’t repress.

“Actually, it is.” Her eyes looked at him reproachfully. “No one
ever
believes me. Sometimes, I think I don’t even exist.”

“All right,” he said hastily. “I believe you. And what’s the name of the place on the Riviera?”

“Oh, I shan’t be there again until next Easter,” she assured him.

“I may be there some Easter, too.”

“It’s Cap d’Hercule.” She looked at him, and she began to smile. “And the house of Monsieur Nicholas is called
Le Nid,”
she added softly.

“Oh,” he said, and he looked embarrassed.

Mademoiselle Dupre fluttered forward, excessively polite, now that all her forebodings were proved so base.

“Four minutes late, Mademoiselle,” he said quickly. “My deepest apologies. Family affairs, you know.” He shook hands with Emily. “And thank you. Thank you for having lunch with me. I’m very grateful.” He was. She had made him laugh on a day when laughter had seemed impossible. For that, one would always be grateful.

“I hope you find your car,” Emily said. “And I think I like vanilla better than chocolate after all.”