The House in Paris (31 page)

She looked upstairs, anxious. Could they all have forgotten? No, she believed Mr Forrestier to be truly dependable; she was glad of the change that sent him to see her off. She had felt at home with him from the first.

There were muted steps upstairs, then Leopold came down, followed by Miss Fisher with an admonishing finger on her lips. The departure became still more like a conspiracy. Leopold was buttoned into a bulky overcoat, below which his black-socked legs looked spindly thin. His crest of hair stood up from having been brushed, and he carried his sailor cap in his hand. His coming down made the staircase a grand staircase; he came down like a personage. (It is absurd, the silence, thought Henrietta, she must be lying and listening, she knows perfectly well.) Mariette the servant followed Miss Fisher, carrying Leopold's suitcase; she dumped the suitcase at the foot of the stairs, embraced Leopold with emotion, Henrietta with less emotion, heaved a big busty sigh and was sent away, regretting something in French. Miss Fisher, who had a half sheet in her hand, darted into the salon. 'Please listen,' she could be heard saying to Mr Forrestier. 'This is my telegram:

'Grant Moody Villa Fioretta Spezia. Leopold wishes remain in Paris few days longer full explanation follows trust no inconvenience all well Fisher.

'I think that is well put? I think that starts no hostility.'

He said, inside the salon: 'That sounds all right.'

Leopold had paused to hear the telegram being read out. Now he came up to Henrietta marvelling at the cockade. 'What are you wearing
that
for?'

'For Miss Watson to know me.'

'Who's Miss Watson?'

'The lady I have to meet to go to Mentone with. She will be wearing one too,' Henrietta said patiently.

'You will both look funny!'

'We'll take them off in the train.'

'Take yours off before you get in. I'd like to have it, rather: I like the colour.'

'Then perhaps you can have it for a memento, Leopold.'

But as she spoke the taxi drew up outside. 'Hi!' yelled Leopold. '
Taxi!
Here's our
taxi
, Miss Fisher!'

'Sssh, ssh!'
she said, running out in despair. Ray from the door behind her said: 'Shut
up,
Leopold!'

'Oh,' she said at once, 'he did not mean any harm.' Then her eye, more happily, lit on Henrietta's cockade. 'Look,' she said to Ray, 'that's her cockade, you see. And Miss Watson will be wearing one just the same.'

'I see. Yes, it all seems very neat.'

Leopold ran down the hall, fought with the latch a moment; then swung open the street door with a bang. Fresh damp air came in. Outside stood the taxi, clicking away in the dark street, impatient as a new world at their door. The hall light fell on it, through the light fell fine rain. 'Come on,' he said, as quietly as he could. 'Come on everyone.'

'Leopold,' said Henrietta, 'aren't you going to say goodbye to Miss Fisher?'

Miss Fisher stood at the foot of the stairs, under the hanging light with its crimped white bell. She stared down the hall at the dark where the taxi stood, as though seeing something not happening today. When Leopold walked into view, politely holding his hand out, she started and looked down at him. Instead of shaking hands or bending down to kiss him, she put out her right hand gently to touch his face. The act seemed so natural that he stood with his face up, as though her expected fingers were so much rain. Her touch passed delicately across his forehead, down the line of one cheek. She looked into his eyes that were still to see so much, and at his lips, consideringly and gently, as though she could be no enemy of anything they could say. Leopold's upturned face remained during these moments thoughtless and pure. Then her hand drooped and, as though recalling what she must do, she stooped to kiss his cheek gently. 'Goodbye, Leopold.'

'Goodbye, Miss Fisher.'

Leopold turned and walked out into the taxi.

Henrietta approached with
her
face up to be kissed. 'Goodbye, Miss Fisher,' she said, 'and thank you so very much. Please say goodbye for me to Madame Fisher; I do hope she will be better tomorrow. Shall I give your love to my grandmother?'

'Yes, indeed. Remember to tell her, too, that I shall be writing tomorrow. You must have a happy journey. Goodbye, my dear Henrietta, goodbye.' She kissed Henrietta more warmly, more regretfully than she had kissed Leopold; Henrietta was startled to feel Miss Fisher's arms round her so close. You would think she was sorry for me. Picking up the dispatch case she had put down, she walked down the small lit hall, with its red stripes, into the taxi, through the cold fine rain.

She looked back to see Mr Forrestier take both Miss Fisher's hands, say something, drop them, then turn away hurriedly to pick up Leopold's case. He came heavily down the hall with his hat in his other hand, told the driver Gare de Lyon, heaved the case into the taxi, got in and slammed the door without once looking back. Miss Fisher came uncertainly down the hall as though she were going to wave. But the taxi ground into motion and moved off; they left her still standing there, staring out at the patch of dark where they had been.

There now, thought Henrietta, I have forgotten my
Strand.

Ray had moved Leopold on to the small seat opposite. They drove past the dark gardens into the bright boulevard, downhill. Wet pavements reflected the cafés; it must have been raining softly for some time. Lights wheeled in the artificial dusk. Henrietta thought: How much I should like to get out and have some fun. She looked through her window with heartbroken animation. What a party to miss! How fastidiously the French run through the rain, picking their way like cats. Once or twice she leaned forward to see out of Ray's window, stealing a look at his face, across which street lights ran. But as he did not speak she felt she had better not. Opposite, Leopold sat like a young idol, tottering once or twice when the taxi swerved. Not looking left or right, he appeared to Henrietta to be holding off Paris almost violently. If Paris happened to him on top of everything else, he would burst, she thought; I am very glad
I
do not take things like that. He was attacked on all sides by bright noises; lights wheeled across his small set exalted face.

She shifted Charles on her arm and his head bumped Ray's shoulder. 'Sorry,' said Henrietta.

Apparently glad to speak, Ray said: 'That's a large monkey.'

'His ears have come very loose.'

'Has he travelled much?'

'No, not much. I haven't, you see.'

'Have you seen much today?'

'No. There was no one to take me out.'

'That seems bad luck.'

'Of course, I envy Leopold, having seen Italy.'

'You will some day, I'm sure.'

'And staying on in Paris: that will be marvellous for him. What I had been wanting to see was the Trocadéro. Leopold will see everything, I suppose.'

'How possibly could I?' Leopold said, unmoved.

'Oh, Leopold, remind me to give you that cockade!'

'What cockade?'

Henrietta tightened her arm round Charles. 'Mr Forrestier, what is a
couchette?'

'Er — not quite a berth. Why?'

'Miss Watson and I have got them. How I look forward to waking up tomorrow!'

'Yes, I'm sure you do.'

'I mean, seeing orange trees and the bright blue sky ... What is
apéritif?'

'Something to drink.' Ray re-crossed his legs. ('Sorry,' he said to Leopold. 'That your foot?')

'The worst of it is,' she said, 'I get so thirsty in trains.'

'We'll get a bottle of something.'

The taxi stuck in blocks, jarred, swerved clear, darted between lit buses solid with heads. On kerbs people watched it come and drew back suspiciously. I have not met the French, Henrietta thought. It was funny to stare into their unseeing eyes. The taxi pumped itself through wet-evening Paris in jerks.

'Oh, look at the lights in the
river
! Oh, Leopold, look, look!'

'I saw that last night.'

'Leopold's been in Paris a night longer than me. — You'll be here tonight, too, when I'm in the
couchette.
— I envy Leopold, staying in a hotel.'

'There'll be a hotel for you at Mentone.'

'Oh no; my grandmother has a flat.'

'Have I got a grandmother?' said Leopold.

'Yes, Mr Forrestier,
has
he?'

'He's got a grandfather.'

'Oh, I wish I had!'

'Where?' said Leopold.

'In England,' Ray said, not adding: 'Your grandmother died of you.'

'Oh, England,' said Leopold. 'Yes, of course.'

Silence sat in the taxi as though a stranger had got in. Leopold now began casting glances at Paris, turning his head aloofly from side to side. The taxi got too tight. Ray's knees, jammed sideways by Leopold's suitcase, which had been moved to let down the flap seat, bulked between the children; it was inevitable that Leopold, turning, should kick him and Henrietta's monkey keep lurching against his thigh. The free flow of lit objects made being boxed up crucial: Henrietta had a throe of the fidgets; she routed about with her toe for her dispatch case, took off her gloves and, heaving, scrammed one into each pocket. Ray was boxed up with two restless octopi. A taxi can hold two men, not sitting on tails and wearing opera hats, and two women in crushable gowns, with fans; they can laugh and talk. But sense of space is emotional:
this
taxi, bursting, seemed to groan on its springs. What was inconvenient could, now, only be said. ' — Leopold, try turning right round and putting your feet on the suitcase. Henrietta; look here — '

'Would you rather I had Charles on the far side?'

'Well, I would, yes. But what I wanted to say, was — You've had a funny day, not at all what you bargained for or your grandmother bargained for, or the Fishers either, when they took you on. You seem to have had a thin time; no Trocadéros or anything. In a roundabout way that's my fault; we won't go into all that. The point is, that you've happened, entirely by accident, to come in on a good deal that's not your affair at all. You will regard it as that? As not your affair, I mean?'

'How?' she said, very anxious. 'How do you mean?'

'You or I would never discuss other people's affairs, would we? Naturally not. Besides wasting one's own time, it might be a nuisance to them. Of course you would see that.'

Henrietta glanced at Leopold nervously: he showed no sign of interest. 'Oh no,' she said. 'I mean, oh
yes;
of course.'

'So you will not discuss this with your grandmother, your girl friends, your relations in England, in fact with anyone? Best of all, quite forget it; it's not interesting.'

But she peered at him doubtfully.

'That's how you feel, of course. One can't forget things to order. I'm taking it, then, that as what has gone on today regards Leopold, me, the Fishers and someone else you don't know, you will not talk about it ever, to anyone.'

She took a deep earnest breath. 'No, I never, never will.'

'Thank you,' said Ray. 'I thought we'd see eye to eye. What do you like in the train: lemonade, Vichy?'

'Anything not gassy, if you know what I mean.'

'Have you got all your things? We shall be there in a minute. Gloves? Handbag? Dropped anything down the seat?'

She was too much uplifted to tell him she had no handbag yet.

Ray, Henrietta and Leopold now approached the barrier of the Ventimille train. This station is more daunting than the Gare du Nord: golder, grander. Henrietta discovered that half-past six is 18.30 in Paris: clocks must be larger, she thought. She walked by Ray like a lady. Supposing, supposing, supposing Miss Watson is not here! ... Ray carried her dispatch case and a bottle of Vichy in a twist of pink paper. Henrietta carried, in addition to Charles, three outsize packets of Suchard, a carton of grapes, and two rolls with ham clapped inside them that she had fancied the look of and Ray had bought for her at the buffet here. When they were already half-way to the barrier, Ray had plunged back to a kiosk and bought her an armful of American picture papers, and a bronze paper-weight, with the Eiffel Tower on it. 'That was a mistake,' he said. 'I'm afraid it was the Trocadéro you wanted. Now, that will just be heavy.'

'No, I love it,' she said, scarlet with pleasure.

Henrietta still had her happy flush when they perceived what was unmistakably Miss Watson, standing beside the barrier. A cerise cockade was pulled out under her fur and she eyed everyone closely, almost suspiciously. The moment she saw the cockade on Henrietta, her chaperonage snapped on her like a trap. 'You are Henrietta Mountjoy?' Henrietta's hand, which had crept through Ray's arm, loosened sadly. 'Yes. Are you Miss Watson?' she said.

'But where is Miss Fisher?' asked Miss Watson in a challenging voice. Henrietta feared she was going to be difficult, as the other lady had been at the Gare du Nord.

Ray, who had raised his hat, said: 'I am Miss Fisher, virtually. Her mother is unwell, so she asked me to take her place.'

Miss Watson gave him a look, but his appearance was calming. He sympathized with her wish to get into the train quickly to see nobody else took their
couchettes,
which would mean a fight, and how disagreeable that was. Then she said she hoped she had not been abrupt, but somebody else's child was a responsibility and one did not know where one was these days. 'Thank you,' she said, 'you have been really most kind. Henrietta, thank Mr — thank your friend. Now that's
your
dispatch case, is it? Oh yes, and the monkey. And come along now; now we must come along.'

Henrietta looked up at Ray with sad grey eyes. Leopold stood by, silent, looking at her. Suddenly, she put down her dispatch case and, pell-mell, all the parcels, unpinned her cockade and gave it to Leopold. 'Here,' she said, 'this was the cockade I meant.'

'Oh, what are you doing?' said Miss Watson. 'Ought you to give that cockade to that little boy?'

'The person I'm meeting next is my own grandmother, and if she doesn't know me without it I might as well be dead.'

Miss Watson feared Henrietta was going to be difficult; snatching the parcels up from the dusty, spitty platform, she blew them over reproachfully. 'Well, come along,' she said.