and went and sat down at a table by the wall, and stayed there for some time, staring at the garish advertisements of cordials on the walls.
Things had grown serious. If he left now, at once, it might be possible to win through to St Malo and to England; if he delayed another thirty-six hours it might very well be that St Malo would be overwhelmed and smothered in the tide of the German rush, as Calais had been smothered, and Boulogne. It seemed incredible that they could still be coming on so fast. Surely, surely, they would be checked before they got to Paris? It could not possibly be true that Paris would fall?
He did not like this evacuation of the railway offices from Paris. That had an ugly sound.
He could go back now to the hotel. He could get both the children up and dress them, pay the bill at the hotel, and take them to the station. Ronnie would be all right. Sheila - well, after all, she had a coat. Perhaps he could get hold of a shawl to wrap her up in. True it was night-time and the trains would be irregular; they might have to sit about for hours on the platform in the night waiting for a train that never came. But he would be getting the children back to England, as he had promised Cavanagh.
But then, if Sheila should get worse? Suppose she took a chill and got pneumonia?
If that should happen, he would never forgive himself. The children were in his care; it was not caring for them if he went stampeding to the station in the middle of the night to start on a long, uncertain journey regardless of their weakness and their illness. That wasn't prudence. That was... fright.
He smiled a little at himself. That's what it was, just fright - something to be conquered. Looking after children, after all, meant caring for them in sickness. That's what it meant. It was quite clear. He'd taken the responsibility for them, and he must see it through, even though it now seemed likely to land him into difficulties that he had not quite anticipated when he first took on the job.
He got up and went back to the hotel. In the lobby the girl said to him: 'Monsieur has found a car?'
He shook his head. 'I shall stay here till the day after tomorrow. Then, if the little girl is well, we will go on by train.'
He paused. 'One thing, mademoiselle. I will only be able to take one little bag for the three of us, that I can carry myself. If I leave my fishing-rods, would you look after them for me for a time?'
'But certainly, monsieur. They will be quite safe.'
He went into the restaurant and found a seat for dinner. It was a great relief to him that he had found a means to place his rods in safety. Now that that little problem had been solved, he was amazed to find how greatly it had been distressing him; with that disposed of he could face the future with a calmer mind.
He went up to the bedroom shortly after dinner. The femme de chambre met him in the corridor, the yellow, dingy, corridor of bedrooms, lit only by a low-power lamp without a shade. 'I have made monsieur a bed on the floor,' she said in a low tone. 'You will see.' She turned away.
That was very kind of you,' he said. He paused, and looked curiously at her. In the dim light he could not see very clearly, but he had the impression that she was sobbing.
'Is anything the matter?' he asked gently.
She lifted the corner of her apron to her eyes. 'It is nothing,' she muttered. 'Nothing at all.'
He hesitated, irresolute. He could not leave her, could not just walk into his bedroom and shut the door, if she was in trouble. She had been too helpful with the children. 'Is it Madame?' he said. 'Has she complained about your work? If so, I will speak to her. I will tell her how much you have helped me.'
She shook her head and wiped her eyes.
'It is not that, monsieur,' she said. 'But - I am dismissed. I am to go tomorrow.'
He was amazed. 'But why?'
'Five years,' she said. 'Five years I have been with Madame - in all seasons of the year, monsieur - five years continuously! And now, to be dismissed at the day! It is intolerable, that.' She began to weep a little louder.
The old man said: 'But why has Madame done this?'
She said: 'Have you not heard? The hotel is closing tomorrow. It is to be an office for the railway.' She raised her tear-stained face. 'All of us are dismissed, monsieur, everyone. I do not know what will happen to me, and la petite Rose.'
He was dumbfounded, not knowing what to say to help the woman. Obviously, if the hotel was to be an office for the railway staff, there would be no need for any chamber-maids; the whole hotel staff would have to go. He hesitated, irresolute.
'You will be all right,' he said at last. 'It will be easy for so good a femme de chambre as you to get another job.'
She shook her head. 'It is not so. All the hotels are closing, and what family can now afford a servant? You are kind, monsieur, but it is not so. I do not know how we shall live.'
'You have some relations, or family, that you can go to, no doubt?'
'There is nobody, monsieur. Only my brother, father of little Rose, and he is in England.'
Howard remembered the wine waiter at the Dickens Hotel in Russell Square. He said a word or two of meagre comfort and optimism to the woman; presently he escaped into the bedroom. It was impossible for him to give her any help in her great trouble.
She had made him quite a comfortable bed on a mattress laid on the floor. He went over to the children's bed and took a look at them; they were sleeping very deeply, though Sheila still seemed hot. He sat for a little reading in the arm-chair, but he soon grew tired; he had not slept properly the night before and he had had an anxious and a worrying day. Presently he undressed, and went to bed on the floor.
When he awoke the dawn was bright; from the window there came a great groaning clatter as a tank got under way and lumbered up the road. The children were awake and playing in the bed; he lay for a little, simulating sleep, and then got up. Sheila was cool, and apparently quite well.
He dressed himself and took her temperature. It was very slightly above normal still; evidently, whatever it was that had upset her was passing off. He washed them both and set Ronnie to dress himself, then went downstairs to order breakfast.
The hotel routine was already disarranged. Furniture was being taken from the restaurant; it was clear that no more meals would be served there. He found his way into the kitchen, where he discovered the femme de chambre in depressed consultation with the other servants, and arranged for a tray to be sent up to his room.
That was a worrying, trying sort of day. The news from the north was uniformly bad; in the town people stood about in little groups talking in low tones. He went to the station after breakfast with Ronnie, to enquire about the trains to Paris, leaving Sheila in bed in the devoted care of la petite Rose. They told him at the station that the trains to Paris were much disorganised 'a cause de la situation militaire,' but trains were leaving every three or four hours. So far as they knew, the services from Paris to St Malo were normal, though that was on the Chemin de L'Ouest.
He walked up with Ronnie to the centre of the town, and ventured rather timidly into the children's department of a very large store. A buxom Frenchwoman came forward to serve him, and sold him a couple of woollen jerseys for the children and a grey, fleecy blanket. He bought the latter more by instinct than by reason, fearful of the difficulties of the journey. Of all difficulties, the one he dreaded most was that the children would get ill again.
They bought a few more sweets, and went back to the hotel. Already the hall was thronged with seedy- looking French officials, querulous from their journey and disputing over offices. The girl from the desk met Howard as he went upstairs. He could keep his room for one more night, she said; after that he must get out. She would try and arrange for meals to be sent to the room, but he would understand - it would not be as she would wish the service.
He thanked her and went up upstairs. La petite Rose was reading about Babar to Sheila from the picture-book; she was curled up in a heap on the bed and they were looking at the pictures together. Sheila looked up at Howard, bright and vivacious, as he remembered her at Cidoton.
'Regardez,' she said, 'voici Jacko climbing right up the queue de Babar on to his back!' She wriggled in exquisite amusement. 'Isn't he naughty!.'
He stopped and looked at the picture with them. 'He is a naughty monkey, isn't he?' he said.
Sheila said: 'Drefully naughty.'
Rose said very softly: 'Qu'est-ce que monsieur a dit?'
