Ronnie explained to her in French, and the bilingual children went on in the language of the country. To Howard they always spoke in English, but French came naturally to them when playing with other children. It was not easy for the old man to determine in which language they were most at home. On the whole, Ronnie seemed to prefer to speak in English. Sheila slipped more naturally into French, perhaps because she was younger and more recently in charge of nurses.
The children were quite happy by themselves. Howard got out the attache case and looked at it; it was very small to hold necessities for three of them. He decided that Ronnie might carry that one, and he would get a rather larger case to carry himself, to supplement it. Fired by this idea, he went out of the bedroom to go to buy a cheap fibre case.
On the landing he met the femme de chambre. She hesitated, then stopped him.
'Monsieur is leaving tomorrow?' she said.
'I have to go away, because they want the room,' he replied. 'But I think the little girl is well enough to travel.
I shall get her up for dejeuner, and then this afternoon she can come out for a little walk with us.'
'Ah, that will be good for her. A little walk, in the sun.' She hesitated again, and then she said: 'Monsieur is travelling direct to England?'
He nodded. 'I shall not stay in Paris. I shall take the first train to St Malo.'
She turned her face up to him, lined and prematurely old, beseechingly. 'Monsieur - it is terrible to ask. Would you take la petite Rose with you, to England?'
He was silent; he did not quite know what to say to that. She went on hurriedly.
'I have the money for the fare, monsieur. And Rose is a good little girl - oh, she is so good, that one. She would not trouble monsieur, no more than a little mouse.'
Every instinct warned the old man that he must kill this thing stone dead - quick. Though he would not admit it to himself, he knew that to win through to England would take all his energy, burdened as he was with two little children. In the background of his mind lurked fear, fear of impending, absolute disaster.
He stared down at the tear-stained, anxious face, and temporised. 'But why do you want to send her to England?' he asked. 'The war will never come to Dijon. She will be quite safe here.'
The woman said: 'I have no money, monsieur. Her father is in England, but he cannot send money to us here. It is better that she should go to England, now.'
He said: 'Perhaps I could arrange to help him to send money.' There was still a substantial balance on his letter of credit. 'You do not want her to leave you, do you?'
She said: 'Monsieur, things are happening in France that you English do not understand. We are afraid of what is coming, all of us...'
They were silent for a moment.
'I know things are very bad,' he said quietly. 'It may be difficult for me, an Englishman, to get to England now. I don't think it will be - but it may. Suppose I could not get her out of the country for some reason?'
She wrinkled her face up and lifted the corner of her apron to her eyes. 'In England she would be safe,' she muttered. 'I do not know what is going to happen to us, here in Dijon. I am afraid.' She began to cry again.
He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. There,' he said. 'I will think about it this afternoon. It's not a thing to be decided in a hurry.' He made his escape from her, and went down to the street.
Once out in the street, he quite forgot what he had come for. Absent-mindedly he walked towards the centre of the town, wondering how he could evade the charge of another child. Presently, he sat down in a cafe and ordered himself a bock.
It was not that he had anything against la petite Rose. On the contrary, he liked the child; she was a quiet, motherly little thing. But she would be another drag on him at a time when he knew with every instinct of his being that he could tolerate no further drags. He knew himself to be in danger. The sweep and drive of Germany down in France was no secret any longer; it was like the rush through Belgium had been in the last war, only more intense. If he delayed a moment longer than was necessary, he would be engulfed by the invading army. For an Englishman that meant a concentration camp, for a man of his age that probably meant death.
From his chair on the pavement he stared out on the quiet, sunlit Place. Bad times were coming for the French; he and his children must get out of it, damn quick. If the Germans conquered they would bring with them, inevitably, their trail of pillage and starvation, gradually mounting towards anarchy as they faced the inevitable defeat. He must not let his children be caught in that. Children in France, if she were beaten down, would have a terrible time.
It was bad luck on little Rose. He had nothing against her; indeed, she had helped him in the last two days. He would have found it difficult to manage Sheila if Rose had not been there. She had kept the little girl, hardly more than a baby, happy and amused in a way that Howard himself could never have managed alone.
It was a pity that it was impossible to take her. In normal times he might have been glad of her; he had tried in Cidoton to find a young girl who would travel with them to Calais. True, Rose was only ten years old, but she was peasant-French; they grew up very quickly...
Was it impossible to take her?
Now it seemed desperately cruel, impossible to leave her behind.
He sat there miserably irresolute for hah0 an hour. In the end he got up and walked slowly back to the hotel, desperately worried. In his appearance he had aged five years.
He met the femme de chambre on the landing. 'I have made up my mind,' he said heavily. 'La petite Rose may come with us to England; I will take her to her father. She must be ready to start tomorrow morning, at seven o'clock.'
Chapter 4
That night Howard slept very little. He lay on his bed on the floor, revolving in his mind the things he had to do, the various alternative plans he must make if things should go awry. He had no fear that they would not reach Paris. They would get there all right; there was a train every three or four hours. But after that - what then? Would he be able to get out of Paris again, to St Malo for the boat to England? That was the knotty point. Paris had stood a siege before, in 1870; it might well be that she was going to stand another one. With three children on his hands he could not let himself be caught in a besieged city. Somehow or other he must find out about the journey to England before they got to Paris.
He got up at about half-past five, and shaved and dressed. Then he awoke the children; they were fretful at being roused and Sheila cried a little, so that he had to stop and take her on his lap and wipe her eyes and make a fuss of her. In spite of the tears she was cool and well, and after a time submitted to be washed and dressed.
Ronnie said, sleepily: 'Are we going in the motor-car?'
'No,' said the old man, 'not today, I couldn't get a car to go in.'
'Are we going in a char de combat?
'No. We're going in a train.'
'Is that the train we're going to sleep in?'
Howard shook his head patiently. 'I couldn't manage that, either. We may have to sleep in it, but I hope that we'll be on the sea tonight.'
'On a ship?'
'Yes. Go on and clean your teeth; I've put the toothpaste on the brush for you.'
There was a thunderous roar above the hotel, and an aeroplane swept low over the station. It flew away directly in a line with their window, a twin-engined, low-wing monoplane, dark green in colour. In the distance there was a little, desultory rattle, like musketry fire on a distant range.
The old man sat on the bed, staring at it as it receded in the distance. It couldn't possibly...
Ronnie said: 'Wasn't that one low, Mr Howard?'
They'd never have the nerve to fly so low as that. It must have been a French one. 'Very low,' he said, a little unsteadily. 'Go on and clean your teeth.'
Presently there was a tap on the door, and the/emme de chambre was there bearing a tray of coffee and
