first time in many months.
The next day was spent in a flutter of business. The children were taking little with them in the way of luggage; one small portmanteau held the clothes for both of them. With their mother to assist him the old man learned the intricacies of their garments, and how they went to bed, and what they had to eat.
Once Mrs Cavanagh stopped and looked at him. 'Really,' she said, 'you'd rather that I came with you to Paris, wouldn't you?'
'Not in the least,' he said. 'I assure you, they will be quite all right with me.'
She stood silent for a minute. 'I believe they will,' she said slowly. 'Yes, I believe they'll be all right with you.'
She said no more about Paris.
Cavanagh had returned to Geneva, but he turned up again that night for dinner. He took Howard aside and gave him the money for their journey. 'I can't tell you how terribly grateful we are to you,' he muttered. 'It just makes all the difference to know that the kids will be in England.'
The old man said: 'Don't worry about them any more. They'll be quite safe with me. I've had children of my own to look after, you know.'
He did not dine with them that night, judging it better to leave them alone together with the children. Everything was ready for his journey; his portmanteaux were packed, his rods in the long tubular travelling-case. There was nothing more to be done.
He went up to his room. It was bright moonlight, and he stood for a while at his window looking out over the pastures and the woods towards the mountains. It was very quiet and still.
He turned uneasily from the window. It had no right to be so peaceful, here in the Jura. Two or three hundred miles to the north the French were fighting desperately along the Somme; the peace in Cidoton was suddenly unpleasant to him, ominous. The bustle and the occupation that his charge of the children had brought to him had changed his point of view; he now wanted very much to be in England, in a scene of greater action. He was glad to be leaving. The peace of Cidoton had helped him over a bad time, but it was time that he moved on.
Next morning all was bustle. He was down early, but the children and their parents were before him. They all had their petit dejeuner together in the dining-room; as a last lesson Howard learned to soften the crusts of the rolls for the children by soaking them in coffee. Then the old Chrysler was at the door to take them down to Saint-Claude.
The leave-taking was short and awkward. Howard had said everything that there was to say to the Cavanaghs, and the children were eager to climb into the car. It meant nothing to them that they were leaving their mother, possibly for years; the delicious prospect of a long drive to Saint-Claude and a day and a night in a real train with a steam engine filled their minds. Their father and mother kissed them, awkward and red-faced, but the meaning of the parting escaped the children altogether. Howard stood by, embarrassed.
Mrs Cavanagh muttered: 'Good-bye, my darlings,' and turned away.
Ronald said: 'May I sit by the driver?'
Sheila said: 'I want to sit by the driver, too.'
Howard stepped forward. 'You're both going to sit behind with me.' He bundled them into the back of the car. Then he turned back to their mother. 'They're very happy,' he said gently. 'That's the main thing, after all.'
He got into the car; it moved off down the road, and that miserable business was all over.
He sat in the middle of the seat with one child on each side of him for equity in the facilities for looking out. From time to time one saw a goat or a donkey and announced the fact in mixed French and English; then the other one would scramble over the old man to see the wonder. Howard spent most of the drive putting them back into their own seats.
Half an hour later they drew up at the station of Saint-Claude. The concierge helped them out of the car. 'They are pretty children,' he said in French to Howard. 'Their father and mother will be very sad, I think.'
The old man answered him in French: 'That is true. But in war, children should stay quiet in their own country. I think their mother has decided wisely.'
The man shrugged his shoulders; it was clear that he did not agree. 'How could war come to Cidoton?'
He carried their luggage to a first-class compartment and helped Howard to register the portmanteaux. Presently the little train puffed out up the valley, and Saint-Claude was left behind. That was the morning on which Italy declared war on the Allies, and the Germans crossed the Seine to the north of Paris.
Chapter 3
Half an hour after leaving Morez the children were already bored. Howard was watching for this, and had made his preparations. In the attache case that he carried with him he had secreted a number of little amusements for them, given to him by their mother. He pulled out a scribbling-pad and a couple of coloured pencils, and set them to drawing ships.
By the time they got to Andelot, three hours later, they had had their lunch; the carriage was littered with sandwich wrappings and with orange peel; an empty bottle that had contained milk stood underneath a seat. Sheila had had a little sleep, curled up by old Howard with her head resting on his lap; Ronnie had stood looking out of the window most of the way, singing a little song in French about numerals - Un, deux, trois, Allans dans les bois - Quatre, cinq, six, Cueillir des cerises...
Howard felt that he knew his numerals quite well by the time they got to Andelot. He had to rouse Sheila from a heavy slumber as they drew into the little country station where they had to change. She woke up hot and fretful and began to cry a little for no reason at all. The old man wiped her eyes, got out of the carriage, lifted the children down on to the platform, and then got back into the carriage for the hand luggage. There were no porters on the platform, but it seemed that that was inevitable in France in war-time. He had not expected it to be different.
He walked along the platform carrying the hand luggage, with the two children beside him; he modified his pace to suit their rate of walking, which was slow. At the Bureau, he found a stout, black-haired stationmaster.
Howard enquired if the Rapide from Switzerland was likely to be late.
The man said that the Rapide would not arrive. No trains from Switzerland would arrive.
Dumbfounded, Howard expostulated. It was intolerable that one had not been told that at Saint-Claude. How, then, could one proceed to Dijon?
The stationmaster said that Monsieur might rest tranquil. A train would run from the frontier at Vallorbes to Dijon. It was incessantly expected. It had been incessantly expected for two hours.
Howard returned to the children and his luggage, annoyed and worried. The failure of the Rapide meant that he could not travel through to Paris in the train from Andelot, but must make a change at Dijon. By the time he got there it would be evening, and there was no knowing how long he would have to wait there for a train to Paris, or whether he could get a sleeping berth for the children. Travelling by himself it would have been annoying: with two children to look after it became a serious matter.
He set himself to amuse them. Ronnie was interested in the railway trucks and the signals and the shunting engine; apart from his incessant questions about matters that Howard did not understand he was very little trouble. Sheila was different. She was quite unlike the child that he had known in Cidoton, peevish and fretful, and continually crying without energy. The old man tried a variety of ways to rouse her interest, without a great deal of success.
An hour and forty minutes later, when he was thoroughly worn out, the train for Dijon pulled into the station. It was very full, but he managed to find one seat in a first-class carriage and took Sheila on his knee, where she fell asleep again before so very long. Ronnie stood by the door looking out of the window, chattering in French to a fat old woman in a corner.
Presently this woman leaned forward to Howard. She said: 'Your little one has fever, is it not so?'
Startled, he said in French: 'But no. She is a little tired.'
She fixed him with beady black eyes. 'She has a fever. It is not right to bring a child with fever in the train. It is not hygienic. I do not like to travel with a child that has a fever.'
'I assure you, madame,' he said, 'you deceive yourself.' But a horrible suspicion was creeping over
