In fact Colin Monro was distinctly tired. He had been on the go since six a.m., walking, climbing, carrying a human body for miles in a blanket, driving his car—and perpetually using his wits: asking questions, making rapid decisions about how best to use the last piece of information he had picked up in the next interview; listening to his inner Highland monitor, and weighing that advice against the claims of his professional duty. It had been a strenuous day, mentally and physically; he was quite tired enough to feel the prospect of another long conversation in French, well as he spoke it, a little daunting. But to find Bonnecourt suddenly so ready to talk was a chance too good to be missed—he was still strongly under the impression, that had come to him as he drove up from Pau, that the isard-hunter was not only a key figure in connection with his present mission, but of great importance in his own life in some way not yet clear to him. He sat down again, sipped at his brandy, and then put a question to his host—partly out of personal curiosity.
‘Bonnecourt, why do you trouble to help the O.A.S., when it’s such a risky business for you? After all France is in rather a better position in the world since de Gaulle came to power than she has been for years; and he has done it. So why try to assassinate him? Or to blow up Lacq, come to that?—one of your great economic assets. I don’t quite get the idea. Don’t answer if you don’t want to, of course’ he added. ‘But I should like to understand.’
‘I should very much like you to understand’ Bonnecourt said. ‘I will try to explain, though you may find the story—don’t you say “long-winded” and “round-about”?’
‘How well you must know English!’ Colin said. ‘All right—be as long-winded and round-about as you like.’
‘Well, I told you that I had been in the army’ Bonnecourt said—Colin nodded. ‘For a long time I was in Indo-China, where I, like scores of my countrymen, spent much of our time trying to train the local troops, with remarkably little success—they remained a cowardly and undisciplined rabble, whatever we did. When the Viet-minh started to fight us, we found that they, the Communists, had produced, out of the very same human material, highly-trained, orderly, and disciplined troops, who fought extremely well. This was a shock, as you can imagine—it struck right at the roots of my instincts as a soldier, and I began to wonder what it was that they had got, which we had not. The same people,’ he repeated, ‘fighting badly for us, and well for them.’
‘Yes, that must have been worrying’ Colin said. ‘What conclusion did you reach as to the reason?’
‘At first I thought it was perhaps some sickness, or weakness, in our nation; after all, the events of 1940 were not very encouraging to Frenchmen!’ Bonnecourt said, with a wry smile. ‘Then, later, I was taken prisoner by the Viet-minh; partly my own fault; this dysentery was beginning—and make no mistake, mon ami, quite as much of the body, dysentery is a disease of the will!’
‘Did they nurse you decently?’ Colin asked, much interested.
‘According to their resources, and after their ideas. They have great faith in boiled millet as a specific against dysentery’ Bonnecourt said, again with that wry smile. ‘Often there was not much millet, so then they gave me rice—medically, without great success.’
‘How ghastly!’ Colin said. He wished he could envisage the circumstances better, but didn’t wish to interrupt Bonnecourt’s narrative with too many questions. ‘Do go on.’
‘Well, with their usual attention to detail they also subjected me to a fairly thorough indoctrination—day after day, hour after hour. I have told you, la dysenterie weakens the will as much as the body, and I was in a poor state to resist this treatment; without my wish, or deliberate acceptance, my outlook towards Communism altered. And there was the extraordinary success that they had had in training the indigènes, turning them into decent troops, as we had failed to do—a thing I had seen for myself.’
Colin was rather aghast at this.
‘Did you become a Communist?’ he asked.
‘I was too ill to become anything!—except a corpse, which I nearly did! Then after the truce I was exchanged, and came back to France, and was invalided out of the Army. But I was disillusioned.’
‘But how did this experience—it must have been frightful—lead you to the O.A.S?’ Colin asked.
‘Again by a long and round-about road. When le Général assumed power again we remembered what he had done—with British help!—during the War, and were full of hope of better things. But then one disillusionment followed another: the war in Algeria was not carried out as it should have been, and could have been, given our troops! I think most soldiers felt that this sacré settlement was a sort of betrayal, not only of the colons—who after all had created such economic prosperity as Algeria possessed—but of the Army, which had fought there for so long.’
‘But wasn’t the Algerian war bleeding France white? I mean, I see that it was wretched for the colons, but could you have gone on indefinitely?’
Bonnecourt threw up both his hands in a despairing gesture.
‘If this war had been prosecuted with real vigour, from the top, who knows? But we sensed a lack of resolution, a hesitation, long before Evian. We felt betrayed’ the French officer repeated.
‘So then you decided to support the O.A.S.?’ Colin asked. ‘Of course that started in Algeria, didn’t it?’
‘Certainly. And I felt that this movement deserved support; it might have given the—do you say “stiffening”?—that was required to win. Enfin, my friend, I am a patriot!—I would do anything to save France.’ He paused; Colin thought he had finished, but he was wrong. ‘But of course’ Bonnecourt pursued—and then stopped.
‘Yes?’ No reply. ‘Of course what?’ Colin persisted.
‘These murders began, in the hospitals!—and elsewhere. That I could not approve; for a long time I held my hand. One should not murder helpless people in their beds.’
‘I should think not’ Colin said, with energy. These mental gymnastics of an O.A.S. supporter he found hard to follow, though he could sympathise over the intractable problem which Algeria had presented to France. He had himself been in Morocco before the French left, and had seen the superb work they had done for that other North African country before it insisted on its independence. Goodness how tiresome, and how ungrateful, these emerging nations were!—biting the hands that fed them, developed them, educated them; that poured out money, skill, and devoted service, only to be ejected with contumely in the end.
‘Well, did you turn Communist then?’ he asked.
‘Very nearly! One turns from one creed to another, seeking the one that will best serve one’s country.’ Bonnecourt paused. ‘But recently, I came to the decision that the O.A.S. was probably of the most value to our country’ he said.
Colin wondered privately how blowing up Lacq would really serve France, but he left that aside.
‘Do you help Communists across the frontier now too?’ he asked, almost gaily, as Bonnecourt got up and refilled their glasses; after two cognacs he felt rather less tired.
‘My friend, for a reasonable sum I help anyone across the frontier. After all, one must live. But the English pay best—and for longer.’
Colin stared at him.
‘May I know what you mean? Did you ask money from all these Royal Air Force’—he used the full French phrase—‘men whom you led to safety?’
‘But naturally not; I took them as they came. They were in need. But presently I was employed by the British Intelligence Service’ he said, looking amusedly at Colin—whose face, at this startling statement, completely gave him away.
‘Ah! So the “ordinary Englishman” is connected with Intelligence! No wonder he is so well-informed’ Bonnecourt said merrily. ‘Doubtless he telephoned to London this afternoon from Pau, and learned much. Certainly it was not old Fourget who told you de Lassalle’s name.’
Colin took his time. ‘Are you still on the pay-roll of Intelligence?’ he asked at length.
‘This I too am not telling you, just now! But had we not better be a little more frank with one another? You have helped me; I should wish to help you. After all, in a sense we are colleagues, or have been.’
But Colin’s ingrained caution had taken the upper hand again; he did not wish to go too far with Bonnecourt until he had had the chance to check with Hartley as to the hunter’s present status with Intelligence. However he did not hesitate.
‘I always prefer frankness’ he said. ‘What do you want me to be frank with you about?’
‘Had you advance information that these two would be coming over from Spain? Were you sent up to look out for them?’
Checking on Pamplona, Colin thought!—but this was plain sailing.
‘Definitely not’ he said. ‘I was simply taking one of my walks to get an idea of the frontier—and of course keeping an eye open for the paths you and your fellow-smugglers find so useful—probably with heavy knapsacks!’ He grinned at Bonnecourt, who grinned back at him. ‘I came up on this side, as I think I told you, by the path they ought to have taken, and saw them on the Spanish slope; I traversed across to get a good look at them, and so I came to see the old man fall. You know the rest.’
Bonnecourt was silent for a moment.
‘Is he actually dying?’ he asked then.
‘The surgeon didn’t go quite as far as that. But if I were you, Bonnecourt, I should waste no time about getting that idiot de Lassalle away. If Maupassant were to come round enough to be able to speak, and the police come up here and find that silly fool, you’ll be in for trouble.’
‘I take him tonight.’
‘Good. Then I don’t think I’d better delay you’ Colin said, getting up.
‘No—un petit moment—and a little more frankness!’ Colin sat down again.
‘What am I to be frank about this time?’ he asked, smiling.
‘I have reflected,’ Bonnecourt said, rather slowly. ‘You are right in saying that the villagers here amuse themselves by watching all that goes on; but I have the best reasons for knowing that what they report is seldom at all detailed, or clear.’
Colin guessed what was coming.
‘I suppose you really mean accurate’ he said, a little trenchantly—‘though you don’t want to use the word.’ Bonnecourt laughed.
‘Monnro, you are fully up to standard! Yes, I mean that.’
‘Alors?’
‘So was it la belle Portugaise who described to you the contents of this young simpleton’s knapsack? I know that she comes up in the evening to fetch the milk for Madame your sister from the farm above this house, and she is almost the only person you had time to speak with.’
Colin thought fast. He realised that he had perhaps been injudicious in saying quite so much, earlier, about de Lassalle’s performance at the pool, though it had undoubtedly brought results.
‘Look, let’s do a deal’ he said. ‘We’d each rather like to help the other, but we both have our job to do. If I undertake not to ring up and alert the police, either on this side, or in Spain, will you guarantee not to have all that stuff fished out of the pool and disposed of elsewhere?’
‘Why must it be left?’
‘Because I want to see it.’
‘And of course report?’
‘But naturally. What I don’t propose to report, locally anyhow, is who was meeting these two types, and going to drive them on to—well, where they hoped to use what they brought!’
‘Entendu. Only local reports would inconvenience me—London is far away! So it was la Portuguaise?’
‘Just a second. There’s one other thing I’d like to know first.’ Ever since he heard Luzia’s story one part of Colin’s mind had been fidgeting about the canvas camera-case which the girl had described—why have something so elaborate merely to carry a time-clock in?—it could easily have been wrapped in a handkerchief. He had a vague, hovering notion that this might have some significance for him.
‘Well?’
‘What exactly is the purpose of the canvas case that the time-clock was being carried in?’
Bonnecourt grinned broadly.
‘Quelle astuce! It is a gas-mask container.’ He grinned more broadly than ever at Colin’s expression when he brought out this statement. ‘I see that this explains itself! Now, when do you wish to conduct your search in the pool?’
‘Early tomorrow—“first light”, as our Transatlantic allies say. So I really must get to bed now.’ He got up. ‘Do remember that I’ve spent most of today succouring O.A.S. personnel!’
Bonnecourt gave a rather sardonic smile.
‘And doing a little long-distance telephoning, and ascertaining some useful facts. Not a wasted day! But was it la Portugaise who saw de Lassalle?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘Ah. You should employ her! Well, tell me when you have seen all you need to see, cher collègue!—for I cannot leave all that dangerous stuff in such a public place.’
‘I’ll do that’ Colin said. ‘Thanks for the drinks, Bonnecourt.’ He left.
On his way home Colin considered what he had heard. Bonnecourt had been right in surmising that the words ‘a gas-mask container’ had rung a bell in his head; his mind went back to that room in the office in London, where the grey-haired clerk had given him some briefing about Lacq, as well as the notes on frontier characters. For many sections of the great plant the workers had to wear gas-masks, carried in canvas cases; the sight of these of course aroused no suspicion, and it had already happened at least once that the nerve-centre at Lacq—the narrow, but immensly long control-room, with instruments registering all the different gas-wells—had been damaged by explosives brought in by saboteurs in gas-mask holders. How stupid of him!—he ought to have guessed at once what Luzia’s ‘camera-case’ was. But why had Bonnecourt told him this? What an enigma the man was.
When he got in Colin went across the great room to the three stoves, and switched off the Buta-gaz from under the sauce-pan with his soup—most of it had boiled away. Then, very quietly, he stole upstairs; but in the sitting-room Julia was still up, in an armchair by the fire, knitting away at some baby-garment in white wool—the sight of her, so unusually occupied, smote him with almost a wave of love for his cousin. He went over and kissed her.
‘You’ve had a long day’ she said. ‘Whisky? It’s there under the window.’
Under Julia’s régime at Larége whisky, so appallingly expensive in France, was reserved for ‘long days’—otherwise people had to make do with sherry or Vermouth. In spite of his cognacs with Bonnecourt Colin felt like a whisky, and a talk with Julia in the pleasant warmth of the wood fire, and the soft light of the lamp by which she was knitting—he poured himself out a glass. ‘Not for you?’
‘No—bad for baby! How’s that poor old creature?’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised if he’s dead by now—they weren’t very hopeful at the hospital.’
‘Why did the young one come back with Bonnecourt? I thought he was all set on being with his friend.’
‘Oh, so Luzia’s told you she saw him? And about his goings-on at the pool, too?’
‘Yes. Colin, I think her guess about them may be right.’
‘I know that it is—dead right!’
‘Oh. Did you get on to London from Pau?’
‘Yes. They knew about them.’ He went on to tell her how Bonnecourt had been waiting for the two Frenchmen at the auberge, and of his impulsive decision to get the young man taken back into Spain.
‘So that’s what he does! Has that silly creature gone?’
‘I expect they’re on their way now. But J., darling, I’m wondering if I did right?’
‘What are they? Commies?—or O.A.S., as Luzia thinks?’
‘Luzia always seems to be right! They are O.A.S. But you see I had a feeling that I didn’t want Bonnecourt to get into trouble—which would certainly have happened if the police had contacted that dolt!’ It was an immense relief to Colin to spread his problems out in front of Julia and get her views, which in the past had usually proved sound.
‘It’s a bit early to decide whether you did right or not,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I wish we knew more about Bonnecourt—besides the Heriots liking him so much, and what he did for our people in the war. But sometimes one’s hunches are right.’
‘I do know more. He told me tonight that he’s been enrolled, and paid, by Intelligence.’
Julia laughed, her long laugh.
‘If that’s true, it’s really funny! And of course it would justify your hunch completely. But you’ll have to check with London on that.’
‘I shall do that tomorrow. Another job first. Is Luzia in bed?’
‘Yes—she went some time ago.’
‘Oh, well I shall have to rout her out early tomorrow—don’t pay any attention to us. We’ll be back for breakfast. Goodnight—bless you.’
Colin went up the further flight to his room, took a shower, and got into bed; he set his immensely powerful alarm-watch for 4.45 a.m., put it on the little bed-table, and switched off the light—almost immediately he fell asleep.
Being roused by the alarm next morning from his heavy and exhausted slumbers felt like having the living heart torn out of his body; but he went downstairs in his pyjamas, and tapped on Luzia’s door.
‘Entra’ a sleepy voice muttered—he went in.
‘Could you get up and dress, and come down with me to the farm? I want to check on all that stuff before people are about.’
‘Of course. In ten minutes I am ready.’ She switched on her bedside lamp—Colin noted with approval that the girl didn’t sleep with her face smothered in cream; her beautiful pale skin was its natural self, her long black hair spread out over the pillow.
Day was just breaking as they left the house; the light strengthened as they walked through the sleeping village; by the time they reached the farm one could see fairly clearly.
‘You stay here’ Colin said, as Luzia stood and stared at the pool. ‘Tell me where to go—and then you can signal: right arm if I’m to go right, left if left.’
‘To the far end. Do you see a small clump of rushes? About a metre beyond that is the spot.’
Colin walked down to the pool, rolled up his shirt-sleeves to the shoulder, and lying flat on the grass reached down into the water and felt about—he could touch the bottom, but felt nothing but mud. He looked back at Luzia; her right arm was extended like a sign-post. He edged along the turf, his hand still exploring in the water; presently his fingers felt the roll of flex—he pulled this out, looked at it, and put it back. Next he found some small packages; these too he looked at and replaced. What he wanted was the clock, and at last his searching fingers found it; he drew it out, rinsed off the mud, and put it in his pocket. The gas-mask container he couldn’t find, but that didn’t matter—the Office would know all about those already.
‘This is all you bring?’ Luzia asked when he rejoined her.
‘Yes—I’ve got the important thing. We know about the rest.’
Larége was slowly coming awake as they walked back. Troops of cows were moving deliberately up towards the pastures; men with scythes over their shoulders were setting out to cut the year’s second crop of hay in their tiny fields—with the strong Pyrenean sun they would make it and cock it in 48 hours. The pair brewed coffee in the big room, and ate the crusty bread with appetite—then Colin went back to bed and had two more hours sleep before, again roused by his alarm-watch, he drove down to Pau.
He went first to the hospital, where he learned from another, younger house-surgeon that old Maupassant had died in the night without recovering consciousness. But if this was the Monsieur Écossais who had witnessed the accident, the surgeon said, he believed the police wished to interview him. Colin said he would look in on them.
‘I think they go up to Larége to see Monsieur.’
‘Oh well, that is all right—I am returning.’
But he did not hurry over his return. Julia and Luzia could be counted on to give nothing away, or be in the least indiscreet—cast-iron witnesses, both of them! He drove to the Hotel de France and ordered, and ate, a second petit déjeuner; then he telephoned to London. Hartley was by now in the office—‘Well, what about that rücksack?’ he asked at once.
‘Yes, they had some of the doings with them—flex, a clock, and a little of what else you might expect.’
‘Got this?’
‘Got the ticker—I left the rest.’
‘And what about the type who acts as bear-leader?’
Colin spoke slowly and carefully. ‘You must be a bit clever about this. Have you got the old list of our helpers in this part of the world in the last war handy?’
‘I’ve got it in my head’ Hartley responded briskly. ‘I’m older than you!’
‘Oh, fine. Well, pay attention. Was there a good short among them?’—he stressed the two words.
‘Say that again.’
‘Good short.’
There was a moment’s pause—then a loud laugh came down the line, all the way from London to the Pyrenees. ‘Oh, Bernardin! Yes, of course; the best of the lot! Why—you don’t mean to say he’s the one?’
Colin realised that Bernardin would be the code name used (as always) by Intelligence for real people.
‘Yes. Is he still with us?’
‘I’d have to check on that. I rather fancy so, on a small retainer basis.’ The laugh came down the line again, louder than ever. ‘Well, I’ll be damned! The old bastard!’ After a pause—‘And what about the young one who came in too?’
‘I lost sight of him—I think he must have slipped off’ Colin replied, disingenuously. ‘The old fellow’s dead.’
‘Did he tell the coppers anything?’
‘No—he never spoke again.’
‘Oh well, that’s all to the good’ the man in London said heartlessly. ‘Have they been at you?’
‘They’re coming today, I gather—I ought really to get back to see them.’
‘All right. When are you going over to the other side? You might drop that time-piece on the boys at P.—they’ll get it to us.’
‘Tomorrow, I thought.’ Colin understood that ‘P.’ meant Pamplona. ‘That all?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I think so. Jolly good show! Oh wait—one other item. Anything on Tarbes yet?’
‘No, I’ve had no chance.’
‘Well have a look round when you get back. Write a report from P.—it’ll be brought over.’ Another pause. ‘Damn B!—the old rascal!’ Hartley said. ‘Good enough. ‘Bye.’
When Colin got back to Larége he found that the police had called, and been dealt with as prudently as he expected. Julia had assured them that M. Monnro had made a full constat to the agent in the hospital the previous day, and asked if they had no record of it? Of course they had; and in her usual convincing fashion Julia had described the bringing down of the injured man: ‘We placed him on that sofa, where Messieurs are now sitting’—the police shifted uneasily in their seats. And Dr. Fourget had said he must be got into the hospital at once, and the young M. Heriot had taken him in his so large car, where he could lie at full length. (At this point in her narrative Julia made a mental note that someone must ring up Dick and cause him to bring back the mattress and all those pillows and bolsters belonging to the Stansteds.) Oh, certainly—in reply to further questions—she had seen the younger man; he had seemed quite distracted! He too had driven off to Pau, but she could not say in which car—perhaps in the Doctor’s, perhaps in that of her cousin.
‘She was marvellous’ Luzia said to Colin, as Julia recounted all this. ‘So frank—and so untruthful!’
‘What did you say?’ Colin asked, grinning.
‘Nothing—I left it to Julia! I pretended I did not understand French, and showed them my passport; this convinced them that I was just a foolish foreigner.’
‘Are they coming back?’ Colin asked Julia.
‘They didn’t day so. They would have liked to get more on the young man, but unless they picked something up in the village they’ve got nothing to pin it onto Bonnecourt—and after all no one but us saw Lassalle, if that’s his name, come here, and he drove away in your car. So lucky that this is the last house but one—no village spying.’ She paused, and glanced at Luzia. What could she say that she had left upstairs, and wanted fetched?
But for Luzia the glance was enough.
‘I go to fetch some water’ the girl said, and went out with the earthenware jug. Blessing her pupil’s quickness—‘Was B. working for us in the War?’ Julia asked.
‘Yes—when I said “Good Short” Hartley knew at once. His code name was Bernardin.’
‘Then it is funny, after all’ Julia said.
‘So Hartley thought’ Colin said. ‘He couldn’t be sure without checking, but he seemed to think he might still be on the payroll.’
‘If he is, that’s funnier still’ Julia said. ‘You and he supposed to be working against one another!—and in fact chums, hand in glove—and you and I both protecting him from the lawful authorities of his own country.’
‘Well don’t go on about it’ Colin said, rather irritably—his official conscience still gnawed at him about the whole Bonnecourt business. He got up. ‘I’d better go down and try to see him—I promised to let him know when I’d seen all I wanted in that pool, so that he could clear the stuff away—though where one stows plastic in a village, I don’t know.’
‘Bury it in the potato-patch under the beetles’ Julia said, laughing, as he went out.
Colin found Bonnecourt in his sitting-room, drinking brandy and soda—he looked hot, and rather tired; evidently he had only just got in.
‘I just came to tell you that I’ve seen all I wanted to see, thank you’ the Englishman said; ‘I’m surprised you’re back so soon.’
‘I couldn’t risk taking that neurotic fool over the mountains, with every douanier on the alert after the accident’ Bonnecourt said. ‘I just put him in the malle of the car and drove him across to Jaca.’ He paused. ‘Did you take any of it?’
‘Only the clock. You don’t catch me going about weighed down with explosives’ Colin said.
‘You are perfectly right. Well, I thank you—you are very reliable, Monnro! It can all stay where it is till tomorrow’ Bonnecourt said, puffing at a Gauloise—‘for me, I propose to get some rest! Will you have a drink?—excuse me that I do not suggest it before; I am half-asleep!’
‘No, thanks. I must get back.’
‘What about old Maupassant?’ Bonnecourt asked suddenly.
‘He died in the night. Without speaking’ Colin added.
The Frenchman crossed himself—Colin, Presbyterianly brought up, had a moment’s cynical wonder whether this gesture was for the repose of the old man’s soul, or in gratitude that he had not spoken. ‘The police came up to question me, but Mme. Jamieson satisfied them’ he went on. ‘I don’t think you ought to have any trouble. I was out.’
‘Ah. Down in Pau, telephoning, no doubt?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And were you satisfied?’
‘As to your identity, yes, Bernardin! But the rest——’ Colin said. The hunter burst out laughing.
‘Oh, how much I like the English!’
Colin ignored this. ‘Well, I’ll say Goodbye—I’m off tomorrow.’
‘To England?’
‘Perhaps. I’ll be back in about a week.’ As Bonnecourt rose and wrung his hand he said, on a sudden impulse—‘Keep an eye on Madame Jamieson while I’m away. If the season isn’t over you might take her some more isard; she loves it.’
‘I do both these things. Au revoir, my friend.’
Colin didn’t hurry his departure the following morning; Pamplona was within a day’s drive. So he was still in the house when the facteur brought the post—the only thing ever delivered in Larége. It included a letter from Lady Heriot to Julia, inviting all three of them to ‘a small dance’ a week hence. ‘Of course you will all stay with us.’ Luzia was as excited as all nineteen-year-olds, however sophisticated, are at the prospect of a dance—‘We say Yes, Julia, don’t we?’
‘Of course we accept for you—how delightful. But I’m not sure that I want to trail down to Pau and sit up late—I can’t dance at the moment, and I’ve no clothes for a party. You and Colin can go.’
‘I shan’t go either’ Colin said.
‘But you will be back?’ Luzia asked anxiously. ‘If Julia does not go, of course I will not leave her unless you are here.’
‘Yes, I’ll be back all right, but I shouldn’t be much good to Julia if I went off dancing—and anyhow I’m a rotten dancer.’
‘I daresay Mme. Monnier would come up and stay with me’ Julia said. ‘Do accept if you’d like to, Colin.’
But Colin refused firmly—and after he had driven off to Spain a visit to the Monniers produced the information that they, too, had been invited to the Heriot’s dance, and had accepted. ‘A ball in this beautiful house—what a privilege!’ Madame Monnier said. ‘Everything always done so perfectly—such food, such wine!’ The Monniers were going to stay with friends in Pau for the event, and Mme. Monnier wished to go a day in advance to get a hair-do; they offered to drive Luzia down with them. Luzia wanted to have a shampoo and set too, and also to buy a frock—‘You told me we should be in the wilderness!’ she said reproachfully to Julia, who refrained from riposting that it was no fault of hers if Luzia mopped up peers’ sons, and had balls given for her! Instead she walked down to the Post Office, and arranged on the telephone with Lady Heriot that the Portuguese girl should go to them a day earlier, to facilitate shopping and hair-dressing.
‘My dear, I wish you would come’ Lady Heriot said. Julia laughed.
‘Dear Lady Heriot, I am just mobile—but with the mobility of the larger mammals. A cow wouldn’t really grace your party!’
‘My husband doesn’t dance either—he was hoping that you would sit out with him.’
‘How sweet of him. But really I think I better not.’
‘And your cousin won’t come? Won’t he be at Larége?’
‘Oh yes—he’ll be back by then. But he has nobly decided to stay and look after me’ Julia said. ‘I wish he wouldn’t; I should be quite all right. But he’s not much of a dancing man, anyhow. So sorry. You are kind to let Luzia come earlier. Goodbye.’