Colin was only due back in the evening of the day on which Luzia and the Monniers drove down to Pau, an arrangement which slightly troubled Luzia. ‘Can you not telephone to him, and cause him to return a day sooner?’ she had asked Julia a few days before—but in spite of Philip Jamieson’s optimism, Colin had never given his cousin a telephone number. ‘Poste Restante, Pamplona’ was all he had vouchsafed—‘and don’t write from here unless you have to; better not.’ Telegraphing to a Poste Restante seemed to Julia so silly as to be laughable; she laughed, and did nothing. ‘I shall be as right as rain, and he’ll come’ she said. Dick Heriot drove up one day, bringing back the pillows and mattress on which poor old de Maupassant had lain when he was taken down to the hospital to die; the young man was not best pleased to learn that Luzia was being taken to Pau by the Monniers—he had hoped to escort her himself. ‘Madame helps me to shop’ Luzia told him. ‘Her Ladyship would have done that’ Dick said, rather gruffly—he went away discomfited.
In spite of her qualms about leaving Julia alone, even for a day, Luzia thoroughly enjoyed her shopping in Pau. It is in fact an excellent shopping centre; the Portuguese girl was surprised to find such good shops in such minute streets—and whenever they felt tired, or in doubt, there were constant pauses for rest and coffee under the clipped trees on the big Place outside the Hotel de France. Mme. Monnier, with true French carefulness, would not allow the stranger to buy anything in a hurry; they went to shop after shop. Eventually Luzia settled on a white dress with full filmy skirts, glittering with diamanté—but the bodice was too low, she said; it must be pinched in, and layers of tulle added.
‘I find it charming as it is’ Mme. Monnier said.
‘Not for me—and Papa would be horrified!’
They had lunch, and then again wandered through the small streets in pursuit of accessories—sandals, cobwebby stockings, an evening bag and long white kid gloves. Mme. Monnier protested over this last item. ‘They cost a fortune, and it is no longer de rigueur to wear them at balls.’ ‘I always wear them’ the Duke of Ericeira’s daughter said with finality.
Dick had succeeded in arranging that he should at least pick Luzia up at the France at 6.30 and drive her home, and this he did; he eagerly agreed to take her in for her shampoo and set next morning, and to collect the frock after its alterations. And there was most of tomorrow, and tomorrow night too! The young man had really few anxieties as he drove this marvellous being back to meet his parents: her beauty, her rank, her pretty though slightly foreign English—even His Lordship was bound to approve. In fact, over drinks before dinner, Lord Heriot succumbed completely; Luzia’s preference for sherry rather than a cocktail sealed his approval. ‘That’s a very nice, well-bred girl’ he said to his wife, as they were dressing for dinner. ‘D’you think she might become a Protestant? That’s the only thing against her.’
‘No, I’m sure she wouldn’t’ Lady Heriot said, combing out and re-doing her long, greying hair in front of her dressing-table. ‘R.C.s never do. What’s more, if Dick were to marry her I’m positive that she and her Father would insist on all the children being brought up as Catholics.’
‘Good God! Would they really? Why?’
‘Oh, that’s one of their rules’ Lady Heriot said, pushing silvery combs carefully into place behind various puffs and curls on her head. ‘You’d better face it, James.’
Lord Heriot pondered.
‘Don’t care about it much’ he said. ‘Romans!’ He reflected again. ‘Still de Gaulle’s a Roman Catholic, and he’s the best man this country’s got. I suppose it might be all right.’ He came over to his wife. ‘Put these damned studs in for me, dear, would you? Cursed things!’
Lady Heriot swung round on her dressing-stool, and adjusted the fastenings of her husband’s shirt.
‘Thank you. What do you think of her?’ he asked then.
‘It’s hard to tell, with anyone so beautiful. But on the whole I’m inclined to think she’s good—and that’s all that matters.’
While the old Heriots, down in Pau, were comparing their assessments of Luzia, up at Larége Julia was getting supper. She made enough for two, but there was no sign of Colin; rather late, she ate her own, and made and drank coffee. When at ten her cousin had still not turned up she decided to go to bed; unworried, she put the heavy key of the big farm door under a tile below the stone seat on the little terrace, and wrote a note in Spanish, which she stuck into the huge key-hole, to say where it was. Then she went up to bed. She felt heavy with the weight of the child within her, and a little tired after the unwonted exertion of getting the supper and doing the washing-up alone, but with her usual composure she read a psalm in bed, said her prayers, lay down and slept well.
Next morning, on her way up to the top bathroom to wash she looked into Colin’s room—it was empty. Oh well, something must have held him up. Still unworried, she returned to her room, dressed, and went downstairs and put on the coffee. The note was still in the key-hole of the big door; she took it away, and retrieved the key from under the tile. She ate her breakfast indoors—though it was a beautiful morning, somehow she didn’t feel inclined even to carry a tray out onto the terrace. After breakfast she washed up, put on a garbure for the evening, peeled enough potatoes for two meals—there was cold veal—and washed some salad and put it in a damp cloth in the frig. Then she settled down on the sofa and began to write a letter to her Philip. Goodness, she was tired!—how Luzia had spoiled her, doing all the work. Anyhow Colin was bound to return today.
When the letter was three-parts written Julia remembered la poubelle; in fact she could smell it faintly, and decided that she must take it up and empty it. There was not a lot in it, Luzia had dealt with it before she left—only the potato-peelings, the outer leaves of the lettuce and the cabbage and onions for the garbure, tea-leaves and coffee-grounds. All the same it seemed quite heavy as she carried it up the stony path to the place where rubbish was pitched down the hill-side; the sun was already hot, and the heap of refuse on the slope smelt very disagreeable; it made her feel a little sick. She walked back to the house; going down the very steep and uneven steps onto the terrace, bucket in hand, she stumbled and fell. It was not very far, only the last four steps, but the fall shook her. She picked herself up and carried the poubelle into the house, where she set it in the sink and turned the tap on to rinse it—there a curious pain overtook her. She turned off the tap and went back to the sofa, and tried to finish her letter to Philip, but somehow she couldn’t concentrate. The pain wasn’t severe, it was just a dull nagging malaise; how silly! It couldn’t be the baby; that wasn’t due for another two months. Perhaps she had better have a drink—it was after 12; she got up and fetched a sherry over to the sofa. But when it was there on the table beside her she kept on forgetting to drink it; all her faculties seemed numbed by a sort of vagueness and dimness.
How long she remained there she didn’t really know; she was roused by the smell of something beginning to burn. She got up—it was the garbure; she poured a jug of hot water into the saucepan, and lowered the gas under it and the potatoes. She looked at her watch—two o’clock. Why didn’t Colin come? She remembered that she hadn’t laid the table, and tried to do that, but she kept on forgetting things—she was in a sort of mental cloud, only consciously listening all the time for the sound of the car. Eventually she gave it up and went back to the sofa, where after one or two sips she again forgot to drink her sherry. She abandoned the idea of lunch too—she didn’t feel like eating; with a great effort she managed to put the veal and the salad back into the frig, and turned the gas out, finally, under the saucepans.
The slight but persistent pains went on, and at last Julia suspected that she must be in labour, prematurely—perhaps because of her fall. Oh, why hadn’t Colin come?—and what was she to do? Philip was so longing for this child; she must let it be born safely. She decided, by a great effort of will overcoming this curious mental numbness, that she must get down to the Post Office and ring up Dr. Fourget at Labielle; he would come and arrange something. She set out, up the steps and along the path—but when she reached the car-turn another slight pain came on, and once again the vagueness overtook her; she sat down on the low wall, almost unable to remember why she had come.
The woman from the next house to the Stansteds’ happened to be coming out onto the path, and saw Julia, slumped on the wall; she stopped and asked if she was all right? Julia looked at her vaguely, and for a moment did not answer; this worried her neighbour more than any actual signs of labour. ‘Has Madame douleurs?’ she asked, giving Julia’s shoulder a little shake.
‘Un peu’ Julia replied then, still looking vacant.
The sensible peasant, who had borne many children herself, and helped still more into the world, realised that something was seriously amiss here—in normal labour women might cry and howl, but this curious remoteness, vacancy, betokened something different.
‘Has Madame telephoned to the Doctor?’
‘No. No, I am on my way to do this’ Julia said, hesitantly.
‘I will do this for Madame—if Madame will write the message, and give me the money, I shall take it to the Bureau de Poste. Now Madame should return to the house; I help her.’ And the good woman led Julia back and down the steps, and replaced her on the sofa. ‘Where is this foreign friend of Madame, who stays and helps her?’ Like all the Larégeois, the neighbour knew all about Luzia.
‘She is gone to Pau’ Julia said, speaking very slowly—even speaking was an effort. She took up the block on which she had been writing her letter to Philip, tore off the half-finished sheet, and carefully printed out, in block capitals, a message in French for Dr. Fourget: ‘I am ill—I shall be grateful if you will come as soon as you can.’ Mercifully she had her purse beside her; she gave the neighbour the note and the money, and then relapsed again into that clouded consciousness.
In fact her well-meaning neighbour didn’t take the message to the Post-Office herself, she gave it to one of her older children; but the child met friends on the way, and went off on some frolic—it was only three hours later that she came home, and reported that the Postmistress had left the message at Dr. Fourget’s house, as he was out. Julia spent most of those three hours in a sort of dulled drowsiness, only aware of the slight, but somehow heavy pain. She wished her aspirins were not upstairs, but she couldn’t face the climb to get them; instead she made some coffee, and drank that—this roused her a little, and she looked at her watch. Goodness, it was nearly seven!—why on earth didn’t Fourget come? And what could have happened to Colin?
Now she began to get frightened. She lit a cigarette, and told herself to take it easy; she was just considering whether she should make another attempt to get at least as far as the inn and telephone from there when a figure appeared, silhouetted against the sunset sky, in the big doorway.
‘Madame Jimmison?’ a voice called.
‘C’est moi—Bonnecourt.’
‘Oh, thank God!’ Julia exclaimed. ‘Entrez.’
The hunter walked into the big room. ‘I bring Madame some isard’ he began—but stopped short as he approached the sofa, and saw Julia’s face, blanched and drawn. ‘Madame is ill?’ he asked.
‘I’m afraid so. I fell, and I think perhaps the child is coming prematurely’ Julia said. ‘Do have some sherry—it is on the big table’ she added; but then she began to feel vague again.
‘Madame has sent for the Doctor?’
‘Yes—at least Mme. from next door said she would telephone for me. But he hasn’t come.’
‘I see to this. I will get my car, and fetch Fourget, if he doesn’t reply to the telephone.’ He went over, felt the coffee percolator, now cool, and peered inside; there was plenty in it, he plugged in in again, and rinsed out Julia’s cup in the sink—then he brought her a fresh, hot cup. ‘Let Madame drink that—I fetch my car. I return very soon.’ He went out.
It was some time before he returned. Having fetched his car he first telephoned to Fourget, who was out; he bullied the Doctor’s house-keeper into giving him various possible numbers, and tried them all, in vain—he rang back to the Doctor’s house and left an urgent message that he was to come to Larége at once when he got in: ‘La maison des Stansted.’ In his absence Julia drank her coffee; she felt enormously comforted by Bonnecourt’s arrival—now at last there was someone who would do something. Actually Bonnecourt did quite a lot when he came back. He asked when she had last eaten.
‘At breakfast—I haven’t felt hungry since. But there are things on the stove and in the frig’ Julia said—she couldn’t remember what they were. ‘Do have something,’ she added. Bonnecourt looked into the saucepans on the stove, glanced into the frig, and took some eggs and milk out of it. ‘Madame has some cognac?’
‘I think so—it should be on the big table.’
Bonnecourt found the brandy—deftly he broke three eggs into a bowl, and set a pan of milk on the gas; while it warmed he beat up the eggs with a fork, and poured the warmed milk onto them, adding brandy and sugar; he strained the mixture into a jug, found a glass, and gave a tumbler-ful to Julia.
Julia obeyed, again immensely comforted. How clever he was!—the egg-flip was something she really could take. ‘This is delicious’ she said. ‘But do please eat yourself—I am so sorry I can’t get it for you.’
‘Ne vous inquietez pas, Madame—I will eat, with remerciments.’ He got out the veal and salad (prepared in vain for Colin’s lunch) from the frig, and ate them at the partly-laid table; he found the bread and wine without being told where to look for them, from time to time refilling Julia’s tumbler—‘You should finish this, Madame.’ Julia did finish it; she still felt the dull pains, and the curious clouded dimness of everything, but with Bonnecourt there she was no longer so frightened or anxious. The hunter however was anxious; while he rinsed out the percolator and prepared fresh coffee he glanced at his watch. This woman was in a grave condition; ce maudit Fourget!—why didn’t he come?
In fact it was after 9.30 when Fourget turned up; Bonnecourt heard his car, and went out to meet him. The Doctor came in, washed his hands at the sink, took vaseline out of his little bag, and made a cursory examination; after washing his hands again he asked Julia how long the pains had been going on?
‘Oh—well for some time; I’m not really sure when they began—it was after I fell.’
Fourget asked about the fall, but briefly; then he led Bonnecourt outside.
‘It is a labour, but it is a false presentation’ he said worriedly. ‘The child cannot be born naturally; it will mean an operation. She must go to Professor Martin at once; his clinic is at Pau. He is a great expert—but there is no time to lose. Who will take her? And it would be wise to advise the Clinic that she comes.’
‘I take her’ Bonnecourt said. ‘Do you inform the Clinic, please.’
‘I do this—and I will come myself, naturally, after I have telephoned. You know where it is? On the Route de Toulouse—No. 300. Now I will tell Madame.’
‘I tell her,’ Bonnecourt said. ‘You go and telephone.’ He knew how slow Fourget’s car was.
‘Why is her friend not here, the beautiful foreign demoiselle? Someone should put Madame’s effets together for her—she is not fit to do it herself.’
‘This shall be seen to’ Bonnecourt said, and hustled the Doctor off.
He too wondered why la belle Portugaise was not there. He had only returned from a climbing trip with some Frenchmen away to the East that afternoon, after an absence of several days—on his way out with them he had killed an isard, cached it, and retrieved it on the way home; remembering Colin’s parting request to him, at his house he had cut off and skinned a leg to take to Julia. While he was doing this his wife stood by, anxiously informing him that she had been visited in his absence by plain-clothes police—‘The Sureté; I am sure of it. They wished to ask you where this young man is, who crossed the frontier with le vieux who fell, and whom you took away in the night. I told them I knew nothing.’ Bonnecourt, busily skinning the gigôt, had found this news disconcerting—the last thing he wanted was to have the Special Police, the ‘Sureté’, on his track. How had they connected him with de Lassalle? Monnro had allowed the young fool to go free, and had told him, Bonnecourt, that old Maupassant had died ‘without speaking’. Could young Monnro have given him away after all? He had decided to ask Mme. Jimmison when he called if she, too, had been visited by the Sureté—but finding her in such straits he let it alone.
Now, when Fourget had gone off in his old car, he returned to the big room, and reported to Julia, very cautiously and gently, what Fourget had said. ‘Professor Martin is excellent—he has an international reputation, and a very pleasant clinique, with a good nursing staff. But this cannot be an easy birth; for the sake of the child you must let me take you there at once, where you will have the most expert care.’
Julia was slightly aghast at this. But she was beginning to feel so desperate that the idea of ‘expert care’ was infinitely consoling. Even now, however, she was practical.
‘It’s a bit late—after ten’ she said. ‘Will they take anyone in at this time of night?’
‘Dr. Fourget has gone to telephone to warn the Professor of your arrival. Now, if Madame will tell me which her room is, and where I can find a suit-case in which to pack her things, and what she most requires, I will do the emballage.’
Fortified by the egg-flip, and still more by this thoughtfulness, Julia managed to tell Bonnecourt where her room was, with her suit-cases under the bed, and what she most needed: several chemises de nuit, her dressing-gown, and a light bed-jacket.
‘Slippers?’ Bonnecourt asked—he was showing himself in his best colours, moved by Julia’s courage and common-sense.
‘Oh yes, of course; thank you. And my brush and comb and powders and things are all on the dressing-table. But perhaps I had better come up’—she half-rose, and sank back again.
‘Leave it to me, chère Madame.’ He went upstairs, and very soon returned with a suit-case which he set on the table beside the sofa, and opened to show her the contents. As he checked them over—‘You ought to be a lady’s-maid!’ Julia said smiling. ‘You have thought of everything.’
‘Madame, I am a married man.’
While Bonnecourt was taking the case out to the car Julia remembered Colin, and scribbled a note—again in Spanish—to tell him where she had gone, and why; when Bonnecourt came back she asked for, and added, the address of the clinic.
‘Leave that in the key-hole when we go’ she said. ‘Lock the door and put the key under the tile—I’ll show you.’ She got up, put some packets of ‘Week-End’ cigarettes out of the cupboard into her handbag, and tried to reach down a light coat from some hooks by the door; but raising her arms again seemed to cause that dull pain—Bonnecourt sprang forward, unhooked the coat, and helped her into it. He was even more impressed by her calmness, and practical attention to details like leaving the note for Colin in such a situation, than he had always been by her beauty. As he helped her up the steps and along to the car he asked—‘Why is Madame alone? Where is Monsieur her brother?’
‘Oh, he had to go over to Spain’ Julia said—‘I expected him back yesterday, but he must have been held up.’
‘And the Portuguese demoiselle?’
‘She’s gone to a ball in Pau’ Julia said, laughing a little—it suddenly struck her as funny that Luzia should be at a ball while all this was going on.
It was exactly 10.30 when they started down, and a bright moonlight night; the neighbour, whose child had caused the lamentable delay in despatching Julia’s telegram to Fourget, had heard and seen the coming and going of cars, the Doctor’s and Bonnecourt’s, and was on the watch—she came out and spoke to Julia.
‘Madame goes to the hospital?’
‘No, to a clinique—thank you for all your help, Madame’ Julia said politely.
‘This is well’ the woman said; she stood watching as the car, an immensely antique Bugatti, drove off. How came M. Bonnecourt to be taking Madame to Pau? It was all most interesting, she told her husband when she went indoors.
* * *
Just an hour earlier Colin reached the frontier at the Grandpont Pass. He had had one day’s unexpected delay, and then two punctures on his drive from Pamplona; he was worried at being so late, and the meticulous checking of his passport, papers, and car-number at the French frontier-post fretted him. In fact the Sureté, on the hunt for de Lassalle, had called on Julia as well as on Mme. Bonnecourt three days before; they were much less easy to foil than the Gendarmerie, and Julia had been driven into giving them her ‘brother’s’ name, and the make and number of his car. Yes, she believed he had gone to Spain.
The French police are very thorough. De Maupassant’s name had told them quite a lot, and Colin himself had unwittingly given them a vital clue when he mentioned to the agent, at Maupassant’s bedside in the hospital, that he had left ce jueune homme to meet friends at an inn in Labielle. They wasted 24 hours combing the numerous auberges in Labielle itself; drawing a blank everywhere, it occurred to some bright spirit to try, next day, the small inn on the main road. There the landlord recollected perfectly the arrival of Bonnecourt, whom he knew by sight, in his familiar old car, and his waiting for over three hours until a Monsieur had driven up in a voiture de sport Anglais, bringing a young man. The Englishman had gone on alone in the direction of Pau; M. Bonnecourt and the young man had returned up the valley. This sufficed to send the Special Police to interview both Julia and Mme. Bonnecourt; finding neither of the two men they wanted, they had alerted all the frontier-posts with Colin’s car-number; his name had been recorded when he last crossed the Grandpont into Spain. They also deployed extra men on foot to patrol the frontier to keep a look-out for Bonnecourt. The latter they missed, since his climbing expedition had been entirely inside France; but the moment Colin drove off the frontier-post was on the telephone to Pau, to report that ce M. Monnro was on his way to Larége; a sergeant on a motor-cycle was despatched from Pau to find him there.
The sergeant missed him too. Driving fast, in the brilliant September moonlight, Colin reached Larége at a quarter to eleven; as always he turned his car before hurrying to the house; he found it dark and empty. There was no answer to his agitated knocking. He put on his torch to look for the key in the familiar hiding-place—by its light he caught sight of the note stuck in the big key-hole; he pulled it out, and sitting on the stone bench outside the door he read it hastily. Oh God!—a miscarriage. Poor Julia! He hurried back to the car, and drove off to the clinic in Pau—but not unnoticed by the neighbour, who also observed the G.B. plate. Ah—Monsieur le frère! What an eventful evening! Colin, recklessly negotiating the hairpin bends down to the main road, was irritated and blinded by the headlight of a motor-cycle coming up towards him—in fact that of the Sergent de Police; having at last passed his light he shot on towards Pau.
The Sergeant, a few minutes later, also found Julia’s house dark and empty; getting no reply to his vigorous knocks he started to enquire on the spot, and banged at the door of the nearest house. Here he struck oil with a vengeance. The neighbour poured out her exciting story: the English Madame appeared to be having a fausse couche, and the neighbour’s own child had taken a telephone message to the Bureau de Poste for Madame, asking Dr. Fourget to come. He came, and presently drove away again; a little later M. Bonnecourt had driven Madame off to Pau in his car. Then Madame’s brother had arrived, and had also driven off, presumably to Pau.
The Sergent pricked up his ears at the mention of Bonnecourt. Where, in Pau, were they going?—to the hospital?
Non, the neighbour said, proud of her knowledge: she asked Madame this, and Madame had said to a Clinique.
‘What address?’
‘Voyons, Monsieur, when a woman in labour is being taken to the doctor in the middle of the night, one does not ask her for addresses!’ the neighbour retorted vigorously. ‘I am not the police! I have given Monsieur all the indications I can—let him use them.’
The sergeant climbed down; Madame’s information had been of great value, he said. He took her name, and turning his machine he also shot off to Pau. The head-quarters of the Gendarmerie would know all the cliniques of accoucheurs—with good fortune they would succeed in pouncing on Bonnecourt, and he, the sergeant, would be congratulated. He drove down the bends and along the main road, very satisfied with his evening’s work.
* * *
Julia and Bonnecourt arrived at Professor Martin’s clinic, on the further outskirts of Pau, about half an hour after midnight; there was a gravelled drive in which the hunter parked his car. They were expected; a nurse opened the door at once and took Julia’s suit-case; then a senior nurse—in fact the principal sage-femme—led Julia into a room where Martin made his examination; Bonnecourt sat in a sort of waiting-room, where he was presently joined by Fourget. ‘No, he has not yet finished, Monsieur le médecin,’ a nurse told Fourget. They waited—the minutes seemed long. At last the Professor—a tall, lean, grey-haired man, with an impressively intelligent face—appeared, and greeted Fourget, who introduced Bonnecourt; a few moments later Julia was brought in by the matron, and placed in a chair.
‘Now, Madame’ the specialist began, ‘it is my duty to put the situation clearly, so that Madame can make her choice. The child is wrongly presented: the legs, not the head, are towards the mouth of the womb, so a natural birth is not possible—it is only the head which can emerge naturally through the cervix. I can do one of two things—either attempt, with instruments, to change the position of the child in the womb, so that the head can emerge, or deliver it by a Caesarian section, through the wall of the abdomen.’
This was a pleasant problem to be faced with at one o’clock in the morning, after being in pain and fruitless labour for well over twelve hours—Julia considered it as best she could. She was taken aback by the idea of a Caesarian section; she was newly-married, she had a beautiful body, and did not like the idea of a great scar down the front of it. But Philip’s baby was the all-important thing, and she asked the Professor—‘For the child, which course is the safest?’
His reply horrified not only Julia, but Bonnecourt as well.
‘I cannot advise Madame—the decision is hers. She is adulte et consciente, and must make her own choice.’
‘But how can I? I am not a specialist, like Monsieur le Professeur’ Julia protested. ‘Why can you not advise me?’
‘C’est la loi de France, Madame’ Martin replied, relentlessly.
At this point Colin hurried in—Julia got up, and clung to him. ‘Oh Colin, what am I to do?’ She began to explain the position to him in English; Martin interrupted her in furious French—‘Madame, I forbid you to speak in a language that I cannot understand!’
Julia, wretchedly, put her halting explanation to Colin in French; Colin in his turn asked Martin which course he would advise? The Professor repeated his tiresome phrase about Madame being ‘adult and conscious’.
‘But this is monstrous!’ Colin exclaimed in French. ‘Madame is not a specialist in these matters, like M. le Professeur.’
‘C’est la loi de France’ Martin repeated inexorably.
Julia, despairingly, turned to old Fourget, and asked for his opinion? Benignly, sadly, the country Doctor put on a complete po-face, and said that Madame alone could decide—it was the law of France.
‘But no help, no advice, from those who know, as I do not?’
‘Unhappily no, Madame.’
Julia looked questioningly at the Matron, and at the two or three nurses who stood by—all returned her glance with a blank, expressionless stare. ‘Bloody loi de France!’ she exclaimed.
Colin went over and took her hand. ‘Take your time’ he said in English—‘just think quietly.’ He turned to Martin, who again looked angry at the sound of a foreign tongue. ‘I merely counsel Madame to reflect for a petit moment’ he said.
Martin still looked angry.
‘In any case, the child is dead!’ he said irritably. ‘I cannot hear its heart beating.’ He stumped out of the room.
Julia was completely stricken by this pronouncement; the tension and anguish of the moment, already over-sufficient, were given a fresh twist. As she turned to Fourget, saying—‘You didn’t tell me that!’ the old head sage-femme, a small mouselike creature, came over and took her hand. ‘Let Madame come to the couch.’ She led her into the adjoining room, where Martin had made his examination, and laid her on the hard bed. There, saying gently ‘Madame le permet?,’ she again loosened her clothes, and placed a small wooden stethoscope—shaped like a mushroom, and in fact familiarly called le champignon—against the protuberance on Julia’s abdomen, and listened. ‘Ah’ she said happily—and added confidentially—‘Monsieur le Professeur does not realise that we notice it, but he had grown very deaf this last year. I can hear the baby’s heart beating perfectly.’
Colin, Bonnecourt, and Dr. Fourget had all come, anxiously, to the door of the examination-room, and stood there looking on, half-horrified, half-hopeful; at the little old sage-femme’s clear declaration both the Frenchmen, quite unembarrassed, went over and listened to the champignon themselves, and stated roundly that they could hear the baby’s heart beating like a drum!—Colin, with British hesitation at this strangely public performance, nevertheless followed them, and listened too. Certainly there was a firm rhythmic sound coming through the ear-pieces of the champignon.
‘Well now you’ll have to settle’ he said to Julia.
They went back to the other room, and the tiny sage-femme summoned the Professor.
Oddly enough at the moment when Colin had taken her hand Julia had suddenly begun to pray, something she had not thought of doing before; she had put up a brief petition for the unborn child, and for wisdom to make a right decision. Short as it was, the prayer had calmed her distress a little. And even with all those blank, unhelpful faces watching her, there had suddenly flashed into her mind the recollection of a lovely pedigree cow at Glentoran, greatly beloved by Philip Reeder, which had had a calf wrongly presented: a first-class vet had come post-haste from Glasgow and tried to turn the calf round, but he failed—the little creature was removed piecemeal, and a week later the cow also died. No!—she didn’t want to die, and she urgently wished Philip to have the child on which his heart was set; her decision was clear. When Martin came back—
‘Monsieur le Professeur, I desire to undergo the operation’ she said in a firm voice.
Those few words produced an extraordinary transformation-scene in that rather bare room. All those faces, hitherto utterly blank, were suddenly wreathed in beaming smiles; there was a chorus of ‘Ah, c’est très-bien’ from the sage-femme and the nurses, while Martin rubbed his hands, saying—‘Madame has made the right choice.’ He told a nurse to telephone for the anaesthetist at once, and the Matron to prepare all in the operating theatre. Old Dr. Fourget came over and wrung Julia’s hand—‘Bravo! Madame makes une belle décision.’
Julia was greatly shocked.
‘My God, what a set of bastards they are, not to have told me themselves!’ she said to Colin indignantly in English. This time Martin didn’t protest; he wanted to make his preparations—but as he started to leave the room Colin caught him by the arm.
‘Where is the nearest hotel? I wish to remain close by.’
‘The Victoire—it is only a hundred metres further down the road; it is simple, but Monsieur will be quite comfortable there.’
‘But can I get in, at such an hour?’ By now it was after 1.15 a.m.
‘I have them telephoned to.’ The Professor spoke to a nurse. ‘And inform Monsieur of the reply. I must prepare; I wish to lose no more time’ he said to Colin, and went out.
The matron and a nurse were leading Julia away—Colin intercepted them. ‘Darling, I shall be at a pub only a hundred yards away; I’ll see you as soon as they let me.’
She kissed him. ‘Precious Colin!’
Bonnecourt profited by Colin’s interception, and went over to Julia; he took her hand, and kissed it.
‘Madame, I regret our hideous loi—I am ashamed of it!’ He was full of some emotion, which made him less articulate then Frenchmen normally are. ‘Madame’s great courage makes me feel proud—as the English are apt to do.’
Julia was surprised, and rather embarrassed; it was not the ideal moment for dealing with any emotion. But even then she realised that something—she herself, or the English ‘thing’—had hit the hunter for six. She took her usual way out of any crisis, lightly and graciously.
‘Monsieur Bonnecourt, I can’t thank you enough. You have been infinitely good to me.’
‘Madame, I would do the same a thousand times over.’ The little head sage-femme was beginning to tug at Julia’s arm, but Bonnecourt persisted, giving the nurse a gentle shove. ‘Un petit moment!’ ‘I hope Madame will have a son, with some of Madame’s great qualities’ he said nervously, and again kissed Julia’s hand.
Julia had wanted to thank Fourget too; but the old Doctor, after the belle décision had been taken, had gone off—he did not care for such late hours. So the matron succeeded in hustling her patient away to go through all the tedious procedures before an abdominal operation: the shaving, the washing, the swabbing with iodine, the enema; the pointless enquiry—in Julia’s case—about false teeth, which must be removed before an anaesthetic. Colin and Bonnecourt waited while the nurse telephoned to the Victoire—Colin explained his delay, Bonnecourt related how he had, so luckily, taken a gigot d’isard to Mme. Jimmison, and found that she was in labour. They could hear the nurse, outside in the hall, desperately urging the Exchange to ring the hotel again: ‘But let them arouse themselves! It is urgent.’ Colin looked out through the door—it had occurred to him that he ought to put a call through to the Office and make them cable to Philip Jamieson and let him know about Julia; but he would have preferred to do this rather less publicly—nurses were running to and fro, and even as he watched a small man, followed by another carrying a bag, came in; the anaesthetist and his assistant.
‘I want to ring London’ he said to Bonnecourt; ‘but not from here. Where’s a good place?’
Bonnecourt grinned broadly.
‘Why not the Heriots?’
‘But they’re having this dance tonight’ Colin objected.
‘Raison de plus! We might get some supper, and even champagne’ Bonnecourt said. ‘Anyhow there you can be sure of privacy.’
‘Yes—yes, I think that’s a good notion’ Colin said. At that moment the nurse returned to say that the little hotel had reserved a room for Monsieur, and when would Monsieur be arriving?
‘Oh, when I can!’ Colin exclaimed impatiently. ‘Say in about half-an-hour, or three-quarters.’
‘Monsieur remains here? The operation will take more than une demi-heure’ the nurse said, rather officiously.
‘No—I go to the house of le Lord Heriot’ Colin said. ‘You can ring me there if I am wanted. Come on’ he said to Bonnecourt. ‘Can you show me the way?’
‘Of course’ Bonnecourt replied. They drove off, Bonnecourt leading.