The Numbered Account (42 page)

After supper that evening June went out to the kitchen to help Germaine put the plates in the washing-up machine, polish the spoons and forks, and generally tidy up; Julia sat with Jean-Pierre in his study. She began by again thanking him for having June, and then brought out the five hundred francs which Antrobus had given her. ‘Will this cover her doctor's fees, and all this massage, which is having such a wonderful effect? And then there is the petrol for taking her to and fro; I'm positive Germaine wouldn't have sent the car to Guyardon for groceries every other day!—she's far too good a housekeeper.'

He smiled a little, and sat looking at the notes on his desk, but made no move to touch them.

‘Where does this money come from?' he asked at length.

‘From my cousin's colleagues. As I told you, the child rendered them an important service by giving me certain information which helped in the recovery of the documents; so when I asked for money on her behalf, I was given it.' She blushed a little, remembering that uncomfortable scene at lunch. ‘But I told June a lie about it,' she added rather hurriedly—‘I said the bank had given me the money.'

‘Why?'

‘Oh, do you ask that? How could I let her know that the Secret Service was connected with this? She's so fearfully silly.'

‘You do not like her? We have received the impression
that she is devoted to you. Most understandably—you have been very good to her.'

‘Not all that good—and I've made use of her for my own purposes, or rather for Colin's. I've been rather bothered about that—I was practically trading on her affection. But what was at stake was so vitally important, and at least I did her no harm—in fact getting her here (thanks to your kindness) has conferred a major benefit on her.'

‘Why do you say that?' he asked. There was sometimes a refreshing innocence—or was it humility?—about the Pastor.

Julia told him, at some length, about her conversation with June, and the revolution beginning to be effected in the child's muddled values by her stay at La Cure; Jean-Pierre laughed a great deal about the girl's dismay over the words ‘King's Evidence'.

‘Yes, this is how they think now,' he said. ‘Crime is fairly reputable, but to report a criminal to authority is unutterably shameful! The whole moral outlook is becoming completely distorted.'

Julia presently returned to practicalities.

‘Well is this enough for her massage, and the surgeon, and the petrol?' she asked, touching the notes on his desk. ‘I suppose she's due for two or three more treatments by the masseuse while I'm here, isn't she?' (She had a moment's regret that she had not got the Porsche to run June about in, and to be parked by the Frégate at the edge of the village green outside La Cure.)

Now, at last, Jean-Pierre looked at the money.

‘In fact this will be exact,' he said—‘even covering the extra petrol, which I would gladly have given. You have begun a good work on this child, and if we really have, as you say, contributed to it, that is a privilege for us.'

‘Of course you have—you've done far more than me.'

‘Will you be able to keep in touch with her?' the Pastor asked.

Julia was greatly taken aback by this question. The idea of visiting the house in What's-it Way at Malden had
never occurred to her, and was distinctly dismaying. She was kind by nature, but it was a casual, spontaneous kindness, lightly given and soon forgotten.

‘Do you think I ought to?' she asked.

‘But obviously. Any redemptive work needs to be followed up, followed through. What future do you envisage for her?'

Julia was positively horrified. It had never occurred to her for a single second that she was doing a ‘redemptive work' for June, and the future she had envisaged for the girl was the same as her past—going on having her feet photographed in pretty shoes for advertisements. She had taken a certain amount of trouble to ensure that this employment could continue, but she had never looked any farther, and she told de Ritter so frankly.

‘I could see her from time to time, of course,' she said at the end. ‘But this job seems to suit her very well.'

‘You really think so? A job that simply involves advertising her body, or parts of it? If she is as foolish as you seem to think, I should have thought it rather dangerous for her.'

‘I haven't thought about it at all,' Julia said, flatly. ‘I'm not a do-gooder. She makes her living from her feet, and I've tried to help her to go on doing that—and to keep her out of prison!' She rather resented these problems suddenly being thrust upon her. ‘Have you got other ideas for her?' she asked.

‘Yes. But you are tired tonight—we can discuss them later. I will call Germaine; she shall take you up to bed. Here you shall rest.'

Chapter 17
Bellardon—Berne

Those six days at Bellardon did Julia a lot of good. As the Pastor had said, there was peace at La Cure; but almost more useful to her state at the time was the being immersed in the life and concerns of a quite different set of people, who knew nothing of her private trouble, and attributed any lack of spirits on her part to the nervous strain of rescuing Aglaia's fortune from a gang of desperate criminals, armed with revolvers. The affair in the Aares-Schlucht had of course got into the papers, though not its real background; and to Henriette and Armand's wife, when they came over with their children to get their washing done, Julia was a heroine to be admired and cosseted, merely because she had been present. ‘You saw the shots! But this is extraordinary!' Henriette exclaimed—‘To see people shooting with intent to kill!' (Julia had some rather unenthusiastic thoughts about neutral nations, which she suppressed.)

But the presence of Germaine's grandchildren introduced a new idea in connection with June.

‘This young girl really has a great gift for children,' Germaine exclaimed one day, looking from the kitchen window into the garden, where Gisèle sat tranquilly sewing in the arbour while her infants swarmed round June, who was folding paper caps for them out of an old copy of the
Gazette de Lausanne
. With Julia, Gisèle had just hung out a line of newly-washed sheets along the lawn, and, as her mother watched, one of the children went and fingered them, leaving muddy marks.

‘No, '
Toinette! Naughty!' June said, and slapped the fat little hand; ' Toinette pouted and cried a little, but two minutes later she was cuddling up to the English girl as confidingly as ever—‘
Meess June, faites-moi un papper-cap
.' Julia had already noticed with surprise that June, herself
half a child, not only enjoyed playing with the children but in fact kept them in order with the flat, matter-of-fact competence of working-class people, untroubled by psychological theories; if a child did wrong it was slapped, promptest and least troubling of punishments.

‘It is really a pity that she could not take a position as
bonne d'enfants
out here,' Germaine pursued, returning to the window after a careful glance at the various saucepans on her big stove. ‘There is such a demand for English nurses and governesses, and they are very well paid, especially with the rate of exchange. Would not this be a more wholesome employment for June than being photographed for advertisements?'

Julia hesitated before replying. On the night of her arrival she had resented the Pastor's attempt to saddle her with the responsibility for June's moral welfare—partly from sheer fatigue. But earlier she had also resented, fiercely, the use to which a harmless child like June had been put. The Modern Face Agency had let her in for Mr. Borovali—what would they let her in for next time? Being a
bonne
in some respectable Swiss family was obviously a much more wholesome—
sain
was the word Germaine had used—form of employment for the girl. But Julia was always practical—and now wished to be noncommittal.

‘She'd teach any little Swiss she was with an appalling accent,' she said. ‘And no grammar at all. She's completely uneducated.'

‘So? All the same they would learn some English—and she is a person who can rule children easily, which is the essential.' She turned away to her cooking, and Julia went out with a basket to pick peas.

She left Bellardon three days later not only with regret, but with a strong sense of privilege that Fate and Colin between them should have sent her there; it would have been a real loss not to have met Jean-Pierre and Germaine and seen the calm beauty of their lives. As for June, when the Pastor had driven their luggage down to the hot little station—June's ill-gotten trousseau of clothes was too much
for the hand-cart—she burst into tears, and threw herself into Germaine's arms.

‘Oh, you have been so good! I'll never forget it. And I've been so happy. Give my love to the kiddies when they come over—I shall miss them like anything.'

Jean-Pierre wrung Julia's hand.

‘Come back!
Ne manquez pas!
We shall expect you.' He lowered his voice and spoke in English. ‘Thank you for what you have done for my godchild—I think at some cost to yourself! See her when she returns to England.'

‘Of course I will—I want to.'

The long train from the frontier drew in, the stationmaster and Jean-Pierre put the luggage aboard, Julia kissed Germaine, June pulled herself up the high steps and nipped along to their carriage; she and Julia both leaned from the window—lowered to get the luggage in—as the train pulled out.

‘Bye-bye! Thanks again!' June shouted, waving. The Pastor had removed his black hat and also waved it in farewell. ‘Remember that he who has put his hand to the plough must not look back,' he called, his resonant preacher's voice carrying above the noise of the train.

‘What on earth did he mean by that?' June asked, when a curve in the line hid Bellardon, and they sat down on the soft grey-green seats.

‘I can't imagine,' Julia said carelessly; she could in fact imagine only too well, and was still a little reluctant.

June had some ideas of her own about her future, very concrete ones, and as the train rolled through the rich country-side she put one to Julia.

‘Miss Probyn, you said Mr. Borovali was in prison. How long will he be there?'

‘Oh, seven or eight years, I should think, at the very least. It was a big robbery, with forgery and all sorts of other things as well.'

‘Can he pay me my screw from prison?'

‘No, certainly not. And for your own sake you'd better forget that you ever knew him,' Julia said sharply. ‘You don't want seven years in prison yourself, do you?'

June's face puckered with dismay.

‘Oh no!—that would kill Mum! But who will pay my salary? Six pounds a week I was to get, and it's just on six weeks now since I came out. I can't afford to lose my pay'.

‘No one will pay you anything, and you mustn't ask for it.' Julia foresaw the silly child possibly tackling the Agency on this head. ‘Don't you realise that you will be tremendously lucky if you escape going to prison yourself? Don't be a fool, June.'

‘But I ought to have my pay!'

‘No you oughtn't—not for helping to commit a crime. Anyhow the bank gave me something over £40 for you, because you turned King's Evidence'—Julia deliberately used the distasteful phrase. ‘That is more than your six weeks' pay, and it has put your foot right, or nearly. Let it go.'

‘Well if you say so, I will,' the young girl said. ‘Only I meant to repay you the money you lent me in Interlarken out of what Mr. B. was to give me. Never mind—I'll save up and pay you back. £12 it was, wasn't it?' She glanced up at the broad racks above their heads, loaded with her luggage. ‘At least I've got my outfit,' she said, in a satisfied tone. She paused. ‘Anyhow I don't feel now that one ought to worry so much about money—I mean not after staying with the de Ritters. Rich or poor, they couldn't care less! But one can't get out of the habit all at once, and everyone else I know does. Except Dad—he was always talking about not serving Mammon.'

Mrs. Hathaway had arranged to bring her luggage in early to the Haupt-Bahnhof, and that they should all dine together at an hotel only a short distance from the station before boarding their sleepers. On arriving in Berne Julia put her and June's luggage in the
consigne
too; then they walked across through the warm bright evening towards the hotel.

‘There wouldn't be time to see the bears, I s'pose?' June asked. ‘This is Berne, isn't it? Mr. B. said there were real bears here, in a sort of sunk place they can't get out of, and that they'll eat buns if you give them to them on a stick. He said he'd bring me to see them before we left. I
would
like to see a real bear—not like that silly old Golden Bear!'

‘No, there isn't time now, Julia said, thinking how well the hatefully astute Borovali had taken June's measure, and offered the appropriate lure and bribe to every facet of her character: her vanity, her cupidity, even her childishness. ‘But some time when I'm in London I might take you to the Zoo,' she said recklessly. ‘There are bears there. I expect you've been, though?'