Emergency in the Pyrenees

by Ann Bridge

  ‘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.’

  Chapter 6

  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 consideri
ng 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.

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘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.