The Numbered Account

by Ann Bridge

  The child duly came up after tea to help Julia unpack, which she did briskly—Julia was again struck by her ease of movement on her bad foot. ‘How is your ankle? It seems much better,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, it’s wonderful! That surgeon or whatever he is, in Lawsanne, pulled it about—oh it did hurt!—and then he said I was to have massarge for it, every other day.’

  ‘But can you get massage here?’ Julia asked.

  ‘No, but there’s a very good massoose in that little town where Mrs. de Ritter does her shopping, so they’ve been taking me in—I haven’t missed a single day. They are kind! And the swelling’s nearly all gone—look.’

  Julia looked, as the girl held out her foot—the injured ankle had almost returned to the delicate perfection of the other one.

  ‘How excellent—I am so glad,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but how’s it all to be paid for?’ June asked, with her usual directness. ‘That surgeon!—and an English girl who came and stayed a night here told me that Swiss massooses charge the earth, in our money. And these people are poor, reelly,’ June said, staring at Julia with wide eyes. ‘Look at Mrs. de Ritter!—up before six, and doing all the housework, as well as the cooking. I asked her why she didn’t have a girl in to help, and she said she couldn’t afford it. I don’t want them to spend money on me.’

  ‘I’ve been given the cash to pay for all your medical expenses,’ Julia said. ‘So you needn’t worry.’

  ‘Who by?’ June, true to type, was incredulous.

  ‘The bank,’ Julia lied swiftly. ‘You gave me that tip about the bus-tour, and the papers were all recovered; and the bank people were so pleased that when I said your ankle needed treatment, they gave me the money I asked for. Everything’s covered.’

  ‘Oh, I am glad. And that girl, the proper Miss Armitage, will have her money back all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t think now how I ever came to do a thing like that,’ June said thoughtfully, smoothing and folding sheets of tissue paper on the polished top of the heavy old walnut chest of drawers. ‘Mum said I was a silly to go in for it; but it was worse than silly, it was downright wicked, helping to steal another girl’s money. Oh’—with one of her bird-like hops to a different subject—‘what’s happened to Mr. B., and that nasty Wright?’

  ‘Mr. Borovali is in prison,’ Julia replied deliberately.

  ‘What, for stealing the papers and the money?’ June turned pale. ‘What about Wright? Is he in prison too?’

  ‘Not yet—he’s in hospital with concussion,’ Julia said—still, in spite of everything, relishing the recollected picture of Antrobus hurling that disagreeable young man into the Aar. ‘But he’ll be put in prison too, as soon as he’s well enough.’

  ‘Out here?’

  ‘Yes. The crime was committed here.

  ‘Oh!’ June, still very pale, again stared at Julia, her brown eyes wide. ‘And what about me?’ she asked. ‘Shall I have to go to prison too?’

  ‘I hope not—I’ve tried to prevent it. You see you did something that’s called “turning King’s Evidence”, and when a person does that—’

  ‘Oh, I never!’ June interrupted indignantly. ‘That’s when a wide boy gives away his pals! I never did anything like that.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you would call Wright and Boro-vali your pals, exactly,’ Julia said calmly. ‘But in fact you did, didn’t you, at one point decide to help me instead of them—and told me about the bus-tour? That’s what is letting you out.’

  June began to cry.

  ‘Oh, I never thought I’d be called King’s Evidence! That’s a nasty thing!’

  Julia was startled afresh by June’s highly peculiar moral code—for clearly she had one, of a sort.

  ‘Which do you think is worst—to let down two crooks like Wright and Borovali, or to steal another girl’s money?’ she asked. ‘You did let them down, granted; but what you were helping them to do before you changed your mind was plain theft. Which is worst? Think, June—you don’t think enough.’

  June sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with, Julia noticed, the gentian-embroidered handerchief bought in Interlaken.

  ‘Oh yes—“Thou shalt not steal”—Dad was always saying that. Yes, the stealing was the worst, and I’m glad I helped to stop it. But “King’s Evidence” is a nasty word to have tacked onto one!’

  ‘Do try to make up your own mind, June,’ Julia said rather impatiently; ‘don’t be fooled by words.’ June’s attitude to the phrase ‘King’s Evidence’ was, she thought, an astonishing example of the frightening power of certain words among the ill-educated—purely emotive, bearing no relation to morals or conduct. It was like the Trades Unions’ idiotic use of the word ‘black’, which is really only short for ‘blackmail’—of the public at large.

  The girl’s reply, when it came—after more sniffing and eye-dabbing—surprised Julia.

  ‘These people here, the de Ritters I mean, don’t care a thing about money. I never knew anything like it! And they’re good, and enjoy being good. Can you beat that? She’s so beautiful, and she dresses quite well; but she does her hair in that fearfully old-fashioned way, and never uses lip-stick—she says the Pastor’s congregation wouldn’t like it. I will say, they make you think!’

  ‘Well have they made you think whether you did right or wrong to help me to recover Miss Armitage’s fortune, which you set out to steal?’ Julia asked remorselessly.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m sure now that that was right. Only “King’s Evidence” is a nasty word.’

  ‘Well it’s the word that will keep you out of prison, please God—nothing else will,’ Julia said.

  June said nothing more, but continued to unpack; in the bright light from the high window Julia noticed that the dark line at the roots of the girl’s hair was now very marked.

  ‘You didn’t do anything about a rinse?’ she asked. ‘Wasn’t it possible?’

  ‘Yes, I found I could have had one in Lawsanne, but I didn’t like to ask for it,’ June replied. ‘I was worrying about them paying, of course; but even if I’d had the money, I should have felt funny, suggesting a rinse to them! It’s not their sort of thing at all. But one of the daughters, Hahnriette they call her—she brings her wash for her Mum to do; as if she hadn’t enough work!—said she’d set my hair if I washed it, so I did. Washed my hair in Lux, imagine!—but it came out lovely, as a matter of fact. And Hahnriette set it a treat, don’t you think?’ She turned her small head this way and that, to display Hen-riette’s set. Julia duly admired it.

  ‘Hahnriette has the sweetest kiddies,’ June pursued. ‘They run round after me, though I can’t speak a word of French. I do like them—I teach them English words, and they love it.’ She paused, seeking for words to express a meaning new and unfamiliar to her. ‘This is the queerest set-up ever! They’re all poor, and they’re all good, and yet they’re happier than any people I’ve ever known. It makes you think, doesn’t it?’ she repeated.

  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 s
cene 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’.