The Runaway Visitors (17 page)

It was Victoria only who felt a more complete isolation when she heard that Charles also was going away: it did not affect Sebastien and Amanda. It was business that took him to Paris, apparently, and he would be away for about a week, Miss Jameson said. A week is a very short time, Victoria told herself. She could endure for a week, knowing that he would soon be back again. But such complacency was punctured quickly when Miss Jameson added that Margarita was also going to Paris.

‘Clothes, she says! ’ But Miss Jameson was scornful. ‘It’s a funny time of year to be going to Paris to buy clothes, especially when she’s so proud of all these famous Italian dressmakers who make her look so beautiful. Well, they may pull the wool over some people’s eyes, but they don’t pull it over mine.’

‘Do
you
think she’s beautiful, Miss Jameson?’

‘Oh yes, she’s beautiful all right. Especially to men’s taste, I’d say.’

Although Victoria felt that she should not discuss Charles with his housekeeper, she could not resist the temptation to ask:

‘Do you think they’ll get married, Miss Jameson?’

‘Married? Only Mr. Duncan knows that.
I’ve
never thought of him as the marrying kind myself.’ (Which was not what Victoria wanted to hear). ‘But I suppose it might come to that. ’

The sunlight seemed to vanish from Victoria’s sky at that pronouncement.

‘How would
you
like that, Miss Jameson?’

‘Oh, that would be the end of me, as far as Mr. Duncan is concerned.
He
might like to keep me, but
she
would never have it. She likes servants to know their place, but what she thinks is my place and what I think about it are two very different things. No, I wouldn’t last long, have no doubt about that. ’

‘But what would you do then?’

‘I might get a little house of my own somewhere. I’m not hard up. But I expect I’d miss the work. And a good housekeeper can pick and choose these days. . . . Not that I wouldn’t be sorry, Victoria. I’ve got a great admiration for Mr. Duncan. There’s not many like him about. ’

Victoria agreed, but did not say so. It was obvious that Miss Jameson had thought about her future because she probably saw marriage between Charles and Margarita as a distinct possibility, if not inevitable. And there was the fact that they were in Paris together. ‘They may pull the wool over some people’s eyes,’ Miss Jameson had said; but why should they do that? Did Miss Jameson think that business on Charles’s part and clothes on Margarita’s were merely an excuse? Did she think they had gone simply to be alone together? The thought was torture to Victoria. She saw them in a perpetually sunlit Paris together with none of their friends to intervene between them; and she thought there
could
be only one reason for their visit.

So there they were, the three of them, disconsolate now where they had been happy before. Victoria asked Miss Jameson if she might listen to music in Charles’s studio, and sat there for hours, knitting and listening, solaced at being where he so often was. She asked Amanda to come, but Amanda preferred the terrace and her letter writing. Sebastien was always off and away on the bicycle. Giorgio wrote often both to Amanda and Victoria, but Amanda hugged her letters to herself and Victoria could hardly share hers since they were love letters.

On the day after Charles’s departure for Paris, Victoria joined her sister on the terrace for lunch, but when Miss Jameson appeared with the meal, Sebastien had not arrived.

‘ Only for two to-day,’ Miss Jameson said, removing the third place which Victoria had set. ‘Sebastien took a packed lunch with him and said he might be away all day.’

‘He didn’t tell me,’ said Victoria. ‘Do you know where he went?’

‘Only said he wanted to explore a bit further afield.’ ‘Well, I suppose that’s all right. He can’t come to much harm, I imagine.

Will he be back for supper?’ ‘He didn’t say. I think that young man can look after himself. ’ ‘Would he have gone off to visit Giorgio?’ asked Amanda jealously.

‘I shouldn’t think so. That would be rather far.’

‘I know he misses him,’ said Amanda. ‘And so do I.’

‘We all do,’ said Victoria gently, ‘ but perhaps Giorgio will soon be back and you can visit him again.’ They gave no more thought to Sebastien, not even when he did not return to supper,

and before they had

time to become really anxious about him, he rang up and it was Miss Jameson who answered the telephone and took the message. She went into the studio where both sisters were listening to music and glancing through a magazine on art.

‘Sebastien is staying out to-night,’ Miss Jameson announced. ‘He’s a bit too far away to get back to night, he says.’

‘I wish he’d let me know when he intends to do these things,’ Victoria said with a touch of irritation.

‘Apparently he didn’t intend to do it, Victoria. I shouldn’t worry about Sebastien if I were you. It’s probably better for him to stay somewhere than to ride through the night.’

‘If he had enough money with him to do that.’

‘I asked him that, and he said he had. ’

‘Well, I wish you had called me to speak to him, Miss Jameson.’

‘Sorry, I’m sure. I’ll remember next time.’

But there would not be a next time. The following morning, the local postman brought a letter for Victoria, posted in the village the day before, addressed in Sebastien’s handwriting. She tore open the envelope in perplexity, wondering why on earth Sebastien should be writing to her.

‘Dear Vicki,’ she read,

‘Don’t die of shock when you read this, because I’ve thought about it very seriously and planned it all carefully and I know just what I’m doing. By the time you read this, I shall be on my way to England. There’s just time to join the other fellows who are going to camp in Snowdonia, and I rang up Mr. Penberthy from Florence and he said that if I could get back by the 15
^th
, I could go with them; and I think I can do it by then.

‘I didn’t want to go to Florence in the first place, as you

know. Giorgio and the motor bike made it bearable, but as soon as Giorgio had his smash-up, I was really fed up. There’s nothing to do there, as far as I’m concerned; and the more I thought about the chaps setting off for camp and rock climbing and something really adventurous and exciting to do, the more I wanted to come back.

‘I think I’ve made myself fit for this trip. I’ve been walking and cycling quite seriously, and getting back into form, and I’m sure I can do long distances, so don’t be afraid that the Alps will get me down or anything like that. In any case, it’s summer and all the passes will be open; and I shall have a fair amount of money with me, so if it all gets too much, I shall jettison the bike or put it on the train and finish the journey like that. So you see, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. I’ve got my passport, just as many clothes as I must have and enough money to get by; and if anything quite unexpected turned up, I can always ring you up at Mr. Duncan’s.

‘Pity that I couldn’t let you know what I intended to do, but I knew what a fuss it would cause. You’d try to persuade me not to go, and my mind was made up. Or you’d decide that the whole lot of us should come back, and that would cut short your visit and separate you from Giorgio, and I know you wouldn’t like that. So when I set off, I shall post this letter to you, and when you get it, I'll be well on my way.

‘Mr. Duncan will also have a letter from me, thanking him for his hospitality. Not that I saw much of him, or think I will be missed! But I really would like you to thank Miss Jameson for me. I think she was really trumps. We were quite wrong about her at first, and the “lovely grub” she gave us is going to be sorely missed. Anyway, give her my love; and whatever you do, don’t worry! It’s high time I struck out on my own a bit, and to tell you the truth, I’m quite looking forward to biking right to the English Channel.

‘I don’t know whether you’ll be back in London when I get back from North Wales. Perhaps not; in which case I’m sure I can always go to stay with Scotty Scofield in the New Forest—he’s always inviting me. Or with Marcus Potter at Woodbridge.

‘I’ll be in touch, Vicki. Love to you and Amanda, and don’t

forget my love to Jeanie! AND DON'T WORRY.

Sebastien. ’

Victoria put the letter down on the table and stared into space. Why hadn’t she foreseen something like this? She had been too engrossed with her own affairs, and with those of the more obvious Amanda, to realise that Sebastien too was unsettled.

He had started yesterday morning, so he couldn’t have got very far. Perhaps, in the car, she could overtake him and make him see reason. If he wanted so much to go to camp (and she had known all the time how much he wanted it) it would be better for him to fly. But he doesn’t want to fly, she cautioned herself. Sebastien wanted to do it this way; but he might run into all sorts of dangers. Mountain storms . . . losing his way . . . coming up against some sort of thugs. Victoria could not imagine many dangers lying in wait for him, but still felt anxious.

On an ordinary push-bike, the motor route was closed to him. He would take the old route that ran through towns and villages. If she went after him with the car, she could easily miss him in places like Pisa: and if he went off the road at all, it would be hopeless. She felt anxiety rising like a tide within her.

‘Is that from Giorgio?’ asked Amanda jealously, seeing her sister staring abstractedly into space.

‘No,’ said Victoria. ‘ No, it’s not from Giorgio.’ She would not tell Amanda for the moment. She must decide what to do first. But she could show the letter to Miss Jameson and see what she thought about it. She replaced the letter in its envelope, and when breakfast was finished and she took the tray back to the kitchen, she took Sebastien’s letter with it.

‘I’ve had a letter from Sebastien,’ she told Miss Jameson.

‘Now why on earth should he write you a letter? Isn’t he coming back the day?’

‘No, he’s not. You’d better read it.’

She passed the letter to Miss Jameson and while that lady read it, Victoria washed her own and Amanda’s breakfast dishes.

‘Well, what do you think of that?’ Miss Jameson took her reading spectacles off and looked at Victoria. ‘I must say he shows plenty of spirit.’

‘You don’t mean you approve, do you?’

‘No, I don’t approve, but I do admire him. He’s embarked on a long ride, and he’s trained for it, and he’ll probably be as fit as a fiddle at the end of it—provided he doesn’t have any accidents in the meantime.’

‘I don’t see what accidents he could have on an ordinary bike. All the same, I don’t like it, Miss Jameson. I’m anxious about him already and I know I shall get more anxious every day we don’t hear from him. I did think of going after him in the car. ’ ‘Well, you might find him, I suppose, but he wouldn’t appreciate it.’

‘But I might persuade him to fly instead. He wouldn’t appreciate that either, I suppose. What ought I to do, I wonder?’ ‘There’s only two things you
can
do. Go after him, as you said; or let him get on with it. But there’s one thing you must do, and

that’s to let Mr. Duncan know.’ ‘What can
he
do, stuck in Paris? I haven’t the slightest intention of letting him know. Time enough

when he gets back. ’

‘But he’s responsible for you.’

‘No, he’s not really responsible. My parents are the ones
really
responsible, and, failing them, I’m responsible. I ought to have seen that Sebastien was unsettled. Mr. Duncan hardly saw him at all and wouldn’t know whether he was unsettled or not. You can’t just hand over responsibility as if it were a parcel you didn’t want.’

‘All the same, you should tell him. ’

‘To disturb his week in Paris? Why, he might feel he had to come back, and
that
wouldn’t please him or the Signorina Margarita. No, we won’t tell him. I won’t, and you must promise me, Miss Jameson, that you won’t either.’

‘It would cost me my job,’ said Miss Jameson.

‘Ha,’ said Victoria scornfully, recognising that for what it was worth. ‘Please promise me and then I know I can rely on it.’

‘Well, I don’t know what he could do if he
was
here, so I’ll make the promise for the time being, and in few days he will be back.’

‘I wish I could be sure that Sebastien will be all right,’ said

Victoria.

‘So do I. I quite expect he will be . . .’

But they were both anxious. Victoria was surprised by the extent of Miss Jameson’s anxiety and realised that she had become fond of Sebastien, as Sebastien, in his fashion, had been fond of her. She wondered what Miss Jameson had made of the parts of the letter referring to herself: ‘She was really trumps, we were quite wrong about her at first. ’ Perhaps they would make her understand just how forbidding she
had
been to them at first.

Victoria went to break the news to Amanda, who was thunderstruck and then oddly excited by the news. ‘Sebastien has run away?’ she exclaimed, when Victoria told her.