The Violins of Saint-Jacques by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Author:Patrick Leigh Fermor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2017-06-13T04:00:00+00:00

Berthe felt her heart beating fast. Looking at the clock she saw that it was twenty past three. She pushed the letter into the front of her dress and, seizing the butler’s arm, said, ‘Quick, Gentilien! There may still be time.’ They ran along the passage and up the back stairs. A couple were sitting on the top step with their hands lying open on their knees and their eyes shut in a long and motionless kiss. The two heads fell apart as Gentilien and Berthe stepped between them and Berthe saw that the girl was Lucienne, looking up at her with her lids half open as though waking out of sleep. When she saw who it was she jumped up with a cry of, ‘oh!’ but by that time Berthe and Gentilien were halfway up the next flight. Josephine’s room was empty. Her white ball dress was thrown across a chair. The white satin shoes lay beside it and the carpet was scattered with a constellation of gardenias. The sheets and the pillows under the drawn mosquito net were rumpled to look as though Josephine were asleep inside. But the dressing table had been pulled away from the window and, running over to it, Berthe saw a narrow footmark of French chalk from the ballroom floor printed on the polished sill. Outside, the branches of an immense ceiba tree almost touched the wall.

‘It was a way down,’ Berthe said, ‘that we had often used together – more for the excitement of it than from any real need for secrecy. It was only a hop from the window on to the nearest branch, then you climbed from one branch to another almost as easily as walking downstairs and slid down the ropes of a swing on to the grass. But there was nobody about below, nothing but the lawn and then the steep forest and not a movement anywhere except the falling flakes. Where could she have gone? All at once I remembered Marcel Sciocca’s repeated glances at the time, his sudden departure after the challenge, the alacrity of Josephine’s flight upstairs at the approach of three o’clock. . . . Where would they hide, I wondered, in so small an island? There wasn’t a boat for over a week. . . . Then the whole thing suddenly became clear. That light out in the bay! I ran across the landing and looked out of the front window. It was still there. There was no time to lose. “If only Monsieur Sosthène were in!” I said out loud.

‘ “Monsieur Sosthène? But I saw him come in about ten minutes ago. Perhaps he is in his room.” Gentilien picked up the petrol lamp and we went down the passage. No light showed under the door and there was no answer to Gentilien’s knocking and his cries of “Monsieur Sosthène!” Remembering Sosthène’s threats, in a sudden access of alarm I told him to go in. The door was unlocked and I followed him inside.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.