Day of the Arrow Read online

  Clearly Christian enjoyed being scrutinized for he smiled.

  ‘All right,’ Lindsay said. ‘But move a bit farther away. Sit on the wall. You’ll have to keep fairly still.’

  It had struck him that he could very easily anchor this boy, who was after all one of the central characters of the mystery, fast to his side with the chains of his own vanity. Besides, there was nothing like drawing a face for making one aware of its secrets, its inconsistencies. Lindsay knew that even the most faultless features, even the blankest type of young-girl beauty, revealed something strange during its transposition to a piece of paper. And this face was far from blank.

  ‘You like it here?’ he asked.

  Christian smiled. ‘Yes. Do you?’

  ‘It’s interesting. It’s been getting steadily more interesting ever since the rather odd welcome you gave me.’

  The boy said nothing.

  ‘Do you often go about shooting tame birds with a bow and arrow?’

  The strange eyes flickered over him for a moment—a look as cold, removed, disinterested as that of a parrot. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I was after a crow. They’ve been killing the doves.’

  He was so bored with his own lie—so bored, perhaps, with the necessity for having to tell one—that he did not even try to make it convincing.

  ‘Are you such a bad shot then?’

  He smiled. ‘No. As a matter of fact I’m rather good.’

  ‘Sometimes, apparently.’

  The smile deepened for a moment and then withdrew.

  Lindsay was having trouble with the spacing of the eyes; he was astonished to find how far apart they were.

  Christian said, ‘You knew Philippe during his Paris days. He must have been fun then.’

  ‘Yes, he was. Isn’t he . . . fun now?’

  At this the young man threw back his head and roared with laughter. Smiling, Lindsay found himself, as he had not expected to be, in sympathy with the arrogance, with the barely veiled insolence. It was difficult, he realized, not to fall under the spell of healthy young animals who have no misconceptions about their world, but simply know that it belongs to them.

  Serious again, Christian said, ‘He’s a wonderful person.’

  Lindsay had discovered something odd about this face; it emerged from his first sketch of it, which was like and yet utterly unlike; was, in fact, the face of a half-wit, a mongol. Fascinated by the discovery and its implications, he did not speak for some time. Yes, it was true; the eyes were too widely spaced, yet in the flesh this was barely apparent. The surprising lift to the cheekbones was, in the flesh, in some way canceled out or, now that he came to look again, balanced by the boy’s high color; yet in the drawing, robbed of coloring, the face that looked back at him was primitive, and the youthful yet mocking glance emerged as mere slyness.

  He was fascinated; he had in front of him a rough sketch which was indubitably Christian, but Christian stripped down to the barest essentials that his face revealed. He knew that he could not touch it again; it was far too interesting as it was. He tore off the page, tucked it into the pad, and began again.

  The young man, noticing the fresh start, said, ‘Are you a good painter?’

  It was Lindsay’s turn to laugh, and his laughter was clearly not what Christian had expected. He flushed.

  Lindsay decided to pounce. ‘Where did you meet Philippe? I gather he never leaves this valley nowadays.’

  ‘Oh . . . he’s a friend of my mother’s.’

  ‘Ah, I see. This is your first visit to Bellac—I hadn’t realized that.’

  Glancing up, Lindsay found the strange eyes fixed on him. The sun caught one of them, the other was in shadow; it made their difference in color even more startling. The boy said nothing.

  Lindsay said, ‘Well, don’t glower; it makes you look positively hideous.’

  Now that he knew this unexpected secret about the face, drawing it was easy. In order to capture its quality, in order to give it what it seemed to possess, it was necessary to cheat—the eyes had to be pulled closer together and the cheekbones flattened, as they were flattened in life by the high coloring. The forehead, which the young man’s fashionable, Left Bank haircut tended to compress, had to be lifted to imply a brain behind it, and the melancholy—even melancholic—line of the mouth had to be raised to mimic the vigor and alertness which, although they were there in Christian, were most unwilling to emerge on paper.

  Altogether, thought Lindsay, roughing in the strong shadows thrown by the sunlight, a most rewarding half-hour.

  Christian said, ‘You’re looking very pleased with yourself.’

  ‘You’re an interesting subject.’ The sketch might be finished, but he had no intention of letting the young man slip away from him forever. ‘I’d like to paint you; I wonder if your mother would care to pay me.’

  ‘She would,’ said Christian, ‘if I wanted her to.’

  ‘You can show her this, and ask her.’

  ‘Is it finished?’

  ‘Yes, for what it is worth.’

  Christian came round to look at it. He was, Lindsay realized without surprise, the kind of person who cannot stand near to anyone without touching him; he put an arm round Lindsay’s shoulder. Yes, Lindsay thought, an animal. Most interesting, and far from unlikable.

  Christian thought the drawing very good; Lindsay himself was quite pleased with it—this was the first time for some weeks that he had felt the true creative tingle in his fingertips.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I really would like to paint you; perhaps we’ll forget Mother and simply do it for fun.’

  ‘Good God, no!’ The boy was genuinely shocked. ‘It’d do her good to buy something sensible for a change instead of endless, endless successions of bloody horses.’

  Studying him, Lindsay wondered, How exactly do you fit into this puzzle, young man?

  They were interrupted by voices. The speed with which the young man removed his arm from Lindsay’s shoulder gave the latter pause for further thought. All things, he decided, were revealing once you began to question them.

  Betty, Comtesse de Vignon sailed out onto the terrace with a neigh of laughter, followed by Prince Cottanero and the beautiful Natasha. The Countess and the Prince were dressed for riding; Natasha was dressed for luncheon at the Ritz.

  Christian stood, hands on hips, watching them approach; when they were near enough he said, ‘Maman, Mr. Lindsay wants to paint my portrait.’

  ‘Then he shall, my darling.’ She turned to Lindsay. ‘In the red shirt, don’t you think? I adore him in that red shirt.’ She finished by calling her son her little cuckoo, which, even in French, sounded idiotic.

  Lindsay, his eyes opening wider moment by moment, thought, You stupid, stupid woman—not content with forcing him into a life of his own about which you know nothing and care less, you try and dote on him as well. In truth, parents do murder their own progeny.

  ‘I make one condition,’ she was saying to her son. (There would be a condition, Lindsay thought.) ‘That you fetch your nice new camera and come and take a picture of that ravishing horse.’

  Presumably Christian thought this a reasonable price to pay for the pleasure of having a portrait of himself in a red shirt. He went along like a lamb, winking at Lindsay as he did so.

  Prince Cottanero seemed inclined to linger; perhaps he was tired of the Countess Betty’s company.

  ‘Would you not like to paint Natasha?’ he inquired, patting her shoulder as if she were a favorite cat.

  ‘Very much.’ Lindsay had an absurd momentary vision of himself spending the rest of his life moving from chateau to castello to schloss, painting the objects-of-adoration of their owners.

  Surprisingly Natasha said, ‘Oh no, Rinaldo; I’m just pretty.’

  Either of them, Lindsay was thinking, would make an interesting subject. The two faces of the boy, Christian, had made him feel very aware of people; he saw, for the first time, that Cottanero also was not exactly what he presented himse
lf as being. What had at first seemed to be a face of handsome virility was in fact something else; or rather the handsome and virile face, fashionably tanned, short curly hair fashionably gray, was betrayed by the eyes—there was something evasive about the eyes, something soft, not with that melting softness which Italian eyes sometimes achieve in their rare moments of sentimentality, but soft with a softness that penetrated directly to the center of the man.

  With a sense of shock, and a sense of excitement too, Lindsay thought, Heavens above, you’re a fake as well.

  He felt suddenly that at any moment the chateau, the bright sky, the distant mountains might give a shudder and soar upwards, revealing the brick wall of the stage behind them.

  He turned and looked at Natasha; their eyes met, and in hers he caught a flash of something very different to the almost idiotic, dreaming placidity which he had always seen there before. He realized that these people were not the only ones who were revealing themselves; the growing excitement—excitement of the chase—which he felt, must have been printed all over his face. The girl turned away; she did it, he knew, to hide her eyes. An electric spark of antagonism ran about between them.

  Prince Cottanero said, ‘I am sorry, Mr. Lindsay, that you . . . injured your lip. Come, my dear.’

  They left Lindsay hugging himself with delight. After all he was a Scot, and the Scots love a fight. Oh yes, he thought, the daggers are out this morning. What next?

  He heard Françoise and her children long before he saw them. The voice of Gilles, the small boy, was raised in wrath, that of Antoinette in a wail of indignation; Françoise was saying, ‘Gilles, for heaven’s sake sit down; it’ll be your turn next.’

  They were sitting in the shade of a willow tree beside the lake, for the sun was by now extremely hot. Lindsay stood for a little while watching them—the play of light and shadow over them; he knew that he would not be able to say any more than Manet and Renoir had already said. All the same they made a charming picture. The small girl was acting, with enormous gravity, a scene from some story, a complicated scene; at intervals she would say, ‘Now I’m the other person,’ or ‘Now I’m a new person.’

  Gilles said, ‘You’re being four people already, it isn’t fair.’

  Lindsay waited until they had guessed—or rather failed to guess, much to Antoinette’s delight—what the scene was supposed to be. He then joined them.

  Gilles said, ‘Were you drawing a picture of Christian?’

  ‘Yes, I was. Did you see me?’

  ‘Mm. Maman wouldn’t let us come and watch.’

  He caught Françoise eyeing him, opened his sketchbook and showed her the finished sketch.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s quite different.’

  ‘Different?’

  ‘To the style I used to know.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t stood still—any more than you have.’

  She smiled. ‘It’s rather good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why,’ demanded Antoinette, gazing up into his face, ‘did you draw Christian?’

  ‘Because . . .’ Again he glanced at Françoise. ‘. . . I was interested in his face.’

  Antoinette said, ‘Oh.’ She clearly thought it a pretty silly answer.

  Gilles said, ‘Draw us.’

  ‘You’re too young,’ Françoise chipped in. ‘You haven’t got proper faces yet.’ This, very rightly, Lindsay thought, produced screams of protest.

  He said, ‘You go and play over there, by the boat, and I’ll see what I can do.’

  They removed themselves with alarming obedience, went and stood by the ancient punt which was pulled up onto the bank, and gazed at him self-consciously.

  Antoinette said, ‘Maman, I don’t want my picture done.’

  ‘I do,’ said Gilles.

  After a little while they lost interest in this game and began to play leapfrog.

  Lindsay took the other drawing of Christian out of his sketchbook and put it in front of Françoise. She made rather a vulgar whistle through her teeth.

  ‘See what I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but I see what you saw.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Poor boy! He’s really rather pretty, and he’s far from half-witted.’

  ‘Not far, I’d say.’

  She turned, looking at him seriously. ‘You believe that, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve got certain theories about faces; most painters have.’

  She stared at the drawing in silence for a long time. Meanwhile he drew a large number of quick cartoons of the oblivious children.

  At length she said, ‘In that case I’m afraid of him.’

  Lindsay snorted. ‘You’ve got a very odd lot of people here altogether.’

  ‘You wait.’

  ‘Not more?’

  ‘Two more for lunch. That’s only the beginning.’

  ‘You gave me the impression that you lived like hermits.’

  She sighed. ‘Well, don’t we—in a sense? Besides . . . we always get this every year; they come down for Les Treize Jours.’

  ‘You have this lot for thirteen days? You poor woman.’

  ‘No, the Thirteen Days in question are . . . or, rather, is one day—next Friday. Oh for heaven’s sake, James, don’t tell me you didn’t hear them all talking about it for half lunch-time yesterday.’

  ‘Oh, the local fete thing.’

  ‘Yes, the local fete thing. Why it’s called the Thirteen Days nobody knows, except that once upon a time it may have lasted for thirteen days. Anyway, it’s always been a family tradition to have people here for it; in fact at one time there used to be a vast houseparty. Philippe’s mother had to cope with it once or twice; I gather it nearly drove her mad—getting the right people next to the right people, and remembering who wasn’t on speaking terms with whom, and who was sleeping with whom, and who wanted to sleep with whom. It must have been a nightmare. Thank God I’ve been spared it.’

  ‘How do I get to meet Philippe’s mother, Françoise? It might be interesting.’

  ‘She died years ago; she never really got over her husband being drowned like that.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s a pity. Aren’t there any other members of . . . well, the older generation we can talk to?’

  ‘If there were, do you imagine I wouldn’t have done so long ago? Tante Estelle is the only one who . . . who might know a few things.’

  ‘And she isn’t easy to talk to?’

  Françoise grimaced. ‘She isn’t even easy to get to. She’s being very amenable at the moment because she can’t resist strangers; sometimes she shuts herself up in that suite of hers and the only person she allows near her is her blessed Marianne—for weeks on end.’

  Looking at her he was touched by the brooding sadness of her expression. She said, ‘You may think them a rather odd lot of people, but I don’t mind; they’re better than nothing.’ She turned, looking full at him. ‘Do you know that when Philippe spoke to me on the day you arrived . . . You remember?’

  ‘I remember half-a-dozen words.’

  She nodded grimly. ‘It was the first time for a week—since I got back from Paris.’

  ‘Perhaps he knows what you were doing in Paris.’

  She colored slightly and looked away. ‘You aren’t . . . kind about that.’

  ‘I told you, I’m jealous.’

  She shook her head, staring at him again; then, gently, she pushed back a lock of hair from his forehead. ‘You’re a child,’ she said. ‘You make me feel old.’

  ‘I’m older than you are.’

  ‘No man is older than any woman—not in that sense. When a husband tells a wife to her face that she had better go and get herself a lover, he’s hardly likely to object when she takes him at his word.’

  Lindsay gaped at her. ‘He said that?’

  ‘Oh yes, and more. I admit he was drunk, but . . .’

  ‘Drunk! Philippe!’

  She nodded.

  ‘Françoise, I never saw him drunk the whole time we shared that fla
t together.’

  She spread her hands, brows raised.

  ‘But what’s making him like this?’

  ‘Do you think I haven’t asked myself that a thousand times?’ She began to pull up stalks of grass, almost viciously.

  Lindsay said, ‘He’s terribly worried about this blight on the vines, isn’t he?’

  ‘How would I know? He never talks to me.’ The sadness in her voice caught at his heart.

  After a moment he said, ‘Marry me, Françoise.’

  ‘I am married.’

  ‘Divorce him.’

  ‘I’m a Catholic.’

  ‘Divorce him all the same. Before he destroys you. If your faith forbids it, under these circumstances, it’s high time . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry. I admit I was hiding behind my faith, James. Yes, if—don’t be angry—if my conscience would let me, I’d divorce him.’ She went on quickly before he could remonstrate. ‘But I believe, still, that I can help him.’ She leaned forward, pressing his hand, urging him to see this devious path of duty which was so very clear to her. ‘I believe he needs help—desperately; he needs friends. We can help him, James. We must help him.’

  Bitterly he said, ‘You think he needs us?’

  ‘Yes. He may not know it, but he does. I know . . . I know, my dear, that the moment will come when he’ll turn away from . . . from whatever it is that possesses him. At that moment—at that one moment—he will need help.’

  He would remember, later, every word of this; it was as if her passionate conviction could, in some way, stamp itself upon the future—bend the future to conform with what she so desperately believed. Sitting there beside the lake, her hand gripping his, she had spoken a prophecy—half a prophecy.

  Lindsay, being a man, was too full of himself to accept any of it; he would have said that he saw things straighter than she did, forgetting that life is never straight. He was remembering, too, with irritation, that he had wanted to tell her about his experience of the previous night, of the warning laid upon his sleeping chest in the shape of a book of fairy stories. After the passion of her outburst he did not now see that he could work the conversation back to anything so mundane without seeming a callous lout.