“Do you remember when we’d be down on the rail, Audrey, and how after the horses came over the last obstacle they would be coming straight down toward us and the way they would look coming bigger and bigger and the noise they would make on the turf when they would go past?”
“And how cold it used to be and how we would get close to the big braziers to get warm and eat the sandwiches from the bar?”
“I loved it in the fall,” young Tom said. “We used to ride back home in a carriage, an open one, do you remember? Out of the Bois and then along the river with it just getting dark and the burning leaves smell and the tugs towing barges on the river.”
“Do you really remember it that well? You were an awfully small boy.”
“I remember every bridge on the river from Suresnes to Charenton,” Tommy told her.
“You can’t.”
“I can’t name them. But I’ve got them in my head.”
“I don’t believe you can remember them all. And part of the river’s ugly and many of the bridges are.”
“I know it. But I was there a long time after I knew you, and papa and I used to walk the whole river. The ugly parts and the beautiful parts and I’ve fished a lot of it with different friends of mine.”
“You really fished in the Seine?”
“Of course.”
“Did papa fish it, too?”
“Not so much. He used to fish sometimes at Charenton. But he wanted to walk when he finished work and so we would walk until I got too tired and then get a bus back some way. After we had some money we used to take taxis or horsecabs.”
“You must have had money when we were going to the races.”
“I think we did that year,” Tommy said. “I can’t remember that. Sometimes we had money and sometimes we didn’t.”
“We always had money,” Audrey said. “Mother never married anyone who didn’t have lots of money.”
“Are you rich, Audrey?” Tommy asked.
“No,” the girl said. “My father spent his money and lost his money after he married mother and none of my stepfathers ever made any provision for me.”
“You don’t have to have money,” Andrew said to her.
“Why don’t you live with us?” young Tom asked her. “You’d be fine with us.”
“It sounds lovely. But I have to make a living.”
“We’re going to Paris,” Andrew said. “You come along. It will be wonderful. You and I can go and see all the arrondissements together.”
“I’ll have to think it over,” the girl said.
“Do you want me to make you a drink to help you decide?” David said. “That’s what they always do in Mr. Davis’s books.”
“Don’t ply me with liquor.”
“That’s an old white slaver’s trick,” young Tom said. “Then the next thing they know they’re in Buenos Aires.”
“They must give them something awfully strong,” David said. “That’s a long trip.”
“I don’t think there’s anything much stronger than the way Mr. Davis makes martinis,” Andrew said. “Make her a martini, please, Mr. Davis.”
“Do you want one, Audrey?” Andrew asked.
“Yes. If it’s not too long before lunch.”
Roger got up to make them and young Tom came over and sat by her. Andrew was sitting at her feet.
“I don’t think you ought to take it, Audrey,” he said. “It’s the first step. Remember ce n’est que le premier pas qui conte.”
Up on the porch Thomas Hudson kept on painting. He could not keep from hearing their talk but he had not looked down at them since they had come in from swimming. He was having a difficult time staying in the carapace of work that he had built for his protection and he thought, if I don’t work now I may lose it. Then he thought that there would be time to work when they were all gone. But he knew he must keep on working now or he would lose the security he had built for himself with work. I will do exactly as much as I would have done if they were not here, he thought. Then I will clear up and go down and the hell with thinking of Raeburn or of the old days or of anything. But as he worked he felt a loneliness coming into him already. It was next week when they would leave. Work, he told himself. Get it right and keep your habits because you are going to need them.