Читать книгу Escape from Passion - Barbara Cartland - Страница 3

Something was happening, something was frightening her.

Fleur stirred convulsively and tried to scream.

Even as she did so a hand was pressed down over her mouth. She experienced a moment of sheer terror and then she heard Marie’s voice,

“It’s all right, mam’selle, it’s me, Marie. Don’t be afraid.”

“Marie!”

Fleur turned over, the terror of her dream still with her so that she could feel her heart beating too quickly and her breath coming pantingly through lips that still felt the imprint of Marie’s fingers.

“Hush! We must be very quiet. I have news for you.”

Fleur sat up in bed. There was a candle by the bedside, but its flickering light illuminated only a portion of the room, the rest was sombre and menacing in shadow.

“What is it?”

Marie came very near her and their faces were almost touching.

“Fabian has brought information. You must leave at once, mam’selle, you are in danger.”

“Tell me, what did he say?”

Marie came a shade nearer and her voice dropped lower so that Fleur must strain her ears to hear what she was saying.

“It is Monsieur Pierre. When he went into the village, he went not only to see the Priest and the doctor, but also to telephone – to telephone to Paris about you, mam’selle!”

Marie paused dramatically, as one who has reached the climax of her story.

“About my marriage!”

Marie nodded.”

“Yes. He spoke to a friend of his, in some office, I think Fabian said it was, and he told him to go to the Madeleine first thing this morning and make inquiries as to whether you and M’sieur Lucien had been married there and gave him approximate dates. He was in a hurry. At first, Fabian said, he commanded his friend to go at once that very moment, but there was some difficulty, the Priest in charge of the Register would not be there. Anyway, he is to enquire this morning. That, mam’selle, is why you must go.”

“And when he does not find it,” Fleur said reflectively, “what then?”

“Then Monsieur Pierre will discover other things. Oh, mam’selle, I was listening last night at dinner when he talked to you. You speak beautiful French, but it is not quite good enough to deceive a Frenchman. A German, yes, what would they know of our language? But Monsieur Pierre, he knows better. I could see the way he was watching you, the way he was listening. mam’selle, he suspects your nationality!”

“And if he does, would he dare to give me up and so to denounce me after his aunt had sheltered me all these months? Surely – ”

“Monsieur Pierre is a traitor to our country,” Marie interrupted. “He is working with the Germans, he would be glad to curry favour with them. He is of the type of Laval, that one, and do you suppose that family pride would matter to him more than his personal advantage? No, no, mam’selle, a man who would betray France would certainly not hesitate to betray the honour of his family. You are in danger, ma petite, you must go at once.”

“But where? Where can I go?”

Fleur made a helpless gesture with her hands.

“I have thought of all that,” Marie replied, “and Monsieur le Maire is not without ideas. He told Fabian that those papers you already carry must be destroyed. It is not safe for you to show them to someone like Monsieur Pierre.”

“But what will he give me instead?” Fleur questioned.

“I have arranged that,” Marie replied. “Écoutez, mam’selle, listen to me. I have a brother Jacques. He is fond of me and I of him, although I have not seen him for many years. He lives at Ste-Madeleine-de-Beauchamps, a little village not far from Dieppe.

“Jacques has a farm there, it is my home, you will understand. Some of his children work with him on the land and some are fishermen. He has a large family. You will go to him with papers from which anyone who reads them will learn that you are his niece.”

“But, Marie, how do I know that he will accept me?”

“He will accept you because I sent you,” she replied. “He has no love for the Germans, his eldest boy, François, was killed fighting in the Ardennes. The Padre wrote and told me of his death for Jacques cannot write. He has worked far too hard all his life to have time for learning.”

“But supposing – ”

“Now don’t you worry, mam’selle. It will be all right, I promise you.”

“Oh, Marie, come with me!”

“I have thought of that,” Marie replied, “but it would not be wise. If Monsieur Pierre was to look for us he might suspect that I would go home, but for you, no, it will not be so easy. He will have to guess in what direction you have gone.”

“But the permit to travel?”

“That is all being arranged for. Fabian has gone back to his father to ask for them to be made out in the name of ‘Jeanne Bouvais’. He will explain exactly to Monsieur le Maire what is required. He will understand, he is no fool, that man.”

“It is dangerous for him too,” Fleur said. “I don’t know why he should do this for me?”

“He does it not so much for you, mam’selle, as to be against the Germans. He may look like a mouse, but he has the heart of a lion.”

“I had no idea.”

“Nor have the Germans,” Marie replied grimly. “He is small and appears frightened and so they let him remain in office, they give him orders and they are pleased by the respectful and humble way he promises to obey them. But they don’t know!

“The other day they brought a large train full of produce into our Station, produce stolen from our farms and being taken to Germany. The trucks were not running smoothly and they sent for Monsieur le Maire and told him that ten men were to be put to work immediately to grease the axle wheels. Monsieur agreed.

“‘And no nonsense, mind,’ they added. ‘If any man is caught putting sand or anything else into the wheels, he will be shot, also his family and those who are working with him.’

“‘We understand,’ Monsieur le Maire answered and he called the men and told them in front of the Germans how important the job was and how well it was to be done.

“‘You must be very careful, mes enfants,’ he said, ‘to see your hands are clean while you are doing this work. If you touch anything save the axle grease, you must go at once to the little stream beside the Station and wash.

“The Germans nodded approval, but those who were listening almost laughed aloud. For that little stream in which they were to wash their hands is the one place in our village where there is sand, good, strong gritty sand.”

“The men understood, of course, and, while they were doing their task, they obeyed his instructions and went often to wash. That train carried into Germany many handfuls of our good strong sand!

“Yes indeed, Monsieur le Maire is not so simple as he looks. You can trust him. But now, mam’selle, we must hurry. You must leave as soon as it is dawn.”

Fleur climbed out of bed.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Nearly four o’clock,” Marie replied. “And look, I have your luggage and your clothes ready for you.”

She raised her candle and pointed to a dark bundle in the corner of the room. Beside it was a wicker basket and an old carpet bag such as the peasants in France often carry when they are travelling, a relic handed down from generation to generation.

“But the clothes!” Fleur said wonderingly.

“Mam’selle will excuse them being my own,” Marie answered. “I had them many years ago.”

There was a note of wistfulness in her voice and then, as Fleur picked up the dress and looked at it closely, she saw that it was almost new, old-fashioned but trimly tailored, of the heavy black material that Marie still wore on Sundays and in which the majority of women in the village went to Mass.

“But, Marie, I cannot take this, your best dress.”

“It is too small for me now. I have never worn it very much.”

“Why not?”

“It was part of my trousseau.”

“And you never married? What happened?”

“It’s a long story,” Marie said quickly. “We have no time for it now. Come, mam’selle, you must dress.”

There was a hint of tragedy somehow, Fleur felt, in all of this and yet she realised that Marie was right. This was not the time for gossip if she was to get away from the Château before Monsieur Pierre was awake.

‘I must go on the earliest train, the market train,’ she thought to herself. ‘The one which leaves at about five-thirty in the morning.’

She felt strange when she looked at herself in the mirror. Marie had helped her button the bodice down the front and caught the lengthy skirt round her waist over several petticoats.

Then she had dragged her hair off her forehead and her ears and covered it with a plain black straw hat. She looked surprisingly young and at the same time unobtrusive, as a young peasant girl who might be setting off to take up her first situation as a femme de chambre.

“Your nails, mam’selle,” Marie pointed out insistently.

Fleur looked down at them and understood. They were certainly not in keeping with the character that she was portraying

All the time she was dressing, Marie was putting her clothes tidily and neatly into the wicker basket and the carpet bag.

At last she was ready.

“How will you explain my departure to Monsieur Pierre?”

Marie shrugged her shoulders with a kind of fatalism.

“He will blame you,” Fleur said. “I cannot have that, Marie.”

“Could you leave him a letter?”

“Yes, that is a good idea. I will say that I received a telegram that one of my family is ill. I will not say which one. No, that would get Monsieur le Maire into trouble. A telephone call is better. He can say that he thought it came from Paris.”

Fleur went to the writing table and sitting down wrote a short note.

“Monsieur,” she began simply determined not to stoop even to politeness where such a man was concerned. “I have received the sad news that my cousin is indisposed. I must go to her at once and do not wish to disturb you. I am desolated that I shall not be present at the interment, but my thoughts and prayers will be with Madame.”

She did not sign it, she felt that she would not stoop to that last lie, having told so many. She would not assume, not even for the last time, Lucien’s name to which she had never been entitled.

She slipped the note into an envelope and addressed it.

“I will not give it to him,” Marie said, “until late in the day.”

“Be careful, Marie. You must not annoy him more than is necessary.”

“I am not afraid. I am old, what does it matter what happens to me? But you are young.”

They heard the clock in the hall chime the hour.

“You must go,” Marie said. “Fabian will be waiting for you in the back drive. He will give you your papers and now, mam’selle, there is one thing more.”

She drew a leather bag from her pocket. As she put it into Fleur’s hand it clinked and Fleur, feeling the heaviness of it, knew that it was coin.

“What is it?”

“It was Madame’s,” Marie replied. “Always she insisted that we keep a little nest egg in the house. She could remember so well the invasion of 1870 and she knew what happened to the franc in the last war. ‘We will have gold, Marie,’ she had said to me over and over again. ‘There is always value in gold.’ And so we have hidden it, she and I, but now is the moment to use our treasure to prove its value.”

“But, Marie, I cannot take ‒ this.”

“It is yours because you loved Monsieur Lucien and he loved you,” Marie said simply and all the protestations that Fleur would have made died on her lips.

She knew that Marie wanted her to have this money, that she believed it was her right and somehow the mere fact of its value was unimportant. It was Marie’s wish. No need to suggest that she should have it herself. How easy it would have been for her to take it.

Impulsively Fleur bent forward and kissed the wrinkled cheek.

“Thank you, Marie. I shall think of it as something coming from Lucien. Perhaps it will help and protect me even as I feel he will help and protect me while I take this journey.”

“We are all in the hands of God,” Marie answered.

Then for a moment she held Fleur close.

Fleur knew then that she was saying ‘goodbye’ to Lucien.

*

Trudging down the drive holding her wicker basket in one hand and the carpet bag in the other, conscious of her skirts and sensible flat-heeled shoes, Fleur felt as if everything that she had known since war began had been a dream.

She saw Fabian standing under the trees. He came towards her and as he lifted the wicker basket from her hands, she turned and looked back at the Château.

‘A picture from the past,’ Fleur thought, ‘and already it has passed and gone as far as I am concerned.’

She did not know why she was not deeply saddened at the thought and she felt that there should be tears in her eyes and that she should feel acutely the drama of the moment.

Instead as she walked along beside Fabian, she found herself responding to his boyish air of excitement. He thought that it was all a fine joke, he envied her, he said, setting off to see a bit of the country.

“It will not be exactly enjoyable,” Fleur said, half-reproachful that he should not realise the danger of what she was doing.

“It is always enjoyable to deceive the Bosche,” he laughed. “I have your permits here, mam’selle. Before we get to the Station I will give them to you. My father had an idea. The first paper I shall give you is just a permit to visit Bugalé for the market. That is all you will be asked for this morning. Then, when you change your train, you produce your new papers. There will then be no one to be suspicious. Here at the Station they might think it strange that you should want to go so far.”

“I understand,” Fleur said, “and will you please thank your father? Will you tell him how grateful I am? I am only afraid that he might get into trouble with the Germans.”

“Father will see that he doesn’t. You are lucky that he had these permits, mam’selle. He got them from a German who had too much to drink one night. Just as he was going to bed, Father asked him for the usual permits to visit the market the following day.

“‘Find them and I will sign them’,” the German Officer said, he was in a good humour.’

“Father took him at his word. He found not only the market permits but others too. They have come in very useful one way or another. But naturally Father doesn’t use them except in an emergency.”

“He is wise.”

“The wisdom of a serpent!” the boy boasted.

They were now approaching the Station. Fabian stopped in the shade of a haystack and produced the papers. Fleur put them into the old worn leather purse that Marie had given her and thrust it deep into the slit pocket in her skirt.

It felt strange not to be carrying a bag, but Marie would not let her take one.

“A purse is more usual,” she had insisted. “You mustn’t make yourself conspicuous.”

Fleur had understood. She only hoped that some inquisitive German would not insist on inspecting her luggage as that would give her away quicker than anything else.

The platform was crowded with people. Outwardly they looked like the ordinary pre-war crowd of marketers going off to sell and purchase in the neighbouring town. Only on closer inspection did one realise how terribly little they had to sell.

The big baskets that before the war would have held half a dozen fat ducks, pounds of golden butter and scores of large brown eggs were now pitiably empty. And every owner of such goods was wearing an anxious worried expression as if the expedition was of desperate importance.

There was none of the jolly chatter, exchange of gossip and of cordialities that had been characteristic of the market train. Now the passengers stood silent, their shoulders drooping, a weary people for whom travelling was no longer an adventure but rather an imposition.

Fabian said ‘goodbye’, to Fleur before she entered the Station.

“Go up to the front of the train, mam’selle,” he advised. “There are fewer people on that part of the platform.”

“I will,” Fleur replied, “and thank you again, Fabian.”

She tried to tip him, taking a twenty franc note from her purse, but he refused it with a roughness which made him almost brusque.

“You will want it, mam’selle,” he said and then added with a sudden boyish seriousness, “We have not forgotten Monsieur Lucien, none of us in the village.”

Fleur felt the tears spring into her eyes. She could not answer, instead she turned swiftly away and went into the Station.

Her permit was scrutinised and passed back to her, she walked down the platform self-consciously, feeling that eyes followed her. But they were tired eyes, almost too apathetic to be curious.

The train came in belching foul-smelling black smoke, which came, Fleur had been told, from using the worst coal. The best had been taken away, taken into Germany to be used in the Nazi war effort. All that was left for the French was what was thrown out, difficult to handle and filthy in use.

They reached Bugalé and it was a relief to step out of the carriage and get away from that oppressive silence of people sitting, thinking and feeling side by side with one another and yet all too frightened to exchange even a commonplace courtesy among themselves.

After Bugalé, Fleur journeyed interminably and uncomfortably in silence and for hours. There were innumerable changes, there were as well many alterations that had to be made to the ticket and extra francs to be paid.

It was impossible not to realise how deeply France was suffering beneath the yoke of the conqueror. One had only to look out of the window at the crumbling walls, the lack of paint and unrepaired gates and fences.

There were more obvious signs, cows with their ribs distinct against their sides, horses that looked as if it was impossible for them to pull even the lightest load, pigs, undersized and in need of fattening and, above all, a shortage of livestock.

Where were the herds that had filled the green pastureland leading down to the winding rivers? Why did the farms as one passed them appear empty save perhaps for some mongrel dog, pitiably thin, dragging its way from the sunshine to the shade of a tree or bush?

It is a sad land, Fleur thought, and felt her heart contract with the pity of it.

The only cars on the roads were German Military vehicles speeding along, often flanked by outriders on motorcycles and everywhere they appeared there was the swastika, arrogant, dark and sinister.

The Germans looked well-fed, especially in stark contrast to the French men and women toiling in the fields.

‘No wonder they are hated,’ Fleur thought.

She remembered stories the previous year of crops being snatched away as soon as they were garnered and of whole families being left with little or nothing to eat when the potato crop had been commandeered.

There was a German aeroplane in the sky, moving slowly against a cloudless blue – so had Lucien soared once.

On, on she went, the wheels of the train turning monotonously over and over, appropriate accompaniment to the questions in her mind and relentlessly insistent.

‘After I get there – what then?’