“I want to go back to England. I want to go home.”
She was half-surprised at her own answer. It was the first time that she had formulated the idea to herself, but she knew now that the blue of the sea had called her more insistently than she had been aware.
Such a very few miles between her and freedom, surely such an idea was not impossible or impracticable?
“We shall see.”
The man turned away and left the room. She could hear his footsteps echoing away into the distance.
Fleur then turned towards the woman questioningly.
“It’s all right,” she said reassuringly.
“You mean I can stay?”
“But, of course, Marie has sent you. Come and bring your things. I will show you to your room.”
She picked up the carpet bag and Fleur, carrying the wicker basket, then followed her up some twisting carpetless stairs to the next floor.
The room that she was shown was low, the rafters quaintly shaped over a small diamond-paned window. There was a huge wooden bedstead taking up most of the room and a rough washstand on which there was an earthenware bowl and pitcher.
The place was spotlessly clean and there was the faint sweet smell of hay and of some fragrant herb. She glanced out of the window and then exclaimed.
She was looking out at the back of the house and to her surprise she found that it was far larger than she had at first anticipated.
The door by which she had approached had shown only one small side of the building and behind there were two big wings enclosing a courtyard and from the window Fleur could see many signs of activity.
“I had no idea your house was so big!”
“From the front it looks so small,” Madame Bouvais agreed. “Perhaps it is a good thing. People don’t find their way so easily round to the back, it gives us time if strangers come.”
Fleur understood and noticed on a gate not far from where the cows were being milked an older child was perched, peering this way and that as if keeping sentinel, ready to warn those who were working if anyone should approach unexpectedly.
“It is kind of you to have me,” Fleur said impulsively. “I understand just how much I am asking of you. I know what it means if we are caught.”
Madame Bouvais nodded.
“We have to think of that, we have our family to consider, but my husband is a patriot. He loves France. It breaks his heart to see those sales Bosches and know that they would strip and starve us to feed their own.”
“It is wrong to ask this of you,” Fleur said, “but Marie was so certain that you would have me. I feel ashamed. I ought really to go away and take my chances of finding escape through other methods.”
“It is not easy,” Madame Bouvais replied. “Only last week someone in the village was found sheltering a wounded airman. They were shot – they and their family and one of their friends who had known that they had concealed him.”
Fleur shuddered.
“I have no right to ask it of you,” she said again.
“You must be careful, that is all. You are clever, mademoiselle, and at the moment you would deceive many people.”
Fleur glanced in a small mirror hanging on the wall and laughed.
“I look terrible,” she exclaimed. “But it is thanks to this dress that I am here, so I must be grateful, Marie lent it to me.”
Madame Bouvais came nearer and touched it.
“I thought I recognised it. It was Marie’s best. She bought it when she was betrothed.”
“What happened?” Fleur asked. “She told me that it was for her trousseau, but never said why she had not married the man.”
“She never told you?” Marie’s sister-in-law repeated enquiringly. “Poor soul! Perhaps she is shy to speak of it. She was engaged for a long time, oh, many years before I married Jacques and came here to live.
“Marie is his eldest sister, but her sisters married before her although she was the first to be betrothed. The young man’s father was an old friend of the family. That Marie should espouse his son was arranged while they were children. But there were difficulties. Marie’s fiancé was a fisherman and the seasons were bad for years and the Wedding was postponed. Marie’s dot was complete, her trousseau was ready, but the young man could not complete his side of the bargain.
“Then at last everything was settled and the date fixed. Marie was excited, she had been afraid if she waited much longer she would copy Saint Catherine. But Grand-père, Marie’s father, was a gambler. He loved to take a chance, you understand. He would gamble on many things, on which boat would bring in the best catch and on whose bitch would pup first.
“He was many things, fisherman, farmer, Mayor of Saint Madeleine, but always, always, he was a gambler and nothing could stop him. He had been well off, for he had inherited a great deal of land, but he gambled a good part of it away. Only this farm remained and that too I believe would have gone if he had not died.”
“And Marie?” Fleur asked, sensing the inevitable end of the story.
“Marie’s dot went one evening in June. It was on a race, a race of boats as to who could round the buoy the quickest. The old man was so certain that he had chosen the right one.
“There was an Advocate, nearly as bad as he was himself, living in the place then. He was a greedy man and he would always take a bet in cash not kind. He incited Grand-père, taunted him and jeered at him until the old man came back here and, taking Marie’s dot from its hiding place beneath his bed, carried it down to the quay. No one realised what he was doing until it was too late and the money was wagered and lost.”
“And because of that Marie’s fiancé would not marry her?” Fleur cried in horror. “How despicable and how mean!”
“But how could he without her dot? He had depended on it, you see, the sum had been arranged. And there was another girl who had always wanted him. She was wealthy and her parents were anxious for the match.”
“They were married within three months and then Marie went away to service to the Comtesse. She was lucky to find such a position and we have often envied her.”
“Envied her!” Fleur exclaimed. “When she might have been married with a home of her own. How could you?”
“It was a privilege to serve anyone so gracious as the Comtesse. Often she would send us little messages. Once, when my children were ill, we received a present of money and fruit from the estate. We were very proud of the connection. Marie certainly did well for herself.”
Fleur knew that there was nothing she could say, but she felt as if the dress that she wore was the expression of a tragedy beyond words, a tragedy of a life broken and ruined by greed.
“And now, mademoiselle – ”
Fleur interrupted Madame Bouvais.
“Is it not unwise to call me ‘mademoiselle’?” she asked. “Perhaps while I am here I had better be just ‘Jeanne’.”
“It seems wrong somehow, rather too familiar.”
“Not really,” Fleur replied. “Not when you think of what you are doing for me.”
Madame Bouvais smiled and her smile was curiously sweet.
“We are glad to do it,” she said quietly, “even though you must forgive me if it makes me sometimes a little afraid.”
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