Philippa Carr: We'll meet again

He stood up and went towards them.

“Why … Lisette. What are you doing here?”

Lisette, her dark sloe-like eyes wide with pleasure and her thick black hair falling about her shoulders, cried: “Jowan … darleeng, I am here. I have come because …”

She hunched her shoulders and raised her eyes to the ceiling.

“And Mr. and Mrs. Greenley,” began Jowan.

“We’ve been living in France,” explained Mrs. Greenley, “since ten years or so before the war started. We couldn’t get out until now. Lisette had to come, so we took her under our charge and promised her mother to bring her here.”

“And Lisette, why …” said Jowan. “You … your mother … ?”

“She think it good I come. And Monsieur and Madame Greenley … they say we take. They are good …”

Jowan was clearly bewildered, and Mrs. Jermyn said: “You’d better sit down. Violetta, will you ring for more cups and perhaps some fresh tea?”

The Greenleys said they would not stay. They really had to get on.

“In the circumstances … we thought we should bring Lisette,” they said.

I had by this time noticed something about the girl. She was very young and there was that slight thickening of the figure. Could it really be that she was pregnant? If so, why had she come here? Perhaps her mother had thought it would not be good to have a child in present-day France, but why … ?

Lisette was explaining in her broken English. “I am going to have a little baby.” She smiled dazzlingly at Jowan. “Yours … and mine.”

There was silence in the room. Jowan was stricken with amazement. Mrs. Jermyn had turned pale.

Then Mr. Greenley said: “Well, if you will excuse us, we’ll be off. We promised Lisette’s mother to bring her here and we have done so. Goodbye.”

I roused myself and said: “I will show you down.”

Mrs. Greenley turned to me when we had left the room and said: “I think this is rather a shock to you. But, of course, the poor girl needs to be looked after, and it seems only right.”

“I think there must have been some mistake …”

“These things happen. Apparently the young man stayed at the farm. Marianne had been good to our men all through the war. She saved many of them from capture and imprisonment … death most likely. It is a poor reward to seduce the daughter. The girl is only sixteen. So it’s only right that something should be done about it. Marianne was really distressed and, when Lisette said who was responsible, we thought the young man should be aware of it. So we promised to bring her with us … and so, here she is.”

“This can’t be true,” I insisted. “It must be someone else.”

“She knew his name and where he lived. It seems it was so.”

I was glad when they had gone.

I went back to the solarium.

Jowan was saying: “It’s impossible, Lisette. You know it is. You know there was nothing …”

“Oh, but yes,” she insisted. “You were ill and I come to comfort. And then I am in bed with you … all through the night. I am there … not one night only, I make you very ’appy. I did not think this would be … but it is …”

“It was you,” murmured Jowan disbelievingly.

“Yes … and we have the little baby. I say to my mother, ‘Jowan, ’e is rich man … good man. ’E will look after little baby.’ My mother say it not good to have a baby in France now. Not enough to eat … not good. There must be father for baby.”

Jowan was stricken, as we all were. Only a short while before we were thinking how happy we were. I could not believe it. And the girl was only sixteen. Yet he had been there. He had told me of that incident with the mother. It seemed it had not been the mother but the daughter.

And this was the result.

Our consternation and bewilderment were great. We could not believe this which had suddenly been thrust upon us. Jowan was astounded.

“It is not possible,” he kept saying. “You cannot believe this.” But remembering what he had told me, I thought it was just possible, and so did he.

Mrs. Jermyn was practical about the matter.

She knew that Jowan had stayed at the farmhouse after his escape; she knew that this young girl had been there. Even she believed that it was possible.

She busied herself with details. The girl must be looked after. A room was made ready for her. If her story were true, we must do our duty by her, she said.”

As for Lisette, she showed no great concern. It was clear that she was excited and was enjoying the situation in which she found herself. The house overlooking the sea was a delight to her, and she seemed to view this as a great adventure.

“Thees beautiful ’ouse,” she said. “This will be my baby’s ’ome. Oh, darleeng Jowan, we will ’ave our little baby. He will be big and strong like you.”

She giggled a great deal and then I began to notice there was something strange in her attitude which mystified me. That frequent, high-pitched laugh—was it a little nervous? Once I found her laughing to herself and, when I looked closely, there were tears in her eyes.

I said: “What are you laughing at, Lisette?”

“I laugh because I am ’appy. My baby will live in this grande maison. It is very good.”

“You are not really happy though, are you?” I insisted.

She looked scared for a moment.

“I very ’appy. It makes me ’appy to have my little baby who will live in this grande maison. ” She added almost defiantly, “That makes me ’appy.”

I wondered what was on her mind. She was too young to conceal her thoughts successfully. She was not yet seventeen. She would remember little of what it was like before the war, I guessed. It was now over five years since it had started. Children grew up quickly in such times. She would be wise in certain matters, though ignorant of other ways of life.

I felt sorry for her in spite of the trouble she was causing us. She alternated between moments of deep satisfaction and a certain desperation. At times she was like a sleek cat, sophisticated in the extreme, yet at others she was like a scared kitten.

On more than one occasion I tried to probe her inner thoughts.

I said: “You are not really happy, Lisette. You are worried about something.”

She opened those sloe eyes very wide and shook her head. Her protestations of her happiness were too vehement to ring entirely true.

Mrs. Jermyn, deeply disturbed as she was, continued to make plans.

“What are we going to do about this child?” she said. “It’s a most extraordinary situation. The mother saved your life and the daughter is threatening to ruin it. But we won’t let that happen. We shall look after her until the child is born and, if necessary, keep it. I think she has some idea of marrying you. Quite out of the question. We shall see that she is all right. Money, of course. She could go back to France and we will look after the child.”

I often thought how easy it was to settle other people’s problems, and I am sure Mrs. Jermyn knew that as well as anyone. As she spoke, she made it seem a simple matter. We would send Lisette back to France, compensated; the child would remain and we would try to forget what Mrs. Jermyn purposely called, to give it less substance, “this unfortunate matter.”

We were all miserable. Jowan could not bear to look at Lisette and every time he did so I could see the incredulity in his eyes. He had to accept the fact that it was possible that, in a moment of oblivion, he may have become the father of Lisette’s child, and yet he could not believe it.

It could have happened as Lisette said and there was to be a child. Nothing could alter that.

In the circumstances, we could not proceed with our wedding plans. We lived uneasily through those days.