Barbara Cartland - Escape from Passion

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?’

Fleur stood outside the little Railway Station and looked about her in a dazed manner. She was feeling so utterly weary that it was difficult to realise that she had really reached her journey’s end.

In the far distance she could see the sea, shining a dazzling blue in the hot sun. Seagulls, squawking noisily, were looking for food among the overturned earth in the adjoining fields.

She had arrived at last and reached Ste-Madeleine-de-Beauchamps after a journey which seemed to have lasted interminably.

Marie had warned her not to ask questions of anyone at the Station.

“They will be curious about you,” she said. “Walk straight on down the road towards the sea for about a mile and then turn left.”

“For about a mile!”

It seemed to Fleur now an insupportable distance.

She looked at the white dusty road along which several passengers who had disembarked at the same time as herself were already receding.

‘If only I could sleep,’ she mused.

She had spent part of the previous night sitting on a hard bench at a Railway Terminus. The waiting room had been closed and locked, German orders, she supposed. Several times during the night Officials had walked in, staring disdainfully at the waiting groups of chilled but patient travellers.

The innumerable times that she had shown her papers! Always the same questions and the same explanations.

Once or twice her heart had beaten faster and she had been afraid when she had thought that some inquisitor was staring at her too closely. But the drunken Officer who had signed the permits for Monsieur le Maire had been of high standing.

Each time, after disparaging remarks as to the impropriety of travelling long distances at such a time, her papers were returned and she would take them thankfully, conscious that yet another obstacle was passed and another barrier negotiated.

Now, at last, incredibly, she had attained her goal, but was too tired to feel anything save an utter exhaustion. The road stretched ahead of her.

Well, there was nothing for it, she had to go forward.

She walked on, dragging her feet, her luggage impeding her progress as if it contained lumps of lead rather than clothes.

It was hot and she could feel the sweat gathering beneath the stiff band of her hat and trickling down her forehead.

Perhaps it will remove some of the dirt, she thought indifferently, knowing how travel-stained and begrimed she was. The carriages in which she had travelled had been filthy, the floors covered not only with dust and dirt but with pieces of decaying food, paper and ash.

She walked on. Now she could smell and feel the tang of salt in the air. There was a fresh invigorating breeze blowing in from the sea and suddenly she was then overwhelmed with a longing for England and for home.

On, on, the dust rose with every step she took. On, on, would the road never come to an end?

More than once she stopped, putting down her luggage, half-tempted to leave it behind and go on without it and trusting to find it again.

She would have done so but for the fear that someone might open it and be surprised at the contents.

The road twisted, the fields on both sides were deserted and Fleur saw that now she was walking away from the village.

And she wondered how much further she must drag herself before she reached the farm.

“You can’t miss it,” Marie had said and yet she had begun to wonder if she had got her instructions right and if she was indeed going in the right direction.

Then, quite suddenly, it lay before her. A turn of the road, the rounding of a great clump of poplar trees and there it was, a small untidy building, its walls, once white, now cracked and weather-beaten, a gate swinging back from its broken hinge and a yard deserted save for a tortoiseshell cat sleeping on a wooden bench.

Fleur put down her luggage and stood gazing at the house. Only the cat reassured her that someone was at home. She was half-afraid from the general air of desolation and quiet that the place might be uninhabited.

Resolutely she picked up her luggage again and was rehearsing to herself the words she would say.

She crossed the yard and abruptly, deep within the house, she heard a dog bark, a sharp insistent bark as if of fear.

She was conscious then that she was being watched and next someone looked through a window swiftly and furtively and was gone again. There was the sound of a voice, too far off to be intelligible, nevertheless a voice calling and once again silence, Fleur reached the porch, she waited a moment and then half-fearfully rapped on the door.

She could hardly hear the sound she made herself and she rapped again, this time louder.

After what seemed to be a long time she heard footsteps. They came nearer the door and paused. Someone whispered, she was certain it was a woman and there was the sound of a lock being turned and a bar being lifted.

The door was opened and a man stood there. Fleur looked at him and knew at once that this was Jacques, Marie’s brother. They were very alike. He had the same shaped face, the same eyes of Norman blue and the same square sturdy figure.

He was not a young man, his face was deeply scarred with lines and he had too the quiet sad expression which is often characteristic of those who live near to the soil and learn to accept the vagaries of nature with a fatalistic melancholy.

“What do you want?” Jacques Bouvais spoke slowly, his voice deep and gruff, and to Fleur there was something unfriendly in his attitude.

“I have come to you from your sister, Marie.”

She looked at him as she said the words, expecting an instantaneous response and change of expression. But, if he was surprised, there was no sign of it on his countenance, only the same look of patient resignation and the same impression of unyielding antagonism.

“Well?”

It was a question.

Fleur felt frustrated.

“May I come in?” she asked. “There is so much to explain.”

She felt suddenly afraid. Supposing Marie had been wrong, supposing her brother was also one of the collaborators with the German conquerors? In that case she was giving herself completely over to the enemy.

And yet what could she do? She had come so far.