Escape by Moonlight (5 page)

She shuddered. ‘What is it?’

‘It once belonged to the gamekeeper, long before my time, but I used to play here as a child. It was my special place, somewhere to hide away from the world …’

‘Why would you want to do that?’

‘Perhaps I will tell you one day. Here is where I would like to paint you, here among the ruins.’

Her heart plummeted; to her a portrait meant sitting on a chair in a clean room with a classic column beside her or a plant on a stand, with painted blue sky behind her and perhaps a distant landscape, not among spiders and cobwebs and bats. ‘It’s horrible. I wouldn’t want to come
here alone. It gives me the shivers, as if there are ghosts …’

‘Oh, foolish child, there are no such things as ghosts. And you won’t have to come here alone. I will meet you on the edge of the wood and we’ll come together. I will always be with you.’ He stopped and turned towards her and smiled, lifting a tendril of hair from her cheek and tucking it behind her ear.

She tilted her head up to look at him. There was a bond between them, an invisible thread that stretched from him to her. Neither could put words to it, but each was aware of it. In him it manifested itself in a lustful desire, in her it was a great tenderness of feeling. He bent and very gently put his lips to hers, felt her start away from him and then relax.

He could take her now, here on this woodland floor in front of his playhouse, but something held him back. Maybe it was the thought that anticipation was more than half the pleasure and he wanted to make it last, maybe he was more of a gentleman than he had realised, though it hadn’t stopped him enjoying other girls in the past and never giving them a second thought after the deed was done. Maybe it was too near his own doorstep and her father was of uncertain temper. Maybe it was her trusting nature. Whatever it was, he drew away. ‘Now, my dear, I must see you safely on your way.’

And suddenly the spell was broken. She could have cried, though whether from disappointment or relief she could not have said. He took her hand as he led her back to the path where it forked, one way going back the way they had come, the other leading to the gate in the lane near the railway line. ‘Next Sunday,’ he said, as they emerged onto the lane. ‘I will meet you in the same place as today and
we will make a start on the picture, but do not wear that dress.’

‘Why not? Don’t you like it?’

‘It is very fetching and suits you when you are trying to be the lady, but next week wear something plain, a blouse and skirt.’ He smiled. ‘Love among the ruins, where have I heard that phrase before?’

Love, he had said. She went home with a smile on her face. She did not see Frank Lambert.

Jack spent the afternoon riding round the estate on his bay mare. Nayton Manor had been his home since he was five years old and sometimes he forgot that it was not his birthright. Edmund would have it all. It wasn’t Edmund’s fault; it was just the way things were, and besides, his half-brother idolised him, so how could he be resentful? But he was. He might live like an aristocrat, but he could never be one. He was no grander than Lucy Storey, who at least knew where she stood. He smiled, thinking of her roundly curved body in that fetching blue dress. Next week he would paint her against the backdrop of the ruined keeper’s cottage, not in that dress, but with next to nothing on and her hair wild and tangled. He would make her laugh and then perhaps she might let him kiss her and then … He savoured the idea of making love to her and wondered how she would react.

He emerged from the park and walked his horse along the riverbank, plodding along lost in contemplation, until he became aware of a fisherman sitting with his line in the water. He pulled up. The man was staring out across the river towards a distant mill, taking no notice of his jerking line. ‘You’ve got a bite,’ he said.

Startled, the man turned and looked up at him as if waking from a dream. ‘You’ve got a bite,’ Jack repeated, recognising the signalman, though he could not remember his name.

‘So I hev.’ The man jerked into life and began reeling in the fish. It was a sizeable one and Jack dismounted and watched while he landed it, took the hook from its mouth and tossed it into his keepnet.

‘You’ve a good catch,’ Jack said, looking down at the half-dozen fish that wriggled in the confines of the net. ‘This must be a good spot.’

‘So it is.’ This said somewhat sourly.

‘You work at Nayton Halt, don’t you?’

‘I do.’

‘Good job, is it?’

‘Good enough for me to take a wife. Miss Storey and me are going to be wed, so you just leave her be and stop fillin’ her head with nonsense.’

Jack looked at the man with something akin to loathing. For one thing, he was unused to being addressed in that discourteous manner, and for another, he was suddenly faced with an image of Lucy in the arms of this uncouth man, and it sickened him. He could hardly believe she would have consented. But why would she not? They were on the same social level and sooner or later she would be expected to marry. ‘Lucy Storey?’ he queried, pretending not to understand.

‘Yes. You know well enough who I mean. She’s my girl, so you keep your sticky fingers off her.’

‘I think, Mr Signalman, whatever your name is, you go too far. I will not be threatened. And if you wish to keep your job …’

Frank knew he had gone a step too far but he would not retract. ‘I see you. I see you last week and I see you ag’in this morning, so I know what’s going on. And you had best not threaten me either because I can take the matter to His Lordship.’

‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ Jack said impatiently. ‘What interest could I possibly have in Lucy Storey? She works on the railway just as you do …’

‘Beneath you, is she? Same as me. Well, that’s as maybe, but she won’t be meeting you no more.’

‘Do you know,’ Jack said, remounting. ‘I am entirely indifferent. Good day, to you.’

He rode home, furious with himself for minding so much. As long as they did the jobs they were paid for, what the lower orders did was no concern of his. They could marry and have hordes of children for all he cared. It did not matter one jot to him what Lucy Storey did with her life. But she would have made a splendid model. He pulled up so suddenly the mare reared a little and whinnied. ‘Sorry, old girl,’ he said and walked her on, still musing on Lucy, remembering her bright eyes and ready smile, her look of innocence which belied the invitation in her eyes, a temptation as old as time. Was he going to let that man, any man, dictate to him whom he saw?

He approached the house from the rear and stopped when he came within sight of it. The sun was shining on its myriad of windows, making them dazzle like so many mirrors against the green of the ivy which clung to its red-brick walls. He remembered when he first arrived, how overawed he had been, how miserable and unsettled, having to learn to speak English when all he wanted was to go back to Dransville and have his mother to himself
again and be spoilt by his grandmother. Time had dimmed that memory and he hardly ever thought about it now, but today his sensitivity to things past had been heightened by a few words exchanged with a simple country girl and a nobody of a railway employee.

He trotted round to the stables, left the horse with a stable boy, and went into the house by a side door, through a corridor carpeted with a red Turkey runner, to the front hall, and thence up to his room to change for dinner. A servant had filled his bath and laid out his evening clothes, but before changing he went over to the table where his sketchbook had been left open. His last effort to draw Lucy looked up at him from the page. He ripped it out, screwed it in a ball and flung it into the waste-paper basket. What did it matter whether he painted her or not? It would not make one iota of difference to his future.

His mother and sister were already in the drawing room when he went down, both beautifully gowned; his mother in dark-green taffeta that enhanced the richness of her hair, while fire-headed Amy was in blue with her cream shoulders peeping above the boat-shaped neckline. They knew exactly how to behave in society, with whom it was permissible to speak and what should be avoided at all costs. They would most decidedly disapprove of dalliance with a stationmaster’s daughter, especially one from Nayton Halt, and they would deprecate a slanging match with a signalman as beneath his dignity, which it was and he wished now he had never spoken to the fellow.

‘Good evening, Mama.’ He bent to kiss his mother’s cheek. ‘Amy.’

‘Where have you been all afternoon?’ Amy asked him.

‘I decided to go for a ride. Have I missed anything?’

‘No. I wish you’d said, I’d have come with you.’

‘I didn’t go far.’ He was saved having to elaborate by the arrival of his father and Edmund, followed almost immediately by the butler who announced that dinner was served. They trooped into the dining room, Lord and Lady de Lacey side by side, followed by Jack, with Amy bringing up the rear with Edmund.

No one, looking at them, would guess the momentous news that had burst upon them that morning, though the conversation inevitably turned to it and what it would mean. Charles and Annelise could call on their memories of the Great War, but even they agreed this one wouldn’t be like that. ‘I certainly hope and pray not,’ Annelise said. ‘The carnage was dreadful. All those young men …’ She stopped, remembering Jacques, to whom she had been engaged, whose legacy had been the handsome son who sat next to her. ‘But it can’t happen again, can it?’

‘Of course not, my dear,’ Charles said. ‘But I hope Lizzie got my wire. I want her home.’

‘So do I, but she is booked to come on the ninth in any case and I can’t think anything will happen before then, if at all. Savoie is a peaceful place. It always has been.’

‘Of course, my love. I was simply being cautious.’

‘That’s it, then,’ Albert said, switching off the wireless to save the accumulators. It was early evening and listeners had just been given the news that France had followed Britain’s lead and declared war. ‘Time you packed your bags, Lisabette.’

‘I’ll go on the ninth, like I said. Hitler’s not going to panic me into doing anything I don’t want to do. He’s busy in the east, he’s not going to come here in the next few days, is he?’

Albert laughed. ‘No, of course not. Do you want to come into Annecy with me tomorrow? I’m going to look at some cattle. We could call on Pierre.’

‘Yes, I’d like that. I can say goodbye to Uncle Pierre and Aunt Jeanne and collect some wine to take back with me.’

They set off next morning in the van which coughed and spluttered its way up and down the hills and had them in Annecy just after midday. Known to almost everyone, Grandpère was in his element in the market and spent time
examining cows before deciding to bid for two heifers that took his fancy. He managed to get them at a good price, probably because some of the sellers were panicking over the war news. Having paid for them and arranged for them to be delivered, they returned to the van to drive to Pierre’s vineyard just outside the town.

It was only a small independent vineyard but its grapes produced good wine and Pierre had done well for himself. Albert was justly proud of his son’s achievements, as he was of Annelise who, in spite of the disgrace of having a child out of wedlock, had managed to bag herself an English lord. And there was Justine, his youngest, teaching in a school in Paris and living in her own apartment on the rue de la Pompe. He fervently hoped and prayed this war would not upset their lives too much.

Pierre, at forty-eight, was a younger version of his father, not tall but immensely strong. His wife was blond and tiny, seemingly fragile, but she had borne two boys, Henri and Philippe, now in their twenties, who helped run the vineyard. They were all there when Albert and Elizabeth arrived, sitting round the table enjoying a late lunch of soup and crusty bread. Room was made for them at the table and more bowls fetched.

‘What do you think of the news, eh?’ Pierre asked his father, after Elizabeth had been hugged and kissed and Albert had explained what they had been doing in Annecy.

The old man shrugged. ‘What is there to think?’

‘It’ll be over by Christmas,’ Philippe said.

‘They said that last time and we had four years of it.’ Albert paused before continuing. ‘How’s the grape coming on?’

‘Not bad, not bad at all,’ Pierre told him. ‘We should begin harvesting next month.’

‘If Hitler lets you.’

‘I doubt he’ll stop us. There will always be a need for good wine.’

‘If the boys get called up, you’ll be short-handed.’

‘I could stay and help,’ Elizabeth said.

‘You, Lisabette, are going home at the end of the week,’ her grandfather said firmly.

‘Have you enjoyed your stay?’ Jeanne asked her.

‘Very much. I always do. Dransville is my second home. I wonder if I’ll be able to come next year?’

‘Let’s drink to that,’ Pierre said, raising his glass. ‘To next year and may there be peace again.’

‘To peace.’ Their voices rose together.

Elizabeth, loaded with a basket containing six bottles of the best wine for her parents, said goodbye to everyone and settled in the van beside her grandfather for the journey home. They were both thoughtful and didn’t talk much, and Elizabeth had no idea anything was wrong until Grandpère suddenly said he didn’t feel well. He had hardly uttered the words before he slumped across the steering wheel and the little van careered all over the road.

Elizabeth tried to grab the wheel but his whole weight was resting on it and she couldn’t steer. He still had his foot on the accelerator. She reached over and switched off the engine, but that made little difference on the steep downward slope. They tore down the hill while she wrestled with the steering wheel and tried to slow the van down with the handbrake. There was a bend in the road at the bottom of the hill and they failed to negotiate it. The van went over the side of the road, tumbled down the hillside and came to rest on its side against the stump of a tree.

Elizabeth, who had been knocked unconscious, came
to her senses while the wheels were still turning. The bottles had broken and the smell of wine filled the little vehicle. Trying not to panic, she attempted to move. A pain shot across her shoulder and made her pause. ‘Papie’ she said, feeling his throat for a pulse. Thank God, he wasn’t dead. ‘Papie, wake up. We’ve got to get out.’ He did not stir. She had to get help. Struggling with the pain in her shoulder and the strange upside-downness of everything, it seemed a lifetime before she could get the door open and then she saw several people scrambling down to reach them. ‘It’s all right, miss. We’ll get you out. Don’t try and move.’

‘I never counted the windows before now,’ Annelise said to Charles at breakfast. He was getting ready to catch the train to London and the War Office where he hoped he would be given something useful to do for the war effort. ‘Do you know how many there are?’

Everyone had been ordered to black out all their windows after dark, so that not a chink of light could be seen from the air, and that caused problems at Nayton Manor. There were so many and most of them large. It would take miles of blackout material.

‘I have no idea, a hundred, I should think.’

‘We can’t make blackout curtains for all of them, Charles. I suggest we close off part of the house and lock the doors. We don’t use all the rooms, and if we lose staff it will be a job to keep them clean and heated in any case.’

‘Good idea. I leave it to you.’

The post arrived while they had been talking, brought on a silver salver by a servant. Among the letters was one from Elizabeth. Annelise picked it up and slit it open.

‘Oh, my goodness, Lizzie is in hospital,’ she said. ‘She and Pa had an accident in the van.’

‘Is she badly hurt? Let me see.’ Charles abandoned his own post and held out his hand for the letter but she hung onto it. ‘Let me finish it first. My father had a stroke while at the wheel and the van overturned. He’s in the same hospital but out of danger. Lizzie broke her left upper arm, and she has a few cuts, nothing to worry about, so she says. I ought to go out and see for myself.’

‘That won’t be easy,’ he said. ‘There are restrictions on travel now, especially to France, considering all the boats are filled with troops being sent out there. How is your mother coping?’

Annelise went on reading. ‘She’s staying with Pierre and Jeanne while Father is in hospital and Alphonse Montbaun is looking after the farm.’ She looked up as he stood up and moved towards the door. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To see if I can get through to Pierre,’ he called over his shoulder.

She followed him into the hall where the telephone stood on a small table and watched as he picked it up and asked to be put through to Annecy. The lines were all busy and they were advised to try again later.

‘Put the call through as soon as you get a free line,’ he told the operator. ‘And then ring me back. It’s urgent.’

Three hours later the telephone rang and Annelise ran and snatched it up. A few seconds later she heard her brother’s voice. ‘Pierre, is that you? What happened? How is Lizzie? And Papa? Shall we come?’

She listened as he explained what had happened, that their father’s stroke meant he was unable to move or speak properly, but the doctors hoped he would make at least a
partial recovery. Elizabeth had her arm in plaster and a lot of cuts and bruises, but she was young and strong and there would be no lasting damage.

‘She won’t be coming home at the end of the week, then?’ Annelise said, knowing the answer.

‘No, but there’s no need to panic. The war hasn’t got going yet and we’re safe enough here. As soon as she’s discharged, we’ll send her home. Don’t worry.’

Annelise put the phone back on its hook and turned to Charles who had abandoned his trip to London and followed her into the hall. ‘She’s OK, but Pa is partially paralysed. Pierre seems to think he’ll recover. I hope and pray he does. He’ll hate not being able to work the farm. I wish we could persuade them to come here, at least for the duration.’

‘They would be very welcome, I’ve told them so many times. But, you know, your father would be like a fish out of water. He wouldn’t be happy.’

She sighed. ‘I suppose you are right.’

‘I’ll ring Max. Chances are he’ll be sent to France with his regiment. He might be able to get a spot of leave to go and see Lizzie.’ He picked up the telephone and booked another call. But he didn’t manage to speak to Max. Captain Coburn had already left for France.

Max and his company had arrived in France as part of the British Expeditionary Force and been deployed alongside the French troops who had advanced five miles into Germany with the intention of cutting off Saarbrucken and forcing the Germans to transfer troops from the Polish front to defend it. The Germans simply retreated as far as the Siegfried Line and sat tight. An assault on that formidable
line of defence was considered out of the question by the French command. British troops had to content themselves with training and exercises and digging defences along the Belgian border to fill the gap between the English Channel and the most northerly point of the Maginot Line, while the quartermasters of the various regiments sent urgent messages back home for more weapons and equipment.

‘How is this helping the Poles?’ Lieutenant Greenford grumbled to Max, the day after Russia invaded Poland and the country was being slowly squeezed to death by two powerful armies, one from the west and one from the east. Ill-equipped and unprepared for the onslaught, they were fighting bravely, but fighting a losing battle ‘We should be attacking not hanging about waiting.’

‘It all takes time,’ he said. ‘Be patient.’

He was reading a letter from Lord de Lacey and it was taking all his attention. Lizzie had not gone home. Lizzie was hurt and in hospital in Annecy. In spite of assurances that her injuries were not serious and she would come home as soon as she was discharged, they were worried about her. His lordship did not know how Max was fixed but if he could get some leave and go and see her, it might set her mother’s mind at rest.

Nothing much was happening on the front, a few patrols, a skirmish or two, but that was all. Max lost no time in applying for leave.

Elizabeth, her arm in plaster, was sitting beside her grandfather’s bed. Her grandmother sat on the other side, holding his hand, talking to him, trying to get a response from him. ‘Albert, can you hear me?’ she was saying. ‘Squeeze my hand.’

Always so active and cheerful, Grandmère was suddenly looking old and worn. It was the first time Elizabeth had thought of either of them as mortal and it shocked her. She had always taken them for granted, but seeing her grandmother bowed down with worry tugged at her heart. She ought to do more to help.

‘You are going to get better, do you hear me?’ the old lady said, leaning over him.

His face was all lopsided, but his right eye flickered open and then shut again. He muttered something incomprehensible.

‘I can’t understand what he’s saying.’ She appealed to Elizabeth.

‘I can’t either. Perhaps we should let him rest.’

‘Van.’ The word came out quite clearly.

‘Oh, you are worried about that old van,’ his wife said. ‘It’s been taken to the garage. I don’t know if it can be mended. It’s not important.’ She stood up and bent over to kiss his cheek. ‘Go to sleep. I’ll come back again later.’

‘Fancy worrying about the van,’ Grandmère said, as she and Elizabeth walked down the ward. ‘It was falling to bits anyway. I’ve been saying for ages he ought to get the brakes fixed.’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference, Mamie. He would still have had his stroke.’

‘I don’t know what’s to become of us now. Without the farm we’d starve, and I can’t manage it on my own. It isn’t fair to ask Pierre, he’s got his own business to worry about.’

‘I’ll stay and help you. My arm will mend and there’s nothing else wrong with me.’

‘You,
ma chère
? You must go home to England.’

‘There’s no must about it. You need me and I’m staying.’

‘But if the Germans come …’

‘So what can they do to us? An old man, an old lady and a girl. They won’t be interested in us. And if things get too uncomfortable we can always hop over the border into Switzerland.’

‘You make it sound so simple. There’s a mountain to climb, you know.’

‘I know, but it won’t come to that. Papie will get well enough to potter about and tell me what to do, and with a little help from our friends in the village, we’ll manage very well.’

The old lady sighed. ‘I don’t know what your father will say.’

‘He can’t say much. I’m old enough to know my own mind. If Papie gets well enough to cope without my help, then I’ll think about going home.’

They emerged from the hospital and caught a bus to her uncle’s vineyard and Elizabeth repeated her arguments for his benefit. He seemed relieved. ‘I’ll do what I can to help,’ he said. ‘But knowing you are with Maman will be a great weight off my mind.’

It was settled to everyone’s satisfaction. Elizabeth and the old lady would stay with Pierre and Jeanne until Elizabeth’s plaster was taken off and then they would take Grandpère home to Dransville and look after him there. ‘He will get better all the quicker at home where he can see what’s happening on the farm,’ Elizabeth said. Already she was marshalling her arguments ready for a letter to her parents. And there was Max too. He had been anxious for her to return home. What would he think about her decision?

She learnt what he thought about it the very next day
when he turned up unannounced. She was sitting at the table in Pierre’s living room with Grandmère at her side, filling in a form to claim insurance for the van. They were hoping the money would be enough to buy another one which Elizabeth could drive.

When Jeanne ushered him in, Elizabeth jumped up and ran into his arms. ‘Max! How did you get here? Oh, it is so good to see you.’