In a Field of Blue

by Liviero, Gemma

  It was Bert who came to the rescue and offered to take him to the work shed to distract him for a while. Mother had asked me to check the condition of our bayside property at Bardsea, which we were planning to sell. As well, to bring back a wall clock and a painting, and any other objects of value that she feared might be taken. The house had been rented out fully furnished after Father died, to help with financing, but it had sat unoccupied for a long period, and with people spilling into the cities for work, finding replacement tenants seemed unlikely.

  Mariette hadn’t talked much more about Edgar because, she told me, there was not much more to tell. I had relayed these exact words to Mother, and she had simply said the truth would come out at some point, but from the casual way she spoke, I felt she had already made up her mind. Something about the boy had struck a chord. Something about the child perhaps had reminded her of Edgar, a mother’s sense maybe.

  Mother had viewed the child as one would at a zoo or exhibition in the initial stages, but this quickly developed from curiosity. I believe she had seen something familiar there also, though hadn’t yet admitted such. Mother seemed to find reasons to leave her room, returning a plate to the kitchen that she would not have otherwise done, gravitating to the rooms where the child was, perhaps just to judge for herself and watch him for signs of Edgar. It was hard to not be enchanted by his elfin-sweet face and thick straight fringe that draped his eyebrows.

  I excused myself from Mariette to go to the car, and she followed me. She asked what I was planning for the day and curiously asked if she and her son could accompany me on the journey. I must admit, I didn’t really want to leave her.

  Mother had not interrogated her any further about Edgar. I could tell she was restrained around Mariette. She did not ask questions, and I believe that Mother was in turmoil over her feelings toward her. I did not feel it wise yet to share the possible age discrepancy of Samuel, as proposed by the doctor, versus the marriage certificate. I liked that Mother was warming to Mariette and did not want anything to mar the burgeoning relationship.

  We sought out Samuel in the shed. At Mariette’s suggestion of a drive to the sea, Samuel appeared not to hear, preferring to stay watching Bert’s hands at work.

  “Don’t you want to come?” Mariette asked him in French and then again in English, to teach him. The boy then strangely looked to Bert for counsel, which I found most amusing.

  “What? No words?” Mariette asked.

  “Maman!” he said, and shook his head.

  Bert kept busy filing a piece of wood to varnish, ever the diplomat and not inclined to interfere.

  “Bert,” I asked, “is it all right if he stays with you?”

  “Yes,” he said in his softly gruff voice, without raising an eye or pausing from his task.

  Mariette furrowed her brow, then bit her lip.

  “I suppose it is fine.” She turned to me. “I imagine from all the travel, he is not keen for any more at present. It is just me, if that’s all right with you?”

  “Of course,” I said, though quite what else could I have said?

  I was not as good at driving as my brothers, and the car stalled a couple of times. We drove the winding country roads that took us south past woodlands. The air that breezed through the windows was cold, but this didn’t deter Mariette, who was perched close to the door to catch the wind. We could smell the salt air before catching sight of the bay and the village houses beyond the hills.

  The two-story white brick house, with sweeping coastal views and a large and overgrown back garden, sat high at the top of a road that meandered down through the village toward Morecambe Bay. The front door, exposed to the elements, looked in need of oiling, and paint was peeling from the windowsills. But these were things to me that didn’t lessen the house’s value, only heightened its appeal. Here it didn’t matter that the house was neglected. The house did not have the majesty of the manor, but it was more attractive by its quaint simplicity.

  I unlocked the door and was met with an earthy closed-up smell that disappeared quickly with the gust of sea wind that followed us in. Mariette breezed through the rooms, typical of someone who does not have the patience to put on airs. She rubbed her hand over dusty banisters not to test for cleanliness but to feel the smoothness of wood, and she curiously looked in cupboards and canisters.

  I first checked the rooms for broken windows and signs of vagrancy, and everything appeared in order, then placed in the back seat several items that I thought Mother would want returned. Mariette followed me into each room during my final task, taking stock of minor repairs in a notebook. Once my appraisal was completed, she joined me at a top front window to view the village. We were both silent before she eyed me studiously, as if there was something she wanted to say and couldn’t. I felt awkward being this close and alone with her, and when I spoke, my shaky voice revealed this.

  “Do you want to walk to the sea?”

  She smiled brightly.

  “Yes, I do.”

  She reminded me of a very young girl as she bounced ahead of me down the stairs, holding up her skirt. She wore another of my mother’s dresses, this time in sheer peach organza over the top of a cream shift with a wide cream sash tightly bowed at the waist, accentuating her slender frame, the hemline stopping only inches above the ankles. She wore a little hat to match that was flat on the top, which tied under her chin, and with a flower made in the same organza. It had been Mother’s favorite outfit for a time. And as she reached the door, she turned to wait for me. I wondered whether I had been transferred to someone else’s life. I felt strange and wonderful around her. She was linked to a tragedy, the fact that my brother had been killed after meeting her, had died perhaps only miles from where she lived, and yet her presence seemed to outweigh any sadness at that moment.

  Though the sky had pulled across its cover of gray, we weaved our way through the village and toward the shore. When we reached the sand, Mariette wasted no time in taking off her shoes and hoisting her skirts upward slightly, revealing her lower legs. I took my shoes off, too, trying to assume composure and avoid staring at her in fascination.

  Leaving our shoes behind, we walked along the sand flats, and when the first spots of rain appeared, I asked her if she wanted to turn back.

  “Of course not!”

  She walked toward the bay across the stretch of sand. Beyond that the water was not the usually brilliant, glistening blue today but a deeper, duller, menacing color.

  She’d never been in the sea, she told me, yet she boldly and eagerly entered the shallow water. I cautiously followed her, keeping close. Unlike during our holidays in Blackpool, we rarely swam here as children, since the tides compromised the rigidity of the shorelines, and we were only allowed to wade a short way from any solid ground to search for cockles and inspect the shore crabs. There were gullies, and the flat sand shifted with the change in tides to become like quicksand.

  “Don’t go too far out!” I warned.

  “Don’t worry! I will go as far as I think I can.”

  She did not see until the last second that she was in danger of stepping into deeper seas where the shelf of sand deceptively dropped many yards. As she moved to step into the watery void, she realized her misjudgment and lost her balance, then attempted to correct herself. I lunged to catch her, and she turned to cling to me, peering down into the water behind her. When she turned back around, our faces were so close, and during the brief interlude that we were fused, I pondered irrationally whether to kiss her. She laughed fearlessly to break the moment, and I released her gently so she could carry on with her exploration unperturbed.

  We proceeded to wander carelessly along the more solid shoreline, our clothes blown tightly against our bodies as we attempted to talk above the whistling winds. Viewing the sky that was filling with rain clouds, I knew that our time here was limited and suggested we make our way back. There was silence for a period as we walked, almost loitered, back toward the grassy sandbank.
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  It dawned on me suddenly that she had told us little about the people she had lived with in France. She had given us glimpses, but much of her stories were filled with descriptions of geography and just occasionally the turmoil of war. And much of her talk had also been about us, Edgar’s memory of family.

  “Do you have any family anywhere that may be alive, do you think?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “No one.”

  Some children had run over the hill toward the sand with colored buckets, and it distracted her briefly. She turned toward them, catching the loose strands of hair that flicked her face.

  “If you weren’t here, where would you go?”

  The smile she had on her face waned slightly, and a frown appeared briefly, fighting the urge to remain in the middle of her forehead.

  She turned back to me, eyes darker than before.

  “I would go home, of course, to what’s left. Pick up from where I was before. Work perhaps at an orchard somewhere. We grew apples and pears in our orchard. Did I tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, the war took it all away.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  And I confined the walk with a period of silence, not knowing how any words could compensate.

  “It was madness most times,” she said. “Being near the front line. The crackling of rifle fire at night, the shelling that was intense for days. One day we narrowly missed out on being bombed, a mortar shell taking out part of our property. But I only experienced a small piece of it, compared with others. It was much worse for Edgar, for soldiers. It was dreadful for everyone.”

  “That sounds frightening. It must have been very unnerving to live like that from day to day.”

  She bent down, picked up a seashell, and examined it, then showed it to me.

  She smiled, and I smiled back, unsure of what it all meant, what we were to each other. I had feelings for her, strong ones. Were they the thoughts of a naive, hopeful boy or something deeper? Talk of Edgar should have driven away any physical feelings toward her, but I felt close to her, and a bond had easily formed. I had to know her better, as I believed there was so much more to know.

  We put on our shoes, and she corrected her skirt. Then we proceeded slowly in the direction of the house again: reluctant to leave or reluctant to fight what I felt perhaps we shared. But a final burst of heavy rain sent us closing the remaining distance quickly. I opened the door to let her through, and we shook the heavy drops from our clothes and watched the rain briefly through the doorway. I half thought to close the door, imagining us alone. She suddenly stepped forward and kissed me on the cheek. As I reached toward her, she stepped away just as suddenly and ran for the car.

  I felt young then, and silly, and I locked up the house and followed her, sliding into the driver’s seat and winding up the window against the wet.

  “Thank you,” she said as the car hummed and bounced once again past farmers’ fields and through tunnels of overhanging tree canopies along the road northward.

  “I have often wondered what it was like to have sand between my toes,” she said. “Only once did I step on sand, though it was too brief to remember.”

  I wanted to ask where and when, but the silence within the car felt strangely warming and no longer awkward, and the window washers that moved rhythmically back and forth lulled us dreamily into other thoughts. The kiss had broken down some of my guardedness.

  We returned, and Peggy, rolling dough in the kitchen now with Samuel, saw the state of our damp clothes. Mariette slipped quietly back to her room, and I stood to explain, but Peggy put up her hand, gave her famous raised eyebrow when she saw something she didn’t wish to hear, and handed me a piece of paper.

  The note was from Roland, asking me to come and see him when I had a chance. There is much to discuss.

  The rain had eased, so I rode Sheriff to Ulverston, back in the direction we had just come from, and tied him outside Roland’s office. I was still floating from the time I spent with Mariette, from the kiss that had sped my heartbeat, and the excitement and trepidation at what I was about to learn.

  Roland sat in the office behind his big desk, a stately place, though not as tidy as many: books opened and notes attached and papers scattered into somewhat organized chaos.

  “I’m terribly sorry for the current state,” he said. “I have a rather large case on. It is a matter of the future of the Lakeland. Developers . . . they are hanging around and buying up lands here from those who can’t afford to keep them, or without children to hand them down to. But now . . . let me see.” He took out some papers from beneath a pile on the desk and examined them quietly for several seconds.

  “Firstly, I have requested a copy of the revised listing of service personnel missing in action, which is for your mother. I will forward it to you as soon as it arrives.”

  I nodded my thanks.

  “As for the other matter, I attempted first to find a birth certificate, but there was no registration recorded for a Samuel Edgar Watts. I tried several variations from that, but the date you have given me and the vicinity does not show up anything. I did, however, retrieve a list of addresses of those with the same name of Lavier . . . the maiden name of the woman in question here, I daresay. There were none with the name ‘Mariette Lavier’ from the region, though several with that surname in various places in and around the area. You could write to those addresses if you wish. But if what she says is true about her family, then I expect it will likely turn up nothing.”

  He passed me a neatly handwritten list of names and addresses.

  “As for the marriage, this is probably the most interesting. The certificate was signed by a priest from a village that had been destroyed, and I was pleased to learn he was still alive and living in another parish further south. I did manage to contact him by way of telegram, and he responded immediately by letter. There were several he married hastily without the use of banns, since the war had no tolerance for them. The register in the church was destroyed, and he has since been trying to put together a list of names himself. He does vaguely remember a wedding just before his village was bombed, but he said that after the war, he was very busy with foreign soldiers marrying Frenchwomen. He does, however, remember a girl named Mariette with auburn hair.”

  “Did he mention any witnesses?” I asked while scanning the letter he had passed to me.

  “Only that he has a vague recollection of the father of the girl being present, but that’s all unfortunately. Meanwhile I checked the name you gave me, and there is a registration of death for a Jerome Pierre Lavier from Bailleul in 1918 . . . But I think there are more queries you need to pose to the young lady, such as if there were any other witnesses, documents, and specific dates. To help learn more you would need to be aware of someone perhaps there at the birth. And I daresay that legally, as well as convincing your mother, these are items that are most certainly important.”

  I said it seemed strange that we are such a suspicious lot that we no longer simply rely on the word of someone. And he agreed.

  “It is exactly that suspicion that keeps me in business,” he said.

  I wondered what Mariette would think about the depth of our investigation, most of which she was unaware of. She seemed unconcerned that we were checking the validity of the certificate. She had to be telling the truth, I told myself. It seemed absurd to think otherwise. There was too much now: a wedding, a photo, and not least a child. And of course, which I still held to be in her favor, her word.

  “And then there is one last thing and possibly something that could set back some hopes for the child should a claim be made for the inheritance. There is no birth record of Mariette, either.”

  Feelings of hopefulness faded slightly. “Perhaps she was born with a different name.”

  “Perhaps. It is probably the most important issue. Here in summary is a woman without a record of her birth, a child without a record, a missing husband in war. It is a most difficult and se
nsitive situation. Are you aware of all the terms of your father’s binding will?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Because if Samuel is somehow proven to be Edgar’s son, everything changes. I believe that the evidence as it stands is unlikely to result in a successful claim, and I also have to assume that Laurence would likely challenge it if it were presented.”

  “That’s an understatement,” I said, and he chuckled, shrewd to have recognized my undertone, and all too aware of our traits.

  “As you know, under the terms of inheritance,” he continued, “if such a claim is proven to be true, Samuel would replace Laurence as the heir to the estate, in which case Abigail would be his legal guardian until he comes of age. And during this time she can still make all decisions concerning the estate. But it seems that without more evidence your brother may well have a strong case against such a claim if it were to be raised. I’m not sure if it’s your intent to pursue the avenue that Samuel is Edgar’s son, but if it is, then you would undoubtedly require additional proof. And without records and witnesses, I’m not sure this can go much further.”

  I could not see Laurence giving up any part of the estate without a fight. He would most certainly make a challenge of his own. But if Mariette was telling the truth, then it would also do Edgar a great injustice to not fight for her.

  My head had been filled with ideas on the ride back to the manor. There was no denying the fact that my feelings were racing ahead of facts, but I still believed there were further truths from Mariette that had yet to emerge. I felt there was something she was keeping from me that would be the solid proof I needed. Could it be it was something to be ashamed of? Perhaps the evidence she provided would make the timing of the birth and the marriage more visible. Could she be protecting us from certain knowledge, protecting our name?