“Just in time! It’s going to pour. And I’m late…” She glanced at the clock and then at Hélène. “A little late. But I had such a nice time, and…” She came to a stop.
“Did you look after yourself, my darling? I missed you, you know, and now we can’t go for our walk—not in this downpour…” She hesitated, and turned round, and Hélène thought she had never seen her mother’s eyes look so bright, or her face so pale.
Hélène sat down on one of the wooden chairs. She kept her back very straight.
“It doesn’t matter about the walk,” she said carefully. She paused. “Will you be going out to see your friend again?”
Her mother was pleating the silk of her dress between her fingers, her head bent, but now she looked up.
“Maybe. I might. Just sometimes—you know. Not often.”
“Can I come too?”
“No, darling.” She looked away. “Not for the moment. This is Mummy’s friend, you see. But one day, maybe…We’ll have to see. This is a special friend, you see. A sort of secret friend, can you understand that? You know how Mother hates gossip, and how she’s told you about the people around here, the Tanners and Cassie Wyatt…” She gave a sudden angry gesture with her fingers. “Talk, talk, talk, all day long. Nothing better to do. Well, I don’t want them to talk about me, do I? So…” She paused, and then knelt down and put her arm around Hélène.
“So—don’t mention this to anyone, will you, darling?—you know, if you come in to Cassie Wyatt’s with me, the way you do sometimes. Or if anyone came to the trailer while I was away. Don’t mention Mother has a friend, will you, Hélène? It’ll be more fun that way. It can be our secret, do you see?”
Hélène looked at her steadily. Her mother’s face was smiling, but her eyes were wide and anxious. Hélène knew, just the way she’d known with Billy, that her mother was leaving something out, that there was something she wasn’t saying. She felt that tight hurt feeling around her heart again. When her mother bent to kiss her, she turned her face away, so the kiss just brushed her hair. “All right,” she said at last. “May I have a cookie now? I’m hungry.”
Her mother jumped to her feet quickly. Too quickly. And she didn’t correct the word “cookie” to biscuit, either. Hélène couldn’t understand it at all. It was like the times Mother lost her temper, and was sorry afterward, and tried to make amends.
She watched her mother coldly as she reached into the kitchen cupboard, and she was glad she’d gone to the swimming hole, glad she’d been with Billy Tanner, glad she hadn’t told her mother.
Let her have her secrets, she thought. She didn’t care. She hugged her arms around herself, and smiled. She had two secrets now. Going swimming with Billy, and the way Major Calvert shook her hand. That was a start.
It might be nice to have some more.
Edouard
London–Paris, 1941–1944
“EDOUARD. EDOUARD. I HAVE the impression—misguided no doubt—that you are not concentrating. That you are in some secret world of your own, to which I, alas, do not have access.”
Hugo Glendinning looked up suddenly from the book he had been reading aloud, and fixed Edouard with his blue eyes. Edouard jumped.
“Edouard.” Hugo sighed. “Have you heard a word of this? One word?” He pushed the book away from him impatiently, and lit another cigarette. Edouard looked down at the account of the Napoleonic campaigns, and hastily tried to find the place where Hugo had left off. It could have been pages before. He had no idea.
“Edouard.” Hugo was attempting patience. “Two months ago now, on June twenty-second to be precise, the armies of the Reich attacked Russia. It is possible, just possible, that this may be the turning point in this never-ending war. It thus seems a good moment, a reasonable moment, to examine the fate of Napoleon Bonaparte and his armies when he attempted a similar enterprise. We shall look—we are looking, or I was—at the historical accounts of that campaign. We may then go on and compare them with the fictional account in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. This seems to me a timely, indeed imaginative choice. Certain of your own ancestors fought in those campaigns. Unless I am mistaken, the eighth Baron de Chavigny, who seems to have ingratiated himself with the upstart Corsican very successfully, was killed at the Battle of Borodino. You therefore have a personal reason for finding this subject as interesting and instructive as I do. You will shortly be celebrating your sixteenth birthday. It is not a particularly taxing subject for a young man of your age and ability. And yet I sense your interest is less than total. Would you like to tell me why?”
Edouard did not look up. Why? he wanted to say. Why, Hugo? Because I don’t give a toss for Napoleon or Russia or even the Germans very much. Tolstoy can go hang, and take his interminable novel with him. All I want is to be left in peace and allowed to think about Célestine—Célestine, the most beautiful, the most adorable, the most heavenly woman who ever lived. He knew perfectly well, of course, that he would say, could say, no such thing; though he had a nasty suspicion, once he looked up and saw Hugo’s expression, that his tutor had a keen idea of what he thought. His voice had been sarcastic, but there was a slightly tolerant smile on Hugo’s lips.
“Oh, I don’t know…” Edouard shut his book with a bang. “I just can’t seem to concentrate, Hugo. Do we have to do history today? Couldn’t we do something else?”
“Why not?” said the unpredictable Hugo, taking Edouard totally by surprise. “What do you propose instead? Geography? Mathematics?”
“Christ—no.” Edouard groaned.
“You’re very good at mathematics. Rather better than I. I find it quite difficult to keep up with you. But then, it’s not my favorite subject, and never was. So. What else? Is there any subject of a remotely academic kind that you feel could engage your intelligence this morning?”
“Poetry.” Edouard shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind reading some poetry.”
“Very well then. Poetry it shall be.”
With every appearance of good humor Hugo turned to the high bookshelves of the schoolroom. He replaced the accounts of Napoleon’s campaigns and drew out a slim volume.
“We shall continue with the metaphysicals. John Donne.” He slapped the volume down on Edouard’s desk. “I shall speak, you will follow, then we shall discuss. Page sixteen. The Anniversarie.”
Edouard dutifully opened the book; the words on the page danced before his eyes; then Hugo quietly began to speak, from memory, as he always did:
All Kings and all their favourites,
All glory of honours, beauties, wits,
The Sun itself, which makes times, as they pass,
Is elder by a year, now, than it was
When thou and I first one another saw:
All other things, to their destruction draw,
Only our love hath no decay,
This, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday…
Edouard shut his eyes. He thought, for a second—oh, God, he knows, somehow he knows—because it was almost a year since he first went to Célestine’s. Then that suspicion left him—what did he care what Hugo knew, or anyone, for that matter? He let the words flow into his mind. And he thought, Yes! That’s right. Donne is right. He says it more beautifully than I could ever say it, but that is what I feel. I love her. I’ve loved her from almost the first moment I saw her, and I shall always love her. He bent over the book. Only our love has no decay…Wasn’t that just what he had tried to say to Célestine, yesterday, when he lay in her arms? Oh, probably he had made a mess of it, and not said it very well, because it had mattered so much, and he had been longing to tell her for such a long time—but that was what he had meant. That he loved her now and would always love her. That he simply couldn’t stop thinking about her. That she was in his thoughts every second he was apart from her. That during lessons, at night, alone in his room, her image tortured him. He dreamed feverishly of her lips, and her soft thighs, of her breasts and her kisses; her body seemed entwined in his thoughts as it was ent
wined in his when they made love. He wanted her all the time. It was driving him insane, he felt possessed with whispers and caresses, the scent of her skin, the feel of her hair in his hands, glancing touches, bodies slipping together like silk—ah, Célestine! And it was torturing him, the uncertainty, never knowing what she felt, whether she cared for him at all…
Célestine, Célestine, dis-moi que tu m’aimes…
N’inquiéte-toi, reste tranquille, bien sûr, je t’aime, mon petit garçon, mon chéri…
But she turned her face away when she said it. And yesterday, when he had made his great declaration, she had looked so sad. So terribly sad. She had taken his face between her hands and looked down into his eyes.
“Edouard, listen to me. It’s not right for you to say such things. Even to think them. I know you mean them, I know you believe them, but it’s not right. Be serious now, hein? Think. I am not young anymore, and you are young—very young. You have your whole life ahead of you, Edouard, and—listen to me—there will be lots of women for you. Lots. Oh, you don’t believe me now, maybe, but when you are older, then you will see I was right. There will be lots of women—and then, one day, there will be a special woman, the woman you want to have your children, and you will know, when the moment comes. And then, Edouard, then you should say these things. Save them, chéri, never squander them. Save them for the woman you want to be your wife…”
Edouard had wanted to cry with anger and frustration; he had wanted to cry out that he wanted her for his wife, Célestine, his goddess, his love—no one else. And damn what anyone else thought of them.
But Célestine had stopped him from saying a word. She put her hand over his lips and shook her head.
“No,” she said. “No. I won’t let you say these things. You are not even to think them. What we have here is simple and good and it is enough. If you say any more, I shall be angry.”
Edouard clenched his fist under the desk. He would not be quiet! he resolved. He would not! The next time he saw Célestine, he would tell her, no matter how angry it made her.
Hugo’s voice came to a halt. There was a silence. Then the door shut quietly, and both Hugo and Edouard looked up at once. Edouard’s mother was standing there, quite still, in the doorway. As they looked up, she smiled.
“What a beautiful poem, Mr. Glendinning. I’ve never heard it before. Forgive me—but I couldn’t bear to interrupt.”
There was a second’s pause, then Edouard quickly rose to his feet. Hugo also rose, but more slowly, staring at Louise across the room.
She looked very lovely, Edouard thought. She was wearing a pale pink dress of soft chiffon, with a loose jacket that seemed to drift on the air as she moved. Her slender neck was wound with pearls, and a faint flush of color stained her cheeks. Edouard was thrown by her appearance: she had never visited the schoolroom before. Hugo, too, appeared, for once, nonplussed. He stood behind his desk as if transfixed.
Louise lifted her lovely head, her eyes alight with mischief. She sniffed.
“Why, Mr. Glendinning, I believe you’ve been smoking! Do you always smoke during Edouard’s tutorials?”
“I—well—yes. Sometimes.” Hugo looked down at the brimming ashtray and blushed.
“Oh, well—I’m sure Edouard doesn’t mind.” Louise did not look at her son; she kept her eyes on Hugo. “You find it helps you concentrate, perhaps?”
“Yes,” said Hugo, more strongly. “I do.”
“I wonder…” Louise’s brows drew together in a little frown. “Would it be very inconvenient, Mr. Glendinning, if you let Edouard go now?” She looked at the tiny de Chavigny watch on her wrist, gold, fastened in a way she had made fashionable, with a velvet ribbon. “I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you—ask you about Edouard’s progress—so many things. I feel I should try to plan ahead for him, for his further education, you know, but everything is so uncertain—this terrible war! I should be so very grateful for your advice…”
“But of course.” Hugo made what seemed to Edouard a ridiculous attempt at a half bow. “I should be delighted. We had almost finished our work for today, in any case, and…”
“Oh, good.” Louise gave him an enchanting smile, as if she had expected him to refuse her request, even though all three were well aware that that was an impossibility.
“Edouard, darling, run along now. I’m sure you have things to occupy you…”
“I imagine so,” Hugo put in dryly, and for a moment, as Edouard moved quickly to the door, their eyes met. Edouard saw the mockery and the understanding in Hugo’s face. Then it was gone, and he simply stood there, looking donnish, elegantly rumpled, and totally trapped. Edouard shut the door.
He had observed this mesmeric effect his mother had on men since his earliest childhood. It amused him, yet it also slightly irritated him that Hugo should not be exempt. It did not occur to him for one moment that his mother’s arrival in mid-tutorial had been other than an accident of whim. She had evinced no interest whatsoever in his academic progress before; she never asked about Hugo. Edouard had assumed that, in her usual way, she had more or less forgotten his existence.
Some forty minutes later, he discovered he must have been wrong. He returned to the schoolroom to find the copy of Donne’s poems. He would copy the one Hugo had read and take it to Célestine. There was no sound from the room, and he opened the door quietly.
Hugo and his mother were locked in a fierce embrace. His mother had removed the filmy jacket. Hugo’s head was buried against her breast. Her back was to the door. Neither was aware he saw them.
Edouard shut the door as silently as he had opened it, and returned to his room. He had, in some part of his mind, always suspected that his parents were not faithful to each other; he had half-known, but refused to contemplate, the fact that his mother took lovers.
But this. How long? he thought. How long?
There was a bottle of mineral water beside his bed, and a glass. He picked up the glass, and threw it with great savagery at the nearest mirror.
The next morning, he waited until they were midway through their tutorial and there was a pause in the lesson.
He picked up a pencil, and held it balanced between his fingers. “Tell me,” he said as Hugo looked up. “Tell me. Are you fucking my mother?”
There was a brief silence. Edouard had chosen his term carefully, for maximum effect, but Hugo’s face betrayed no reaction. He opened the book in front of him.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I am.”
“Has it been going on for a long time?”
“Since I was first employed. More or less.” Hugo passed his hand over his brow. “Does it make any difference?”
“I just wondered. I thought I ought to know.” Edouard paused; he felt astonishingly calm. “Are you in love with her?”
“No.” Hugo hesitated. “Not in the sense you mean.”
“But you can’t stop?”
“No.” Hugo looked away. “I should find that very difficult—to stop.”
“Does it make you feel guilty? Knowing my father is in France. That he could be killed at any moment.”
There was a long silence. Eventually Hugo closed the book on his desk.
“It makes me hate myself. If that’s any consolation to you.”
“But you still do it?”
“Yes. I still do it.”
“I see.” The pencil snapped between Edouard’s fingers. Carefully he aligned the two halves on the desk. “Well. Thank you for answering my questions. You did say once that questions should always be answered. Never evaded. As I recall.”
“Did I say that?” Hugo gave a slight smile. “Then I’m sure I was correct.” He paused. “Would you like to continue with the lesson, or would you prefer me to leave?”
“I should like to continue with the lesson.”
“Poetry?”
“Perhaps not.”
“Very well.” He glanced out the window, across the square. There were now two blackened gaps on t
he north side.
“Then let us turn to War and Peace, shall we?”
“I’d prefer mathematics.”
“As you like.” Hugo flicked open his textbook. He looked up. “You’re quite right, of course,” he said. “It is reassuring, isn’t it, even when you are not gifted at a subject, for it to be so precise? No paradoxes. No mess. Everything exact. Not like literature at all.”
“Or life,” said Edouard, and they smiled at each other.
In the small study off his bedroom, Edouard had, when he first arrived in London, erected a series of maps and charts and calendars, on which he marked the progress of the war with pins and small flags. To begin with, he had noted advances and withdrawals, significant raids and battles, with great care. After his first meeting with Célestine, he had continued the practice, but less energetically. He also marked, on the same calendar, and using carefully coded references only he could understand, the glorious progress of his first affair. So, the references to Célestine—always in red—were from the first side by side with the references to war—always in blue. Unconsciously at first, then with a sense of amused pleasure in the parallel, he began to associate the fate of Célestine with the fate of his own country.
He hated to see the outline of France dominated by the German flag; he hated to think of Célestine imprisoned in that little flat in Maida Vale, dependent on the patronage of an elderly Englishman. He dreamed that one day soon they would both be free of tyranny. The armies of the Free French would one day liberate France; he himself would free Célestine. Once the war was over, he would take Célestine back to France, where she rightly belonged, and he would care for her. He would marry her one day, but the thought of confronting Papa with that proposition was chilling, and so he happily put it aside for the moment. Time enough to think of that; meanwhile, he dreamed of the apartment he would buy her—overlooking the Jardins du Luxembourg, he thought—and the long long afternoons they would spend there, and the presents, the wonderful presents that would be hers. This plan was now secret. He had not quite dared to tell Célestine of it, in case he made her angry, or sad. And he could not tell Jean-Paul, who was the only other person he might have taken into his confidence.
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