The Eden Inheritance

by Janet Tanner

  ‘Paul – you’re back then.’

  ‘I’m back. How have things been in my absence?’

  ‘Ticking over. We got three parcels away down the line.’

  Paul nodded. He knew that the doctor was referring to Allied airmen being passed along the escape route.

  ‘Any problems there?’

  ‘I don’t think so. No thanks to them, though. We put them up at Madame Poire’s guesthouse and they got hold of a bottle of pinot and got very drunk. One of them was singing in English, if you please. Then one of the others decided to take a walk around town and got himself lost. God, it’s frightening when you think that idiots Like that are flying about the skies in great lumps of metal!’

  ‘They got away though?’

  ‘From here they did – with a good ticking-off about their behaviour. I’ve never been so glad to see the back of anyone in my life. I only hope I made them see the error of their ways or they’ll put someone else in danger further down the line. Stupid fools.’

  ‘They are very young, most of them, and probably very frightened,’ Paul said, feeling ashamed of his countrymen.

  ‘That’s no excuse. They should realise they are endangering the lives of those helping them by their irresponsibility.’

  ‘I know. Anything else?’

  ‘I’ve recruited a couple more local lads. We’ll have to watch them, they’re a bit hot-headed, but they are keen and strong – they have youth on their side. And the parish priest at Bouley. He’s a good sound man, should be useful. But there’s something else I think you should know. It seems that an SS major by the name of Heydrich, who is based in Paris, has taken over a house at St Vincent as a sort of weekend retreat. He’s a great friend of von Rheinhardt, he came down to visit him, saw the place and fell in love with it. It had been empty and boarded up for some time but it’s been opened up again and all kinds of supplies have been going in through the front door – the sort of luxuries the rest of us haven’t been able to get our hands on for years. From what I hear he intends installing his floozy there and coming down to stay whenever he can – which, knowing the way the SS are a law unto themselves, will probably be pretty often.’

  Paul swore. An SS major on the doorstep was something they could all well do without and he said as much.

  ‘There’s more,’ the doctor said, stretching back in his swivel chair. ‘And it’s serious. The Communists have got wind of what’s going on and word is they intend to dispose of him.’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking!’

  ‘I wish I was.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I had it from Madame Yvette. One of her girls heard about it from a client. And those girls are pretty reliable, as you know.’

  Paul nodded. Madame Yvette’s was a brothel, but the girls who worked for her were among the bravest and most patriotic he had met. As a result of the intimacy they shared with men from all walks of life and every political persuasion they made wonderful informants, and their pillow talk came from not only Frenchmen but Germans too. More than once he had had reason to be grateful to Madame Yvette’s girls and he knew that he would sooner trust his life to one of them than to many so-called ‘respectable folk’.

  By the same token he had a healthy mistrust of the Communists. They were a motley crew, a law unto themselves. In the beginning they had even sided with the Nazis, seeing their rule as a way of destroying the old order, but now that they bad defeated Russia the Communists had turned against them. But they still refused to work alongside the Resistance, preferring to run their own show, though they expected to be helped out with supplies of arms and ammunition to carry out their campaigns. They were, Paul considered, at best a nuisance and at worst a danger, for they tended to allow themselves to be carried away by the grand cause to the point of recklessness.

  This plan was nothing if not reckless.

  ‘They must be stopped,’ he said now. ‘Don’t they realise the kind of trouble they’ll unleash if they assassinate an SS major? The reprisals will be terrible. Von Rheinhardt would make sure of that, especially if it’s a friend of his who’s killed. And it wouldn’t stop there. They’d have the Gestapo herein force faster than you could say the word. They’d line up local people in their hundreds and shoot them down in cold blood.’

  ‘I know all about that,’ the doctor said. ‘But how the hell can we stop them? I’ve already talked to Gaultier the local leader, but he wouldn’t listen. He as good as told me to mind my own business. You can try if you like. He might take notice of you, though I somehow doubt it. They have the bit between their teeth and all they can see is the satisfaction they’d get from watching a prominent SS major crawling for his life.’

  ‘I know how they feel,’ Paul admitted. ‘But he is only one man. Get rid of him and someone else just as bad would soon take his place. It’s crazy. They might just as well turn their own guns on the local people. They would be sentencing them to death just as surely.’

  ‘Well I hope you can stop them. I couldn’t. Now you’d better go. I have other patients waiting to see me. They’ll begin to wonder what’s taking you so long.’

  ‘All right, mon ami. I’ll be in touch.’

  Paul rose and laid a hand briefly on the older man’s shoulder. He was very aware that if the Communists went ahead with this act of folly he might never see him again. The mayor, the doctor and the priest were always amongst the first to be taken when the Nazis required a Mood sacrifice. And if the slightest suspicion fell on him, he too might be among those to pay the price.

  In the doorway he paused.

  ‘By the way, should anything happen to me I’ve primed Christian de Savigny to take over the circuit. He’s a good man, quick and resourceful, and he has the lovebirds on his papers.’

  The love birds was a stamp of authorisation which enabled the holders of a pass bearing it to move about freely, even in the forbidden coastal zones.

  The doctor nodded. ‘Let’s hope it won’t come to that.’

  ‘You and me both, but you never know.’ Paul opened the door, touched his forehead and said loudly and hoarsely: ‘ Thank you, Doctor. If it’s no better I’ll come back in a few days. Bonjour.’

  Then, with a loud simulated cough, he left the surgery.

  Pedalling back to the outlying farm cottage where he had been lying low Paul felt his shirt, wet with perspiration, clinging to his back and knew it was not just the hard cycle ride in the heat of the midday sun that was causing him to sweat.

  He would go and see the Communist leader right away, he decided, but he did not hold out much hope of persuading him to abandon his plan. Gaultier would not take kindly to what he would see as interference from a rival organisation – and one headed by a foreigner at that. If he wanted this SS major badly enough nothing on earth would stop him. But as Paul had said to Dr Ventura, the repercussions would be terrible. A hundred French lives for the life of one German officer was the going rate, he had heard, and who knew where the axe would fall? Supposing Kathryn was amongst those taken? She was, of course, a de Savigny, the daughter-in-law and wife of known collaborators, but if something like this happened, would that save her? She was English, and a prominent citizen. It was always possible that von Rheinhardt might choose to make an example of her, and if he did not, then the death squads, who he knew would inevitably be brought in, might. And she was doubly at risk because of her connection with him.

  As he thought of her and the fate which might be lying in store for her, Paul’s fingers tightened around the handlegrips of his bicycle so that the old rubber, already disintegrating from age and from the heat of the sun, attached itself to his sweating palms.

  He was in love with her. He shouldn’t have allowed it to get this far but it had happened all the same and the weeks he had been away from her had done nothing to alter that. Even whilst he had been fully occupied with the things he had to do she had been there, a sweet shadow at the edges of his consciousness, an aching longing in the dar
k reaches of the night. He loved her, there was no denying it, and the thought that some harm might befall her was more than he could bear, especially when he knew that if it did he, more than anyone, would be to blame.

  Now he thought again of the terrible retribution that would follow if the Communists could not be dissuaded from their maniacal plans and feared for her with a fear that was sharp and all-consuming. The sweat stood out in beads on his forehead as he pressed down hard on the pedals, and by the time he had reached the cottage he knew what he had to do.

  Kathryn was in the garden watching Guy chase butterflies with the net on a stick that Bridget had rigged up for him. The sun was bright and hot, drawing perfume from all the plants that had once been nurtured and cared for but which now ran riot, and Kathryn thought she preferred it that way. Too much order was against nature; she liked the wild feel the garden had nowadays.

  ‘I’ve caught one, Mummy!’ Guy called to her. ‘ Look, isn’t he beautiful?’

  Kathryn smiled at his excitement.

  ‘Yes, darling, he is. Much too beautiful to put in a jar. He needs his freedom. Now that you’ve looked at him, I think you should let him go.’

  Guy’s small face clouded.

  ‘But I don’t want to!’

  ‘You mustn’t only think of what you want, Guy,’ she told him. ‘How would you like to be shut up in a jam jar?’

  ‘Not much,’ he admitted.

  ‘Let him go, then, there’s a good boy.’

  After a moment’s thought Guy released the butterfly. It fluttered up into the clear air, a tiny speck of brilliant blue, and Kathryn wished that she, too, could escape as easily from all the things that troubled her. Yet watching the butterfly enjoy the return of its freedom her spirits lifted and for a moment it seemed to her as if she was flying with him, one of those brief experiences of pure joy which owed nothing whatever to circumstances. She settled herself more comfortably on the old wooden seat, kicking off her shoes and wriggling her bare toes in the scratchy dry grass, happier than she had been for days for no reason that she could think of.

  Could it be, she wondered, that Paul was coming back? It seemed a fanciful thought, that she could somehow know without the smallest scrap of evidence, just by this sudden inexplicable feeling of joyous anticipation, yet she had experienced similar moments, of utter wretchedness as well as exhilaration, as if her very soul touched infinity and was granted a glimpse of the future.

  Perhaps … perhaps … she thought, and smiled at herself for even thinking such a thing. But even when she and Guy went back indoors the warmth of the sun seemed to go with them and when night fell it was still there, somewhere within her, a tiny candle flame in the darkness all around.

  ‘I don’t understand you, Christian,’ Celestine said. ‘I honestly, truly can’t understand how you can be nice to the Boche.’

  They had gone for a walk after dinner in the cool of the evening and from the top of the hill overlooking Savigny the scene below them was one of perfect peace. The valley, stretching away into the distance, was dappled with soft shade, the uninterrupted green of the fields, the unchanging beauty of the château nestling behind the trees, the animals gathering beneath the trees, all so reminiscent of happier times that it seemed impossible to believe that life was not going on as it always had. This was the Savigny of her childhood and for a little while her troubles seemed no more than a terrible nightmare fading with the rosy light of dawn. And then a German patrol rumbled into view, squat grey vehicles despoiling the peaceful scene like pustules on a beautiful woman’s skin, and the horror returned, rushing in all the more disturbingly because of the recent respite, brutally reminding her that it was no nightmare but reality, harsh and inescapable.

  ‘Papa has explained to you,’ Christian said, pulling a grass from the hedge and shredding the seed heads between his fingers. ‘ It’s for the best.’

  ‘No!’ she said, her voice sharp with tears. ‘It’s not for the best. It’s degrading – horrible. And I’m the one who knows what I’m talking about, remember. I’m the one who saw Julien dragged away. But at least he died with his pride intact. At least he won’t have to live knowing he kowtowed to these monsters.’

  ‘You mustn’t talk like that, Celestine,’ Christian warned her. ‘It’s very dangerous. You must try to control yourself.’

  ‘Must I? Why? Because Papa says so, is that it? Oh, I know what he is like. I know where his priorities lie. And he’s getting older. Any fire he ever had in him has long since gone. But you and Charles … I don’t know how you can lie down under it, I don’t really. I never expected you to be so subservient – my own brothers! You make me ashamed. Ashamed to be a de Savigny.’

  Christian looked at her small set face and the spark of hatred in her haunted eyes and understood how she was feeling. Hadn’t he felt exactly the same before Paul came and gave him the chance to do something about it? He knew, too, why she was especially angry with him. He had always been her hero, the big brother she had attached herself to so that sometimes he had felt like screaming at her to go away and leave him alone. But he never had. He loved Celestine fiercely and had grown in stature in her unquestioning worship. The years had done nothing to change those feelings – he still valued her unstinting regard and it hurt him to know that she was looking at him and finding him wanting.

  ‘I never thought I’d feel ashamed of you, Christian,’ she said again and suddenly his pride could take no more. He could trust her, couldn’t he? She was his sister, after all …

  ‘Celestine, not everything is quite as it seems,’ he said slowly. ‘We are not all the collaborators you take us for.’

  She stopped dead in her tracks, staring at him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There are more ways than one to kill a pig,’ he said. ‘Sometimes secrecy and stealth work better than outright aggression. You have heard, I expect, that there are Resistance cells all over France. Well, let me just say that one of them is not a million miles from here.’

  He was rewarded by the light beginning to come into her pinched face.

  ‘You mean … you …?’

  ‘There’s a man living at the château who is not what he seems. He is away at the moment, but …’

  ‘You mean Guy’s tutor?’ Suddenly there was animation in her tone. ‘Guy’s tutor is …?’

  ‘You mustn’t ask me,’ Christian said. ‘ It’s better you don’t know anything. But I am working with him against the Boche. Let’s just leave it at that.’

  ‘Oh Christian!’ Her voice was full of the old admiration again; it wanned him. ‘ Christian, I knew you couldn’t just let this happen! I knew it!’

  ‘You must keep this to yourself, Celestine. Not a word to anyone, remember. Papa knows nothing of this. If you let one mention of it slip we could all be dead. Promise me, now, you’ll put it out of your mind and never speak of it again.’

  ‘Of course, Christian! Of course I promise!’

  ‘Just as long as you remember that,’ he said. ‘Now, perhaps, it is time we went home.’

  ‘Mummy! Mummy!’ Guy came rmming up the stairs to the bedroom where Kathryn was sorting clean clothes into piles ready to put away. ‘Mummy – it’s Monsieur Paul! He’s back!’

  Kathryn’s heart gave a great leap of joy.

  ‘Monsieur Paul?’ she repeated breathlessly.

  ‘He’s in the kitchen with Bridget. I’m going back to talk to him!’ He clattered back down the stairs, almost falling over himself in his haste.

  Kathryn set the pile of underwear in the drawer with exaggerated care and closed it. Her hands were trembling slightly, her pulse racing. It hadn’t misled her then, that moment of intuition the previous afternoon. He was back, and somehow, inexplicably, she had known it.

  She glanced in the mirror, tidying her hair swiftly with her fingers, noticing the flush of pleasure colouring her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes. Dear God, she must be careful or someone else would notice too! She took a few
deep breaths, attempting to compose herself, and went downstairs holding tightly to the banister because her legs felt unsteady.

  He was in the kitchen, leaning casually against the table and talking to Bridget whilst Guy interjected his own bits of news wherever possible. At the sight of him her heart turned over again and she longed to run to him, throw her arms around him, bury her face in his shoulder, feel the strong lines of his body against hers and his mouth in her hair. But she knew she could not do that. She smiled at him and as their eyes met the electricity arced between them, invisible bridges of sparking current.

  ‘So – you’re back,’ she said. ‘How was Bordeaux?’

  ‘Much like everywhere else – riddled with Germans.’

  The conspiracy was an extra bridge between them.

  ‘We’ve missed you,’ she said.

  ‘Good. It’s nice to be missed.’

  ‘Bridget made me a butterfly net!’ Guy was jumping up and down. ‘It works, too.’

  ‘Why don’t we go and catch some butterflies then?’ Over Guy’s head his eyes met Kathryn’s – I want to be alone with you, they said. As much alone as we can be at the moment …

  ‘Mummy won’t let me.’

  ‘I didn’t say you couldn’t catch them, Guy, just that when you have you must let them go,’ Kathryn said, laughing a little, because laughter seemed the only way to let out some of the fierce joy that was bubbling inside her like vintage champagne.

  ‘But keep them long enough to show me,’ Paul said. ‘I’ll just take my valise up to my room and I’ll join you in the garden.’

  Again his eyes met Kathryn’s, again longing sparked within her. I’ll come with you! she wanted to say, but she knew she must not.

  ‘Come on, Guy,’ she said. ‘Let’s see what we can find for Monsieur Paul.’

  Already the sun was hot. She found a seat in the shade, pretending to watch Guy’s wild lunges at the butterflies that flittered from blossom to blossom but actually watching the path, waiting for Paul. When he emerged from the house he had changed into a short-sleeved shirt. He came and sat down beside her and though they did not touch she felt the closeness of his bare arm to hers with every nerve, every pore.