The Lost Girl

by Carol Drinkwater

  During the long warm months from the commencement of this first harvest to the completion of the second, Marguerite and Charlie slept with the windows open wide, drinking in the scents of the night, watching the fluttering of moths, the sweep and circling of bats, drugged by the beauty, rendered serene by all that they had created together. Downstairs in the kitchen, their dog, a black and white gun dog, a Brittany Spaniel, who answered to the name of Fetch, kept watch while the donkeys, the mule and their one horse rested in a makeshift paddock not far from the principal stone premises. Most nights Marguerite slept in Charlie’s arms, protected by him, sure of him. Occasionally they made love. It was a tentative unpractised business, but it was becoming more frequent. He had learned to be gentle with her, fearing for her fragile state even when his loins burned for her and he feared his passion might explode within her and terrify her. Passion … It was a word she hated. She’d borne no children. No son, or daughter. Each month he prayed that his young wife would greet him with the news that she was expecting. Round of belly. He dreamed of it. She was less skinny now. She was healthy, stronger, if a little on the small side. The doctor had assured him, over a pastis shared man to man outside the village bar, that she was a normal twenty-four-year-old with all her organs and body parts functioning as they should.

  ‘Might there be mental problems?’ He had almost dared not broach the subject.

  The doctor shook his head vigorously. ‘I wouldn’t say so. However, if you are in doubt there are tests, special centres …’

  Charlie raised a finger and shook it, to put an end to a treacherous thought he should never have voiced.

  ‘Give her time.’ The man of medicine and fellow member of the local boules team advised his English comrade.

  Charlie was thirty-three. No age for a young chap, but he worked himself to the bone. Up before the sun rose over the eastern reach of his hill, bending and lifting, weeding, planting, irrigating till the sun disappeared and he could no longer clearly define the lines and grooves of the earth. Then he returned home by hurricane lamp for supper. Later there were the accounts to do. Marguerite took charge of the books. She had learned these rudimentary skills during her time with Lady Jeffries.

  They had nothing to complain about, Charlie was well aware of that. He was mighty grateful, all things considered. He could be back in Britain forced to spend time at His Majesty’s leave, although His Majesty was dead now and there was soon to be a queen crowned. Instead, he and Maggie, tucked away in Provence, had found a quiet happiness. A humble station where he was safe from discovery, and the flowers were bringing in sufficient income to keep them in all that they required or could wish for, as long as their desires remained humble. In fact, Charlie was deliberating about whether to buy a further tract of land to extend his business. Of course, if a child came along he might keep back a little of that extra cash … His thoughts were swimming along such a stream as he carried bales of straw back and forth, readying the barn for the approaching Italian workforce.

  Marguerite was preparing to drive the truck to Grasse to the weekly market, to stock up on provisions. She was loading the van with empty bidons, to be refilled with wine for the workers. She’d make a detour to pick up a couple of pairs of gardening gloves at the farmers’ store – the weeds in the vegetable patches were rioting – when she heard the boy’s cry and the shocking news was delivered.

  ‘Come quick! Come quick!’ A strained high-pitched voice was chanting, beating flat-footed down the lane. Bayard was a local lad employed by a neighbouring farmer two valleys along from the Gilliards.

  ‘There’s been an accident,’ the excited juvenile, filthy socks crumpled over his scuffed boots, was shouting to anyone who might hear him. He was wheezing and out of breath. Fetch, close by, barked and growled at the new arrival, then settled back to sleep.

  Marguerite, thinking the accident concerned Charlie, whom she’d seen not fifteen minutes earlier, was puzzled by what could have happened to him. Still, she hurtled out of the back door as fast as a salmon leaped. ‘Bonjour, Bayard, qu’est-ce qui se passe?’

  ‘One of the Italian lorries has turned over way up beyond Col de Tende in the mountains, two kilometres on the French side of the border, and another has slammed into its rear. Passengers are trapped. The route is partially blocked off. Only small vehicles can get through. Some are hurt.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘The Italian pickers hailed a passing automobile and begged the driver to make a detour this way to pass on to us the news. They need help. Need a doctor, medical aid. There are serious injuries. Monsieur Rivard says he and a clutch of the others will be riding up there together to see what assistance they can offer. Wanted to know if Monsieur Gilliard chooses to go along with them. It might be the lorry of one of his hired teams that has tipped over. No one knows much for sure.’

  Marguerite dropped her cardigan on a chair in the yard. ‘He’s in the barn. I’ll go and fetch him.’

  ‘Gather together all the ropes you can find, especially those for hauling the bales, the heavy stuff. We’ll need a vehicle lift, no doubt. Bayard, has someone notified the local garage or are they sending out a rescue van from Grasse?’

  The boy didn’t have a clue: he was only there to deliver the message.

  Charlie slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Good lad, you get on your way and inform whoever is next on your list. Maggie, give the lad one of your fine lemon biscuits for his trouble.’ When the boy had gone off, running and chewing, Charlie turned back to her. His face was lined with concern. ‘This is not good news. I’ll have to take the truck so you’ll need to postpone the shopping. If we don’t require it, I’ll park it at the Rivards’ and you can walk over to Gabriel’s and collect it from there. I should take food. Pack a box up quickly for me, Maggie, and throw in a flask of cognac for their shock.’

  ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘No, you stay. We need you here, Maggie. Get the barn readied for when I return with the Italians, and take charge of the watering and the animals. I’ll bring back the pickers myself, or at least a handful of them. If that’s practical.’

  But what of the casualties? How many had been hurt in the accident? Charlie surveyed his acres of fine pink roses. Neither he nor his wife voiced the perturbing prospect of an insufficient team to gather the petals. He swung on his heels and gave Marguerite a peck on the cheek and, almost as an afterthought, wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly. ‘I’ll be back tonight. If I can’t be, I’ll send a message somehow.’

  ‘Come back safe, Charlie, for the Lord’s sake. Je t’aime.’

  There was a brief hesitation before he swept himself up into the truck. This was the first time in over five years he had ever left his wife alone overnight. ‘Maggie, if you can’t manage, walk up across the plateau. Gabriel’s family will be there. Keep one of the guns by your bedside. I’ll take the hunting rifle with me.’

  He saw the horror cross her face. ‘They haven’t seen wolves this side of the Italian border for decades.’ He laughed. ‘You’ve nothing to fear.’

  Three days Marguerite waited for Charlie’s return from the mountains; three solitary days with only the dog and the snails or bugs she feared would eat the roses, the ants and birdlife to keep her company. The worry was not that some accident had befallen Charlie – she would have received news from one or other of the farmers if that had been so – but what could be delaying him when he was so urgently required at home? They had no telephone because the lines had not been rigged up so far inland from the coast. And even if they’d had one, there was no means of communication from up in those high mountain passes. Their mail was delivered intermittently. Once a week if they were lucky. On most occasions Marguerite collected any letters and bills that came for them from the bureau de poste in Grasse when she drove to town to the Thursday market.

  During Charlie’s absence she kept herself occupied, toiling on the land, following his instructions, feeding the four-le
gged stock. It was the first time she had ever been there without him for more than a few hours, and she felt the lack of his presence deeply. By evening, worn out, she sat and watched the sun go down behind the hills, gazing upon their fine fields of roses, drunk on their perfume. This was the culmination of their labours. Hers and Charlie’s. She knew, too, that any day now the blossoms would be at their peak. When that moment arrived, they had to be picked immediately or they would start to deteriorate. They were a day, two at maximum, from their supreme beauty. Marguerite was willing time to hold back while praying for Charlie’s swift and safe return.

  Arnaud Barbin, the agent from the perfume factory to which Charlie and Marguerite were contracted, dropped by unannounced to offer to lend ‘the pretty young lady’ a hand and to see how she was coping all alone, or so he claimed. He’d heard about the delayed trucks and the accident, of course. News travelled fast on the community gossip vine. He’d been informed that several of the flower growers had lost their picking crews and might be struggling. He had the advantage.

  He stood on the patio, legs apart, feet firmly planted on the wooden slats, noisily slurping the big bowl of coffee Marguerite had served him. He was surveying their plot, and then his calibrating eyes turned to her. It brought back memories of Katsidis. She shivered. She took a step backwards beyond his reach. Her skin was crawling, as if ants were eating her, but more than that: something inside her hardened, and she felt a geyser of hot anger and hate rise up within her.

  She was no longer eighteen, no longer so impressionable and naive. It wouldn’t take more than one wrong move on his part, just one move, she was thinking silently, before she’d grab the kitchen knife lying on the table and plunge it into him.

  He must have sensed the wall she was bricking up against him. He sauntered in a theatrically casual fashion towards the outer edge of the patio and took a step down onto the grass, concentrating his attention towards the flowers, keeping his back to her, his thick neck pink and runkled over his collar. His left hand, the one not clasping the coffee, hung heavily at his side, fingers agitating.

  ‘If this gets too much for you and Charlie, you tell that man to come and talk to me. I’m the fellow who can help you out of trouble. We’re always looking to buy prime flower-growing land.’

  ‘He’s not selling,’ Marguerite retorted. ‘We’re never selling. There’s nothing here for you. Nothing of any sort, you hear me?’ She marched towards him and snatched the bowl of coffee out of his hand. She registered his flash of anger.

  ‘When can we expect your first delivery of blossoms in?’

  ‘My husband will be in touch. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve work to do.’

  ‘Husband? So where’s the family, then?’ He smirked as he picked up his trilby from the patio table, slapped it with the back of his hand, stuck it on his balding head and hiked up the winding slope of gravel drive that extended back out into the world, to where his gleaming expensive car was parked on the ridge. ‘No spunk, those Englishmen.’

  On the third afternoon, unable to stay put any longer, Marguerite strode up over the plateau with Fetch to keep her company and safe. It was a fine warm day and the dog was gambolling back and forth, long-haired black tail windmilling, high on the scent of rabbits and hares. Or it would have been a fine day if Marguerite’s head had not been filled with worries and a nagging presentiment that all was not well in the mountains. She would have taken pleasure as she always did from the patchwork of wild flowers underfoot. May was possibly the loveliest of all months at these altitudes, these lower mountain slopes set a stone’s throw back from the coast. The stark serrated hills of winter had been transformed from infertile limestone into a wondrous brocade of colours, yellows and purples and rich pinks, each plant with its own uniquely seductive scent. Marguerite felt as though she had never encountered such an exquisite bouquet of aromas until she had settled in this region, this back-of-beyond nowhere land nudging Grasse, to make her universe with Charlie.

  Living in the midst of the world’s perfume capital had sharpened her senses. She had always recognized the woodsy smell of damp ferns, or the warm, pungent whiff of cows in the byres near her family village in the north, the comforting or sometimes claustrophobic savours of pastry crisping in the bread oven. She delighted at the awakening whiff of brewing coffee, the synthetic cloying perfumes she had liberally sprayed all over herself while with Lady Jeffries, but all that paled in comparison to what her senses were learning to identify up here in these lower Alps. Underfoot an assortment of garrigue plants was springing up: wild lavender, rock roses, luxuriant broom, rosemary, sage, chrysanthemum daisies, convolvulus. Wild heady scents to accompany her steps across the plateau that afternoon. Air as pure and fresh as mountain milk and as fragrant as the results of the skills of the finest perfumeries working a few miles down the hill.

  She paused to catch her breath. Fetch settled at her side, panting, tongue hanging loose, paws flattening grasses, delirious from the energy expended during this unexpected escapade. She scanned the views in every direction: a spin of 360 degrees with barely a construction in sight. To her left, in the near distance, the peaks of the lower Alps were covered with fresh green shoots from the new growth in the coniferous forests. Nowhere was more beautiful. She was happy. She was energized, shot through with a rush of joy as she had rarely known it before. She laughed out loud with no one to hear her and peace settled upon her like a satin stole.

  She had made the best choice, yet – oh, yet – she still occasionally hankered for the world of cinema, for the glittering fantasies she had concocted in her adolescence. She was bursting to tell Charlie about a minor film role she had been offered and had, tentatively, said yes to. Bursting for him to agree to let her go. She still dreamed sometimes of being an actress, even if the emotional scar from her hateful encounter with Katsidis was taking its time to heal. She was safe and she was cared for where she was. Charlie was more than good to her; his love enveloped her and she had knuckled down and pulled her weight on the farm because she loved him too, more deeply every day. Still, it was only right that she should be allowed to pursue her own goals, wasn’t it? This offer had come out of the blue – and soon she must confirm her acceptance of it. In return, if Charlie allowed her to go to Nice to perform in the film, she would do her damnedest to master her physical inhibitions and give him the first child of the family he so craved.

  Heading for the Rivards’ holding, keen to find out from Marithé Rivard whether she had heard news from the men – the silence was growing disturbing – she found Gabriel’s wife in her kitchen whipping up a meal for their four babes, two older boys and recently born twin sons. The squabbling quartet was bunched up like a fist of fingers round a solid oak table. Bayard was out in the yard chopping wood. As Marguerite approached she gave him a wave, but there was no sign of Charlie’s motor anywhere along the driveway that led into the courtyard.

  She had been hoping to use it to go to Grasse.

  ‘Charlie took it with him. They needed all the vehicles they could recruit to transport as many as they could of the Italian teams back here. They rounded up four or five spare trucks from a few willing farmers to give them the extra space, but nobody’s returned yet.’

  ‘Have you any idea what’s delaying them up there?’

  ‘I’ve seen no one, not heard a word.’

  Like many of the smaller or larger holdings surrounding them, the Rivards’ main crop was jasmine so the loss of the roses would not hurt them as badly as it was threatening to hurt the Gilliards. The delayed return was less urgent for the Rivard estate. For Charlie and Marguerite, it represented a fifty per cent share of their business. Two hectares’ worth of fine roses just waiting for the plucking – or the dying.

  ‘If we don’t have hands on those rose heads by tomorrow,’ Marguerite worried, ‘the blooms will begin to wilt and the petals will fall. And Charlie knows it.’

  Marithé handed her a homemade raspberry biscuit and a glass of fresh m
ountain water. ‘Don’t fret. If the men are not back tonight, I could come over with a band of women. I could probably muster four or five, even half a dozen, of the other wives. We won’t pick as fast as the Italians but we can save a few tons of the best of your crop for you. That is, if the factory will still buy from you, given you’re not delivering your contracted load. You’ll have to square it with Arnaud and, as we all know, he can be a right pig when it suits him.’

  ‘Let’s pick,’ responded Marguerite, with a hug. ‘I’ll square it with that lascivious bastard, or maybe I’ll leave Charlie to deal with him when he gets back.’

  And that was what they did. Instead of a team of two dozen, five robust women, heads protected by scarves or large straw hats, set to work with the determination of dogs on the trail of truffles. Women with flesh like goat hide, who had grown up in these parts, who knew the rigours of harvesting on sloping territory and possessed the skill and temperament for the job, which was punctilious, repetitive effort. They picked off the petals with fire in their fingers. Marguerite contributed her enthusiasm, her share of labour, but she lacked the nimbleness, the oil in her limbs. In the years since she and Charlie had been growing flowers she had mostly taken care of the provisions and the house chores, organizing the victuals, bed and board for the teams. Days out in the fields in the harsh sun were not kind to her soft complexion, even if the exercise was good for her figure, which, if she returned to the cinema, would be a vital asset.

  By the end of the first afternoon the women had gathered sufficient for the factory to send out their transport for the weighing and collection of the tonnage. And by that night Charlie and Gabriel were back. What a rousing welcome the circle of females gave their husbands, even if the men were weary, down at heart and not accompanied by a single Italian. They shook their solemn heads; sorry to have returned without helpers. Charlie and Gabriel’s only companions were the farming colleagues who had set off with them three long days before.