by Anne Bennett
When the first shots rang out, I wanted to go back, but I forced myself not to do that. I accepted that he had chosen to sacrifice himself for me. He had given me the gift of life and I couldn’t throw that gift back in his face. I thought of you then, and the possibility of our future together, and I put as much distance between myself and the Germans and Charles as I could. I did hear more firing in the distance, and presumed they were from German guns, but that must have been the Resistance fighter you spoke of. By the time the reinforcements came I was well away.’
‘Yes,’ Bridgette said. ‘But that same Resistance fighter told me you would never get through the forest on your own.’
‘That probably would have been true,’ James said, ‘but Charles thought of everything. He had given me a copy of his map, a powerful torch, a pistol and a compass. He had marked the route we were to take through the forest in case we should get separated. Charles gave his life for me and I will never forget that. After that encounter, though, I tended to hide during the day and walk all night by the light of the torch so it took me some time to reach the edge of the forest. I was picked up by an American unit. When they had checked out I was who I said, they put me in a Jeep and took me back to the British lines. From there I was able to connect with my old unit.’
He looked at Bridgette, his dark eyes troubled. ‘I told you this in the letters, but you didn’t even open them. Were you mad with me because you found you were expecting our baby?’
‘James, I never received any letters,’ Bridgette insisted. ‘Maman died just a fortnight after you left. I’d sent a telegram to her sister before that and she arrived in St-Omer with her husband the day I found out that Charles had died, and probably you too. Straight after Maman’s funeral I went to Paris with my aunt and uncle because they thought my life was in danger.’
‘Why?’
‘I had lived in the same house as known collaborators and informers.’
‘You were in the Resistance.’
‘No one knew that, and Charles was the only contact I had,’ Bridgette explained. ‘After he died there was no one to verify that fact. Anyway, there was another reason. I didn’t want to burden you with this at the time, but when our house was virtually the only house left unsearched when I was hiding you, they assumed that I had been pleasuring the German officers.’
‘Who assumed?’
‘Nasty vindictive people out to cause mischief,’ Bridgette said. ‘They attacked me one day as I was going in to Mass, and after that I stopped going.’
‘I remember that,’ James said. ‘You said that your mother was too ill to be left.’
‘That was an excuse,’ Bridgette said. ‘And of course they were there at the funeral. When Yvette’s husband saw them he told me to pack everything I wanted to take with me as we were leaving for Paris early the next day. Henri said amongst some of the townsfolk the euphoria of being free was being replaced by a desire for revenge. They were looking for people to blame and one of those could be me. I thought he was being melodramatic, though he isn’t prone to it, but we soon found out that he wasn’t. About a week after I arrived in Paris, a letter came from Marie Laurent. The mob had come that night. Legrand and Georges were taken and later tried, found guilty and shot along with other traitors. Some women too were shot, but most were tarred and feathered. That was the fate awaiting me.’
‘My poor darling,’ James said, enfolding his hands over Bridgette’s agitated ones. ‘Thank God that you were spared that, at least, but I cannot feel sorry for your stepfather or his son. I think they probably got their just deserts.’
‘I agree with you,’ Bridgette said. ‘But it didn’t end there. They were so angry that they didn’t get me that they set fire to the bakery. It’s now just a shell, I’ve been told.’
‘Oh, my love,’ James sighed. He put his arms around her and held her tight and Bridgette felt her heart give a sudden flip. ‘You have suffered so much, and then to find that you were pregnant…’
‘I was glad,’ Bridgette said. ‘Because it was part of you, the only part I thought I would ever have.’
‘You didn’t hate me?’ James asked.
Bridgette kissed his lips gently and then she held his face and looked deep into his eyes as she said, ‘I couldn’t hate you, James Carmichael, not if I tried from now until eternity. I love you far too much.’
‘Oh God,’ James cried, ‘this is more than I ever dreamed of.’ He looked deep into Bridgette’s shining amber eyes and said, ‘Do you mean it?’
Bridgette nodded. ‘Every word.’ She put her lips to his and the sweetness of that kiss took her breath away.
‘Ah, Bridgette,’ James said when they broke free at last. ‘I love you so much. I was only half a person when I thought you wanted nothing more to do with me.’
‘I was the same when I thought you dead,’ Bridgette said.
‘To have you back like this is truly amazing,’ James told her. ‘And I will never stop loving you until the breath leaves my body.’
This time their kiss held a promise of the years to come that they had to share. Together.
Bridgette and James left the bedroom hand in hand, and Molly ran forward and gave Bridgette a hug. ‘I am so happy for you both,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you tell us that you were in the Resistance?’ And at her startled look explained, ‘James told us about that when you were out cold.’
‘Did he tell you why I joined the Resistance?’
Molly shook her head and Bridgette said. ‘I have told all of you lies that I am sorry for, and I think it is time to tell you the truth about everything.’
‘When we were at the Bull Ring together you said that one day you would tell me about your stepfather,’ Molly said. ‘Many times since I have wanted to ask you about that, but I was afraid of upsetting you.’
‘It’s time you knew it all anyway,’ Bridgette said. ‘Everything that happened to me in the end was linked to the way first my grandfather and then my stepfather treated my mother and me.’ She told them how her grandfather had forced her mother to marry Legrand, the threats made and the life they both had had to endure throughout that sham of a marriage. My grandfather hated both my mother and myself so much that after his death, when I was five, we found he had disinherited us both in his will and left the bakery, house and everything else to Legrand, and to Georges after his death.’
‘Disinherit his own family?’ Molly said. ‘It’s almost unbelievable.’
‘Do you know all this already?’ Mark asked James. He shook his head. ‘Barely nothing, for all we were together many weeks.’
‘I didn’t want to talk about it,’ Bridgette said. ‘Especially as you seemed to have some sort of idyllic childhood. And talking of that, are your parents all right with Finn?’
‘They’re fine, honestly,’ James said. ‘But I will go and check on him, if you like,’ he added, getting to his feet.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Mark said. ‘And see if Nuala is OK.’ The two men left the room together as Molly said to Bridgette, ‘Was your stepfather as bad as your grandfather?’
‘Worse, if anything. He used to beat me and really lay into my mother. Georges too was a nasty, cruel bully, and I suffered at his hands until I learned to stand up for myself.’
‘You told me about the time he threw your beautiful doll in the fire.’
‘He was constantly doing things like that,’ Bridgette said. ‘The worst thing that Georges did was try to rape me when I was just sixteen. He didn’t succeed but my mother knew that she couldn’t totally protect me. By then I was working at the Laurents’ dress shop and I moved into their house, with my mother’s blessing, and later married their son, Xavier.
‘When war was declared, Xavier joined the French Army, but he was killed at Dunkirk. I was expecting my first child and when I heard of his death and I went into premature labour and my baby was stillborn. If I am honest, I joined the Resistance not to free France, but to kill as many Germans as possible. And I did kill
them; and rejoiced in their deaths. Now, it’s hard to believe I did those things.’
‘The situations were totally different,’ Mark said, coming into the room with Nuala in his arms. ‘We were at war. How many German pilots did I shoot down and how many German men, women and children did our bombers kill? It was what we had to do then.’
‘I suppose.’
‘No suppose about it,’ Mark said. ‘All those in the Resistance did a sterling job and you all knew the penalty if you had been caught. The Allies greatly admired the work the French Resistance were doing.’
‘Well, I’m glad we were of some use, at least,’ Bridgette said. ‘I only gave up the work and moved back to the bakery when Maman became so ill.’
‘And then agreed to hide me when my escape route broke down,’ James said, appearing with Finn, with his parents following behind him. Seeing James and Finn together, the likeness was startling and obvious.
‘Finn’s your son, isn’t he?’ Molly said.
‘Yes,’ James said proudly, crossing to Bridgette’s side and putting an arm around her. ‘I ended up staying with Bridgette some weeks and we discovered that we loved each other.’
‘I’m sorry that I told such a pack of lies to you all,’ Bridgette said. ‘I was so afraid that you would think less of me if I told you the truth about Finn.’
‘How could you think that?’ Molly cried.
‘Well, you said that in Ireland having a baby with no husband was considered one of the worst things a girl can do,’ Bridgette said.
‘Yes, but I didn’t say that I agreed with it,’ Molly said. ‘I told you all the things that happened to Aggie, and what she was forced to do, and that was nearly my lot as well. How in God’s name could we look down on you? You suffered so much too.’
‘And you don’t know the half of it,’ said James.
He told Molly and Mark, and his parents, Audrey and Jim, about the duplicity of Legrand and his son and how they had paid for that with their lives, and how Bridgette had been tainted too.
‘It was an extremely risky thing to take me in the way she did and she was very brave even to consider it because she knew the risks she was running,’ James went on. ‘The Germans knew that I had landed somewhere and we were working on the assumption that with Legrand and his son being so well in with the German officers, and Bridgette’s mother being extremely ill, they wouldn’t search the bakery. It was a gamble and could have backfired at any time, for they tore the rest of the town apart. But it was noted, of course, that the bakery was untouched and so malicious lies were spread about that Bridgette had been sharing her favours with the Germans.’
Bridgette went on to detail the punishments meted out to women accused of consorting with Germans, her flight to Paris, and ended up with telling them about the vengeful mob that had set the bakery ablaze.
Then James took up the tale. ‘The three letters I sent to Bridgette she never got. They were returned to me unopened as there was no house to deliver them to, and so I thought that Bridgette was no longer interested. Meanwhile, Bridgette thought I had been killed, and then found she was pregnant.’
James’s voice was choked, and Bridgette looked from his emotional eyes to Finn’s merry ones and felt such a rush of love for them both that it almost overwhelmed her.
‘We might never have met again, James and me,’ she said in a voice that shook slightly. ‘Because of misunderstandings that happen in wartime, Finn might have grown up fatherless and James would never know he had a son, and you,’ she went on, smiling across at James’s parents, ‘would have lost the opportunity to be grandparents.’
‘It’s unbelievable,’ Mark said. ‘You only met because of a quirk of fate.’
‘Yes,’ Bridgette said. ‘And that quirk of fate only happened because I eventually did what my mother wanted and came to meet my father’s family.’
James’s parents looked a bit confused at Bridgette’s words and so the others filled them in with details and Bridgette left them to it. She was happy to feast her eyes on the two men in her life, whom she loved so much.
James turned and saw the love light shining in his beloved Bridgette’s face and he felt his heart turn over. He loved her with a depth that seem to encompass all his being and he suddenly handed Finn to his mother and kneeled down in front of her. ‘My darling Bridgette,’ he said, ‘will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’
‘I will, James,’ Bridgette said. ‘I will, and gladly,’
There were cheers and hugs and handshakes all round. His father brought out a bottle of champagne that he said he was saving for a special occasion and this was about as special as it got, and when the health of the couple was drunk and the hubbub had died down, James said to his mother, ‘You can go about arranging the wedding, Mum, which I know you’ll be longing to do, but not just yet, because the first thing I want to do is return to St-Omer.’
‘Oh, no, James,’ said Bridgette. ‘I want to draw a line under that period of my life.’
James shook his head. ‘I don’t think that that is the way to play this,’ he said. ‘We need to confront these lying busybodies that maligned you. I would like to give them a piece of my mind, but my French isn’t good enough. Anyway, it was you they abused, so you should stand up to them. I know how brave you are and I will be with you every step of the way. No one can hurt you any more.’
Suddenly Bridgette knew James was right. She would go back and clear her name. She had been forced to flee from Madame Pretin and her ilk, but now it was time to face them unafraid and refute the lies they had told about her.
‘You’re right, James,’ she said. ‘That is one of the first things that we must do.’
‘Oh, Mark,’ Molly said, clapping her hands together in delight, as a child might, ‘I am so excited about all this. Shall we forgo our outing to Sutton Park? I can’t wait to tell the family.’
‘All right,’ said Mark, good-naturedly. He added, ‘You better come along with us too, James. Bridgette’s uncles will probably want to give you the third degree.’
‘Stop it, Mark,’ Bridgette said with a laugh. ‘You will have James frightened to death.’ She looked at James and said, ‘Uncle Tom and Uncle Joe will not do that at all, but I know the whole family would like to meet you.’
‘I would be glad to come,’ James said. ‘And I will answer any question they want to ask. It’s understandable that they want to know something about me. And don’t worry, my darling, they won’t scare me away. Nothing would. I would walk through hot coals if that is what it took to be with you.’
James was approved by the whole family and Bridgette’s tale had to be told again and again. Bridgette was very relieved to see that it made no difference to the way she was treated by the others. In fact, they seemed to think that she was really heroic and she was slightly uncomfortable with this because, as she said, in wartime a person did what they had to do and she never thought of herself as anyone special.
James, on the other hand, thought Bridgette very special indeed, and he said that they had been apart long enough. There was no reason to delay the wedding for months and months. It was set for the beginning of August, before the boys set off for America, though Audrey Carmichael complained that wasn’t nearly enough time to plan the wedding of her only son.
Bridgette, knowing Audrey was really upset about this, called to see her on her own the following Monday afternoon, leaving Finn with Molly.
‘I do understand how you feel,’ she said. ‘But really, James and I don’t want anything lavish. We just want to be together as soon as possible.’
Audrey saw the sincerity in Bridgette’s face and when she said, ‘I truly love your son so very much,’ she knew she meant every word.
‘I am so happy that you have called to see me,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure I have ever thanked you enough for saving James’s life.’
‘Oh, really, I didn’t…’
‘Don’t be so modest, my dear,’ Audrey said. ‘James has to
ld me how it was and how the storm troopers actually came into the house, and he said even then you showed such bravery and went out on to the landing to meet them.’
‘I was so scared that my knees were nearly knocking together.’ Bridgette smiled ruefully at the memory.
‘I am not at all surprised,’ Audrey said. ‘You knew what would happen to you if James had been discovered. He has told us that too. You know, my dear,’ she went on, ‘when James was demobbed and came home, there was a sort of innate sadness about him. In fact, he was so depressed and dispirited I was quite concerned about him. He reminded me of the way he was when he heard about the death of his wife, Sarah, for he seemed to go a little mad for a time, and that wasn’t helped of course when Dan was killed the following year and poor Dolly’s fiancé as well.
‘Dolly said that it was probably reaction to what he had had to do and that she would imagine returning to civvy street was difficult for many servicemen. And I’m sure she’s right, but in James’s case it seemed more than that. I tried asking him if anything was the matter, and so did his father, but he always said that he was fine. We thought in time he would maybe recover but now I know it was because he thought he had lost you.’
‘I thought the same,’ Bridgette said. ‘And I know that he loved his first wife, as I did Xavier. He was a wonderful man and husband, and I was incredibly sad when I heard of his death, and then for my daughter to be stillborn was very hard for me to come to terms with. But now I feel the same way about James and I am so very grateful that we can both have another crack at happiness. Having Finn is just like the icing on the cake.’
Audrey heard the longing in Bridgette’s voice. She and James had been through months and months of unhappiness. No wonder they wanted no delay to the wedding, and in making difficulties she knew she was thinking of herself rather that the young people concerned, and so she patted Bridgette’s hand and said, ‘I know that, and you mustn’t mind me. It’s just a mother’s pride, and how does that measure up to your happiness? If you want the wedding in so short a space of time then that’s when it will be.’
