by Isobel Chace
THE WILD LAND
Isobel Chace
Emma Howard was summoned to France to visit the grandmother she had never seen. There she met Charles Rideau, and their story is told against the exciting background of the Camargue, with its annual gathering of gipsies from all over Europe at the little town of Les Saintes Maries de la Mer.
CHAPTER ONE
THE train came to an abrupt halt just by a lilac tree, fragrant and full of blossom, and then shunted backwards into the station. It was twenty-four hours after Emma Howard had left England, and she had arrived in Nimes. She searched in her handbag for the photograph her grandmother had sent her of the man who was to meet her. He was sitting his horse as though he had been born on it and he was smiling into the camera with an arrogant tilt to his head that bore out everything she had ever heard about him. He looked big, though it was difficult to tell how big exactly, and his coloring was dark.
“Monsieur Charles Rideau,” Emma said aloud. He looked a formidable enemy, and her heart quailed a little at the momentous task before her. Nevertheless it had to be done, and she was the only person in a position to do it. She put the photograph into her pocket and glanced at herself in the small looking-glass provided in the carriage. She looked young and scared, with long black hair piled up on to the top of her head and wide grey eyes with tiny little brown flecks in them that made some people call them hazel. She was not beautiful, but she had a certain dignity that became her and an easy smile that turned quickly into laughter. She would have to do better than that, she thought to herself; she couldn’t allow him to see how frightened she was.
She pulled her suitcases down from the rack and stood watching in the doorway to the compartment. There were very few people on the platform. A few children running back and forth across the lines, their legs brown beneath impossibly short shorts, and a little group of old women, huddled into their black shawls and deep in their day’s gossip. There were only two men that she could see, and neither of them looked like Charles Rideau.
She was stiff after the long journey and she was a little awkward as she stepped down out of the high train, dragging her luggage after her, and as she knocked against someone she almost lost her balance entirely. Two strong brown hands righted her and took her suitcase from her as easily as though it weighed nothing.
“Miss Howard?”
His voice was so deep that it came as quite a shock to her, and although his English was perfect there was no mistaking the French flavor that made her own name sound quite foreign and rather dashing.
She turned quickly and looked up at him, comparing him mentally with his photograph. He was big! And if there was arrogance in his face there was a most disarming humor as well. Not that she intended allowing herself to be disarmed by it, she told herself crossly, but she found herself smiling up at him all the same and with a great deal more warmth than she had intended.
“Yes,” she said. “Monsieur Rideau?”
He took both her hands in his and stared at her for a moment and then a slight twinkle appeared in his dark brown eyes.
“At least there is no doubt that you are Tante Marrsha’s granddaughter,” he said.
Emma snatched her hands away from him.
“Of course I’m her granddaughter,” she said firmly. “I can show you all my papers if you don’t believe me!”
He laughed.
“The likeness is so astonishing there could be no doubt anyway,” he informed her lazily. “Even to the way that you do your hair.”
That made her nervous again. Would her grandmother think that she had deliberately put her hair up to look more like her? she wondered. But it would be silly to change her style now. She had worn her hair that way for more than two years and that was the way it was going to stay.
“I hope it wasn’t a nuisance coming to meet me,” she said formally.
“It was a pleasure.” He began to lead the way off the platform. “I hope you are not too hungry, though, for Tante Marrsha awaits lunch for us at Arles. Did you have any breakfast?”
Emma said she had had some coffee, although she had had nothing of the sort. There had been no opportunity to buy anything at Langeac where she had had to change trains, and there had been no restaurant facilities on the light train that had rushed her through the Massif Central into Provence. Her mouth felt dry and tasteless, but this was obviously not the time to say so, and as it was already one o’clock Arles could not be so very far away.
Monsieur Rideau ran lightly down the concrete steps and waited for her to hand in her ticket. It gave her an unexpected wrench to part with the orange and white piece of paper that had brought her so far. It had at least been written in English, and now she could expect nothing but French. Why, she didn’t even know whether her grandmother spoke any English at all!
The pale lemon sunshine struck warm against her flesh and there was a lightness in the air, despite the white dust that the wind gathered into patterns on the pavement and street in sudden gusts of enthusiasm, only to blow it on a few seconds later. A gendarme stood in a little white box, directing the traffic as it swept up the avenue to the Place de la Liberation, an avenue lined with plane trees just breaking into leaf.
“I came in the deux chevaux,” Monsieur Rideau began apologetically.
Emma started visibly, and he laughed.
“A baby Citroen,” he explained. “You have seen them, perhaps?”
He pointed to a small car across the street, the back so much higher than the front of it that it looked as though it was running straight into the road ahead. It was utilitarian rather than beautiful, but obviously it would go anywhere and everywhere without coming to any harm.
But it was not to the sober grey one that he took her. His was painted a bizarre shade of violet, striped with yellow, making it look remarkably like a rather horrid insect.
“That?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Monsieur Rideau opened one of the rear doors and flung her suitcase in.
“It belongs to the manade,” he explained briefly. “You see, here is our brand mark.” He pointed to a little crest of a shield with a crescent moon in it. “All our animals bear this mark.”
He opened the door for her, swept her skirt out of his way and slammed the door. It should have been on a fairground, Emma thought, and was even more convinced when he folded his great height in beside her. It was quite as ridiculous as any dodgem car.
“The manade?” she asked him hesitantly. She hated having to show her ignorance, but she had to know these things.
“It is a kind of farm,” he told her. “They are traditional on the Camargue. They breed all the bulls for the local Courses Litres. The owner is the manadier and the men who work with the bulls are called gardiens.”
She would have liked to have asked him more, but caution held her back. She would very soon find out all she needed to know without his help.
Her eyes fell. He wasn’t entirely what she had expected. Dressed in an ordinary light suit, his feet thrust into brown shoes that required no laces and encased in brightly colored nylon socks, he appeared to be quite as much at home meeting her as he was on his horse in the photograph. He wore his clothing well, she thought, his tie tied in a neat Windsor knot and his handkerchief very white and showing just the right amount. There was no doubt but that he was very attractive—and that he knew it!
They were not long in leaving Nimes, the dusty road cutting straight through the rust-red fields planted with vines, looking like so many stunted trees straight out of a Van Gogh painting, weird, black shapes with the first spring shoots just beginning to appear on the top.
Monsieur Rideau drove fast, covering the miles with a nonchalant ease. The lilac was out everywhere, and here and there a hou
se was made beautiful by a glorious wistaria clinging to the old yellow walls, dried out by the hot sun.
Monsieur Rideau shook his head sadly.
“It is dry this year,” he said. “We cannot afford another year like last one. It rained much too late and the grapes grew too quickly and too late, breaking their skins. It was a catastrophe for some of the growers.”
“It rained in England the whole summer long,” Emma remembered, not without bitterness.
Monsieur Rideau chuckled.
“In Provence,” he said, “it rains in the winter or not at all.”
Emma smiled contentedly.
“It sounds perfect!”
He laughed out loud.
“If the mistral is not blowing,” he warned her.
Her grandmother had a vineyard, Emma remembered. Had it been affected by the sudden rain? She opened her handbag and cautiously felt the long, crackly letter she had received in England. There had been no mention of any rain in that—only tales of mismanagement, with her grandmother ill and unable to look after herself. The signature had been that of an Henri Clement. She opened her mouth to ask about him and then closed it again. Whoever he was, it had been kind of him to write.
They came into Trinquetaille, the old Roman residential area of Arles, with a suddenness that surprised her. Some modern blocks of flats dominated the older, narrow streets. Once she saw a sign advertising a Gardien Restaurant and she was glad that she knew what a gardien was. And then the Rhone was before them, brown and choppy in the light wind, with Arles in the background, a medieval city of quaint, curly tiles, yellow rather than red in the sunshine, beautiful in their antiquity and variety of angle.
The streets were so narrow that a car could only just go along them. Monsieur Rideau blew his horn to signal that they were coming and they shot down one turning after another, returning the familiar waves of the pedestrians as they recognized the colors of the manade.
There was little room for parking outside the hotel her grandmother had chosen for lunch, and Emma had to get out first so that Monsieur Rideau could put the car right against the wall on a built-up ledge. He locked it carefully, leaving her luggage on the back seat.
Emma took a hasty look at herself in the small glass of her powder compact.
“Shall I hold it for you?” Monsieur Rideau asked her, and he did it as if it were something that he did every day. She was very aware of his amused eyes as she swept her hair up into position and fastened it with a comb.
“Will you need your coat?” he asked. “I think your blouse is nicer without, no? And your skirt is not at all crushed.”
She thanked him breathlessly and pushed her things back into her handbag.
“Ready?”
She nodded and preceded him up the few steps into the hotel.
Her grandmother was waiting in the little sitting-room attached to the reception desk. She sat, bolt upright, on the edge of her hard chair, her head well back and her eyes almost closed. Emma recognized her at once, though quite why she couldn’t have said. She had never, after all, seen her before.
“So,” Madame Yourievska drawled, “you are my granddaughter.”
Emma looked down at her and found her own eyes staring back at her.
“Yes, Grand’mere,” she said simply.
The old lady looked at her for a long moment.
“So,” she said again. “Eh bien, let us go into lunch.”
The waitress showed them to a table by the window. Madame Yourievska nodded her approval and gestured to Emma to sit beside her.
“You are not in the least like my Anna,” she said abruptly.
Emma flushed.
“No,” she admitted. She had never been anything like her mother, she knew, for her looks were one of the few things she could remember about her. That and her soft French accent and the cool feel of her hands. “But her hair was long and black too.”
For an instant the old woman’s eyes softened.
“Indeed it was. But you! How could you remember? You were a child when she was killed.”
“I remember her a little—her English wasn’t very good.”
“And your French is atrocious, let me tell you!” Madame Yourievska retorted.
Emma’s eyes fell to her knife and fork.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Monsieur Rideau picked up the menu and smiled at them both.
“Which will you have?” he asked. “The Menu Touriste or the Menu Gastronomique?”
“But the Gastronomique! What else? The child must eat! And wine, Charles.” She glanced reflectively at her granddaughter. “Something not too heady, I think, but palatable, you understand?”
Monsieur Rideau covered the old lady’s hand with his own.
“What makes you think she has not got your hard head, ma chère?” he asked her teasingly.
Madame Yourievska chuckled.
“Very likely! But I have no desire to make the experiment here, when she is hot and tired and a little sad.”
Emma was grateful for that. She was not accustomed to wine with her meals at all, and she was tired. Too tired to start sorting out her first impressions, but she would have liked to know why Charles Rideau should act as her Grandmother’s host. Monsieur Henri Clement had said—But she wouldn’t think about that now, there would be plenty of time for that later.
Her grandmother leaned over and poked her in the arm.
“So!” she exclaimed. “You are not entirely a blind English mouse! You have eyes to see a man! My eyes!”
Emma choked and blushed, aware that she had been staring across the table at Monsieur Rideau as he had given the order. But she hadn’t been thinking about him at all! Or at least only indirectly!
“Oh, no,” she denied hastily. “I think your eyes are finer—” She broke off and they looked at each other for a long moment.
“Your eyes are well enough,” Madame said at last. “At least it would be impossible for me to deny you.”
But did she want to? That was the question. Emma bit her lip and was glad when the hors d’oevres arrived, causing a mild diversion.
The wine was a pretty shade of pink. Sometimes, at home, her father had brought home a bottle of wine, but it had always been a deep, rich red. He hadn’t believed in experimenting. He would never have worked his way through the entire list, as Emma would have done if she had had the opportunity. Her eyes sparkled and she sipped it with interest, fully aware of Monsieur Rideau’s lazy amusement.
“Well?” he asked.
It was impossible to explain that anything would have tasted good to her at that moment. It was pure nectar.
“I like it very much,” she said demurely.
It was difficult though to remember to keep her knife and fork between courses. She marvelled at the way her grandmother and Monsieur Rideau put theirs down flat on the white tablecloth and yet it remained quite clean. She followed their example carefully, a little pleased with herself for managing so well.
They had almost finished eating when Madame addressed her directly again.
“And why have you come?” she demanded suddenly.
Emma looked quickly from one to the other. She could not tell what her grandmother was thinking, but she thought she detected interest beneath the lazy smile of Charles Rideau.
“You were not well, Grand’mere,” she said primly. How tiresome it was, she thought, not to be able to tell the truth, but how could she with that man sitting there, watching her more closely than he would have liked her to know? “I am, after all, your granddaughter!” she added with a flustered laugh. “And you have asked me, many times.”
Her grandmother snorted.
“Eat up your banana, child,” she said crossly. “And drink up your wine. We have none of your afternoon tea here.”
Emma’s lips twitched.
“I prefer coffee,” she said smoothly.
Two suspicious grey eyes met hers uncertainly and then her grandmother crowed with unexpected
pleasure.
“My faith! But I shall have to watch you more closely, ma petite. You have a saucy tongue despite your demure looks. Charles, you will take her home with you.”
Monsieur Rideau smiled willingly. Oh, Emma thought, but he was handsome at times! It was just a look that came and went, but it wasn’t at all surprising that he had managed to do all that he had. Why, if Monsieur Clement hadn’t taken the trouble to write to her, she would have liked Charles Rideau! If liked was the word. Her fingers clung together for mutual support. Surely not that? He was a stranger and she didn’t care for the color of his socks—apart from anything else that he might have done. Oh dear no, Monsieur Charles Rideau, this time charm is going to get you nowhere at all!
She turned back hastily to her grandmother. She was looking tired. She ought to rest more, Emma thought. She opened her mouth to suggest that she should go home with them, but Charles Rideau was before her.
“And is what you have to do so important that you cannot have your rest?” he asked the old woman tenderly, laying his hand on her shoulder. “It will wait until the morning.”
Madame looked sulky.
“I suppose you know all about it!” she retorted.
“I think so,” he replied calmly.
“Well, I won’t do it whatever you may say! I will not have a single grain of rice on my land, so there!”
His mouth tightened.
“We shall see,” he said.
“We shall see nothing! It is my land, young man, and don’t you forget it!”
Emma felt like cheering. That was the way to deal with him! He was very clever, but he hadn’t managed to subjugate her grandmother entirely, it seemed. Emma grinned at Madame and received a wry smile in return.
“It seems I have an ally in my granddaughter,” she said dryly. “You won’t be able to bully us both, Charles!”
Monsieur Rideau laughed.
“We shall see, Tante. I may be a match for both of you!”
“Not as far as the rice is concerned!” Madame rose with dignity to her feet. “The Camargue is my life now. It is there that the sky meets the sea and the River Rhone battles with the land to survive. It is wild, untamable, with only saltwort and tamarisk as far as the eye can see. And now they want to grow rice!” The scorn in her voice was unmistakable. “And who will get the profits? That is what I want to know! The people in the north! Oh no, it is better that we should be left as we are, with our horses and our bulls—and our freedom!”
