The Wild Land

by Isobel Chace

  Madame looked at her thoughtfully.

  “It is a great pity that I have not yet finished the dress I am making for you. But no, perhaps not! It would be too grand. You would do better in something simple—something to show up the blackness of your hair.”

  “Scarlet?” Emma suggested hopefully.

  “Mais oui! Delightful!” She smiled at her granddaughter and Emma felt suddenly a little guilty. Would she be lonely by herself for the evening?

  “Lonely? Me?” Madame looked affronted. “Why should I be lonely? Besides,” she added, “Marie-Françoise will be in later. I will ask her to dine with me. That way I can be sure that she has a good meal!”

  Emma gave her a swift kiss.

  “Know something? You’re nice!” she said. “And now I must dash off and try to get clean. I wouldn’t have believed that cutting a few reeds would make one so dirty!”

  Her grandmother chuckled.

  “You are fortunate to be cutting them now,” she said dryly. “When the mosquitoes are here it is truly terrible! Be thankful for that!”

  The water was no hotter than tepid, but just to stand beneath it and watch the dry dust falling off herself was a marvellous sensation. And afterwards she brushed her hair until it shone and she felt quite clean again all over.

  The scarlet velvet dress was just right, she thought. It had long sleeves and was cut low to reveal her honey-colored shoulders. She had nice shoulders, she knew, and couldn’t quite stop herself from hoping that Charles thought so too. Over it she wore a white stole that sparkled whenever she moved. It was a pity to cover it all with a coat, but it could still get quite cool in the evenings, so she took one with her in case she should need it.

  Charles too was looking nice. The French cut to his suit no longer seemed so foreign. She was even beginning to quite like the extreme shortness of the coat, and his brightly colored socks! They suited him in a way that an English suit never would. They had that gay, arrogant touch that was so much a part of his character.

  He drove fast through the Camargue, only slowing down when they came to the rice factory, and went on into the narrow streets of Trinquetaille, the old Roman residential area of the city. And then, there across the river, was Arles itself. The evening sun caught the old curved tiling of the roofs and they glowed with that beauty that only very old tiles have. The sight of them caught at Emma’s throat. A higgledy-piggledy conglomeration of roofing all at angles one to the other, forming strange and charming shapes against the still blue sky.

  Charles turned left into the Place de la République and round two blind corners into the Place du Forum, where long ago the Roman population had met and discussed the problems of the day and had made their decisions. In a very narrow street just beyond was a gardien’s shop, spilling out on to the rough pavement. Tridents, ropes, saddles, and a hundred and one odd tools lay cluttered everywhere. The proprietor greeted Charles with a warm handshake and Emma with a look of frank appreciation that warmed her.

  “Mademoiselle will be wanting to buy some things from you,” Charles explained. “Not this evening perhaps, but I told her I would bring her in to see you.” “I am entirely at Mademoiselle’s disposal,” the proprietor said easily. “I had heard that Monsieur Clement has sold a small piece of land. Will you grow rice there? I can arrange some sacking windbreaks very quickly for you.”

  “No, not rice,” Emma said firmly.

  The proprietor’s eyebrows soared up and his hands came out in dismay.

  “It is too small for any other purpose!” he objected.

  “She will hire it out to me once it has recovered from neglect,” Charles put in.

  “And to my grandmother—jointly!” Emma agreed. The proprietor looked from one to the other of them, decided they were both mad, and turned back to his wares.

  “Is not the whole of the Camargue neglected?” he asked nobody in particular.

  Charles laughed.

  “You are growing soft, mon vieux,” he said. “A few trees to protect the soil and the cattle will find a living there. Do you doubt me?”

  “Not if you say so. A few trees and something to plant them with, I suppose? And what else?”

  They both looked at Emma, who firmly looked at Charles.

  “We’ll write out a list and let you have it. There won’t be much, but we’ll want some really good trees.”

  “That goes without saying, monsieur. Have I ever sold you less than the best?”

  Charles laughed good-naturedly. “Never to me,” he agreed with meaning.

  The proprietor flushed.

  “That other was a mistake, monsieur!”

  “It was indeed!”

  Emma felt a moment’s sympathy with the proprietor. She was not the only one, it seemed, to whom Charles handed out these cool snubs. She wondered what the mistake had been. She was almost sure that it had been Marie-Françoise who must have brought out the protective instinct in Charles. He might notice other people being swindled, but she couldn’t imagine him rushing to their defence unless he were fond of them—fond of them as he was of Marie-Françoise.

  The smell of the shop, the leather and the ropes and the dusty smell of seeds in great quantities, followed them up the road. Emma turned back at the corner and the proprietor was still standing in the doorway. She gave a little wave with her hand and he grinned back at her, waving enthusiastically.

  They walked into the back streets of Arles that led to the Arena, the old Roman baths and came back to the river. The wind blew down them, cool and bracing, reminding them that it was still only the beginning of summer.

  “I thought we’d try one of the little gardien restaurants,” Charles suggested. “The menu doesn’t vary much, but I rather think you will enjoy trying out all the local dishes.” That slight smile was back. Emma wondered if he was being superior, and then didn’t care if he was, for he was quite right! It was exactly what she would have chosen herself.

  The restaurant they chose had a large wooden gardien in the doorway, complete with trident and menu card. Charles held the door open for Emma and she saw that the decor was very much the same inside. Bullfighting equipment hung round the wall, dusty and tatty but obviously genuine, and the tables were decorated with ears of Camargue-grown rice, the grains large and distinctive, much bigger than any Emma had ever seen before.

  The owner himself served them, bringing two carafes of local wine almost before they had sat down.

  “You will have the good menu, of course?” he tempted them.

  Charles nodded briefly.

  “I don’t know if you’ll care for the Arlesienne sausage,” he said to Emma, “but we may as well try it.”

  It was disappointing—a cold, spiced sausage dressed up as an hors d’oeuvres. The owner chopped up a loaf of bread on a guillotine and brought a basketful over to them.

  “You have everything you need?” he asked.

  “Thanks,” said Charles.

  For an olive branch meal it wasn’t going very well, Emma reflected. She had a fleeting memory of Marie-Françoise as she had seen her with Charles, animated and talking nineteen to the dozen. Why couldn’t she find a similar gaiety? She glanced across the table at Charles. It was almost unbearably pleasant to see him there, but she was a little afraid of him too, and it was fear that had locked her tongue.

  Their plates were taken away and the next course came, enormous hunks of beef in a simple stew with carrots and onions added, and rice cooked in a sauce that had tomatoes in it and other things that Emma couldn’t even guess at.

  “I thought you had decided to trust me,” Charles said conversationally. “Do you now suspect me of trying to take away your land as well as your grandmother’s?”

  Emma blushed.

  “I—I try to trust you—”

  The smile went and instead he looked almost angry.

  “Is it so difficult?” he demanded proudly.

  “N-not over my land,” Emma stammered.

  He studied her
face for a long moment.

  “Perhaps you don’t try hard enough,” he said at last with a glimpse of his usual humor. “Is Monsieur Clement so much more trustworthy?”

  “You know he isn’t!” she said indignantly.

  “Ah! Then the fault lies in me! Now I wonder, what could it be that makes me look so shifty?”

  Emma wriggled uncomfortably.

  “Don’t be so silly!” she said sharply.

  He looked distinctly amused.

  “My dear Emma, you must learn to have the courage of your convictions,” he said gently. “But there! It is a shame to tease you. Let us work out how many trees we think you are likely to need. Not so very many, I think.”

  She obliged him by trying to remember the boundaries of her land, but it no longer seemed very important. She should never have agreed to come to Arles with him. She might have known that it would turn out like this. It was painfully obvious that he didn’t even like her!

  The beef and rice became steadily tasteless. What had begun as a pleasure had become an ordeal, and it was with relief that Emma put down her knife and fork and took a sip of wine.

  “Cheese?” Charles asked.

  Emma shook her head, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. Charles grinned sympathetically.

  “This hasn’t turned out quite as I planned,” he confessed. “It’s a local cheese and very good.”

  “Very well,” she said.

  It was good—a cream cheese rolled in a spicy herb that might have been rosemary. It was an old-fashioned country cheese, made as it had always been made on the Crau.

  “And what does Sam think of your purchase?” Charles asked, obviously trying to turn the conversation into a more friendly mould.

  “I haven’t told him,” Emma replied absently. “I meant to—but somehow I didn’t.”

  “Because you thought he wouldn’t approve?” Emma looked surprised.

  “I don’t suppose he’d care one way or the other!” she exclaimed. “He—he’s just a friend.”

  Charles looked faintly contemptuous.

  “That sounds exactly like a press handout,” he said. He hesitated. “I’m sorry, Emma. I seem to keep saying the wrong thing this evening. If you’ve finished, I’ll take you home.”

  Emma swallowed down the last of her bread and cheese. Perhaps it would be as well to go home and to forget about the evening as quickly as she could. He hadn’t really wanted to bring her. He didn’t approve of her, and why should he? Every time they did anything together something went wrong, and it was usually her fault. She wrapped her coat over her scarlet dress and walked with him in silence back to the car.

  The wind had dropped and the velvety quality of the typical Provencal evening cast a glow of excitement over the streets. It was difficult not to be aware of the attractions of any man in the circumstances.

  “Charles—” Emma began.

  But they had already reached the car and he was holding the door open for her to get in. With an impatient sigh she did so. After all, nothing could retrieve the evening now—but oh, how she wished that something would!

  It was easier to go in through the kitchen than to search for her key in the dark. Jeanne was still at the sink doing the last of the washing up and she looked up and smiled as Emma entered.

  “Madame is waiting up for you,” she said brightly. “Mademoiselle Marie-Françoise was here, but she has gone now. It was company for Madame to have her, but now she is sad and lonely as she was so often before you came. Will you go in and see her?”

  Emma nodded. Poor Grand’mere, was she too unhappy and a little lost? But surely she trusted Charles? She allowed him to do whatever he pleased on the manade and never complained!

  She was not in the salon as Emma had expected, and so she went upstairs to find her. A beam of light shone out from beneath her door and Emma knocked lightly.

  “Are you there, Grand’mere?” she called out.

  “Yes, come in.”

  The old lady lay huddled in her bedclothes, her mouth drooping and her eyes unhappy.

  “What is it?” Emma asked her. “What is the trouble?”

  “Trouble!” Madame repeated pugnaciously. “What should I know of trouble? I am surrounded by people who keep secrets from me, and you ask me what is the trouble as though I were six years old!”

  Emma bit her lip.

  “Secrets?” she asked.

  “You didn’t know you were buying land from Monsieur Clement, I suppose?” Madame asked sarcastically.

  “Oh, that!” Emma said almost with relief.

  “Yes, that! The whole neighborhood can be told, but I have to wait to hear it from Marie-Françoise! She would hate me to be angry! Her father is so difficult! Ah, bah! What have you done to annoy that one, ma fille?”

  “Nothing,” Emma said faintly.

  “Nothing? Think again, my child. She didn’t tell me for no reason!”

  “Perhaps she thought you already knew,” Emma suggested.

  Her grandmother dismissed that with a toss of the head.

  “She did not! She knew also that you were keeping from me that you had received a letter from her father when you were in England! She had the audacity to suggest that you had come to safeguard your inheritance. Is that so?”

  “You know it isn’t!” Emma exclaimed, now quite as cross as her grandmother. “I thought—I thought—Oh, never mind! But I thought something quite different from that!”

  “So I believe! And so does Marie-Françoise!” Madame observed shrewdly. “This was merely to make trouble, I think. So what have you been doing to her?”

  “I bought land from her father, that’s all.”

  “What for?” her grandmother demanded.

  “He threatened to sell it to the rice co-operatives. You can see it from our windows! Oh, Grand’mere, I hate to see the Camargue being ruined just as much as you do, so I bought it.”

  “Charles will not be pleased!”

  “No,” Emma admitted, “he wasn’t very. But he is helping me to buy some trees to renovate the windbreak. That’s why he took me into Arles this evening.”

  Madame’s eyes sparkled.

  “And how did he find out?”

  “He guessed,” Emma said bitterly.

  Her grandmother laughed.

  “As I should have done if I had thought for an instant!” she chortled. “It was not that that I was angry about. How much land did you buy?”

  “Only a thousand hectares. Charles wanted to put it down in rice.”

  “He would! But you have refused? Charles is not easily baulked. Have you thought of that?”

  Emma nodded. She leaned over and kissed her grandmother goodnight.

  “I’m sorry you had to learn about the land this way,” she said. “I was going to tell you myself—when it was ready for your inspection!”

  Her grandmother kissed her warmly back.

  “We’ll ride out together to see it tomorrow. We can soon find a few tools and plant a few trees for you!”

  Emma pursed up her lips.

  “Charles says I must buy my own.” She sounded hurt, as she had been at the time, so she added hastily, “But he’s being very kind about helping me get some things.”

  Madame looked astonished.

  “I shall help you myself,” she announced. “In the morning!”

  They kissed again, and Emma left her for her own room. Strangely, it was not of Charles or her grandmother that she was thinking, but of Marie-Françoise sitting, waiting for her in the salon, and saying tearfully: “I could have borne a stranger, but not you!” And she was almost sure she knew why the French girl had tried to make trouble for her. Somebody must have told her that she was out with Charles. And wouldn’t she have felt exactly the same way if it had been the other way round?

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE cabane was very nearly finished. The walls had been successfully patched and most of the thatching had been done, leaving only the joint where the two sides met
at the top. Charles began folding the ends in and dressing it with a water-proofing material, making sure that the traditional cross stood up at the right angle. Emma watched him, admiring the neat way the roof went up in steps and how he had incorporated the chimney stack without any apparent difficulty.

  “Would you pass up the paint?” Charles called down to her.

  She picked up the heavy can and a brush and climbed up one of the ladders that leaned against the cabin’s roof. The thin wire of the handle cut into her hand and she was more than glad to relinquish it when she got to the top. Charles took it from her with a smile and helped her to balance beside him, astride the roof.

  “Want to do some?” he asked her.

  She nodded. The smell of paint mixed well with the freshly-cut reeds and the daub from below. She took the brush from him and began to paint the waterproofing where he had finished. The paint was startlingly white in the hot sun and very smart against the dried grass color of the thatching.

  “I haven’t very long,” she warned him. “As soon as Grand’mere is up we’re riding out to take a look at my land. Marie-Françoise told her about it last night.”

  Charles didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows went up.

  “I wish I had told her myself!” she added fiercely. She splodged some paint on the chimney-stack and made a hasty movement to stop it trickling down the flat surface.

  “You ought to start at the bottom,” Charles told her. “Look, like this!” He took the brush from her and painted the joint where the stack met the top of the roof with quick, economical movements. Emma held her breath. She could feel the heat from his body against her back, and she longed to turn and cling to him. But she had no right. She had to remember that!

  “I can do it,” she said tightly. “Go back to your own work!”

  Obligingly he turned away again, his eyes crinkling slightly with amusement. Emma slapped on some paint with a heightened color which gradually subsided as the world resumed its normal proportions. She painted slowly, with great concentration, for several moments, and then she quietly put down her brush.

  “I think I’ll go and see if Grand’mere is about yet,” she said.