Assignment in Brittany

by Helen Macinnes

  Beyond the farm-house, down through the fields to the east, lay the road which passed through the village. From here, he could see its church soaring over the tops of the trees which fringed Saint-Déodat. Still farther to the east lay the busy plain, with its highway and railway, its villages and towns. But here, on this gentle hill, touched with gold in the rich evening light, such things might be a hundred miles away. He could hear the stillness around him. Its peace made him a part of itself, holding him immobile, suspended in time like a figure on a painted canvas.

  The bells from the church swung him out of his inertia. Below him the road would now have its black-shawled, white-capped women, walking with their heads already bent. He saw Albertine leave the kitchen door, and set off quickly down the path. Poor old Albertine, he thought again: her rewards were so few.

  And then he saw a girl on the path, her hair gleaming in the low rays of the setting sun. She didn’t turn towards the kitchen door as he expected. Instead, she had begun the climb up through the sloping fields towards where he stood. She had seen him. She waved, not excitedly, not full-heartedly. It was more of a gesture than a greeting. Nor did she quicken her steps, but walked towards him at the same steady pace. The silver-gold of her hair was unmistakable. This must be Anne Pinot. As she came nearer, and the white blur of her face resolved itself into a short nose and rounded chin, level eyebrows above grey eyes, he knew he had been right in his guess. She looked exactly like the expressionless photograph which Corlay had shown him. “Very fair hair,” Corlay had said in a disinterested voice. “That’s about all.”

  And that was about all, thought Hearne, until he noticed the eyes more blue than grey, and the sprinkling of freckles over the short, charming nose. She had possibilities, but she either ignored or despised them. Even the black dress with its bodice tightly buttoned up to the neck, with its long sleeves covering her wrists, seemed to have been chosen to constrict and hide her strong young body. Her stockings were black, and they weren’t silk ones, either. Her shoes were of plain black leather, low-heeled. He found himself thinking again of Corlay’s disinterested voice which had jarred on him at the time.

  “Anne,” he said, and smiled.

  “I met Albertine.” Her voice was clear and soft. She spoke French carefully, with no Breton accent and only the hint of an intonation. “She said you had gone up the hill. I wanted to see you.” Her eyes were fixed on the ground at her feet. Hearne suddenly remembered that he had made no move to touch her. He took her hand awkwardly.

  “You look just the same, Anne,” he said gently. “Just what I hoped to see when I got back.”

  She took her hand away quickly, and raised her eyes.

  “Bertrand,” she said in that clear, child-like voice which matched the simplicity of her face. “I want to tell you at once... Yesterday afternoon I learned that you had come back. I didn’t sleep all last night. So I must tell you now. I—” The resolution was fading with her voice.

  “Tell me what, Anne?” It was strange how gently he spoke to this girl, as if he were addressing a child. They stared at each other. “Tell me what, Anne?” Hearne smiled into the serious eyes.

  “I do not want to—” She stopped once more. Whatever she was trying to say was too difficult for her.

  “Anne, what’s wrong?” He was thinking that she reminded him of a startled fawn. He found he was smiling naturally and easily at last.

  She looked at him disbelievingly. He could hear the short, sharp breath. She bit her lip. And then she turned suddenly, and was running down the hill.

  “Anne!” There was real concern in his voice. He started after her, and cursed silently at his stiff muscles. It was as if he were running on stilts. He forced himself to greater speed, but even at that he was gaining only slightly. Had she guessed? Had she found out? His thoughts urged him on. He drew level with her almost at the bottom of the field. He caught her arm sharply, so that she stumbled and exclaimed, but his voice mastered hers.

  “Anne, what is wrong? You must tell me.”

  She was trembling. He let go her arm, suddenly and painfully aware of the madness of his emotions in the last two minutes. He felt strange and foolish. Chase a girl, he thought savagely, and you feel like some primeval Pan. Hell, he thought, think of Matthews and cold blue eyes and a matter-of-fact voice, think of a job to be done, a dirty, rotten job which might bear some good, some good for others but nothing but hell for yourself.

  She was looking at him, wide-eyed, the startled fawn again. She was nursing her arm; but she was still there, looking at him.

  “Anne,” he said. Nothing but Anne. He kept saying “Anne”. What else did you say to a girl to whom you had been conveniently betrothed?

  “Anne,” he said again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. But tell me what is wrong, what is wrong.”

  He was tired, he thought, or else all movement had gone into slow motion. No one could have looked so long at him as this. And then her clear, simple voice cut in on his emotions. Frère Jacques, he was thinking, either Frère Jacques or Sur le pont d’Avignon. It was that kind of voice, made to sing the simplest melodies.

  “My father died two months ago.”

  “Your father died... Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t know.” But still he couldn’t fathom her meaning. He looked at her and waited.

  “I am now my own mistress.” She was becoming more confident.

  “Yes, of course.” Just what, he wondered, was she trying to say with so much difficulty and hedging? When it came, even he was surprised. He had imagined a number of things, but not this.

  “So I shall not have to marry.”

  Hearne remained completely motionless. The blank, expressionless look which he had often found useful when suddenly confronted with a strange twist in events slipped over his face. He said nothing. He was wondering just how Corlay would have really felt. Surprised, and hurt: incredulous, probably even angry. Most men would be at such a reception as this. He himself felt an immense load lifted from him: thank God, he wouldn’t have to pretend a lot of nonsense, anyway. He felt like smiling when he remembered his elaborate plan to keep his betrothed at full arm’s distance. Just another set of bright ideas he needn’t have bothered thinking up, just another set for the wastepaper basket. If all the plans which he worked out and never had to use could be kept in files, how many sides of a room would they cover? Probably they would make too depressing a room: they were better scrapped and forgotten.

  Anne was watching strangely. Let her, he thought. She ought to know Corlay’s reactions better than he did. If he were to keep silent, with his brows down and his lips tightly drawn, she would probably read into his expression the emotions he ought to be feeling. She was losing her confidence again. Serve her right, Hearne thought. What a fine welcome Corlay was getting after having walked the length of Brittany to reach these people. Just the sort of welcome to cheer a chap up after his country had been slapped down. First of all he would have had all his ideas smashing round his head; and now he was having all his personal emotions added to the general rubble heap. He suddenly started to walk down the path towards the house.

  Anne tried to match her pace to his. She was looking vaguely unhappy, he was glad to see. Poor old Corlay...what a welcome.

  It was she who had to speak first. “Please don’t pretend, Bertrand.”

  “Pretend?” Hearne’s tone was unexpectedly savage.

  “Yes, that is more like you. Once your pride has recovered, you will be really very glad. You didn’t love me.” It wasn’t a challenge; it was a quiet statement of fact.

  “I agreed to marry you.”

  “That was before—” She stopped. “You see, Bertrand,” she continued, “I knew all the time. I knew.” Her tone puzzled him, but his face was cold and expressionless. “I haven’t told your mother yet,” she finished lamely.

  “Which means you think I shall tell her? That will be slightly difficult, considering the fact that my mother doesn’t want to see me.” H
e could imagine Madame Corlay’s delight when she found that her son had failed her again. The Corlay and the Pinot farms would never be joined. The old quarrel about that dovecote on the boundary line would never be solved. “I think you had better finish what you’ve begun,” he ended quietly.

  It was with considerable relief that he saw Albertine approaching them, her black shawl tightly drawn round her thin shoulders, her precarious white cap soaring so securely from the tightly bound hair. It was strange that anything so fantastic was neither shaken nor blown from her head as she walked, that she could turn so quickly from Anne to him and then back to Anne without even seeming to be aware of balancing a starched cylinder on top of her crown. She greeted them with a sparse remark about supper. It was a command rather than a suggestion. He was glad to follow her into the kitchen, glad that Anne had refused to eat with them. It was only after he had entered the room that he wondered if he ought to have taken her back across the fields to her farm. But the strange thing had been that Anne didn’t seem to expect that: she had moved so quickly away by herself. And stranger still was the fact that Albertine, who obviously still regarded them as engaged to be married, had most certainly not expected it.

  Albertine served him a supper which was identical with his breakfast, except that a piece of cheese was substituted for the pork, and there was a small glass of cider. Henri was tactfully non-existent, and he noted that Albertine had only set one place at the table. They must eat after he had gone. It was rather a formal arrangement for such an informally managed farm. For the third time that day he found himself wondering just what kind of chap this Corlay had really been. Of one thing he was certain: there was much more in Corlay that he had ever imagined. I don’t believe I am going to like him at all, he thought suddenly.

  He finished his supper quickly. Upstairs he imagined himself examining and arranging that stack of books and papers. He might find something there to solve these peculiar questions in his mind.

  But when he went upstairs, the dusk thickened in the room, and Albertine had conveniently forgotten to fill the lamp with oil. There were no candles in the candlestick on the small table beside the empty bookcase. In spite of his annoyance, he had to laugh. Albertine certainly had her little ways. He undressed quickly, alternately admiring the low cunning of women and wondering where he was supposed to wash. A small, ugly-looking cabinet pulled open at last and showed a basin with a pail concealed underneath, and a tap which turned on water from a container hidden above. It was the sort of thing which small yachts and steamers like to produce to comfort their passengers for the lack of running water. It was no doubt one of Corlay’s innovations, for he could think of no one else here who would have bothered about it. Anyway, it meant he could wash. In the growing darkness of the room he miscalculated the swill of the water and felt it drip over the floor. Albertine, he thought, would—oh, damn Albertine. Of all the people he had met so far she was perhaps the kindest, certainly the most self-sacrificing; and yet she worried him the most. Partly because he realised that if Albertine were to become suspicious, then his difficulties would be enormous; it would be dangerous trying to explain things to her, trying to make her understand without giving too much information. And partly, he had to admit, because of the natural fear in every man that he is liable to be bossed by a woman. He opened the window defiantly before he climbed into the bed.

  Tomorrow he would examine these books and that room next door, and then when darkness came he would have his first long walk through these green fields down towards the plain and the main railway-line. Tomorrow and tomorrow, the nights after that, the next weeks... In the middle of forming his plans, he halted abruptly. He suddenly knew that long-term planning wasn’t necessary on this job. If he could manage to improvise from night to night, he would do very nicely. Now, he would be very much wiser to get what sleep he could. Later, he might not be so lucky.

  He didn’t waken until the sun had risen and the faint sound of the five-o’clock bells swung over the fields into his room.

  7

  STRANGER ON THE HILLSIDE

  But next morning the books were not rescued from the wardrobe and placed on their shelves. Instead, the Germans came back to Saint-Déodat.

  The news arrived with Henri, who suddenly and unaccountably appeared at the kitchen door when Hearne was having breakfast. He stood there, breathing heavily, and then said simply, “The Boches are here.”

  Hearne, his elbows resting on the wooden table, looked up at the thin little man in the doorway, and set down his bowl of soup slowly. Albertine, bending over the heavy iron disk which was hung over the fire, hesitated as she turned over the paper-thin pancake baking there, and then moved so suddenly that the half-finished pancake was jolted into the flames. She clutched the wooden spade which she had been using as if it were now a weapon. There was silence in the long room, except for the sizzling of the dough as it spread over the glowing log. Afterwards, Hearne remembered that moment by the smell of burning which filled the room: that and Albertine’s eyes, and the toothless grin of Henri with the morning sun behind him.

  “They are here? Outside?” Hearne asked the old man. Henri shook his head slowly.

  “No. Going into the village,” he said.

  There was an almost audible slackening of tension. Henri’s capacity for holding only one idea at a time had certainly had its effect. He now slipped off his muddy sabots, and walked slowly towards one of the beds. From the chest in front of it he took out a knotted sock and a gun. The sock contained coins. Hearne heard them jangle as Henri stowed it away carefully inside his loose blouse. The gun was an old one, probably only good for shooting rabbits.

  “That’s no use,” began Hearne gently. “They’d only shoot you in turn.”

  But Henri wasn’t listening. He was absorbed as he began to take the rifle apart, slowly and yet methodically. Then he rummaged in the wooden chest once more, and taking a large piece of cloth which had served to bundle his clothes he tore it into strips and wound them carefully, almost lovingly, round the parts of his gun. When that was done, he carried them towards the door. Hearne rose quickly from the table.

  “I’ll help you,” he said.

  The old man was shoving his feet into his sabots. “Eh?”

  “I said I’ll help you.”

  They left Albertine, still holding the wooden spade raised in her hand, still standing beside the tub of dough. It looked as if the week’s baking of crepes was going to be a failure for the first time in Albertine’s life. Hearne paused at the door and caught her eye.

  “Better hide that ham-knife, Albertine,” he said with a grin, “or my mother will get us all strung up.” Albertine looked at him in surprise, and then there was the beginning of a smile in spite of herself.

  “God knows what Madame will say,” she answered, and looked at the black lava-like crust of dough on the log. She shook her head at the appalling waste. “These Boches,” she said.

  Hearne reached Henri at the seventh row of trees in the orchard. The old man was kneeling down under the third tree in that row, fumbling away at the turf. It had already been neatly cut. After that, the digging didn’t take long. The linen-covered rifle and the knotted sock were laid side by side, and covered with the rich black earth. Henri himself replaced the jigsaw puzzle of turf. Watching the gnarled hands fitting each diamond of grass into its proper place, Hearne knew that Henri had been expecting the Germans. So had Madame Corlay. Only Albertine, the most practical and efficient of them all, had been caught surprised. The Germans were at Rennes, they were at Combourg and Dol and Dinan, they had long ago reached Saint-Malo and the coast, they had flooded the whole of Brittany to the very western islands like some powerful, turbulent tide pouring over broken dykes into a flat plain-land. Nothing could stop them once the dykes were down. Yet Albertine had had her own reasons, her own brand of wishful thinking. In Rennes and Dol? But of course: these were important towns. In Saint-Malo? Of course: the ships were there. In the villa
ges down on the plain? Why, that could be understood: the farms there were rich, and there were a lot of things to be bought. Bought? Well, paid for anyway, even if the money was foreign-looking. But up here in Saint- Déodat the farms only kept the people of the district. Kept them comfortably? Well, no one starved, certainly. But then no one was idle. Every one worked, and worked hard, for what they had, and that was only enough for the people of Saint-Déodat. There was nothing left over for anyone else. They were all peaceful, hardworking people on this hillside, owing no man anything. Why should they be disturbed?

  When Hearne got back to the kitchen, Albertine was placing the last thin disk of baked dough into a division of the long wooden rack which had so puzzled him on the morning of his arrival.

  “I’ve sent Henri to the village,” he said.

  “He’s got to dig the west field.” The way she handled the rack told him she was annoyed. She was resentful over the wasted pancake, and she was more scared than she would allow by Henri’s news. The rising note in her voice showed just how she was going to get rid of her anger.

  He cut her short. “Henri can dig for potatoes another day. This morning he is in the village, and he is going to find out for us if the Germans are going to stay there, or if they are just passing through. If the potatoes worry you, I’ll dig them for you. And now you’d better tell my mother about everything. And tell her to keep calm: worrying won’t help us at this stage.” He turned on his heel, and left the kitchen. That certainly stopped the argument he could feel brewing. But what on earth was she staring at?

  As he walked up to the field, he was still wondering.

  Henri had left the spade stuck into a ridge of earth. There was another implement, too. Probably a hoe, or a mattock, Hearne decided. Not that it mattered much: there was no one here to see his raw technique. He smiled grimly. Once he had done this sort of thing for Saturday pennies in a kitchen-garden behind a Cornish rectory. Now he was doing it partly to keep Albertine quiet, partly to be out in the open with a good view of the path from the village.