Assignment in Brittany (8 page)

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.” He 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 villages 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.

He worked for three hours. Twice Albertine had come to the kitchen door and looked up the hill. He gave her a cheery wave, before he bent over a neat row of potatoes once more. The second time she gave a small wave back.

It was hot now, for the sun was directly above him. Soon it would be time for dinner, and Henri’s return. The old man never missed a meal. But there was still no sign of anyone on the path. The sun’s rays seemed to be concentrating on this patch of ground. The heat gathered in the earth round him and then struck backwards at him. This was the time when a farmer should have a mug of cider under the coolness of these trees over there, and let himself enjoy a satisfied conscience. He couldn’t have the cider, but he stuck the spade in the earth and walked over to the green shade. It was good to lean his back against the trunk of a tree, to stretch out his legs in the soft cool grass. He yawned, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Still no sign of Henri, blast him He should have been back an hour ago. And he ought to have told Henri to get him some cigarettes in the village—if there were any. He himself couldn’t risk a visit to the village merely for a cigarette. But a smoke was what he wanted right now. He looked at the farm and its orchard and fields, and thought, This would be a good way to live if there wasn’t a war, if the Jerries weren’t sitting on your front doorstep. Just to have a ten minutes’ rest with a cigarette and a mug of cool cider; with this view of your land
and your house looking as if it had grown from the earth, so natural was its shape and colour; with Albertine cooking a thumping dinner for you in that enormous kitchen. No, someone younger and prettier and gentler than Albertine, he decided. That would be a good way to live. In the evening you could have books, a radio, a gramophone; you could read, and listen, and think. Corlay could have had all that; and yet he hadn’t known his luck. “I’m not interested in the farm,” he had said. “My mother inherited it from her uncle. I only went to live there when I could find no suitable teaching job. I’m interested in writing.” And again that unemotional voice, “Very fair hair. That’s about all.”

Hearne listened to the drone of bees and yawned once more. And then he was on his feet, his mind and body alert. Something had moved in that tangle of bushes beside the windbreak of trees. It might have been some animal. It might have been. Five steps, and he was past the bushes. Then he stood staring at the man sitting there. The man returned his stare, and then shook his head slowly as he grinned.

“I thought you had gone,” he said. “I watched you working and then I must have fallen asleep. When I awoke just now, I thought you had gone.” The words were fluent enough, but he wasn’t a Frenchman.

“Why were you watching me?” Hearne spoke calmly, and his voice seemed to reassure the man.

He looked at Hearne for a minute, and then said, “To see what you were like. I don’t go near farms now, until I see what the people are like: It’s difficult to tell nowadays who’s a friend or an enemy.”