Darkest Longings

by Susan Lewis

  She couldn’t understand herself. She was confused, angry, pathetic. Why was she the victim of this consuming desire? Because that was all it was, she told herself; there was no love – there couldn’t be when he treated her the way he did. No, she didn’t love him, she knew she didn’t. And she didn’t care that he had rejected her, that he had told her she could take a lover, that he would end what relationship they had once she had done her duty. She didn’t care about any of it. She was glad. She hated him, and never wanted him to touch her again …

  – 10 –

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, the courtyard in front of the wine caves was a hive of activity. Stacks of flattened boxes were being unloaded from one lorry while boxes filled with wine were heaved onto the back of another; Geneviève, the florist from Chinon, and her assistant were lifting the day’s supply of flowers for the château out of the back of their Renault van, and Edmond, the butcher’s boy, went skidding past on his bicycle en route to the kitchen door. Claudine was standing at the window of the small salon, where the family read the newspapers and listened to the wireless after breakfast, watching all that was going on and trying not to smart at how ridiculous she had made herself the night before.

  She hadn’t slept well, which was hardly surprising, but she was calmer this morning, and now, thinking back to last night, she couldn’t help grinning a little at the ease with which François had seen through her, recognizing what she’d wanted even before she knew it herself. No one else could read her the way he did, which was one of the reasons why she detested him so much. It was also, she acknowledged despondently, one of the reasons why she loved him.

  She pulled herself up sharply. Of course she didn’t love him! It was simply that all these feelings were new to her, and she didn’t know how to control them yet. But she would learn, starting today. From now on she would concentrate only on how passionately she hated him, and at the same time she would do everything in her power to show him that she was every bit as capable of resisting him as he was of resisting her.

  Again she smiled, pleased to think how quickly she was managing to get her life – and her emotions – back in order. Then, out of the corner of her eye she noticed Armand and François strolling towards the cave furthest from her, and her heart plummeted.

  They were engrossed in conversation, and as she watched them she was struck by the contrast between them. Armand, with his startlingly blond hair, was the shorter of the two by at least three inches, but his shoulders were broad and his body was lean and muscular. Armand’s eyes too, Claudine thought, remembering their time together the previous evening, were just as compelling as François’, though in their own very different way. It was no wonder everyone spoke of him so affectionately when he exuded such kindness and warmth.

  The two of them came to a stop behind one of the lorries, and she was about to turn away from the window when she saw Armand raise his hands in the air, as if demonstrating the size of something. She found herself smiling as she watched the ease and humour of his manner, and when François burst out laughing, wished with a sudden pang that she could be there, sharing the joke. She did turn away then, and dropping a quick kiss on Louis’ balding head, went off to dress for the busy day ahead of her.

  One of the people she planned to see today was Madame Reinberg, who lived in the village, next door to the café. Claudine knew Madame Reinberg by sight, and in her encounters with the village children had been especially attracted by the Reinberg children, little Janette and her younger brother Robert, who was mildly retarded. Liliane had told her yesterday afternoon that Madame Reinberg’s husband had deserted her. He had left no note and no money, but he had taken with him a woman from Chinon, and his wife was broken-hearted.

  Claudine could do little about the broken heart, but she could ensure that Madame Reinberg’s children did not find themselves homeless, and if necessary, she had decided, she would pay the rent herself until a solution was found, out of the money from François’ promised allowance – an idea which appealed to her sense of the bizarre, since François was the Reinbergs’ landlord. She had, of course, told Solange and Louis what she intended to do, but they had been only too delighted that she was involving herself in the affairs of the village – and now, as she prepared to leave, dressed in a green corduroy skirt, checked wool blouse and thick cardigan, Louis walked with her to her car, telling her to let Gertrude Reinberg know that there was no need for rent this side of Christmas.

  ‘And the other side?’ Claudine asked mischievously.

  ‘Oh, I have a feeling you will have come up with a solution by then, ma chère.’

  ‘You have such faith in me, Louis!’

  ‘Bien sûr,’ he chuckled. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word failure.’

  She wondered for a moment what he meant by that. She was well aware that Louis saw a great deal more than he let on, but he had never said a word to her about her marriage.

  ‘Now,’ he said, opening the car door for her, ‘don’t forget to ask Gustave at the café if he has come across any of those fine Cuban cigars again. I’m willing to pay over the odds, tell him, which is what the old rogue would charge me anyway. And whatever you do, Claudine, don’t tell Solange.’

  Claudine grinned. Doctor Lebrun allowed Louis three cigars a week and one tot of brandy each night, which was three more cigars and seven more tots than Solange would allow him, which was why Louis had to rely on the rest of his family to smuggle in his luxuries.

  As she drove past the wine caves she passed Armand and François. ‘See you at eleven,’ she called out to Armand.

  Armand gave her a salute – and she saw the sardonic lift of François’ eyebrows. ‘God, he’s unbearable,’ she muttered through clenched teeth, and pressing her foot hard on the accelerator, she gave a jaunty toss of her head and sped off down the drive.

  When she pulled up at the café in Lorvoire, several men were sitting outside playing cards. She knew them all, by now, and had a special greeting for Thomas, the farmer she and Lucien had encountered in his tractor all those months ago. He had taken great pride, she knew, in being the first of the villagers to be introduced to the future Comtesse, and continued to bore his cronies half to death with the story of how he had torn her off a strip for her bad driving.

  ‘Sit down, madame,’ he croaked in his tobacco-roughened voice. ‘Gustave! Bring wine for Madame de Lorvoire.’

  Claudine shook her head, laughing. ‘It’s too early in the day for me, Thomas,’ she said. ‘And I’ll bet your wife is at market and doesn’t have the first idea you aren’t out in the fields.’

  ‘Oh là là,’ he chuckled, evidently delighted with his ticking off.

  ‘We hear there’s going to be a party up at the château when the grapes are in,’ Claude Derlot said, speaking through the cigarette in his teeth and peering up at her with his watery blue eyes.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said, ‘and I’m looking for volunteers for a cabaret, so you must all think what you could do.’ She was turning as she spoke as she’d heard the thunder of tiny feet coming up behind her. ‘Now where on earth did you all spring from?’ she said, looking down at the group of children who had come to a bashful halt beside her.

  ‘We were playing by the stream,’ Richard, one of Thomas’s grandchildren, told her, smearing even more mud on his face as he rubbed an eye.

  ‘And don’t tell me, you heard my car and thought, bonbons!’

  The way she said it brought a grin to each of their faces, and she dug into her pockets and handed over the toffees, keeping some aside for Janette and Robert Reinberg.

  Gustave, the proprietor of the café, came out then, holding a bottle of Lorvoire wine, and as usual when she saw him Claudine felt her lips begin to twitch. His face, with its florid complexion and bulbous eyes, was almost as fat and round as his belly, and his bushy eyebrows arched so steeply towards his monkish fringe, gave him a look of such extreme surprise, that one felt one’s own eyebrows lifting in response. His
most arresting feature, though, was a splendid moustache, curled and waxed at the tips, which provided him with the most comical of permanent smiles. Claudine didn’t remember ever having seen anyone who looked quite so jolly.

  ‘Ah ha!’ he cried. ‘You see the sun shines, now that madame is back at Lorvoire.’

  There were smiles all round. Then, feeling a tug at her pocket, Claudine looked down to discover young Richard trying to steal a toffee.

  ‘Un voleur!’ she cried, throwing up her hands in horror, and Richard shrieked and scampered off across the square with the other children.

  It was a game they often played, but today, instead of going after them Claudine remembered that she had to ask Gustave about the cigars for Louis.

  ‘Si, I have been keeping them for him,’ he answered.

  ‘Can we have a toffee please, madame?’ a soft voice asked.

  Claudine looked down to find a little girl with an angelic face and an abundance of white-blonde curls staring up at her. She was no more than six years old, and was holding the hand of her even smaller brother. They looked so adorable that Claudine found herself struggling with the urge to gather them up in her arms. ‘I’m afraid I’m keeping the toffees that are left for Janette and Robert Reinberg,’ she said sadly.

  ‘But I’m Janette Reinberg,’ the little girl told her, truly believing that Claudine hadn’t recognized her.

  ‘No!’ Claudine gasped. ‘But Janette Reinberg is only a baby and you’re such a big girl!’

  Janette’s face beamed as the toffees were handed over. Robert, with his mouth full, said, ‘My Papa has gone away.’

  Claudine nodded, and had to swallow a lump in her throat. ‘Is Maman at home?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Robert answered, stuffing another toffee in his mouth but never taking his eyes from hers.

  Claudine turned back to Gustave. ‘I’ll collect the cigars later,’ she said. Then tucking her purse under her arm and waving goodbye to everyone, she went to knock on Madame Reinberg’s door …

  When she emerged an hour later, the village was deserted. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. There was a delicious aroma of freshly baked bread coming from the boulangerie, and she could hear the rush and gurgle of the river as it flowed behind the cottages on the opposite side of the square. She looked at her watch, wondering if she had time to call on Liliane to ask her where she could buy a secondhand sewing-machine –the possible solution to Madame Reinberg’s money problems. Madame Reinberg had been a seamstress in Tours before her marriage, and home sewing and tailoring might restore the poor woman’s income, and her pride.

  By the time Claudine drove out of the village and headed back to the château, it was already five past eleven. On the seat beside her were six pots of blackberry jam and a recipe for dry-cured pickled pork, written in code, for Arlette from Liliane, and a box of cigars for Louis from Gustave. She did not think Armand would mind that she was late, and she was feeling in such a good mood that she very much hoped that François had taken himself elsewhere, because she didn’t want anything to spoil it.

  Smiling, she turned on the wireless, and when she heard the song they were singing she burst out laughing. It was the first time she had heard it in French, but the tune was unmistakable, so she sang along to it in English: ‘Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?’ It was a pity, she thought, when the song ended, that she couldn’t share the joke with François – but of course, if she could there wouldn’t be a joke.

  Freddy Prendergast was sitting on a wooden bench beside the Montvisse dovecote, watching Monique walk towards him across the lawn. He felt his anxiety deepening with every step she took, and when she came to a stop beside him, he looked up at her and smiled weakly. She looked particularly attractive today, he thought miserably; her dark hair suited her combed back from her face like that, especially when she was smiling so happily. Their eyes met, but he looked away quickly as his misgivings got the better of him, and shuffled awkwardly along the bench to make room for her.

  Monique smiled at him fondly. ‘Oh, chéri,’ she said consolingly, ‘you are unhappy because we have not been able to spend time alone together for almost a week. It has hurt me too, but I am here now.’ She lifted his hand into her lap and gave it a reassuring squeeze. ‘I have thought about you all the time, mon chou. I read your poems again and again and I tingle all over when I think of how much you love me. I am truly the happiest woman alive.’ She took his chin and pulled him round to face her. ‘You are not angry, are you, that I wish to wait for Lucien to come home before we announce our engagement?’

  Freddy shook his head. ‘No, not in the slightest.’ His voice sounded high-pitched and nervous. He tried again. ‘Not a bit,’ he boomed.

  ‘Lucien will be here tomorrow,’ she smiled, resting her head on his shoulder, ‘and then we shall be able to tell the whole world.’ If she was aware of the tension in him she didn’t show it, and after a while she looked up at him and whispered, ‘Kiss me, Freddy.’

  He was suddenly seized with panic, but not knowing what else to do, he planted a quick kiss on her lips, then looked away.

  She laughed softly. ‘You are afraid that someone is watching us from the window, oui?’

  He gave a jerky nod and looked desperately towards the sky for Divine intervention.

  ‘I have a surprise for you, chéri,’ she said. ‘Do you want to know what it is?’

  No, he most certainly did not, but he found himself saying that he did.

  ‘I have been thinking how we could spend a whole night together,’ she told him, ‘and now I have the solution. If you come to Lorvoire after dark and climb up into the forest – it is very steep behind the château so you must be sure to take great care – you will find the bridge which leads into the nursery corridor. It is next to Claudine’s bedroom, so we will have to be quiet, but if you come after midnight then she will be sure to be sleeping.’

  He gaped at her. The woman had clearly taken leave of her senses if she thought for one moment that he would contemplate going into a forest in the dead of night.

  ‘It is perfect, don’t you agree?’ she said, apparently mistaking his horror for wonder.

  A strange noise escaped his lips, and laughing, she leaned forward to kiss them. ‘So you will come tonight?’ she whispered, treating him to one of her most provocative smiles.

  Tonight! She wanted him to go tonight! ‘Er, well, er,’ he stammered. He cleared his throat. ‘Well …’ he continued. ‘Er, one has a teensy bit of a problem.’

  ‘Un probléme?’ she repeated, still smiling.

  ‘Yes. Well, it’s like this, you see. One has a friend. Well, not a friend exactly; more of a girlfriend.’

  He winced as the smile froze on her face, and suddenly the idea of thrashing about in a forest at midnight seemed infinitely preferable to this.

  ‘Go on,’ she breathed.

  He shrugged, and attempted to smile. ‘Well, that’s it really. One has a girlfriend.’ There was more, but he didn’t quite have the courage to go through with it now that her face had gone so dreadfully pale.

  ‘But you said, you told me you had never …’

  ‘Oh, but we haven’t,’ he assured her, assuming that she was referring to his virginity and not wanting her to think him a liar. ‘Teresa’s not that sort of girl.’

  Even before Monique’s hand rang across his cheek, he realized he had made a stupendous blunder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he gasped. ‘One didn’t mean to say that. What one meant to say was … What one meant, was … She’s too young. Much, much younger than you.’

  He had never seen such a look in his life, and groaning, he dropped his head in his hands. He could feel her trembling, and was just beginning to wish he had never set foot in France, never mind Montvisse, when to his unmitigated horror she started to plead. ‘But couldn’t we have just one night together?’ she begged. ‘You could still come to the château … It doesn’t matter that you …’

  ‘I can’t
!’ he wailed. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to, because I do, very much, but you see, Teresa … Well, Teresa is coming here, to Montvisse, today.’

  She stared at him, her eyes wide and uncomprehending, until finally, to his utter dismay, she seemed to crumple before his very eyes. He had never felt such a heel.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘You see, she was my girlfriend before, but she told me in July that she didn’t want to see me again. So when I told you I didn’t have a girlfriend, I wasn’t lying. But she called me yesterday from Paris and said she had changed her mind.’

  ‘And you invited her to Montvisse?’

  ‘Yes,’ he confessed miserably, and lowered his eyes as the horrible burden of shame grew heavier on his shoulders.

  For the moment Monique didn’t know what to say. It was as though someone had delivered her a physical blow and she was still reeling from the shock. She took a deep breath in an effort to steady herself, but an icy torrent of rage swept through her as once again she saw her happiness slipping away. She wanted to scream; she wanted to fall on her knees and rage against God; she wanted to run, to escape from all the torment welling up inside her. She wanted to thrash out with her hands, kick out with her feet; she wanted to fall to the floor, to clutch at his legs, beg him to love her, make him understand that he couldn’t do this to her, he couldn’t leave her, not when she had already told Claudine …

  Suddenly she went very still and her eyes glazed over. Freddy was so horrified that his nerves erupted in a loud guffaw. Then, to his amazement, she took his hand and held it between her own. He looked down, trembling with terror; he felt sure she was going to break every bone in his fingers. Several minutes ticked by and neither of them moved, then, tentatively, he lifted his eyes back to her face. To his overwhelming relief the terrible expression had gone, and in its place was such a heart-rending sadness that it almost moved him to tears.