Madame Barbara

by Helen Forrester

  ‘Oh, yes. Edward the Confessor,’ interjected Barbara, remembering her school days.

  He smiled at Barbara. ‘Problem. William is bastard. His maman not married to father. Harold is not bastard – could become King of England. Much trouble come.’

  ‘And this is Harold setting out for the coast?’

  ‘Yes. See he have hunter dogs and he carry a hawk.’

  ‘Is that all his luggage?’

  ‘I believe so. I do not see suitcase or trunk.’

  Barbara giggled.

  She also laughed at the next panel of the embroidery which showed Harold and his courtiers holding all their clothes up round their waists, as they waded out to the boats which would carry them to France. ‘Why are they carrying their dogs and the hawk? Why not let the dogs swim?’ she queried with a little chuckle.

  Michel grinned. ‘Good hunter dogs and hawks very valuable,’ he told her. ‘Worth more than cold, wet feet.’

  While the concierge stood yawning by the door, he took her slowly through the whole tapestry, which was, to all intents and purposes, a linen scroll.

  In the last panel, Harold and his Saxons were shown in full retreat, Harold with an arrow in his eye. ‘Harold dead,’ he announced.

  ‘Yes, I remember how he died,’ agreed Barbara.

  At the end Michel spread his arms out in a large gesture, as if to encompass the whole tapestry. ‘Voilà! Duke William is King of England,’ he exclaimed, and gave a little bow. ‘He is also Duke of Normandy; that cause much trouble between English and French.’

  Barbara smiled her agreement. ‘Merci bien, Monsieur. You are an excellent guide. And you are right about the – er – troubles between the English and the French.’

  She opened her handbag as they slowly approached the concierge. ‘How much?’ she whispered to Michel. He told her. She hesitated for a moment – it did not seem very much. So she added five more francs, and pressed them into the open palm of the waiting attendant. The tip did not elicit a smile, only a dull ‘Merci, Madame.’ Barbara assumed correctly that Michel must have advised a very small sum indeed.

  She had little idea of the gulf between the income and ideas of the value of money of a very small French farmer compared with that of a French townsman, but she knew that French peasants were thought to share the reputation of Scots when it came to spending money.

  Before I go home, she thought, I’ll ask the American undertakers about tips for the hotel staff.

  The three military undertakers had been thankful to discover someone who spoke English, and had, on several occasions, stopped by her table in the hotel restaurant to chat with her. They had teasingly suggested that she spend the weekend in Paris with them. When she said she could not, that she was here to visit her husband’s grave, they had sobered up immediately, and had been very courteous ever since.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Michel and Barbara left the Bishop’s Palace, they paused on the pavement to blink in the bright sunlight until their eyes adjusted.

  ‘Why do they keep the place so dark?’ Barbara asked.

  ‘Electric bulbs hard to find.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps light cause la Tapisserie to – to …’ He used a quick gesture to show something breaking up.

  ‘Rot? Fade?’

  ‘Oui. Also, light electric cost much.’ He changed the subject by enquiring if Madame would like a cup of coffee.

  Madame would.

  He took her to a small, stone, cottage-like building, which had chairs and tables set out in an unkempt front garden. It was a little away from the centre of the town, and was quieter, he explained, than those cafés with tables on the pavement.

  Since it was a time when many of the local inhabitants would still be taking their Sunday nap, there were only three other people in the garden, a young couple holding hands in a corner, and the inevitable elderly gentleman immersed in a newspaper.

  Michel had decided that, at this time of day, it was also less likely that he would be seen in her company. Apart from those with whom he had done business in connection with the farm in those long ago days before the occupation, and who were also refugees in the city, he was acquainted with quite a number of people in Bayeux.

  He had endured enough gossip over Suzanne. He did not want to add to it by having his name linked with a bourgeoise, an English one moreover; Barbara would have been surprised to learn that, because she could obviously afford to come to France and stay in a hotel, and her clothes, though shabby, were, in his eyes, quite elegant, Michel believed that she had a higher social standing than was the case.

  He was sure that women with whom his mother had become acquainted would, if they saw him with Barbara as they walked to the Bishop’s Palace, put the worst interpretation on it. Without the taxi, he lacked protection from their innuendos. Wars may come and go, lives, hopes, dreams come to an end, but gossips were never idle; and he was anxious that his harassed mother should not be upset by reports of his supposed misdoings; just imagine if they hinted that he had become, perhaps, a ladies’ man – un étalon? He winced, and then he sighed. Hélas, what a joke that would be.

  He wondered again how old Barbara was. It was difficult to tell nowadays because everyone was so careworn.

  A painfully thin elderly woman in a white apron came out to them, and Michel ordered coffee. She asked whether Madame would like a little milk in hers.

  Unaware of Michel’s misgivings about their meeting, Madame said cheerfully, ‘Yes, please.’

  When the woman had gone away, Michel explained that milk was still in very short supply because the Germans had commandeered so many herds of cows; and many others had, like their owners, been killed in the invasion. He did not tell her that a few teaspoonsful in a cup of coffee would increase the price markedly.

  While they waited for their coffee, he sat back in his chair and looked at her. Bees buzzed comfortably in the flowers of the hawthorne bush behind her; the perfume of the tiny flowers was sweet and heavy with the promise of summer.

  Barbara asked him how he knew the story of the tapestry so well.

  ‘I go to school, Madame,’ he reproved her, a little hurt at the question. ‘I read whenever I have time. Also, my grandfather take me to see the tapestry. He tell me the story; it is about a great Norman victory! He bring me here when I am small.’ He paused, and then, his chin up, he added, ‘I know much about Normandy. Grandpapa tell me ’istory, while we work together.’ He sighed. ‘Maman wish me to be educate and be a priest.’ He looked impishly across the table at her. ‘I am ’appy not to be a priest.’

  She accepted the implied compliment with a faint smile, and suggested, ‘You should be a tourist guide – un guide.’

  His defensiveness melted at her attempt at a French word. ‘Not enough English,’ he replied flatly.

  She laughed. ‘You teach me French. I’ll teach you more English. You have a huge vocabulary. You just need some grammar – and idioms. You could get along very well in England.’

  Though they had to use her dictionary to decide what an idiom was, he was delighted by her praise.

  He’s got a good brain, she considered. He’s quick mentally as well as physically.

  Michel thought what fun it would be to be taught by her, if he himself could give her lessons of another kind.

  Now more at ease with her, he leaned back in his chair. With renewed interest, he studied her face and wondered what kind of a background she had. A bed-and-breakfast was a little hotel business, so she must understand how to run it. She was, indeed, une bourgeoise – so different from Suzanne, who knew that, whatever her father might plan for her or however careful Michel was of her, she would probably end up working on a farm until her back was bent, and at forty she would be old. Since Barbara had made no mention of children, he presumed that she had none.

  His fixed gaze began to disconcert her. Then her lips began to curl mischievously, and she shot at him, ‘Why are you staring at me?’

  He sat up straight, totally c
onfused by the sharp question. ‘Je … Madame …’ He swallowed and then said, ‘Because Madame is so pretty.’

  She laughed. ‘Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Benion. It’s a long time since anyone said that to me.’

  ‘Perhaps Englishman not look, Madame. And you are young – time will improve their sight, perhaps.’

  Her lids half closed over her eyes, as if she did not want to give any of her thoughts away. She replied, however, ‘I’m twenty-eight years old.’ She sounded a little depressed as she said it. ‘Now the war is over, I’ve got to really work to rebuild our B-and-B, make a living for Mam and me. My mam isn’t getting any younger. I feel as if I missed my youth. Do you ever feel like that? As if it got lost in the war? There was no time to be young – so much time wasted. Being uprooted, whether you liked it or not, waiting for the air raids to stop, waiting for the war to end, so that something could be normal again. Do you feel like that?’

  He did not know quite how to answer her. He was amazed at the age she said she was; it seemed to him much older than she looked. He himself had never expected to enjoy his younger years – life was work from the time you could stand and carry an egg basket – but he did deplore the waste of time.

  ‘Oui, Madame, moi aussi,’ he responded doubtfully. ‘I have twenty-nine years. Much time wasted while the Boches occupy us. And then the years I wait to get back the farm.’

  She nodded, her expression sympathetic. Then she changed the subject, and asked, ‘I think we are friends, aren’t we?’

  ‘Dead cert,’ he responded promptly, remembering his American and knowing that this remark had previously made her eyes crinkle up as if with secret laughter.

  This time, she burst into laughter. ‘Then, Monsieur Michel Benion, will you please stop calling me Madame. I’m Barbara Bishop.’

  ‘Avec plaisir, Madame Barbara.’

  ‘Just Barbara will do.’

  ‘Barbara.’ He said the word slowly, giving it an intonation she had never heard before, as if it were a caress. It jolted her, and she thought of the empty years without George when the only male advances had been the usual crude ones frequently made to new widows. She felt she had suddenly been fed a taste of honey.

  Embarrassed by her own thoughts, she was relieved when at that moment the coffee arrived.

  As a gnarled hand carefully placed her cup in front of her, she looked up, and, forgetting that she should speak in French, said, with a smile to the old woman, ‘Mm, it does smell nice. Thank you.’

  The old lady smiled back and then glanced at the peasant with her. She said something to Michel. He translated Barbara’s remark for her and, as if joking, she responded to him as she turned away.

  ‘What did she say?’ Barbara asked, seeing a pleased expression on his face.

  He hesitated, his face alight as he looked at her. Then he told her, ‘She said I was a lucky man.’

  ‘Are you? Was she telling your future?’

  ‘Non, Madame – Barbara.’ Again, that soft silken accent on her name. He picked up his coffee cup, and took a small sip. Over the rim of the cup, his eyes danced. ‘She meant I was lucky to have you with me.’

  He was amused to see her face go pink. Not wishing to embarrass her further, he put down his cup slowly and looked down at it, anxious that she should not read what was in his mind.

  She was disconcerted. She examined the dark, lined face before her, the truly Norman nose, the eyelids with their short black lashes, an expressive mouth with just an upward quirk at each corner, the ridiculous beret set straight across a high forehead, the neatly darned pullover across a well-proportioned chest, the slight curve upwards of one shoulder. A simple man who had been kicked about a lot, by the look of him; at this moment, she guessed, a very confused man.

  Since she did not say anything, he looked up at her, his expression extremely sober. The eyes had lost their twinkle. Brown eyes searched blue ones.

  He was quiet, his lips quivering as if he sought for words. Finally, he asked her, ‘You remember in the taxi when we return from le cimetière?’

  ‘Yes.’ She was very serious now, not sure what was coming.

  ‘You cry very much?’

  ‘Yes.’ She felt tension rising in her.

  ‘And I say I marry you myself – but I don’t own the taxi?’

  ‘Yes. It was very sweet of you.’

  ‘It is true. I mean it. If I have work, if I have a home to offer you, I never let you go. I hope you take a peasant. I marry you.’ He smiled, his mouth curving up a little mischievously. ‘I learn good English with you.’

  Then the smile vanished. ‘But I do not have a proper home – or regular work,’ he went on, grimly. ‘I must help Maman and my sick brother. Perhaps I get my share of the farm, only God knows. I have no hope.’ He paused, and sighed. ‘It is the wrong time – I have nothing to offer. Your father would refuse me.’

  One of his hands gripped the table edge while with the other he held his teaspoon and gestured forcefully with it, as he acknowledged the mess his life was in and guessed what her father would say.

  She was dumbfounded. Her face expressed her profound surprise, her eyes wide, her pretty mouth half open. She had never dreamed that he had meant what he’d said; she had taken it as a small compliment to comfort or amuse her.

  At a moment of her own sense of absolute loneliness, when she had kneeled by George’s grave, this man who had suffered such losses himself had thought like that about her?

  As she stared at him and the full realisation of what he had said sank in, she was overwhelmed. It was as if his admission had blown away blackout curtains, allowing light to flood in.

  And now he was humbling himself to admit the problems that made his hopes impossible.

  She swallowed. She believed him; the man was being disarmingly honest. Had he meant to cheat her in some way, he could, to attract her, have spun some story that would have shown him in a much better light.

  Primitive desires, so carefully kept under control since George’s death, surged to the surface. She wondered what it would be like to lie in this man’s arms – and then, looking at him, she knew.

  She leaned forward and laid her hand over his on the table. She did not say anything until she felt sure he had finished what he had to say.

  He slowly put down the spoon and closed his eyes as if to shut out an impossible, unfair world. He did not remove his hand from under hers.

  She whispered softly, so that the man reading the newspaper was less likely to hear: ‘We don’t even know each other – but given a little time …’ she faltered. Then as a glint of amusement surfaced, she went on, ‘Nobody can tell me who to marry or anything else. I’m English and I’m free to do what I like.’

  Very gently, she stroked the back of his rough brown hand. She shivered, trying to keep her own feelings at bay. ‘How could you make up your mind so quickly?’

  Idiotic question, she told herself, you know perfectly well – you’ve just done it. He’s plenty to offer in himself.

  He did not open his eyes. He did not reply. She could feel the tension in him, and her greatest desire was not to hurt him in any way, to respect his dignity.

  She made a great effort to keep calm. ‘You know, at the cemetery,’ she reminded him, ‘you were just the taxi driver. I was thinking only of George and saying goodbye to him.’ She stopped, scared of the strange situation into which she had stumbled. Then she went on, her voice faltering, ‘Another man, another husband, was simply not in my mind.’

  He did not fully comprehend her. His eyes were still crunched tightly, as if he were waiting to be shot. He felt he had been a blundering ass.

  After a moment, he simply turned his hand and clasped hers tightly. She continued with a little more self-assurance, ‘In Caen, it was different. Then you were a very pleasant man, a most unusual one, who got out of a tight corner very smartly.’

  He opened his eyes, but still did not look at her directly. He gently loosened his hand from under he
rs, and then turned hers palm up, grasped it firmly, and sat looking at the neat little hand now cradled in his own.

  Very softly, with one finger, he stroked the inside of her wrist, noting the delicate blue vein that ran up under the plain black band of her watch. He wondered if she were that white all over. Suzanne had been quite dark.

  Ciel! How he wanted her.

  Both of them were mesmerised by the simple touch. Long-pent-up desire roared through them, primitive and strong; yet both were trying to hang on to shreds of common sense. Each was thinking that they were not that young. They did not have the excuse of youth for unwise behaviour. Despite their religious doubts, they had been strictly trained by Church and family in the kind of behaviour which was acceptable.

  ‘I love you,’ he said quietly and firmly. ‘I’ve never felt like this in my life before.’

  The arrival of the café owner to enquire if they would like more coffee reawakened them to the real world.

  Barbara hastily withdrew her hand. She looked at Michel and said, ‘Non, merci beaucoup.’

  They rose. Shakily, she picked up her handbag. He hastened to pay the bill. He took her hand and slowly they walked out and into the street.

  ‘Pardonnez-moi, Barbara,’ he begged. Although he now had control of himself, he had not let go of her hand, and he tucked it under his arm as if they were a courting couple.

  Barbara was still caught in a tumult of feeling, her ideas of her future, of her inner self, blown apart by a few simple words. Even if she never saw Michel again, this was a moment of profound change in her life, much greater than her marriage to George had been.

  In a few moments, it had opened up to her what the relationship might really be between man and woman. Suddenly, all the great romances of history were clear to her; the madness that drove a couple to disaster. It was terrible; it was wonderful. Her normal self was swept by this passionate realisation.