“There was a moment when I wanted to go back to London, when I thought it was all too depressing,” she said frankly, enjoying the easy way their steps fell into rhythm. “But then seeing Clothilde with her mother this evening-I suppose I realized that matters must be resolved. It doesn’t do to duck them.”
“I’m glad you’re going to stay,” he said, squeezing her arm and placing his hand on hers. “Most of the fun would go out of this without you, Lydia.”
“Fun?” she said, startled. Where on earth did he think this conversation was going?
“I haven’t enjoyed the company of a woman so much as far back as I can remember,” he said soberly. His voice sounded almost gruff.
Aha, thought Lydia, biting back a smile. The tongue-tied but decent Englishman is finally building up with grim fortitude to what seems to him to be a romantic declaration. She could feel his tension under her arm. He was looking firmly, even sternly ahead to the bend in the river. Should she help him, tease him, or remain silent? She couldn’t resist the tease and said lightly, “You seemed to spend most of your day enjoying the company of Horst.”
“Oh, he’s all right,” said Manners. “I wish it had been you, though.” He stopped, turned, and put his hands on her shoulders. “You are witty and interesting and lively, which are all qualities I prize highly. And I think you are kind. You were marvelous in looking after Clothilde.”
She felt her lips quiver as the smile began to break through. Would this man ever get to the point?
“You are marvelous altogether,” he said. Not quite stammering, Lydia noted. She had better stop this cool, detached observation of his-what would the appropriate military term be? — his deployment. She didn’t want to frighten the poor man off, and she hoped that she was looking suitably encouraging. Or at least not forbidding.
“You’re also very beautiful,” he said, and kissed her, hesitantly at first, as if he were out of practice, and then with growing enthusiasm.
Well, about time, thought Lydia, and kissed him back. She enjoyed the feel of his arms about her, and the bulk of his chest. She felt his hands come up to her face to cup her cheeks and he kissed her again, lingeringly. Mmmm, she said, or perhaps she only thought it. His beard was a little rough, but not abrasive, and his hair short enough for her hand to feel the smooth skin of his neck as her arms rose up his strong, broad back and he kissed her again warmly. She pressed against him, feeling agreeably conscious of her breasts. This, she thought, amid the gathering dusk, was decidedly pleasant, kissing in public like a teenager, and not caring who saw. He was a handsome and interesting man, and she did indeed feel rather beautiful and distinctly romantic. And she was content for this pleasure to continue to its logical conclusion. More than content, she thought. Distinctly eager.
“Manners,” she said as he broke off and beamed down at her with a rather endearing foolishness on his face. “Dear Manners. Don’t you think it’s time you took me to bed?”
Clothilde came onto the hotel terrace, looked at Lydia stretching contentedly like a cat in the sun, and glanced at Manners eating his morning croissant. Sipping her coffee, Lydia felt Clothilde’s amused gaze, and stared innocently back. Clothilde gave a distinct wink, sat down to join them, and said, “I was telephoned at home by the London Embassy late last night. They had a message that the ransom is accepted. Your father’s cave painting is being returned later today.”
“Jolly good,” said Manners. “I’ve had a message as well, from Malrand. It was dropped off at the hotel here first thing this morning.”
Clothilde looked pointedly at her watch. “First thing? It’s nearly eleven.” Manners blushed, and Lydia smiled quietly. “Mine came before eight A.M. A cocktail at his house tomorrow evening at six,” Clothilde went on. “Mine had a small note added-not to let our German friend know about it.”
“Very well. It will give us a chance to ask him why his security chap has been sniffing round in our footsteps. And to see if he’s prepared to tell us about Marat and the hiding of the guns,” said Manners. “Do you have any plans today, Clothilde? Lydia and I rather thought of looking round la Ferrassie again, trying the far side of the road toward Cumont.”
“I have some museum work I must do, and a meeting with architects about the new building. But I’m rather more intrigued by Malrand asking us to see him again,” said Clothilde. “In the meantime, I had a call from my stepfather about the parachute drop at Cumont, the one the Germans ambushed. He did an oral history project with the children at his school, getting them to interview all their relatives about their memories of the Resistance. He used some of it in his book. Something was jogging his mind, so he went back to the papers they had written, and pulled out two. I went to get them, had them photocopied, and here they are. They are very vague, but they might be significant. My mother sends you her warm regards, Lydia, and says she appreciated your delicacy yesterday.”
Lydia covered her embarrassment by reaching for the papers. She felt a touch of relief. She enjoyed bedtime romps, but chose them with such care and infrequency that she had never got accustomed to sharing breakfasts the next morning. Conversation the morning after so often seemed so forced and fraught with forbidding amounts of meaning that the occasion cried out for the distraction of a newspaper. In the bedroom when they woke, Manners had solved that problem in the most satisfying way. But now over coffee, and feeling a little shy about her own emotions for the man and nervously hopeful that this affair would last, she was glad of the prospect of some work.
The photocopies were of the small cahiers-notebooks-of graphed paper that French schoolchildren use, in the neat round handwriting that used to be standard. It was the handwriting that Clothilde still used, neat and legible. They took one sheaf each. Lydia’s was from a girl called Margueritte Perusin, and she began to read.
My brother Jeannot was sixteen years old when I was born, and he was the member of my family who fought with the Resistance even though he was very young. He helped with the parachute drops that came from England and America. Because our family has a farm, Jeannot was very good with horses. My mother says that Jeannot was away all night at one parachute drop near Cumont just before the invasion at Normandy when the German soldiers came to shoot the Resistance fighters and the horses they used. The Germans were very cruel. Jeannot came back home in the middle of the night to take our horses so that he and his friends could move the carts and take the English guns away. Jeannot went to la Ferrassie, but there was only one cart and it was empty because the guns had been hidden in a cave by the Englishman who was called “
capitaine
.” Jeannot was frightened of the Englishman who was very fierce. Jeannot took the carts away to hide them, my mother said. My father said that he was very cross with Jeannot when he came back because he was frightened we would lose the horses. But Jeannot had boasted that the work was very important to the war. They now had special guns that could shoot at the German tanks, and when the invasion came Jeannot went off to fight the tanks. Jeannot said the Englishman had taught him how to fight tanks, and how to fight Germans. They had to be as cruel as the Germans to make them angry so they would not think clearly and charge into ambushes. My mother said Jeannot cried once when he came back because of the bad things he had done to some Germans to make them angry. Jeannot stayed away all that summer and autumn, and came back on leave in a French uniform and went back to join General Leclerc’s Free French Army. He was wounded in 1945 in the fighting at Strasbourg, and then stayed in the Army after the war and was killed in Vietnam. He sent me a paper fan from Saigon. I only saw him when he came home on leaves and never knew why my mother and father still call him Little Jeannot, because he was very big and very nice to me. My mother cried when we learned that he had been killed at Hanoi. Jeannot was very brave and fought and died for France and we have his medal at home.
She passed Margueritte’s essay across the table to Manners and picked up the one he had read before she realized that he was staring i
ntently at her. Or was it lovingly? Staring as if he were fascinated. So he should be, the dear man.
“You have astounding powers of concentration,” he said.
“Do I, darling?”
His eyebrows lifted. “That’s a lovely word when you use it to me. I hate it normally. It sounds like actresses and old-fashioned drawing room plays.”
“I’m very particular about the D word,” she said, putting her hand on his. “I didn’t plan to use it. I suppose it slipped out because I meant it.”
“I’m feeling ridiculously happy,” he smiled. “Tired and spent and full of energy and capable of anything.”
“Anything?” she laughed. “Oh good. It was a delicious night, Manners. Or do I mean a lubricious one? Anyway, I’m looking forward to another, and another. But in the meantime, we have work to do. Order us some more coffee and read this sad story about Little Jeannot.”
Young Claude Mourresac had written:
My uncle Pierrot was in the
Chasseurs Alpins
before the war, and fought the Italians when they invaded in 1940. He was not made a prisoner of war in Germany and he joined the Resistance of the
Armee Secrete
very early, even before the Germans occupied the Perigord. He was in the
Groupe Berger
and blew up trains with plastique explosive that an Englishman showed him how to use, and an American whose hair only grew in the middle of his head. They called him the Red Indian. The Englishman had a special razor called a Rolls-Royce that kept itself always sharp. This made my uncle very jealous because there were never any razor blades. The only time he saw the Englishman really angry was when the Red Indian stole his razor to cut his hair. They lived in caves and in the woods because the Germans wanted to kill them for blowing up trains. There were some Russians fighting for the Germans, which my father, Pierrot’s brother, could not understand because the Russians were supposed to be fighting the Germans in Russia. There were also some North Africans fighting for the Germans, who burned the farm next to ours, although it was our farm that was supplying most of the food to Pierrot’s group. We kept extra chickens and pigs in the woods that were not counted by the men from the Prefecture who came to count all our fields and livestock and tell us how much food we had to provide each week. The Resistance got their guns by parachute from London, and had special radios to talk to the pilots of the planes and to London. My father was allowed to hear the radio one night when General de Gaulle said it was time for all Frenchmen to rise and fight the Germans. My father built a windmill to get electricity to listen to the radio, but the wind was either too weak or too strong and one night it blew down. My father had been helping with the parachute drops, even though our farm would have been burned had the Germans known. There was one night when the Germans attacked a parachute drop and killed several Resistance men, but my uncle and the Englishman and the famous writer Francois Malrand got the guns away and hid them in a cave. Later some Communists tried to steal the guns, and my uncle told my father that the Communists were not true Frenchmen and he would have to fight them after he won the war against the Germans. My uncle was killed in the month after the invasion when the Germans sent tanks to recapture the liberated Perigord. He died for France and we are very proud of him and will never forget him.
Lydia read it again, and drank her coffee. So the Englishman and Malrand got the guns away and hid them in a cave. And Communists tried to steal the guns. What a drama must lie behind those simple words. So there was a cave, and from the tale of Little Jeannot the cave was near la Ferrassie.
“Well, that settles it,” she said, rising. “Let’s go to la Ferrassie. The cave is obviously near there.”
“This is awful,” said Manners, tapping Margueritte’s essay on the table. “I don’t like the sound of these bad things he says my father made them do to provoke the Germans. And this business about the Communists trying to steal the guns at the cave sounds ominous.” His brow was furrowed and his eyes were throughtful, but he rose decisively from his chair and Lydia watched, both sobered and fascinated, as this man she had just slept with visibly set his jaw and girded himself for action. It was alien, she thought, but distinctly exciting.
They parked the Jaguar at la Ferrassie, on a small clearing off the Rouffignac road, where a green metal grill protected the earth beneath a large overhang of smooth rock, and Manners took a small collapsible spade from the trunk of the car. There was not much to see. The archaeologists’ diggings had been filled in, the ancient skeletons moved. Even to Lydia, it was a good site. There was a spring with fresh water, shelter from the elements, and a pleasant stretch of grass in front of the shelter.
“It would drip a lot in the rain. And no protection from your enemies, but I’ve slept in worse,” said Manners. “Horst and I explored this gully behind the shelter pretty thoroughly. We went all the way up to the top of the rock, and then cast around on the other side, trying to keep to a grid pattern so we missed nothing. We concentrated on the bits Horst said looked promising for caves from the geological survey, but we didn’t find much. There wasn’t much time for more than a cursory look at the far side of the road, so I suggest we start off by finding that cart track Albert used to get down from Cumont. I marked it on the map, and it looks as if it has been paved since the war.”
They left the car and set off up a winding, narrow road, whose center was crumbling with thrusting vegetation, and climbed steadily through thick woods to a plateau with a magnificent view over fold after fold of ridges. They strolled along a dirt track and into a field that stretched away to a small village dominated by a circular water tower. Cumont. This would have been the dropping zone. And if Albert got away down the track they had just climbed, the Germans had presumably come from the opposite direction. This was hopeless, thought Lydia, breaking off to admire a restored farm with a handsome pigeon tower, swimming pool, and the distant sounds of tennis balls being hit. A Mercedes with German license plates was parked in the driveway. Germans, here. How far away the war must already be, she thought, unless you had reason to relive it. The sheer amount of ground was far bigger than it had seemed on the map. Cumont seemed a long way off.
“Now we know Albert got down to the rendezvous point, and there was no cave there, so it can’t be that way,” said Manners. “And since the Germans came from over there we can rule out that direction. And we know from Little Jeannot that the cart was empty when he brought the horses to la Ferrassie, so they must have unloaded it down there. So what we have to find is the other way down to the road. Through those woods.”
He took her hand, and strode off along the track that led toward the Mercedes, and helped her over a gate into a wide meadow. Lydia was glad she was wearing slacks and training shoes, however unflattering. Manners had some battered green Wellingtons with his trousers tucked into their tops. The sound of tennis balls faded as they dropped down the slope, Manners with map and compass in hand. A formidable wood loomed ahead, and he marched them into it, stopping to check his bearing. Under the shade of the woods, the ground was soft, almost boggy.
“Oh good,” said Manners. “It looks like we’ve found a stream. That’s the obvious way down, and our best starting point.”
They pressed on downhill, arms up to protect their faces from twigs and branches, stepping carefully over patches of brambles and around coppices, and came to a brief stretch of rock, and then a sudden drop. The trees below them had grown high enough to block their forward view. Manners checked his compass and edged to his left. The way down seemed easier here and the trees thinner. They scrambled down a dry gully beside a low rock outcrop, and saw farther to their left a patch of green, thick and almost lawnlike, dotted with wildflowers, and tucked neatly between the cliff and the trees. A stream gurgled down the rocks beyond it. A lovely spot for a picnic, thought Lydia, if it only had a view, and picked her way through the undergrowth toward it. One old tree leaned at what seemed an impossible angle, although its branche
s looked healthy enough.
“Never seen more solid-looking rock. Not even a hint of a cave,” said Manners, taking a bottle of mineral water from his pack and passing it to her. She drank, sat down on the grass, and began undoing her shoelaces. He looked on, amused.
“Barefoot in the grass. One of life’s great pleasures,” she said, tucking socks into shoes and putting them behind her. She rose and felt the delicious coolness under her feet, the tickle of grass between her toes. She was feeling distinctly sensual. Was Manners one for making love in the open air? “Come on, Manners, try it.” He laughed and complied, and capered a little for her, spinning around with his hands outstretched in the sun, looking at the rock, the stream, the trees.
“A glorious spot you found, Lydia,” he called. “The most private place in Perigord.” He looked across to where she now lay outstretched in the sun, her eyes closed. He bent and gathered a small handful of wildflowers, purple and yellow, and went across to kneel and present them to her.
“For the lady of the glade,” he said, and bent to kiss her. Her arm came around his neck, slipping inside his shirt to caress his chest, and then unbuttoning his shirt. He slipped it off, stretched out beside her, and ran his hand along the length of her from shoulder to knee, and then back up to linger on her throat and cheek. Her eyes remained closed, her lips slightly parted, her hair loose around her cheeks. So very beautiful, he thought. Very slowly, and with all the time in the world, he undressed her, pausing to lay a yellow wildflower here, a dash of purple there, kissing each spot where the flowers glowed against her skin. Fair against the green, and as lush as the grass, she was the loveliest sight he had ever seen, and he told her so, slipping off the rest of his clothes and joining her in this perfect Eden.
CHAPTER 20
The Vezere Valley, 15,000 B.C.
The Caves of Perigord Page 32