Never Leave Me

by Margaret Pemberton

  She was no longer listening to him. She had to get out of the room. She had to get into fresh air. She had to think.

  ‘I shall want to see you in four weeks’time …’ he was saying, but she had gone.

  Dazedly she slammed the door of his surgery behind her. A baby. Dieter’s baby! Her shock gave way to joy. She hadn’t lost him completely. She hadn’t miscarried his child. A part of him would be with her for always. And Greg?

  She leaned against a plane tree in the village square. She would explain to him. Tell him the truth. He already knew about Dieter. Luke Brandon had told him. He had been understanding, asking her no questions, promising only to teach her to love again. She felt the weight of her anxiety lift and ease. Luke Brandon had been prepared to marry her, knowing that she was carrying Dieter’s child. Surely Greg, with his infinite generosity, would be equally understanding?

  Her father stared at her, appalled. ‘A baby? Meyer’s baby?’

  ‘Yes, Papa,’ she said gently, wishing that she could ease his distress. ‘Dr Auge says I’m at least three months pregnant.’

  ‘Dear Christ!’ He groped blindly for a chair. ‘What will you do when Dering returns? What can you possibly say to him?’

  Her face was pale and resolute. ‘I shall tell him the truth, Papa. There is nothing else I can tell him.’

  He raised his stricken face to hers. ‘The wedding was a month ago. I remember your mother telling me that Jean’s wife regularly gave birth after seven-month pregnancies.’

  Her face tightened. She shook her head, her eyes clouding. ‘No, Papa,’ she said, knowing how deep was his anguish for him to suggest such a deception. ‘I would rather he left me than stay with me believing such a lie.’

  ‘He probably will, ma chére,’ her father said unsteadily. ‘Another man’s child. A German’s child! It is more than you can expect any man to tolerate.’

  Anxiety sprang alive again, clutching at her heart. She didn’t want to lose Greg. She was already more than halfway in love with him. The thought of a future without him appalled her. ‘It will be all right,’ she said fiercely, rising to her feet to make some coffee. ‘Greg will understand. I know he will.’

  Her father shook his head disbelievingly. She could have Dieter Meyer’s child, or she could have a new life in America with Greg Dering. He couldn’t see how she could possibly have both.

  Two weeks later Paris was liberated. Her father wept for joy, forgetting his anguish about the coming baby. There was no champagne and so they celebrated with glass after glass of calvados, ‘Long live the Americans!’ her father cried, holding his glass high. ‘Long live the Canadians! The English! Long live France!’

  At the beginning of September she went with him to visit her mother in Balleroy. Travel was still not easy. Apart from their old Citroen there were very few vehicles – other than army vehicles – on the roads. White crosses at the roadsides proliferated. The fields were dotted with the carcasses of animals killed in the fighting, and the spinneys and woods were thick with the remains of burnt-out tanks.

  Her mother was delighted to see her; delighted to be able to hear at first hand about her wedding. By tacit agreement neither she nor her father spoke of the coming baby. There would be time enough for that when Greg returned. When they knew what the future held.

  By October the rounding swell of her stomach could no longer be disguised. Madame Chamot and Madame Bridet congratulated her, apparently seeing nothing odd about the obviousness of her condition. Only Madame Pichon looked at her askance. She had delivered over five hundred babies. Like Dr Auge, she knew very well that the coming baby had not been conceived on Lisette’s wedding night. And the Americans had only landed on the sixth of June. Madame Pichon pursed her lips. The Dering baby had obviously been conceived long before Colonel Dering had set foot on French soil. It was all very strange and intriguing, but she liked Lisette, and she discreetly kept her thoughts to herself.

  In November Lisette received a letter from Greg. His battalion was attacking German positions east of Aachen. In December he was in the Ardennes, fighting a bloody battle against panzer divisions in heavily wooded country.

  Life in Normandy returned to normal. There were still soldiers in and around Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts, but they were American soldiers. They patrolled the road junctions, guarded the railway bridges, and continued to ferry provisions and equipment from the beaches inland.

  She visited Dr Auge once a month. The baby was due at the beginning of February. Auge still privately speculated about the father. He had never seen her in the company of village boys, apart from Paul Gilles. And young Gilles had been shot too early in the year for him to have been the father. It was all most intriguing, but his patient showed no inclination to confide in him. She was healthy, happy, and apparently looking forward to her husband’s return. It was all very puzzling, but it was none of his concern. His concern was for the birth. She was very small-boned and slim-hipped and he anticipated problems.

  All through January the fighting in the Ardennes continued. Units of the US First Army and the British XXX Corps moved forward slowly but the terrain was crucifying, the weather appalling.

  ‘Units of the Free French are reported to be crossing into Alsace,’ her father told her as they sat in their now cosy suite of rooms above the stables, a log fire burning pungently. ‘De Gaulle is determined that France will emerge from the war with pride.’

  There came the faint throb of a car engine. It grew louder, fast approaching Valmy.

  She sprang to her feet, her eyes wide. ‘It’s a car, Papa!’

  ‘It’s a jeep!’ he said, rushing over to the window to peer out into the dusk-filled courtyard.

  She rushed from the room, running down the whitewashed stairs, her heart racing. It was Greg. No one else would be visiting them in an army vehicle. Perhaps the news about the continued fighting in the Ardennes was wrong. Perhaps the Germans were in full retreat. She raced through the empty stable and out into the courtyard, the baby hampering her speed.

  The jeep turned in through the stone archway and she knew immediately that it wasn’t Greg. She sagged with disappointment, tears stinging the backs of her eyes. She had been so sure it was him. So sure that her waiting was over.

  ‘Don’t I get a smile?’ the tall, dark figure asked as he sprang from the jeep.

  She gasped, staring in disbelief.

  ‘I’ve dreamt of this reunion for months. You could at least look pleased to see me,’ Luke Brandon said, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead, a smile on his face as he strode across to her.

  ‘Luke! I don’t believe it! We thought you were dead! Oh Luke! Luke!’

  She ran towards him in the gathering darkness. His arms closed round her and before she could avert her head he kissed her full on the mouth, a deep, passionate kiss full of need and longing.

  ‘I thought I was going to be back too late to give this baby a legal entry into the world,’ he said thickly, raising his head from hers. ‘You have changed your mind, haven’t you Lisette? You’ve not still determined to go it alone?’

  Slowly she lowered her arms and stepped away from him. It was too dark for him to see the expression in her eyes. He said confidently, ‘I knew that you needed time to get over Meyer’s death. That when you had done so you would realise that a new life in England would be the very best decision that you could make. I still want to marry you, Lisette. Not just because of the promise I made to Meyer, but because …’

  She couldn’t let him continue. She lifted up her hand, and the too-large signet ring gleamed dully.

  He stared at it and then at her. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said blankly. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘I’m married, Luke,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve been married for four months.’

  His olive-toned skin blanched. ‘I don’t believe it! You couldn’t be …’ and then, incredulously, ‘four months ago?’

  She nodded. Always, when she had thought of his m
arriage proposal to her, she had thought that he had proposed out of obligation to the promise he had given Dieter. Out of guilt for being responsible for his death. Now, for the first time, she realised that it went deeper than that. That he truly wanted to marry her, irrespective of Dieter and the nightmare that had taken place at Valmy.

  ‘I married Colonel Dering at the end of July,’ she said awkwardly.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ He swayed slightly and then said, his voice harsh, ‘You didn’t waste much time, did you? I thought you were convulsed with grief for Meyer? I thought you said you would never love again, the way you had loved him?’

  She didn’t flinch beneath his bitterness. Her brilliant dark eyes met his steadily. ‘I did say that, and it’s true. But I’ve discovered that there’s more than one way to be in love.’

  ‘And are you in love with Dering?’ His eyes were black pits in the gaunt whiteness of his face.

  She stood silent for a moment, remembering how she had felt when she had believed that he was driving the jeep. When she had thought that he had returned to her. ‘Yes,’ she said, and her voice held surprise. ‘Yes, I am.’

  He pushed the sleek, black lock of hair away from his forehead. ‘And what about Meyer? Does Dering know all about him?’

  For a long moment she couldn’t speak. When she did the breath was tight in her throat, her lips dry. ‘Yes, you told him, Luke.’

  He stared at her incredulously and even before he spoke she knew there had been a terrible mistake. ‘I never breathed a word about Meyer to anyone. What on earth gave you the idea that I had spoken to Dering about him?’

  There was no air in her chest. She felt as though she were suffocating. ‘He said he knew that I was going to be married. That you had told him.’

  The anger drained out of him. She looked so beautiful, so vulnerable. He said hoarsely, ‘I told him that I intended marrying you, Lisette. I never spoke to him of Dieter Meyer.’

  The courtyard was dark now, the January night air chill. She swayed slightly and his hands steadied her. ‘Does he know about the baby?’

  She shook her head, unable to speak. She had thought he had known about Dieter, that he had been understanding of her love for a German. And all the time he had believed it was Luke Brandon she referred to when she had told him she had been in love, and that the man she loved had died. No wonder he had been understanding. No wonder he had asked no questions. The cold seemed to strike through to her very bones. She shivered and Luke put his arms around her, holding her close.

  ‘I was injured again when I escaped from the chateau, Lisette. I’ve been hospitalised for months. The war is over for me. I’d like to stay at Valmy for a little while. Until you have the baby or until Dering returns.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ she said unsteadily, not daring to think what her mistake might cost her, what Greg’s reaction would be when he knew the truth. She took a deep, steadying breath. Luke was no longer angry with her. He was offering his support and friendship. She managed a smile. ‘Come inside and meet Papa. He’s heard so much about you. He won’t be able to believe it when I tell him you escaped the Germans.’

  They walked towards the stable. ‘How did you get away?’ she asked as they climbed the stairs. ‘When Greg and I arrived from Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts the chateau was ablaze and there were Americans here. They said they had been met with German gunfire.’

  ‘I saw the Germans coming and hauled myself out here, to the stables. When the gunfire started, I dragged myself out, under cover of it, to the gardens at the rear, intending to circle round and join up with the Americans. Someone must have seen me from the chateau. I was hit twice, in the chest and shoulder, and passed out. When I came to, it was dusk and Valmy was burning. I crawled off in the direction of the village and a truck full of Americans gave me a lift. They were going to Bayeux. The medics there patched me up and then I was moved north and hospitalised.’

  She squeezed his hand tightly. ‘I’m so glad you’re alive, Luke. I can’t tell you how hideous it was. Dieter dead, believing that you were dead. Valmy burning.’

  ‘Have you been living up here ever since?’ he asked as they mounted the last step.

  She nodded and then her father was greeting them, his hands outstretched in welcome, his eyes bewildered.

  ‘It’s Luke Brandon, Papa,’ she said, introducing them. ‘He didn’t die. He’s here. Isn’t it marvellous?’

  ‘My dear young man! How magnificent. Do come in. There’s no champagne, I’m afraid, but there’s barrels full of calvados!’

  In the first week of February Luke drove her to Bayeux in the Citroen, the jeep having been returned to the camp from where it had been borrowed. The baby was due in the next few days and she wanted to do enough shopping to last them till the end of the month. They were approaching the market square when a girl her own age was dragged kicking and screaming from a nearby house into the street.

  ‘Collaborator! Traitor!’

  Within seconds the street which had previously been nearly empty was a torrent of people. Luke tried to pull Lisette away, but it was too late. They were trapped in the middle of a shouting, chanting crowd.

  ‘Oh dear God!’ Lisette cried frantically as the sobbing girl was hissed and spat upon. ‘Make them stop, Luke! Make them stop!’

  It was impossible and he knew it. All he could do was try and get her out of the crush before the real horror began.

  ‘Where’s your fancy Kraut boyfriend now?’ a pin-striped suited man yelled, throwing a rotten tomato full in the girl’s terrified face. The tomato spattered, its rotten flesh oozing juice down her cheek, her chin. ‘Whore!’ the man shouted exultantly. ‘Jerries’whore!’

  A wooden chair had been hastily dragged into the centre of the cobbled street. Old women, their shawls crossed beneath their chins and round their breasts, fought their way forward to tug at a handful of her hair, to scratch, to spit.

  Lisette was engulfed in horror. Drowning in it. ‘No!’ she screamed as the still-struggling girl was tied to the chair, her hair seized and twisted cruelly. ‘No!’ She tried to push her way through the crowd. ‘Leave her alone! For God’s sake, leave her alone!’

  The baby jumped and jarred in her womb. Luke caught restrainingly at her wrist but she twisted away from him, intent on reaching the girl’s side.

  Collaborator! Whore! Traitor!

  The words beat against her ears. Whatever the girl had done, it was no more than she herself had done. They had both had German boyfriends and she, Lisette, was carrying a German’s child.

  ‘Stop it!’ she shouted. ‘You’re animals! No better than the Boche!’

  She was hit viciously across the mouth and blood spurted on to her hands, her coat. She half fell, only the force of the crush around her keeping her upright.

  Putrefying fruit was thrown at the weeping girl. Rotten eggs. Offal. Lisette made one last vain effort to reach her and then a placard with the word ‘Collaborator’daubed in red paint was hung about the girl’s neck and the women exultantly began to shear her hair.

  ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Luke gasped as he finally reached her side. ‘Let’s get out of here while we can.’

  The girl’s hair fell to the cobbles and a great cheer rang out. Lisette turned away, her face white. Luke was right. There was nothing they could do. The same scene was taking place in nearly every village and town in France. Sickness rose like bile in her. It was what she could expect if the villagers in Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts discovered she had been Dieter Meyer’s mistress. If they knew that the child she was carrying had been fathered by a German.

  Pushing and panting, Luke elbowed a way clear of the mob. ‘Let’s leave the market for another day,’ he gasped, hurrying her up the street towards the parked Citroen. ‘When they’ve finished abusing the pathetic victim they already have, they might start looking around for another, and remember your protests.’

  She didn’t argue with him. She was hugging her arms fiercely to stop herself from
shaking.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked as he opened the doors of the Citroen and bundled her inside.

  ‘No,’ she said, her hair dishevelled, her voice unsteady. ‘The baby is coming!’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Luke took one look at her face and then put his foot down hard on the accelerator, racing out of Bayeux’s cobbled streets and into the narrow, high-hedged lanes beyond.

  ‘It will take me half an hour to get to Valmy. Will you be all right until then?’ he asked tightly.

  ‘I should be all right for hours. First babies don’t come quickly’ she said reassuringly, bracing herself against a spasm of pain that was nothing like the gradual build-up which Dr Auge had told her to expect.

  Luke saw her hands clench in her lap, the knuckles whitening, and pressed his foot down even harder. He didn’t know anything about the time sequence of first babies but instinct told him that this one was not going to be long in arriving. He flashed through le Calvaire and Mosles wondering how soon he could get hold of Dr Auge or Madame Pichon.

  ‘It doesn’t feel … at all as I had expected,’ she gasped, pressing her hands to her bulging stomach.

  Luke remembered the crowd, the crush, her terrible distress at the scene they had witnessed. He didn’t know what shock did to a woman in the early stages of labour, but in Lisette’s case it certainly seemed to be speeding events up.

  ‘Hold tight,’ he said grimly. ‘We’re nearly there.’

  ‘You’d better be quick,’ she gasped. ‘This baby is well on its way!’

  ‘Christ!’ He slammed his foot to the floor, screaming up the hill towards the beech woods, a cloud of dust billowing in his wake.

  He still had to get hold of Dr Auge or Madame Pichon. It could take him thirty minutes, perhaps forty. And if the baby came while he was away? He couldn’t leave her alone with her father. The unwordly Henri would be totally unable to cope. Which meant that he, Luke, would have to stay with her while Henri drove the Citreon to Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts in search of the doctor or midwife. And if Lisette was right, and the baby was determined to arrive in a hurry, then in all probability he would be the one delivering it.