As for entertainment. Well I thought I could manage that. The school and the local council had arranged a series of outings and entertainments for the visiting French students and we would be occupied most days. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.
I got up then and dressed in my white aertex shirt and navy shorts. These were my normal holiday clothes, albeit at home with an added jumper because on our hillside the weather was rarely warm enough for bare arms.
It wasn’t that early, I thought, not for a farming family to be up and when I opened the shutters I could hear voices coming from the yard below my bedroom. Looking down I saw Étienne talking to a man and a boy, not Jean Paul but a taller, thinner boy who was dressed in blue cotton workman’s trousers like Étienne and the other man. The man was holding a cow by a halter and I could hear them all laughing. I drew away then, not wanting to seem as though I was spying and sat on the bed. I had to go downstairs, but to where?
The kitchen would be the place I thought and I looked at the door which would open onto the little staircase. What if I walked in on them in the middle of a conversation, or worse, a row? It would be embarrassing and deciding not to try it, I went out of my room and down the three steps to the long corridor which separated my room from the rest of the house.
This morning, all the doors in the hall were open, even the front door which led to the porch and the courtyard. Brilliant shafts of early sunlight pierced the dark wood hall lighting up the panelled corners and the rough whitewashed ceiling. Under my sandal shod feet the stone flags had taken on a warmer, rosier glow so that the whole atmosphere of Riverain seemed calmer and more cheerful.
The open door to the dining room where we’d eaten supper last night showed a cleaned room and a view through the tall many paned windows of a little garden. The table, which last night had presented me with exciting new tastes was now covered by a lace runner which stretched its full length.
The closest open door from where I was standing revealed a room with polished floorboards and fancy gold painted wooden furniture. A chaise longue covered in shiny gold and red striped fabric dominated the space and the two little carved tables at either end of it carried matching glass ashtrays and china figures. That was the salon, I learned later.
Another door opened onto a study or perhaps an office. I could see a large wooden roll-top desk, the top open and all the little compartments inside stuffed with papers. Above the desk was a photograph in a frame showing a man in uniform. I couldn’t see the man clearly from where I was standing but I thought it must be Étienne, he, like my father, would have gone to war. I wondered who had managed the farm while he was away but then I supposed it would have been Mathilde. That’s what women did.
My mother ran our farm all through the war. It had been her parents’ holding and she and I had gone there to be safe from the bombing in the city. Dada wasn’t a farmer. He’d been a reporter on the local paper who had come over from Ireland during the thirties. I often wondered how he and Mother had met and why they’d been attracted to each other. They seemed almost like creatures from a different planet but I barely remembered how he’d been before he went away. When he came home he was an entirely other person, at least that’s what everyone said. Maybe Mother was too.
To the rear of the hall running away under the stairs, was a passageway and I guessed that would lead to the back of the house and the kitchen. I half turned towards it. It was where I should go, but lingering and now anxious again I looked out of the front door to where the brilliant sunlight was calling me and changed my mind.
The air outside was warm, balmy even and the tang of the river felt sharp in my nostrils. I looked up. The sky was clear, a bright blue with occasional, slow moving little clouds. I took a deep breath, expanding my lungs with the morning air hoping it would settle me and sweep away the nervousness I’d felt since coming here. And to a certain extent, it worked.
Everything seemed different to me. This French day was hot, foreign and somehow moved more slowly than home. I smiled, thinking about our farm. There was nothing relaxing there so why had I been wishing for it? Even in summer the wind on the hill behind our house had a bite and the smell from the early heather had a clean cold perfume. And if the weather wasn’t cruel then Mother would sour the atmosphere by bossing me around and complaining about her hard life. Had she ever been happy?
The sound of a child’s voice interrupted my thoughts and looking down I saw Lisette sitting on the cobbles to the side of the arched porch, playing with a couple of dolls. She had put them in a box and covered them with a piece of cloth, as though they were in bed.
“Stay there, Jacques. And you too Angelique. You can’t play because you’ve been bad.”
“Hello.” I wandered over to her. “Are these your dollies?”
Lisette looked up. “Yes,” she said carefully in her small precise voice. “These are two of my dollies. I have lots of dollies. But Jacques and Angelique have been naughty and must go to bed.
“Oh dear,” I said. “What did they do?”
Lisette stood up and laughed. “I can’t tell you. But they have been very naughty.” She was still giggling when she put her cool little hand in mine. “Grandmère said I was to wake you and bring you for breakfast. I forgot. Now we’ll go.”
She picked up her box of dolls and we went back into the house and followed the narrow passageway. As I’d guessed it opened onto the kitchen.
It was a wonderful room, large and airy with a huge range and a selection of heavy wooden cupboards and sideboards which shone cleanly in the sunlight. It had a blue and red tiled floor and on the wall around the range were more tiles, blue and red also but interspersed with tiled flower pictures. A pair of broad, shallow sinks sat beneath the large window and to the side, a dresser which reached to the ceiling and was loaded with pretty plates and casseroles. A large wooden table took up the middle of the room, its boards scrubbed almost white so it looked fresh and inviting.
Grandmère was there, her black dress covered by a white apron, busy by the cooking range and looking up waved me to a chair by the table.
“Good morning, Eleanor. Did you sleep well?
I nodded.
Grandmère gave me a searching look and then her stern face softened. “It is difficult when you are staying in a strange place. Yes?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, you’ll get used to it, I’m sure. Now, are you hungry?”
She didn’t wait for me to reply but lifted the white tea towel draped in the middle of the table to reveal a crisp baguette on a thick board. “After today, you must help yourself like we all do,” she said. “Here is bread and the butter and confiture are in the larder.” Another wave of the hand this time in the direction of a door next to the window.
She bustled around, getting a plate from the dresser and disappeared into the larder. I waited, fingering the bread until she returned with a dish of butter and a glass jar of apricot jam.
“The coffee is on the range or if you prefer you may have hot chocolate. It’s in that jug.” She looked at me anxiously. “I haven’t tea although I know that English people like it.”
“Coffee will be lovely,” I said hastily, not wanting to make a fuss but also because I was eager to try it. We didn’t have coffee at home. Mother had pronounced it nasty and when I returned home and bought a coffee in town, it was nasty. It took years for the cafés at home to reproduce proper French coffee.
Grandmère’s coffee, served in a white bowl, was delicious and I sipped at it in between putting butter and jam on a piece of baguette. Shyly I tore the bread in pieces like I’d seen the rest of the family do last night and that was obviously the right thing to do because neither Grandmère nor Lisette seemed affronted.
“I like chocolate best,” said Lisette, pulling out a chair and getting ready to sit down. “I want some more.”
“No,” said Grandmère. “You’ve had enough breakfast. Go upstairs and change, ready for church.”
With an uncomfortable jolt I realised that it was Sunday and I was in Catholic country. In all my preparations for the exchange, religion was something I’d never considered. I suppose Miss Baxter imagined we were all regular church goers like she was and didn’t need to mention it. I wished she had.
We never went at home. Dada didn’t leave the farm and Mother said she’d ceased believing years ago and was now convinced that religion was mumbo jumbo.
Everything of which she didn’t approve was declared mumbo jumbo. She had a list of things she ‘didn’t hold with and were a waste of time’ and as far as I remember nothing was ever removed from her list but lots were added. Prominent on her register of scorn was Charles Dickens, philosophy, the shipping forecast but not the weather forecast, the Royal family and most derided of all, religion.
I never debated any of this with her, it would have been pointless. She had long since made up her mind and any argument I could possibly venture would be dismissed almost before the words were uttered.
Now I was to be confronted with a problem and I would have to face it by myself. I bit into my bread slowly and waited.
“Will you accompany us? To church?” Grandmère was clearing the table around me.
“I’m not a Catholic.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Think about it.”
I thought about it for less than twenty seconds. Of course I would go with them, I wanted to experience everything I possibly could whilst I was on this holiday. Who knew when I would ever get another one?
“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to.”
“Good. Finish your breakfast then go and change into your dress. You have half an hour.”
Lisette was still sitting at the table and she grinned at me. “You can’t go to church in those funny clothes,” she said. “Boys wear shorts. Girls wear pretty dresses.”
“Enough!” Grandmère’s face darkened and she held up her finger. “That is rude, Lisette. Say you’re sorry to Eleanor.”
Suddenly the cheerful atmosphere had changed A shadow fell over Lisette’s wan little face and tears came into her pale hazel eyes. “Sorry,” she whispered.
I smiled. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry.”
Grandmère nodded and took Lisette’s arm. “Go upstairs and change and don’t go out in the yard again and get your dress dirty.”
Her head drooping, the little girl picked up her dolls and slowly left the room.
“I didn’t mind,” I said, hoping to avoid another embarrassment.
“She needs to be taught her manners. If I don’t say something, nobody else will.” Grandmère smoothed her hands down her white apron. “Even though she’s …”
The sentence petered out while I sat waiting for her to continue. “…though she’s a child, a girl…what?”
But the subject was changed. “Come back down here when you’re ready,” she ordered and went out of the kitchen and along the passageway. I watched her. There were two doors opening off the corridor and she opened one of them and went in.
That anxious feeling had returned to the pit of my stomach and the coffee and bread no longer appealed. I got up and took my dishes to the sink where I quickly rinsed them under the tap and left them to dry like I’d seen Grandmère do. Mother’s last words to me at the station before she’d given me a brief peck on the cheek and hurried away were “don’t be a nuisance.”
I looked at the door beside the big fireplace. That must be the one leading to my room I decided and opened it. I was right. A narrow staircase was before me with steep steps and walls so close that only one person could be on it at a time. It was dark and some of the wooden steps were loose but I made my way up and when I opened the door at the top, a flood of light welcomed me into my room. Next time I would leave my door open. Then I would be able to see. I didn’t know then that I would be using it at night.
Back down in the kitchen, dressed in my gingham school frock, I waited for Grandmère.
“Ah, Eleanor,” she said coming in from the yard outside. “You are ready?”
“Yes.”
“Mm…” She looked at me critically for a moment and I nervously smoothed down some of the creases in my skirt. “Come with me.”
I followed her down the corridor to the two doors.
“This is my sitting room, next door I have my bedroom,” she said and then added with a hint of resignation or perhaps regret, “in the old days our housekeeper lived here but…times have changed. Now I live down here.”
She ushered me into the room. It was a little parlour, with two soft chairs covered in red velvet and a round table with a plush cloth. The only light in the room came from a tiny window and after the brightness of the kitchen it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. I thought that it would be cosy in here on a winter evening with a fire in the little tiled grate and the lamps lit. Much more so than the formal salon which I’d seen opening off the hall.
“You need something to cover your hair,” said Grandmère. “It’s what women must do in church.” She was wearing a flat black straw hat which was held on her head by a large pin. The end of the pin had a black stone which matched the black beads she had around her neck.
My heart sank. Surely she wasn’t going to find me a hat like that?
“Look in that drawer,” she commanded, pointing to a wooden cabinet pushed against the wall. “The top one. I think I have a piece of lace in there and that will be perfect for you.” She turned away and looked around the room. “Now, where have I put my prayer book?”
While she bent down to look through the books and newspapers on the table I cautiously opened the drawer and peered inside. It was full of documents and photographs and surprisingly, an old fashioned baby’s white leather boot but I couldn’t see any lace.
“I can’t see a piece of lace,” I said.
“It must be underneath the other things. Push them aside.”
“Alright.”
I grabbed a handful of papers and holding them in one hand rooted about with the other. The little boot fell on the floor.
“That was Étienne’s,” said Grandmère, coming over and picking it up. “Oh! He was a lovely baby. So plump, so healthy. My only child…that lived.”
I didn’t know what to say but continued to search. Suddenly my hand touched a piece of fabric.
“I’ve got it,” I said and withdrew a prettily worked piece of black lace.
“Good,” said Grandmère. “You can put that over your hair when you go into church.” She handed me the little kid boot. “Now, put all those things away and let’s go. Étienne is waiting in the yard. Mathilde and Jean Paul have already walked on.”
She picked up her prayer book and started for the door and eager to hurry, I started to stuff the documents and the boot back in the drawer but in my haste, some papers slipped out of my hand and scattered on the floor.
“Oh dear,” I said and bent to pick them up.
“Quick!” said Grandmère from the corridor.
“Yes. Sorry.” I dropped to my knees and started to gather the papers but my eye was caught by one piece of yellowing paper and despite my determination to hurry, I stopped to stare at it.
It was a newspaper cutting with a photograph showing a semi-circle of people gathered together in what looked like a town square. Looking closer I saw the semi-circle was made up of men, some of whom were laughing and one or two were looking at the camera and pointing to other people in the centre of the group
The light in Grandmère’s parlour was dim so I couldn’t see properly what the picture showed and I held it up to examine it more closely. How strange, I thought looking at the semicircle of men. Their laughter seemed forced and their faces mocking not joyful. I turned my attention to the central figures. Suddenly, the newspaper cutting was snatched out of my hand.
Grandmère was standing above me. “Put everything back, Eleanor,” she said quietly and when I looked up, her eyes were steely and frightening.
We walked to c
hurch. The village was only about half a mile down the dusty lane and we strolled, Étienne and Grandmère on either side of me while Lisette, her earlier tears forgotten, skipped along behind us.
Ahead I could see Mathilde and Jean Paul. They walked close together, their shoulders almost touching and every now and then Jean Paul would bend down and say something into Mathilde’s ear. Once after one remark he looked back at our group and I knew he’d said something about me. I stole a look at Étienne wondering if he’d caught the look but he was gazing at the fields across the hedge.
He was wearing a suit this morning, the one I’d seen hanging from the wardrobe in the room closest to mine. It was grey with thin pale stripes through it and like his jacket yesterday appeared to be strained at the seams. I guessed that this suit came out only for formal occasions and he was more comfortable in his working clothes. My father wore the same clothes every day. Grey slacks and a tweed jacket. I didn’t know if he had anything else. But Dada always wore a shirt and tie, the shirt collar loose round his neck as though it had been bought for a larger man and the neat brown woollen tie tucked in between the third and fourth buttons of his shirt.
Étienne wasn’t wearing a tie with his shirt this morning and his top button was open showing his strong tanned neck. He turned round from his contemplation of the fields where the fat blonde cows were grazing and caught me staring.
“Well, Miss Eleanor, are you settling in?”
“Yes,” I mumbled embarrassed to have been caught. “Thank you.”
“I was looking to see if there are any breaks in the fence. One of the cows got out this morning. My neighbour brought her back. And then I must think about cutting the grass over there.” He waved his arm towards the pasture. “For hay, for the cattle. Do you understand?”
“Oh yes.” I knew about winter feed although we didn’t do much of it. Mother usually bought in turnips which were cheaper than hay. It was only when the winter had been especially hard that she resorted to hay. Most of the time our flock had to fend for themselves.
When I Was Young Page 5