Marks of shame? I didn’t think so and as I took my cotton nightdress from the hook behind the door, I smiled. This had been a wonderful day.
I didn’t see Étienne next day until suppertime. At breakfast Grandmère said he’d gone to the cattle market with Monsieur D’Amboise and that she and I would be visiting Madame D’Amboise for lunch.
“I’d like that,” I said, thinking that it would fill in the time until Étienne and I could go fishing again. That we wouldn’t continue the kissing never occurred to me.
“Will Luc be there?”
“I don’t know.” Grandmère sat down at the kitchen table and buttered a scrap of bread. My bowl of coffee steamed gently between my fingers and while I sipped I thought about the evening before. Had I been too bold? I remembered saying that I liked him kissing me and more than that I’d held his head hard down on my mouth. That memory brought back almost the same squirming thrill in my belly and I shifted in my chair and drained my bowl so that my face was hidden from Grandmère’s penetrating gaze.
“Do you like Luc?”
I put down my bowl and wiped a hand over my mouth. “Yes, very much,” I said. “He likes the same things as I do.”
“What things.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Learning, reading, those sort of things. New ideas.”
Grandmère got up. “I see,” she said, her voice cool and rather dismissive. “You and he both want to be away from the farming life. You want to be city people.”
“No, no.” I hadn’t meant to offend her. “You asked me if I liked him and I do.” I looked around the kitchen and through the open window to the vegetable garden beyond. Bright red geraniums on the sill swayed in the slight breeze and the green musky smell from the herb patch beyond, pervaded the room. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to live away from this farm.
“I love it here,” I said slowly. “It’s like heaven.”
She nodded, satisfied I think.
Lisette was in the garden when I went there later to get eggs. “I saw you and Papa on the bridge last night,” she warbled. “Did you catch a fish?”
“Were you still awake?” My breath caught in my throat and I had to force myself to speak.
“Oh yes.” She was making a little bouquet of chive flowers. “I woke up and it was too hot in my room. I went to the river bank to make a sleeping nest for my dollies. They were too hot as well.”
God! What had she seen? For the first time I started to worry. What if she told Mathilde or worse still Grandmère. Or, and my heart sank, she could easily say something at supper. One throw away remark amongst all her non-stop chattering. Then I wondered if her telling them might not be necessary. Perhaps others had seen us too. A stone settled in the pit of my stomach.
I didn’t know what to say, how to warn her to be quiet or even whether to get her to believe she’d been mistaken and I unlatched the chicken coop door with a trembling hand. The hens gathered around me clucking and scratching at my feet as I threw handfuls of corn and shredded greens to them and I was grateful for the disturbance. They at least wouldn’t question me.
“Well, did you?” Lisette’s pale little face pressed against the wire mesh.
“Did I what?” I was searching in a nesting box for an egg and dreaded the answer.
“Did you catch a fish, silly.”
Relief swept over me. “Yes,” I nodded. “One little trout.”
“Are we going to eat it?”
I backed out of the coop and put my basket of eggs on the grass beside Lisette. “I don’t know, your Papa left after I did. I think he might have thrown it back in the river.”
“Oh.” She sat down on the grass and bound the chive flowers with a long blade of grass. I waited for another question but none came so I sat down beside her and made her a daisy chain. We were still there when Grandmère came to find us
“Hurry up,” she demanded. “Lisette wash your hands and face and brush your hair.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re coming with Eleanor and me for lunch with Madame D’Amboise.”
“Oh!” The child was almost speechless with pleasure. I was happy for her. Being included was what she wanted more than anything and I felt that me insisting that she came with us to Angers had changed Grandmère’s mind. It was a small victory.
“You too, Eleanor. Put on your nice dress.”
The D’Amboise farm house was smaller than the Martin’s and a newer building. We walked down the lane about half a mile to it and although I thought it would be quicker to go through the vineyard and over the hill Grandmère insisted on the lane.
“They built this house three years ago. The old one is there, behind it. See?”
I looked. Les Pines was a white painted villa sitting in a pretty garden while to the rear, amongst pine trees was a larger stone house. The roof of the old house was in poor condition and some of the windows were boarded up. I wondered why they hadn’t pulled down this old place. Surely they didn’t need two houses.
“One day,” Madame D’Amboise smiled, “we will repair the stone house and that will be for Luc. He will have somewhere to bring his bride when the time comes.”
I hadn’t asked her but the subject came up while we were eating the veal stew she had prepared. It was the first time I’d ever tasted veal and I was loving it.
“I can taste the tarragon,” said Grandmère approvingly and I nodded. I could taste it too and marvelled. Me, who had never heard of the herb ten days ago could identify it amongst the other delicious flavours.
“I like it,” announced Lisette, “it is a deliciously discovery.”
Madame D’Amboise laughed out loud. “You funny little girl,” she said and Grandmère who had begun to frown at Lisette’s interruption relaxed and smiled. It was obviously a surprise to our hostess when Lisette arrived with Grandmère and me but she quickly recovered and welcomed the child as if her presence was completely normal.
At lunch Luc sat opposite me and we talked about school while his mother and Grandmère discussed the recipe for daube de veau and other veal dishes.
“I am good at maths and physics,” he said, wiping his mouth on the lace trimmed napkin. There was a lot of lace in Les Pines. Doilies on the little tables, trimmings on the dresser shelves and surprisingly, for the villa was not overlooked, delicate lace curtains inside the heavy drapes. When I mentioned it to Grandmère later she nodded. “Edith likes her decorations. To me they make unnecessary work.”
Madame D’Amboise liked her ornaments too. Porcelain vases, empty of flowers were scattered around the room and a group of china shepherdesses frolicked on the mantelpiece. I wondered how long these pieces would last in Mother’s hands. Not long, I suspected and then for the first time in days I thought about home. How were they? Did they miss me? Dada would, I was sure, but Mother? The fact that I no longer missed them suddenly made me feel a little guilty.
“What about you?” Luc’s question broke through my thoughts and dragged me back from our cold hillside into the D’Amboise’s over-furnished dining room.
“What are you good at?”
“Well, languages, maybe,” I said, shyly.” And literature and history. I love history.”
“Ah!” said Luc. “Henry the Eighth and his six wives, eh? We too have learned about him.”
We both laughed and got further into a conversation about school and life in our different countries. Why couldn’t Jean Paul have been like him, I despaired, but then a private little corner of my mind whispered to me that M. D’Amboise wasn’t Étienne. My cheeks felt hot and I knew I was blushing. I quickly took a gulp from my water glass. Just thinking about Étienne was thrilling.
“Are you alright, Eleanor?” Grandmère’s even voice broke into my thoughts.
When I looked up she was staring at me, her hooded brown eyes studying my face as though trying to read my mind.
“Yes,” I said hurriedly. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you. I was a little hot. That’s all.”
/> “We’ll go outside,” said Luc. “Is that alright, Maman?”
“Of course, dear.” Madame D’Amboise smiled indulgently at her son.
“Lisette. You go outside too.” Grandmère instructed and the child obediently pushed away her chair and skipped after us through the long doors into the garden.
“That little one looks better than I’ve seen her for ages,” I heard Madame D’Amboise say as I followed Luc outside.
“Yes, maybe. She likes having Eleanor with us.”
“I’m not surprised. The girl is quite charming.”
“Was I supposed to hear that,” I whispered to Luc who had raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“Oh yes. Maman never wastes words.”
We giggled together and slowly walked towards the pine trees and the old house. It was blessedly cool in the shade and I loved the feel of the tall, un-mowed grass brushing my bare legs. Lisette danced into the trees and squeaked with joy at the sight of so many pine cones scattering the dusty ground.
“Can I take some, please,” she begged of Luc.
“Of course,” he grinned.
“Don’t get your dress dirty,” I warned. “Grandmère will be cross.”
Luc and I sat on an old wooden bench which had been abandoned beside the wall of the stone house. I could see newer, smarter iron chairs on the small patio outside the living room. The seats were adorned with blue lacy cushions, which would have saved bare thighs from the iron scrollwork but looked really too precious to sit on.
“Are you enjoying your holiday?” Luc leant back on the bench and rested his head against a flat piece of stone. He looked unbelievably relaxed and free from care and I realised how different this household was from the Martins and, for that matter, from mine. He was looking up to the tops of the pine trees watching as the sun pierced the close trunks and sent shafts of brilliant light into the dark woodland. I looked too, entranced by the almost magical scene. If a unicorn with a silver horn had trotted out in front of us, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“Oh yes,” I said.
“And you get on alright with the family?”
“Yes.” I said carefully. “Well, with Grandmère and M. Martin. And Lisette.” I turned my head to look for the little girl, suddenly concerned that she might have wandered off. But she was there, sitting on the ground under the trees, shaking out her skirt-full of pine cones.
“But not Jean Paul and Madame Martin.”
I shook my head, still looking away. “They don’t like me.”
Did I sound pathetic? I must have for Luc put his hand on my arm and gave it a sympathetic squeeze.
“They don’t like anybody,” he said. “It’s not you specifically.”
I was confused. Luc’s long fingers gripping my arm felt good and rather welcome. I didn’t want him to think I was complaining, or worse, being childish but the need to discuss the Martins with someone was becoming difficult to suppress.
“Jean Paul hates me,” I said, lowering my voice in case Lisette heard me. “I have no idea why he agreed to be part of the exchange programme.”
“It was his father and grandmother’s idea. I think they thought it might get him away from his mother.”
Now I was more confused.
“How?” I stared at him. “Why?”
“You must have noticed,” Luc said, lowering his gaze from the pine tops to look directly at me. “Jean Paul and Madame Martin spend a lot of time together. An awful lot.”
I nodded, thinking about their evening sessions in the salon and the giggling as they walked together to church. They even mouthed to each other at supper time. Was this how mothers and sons always behaved? Simply a normal loving relationship? I had no basis to work on, certainly nothing from home. Our neighbours on the hillside, the Winstanleys, appeared to have the same cool attachment to each other as everyone else I knew. Mrs Winstanley, on the few occasions I’d met her with Graham, was pleasant but not especially affectionate with him. She was nicer to me, if anything.
I glanced quickly at Luc. He was still looking at me, his face serious and his clever brown eyes examining my expression as though to ensure that I had understood exactly what he was saying. I wasn’t certain I had.
“Maybe,” I said, “it’s because he and his father don’t get on. They fight a lot.”
“I know.”
“And M. Martin and his wife seem to be…” here I held back concerned that I was gossiping about my hosts.
“They loathe each other too.” Luc stood up and glanced over to Lisette who was arranging the pine cones in patterns. “Eleanor,” he said, also lowering his voice so that the child wouldn’t hear. “Watch your step. Mathilde can be dangerous. She is…how shall I put it…reckless.”
I was still taking this in when he added almost casually, “and by the way, Jean Paul is not Étienne’s child. She brought him with her when they married.” He looked again at Lisette. “Neither is she, for that matter.”
Chapter 10
I changed out of my best dress when we got home from the D’Amboise house and immediately Grandmère put me to work dropping tomatoes in boiling water in order to skin them.
“After you’ve done that, Eleanor, collect the eggs and pick some beans and courgettes. And I want a couple of lettuce too.”
“Alright,” I nodded, careful not to show my reluctance. Normally I was glad to do Grandmère’s bidding but this afternoon I yearned to go somewhere quiet and think about the things Luc had told me. I could hardly believe them and wondered if he had made a mistake or was telling mean tales because he didn’t like Jean Paul.
But even as I thought it I knew that it couldn’t be true. Luc simply wasn’t like that. Even at sixteen Luc was an honourable person and has remained so.
There was a smear of blood on the door of the chicken house and I looked around suddenly nervous that a fox had got in and killed my flock. I thought of them now as my flock having taken over their feeding and changing the straw bedding in the nest boxes. They clucked around my feet as I scattered corn and shredded greens for them and would lay happily in my arms if I picked one up. God! Had I left the wire door open in my confusion after the events of last evening? But no. All was quiet and secure. The birds were sitting quietly under the shade of the oak tree whose enormous branches hung over half the run. One of them was muttering to herself and I saw that her comb and cheeks were bloodied. She must have caught herself on something, I thought, and when I went back into the kitchen with my basket of eggs I told Grandmère.
“No,” Grandmère said. “She’s being pecked and I know which one is doing it. I think it’s time for it to go.”
I didn’t like the thought that one of my hens was going to be killed and said nothing but worse was to come. “You can dispatch it, Eleanor. I’ll show you how.”
It was a horrid business my first kill but I reasoned with myself that if I was going to keep hens at home then I would have to learn this. After all, Grandmère killed them regularly and I ate the delicious results with relish. So later, when I trailed outside, in the wake of a very purposeful Grandmère, I had almost put my sensitive nature aside.
“This is the one,” said Grandmère and suddenly grabbed a large white chicken who’d been strutting importantly through the flock and brought it to me. “Look,” she said, “it has blood on its beak. Thinks it’s in charge.”
I looked at the condemned bird. It did indeed have a bloodied beak but was now sitting quietly in Grandmère’s grasp quite unaware of its fate. “Can’t we leave it,” I said. “Perhaps the hot weather has upset it.”
“No,” she said. “It has become a bully and I won’t have that.”
I must have shown my distaste for the task ahead because she frowned. “Come on, girl. Knowing how to kill is a necessity on a farm, I’m sure your Mother knows that.”
I thought of Mother in the fields and could never remember her killing anything. Maybe she had and I never knew, although a sheep would be a bigger prospect than
a chicken.
“I tell you once it starts this nonsense it won’t give up,” Grandmère continued, taking a firmer grip on the unsuspecting chicken. “And the others will be put off laying. Anyway I need a bird for tomorrow’s lunch and this is a good plump one. Now,” she shifted her hand and beckoned me forward, “I’ll show you how and you must do it.”
Her instructions must have been good for I pulled the neck of the white hen cleanly in one go. It didn’t struggle and although its wings flapped for a little while afterwards, it was dead immediately.
“Well done.” Étienne was standing outside the chicken run watching us and my stomach lurched. So hard was I concentrating that I hadn’t noticed his arrival. He had returned home.
“Fish yesterday, chicken today. You are learning.” He was smiling indulgently at me like a father praising a clever child and I searched his face for some recognition of the fact that our relationship was not that. There was nothing to see.
“How did you get on at the market,” asked Grandmère, taking the lifeless bird out of my hands and walking towards the wire door. “Did you get a good price for the heifers?”
“Excellent. I could have sold twice that many. Henri D’Amboise was a little jealous, I think.”
Grandmère shrugged. “Our land is better than theirs.”
I could hear the put-put of Jean Paul’s bike coming into the yard. Where he’d been I didn’t know and didn’t care. And it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen even a glimpse of Mathilde. I usually saw her at lunch for half an hour or so but we’d been out, so that was the explanation.
Étienne’s face altered and his smile faded. He jerked his head towards the sound of the bike. “I suppose he’s been off all day. Drinking beer with that damned rubbish he calls friends. Done none of the jobs I wanted.” He was almost snarling. “Christ! I’ll kill him.” He strode towards the yard and Grandmère, shaking her head, followed, the dead white chicken dangling from her strong hand. “Come on, Eleanor,” she sighed. “We have to get on with the supper.”
When I Was Young Page 12