When I Was Young

by Mary Fitzgerald

  “Yes, perfectly,” she answered. “Did you bring in carrots and potatoes?”

  I nodded but now I had one eye on M. Hubert. Who was he going to question next?

  “What now?” Étienne came to stand in front of the detective. “Haven’t I answered enough of your stupid questions?”

  “No,” he answered, carefully. “I don’t think you have.” He looked at the four of us. “Every one of you is lying about something. Even the child.”

  Lisette giggled and Grandmère took her by the arm and gave her a little shake.

  M. Hubert scowled. “You country people. You think you’re above the law. Well you’re not, I tell you. You are not!”

  I glanced to Albert Charpentier, the local policeman, wondering what he thought of that insult. After all, he was a country person too. I raised my eyebrows to him and received a grin and a wink in reply. M. Hubert turned quickly and caught the wink and his scowl deepened.

  “Go and wait in the car, Charpentier.”

  I watched Albert wander off to the black Citroen and wondered which of us would be accompanying Hubert back to town. I thought it might be me for the detective turned his baleful face back in my direction.

  “How old are you, Miss?”

  “Sixteen,” I said, astonished at his question. “You know that, you have my passport.”

  “Mm,” he grunted, then, “we’ve been in touch with the British Consul in Angers, a M. Castres.”

  My heart sank. They were going to throw me out of the country. I glanced despairingly at Étienne and then at Grandmère. They looked just as shocked as I felt.

  “M. Castres says that as you are a child, he should decide what happens to you and that he has wheels in motion to get you back to England.”

  “Oh,” I muttered. Tears were welling up, stinging my eyes and I quickly dragged a hand across them.

  M. Hubert completely misread my response. “Not so quick, young lady,” he said and there was a gleeful glint in his eye. “You don’t get out of trouble that easily. At sixteen, you are considered of an age to accept criminal responsibility. So M. Castres cannot remove you from this country without my say so. And as of now I don’t say so.” He was actually smirking. “You must stay here until I’m satisfied that you had nothing to do with the murder of Mathilde Martin.”

  I can’t describe the relief I felt and I heard Grandmère breathe out a long sigh which I knew was relief too but mindful that he was watching my reaction I said, trying to put a piteous note into my voice, “but my parents are very ill. They need me.”

  He shrugged. “That’s of no interest to me. I have to track down a killer.” He turned to go and then stopped, putting a hand to his head as though he’d just remembered something. “The boy, Jean Paul, has been sighted in Angers. He’ll soon be picked up and we’ll see what he has to say about this… affair.” M. Hubert smirked again. “I think he’ll tell me what I want to know.”

  We watched as the police car turned out of the yard and then turned to each other. “Jean Paul won’t be any use to him,” Étienne said. “Even if they catch up with him. What could he say?”

  “Nothing,” said Grandmère and smiled at me. “So, you will stay with us a bit longer.”

  “Yes,” I said and then added, shyly, “if you’ll have me.”

  “But of course. You belong here.”

  I didn’t look at Étienne but I knew he was grinning and Lisette was laughing out loud. “The bad man has gone,” she squealed. “Now we can be happy.”

  And we were, throughout the rest of that day and the days after while the sun beat down on the farm turning the meadow grass brown and the river even more sluggish. I, free from the worry of M. Castres, worked in the kitchen and dairy in the morning with Grandmère and in the vineyard with Étienne in the afternoon. “However did we manage before you came?” asked Grandmère early one day, when I came into the kitchen with morning bread. Mathilde’s bicycle had now become mine and I happily rode to the village to collect supplies and even the five miles to the little town. People were getting to know me and if they occasionally asked how the police investigation was getting on I didn’t mind. There was nothing to tell them and they accepted that and asked kindly about my parents.

  Luc came over to see me, greeting me as a friend with a kiss on both cheeks. It was quite surprising but I loved the idea of having a friend here in France. We sat by the river and talked about books and films, although neither of us had any in common, except for The Count of Monte Cristo which I was enjoying. He asked about the police enquiry and I told him all I knew, including the fact that Jean Paul had been seen in Angers.

  “Oh, I know,” he said. “Everyone’s heard that. He was seen at the station apparently, trying to get on a train without a ticket.” This was news to me and I wondered if Étienne knew about it.

  “I wonder where he wants to go?” I mused, lying back on the bank and looking at the washed out blue of the morning sky. A few little clouds, floating like white puffs of cotton wool, had appeared in the last hour, the first clouds I’d seen in a week. Might they signal an end to the terribly hot weather?

  “As far away as possible, probably,” Luc replied. “Now that Mathilde has gone, there’s no reason for him to stay.”

  “But he left before she, well, before she died.”

  “Ah,” Luc sounded enigmatic, like someone in a Sherlock Holmes story, “but did he?”

  I sat up and stared at Luc’s clever face. “What d’you mean? He went in the early morning. Lisette saw him.”

  “Yes, I know that. But how do you know Mathilde wasn’t already dead?”

  “But we didn’t find her ‘til supper time.” Even as I said it I remembered M Hubert saying that Mathilde hadn’t drowned but was already dead when she went in the river. That brought a new thought.

  “Luc,” I said. “What you said the other day about Jean Paul not being Étienne’s son. Did you mean it?”

  “Mm,” he nodded. “She brought him with her when they married. He was a baby and they told everybody that he was Étienne’s son, but he was born before Étienne even met her. I heard my mother telling my sister. Grandmère,” he jerked his head towards the house, “had told her.”

  I wondered why Grandmère had told Edith d’Amboise what was essentially a family secret but there were obviously lots of things I didn’t know about this family. I looked up to the vineyard where I could see Étienne moving about, carrying bundles of cuttings to put on his bonfire. I should be helping him I thought but I wanted to talk with Luc.

  “And Lisette? You said about Lisette too.”

  “Oh, well. Everyone knows about her. They had a German officer billeted here during the war, a major, I think.” He looked at the river, greeny grey and moving slowly towards the sea. It occurred to me that Étienne hadn’t been fishing for days, the vineyard was taking up all his spare time.

  “I remember that German,” Luc continued. “I used to see him when I walked down the lane and he would be driven past. He’d get the driver to slow down and he’d throw out a bar of chocolate sometimes. Maman didn’t like me eating it but I would take it into the fields where she couldn’t see me. The thing was that he wasn’t a monster like some of them. Some of them were bastards.” I flinched at that swear word. It didn’t sound like Luc.

  “Go on,” I said, appalled but fascinated by this story.

  “Well, Étienne was away, first with the Free French army and then in the Resistance so the Major was the only man in the house. Mathilde got very close to him and it was noticed and talked about, all through the village. Lisette is his child.”

  I thought of the newspaper photograph and the man cutting Mathilde’s hair while the others watched. That’s what it was about, they were getting back at her for collaborating. But then there was Lisette. Poor little girl. I felt sorrier for her than I had before and when a few moments later she came skipping across the bridge to join us I gave her a special hug.

  “Papa says can you come
and help him. He says that you are so good with the vines.” She snuggled into my chest.

  I beamed, praise indeed and dropping a kiss on her head, I scrambled to my feet.

  “Oh,” said Luc, looking very disappointed. “D’you have to go?”

  “Yes, of course. Don’t you go when your father asks you for help?” I was surprised that he didn’t seem to understand the necessities of a farming life.

  “Étienne isn’t your father,” Luc said quietly. “And you’re supposed to be on holiday.”

  I thought about what he said as I walked up through the rows, Lisette running and jumping beside me. He was right, Étienne wasn’t my father. He was absolutely nothing like my father nor, come to think of it, like any other father I knew. Jed Winstanley was a father and so was Mr Franklin but I couldn’t see Étienne in them. And I didn’t want to.

  That evening a little breeze blew up from the south, rustling through the willows by the river and bringing a welcome gust of, admittedly warm but moving air in through the dining room windows.

  “I think the weather will break,” said Étienne, sitting in his place and carving up the baton of bread. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

  “I hope so,” Grandmère sighed, taking the cover off the tureen and stirring the soup with her huge ladle. “My feet don’t like this heat.”

  “My feet don’t like this heat, my feet don’t like this heat,” sang Lisette and we laughed, even Grandmère, who put a bowl of soup in front of her then wagged a pretend angry finger.

  “If the weather holds I thought we might spend a day out tomorrow,” said Étienne, turning to me. “Is there somewhere you’d like to go?”

  I didn’t need to think for long. “Fontevraud. Could we go there? I’d love to see it.”

  “Why d’you want to go there?” Étienne looked very puzzled and rather upset. “Fontevraud Abbey is a prison. It’s an awful place.” His voice had dropped and he put down his spoon into his half finished bowl of soup.

  “Fontevraud,” I repeated, thinking that one of us had made a mistake. “I’m sure it has the tombs of some English kings and queens. My teacher told me about it and showed us photographs. They’re in the Abbey. It’s,” I stopped, not sure that they would understand and from the look on both Étienne’s and Grandmère’s faces, what I was saying was making them rather uncomfortable. “It’s a connection to history. I do so love history” I knew I was blushing and I was puzzled too. Did Miss Baxter forget to say that the Abbaye de Fontevraud was a prison?

  “I don’t know if members of the public are allowed in,” said Étienne. “It would be a waste of time.” Obviously he didn’t want to go there.

  I must have looked down hearted for Grandmère said, “what about Chinon? If I remember my schooldays,” and here she paused, “I think we were told that Jeanne d’Arc was there. That’s history. And the town is very quaint too.”

  “Yes,” I nodded not wanting to make a fuss. “I’d like that.”

  “Can I come too?” pleaded Lisette. “We had such a lovely day out last time, I know I’ll love this one.”

  “If you’re a good girl,” Grandmère said and Lisette bounced up and down on her seat and had to be persuaded to hurry up with her soup so that I could bring in the cold chicken in tarragon sauce.

  Chapter 20

  The weather hadn’t broken the next day. We awoke to the sight of high white cloud which obscured the sun most of the time so that only occasionally did it manage to pierce through and brilliant shafts of light briefly brightened the parched fields and hillsides. It was oppressively warm and the air felt heavy and full of portent.

  I think the heat had got to Grandmère for she had decided not to come with us. “Are you feeling ill again?” I asked, concerned.

  “No. But I’ll stay at home today. Tell me all about it when you get back. And make sure Lisette behaves herself.”

  “I will,” I promised and we set off, the three of us in the front of the van, thrilled, I think to be away from the farm although we all loved it as we loved life.

  “It’s too hot to sit on my knee,” I told Lisette. “You can sit between Papa and me, there’s plenty of room.”

  “Yes, Eleanor.” She was pink with excitement, the colour in her cheeks suiting her. Lately she had been looking better, not so wan or lifeless and more than once I’d heard her squeaking with laughter at something her new friend Claudine had said. Madame d’Amboise had brought her granddaughter to play on several occasions and Lisette seemed happier than she’d ever been. At least the d’Amboise family didn’t hold Lisette’s parentage against her but I wondered vaguely what might happen when she started school.

  “We’ll have a storm tonight,” said Étienne looking out of the van window as we drove along the south bank of the Loire towards Chinon. The trees lining the road were still, not even the slightest breeze to move them, nor were they throwing shadows. I had become used to the tree lined roads in this area with their straight shadows and the glittering water mirages showing ahead. Today it was different.

  The road rose and fell through the gently rolling countryside and now and then we would come across a rocky outcrop on which stood the ruins of a chateau or fortress. Except for those, the land was gentle and lush with vineyards and cattle pastures backed by deep green forests. It was lovely country, a planet away from my bleak Pennine hillside.

  “Look,” I said pointing to a chateau rising above the large town we were passing. It had a fairy tale quality with gleaming white stone walls and pepper pot towers.

  “That’s Saumur,” Étienne said, leaning over to look. “I was there for a while, during the war.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Oh,” he shrugged, “this and that.”

  I grinned, imagining what ‘this and that’ could have been and when he looked back at me he grinned too.

  We left the river road and went inland, halting at a cross roads. “Fontevraud is close to here,” Étienne said, waving his hand towards a road which went to the right. He was frowning. “If you really want to,” he said, turning to me, “we could go and have a look. Get it out of your system, eh?”

  I nodded eagerly, delighted to get my own way. And I did get it out of my system but I was sorry afterwards; my desire to visit Fontevraud brought back terrible memories for Étienne. Of course, I didn’t know anything about the abbey and the prison, except for the tombs but if I’d been older and perhaps a little less naïve I would have said ‘no’ when he’d reluctantly offered to take me there.

  The Abbey and its many buildings were so vast and complex that the small village seemed a mere afterthought. Now it was surrounded by a high wall and the white stone was scuffed and damaged so the entire place looked neglected and forbidding. The Abbey church dominated the other buildings with its huge mediaeval arches and pointed towers and should have been a place of wonder and faith but strangely, it seemed cold and remote.

  Étienne spoke to a man at the gatehouse and we were let in but only to the original Abbey church and the man came with us into the vast empty space which had been for seven hundred years a place of worship. To my astonishment, it was empty of all religious artefacts, no crosses, no statues, no paintings or plaques on the walls. Only one stained glass window remained to remind visitors, if indeed there were any, that this had once been one of the most important religious houses in all of France. I supposed that when it had been made into prison it had been de-consecrated. Now it was simply a stone space topped by a vanishingly high vaulted ceiling with dirty, littered floors underfoot, damaged stonework and to one side, almost disregarded, the tombs.

  They lay in a row, in curiously secular state, Henry, Eleanor and Richard carved out of white tufa stone and the smaller fourth tomb, Isabelle or Berengaria, fashioned from wood. The early mediaeval colours still clung to the effigies in places, mostly pale reds and washed out blues although Richard’s gown was a rich dark blue edged in yellow and the cleverly carved drapery on Henry’s tomb was cream with dust
y green stars.

  I stared at the faces, thin and regal and wondered if that is how they had looked in life. If so then they’d been a handsome family although, from what I’d read, a murderous one. But now they looked at peace, having atoned for their sins and appeared to be facing eternity in complete composure.

  “The bodies aren’t under there,” said the guard, pointing to the tombs. “Long gone and good riddance, I say.”

  He spoilt the moment as I supposed he’d intended. Republicanism still held sway amongst many men despite this land being blessed with exquisite chateaux and churches. I ignored him and continued to study the tombs, looking at their clothes and crowns and wonderfully carved hair while the man watched me with a sneer on his face.

  “Why is she reading when she’s dead?” asked Lisette pointing to the carving of Isabelle who lay with a book propped up between her elegant long fingers.

  “Maybe she read a lot when she was alive,” I said, looking up from my contemplation of these Plantagenet kings and queens. The guard was staring at me in a rather unpleasant way and I was suddenly anxious to leave. Taking Lisette’s hand, I hurried her outside where it was grey and gloomy under the oppressive clouds and the air was thick. I felt uncomfortable because Étienne, who hadn’t come in with us, was walking about restlessly, his face grim and his shoulders twitching. When we finally got into the van and drove away leaving behind the white buildings and the quiet little town I timidly asked him what was the matter.

  At first he didn’t answer and then he said, “Some of my friends were imprisoned in Fontevraud; Robert Brissac was lucky, he survived. Others did not. It is a terrible place and it still terrifies me.”

  “You didn’t say.” I was appalled at what I’d done. “I would never have made you take me there if I’d known.”

  “I know,” he sighed and dragged the steering wheel over so that we were on the road to Chinon. After a bit he spoke again. “Maybe this trip has been good in its way. Things have to faced, no matter how bad they are. I learned that long ago but I think that I had forgotten it.” He was thoughtful for a moment and then said, “I don’t know how you do it, Eleanor, but somehow you make me realise what it is I want and what I ought to do.” He had the ghost of a smile on his face and I didn’t understand what he meant but at least he wasn’t angry.