Courageous Bride

by Jane Peart

  Alair wondered how she could survive this and had to determinedly place her trust in God. Surely he would protect Luc, bring him safely home to her.

  At the thought of the child she was now assured would be born sometime in December, Alair’s prayers became even more fervent. God, let the end of this war truly bring the peace we are all praying for. Whether this baby is a boy or a girl, let it be possible that he or she will grow up in a safe world, the kind of world Luc believes in, is willing to fight for….

  1944

  chapter

  23

  Mayfield, Virginia

  Cameron Hall

  March 1944

  THE PHONE RANG, piercing the quiet afternoon.

  “I’ll get it,” Kitty offered, rising. “It’s probably Craig. He said he’d call from Los Angeles.” She went out to the hall, leaving Jill and Scott discussing the evening’s plans.

  Their conversation stopped abruptly when Kitty reentered the room with a face drained of color. She moved over to the table and, steadying herself on the back of one of the Heppewhite chairs, said in a voice that shook, “Something’s happened. It’s Luc.”

  A shocked silence followed. Then Scott asked, “What is it?”

  Through stiff lips Jill asked, “Is he dead?”

  “No, he was shot down, taken prisoner. That’s all I know so far.”

  “One of us should go over to Montclair,” Scott said, getting to his feet.

  “I’ll go,” Kitty said quietly.

  “Yes, maybe that would be best,” Scott agreed.

  “Give Cara and Kip our love, our sympathy,” said Jill, knowing it would not be enough, wouldn’t help.

  “Of course.” Kitty slipped on her jacket, picked up her handbag and car keys. “I’ll let you know … later,” she said as she went out of the room, out the front door.

  Driving the short distance over to Montclair, Kitty’s mind was in turmoil. What to say? In one way, under the devastating grief there was anger. Why, why? Kip had encouraged Luc, made him feel that joining the air force was the best way to serve. He had been inordinately proud of his son. It was almost as if Luc were his alter ego, his youth relived, as if Luc were experiencing the whole reckless adventure his father had pioneered.

  When she walked into the house, she heard the raw sound of a man sobbing. Cara turned and looked at Kitty as she came into the living room. Her eyes were anguished. She stood beside Kip, whose head was down on his crossed arms on the table, his shoulders shaking.

  Part of Kitty did not want to feel pity for him. She stood there, almost dispassionately watching, wanting to scream, You wanted him to go. This is what happens when young men go to war!—but that would be too cruel, inhuman. Kip needed more. He needed compassion. The words of a poem she loved came back into her mind: “Loose me from tears and make me see how each hath back what once he stayed to weep: Homer his sight, David his little lad.”

  Surely, God willing, Kip would have Luc back once this horrible war was over. At least Luc hadn’t been killed. Whatever a German prison camp was like, there was still a chance that Kip and Luc would be reunited.

  Montclair

  It was gray dark when Cara woke up, the furniture hardly discernible in the dimness of the room. Kip’s place beside her in the bed was empty. When had he got up, where had he gone? Probably to the air field….

  A glance at the bedside clock told her she had slept a good six hours. Still, she felt she had spent a sleepless night. The heaviness of yesterday’s news hung like a weight over her as she dressed, went downstairs.

  In the kitchen she made coffee. How did one go on doing the ordinary things of life when everything had changed, dreams had been shattered, the future diminished?

  She got out cream, put the sugar bowl on the table, and answered her own question out loud. “But life is full of tragedy. You only need to pick up the paper; every day another disaster, somebody’s tragedy.”

  Why was it people seemed to be able to withstand the big tragedies, with whatever inner source most people find? … It was the unexpected disasters that wounded the spirit, sickened the heart …

  Kip, who had been called from the reserves to active duty, requested compassionate leave from his commanding officer and was granted it. As they waited for more news—where the prison camp was located, whether the Red Cross had been able to contact Luc, confirm the information—Kip remained devastated. Nothing seemed to help, not Cara’s support or others’ sympathy.

  Although Kitty’s heart ached for him, Cara knew that underneath, her twin dealt with her resentment of the past, saying Kip had encouraged Luc to learn to fly, almost as if he had wanted to replay his own youth. What would Kitty have had Luc do? Be a conscientious objector like Gareth?

  But Gareth’s feelings were deep-rooted, bred into him by his father from boyhood. If anyone had a reason to want to go fight, defeat the enemy, especially the Japanese, it was Gareth. His beloved was a prisoner trapped in who knew what horrible conditions, from whom he hadn’t heard for two years.

  No, to be fair, it had been Luc’s own choice to become a pilot, join the air force. Maybe he had unconsciously needed to prove something to his father, if nothing else. Would Kip ever have his son back? Well, if he could survive a German POW camp, he might still come home.

  Kip had to report back to duty before they received definite confirmation of the name and location of Luc’s prison camp.

  England

  When Niki heard about Luc being shot down and taken prisoner, she was devastated. She thought of Tante and Uncle Kip, what they must be going through. And Aunt Kitty, who had loved Luc and hated the war. When Bryanne called her from Birchfields to tell her, Niki had for the rest of the day moved around as in a walking nightmare. She lived the scene in her mind—the shrapnel-riddled plane, the ball of fire, the spiraling downward plunge, the explosion on the ground. Evidently Luc had parachuted out but was injured, couldn’t escape, and was captured. All Alair had received was an official notice that he was now a prisoner of war.

  Niki thought of their wedding day. No two people had ever seemed more in love. Alair had been a picture, and Luc had gazed at her with such devotion…. Niki’s heart wrenched as she remembered. She should write to Alair. But what could she say? Were there any words that could help? Alair was in that lonely place where sometime everyone who loves has to walk.

  Fear gripped Niki. It had happened to Luc. Luc, who had always seemed invincible to her. As far back as she could remember, Luc had been in her life. More than a brother, a friend, the one person in her world that she knew had loved her unconditionally all these years. He had stood up for her, stood by her; even when he wasn’t convinced she knew what she was doing, he had fought for her. She had never believed anything bad could happen to Luc.

  If it could happen to Luc, no one she loved was safe. Niki clenched her hands, brought them to her mouth, bit down on her knuckles to stem the agonized sobs that rushed from deep inside. Fraser. She knew he was in dangerous work. He couldn’t talk about it; it was top secret. But he had been training with his unit down at the coast, cliff climbing. The rumors were that those units were preparing for the coming invasion of France. She shivered with dread.

  Niki touched the small luckenbooth brooch she wore pinned to the lining of her uniform jacket. Betrothed. She and Fraser were promised to each other as surely, as solemnly, as if they had already taken marriage vows.

  If anything happened to Fraser, she couldn’t stand it.

  The irony of the tragedy came only a month later. Before they had verifiable information about Luc, Kip was killed. In a routine flight delivering a B-52 bomber from an air base in Texas to another in North Carolina, his plane disappeared, mysteriously went down somewhere in the mountains of Tennessee.

  chapter

  24

  THE DAY OF KIP’S memorial service, the Mayfield church was packed. People who had known Kip since childhood, had been friends and neighbors of both the Montrose and Cameron fam
ilies, were represented there. A group of others who had come out of respect and love but could not be seated in the small sanctuary was clustered outside on the steps and in the courtyard.

  Kitty sat beside Cara in the Montrose family pew, feeling her sister’s pain as if it were her own. At one time it could have been she who was newly widowed, grieving for the man who never quite grew up, the boy they had both loved. Perhaps he had died in a way he might have chosen.

  Cara had been composed but numbed, so Kitty had made the funeral arrangements. With Cara’s approval, she found something appropriate to be read at the close of the service. It was a poem written by a young British airman. Kitty felt even Kip, who professed to be “illiterate,” would have loved it.

  Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

  And danced the skies on laughter’s silvered wings:

  Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth

  Of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things

  You have not dreamed of, wheeled and soared and swung

  High in the sunlit silence, hovering there,

  I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung

  My eager craft through footless halls of air.

  Up, up the long delirious, burning blue

  I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace

  Where never lark, or even eagle, flew.

  And while, with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

  The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

  Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.*

  The young minister, soon to leave to become an army chaplain himself, read the poem with great emotion. The hush that followed showed how moved by it everyone was.

  Cara turned to Kitty, her eyes bright with tears, and whispered, “We must send a copy of this to Luc.”

  They regularly sent Red Cross packages to Luc in the German prison camp, not knowing whether he got them or would get the sad news of his father’s death. How strange that Kip had suffered the loss of his son and now it was the son who had lost his father.

  Kitty remembered the poem she had recalled at the time they received the news of Luc’s being shot down, taken prisoner. She had prayed then that Kip would someday “have back what once he stayed to weep”—his son. Now she knew it would not be in this life, but she had the assurance that one day, however far off, father and son would be reunited.

  At the graveside Cara accepted the folded flag that had draped Kip’s coffin. Kitty prayed she would not have to accept another one later for Luc. She remembered the horror stories told by Allied prisoners after World War I. In 1918 Germany was considered a Christian country, not the godless nation it was now.

  Back at Montclair, after all the family and friends had left, Cara sat alone at the kitchen table, sipping tea. She was alone as she had not been in years. Niki was in England, Luc who knew where? And Kip—she kept listening for his footstep, his call, knowing it would never come again.

  When Niki read the account of Kip’s funeral printed in the Mayfield Messenger sent to her by Cara, she wept as she had not wept since the news of Luc’s capture. Kip dead was something she could hardly imagine. He had always been larger than life to her. The tall, strong American who had appeared at the orphanage when she was four years old had remained in her heart and mind as her idol. He had been more than a father; he had been the enduring symbol of security and unconditional love. She could not remember a time when he had scolded or corrected. Kip had always left the discipline to Cara. He had laughed a lot, hugged a lot, loved her just as he had loved Luc, his own son. Now Kip was gone from her life forever, and she would never be able to fill the void he left.

  Kip’s memory echoed through the silent house. The emptiness of the large home reflected the great emptiness within Cara. With Kip, a part of herself was gone forever. Whatever had happened between them in their childhood, their lives, their marriage, her life had been inexorably bound up in his. There had been too many years, too many shared experiences; there were too many bonds tying them together, even into eternity.

  In the weeks that followed Kip’s funeral, more and more Cara realized it was impossible for her to manage the stable and the acreage by herself. She sold all but three of the horses—hers, Luc’s, and Niki’s. Someday Luc and Niki would both come home. In the meantime the Pony Club lessons were suspended. People were busy with war work. Even the children were busily occupied in various collection efforts—aluminum cans, foil, rubber bands.

  The house was achingly lonely for one person. Montclair was meant to be full of the sounds of life, of children’s voices, of doors opening and slamming, of laughter, music, and running feet on the stairway. It had ceased to be a home, had become an empty shell.

  Cara spent many sleepless nights walking the floor, going in and out of the rooms, trying to decide what to do. Finally she determined she couldn’t continue living here alone. She looked into the possiblility of renting Montclair for the duration. However, realtors reminded her that since it was wartime, there’d be no interest unless she wanted to turn it over to the government for some purpose such as to provide a rest and rehabilitation center for servicemen. These days, with all the shortages of civilian help and workers needed to maintain such a large estate, it would be too much responsibility for an individual. Montclair had once required twenty servants to keep its high-ceilinged rooms dusted, the furniture polished, the floors shiny, the windows sparkling. And the grounds—well, where could you get gardeners nowadays? Discouraged, Cara came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to close it for the present. God willing, after the war Luc would be coming home, taking over the magnificent heritage of his father, grandfather, and ancestors. Until then the house would be waiting for him.

  Cara was unsure what she would do next, but she knew that eventually she would be guided as to what her purpose should be. How could she contribute to the country’s war effort? There must be something she could do. She went to the local Red Cross board, applied for any sort of work for which her previous war experience might qualify her. Much to her surprise, within two weeks she was assigned to the army hospital near Richmond as a program facilitator.

  It was with a sense of anticipation mixed with nostalgia that she prepared to leave Montclair for her new job. There was a finality about it. Cara was too much an optimist to imagine she was leaving forever. She held on to the hope that some happier day she would come back, that one day Luc and his children would live here. She closed the door for the last time and placed the key under the mat as she had always done.

  *Author John Gillespie Magee. Reproduced by permission from This England magazine

  chapter

  25

  Blanding Court

  WHEN ALAIR HAD RECEIVED the tersely worded official notification of Luc’s capture, it had given his name, rank, and prison number. She had read it over and over until at last she had absorbed the terrible truth. She kept that paper folded and with her all the time; it somehow made her feel connected with Luc.

  But try as she might, she couldn’t imagine where he was, what his day was like as hers inched agonizingly by. She had been told that certain international rules governed the imprisonment of officers. Not that that meant anything now to the Nazis. Stories of the atrocities perpetrated by occupying troops in all the countries they had subjugated—Holland, Belgium, France—had been fed to the British public in every newspaper. She had no assurance that enemy prisoners, be they officers or not, would receive any kind of civilized treatment.

  When the letters began to trickle in from him, few and far between as they were, censored and brief, she clung to them as if to a lifeline. She read them until their edges were ragged. He said little about his daily life.

  Thinking of you, I find I can’t remember anything the world thinks important, just the times spent with you. I treasure each tiny memory. You are kept safe, locked forever in my heart. Hold on to this promise, for I intend to keep it—we will get through this
and be together again.

  Ever yours,

  Luc

  Alair held on to these words, believing that with God’s help, Luc’s promise would come true for them.

  Niki had been transferred and reassigned and was now translating communiqués from the French underground to various Allied services. This fact somewhat made up for her crushing disappointment of not going with her team into occupied France. Niki felt that what she was doing now was more worthwhile than her former work as a teleprinter operator. It also kept her from the enervating depression that threatened to overwhelm her when she thought about Kip and Luc. One afternoon as she came off duty, she was told, “Gilbreaux, you have a visitor.”

  Niki hurried down to the lounge, thinking it might be Fraser. Perhaps he’d received an unexpected leave. But when she got to the entryway, she saw a man in the uniform of the Free French standing with his back to the door, looking out the window. By the set of his shoulders, the shape of his head, she recognized him. It was Paul. At the sound of her footsteps he turned, and for a few seconds they simply stared at each other. Finally she gasped his name. “Paul!”

  He came toward her. He looked older. His face was lean, his cheekbones prominent, his features sharpened, his eyes wary. He held out his hands and she placed hers in them. Then he leaned forward, kissed her on both cheeks in the French manner.

  “Niki, Cherie,” he said. “Have you forgiven me?”

  “Oh, Paul, yes, long ago,” she responded spontaneously, momentarily wondering what might have happened if he hadn’t cut her from the mission. That was all past now, in light of everything else that had happened. “You’ve heard about Luc?” she asked. From the pained expression that crossed his face, she knew that he had.