She knew very well that the time of invasion was approaching. She couldn’t put off the decision about Esmé forever. And perhaps the obvious panic that lay behind Luc’s visit affected her too.
She would have liked to talk to Charlie, but he had disappeared at the moment, and when he was away on a Resistance mission, there was no way of knowing when he would surface again.
So she had decided it was time to take Esmé to his grandparents. She knew already from Charlie that they would be in Paris for the month of May. Better do it straightaway, therefore, before they went back to the valley of the Loire.
And she’d thought carefully about exactly what she must say.
At her request now, Esmé was taken out of the room to spend a little time with the housekeeper, and she began.
“I see that you noticed something about my son, madame,” she began quietly. “He looks just like Charlie. That is because Charlie is his father.” She paused. “You did not know of his existence?”
“No.”
“That was at my request. I had my reasons, though I can assure you that I had no objections to Charlie’s father, nor to you, madame. Quite the contrary, in fact. But Charlie is very anxious that Esmé should be taken to a place of safety, and I can no longer deny that he is right. Charlie is engaged in dangerous activities himself, as we both know. And I too run certain risks.”
“Ah.” Marie looked at her. A woman in the Resistance. She had no doubt that Louise was telling her the truth.
“I have brought you documents.” Louise handed across the registration of Esmé’s birth. “As you will see, Charlie is named as the father. As soon as he reappears, he will be able to confirm all this.”
“Why did you avoid us? Because the child is illegitimate?”
“You would have insisted that Charlie take my son away from me. And he is all I have.”
“Why would we have done that?”
“Because I run the best brothel in Paris.”
Marie nodded. “You are right.”
Louise paused for a few moments.
“There is something else, madame. A secret that even Charlie does not know.” Louise paused for a few moments. “If anything were to happen to me, I should like to be sure that Esmé has all the love and care that is possible. I have no doubt of your kindness, madame, but there is a particular circumstance that may cause you to take an interest in my son.” She handed Marie a sealed envelope. “These papers concern my mother. Her name was Corinne Petit. My father, I finally discovered, was Marc. Your brother, madame. He knows nothing about me, and it’s better that way. But I wish you to know that Esmé is your nephew.”
Marie stared at her.
“Why did you not tell Marc?”
“I was too embarrassed.” She shrugged. “I met him once. In professional circumstances.”
“He came to your establishment?”
“No. I went to his house.”
Marie frowned, then understood.
“Oh my God.”
“It could have been worse. For that’s where I discovered. I saw the photographs of your wedding, and I recognized your husband. He was my English parents’ lawyer. He’d arranged my adoption.”
She and Marie gazed at each other.
“Do you mean that you and Marc …”
“No,” said Louise. “Thank God. I was able to leave, before …”
“And after that, you felt you couldn’t tell him.”
“I was always proud of my independence, madame, if not of the way I achieved it.” She smiled. “By the way, I admired the way you ran Joséphine. I tried to model my establishment on it, in a slightly different way, of course.”
“My husband is out, but he will be back in an hour or two. I wonder what he will say.”
“Esmé is his grandson. I think he will take care of him. It should be quite possible for you to check the truth of everything I have told you.”
“I do not disbelieve you.”
“If it were not true, madame, I would hardly be giving you the only treasure I possess.”
As Schmid considered his situation, he felt quite hopeful. On the one hand, of course, things had been going badly for the Wehrmacht. Allied bombing was increasing, so were the Resistance activities. Attacks on guard posts, factories sabotaged, trains derailed. The French, clearly, believed that an invasion was coming soon, and that France would rise up as General Patton led a huge assault across the channel.
But where? Some said the Allies might land in Normandy, or farther west. But Schmid didn’t believe that, nor did intelligence support that idea. The Allies would strike across the narrowest point of the Channel, between Dover and Calais. Why would they do anything else?
And when they did? That would be the test. No one should underestimate the genius of the führer, or of the Wehrmacht. For wherever they struck, the Allies would find the Germans ready for them. The assault would fail. The Allies would be massacred. Eisenhower would lose his command. Quite possibly the Americans would lose heart and give up, and then where would the Allies be?
Europe would belong to Germany.
That, Schmid told himself, as he waited for Luc Gascon to arrive, was how it would be.
It was destiny. It could not be otherwise.
Luc had passed three bad days. Now and then, he had felt remorse for what he had done. But his remorse was not great. Whatever relationship they had once had, Louise had scorned him. Indeed, when she’d said that even if she had an escape route, she wouldn’t tell him, it was quite clear that she’d happily leave him to his death. No, he thought, he owed her nothing at all. Nothing. He was just repaying her in kind.
What worried him was something far worse. He had just put himself in greater danger.
What if she told one of her Resistance friends about his visit and their quarrel? And that she already suspected he was a collaborator? When something happened to her, who was going to be at the top of their list of suspects? The fact that Schmid had also been there might provide a partial cover, but it wasn’t enough. He should have thought the whole thing through more carefully before he went to see the Gestapo man.
He’d let his feelings get in the way of his judgment—not something he would ever do normally. But he had this time, and he cursed his folly.
Even more than before, it seemed to Luc, he needed a place of safety. A place, at least, where he could hide for a while without being found. A place nobody knew.
He could think of only one. True, his brother, Thomas, knew of it. But nobody else. And Thomas, thank God, was the one person in the world whom he could trust.
There’d be work to do, of course. He’d have to stock it with food and water. Not an easy thing to do with rationing. But he could take canned food, smoked ham, other things that would keep, a little at a time from the restaurant. He told Édith he needed them for a customer, and she only shrugged. After all, it was his restaurant. He’d begun the process the evening after he’d seen Schmid.
And now, here he was again, back in Schmid’s office, and Schmid was smiling.
“I looked at the sketch,” the German said pleasantly, “and I agree with you. I have just given the order that she is to be watched day and night, and followed wherever she goes. With luck, she may lead us to something.” He passed a small wad of francs across the desk to Luc. “You have earned this. If our suspicion is correct, there will be more.”
“And if she doesn’t lead you to anyone?”
Schmid smiled.
“We shall set a trap.”
How peaceful it was at the château. If massive preparations were in motion, across the English Channel, for the greatest amphibious invasion in history, down in the Loire valley there was not a hint of it. Unless, perhaps, one counted the occasional Allied bomber, driven off course after bombing the railway yards around Paris, that droned across the sky.
But Marie had plenty to occupy her mind. She had little Esmé to think about.
There was no doubt about who he was
. Within two hours after Louise left, Marc had arrived at the rue Bonaparte. Five minutes of explanation and he confirmed the truth of everything.
“Take a quick look at your grandson,” she commanded. “Don’t try to see Louise. She doesn’t want it, and you must respect that. Then go.”
Roland, however, was quite another matter.
She’d never seen him so excited.
“I have a grandson? Let me look at him. Mon Dieu, but he’s like Charlie.”
“He’s illegitimate, of course,” she gently reminded him. She didn’t want him to get too happy, and then suffer a reaction, and take against the child. But she needn’t have worried.
“Oh, that’s nothing.” He shrugged. “Some of the greatest generals and statesmen, the noblest families in France, descend from the illegitimate children of kings.”
“True.” Marie thought she’d better get everything out of the way, at once. “But I must tell you that his mother—though she looks and behaves like one of us—is nonetheless the madam of a brothel, and was once a courtesan herself.”
This didn’t interest Roland either.
“Ma chérie, many of the royal mistresses were little better. It’s the same in other countries too. At least one of the English dukes is descended from a prostitute.” He thought for a moment. “You say she’s charming?”
“Yes.”
“Voilà. That’s all that matters.” He glanced at her. “For a mistress, of course. Not for a wife.”
“So you’ll be kind to him?”
“Of course I’ll be kind to him. He’s my grandson. The only one I have—unless Charlie has others we don’t know about.”
“That also would please you.”
“One welcomes proof of the family’s vigor.”
And he could hardly be separated from the little boy, took him on his knee, even carried him on his shoulders when they went outside.
The only person needed to complete the family circle was Charlie himself. But of Charlie, so far, there was no sign.
He’d been away so long, Marie wondered if the invasion might be imminent. The first days of June passed. The weather turned poor. Farther north, up by the coast, the seas were stormy. Whenever the Allies were coming, she thought, it clearly wouldn’t be just now.
It was mid-morning on the eighth of June when Charlie took the train from the station at Montparnasse. He hadn’t wanted to go. He’d been having such an interesting time with Max Le Sourd and his boys to the east of Paris that he hadn’t even been back to the apartment for more than two weeks. But this was an emergency.
The last three days had been dramatic. Seizing a small break in the bad weather, the Allies’ massive D-day invasion of Normandy had caught the Germans completely by surprise.
But not unprepared. Despite the heavy bombings, the huge bombardment from the sea and the vast sabotage efforts of the coordinated Resistance networks, the beaches had been stoutly defended. The Allies were establishing their beachhead, but the fighting was intense. The Allied advance would be neither easy nor swift. Even assuming all went well, it might be weeks before they could reach Paris.
And the fever of Resistance activity—derailing trains carrying troops to the new front, blowing up arms depots, cutting off German fuel and power—also included one lesser but important task.
Saving Allied airmen.
The message had gotten to Charlie early that morning, brought by one of his friends in the Confrérie Notre-Dame.
“There’s a Canadian airman. One of a bomber crew. They came down in the Loire valley. The rest of them didn’t make it, but he got lucky. Our boys down there have got him, but they need help.”
“Can’t they send him south?” asked Charlie.
That was the usual procedure. The Resistance had set up quite a good escape route. Passed from group to group, airmen were being smuggled across the Pyrenees into Spain.
“We’ve just had word of several airmen being betrayed. Some of the southern groups must have been infiltrated.”
This was the trouble with the rapid enlargement of the networks, Charlie thought. Inevitable perhaps, but it still sickened him.
“What do you want me to do?”
“We may have an alternative. Couriers we think we can trust. But we need a week. And a new safe house.”
“Where is he?”
“About three hours’ walk from your family’s château.”
When Roland de Cygne heard a light tap at his bedroom door in the middle of the night and found Charlie there, he was overjoyed to see him. It took only a brief whispered conversation to discover what was up.
“We came by bicycle,” Charlie told him. “It’s lucky I know all the roads so well. We came here without using any lights.”
“Where is he now?”
“In the old stable. Where I keep the car. If he’s discovered, you and Marie can always say you didn’t know he was there.”
By now, Marie had joined them. Charlie turned to her.
“You said you wanted to help,” he told her wryly. “Now you have your wish.”
There was one other thing he had to caution them both about. Security.
“It’s best if you don’t see him. But if you do, remember that he was brought here at night. He has no idea where he is. Above all, he knows me only by my code name: Monsieur Bon Ami.”
“It sounds very cloak and dagger,” Marie remarked.
“Yes,” Charlie replied, “but if the airman gets caught, the less he knows about us the better.”
The Canadian’s name was Richard Bennett. The arrangements for hiding him worked out well. Nobody went to the old garage where Charlie’s beloved Voisin was kept under lock and key, except for Charlie himself; and so there was no need for anyone but the three de Cygnes even to know the airman was there.
“I’ve always wanted to sleep in a Voisin,” Richard told his host cheerfully. He swore he was perfectly comfortable, and though Charlie had produced two traveling rugs for blankets, he said he hardly needed them during those June nights.
He was certainly well fed. Charlie put far more food on his plate than he really meant to eat, and slipped it into a container when no one was looking. Marie gave Charlie small items from the larder and Roland added an extra bottle from the wine cellar. With these items secreted in a bag, Charlie would go down to the old stable, ostensibly to tinker with his car. No one suspected a thing.
As for keeping himself clean, the Canadian used the hose already in the stable for washing the car. The water was cold, but it was summer. Charlie brought him some of his old clothes to wear. They were a little big on him, but they served well enough. As for his other requirements, Charlie dealt with the chamber pot after dark.
They also made a hiding place. Against one wall in the stable, there was a long, deep stone trough which was used for storage now. With some planks, they made a shelf that fitted over the bottom of the trough, leaving enough space for the Canadian to slide underneath it. Above the shelf, Charlie piled drums of oil, tubing, wrenches and all sorts of mechanical odds and ends. Once Richard was inside, he could pull down a pile of oily rags over the end of the shelf and it was quite impossible to guess that a person was hidden in there.
Charlie would give him the newspaper to read. Sometimes they’d pass the time playing chess together. Charlie was pretty certain that every other game, the Canadian was letting him win.
Roland’s feelings were mixed. They must hide the airman, of course. But all the same, he wished the fellow were not there—not so much for his own safety, or even that of Marie, but for that of little Esmé. If the police came looking for the airman and found him, Charlie’s story that no one knew he was there might work, but Roland doubted it. More likely, the whole family would be arrested. And what would happen to his grandson then?
With luck, he hoped, the family’s conservative reputation would protect them from suspicion. The second day after Charlie’s arrival, he decided to walk down to the village. Seeing a police van i
n the little square, he went over to chat with the officers.
They were friendly enough, and soon told him that an enemy plane had come down a few days ago.
“Ah?” Roland feigned surprise. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Non, Monsieur de Cygne. It was about twenty kilometers away.”
“That would explain it. Any survivors?”
“There might be one or two. But we don’t think so.”
“So long as they don’t poach my rabbits.”
The policemen laughed.
“Don’t worry, Monsieur de Cygne. If the Maquis find any airmen, they won’t bring them this way. They take them south, to Spain.”
“So I’ve heard.” Roland shrugged. “It’s a long way.” And after chatting a few more minutes, he moved on.
So far, so good.
Now he could give his full attention to Charlie and his grandson.
Charlie had been so delighted and relieved when he had discovered that Louise had brought Esmé to them. “I had no idea,” he explained. “I hadn’t spoken to Louise, because I’ve hardly been in Paris for three weeks.” He’d smiled at Roland. “I have wanted Esmé to know his grandfather for a long time.”
They were wonderful days. Strange, but wonderful. Two hundred miles away, day after day, wave after wave of Allied troops were being landed on the secured beaches of Normandy, where huge artificial harbors were being floated in. “They’ll probably bring a million men over before the big breakout,” Charlie told his father.
The Germans were fighting back furiously. Crack panzer divisions were determined to hold the old Norman town of Caen. Still unwilling to believe that the main invasion would not be up at the Strait of Dover, Hitler was only reluctantly being persuaded to send forces from there to Normandy. “It’s going to be an enormous fight,” Roland judged.
Yet here at the château, everything was so quiet that one could almost forget there was a war taking place at all. It couldn’t last, of course. Once the Canadian was safely on his way, Charlie would want to go back to Paris, where there was so much work to be done. Whatever form the battle for Paris took—assuming the Allies succeeded and Paris was in contention—Charlie de Cygne certainly wasn’t going to miss it.
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