The girl gave no sign she had heard him.
‘If you would prefer to be alone, then of course . . .’
She gave a tiny shake of her head.
‘Well, if you are sure you don’t mind . . .’ He tailed off.
Freddie picked up the newspaper again. From behind it, he glanced at the girl from time to time. She was young, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, and very slight. Her hair was loose and hung in brown curls down her back, not cut short in the modern style. In fact, there was something old-fashioned about her. She looked like a heroine in a Victorian poem. Her clothes were out of date. She wore a heavy red cloak over narrow shoulders, despite the heat of the room. Beneath the cloak, she seemed to be wearing a long dress. Fancy dress? He could see the green material beneath the hem of the cloak.
Freddie realised he was hot. He loosened the collar of his borrowed shirt. He could do with a glass of water. But he didn’t want to leave the room to fetch one for fear the girl would vanish.
Who was she?
He took another gulp of brandy. Was she a guest? If she was, why had she not been at dinner? Or perhaps she was a daughter of the house? Miss Galy? He dismissed that idea too. If that were the case, she would be in the family room not sitting in the front parlour.
Freddie folded the newspaper. He felt fuddled and a little sick. The silence, the drink, falling asleep in the chair, all added up to a nagging headache.
The logs in the fire were spitting again. The clock was still ticking. The sounds were like the heartbeat of the room itself.
Since the girl was clearly not in the mood to talk, he knew he might as well go to bed. There was no point sitting here, in silence, just in case. He wondered why his nerves were sloshing around in his stomach. For some reason, he felt as if he was waiting for something to happen.
‘Are you an honest man?’
Freddie was so deep in thought, the question made him jump.
‘You have the look of an honest man.’
She spoke in English but in an accent Freddie had never heard before. Not quite French, not quite Spanish, but something between the two. Her voice was deeper, less childlike than he expected.
‘I . . . I suppose I am,’ he managed to reply. ‘Yes, I would say so.’
‘And a man of courage?’
Her gaze was fierce, intense.
‘Well, I would like to think so,’ he said. ‘If need be, then yes.’
Freddie felt like a butterfly pinned on a board.
‘And a man who can tell true from false?’
‘Certainly.’
She seemed to be weighing him up, judging him. Freddie realised he was holding his breath. Then she held out her hand, palm up. Freddie pulled his chair closer, so close their knees were almost touching.
‘May I confide in you? Tell you a story?’
‘Yes,’ he said, too quickly. ‘Yes, of course.’
Freddie realised he would have agreed to anything so long as she kept talking. ‘Is it a true story?’ he asked.
She tilted her head to one side. ‘That is for you to judge.’
Freddie remembered his manners. He half stood up and held out his hand.
‘I’m Frederick Smith. My friends call me Freddie.’
He waited for her to return the favour. She did not.
He hesitated again, awkward, then sat back down in his chair. All normal rules of behaviour seemed not to matter to her.
‘I’m listening,’ he said.
Chapter Nine
‘I was born on an afternoon in spring,’ she said. ‘The world was coming back to life after a hard winter. The snow had melted. The streams were flowing again. Tiny mountain flowers of blue and pink and yellow filled the fields of the upper valley. My father said that on the day I was born he heard the first cuckoo sing. It was a good omen, he said.
‘I was wrapped in linen cloth. Our neighbours came with a loaf they had baked. White flour, my father said, not the coarse brown grain used for every day. Others in the village also came with gifts: a brown woollen blanket for winter, a drinking cup, a wooden box with spices inside - and most precious, salt wrapped up in a piece of cotton dyed blue.
‘It was May. The sheep were back in the summer pastures. Every autumn, the shepherds took their flocks to Spain on the other side of the mountains. Each spring, when the air grew warm again, the men and the animals returned.’
As she talked, Freddie noticed she looked happy. Then, like a cloud crossing the face of the sun, her face grew serious.
‘I was the first child to be born in our village since . . . since the troubles began.’
The word brought back a memory. Freddie thought of the last time George came home on leave. He, too had talked of the ‘troubles’, of how rumour had it the Germans were turning their guns on civilians, attacking villages for the sport of it. Not soldiers, but women and children. George had not spelled things out in full. He had not needed to.
Freddie braced himself for what might be coming.
‘My mother and father were well liked,’ she carried on quietly. ‘My father wrote letters for those in our village who could not read or write. He helped the priest give advice to those who were accused of crimes. He cared for the weak and those in need. He himself was not a man of strong faith, but he was a good man.’
Freddie nodded.
‘At first, the troubles did not affect our village so much. The struggle had been going on for some years - many years, indeed. What fighting there was happened far away. We thought that our village was safe in the folds of the mountains, this far from the heart of things.’
‘I say, don’t upset yourself,’ Freddie said quickly. ‘There’s no need to go on if it is too difficult.’
‘There is every need,’ she said. ‘When it is a matter of truth.’
She paused. When she spoke again, her voice was clearer, sharper.
‘How much do you know of our history, Mr Smith, about the land, the traditions, our way of life in our part of France?’
Freddie was surprised by the sudden change of subject, but managed to reply. ‘Only the usual, I suppose. The sort of stuff one reads in a guidebook. Pretty basic.’
She nodded. ‘For years and years, we lived under the threat of attack. We feared the enemy soldiers, the courts, the spies, their prisons. Our beliefs and theirs did not agree. We lived always waiting for the blow to fall. Not able to trust anyone.’
‘You trusted me,’ he said.
She gave a sad smile. ‘Things are different.’
‘I suppose they are.’
Freddie was turning things over in his head. He didn’t think the Germans had got this far south. He thought all the fighting had been in the trenches of northern France, and in Belgium. But, then, he did not know much. He had been a child.
‘For years, we thought we had been forgotten. But, finally, it happened. They came for us.’
Chapter Ten
Freddie realised he was holding the arms of the chair. When he glanced down, he saw his knuckles were white.
He took a deep breath. However grim, whatever she was about to tell him, it was long over now. The horror belonged in the past.
‘Go on,’ he said, but steeling himself.
‘It was a beautiful day. Later, I remember thinking how wrong it was, that something so terrible should happen on a morning of such light, such blue skies.
‘My family was lucky. We were visiting friends on the other side of the mountains. We had set off early, at dawn, to make our way back to the village. The mist still hung low in the valley. The sun was not yet high in the sky. On the outskirts, where the woods come down right to the village, we saw a boy, a friend of my brother, running. He said soldiers had been seen, a thin line of men making their steady way towards us. He said . . .’
Freddie could not help himself. ‘What? What did he say?’
‘That they were burning the villages of the lower valley,’ she said. ‘He said men, women and children had been cut do
wn where they stood.
‘Without delay, we hurried to the square. All was uproar. People were crying, shouting. Some wanted to stay, refusing to believe that the threat was real. Others wanted to defend our village against any attack. Others again, who had seen the terror, knew that to stay would be to sign your own death warrant.
‘The Marty sisters said they were too old to be driven from their homes again. They refused to leave. A young couple, married but a week, had gone out early and had not returned. Some of the men chose to stay. To cause a diversion, if need be, to stop the soldiers from seeing our tracks into the mountains. Peter Galy, Michel Auty and his sons, William and Paul, also stayed.’
‘I’m surprised there were so many men left,’ Freddie said. ‘Hadn’t all the men of fighting age been called up?’
‘It was different here.’
He had a prickling feeling at the base of his spine. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but what she said didn’t make sense. He had passed monuments to the dead in every village, every town. In the graveyards of every church, there were lists of the fallen - fathers, sons, friends, brothers. All the men had gone.
But before he could ask her another question, she was talking again.
‘There was only enough time to gather what we could carry on our backs and leave. A loaf of bread, wine, blankets for the cold mountain nights, my father’s ink and paper.
As the sun rose in the sky, my parents, my brother and I joined those heading up into the woods. My brother was ten then. He was a weak boy, thin and often ill, but so strong in spirit. Brave.
‘We travelled by foot. We could not risk taking the animals, the cart, for fear the tracks would give us away. The mules, the sheep, the goats, these too we left behind. We dared to hope they would be there when we returned.’
Freddie frowned. ‘But where did you go? There must have been so many of you.’
She looked at him for a moment, as if surprised he needed to ask such a question.
‘There are caves within these mountains, hidden from view.’
‘Enough to provide shelter for an entire village?’
She nodded. ‘Some caves are small and linked by narrow tunnels. In other places, there are underground cities within the mountains - tunnels, caves, hidden places. Each family found somewhere to rest.’ She paused. ‘Besides, we did not think we would be there long.’
Questions were nagging at Freddie. So many things did not add up or fit with what he knew.
‘But if you knew where the caves were, how did the soldiers not hear of them? Someone must have talked? Someone always does.’
She shook her head. ‘They had not been used for many years before that.’
He frowned again thinking how odd it was she gave the impression of so much time passing. The war had begun in 1914 and run its grim course until 1918. They were terrible years certainly, but only four years in all.
Her voice cut in to his thought. ‘The soldiers knew we could not have gone far. They searched and searched. The cave in which we found shelter was some way up the highest peak. Ancient roots from the old trees formed steps in the ground. The only way in or out was a small opening in the mountain. From below, it looked like a half moon cut into the rock face, just a semicircle of stone. It did not appear to lead anywhere and seemed like a dead-end.’
‘So you lived there for days? Weeks?’
‘Longer than that. Spring tipped into summer. Later, the leaves turned gold on the trees. Still they did not find us. Later, the snows came. We thought they would leave, but they did not. They kept watch.’
‘Your brother,’ he said. ‘How did he cope with the winter?’
‘He did not,’ she said quietly. ‘The cold was in his bones, in his chest. He needed fresh air and sunlight and good food, the very things we could not give him.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘He never complained. Even when he was suffering, he bore it bravely.’
Grief turned her brown eyes to black.
‘I could not save him,’ she said.
Chapter Eleven
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.
Freddie knew how grief could creep up at any moment. He knew how the pain was as sharp as a needle under the skin. Then how, even as time went by, it became a dull ache, it was always there, always tugging at the corner of things. A familiar friend.
‘I could not save him,’ she said again.
He understood how that played upon her mind. In the first months after George had been reported missing, the thought of his body lying unclaimed on the battlefield haunted him more than anything.
Freddie never talked about George’s death. He didn’t admit to anyone how deeply he mourned his brother still.
But, for the first time in more than a decade, Freddie wanted to speak. Needed to speak.
‘I, too, lost a brother,’ he said.
This time, it was she who reached across the space between them. She took his hand. Her touch was so light, Freddie could hardly feel it. Her skin was like tissue paper. The cloak slipped from her shoulders and he saw clearly she was wearing a long green dress with an old-fashioned belt. Attached to it was a leather pouch, like a purse or small bag. Such strange, out-of-date clothes.
Freddie began to talk, slowly at first, then faster. Ten years and more of grief, of loss, of silence, came tumbling out. In the room, the fire crackled. Time seemed to stand still as he talked and talked.
At last, there was nothing left to say. All emotion was spent. His head was empty. Freddie took a deep breath.
‘I’m sorry, I . . . I don’t know what came over me.’
He felt, for a fleeting moment, the pressure of her fingers on the palm of his hand. Then, slowly, she withdrew.
He was tired now, so tired. But he felt as if a weight had been taken from his shoulders.
‘All I meant to say, before . . . well. I was supposed to comfort you, not the other way around. I only wanted to let you know that I understood.’
‘I knew you were haunted already,’ she said softly. ‘How else could I speak to you?’
Freddie wasn’t sure what she meant. ‘So,’ he said, eager to make amends for his loss of control. ‘You saw out the winter. And, when it was over? You came back?’
The look on her face stopped him. It struck him that he had disappointed her.
‘No one came back. Not one.’
Freddie realised he had missed something. He knew she had lost her brother, but what of her parents? She, herself, was here after all.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Some of you must have come back.’
He saw her fists were clenched in her lap. He noticed how long her fingers were and how her nails were pale, not painted red like the modern fashion.
‘The soldiers were just waiting out the winter. When the thaw began, just when we dared to think we were safe, they moved against us.’
Freddie still didn’t understand. He shook his head. The movement made his head spin. The whole room seemed to lurch. He suddenly realised he was more drunk than he had thought.
‘But here you are,’ he said. Even to his ears, the words sounded odd, as if he was speaking under water.
Now Freddie was struggling to keep his head. There seemed to be two girls now, both looking at him with their brown eyes. He needed a glass of water, or a strong coffee.
He tried to stand up, but his legs didn’t obey him.
‘You should rest,’ she said gently. Her voice seemed to come from a long way away.
Freddie could not keep his eyes open any longer. The warmth of the room, the gentle rise and fall of her voice, were washing over him. He felt his arms grow heavy, his shoulders, his neck, his legs.
‘You never did tell me your name.’
He seemed to hear her speak deep inside his head. A single word, whispered in his mind.
‘Marie,’ she whispered. ‘My name is Marie.’
He was so tired, so very tired. ‘A few minutes and I’ll be as right as rain.’
Freddie felt his eyes close. He sensed a movement, a subtle shifting of the air. Then she spoke again.
‘Find us,’ she said. ‘Find us and bring us home.’
They were the last words Freddie heard her say.
Chapter Twlve
‘Mr Smith?’
Freddie heard his name. He felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. Slowly, he pulled himself back from sleep. His whole body ached and his head was thudding.
‘Sir? Mr Smith?’
He recognised the voice of Mrs Galy. Freddie opened his eyes. He took in the room, cold and empty in the grey morning light. The fire had burned out in the grate.
He saw the brandy bottle and glass, both empty, on the table by his chair.
Then he remembered how the night had passed. Talking, remembering, thinking of the past. He sat up straight, and stared at the chair where Marie had been sitting.
It was empty.
‘Are you unwell?’
Freddie cast his eyes around the room again. He saw nothing, no sign of her.
‘No, no, I’m fine. Forgive me. I was talking to another guest last evening. I must have drifted off to sleep here. She was a young woman, with long brown hair. I wonder if you have seen her this morning?’
Mrs Galy shook her head.
‘She was wearing rather old-fashioned clothes, I suppose,’ he said. ‘A long red cloak and a green dress.’
Freddie lifted his hands and rubbed his sore temples. He could feel the after-effects of the brandy.
‘I came in here to play a hand of cards, read the newspaper. I dropped off. When I woke, she was here. She said her name was Marie,’ he added, his voice rising.
Mrs Galy looked confused, worried even. ‘We have no guest of that name, sir.’
‘What about among the kitchen staff? Or someone from the village?’
Mrs Galy shook her head. ‘Not that I can think of, sir. I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sure?’
It came to him that Marie might have been here without Mrs Galy knowing. It had been late, after all.