Chapter Eleven #2
Odile was more openly suspicious of Mathilde, casting sidelong glances and muttering under her breath about city folk.
She criticised the standard of Mathilde’s work and the time it took her to complete the simplest of tasks, saying that having to act as supervisor only made her life more difficult.
They washed and mended clothes in the early afternoon while Irène napped in the pram, and Mathilde was usually so tired she could barely keep her eyes open.
Odile was so irritated by her yawning, she once drove a pin into her thigh; that brought a smile to her face.
Sometimes they were interrupted by Madame de Courcy wielding a camera.
She’d resumed her role as the chateau’s unofficial photographer, so her son could see a record of their life when he returned from prison – a good sign, according to Odile.
Fabrice would return; there could be no doubt about that.
As the temperature cooled in the afternoons, Mathilde went back out into the gardens and worked until dusk, when the midday routine was repeated – only in the evening, she would take a plateful of food upstairs after her duties were done and eat it in her attic room.
From then on, her time was her own, and she had Sundays off too.
At first she was too exhausted to do anything but fall into bed, yet as the days went by and her stamina increased, she would walk through the chateau gates, past the small lodge where Georges, Odile and Irène lived, to explore the countryside beyond.
Yves had told her to find sympathisers but there was no point putting herself at risk and alerting the countess’s suspicions until she knew she had a home here.
She had a new name now – another one. ‘No matter what happens, you’ll need an identity card and a ration book,’ Madame de Courcy had said at the start of her stay. ‘Doctor Pailleau will sort you out; he has contacts everywhere. And I’d like him to take a look at you anyway.’
Pailleau rode up the drive on a bay horse the next day: a man in his early fifties, perhaps, with grey hair swept back and a thick beard. His loud voice booming through the hall alarmed Mathilde, yet his eyes were kind and his hands gentle as he examined her.
‘I was . . .’ she began, looking at the floor, but the word wouldn’t come ‘. . . violated, a couple of months ago. There’s no chance I could be . . .?’ She hadn’t had her monthlies for so long, she’d lost track, and this was her greatest fear: that she might be carrying the Viper’s child.
‘You’re simply malnourished,’ the doctor told her.
‘When you start eating properly, your menstrual cycle should return to normal. You’re young and in pretty good shape, all things considered, and the human body has an amazing capacity to heal.
The mind, of course, is another matter.’ He smiled at her as he packed away his instruments.
‘I’m sure Chateau Albertine will work its magic. ’
One Sunday, Mathilde returned the faded cotton frock to the red-haired woman in the cottage, along with a pot of honey Odile had allowed her to take from the larder.
She introduced herself as Mademoiselle Morisot, the name on the forged papers Doctor Pailleau had given her.
She had a story, too: Fleur Morisot had returned to Provence to look after her aged mother after several years living in Paris.
Although sadly old Madame Morisot had passed away, her daughter had decided to stay in the south and stumbled upon this job at the chateau.
Mathilde didn’t feel much like a Fleur – the name was too delicate somehow – but perhaps it would grow on her.
The red-haired woman was called Paulette Fayol. ‘So they kept you on at the chateau, then?’ she said. ‘You look a lot better now than you did the other day, I must say.’
‘I’m on a month’s trial,’ Mathilde told her. ‘But I’ll stay if they’ll have me.’
Madame Fayol poured her a glass of water from the jug. ‘I should think they will – I don’t know how Madame runs the place with only that couple and some gormless lads to help her. Do you have time to chat? Papa’s in bed, my son’s off gallivanting and I haven’t talked to a soul all day.’
They took stools out to the back porch, and within ten minutes they were on first-name terms and Mathilde had learned Paulette’s entire life story.
She’d been born and brought up in the nearby town of Les Roches and lived there ever since, until her father had turned poorly six months ago and she’d moved into the cottage to look after him, along with her seventeen-year-old son, Thierry.
Her husband had been shot by German soldiers the year before while trying to surrender, and she needed no prompting to share her hatred of Hitler and her scorn for the Vichy regime; Marshal Pétain in particular.
‘Saviour of France, my arse!’ And she sang a few bars of the Vichy anthem – ‘Maréchal, nous voilà!’ – that had been constantly playing on the wireless, substituting lyrics that would have got her arrested if the police had been in earshot.
‘Aren’t you worried I might report you?’ Mathilde asked.
‘You?’ Paulette laughed. ‘Something tells me you’re not a snitch, not with your history.
’ She looked Mathilde up and down. ‘You wouldn’t be taken for a convict any longer but your hair’s still awful.
Do you want me to cut it for you?’ She’d worked as a hairdresser from her home in Les Roches but nobody wanted to trek out here for a haircut.
‘I don’t suppose you could bleach it too, could you?’ Mathilde asked.
Paulette picked up a lock of her hair and regarded it doubtfully. ‘You’re pretty dark. I’m not sure going lighter would suit your colouring.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I fancy a change.’
Eventually Paulette gave in with a shrug. ‘I suppose it’ll soon grow out.’
They went back to the kitchen, where she arranged her various pots and brushes on the table and unrolled a leather pouch of scissors, settling into hairdresser mode with a stream of gossip.
The countess was generally regarded as hard but fair, Mathilde learned, although opinions were divided about the part she’d played in the scandal surrounding her daughter.
‘The girl fell pregnant and wouldn’t take steps to deal with the matter,’ Paulette said, leading Mathilde to the sink, ‘so Madame sent her away. Amélie, she’s called.
She’s living in Strasbourg, I think, and Madame won’t let her come back.
That’s too harsh, if you ask me, though I suppose she has the family honour to consider.
She and her daughter haven’t spoken in two years.
Sad, isn’t it, when you think of her son in a prison camp.
Mind you, she has the doctor to console her.
He’s always up at the chateau and the countess isn’t ill – at least not so far as I can see, but perhaps you know better. ’
Mathilde listened intently, making a mental note to keep on the right side of Paulette and never, ever to tell her anything confidential.
‘There, we’re done,’ Paulette said at last, passing Mathilde a hand mirror. ‘What do you think?’
Mathilde was delighted. Her hair had been cut short at the nape of her neck, parting at the side to fall in longer waves across her forehead. She hadn’t turned blonde, more like a rusty copper, but together with her newly acquired tan and the freckles across her nose, it was a transformation.
Paulette stood with her hands on her hips. ‘Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
‘It’s perfect,’ Mathilde murmured. ‘I look completely different.’
‘That’s true enough,’ Paulette agreed. ‘If you want to keep it, you’ll have to come back regularly to have your roots done.
I won’t charge but could you bring me some more honey?
I think we’re going to be friends. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask what you did to get locked up – everyone deserves a second chance and I take people as I find them.
Is Sunday your day off? Come with me to Les Roches next week and I’ll show you around.
We could even go to church; Thierry can sit with Papa for a change. ’
With her new hair, Mathilde felt invisible. Yves had told her to get to know the area and what better guide could she have than Paulette? Besides, it was a relief to spend time with someone who seemed actually to like her.
Les Roches-de-Provence was a small town of winding, narrow alleyways and higgledy-piggledy houses, built into the rock at the top of a steep hill.
It was dominated on one side by the ruins of an ancient fort, its crumbling walls and turrets covered in ivy, with birds flying through the gaping windows.
The higher they climbed, the more spectacular were the views across the countryside, laid out below like a patchwork quilt: fields, vineyards, woods and villages, with isolated farmhouses dotted here and there.
In the chateau, they were always craning to look upward: to the vineyard, the mountains and the sky above.
It was intoxicating to feel on top of the world for a change.
‘Perfect spot for a fortress,’ Mathilde said, stopping to wipe the sweat from her forehead. ‘You can see for miles.’ She was wearing a straw hat, Yves would have been pleased to note – no doubt belonging to the countess’s daughter, like the rest of her second-hand wardrobe.
‘It’s been here since the thirteenth century,’ Paulette told her, equally short of breath, ‘but people have been living on this site for thousands of years. They’ve found remains in the caves: bones and suchlike.’ She took Mathilde’s arm. ‘Come on, nearly there. We don’t want to be late.’
The bells were tolling as they slipped into a pew at the back of the church in the centre of the village.
A few heads turned to look and there was some nudging and whispering at the sight of a stranger sitting next to Paulette.
Mathilde caught sight of Doctor Pailleau, sitting next to a woman wearing a rose-trimmed hat and a haughty expression.
She hadn’t been in a church since her wedding day and it was strange, kneeling to pray in that cool, quiet place.
She didn’t know what to say to God, who seemed very remote these days, and Jacques was as far out of reach as ever.
Where was he? Where had he gone? It seemed inconceivable that she would never see him again on this earth.
You should have stayed with him in Paris, said the voice inside her head; if you’d still been there, he wouldn’t have been killed.
So that was another sin to add to her list. She hadn’t the heart to ask for forgiveness because she didn’t deserve it.
After the service was over, they filed outside to stand blinking in the sunshine.
Mathilde smiled and nodded at the various people to whom she was introduced by Paulette, instantly forgetting their names.
Most of them regarded her with curiosity rather than hostility, although when the doctor came over with his wife to say hello, Madame Pailleau gave her a look that would have curdled milk.
‘That’s because you’re young and pretty, and come from the chateau,’ Paulette whispered.
‘She’s eaten up with jealousy. Not to say she doesn’t have good reason, but you’d think she’d make more of an effort to hide it.
In my opinion, Doctor Pailleau could have done better for himself – such a lovely man.
If he’s not appreciated at home, of course he’s going to look for comfort elsewhere. ’
‘Do the Germans ever come here?’ Mathilde asked, to change the subject.
‘No, thank God,’ Paulette replied. ‘You don’t need to worry.
Now don’t be alarmed, but here comes the police lieutenant.
Let’s waylay him.’ Pulling Mathilde forward, she waved at the stout man in a crumpled linen suit heading for the café.
‘Captain Longchamp! Meet my friend, Mademoiselle Morisot. She’s working for Madame de Courcy at the chateau. ’
‘Indeed?’ The policeman gave Mathilde a brief, uninterested glance. ‘Well, no doubt I shall see her there in due course.’
‘He wants his lunch,’ Paulette commented, once he was out of earshot.
‘Lives for food, that one. If you’re wondering how he manages to stay so fat on iron rations, I’ll tell you in a word: bribery.
A person could get away with murder for the price of a ripe Camembert.
I’ve heard Vichy are cracking the whip, though, so he might be slimming down in the months to come. ’
They were interrupted just then by a former neighbour of Paulette’s inviting them to walk across the square and sit under the plane trees to catch up with the latest village news, so Mathilde was able to relax and take in her surroundings.
Cats lay in the shade of a drinking fountain, lazily flicking their tails, children played hopscotch or crouched over a game of marbles, while mothers gossiped around a corral of prams. It was a different world from the one she had left behind in Paris, where squads of German soldiers marched through the streets and swastika banners hung from lamp posts and balconies.
Here, people walked at a leisurely pace, laughed and talked to each other without looking over their shoulder.
She could be anonymous in Les Roches, in her borrowed clothes with a new name.
How long, though, before the Nazis caught up with her?