Chapter Sixteen
Mathilde stood by the barn, looking up at the mountains.
The full moon cast a silvery light that turned the landscape monochrome, and the only sound she could hear was a gentle sighing of the wind.
The whole world seemed to be waiting, like she was, holding its breath.
The British pilot’s arrival had made her even more eager to act; he’d brought a whiff of the outside world with him and now she was impatient to join him and anyone else defying Hitler.
Working in the vineyard was as good a way as any of passing the time, but so much of her daily routine – cleaning, mending, washing, weeding – seemed suddenly tedious and unimportant, and Yves being close by only increased her restless energy.
She remembered the countess’s warning with some irritation.
Her tone had been condescending; Mathilde was a grown woman, not some flighty young girl, and she wasn’t looking to share Yves’ life but to be his ally – that was all – to stand beside him in the fight of their lives.
The countess had been wrong about something else, too: Mathilde’s mother would never have warned her away from Yves.
Simone Garnier had been a loving, passionate woman who lived fearlessly and without regret.
She’d taught Mathilde to appreciate sensual pleasures: the slither of silk against her body and the warmth of sunbeams on her face; a perfect pairing of cheese and wine; the exhilaration of dancing, lost to the music.
She had loved Mathilde’s father deeply, but when he died when Mathilde was eighteen, she’d married again within the year.
‘I wasn’t meant to go through this world alone,’ she’d said; more of an explanation than an apology, and why should she apologise?
Both Simone and her second husband had been killed when the car he was driving had overturned on a bend, and the light had gone out of Mathilde’s life – until the day she’d wandered into Jacques’ bookshop.
Yet perhaps that accident had been a blessing in disguise.
Her mother had died instantly, sitting beside a man she loved; she never had to witness the Nazis marching into Paris or feel the gnawing pains of hunger in her belly.
Yves loomed suddenly out of the darkness, interrupting her reverie and making her jump.
‘Sorry,’ he whispered, smiling through the dark with a flash of white teeth, and a jolt of excitement shot through her.
They set off together, skirting the barn and walking silently along the edge of a field towards the dense black shadow of woodland.
Mathilde had taken this path many times, gathering mushrooms, but she’d always turned back at the wood’s edge; Yves plunged into its depths, following a woodcutter’s path.
Her senses were on high alert, attuned to every snapping twig and rustle in the undergrowth as she looked for landmarks that would guide her if she had to come this way again: the particular shape of a fallen log, a zigzag in the path or an unexpected gap among the trees.
The sound of heavy breathing close by made her jump out of her skin, but it was only a dark shape lumbering across the path in front of her before disappearing into the bushes: a badger, perhaps, or a wild boar.
Mathilde had no trouble keeping up with Yves this time; she was fitter now, properly fed and wearing Amélie de Courcy’s cast-off boots.
Occasionally he held back a branch at head height or pointed out a bramble snaking across the path, but they didn’t speak.
She didn’t mind; talking would have broken the spell.
It was enough merely to be with him on this warm, moonlit night, casting off her everyday life like a snake shedding its skin with every step further into the wild.
At last – too soon – she smelled woodsmoke and saw a light through the trees ahead, and they were arriving at the clearing where Yves and Sanglier had set up home.
Sanglier was sitting on a tree trunk as he carved a piece of wood, the blade of his knife gleaming in the firelight.
He smiled at Mathilde and raised a hand in greeting before going back to his work.
‘Welcome.’ Yves threw out an arm to take in the scene.
Mathilde looked around the tidy, organised camp.
The men had made a rough enclosure between two trees, tying branches overhead and weaving through shoots and creepers to form a roof, supplemented with straw.
They had dug a couple of trenches in the close-packed soil beneath and filled them with hay to serve as sleeping quarters, and their supplies were neatly stacked under cover: cans for water, rucksacks, coiled rope, kerosene, tools, sacks that presumably contained food of some sort.
‘I can see you’re used to living outdoors,’ she said. ‘But where did all this equipment come from?’
‘We’ve been establishing depots,’ Yves replied. ‘Hiding places in safe areas.’
A picture flashed into Mathilde’s head of the railway cottage in Avignon, its loft full of weapons and whisky. Had the police discovered this stash yet?
‘Talking of which,’ she said, taking out the map from where she had tucked it inside her blouse, ‘shall we look at this together?’
They joined Sanglier by the fire and spread out the square of cotton to examine with the aid of a kerosene lamp. Mathilde talked the men through every detail, explaining which houses had sympathetic inhabitants and outbuildings particularly suited to hiding men or supplies.
‘How can you remember in such detail?’ Sanglier asked suspiciously, as though she were making it up.
Mathilde shrugged. ‘It’s just the way my memory works.’
‘Well, it’s more than useful for us.’ Yves folded up the cotton square. ‘May we keep this?’
‘By all means,’ Mathilde replied. ‘I have a Michelin map to remind me.’
Yves fetched a bottle of red wine from the shelter with two tumblers – one for Mathilde and one shared between the two men – so they could drink to a Free France.
‘How are things going in England?’ Mathilde asked him. She felt so remote from the world, tucked away in this corner of Provence; at least in Paris she’d been able to read newspapers and listen to the radio.
‘Britain’s standing firm,’ he told her. ‘The country’s still being bombed, and in other cities as well as London, but the Boche haven’t won control of the skies as they’d hoped and they haven’t managed to invade – yet. Churchill’s determined to fight to the end.’
‘Thank God.’ Mathilde was invigorated, the wine coursing through her veins.
For weeks, she’d had to listen to Georges complaining about the British refusal to accept defeat and lift the naval blockade so the French could put food in their bellies.
The sooner Britain surrendered, he grumbled, the sooner peace would come and they could get on with their lives.
‘Resistance is growing,’ Yves went on. ‘Don’t lose heart!’ He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, which he passed to her. Libération, it was headed, and the text below called on readers to rise up against their oppressors and turn a shameful defeat into proud victory.
‘Take it in exchange for your map,’ he said, smiling at her expression as she looked up from the newspaper. ‘And this is just the beginning.’
‘What else can I do to help?’ Mathilde asked, tucking the newspaper inside her blouse, next to her heart.
‘Carry on exactly as you are. Watch and wait, but be careful. I hear Captain Longchamp has been put out to pasture and a new police chief has come from Vichy. Don’t trust anyone until you’re absolutely sure of them.
’ He stood and reached out a hand. ‘And now, perhaps, you should be getting back. I’ll walk you to the edge of the wood. ’
Although there was no need for him to come – she could remember the way perfectly – Mathilde accepted the offer for the pleasure of his company.
She longed to stay with Yves and Sanglier, bedding down under the stars, but extending this night for as long as possible would have to do instead.
Not for the first time, she wished she’d been born a man.
Her pulse was racing from the wine and excitement, and Yves had to struggle to keep pace with her for a change.
All too soon, they’d reached the edge of the wood, where she stood, one hand on her chest as she caught her breath.
For a long moment, they merely looked at each other.
She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes, could only see the beautiful curve of his mouth and the shadows carving his cheekbones.
He reached out a hand but dropped it before he touched her face; unable to bear the tension, she turned and slipped away from him into the dark.
Mathilde couldn’t sleep that night. Round and round went her thoughts, like a giddy carousel.
After everything that had happened to her these past few months, she’d considered herself safe from the turmoil of feeling, as empty inside as a dried seed husk.
Yet here she was: racked with doubt. Why had she run away from Yves without saying goodbye?
What a fool he must think her! But why should she care what he thought?
Because she wanted him to trust her; that was the only reason.
Could she trust him, though? Apart from all that, what would the countess have said if she’d seen Mathilde acting like a lovestruck teenager?
Well, Madame de Courcy had no right to tell her how to behave; it was none of her business.
Maybe the countess was jealous, wanting to keep Yves to herself.
Could he be not merely her son’s friend but her lover, too?
Eventually she fell into a fitful doze, waking up with a start as the new day was beginning.
Unwilling to spend a second longer tossing and turning in bed, she rose and dressed quickly.
Returning from the bathroom, she saw a light under the door of the pilot’s room opposite, knocked and entered.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed in clean clothes, looking much better and apparently delighted to see her.
With the aid of sign language, they managed to chat for a while.
His name, she learned, was Geoffrey, and he had a girlfriend with curly brown hair and a flat chest – he showed Mathilde a photograph – whom he was hoping to marry as soon as it could be arranged.
He seemed very young: more of a boy than a man.
In another couple of days he would be fit enough to start the next stage of his journey, and Yves would be gone.
She drifted to the window. The rooms on this side of the corridor looked on to the chateau’s long, straight drive, stretching away to the lodge where Georges, Odile and Irène lived.
As she watched, a black Citroen Avant nosed its way stealthily through the gates and proceeded at a leisurely pace towards the house, followed by another close behind.
Mathilde had become familiar with these cars in Paris, where they were used by the Gestapo.
When she realised the full import of seeing one now, her blood ran cold.