Pagan Spring: A Mystery (A Max Tudor Novel) (35 page)

“All we can say with certainty is that the atrocities occupied her mind, tipping the normally stable balance of her thinking.”

Awena stood and held out her hand for his glass. On her return with a refill, Max said, “I have come to realize how Gabby sprinkled little clues of wartime experiences throughout. She talked about making do, about makeshift strategies for makeup, like using berry stains for lipstick and rouge, or red pencil lead. She could have been talking simply of wartime shortages. But she was talking of the ruses the women used to fool their captors into thinking they were healthy enough to be worth keeping alive. Otherwise, they’d have been singled out for execution. Gabby’s excellent posture and her attention to her health were all part and parcel of the same, well,
fear
that she lived under. Only the strong and fit—and the very, very lucky—would survive the unspeakable conditions to which her mother had finally succumbed.”

Awena said, “Gabby’s mother must have been a remarkable woman in every way. I would like to have met her, too. One wonders if one would have had the courage to do what she and others like her did.”

“Please God we never have the need to find out,” said Max. “Gabby’s story has had me rereading some of the history from those days. About the convents that were used to hide weapons and ammunition, as well as to shelter from the Gestapo the children who otherwise certainly would have died. The friend of Gabby’s grandmother, the Mother Superior at the convent where Gabby was raised—she must have known the enormity of the risk, and Gabby’s mother must have known in advance she would, unquestioning, accept the risk.

“The strategies used by the Resistance were so clever. Sometimes a priest would stage a funeral leaving the occupied zone, with the mourners issued a pass by the Germans. The “body” and some of the mourners would then escape.

“They didn’t always avoid detection, of course, and ruses like that would work only once. Betrayals were common: It was often a way to settle old scores. One nun was denounced for calling Hitler the Antichrist, which was possibly even true—both that she said it and that he was. At any rate, it was a view many came to share. Certainly he brought hell to earth.”

“And all these years later, the ripple effect…” Awena began.

Max nodded. “All these years later. Not long ago, a death camp suspect was located, age ninety-seven.” He paused, thinking how crimes cast a long shadow, seemingly to the horizon.

“The question may be how many other people would feel the same, in Gabby’s shoes,” said Awena.

Max nodded. “First she lost everything dear in the world, before she was old enough to even be aware of the loss. Then one day she locates the man who had cost her her mother’s life, and she tracks him here. Maybe that’s all she meant to do—to track him, out of curiosity, as she claimed. But then having met him, and seen how appalling a person he was…”

“I can see that happening, very easily,” said Awena. “The switch from thought to action.”

“Well,” said Max. “Three guesses what the topic of my sermon will be this Sunday.”

“I thought your sermons were always the same.”

“Thanks very much.”

“I meant, are they not always about doing unto others? About being a force for good in the world?”

“I suppose they are.… But this one may be a bit different.”

He stared a moment into the fire, enveloped by the peace of being in Awena’s company.

“By coincidence,” she said, “this year Passover intersects with Easter. It all flows together from the lunar calendar.”

“Right—Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday.” He set down his glass. “You’ll be at the church service, won’t you?”

She nodded. “The zither and banjo will make a nice change.”

“Hmm,” said Max neutrally. He had lost that particular debate.

“Once I’ve paid my respects to Ostara, the goddess of spring, at dawn,” Awena continued, “I’ll be there. I’ve already decorated my hat.”

She leaned across him and turned off the lamp at the table by his side. They were left with only firelight.

“When you realize,” she added softly, “how many of the old traditions were absorbed by the Church, it’s remarkable the way people go out of their way to emphasize differences.”

Max looked at Awena, her skin glowing like white Carrara marble, now looking up at him out of those limitless eyes. He touched her chin, almost as if making sure she was real.

“When we’re married, you’ll have to move over to the vicarage,” he said.

There was a silence that went on a beat too long for Max’s comfort.

“At least that would be the traditional thing to do,” he added. “I realize you’ve built a life for yourself here in your cottage.”

More silence.

“And it’s so beautifully decorated,” he went on, guessing now as to what the matter could be. “I’m sure we can find some middle ground. Obviously, I have to live in the vicarage.… I mean, I guess I have to.…” He trailed off.

She took his hand in hers, her hand small and warm, comforting. Finally, she spoke.

“Think about it, Max. Our differences are religious, which makes them as fundamental as differences get. Especially in this instance.”

“I don’t see it that way,” said Max, surprised but calm.

She said nothing, but looked at him quietly and patiently, as if waiting for him to catch up to her. Max had never felt so vulnerable. All along, his concern had been getting his heart’s desire past his bishop, past officialdom. He had never questioned whether Awena, who owned his heart, would follow.

“We never spoke of marriage,” she said.

And suddenly they were starring in a reprise of
Sayonara.
Max said, “It was never not in my thoughts, Awena. This was never from the beginning anything casual or ordinary for me.”

“For me either,” she said quickly, assuring him. “As far as I’m concerned, in my heart I’ve already chosen you. I’m wedded to you. All the rest is merely…”

“Window dressing? Paperwork?”

She looked down, hiding from him those Awena eyes, like sea glass, clear and pale.

“No … Yes. Sort of.”

Oh God, he thought. Somehow he’d thought—what had he thought? Not that she would officially convert to his religion, never that. Awena was too much her own person with her own beliefs to simply fall in with whatever might be convenient to the situation; she would never simply put aside her own beliefs, so passionately lived and held, even for appearance’s sake. Max thought of his own faith as a flowering of mercy, an unasked-for gift, and so he well knew that beliefs arrived in their own ways and guises.

He had thought, he supposed, if it could be called thinking, that they’d cross that marriage bridge when they came to it. Certainly if he’d planned things better, he’d have fallen in love with a devout Anglican woman, her doctrines as lined up in conventional rows as the pearls about her neck. Instead, he’d fallen in love with an exuberant, stunningly attractive, magnetic woman who with her scattershot, all-embracing approach to life and religion embodied all that his own religion taught him to admire and emulate: kindness, compassion, and empathy. Her basically sweet and open nature could not be doubted. It was just that her beliefs were outside the “norm,” as the Church in the person of his bishop would see it, and not that her beliefs and practices were in any way abnormal.

As often in these situations, the choice of a life partner had been beyond his control. What would be right and proper for a man in his station in life had not mattered, and he’d barely paused to consider anything beyond his soul’s joy at finding its mate at last.

Right now he was too frightened of losing her, of frightening her off, to say this, or anything more.

In the uncanny way she had, Awena mirrored his thoughts.

“I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. But Max, it will become an issue one day. No one who doesn’t know us well will see our partnership as anything but, well, unorthodox. And I don’t have the answers, either, except that we both should pray on it.”

Dueling prayers, thought Max. Or were they? Awena would hold they were all the same prayers to the same deity.

There was a longer pause this time. Another
Oh God I’m losing her
pause.

“What about children?” she said at last.

The relief rushed through him. “Yes, of course, as many as you want.”

“I meant, what religion would they be raised in?”

Now there was a longer pause as he bit back the automatic, unthinking reply.

“This isn’t fair,” she said. “I’ve had a little more time than you to think about this.”

He had almost missed it, but the look on her face told him there was more meaning behind her actual words. “What do you mean?” he asked.

She drew a deep breath but said nothing.

“What?” he asked. “What
is
it? You have to say.”

She looked at him from those extraordinary, luminous eyes, which now blazed in the golden light thrown by the fire. “I’m pregnant, Max,” she said. “I began to realize, when I was at Denman. It must have happened the night of the Winter Solstice, when we were first together. At first I couldn’t believe … I thought it was because so much has been going on in my life.…”

Max’s jaw literally dropped. For a full minute, he was rendered speechless.

She smiled at the look of stunned disbelief on his face. She knew it was a match for the look on her own, once she’d realized.

“The baby will arrive around mid-September, in the fall,” she said.

“This changes everything, Awena.” He took her hands and held them fiercely in his. “We are no longer sitting here swapping philosophical musings and theories about the origins of religion. This is—I don’t know how to put it. It’s a
practical
matter. This is beyond me, beyond you, even. You do see—we have to marry?”

“Why do we have to do anything, Max? If I’m honest, I don’t know what to do, other than to have this baby, which has its own plans and schedule. But rushing into marriage doesn’t seem like an option at any time. Not now—especially now. You do see, don’t you?”

Max was staggered, and completely thrown back on himself. Every emotion went through his mind, but the overriding one was joy. Complete, undiluted joy was the base coat on top of which anxiety, excitement, astonishment, and worry were making their marks. He didn’t know it then, but that would be the state of his emotions for many years to come.

No, he didn’t see, but again he was afraid to push her—more afraid now than before.

“In the meantime,” she added, “we don’t know what may happen. None of us knows. So let’s be happy while we can. Just … we just have to leave it alone for now. We both have to think. All right?”

And many hours later, with nothing settled in either of their minds, they made their way hand in hand up the darkling stairs, and so to bed.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

My fictional story of Gabrielle’s mother and grandmother is true in its essence. The tale Gabby relates to Max is a composite of the ordeals of 230 women captured in the roundup of French resisters during World War II. As their sufferings are impossible to describe or summarize in any meaningful way, I have struggled to do justice to their lives and honor the enormity of their courage by telling you Gabby’s story here.

The nonfiction book
A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship and Resistance in Occupied France
(2011), researched and reported in heartbreaking detail by Caroline Moorehead, provides the depth and scope my fictional tale will not allow. As I cannot begin to convey the remarkable individual stories of these women, I highly recommend to you Ms. Moorehead’s moving and important tribute.

ALSO BY G. M. MALLIET

A Fatal Winter

Wicked Autumn

Death at the Alma Mater

Death and the Lit Chick

Death of a Cozy Writer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

G. M. Malliet is the winner of the Agatha Award for
Death of a Cozy Writer
. She attended Oxford University, holds a graduate degree from the University of Cambridge, and lives in Virginia near Washington, D.C.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.

An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

PAGAN SPRING.
Copyright © 2013 by G. M. Malliet. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein Cover illustration by Rob Wood/Wood Ronsaville Harlin, Inc.

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-1-250-02140-3 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-25002139-7 (e-book)

e-ISBN 9781250021397

First Edition: October 2013