The Child Left Behind (8 page)

‘It only occurred to Raoul and me as we walked home from Mass,’ Bernadette said. ‘Mariette had no objection and so I thought I would see what
Gabrielle thinks about it. I have so enjoyed her company, and that of Yvette too, this holiday.’

‘And what do you think, my dear?’ Raoul said. ‘You haven’t said a word yet.’

Gabrielle knew that she had to be careful. To refuse this offer point-blank or show the slightest disinclination at all would probably evoke suspicion, as well as hurting the feelings of her aunt and uncle, and so she said carefully, ‘it is awfully kind of you and I would love to do this, but I feel my father would miss me in the shop just now. If my parents are agreeable I could perhaps go to Paris in the spring when the weather will be warmer. By then, Yvette will have left school and can take my place in the shop.’

‘I still don’t want my daughters being trailed across the country,’ Pierre said. ‘They are far better at home and then I rest easier in my bed. You must put this ridiculous notion out of your head.’

Mariette seldom argued with her husband—she was well used to his autocratic ways—but she had seen the disappointment flash across her sister’s face and so she said, ‘I don’t see how you can say the idea’s ridiculous, Pierre. Bernadette and Raoul will look after our daughter as if she was their own. And it would be good for the girl to see more of life before she settles down. I don’t see what harm it will do, though Gabrielle spoke good sense when she said that waiting until the spring would be better.’

Pierre was dumbfounded that his wife had questioned his authority.

‘Is a man not to be master in his own home now?’ he spluttered eventually.

‘Of course,’ Mariette said rather impatiently, ‘and I’m sure if you think this through you will see it is the best solution all round.’

Pierre looked around the table and saw them all ranged against him, though Gabrielle didn’t look as pleased as he thought she would. Maybe she didn’t want to get her hopes up in case he forbade the trip. However, he acknowledged that she was a good girl, she worked hard and had never given them a minute’s bother, and as long as Bernadette and Raoul looked after her like a hawk, he really couldn’t see what he had to worry about.

He thought too that it might bring the bloom back to Gabrielle’s cheeks because she had looked decidedly pasty for days. ‘All right,’ he said at last after the silence had stretched out between them. He looked at Bernadette and Raoul. ‘Gabrielle can visit you in Paris in the springtime and I trust that you will look after her well.’

‘You have my solemn word on that,’ Raoul said, and stood up to shake Pierre’s hand.

Bernadette and Raoul returned to Paris and Gabrielle took her place behind the counter in the shop. Finn was hardly able to believe the evidence of his own eyes when he saw her standing there. He felt as if
his heart had actually stopped beating because he had wondered if Gabrielle’s love for him had waned. He approached hesitantly.

‘Hello, Gabrielle,’ he whispered and he raised his eyes and met her love-filled ones. The ache in his heart disappeared and was replaced by joy that seemed to fill every part of him. He needed no further words to know how Gabrielle still felt about him. It was written all over her face.

‘I couldn’t get away sooner,’ Gabrielle said. ‘But my uncle and aunt are gone now and so I could meet you this evening,’

‘Oh, yes, my darling. I can barely wait that long.’

‘Nor I.’ Gabrielle gave a gasp as Finn reached over and took her hands from the counter and kissed her fingers. Shafts of desire ran down her spine and she bit on her lip to suppress the groan.

‘Till tonight, my darling,’ Finn said, and Gabrielle hoped the hours would speed by until she could be in Finn’s arms again.

But they dragged as they do for anyone in such circumstances, and by the time the Joberts sat down to their evening meal, she was on tenterhooks. She was unable to eat, for she wasn’t hungry for food.

‘Are you upset because your aunt and uncle are gone?’ Mariette asked.

‘Not really,’ Gabrielle said.

‘Well, something is wrong with you,’ Pierre said. ‘For you have been unable to settle all day.’

Gabrielle was desperate to get away from her parents and their watchful eyes and so she said, ‘I am just so tired. I’m not used to late hours and I am feeling very weary. I think I will seek my bed before long.’

‘You do right, if that is how you feel,’ Pierre said. ‘Bed is surely the place for tired people, and I will probably do the same thing myself soon.’

Gabrielle, though, wasn’t in the least bit tired. She had never felt more awake. She lay on the bed and tried to wait patiently until it was time to climb down the tree into her beloved’s arms.

‘You’re meeting Finn tonight, aren’t you?’ Yvette said when she came up to bed not long after Gabrielle.

Gabrielle nodded. ‘Is it so obvious?’

‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘Even Papa noticed.’

‘I can’t help it,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I haven’t seen Finn alone for ten days.’

Yvette asked, ‘What are you going to do when he leaves, because he can’t stay here for ever?’

‘I truly don’t know,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I suppose I will cope as well as anyone else if I have to.’

Yvette doubted that. She remembered her sister’s behaviour throughout the festive period and that it had been tempered slightly only because of the presence of her aunt and uncle. But it was a problem that Gabrielle had to deal with on her own and so Yvette said nothing more.

As usual, Finn was waiting for her beneath the tree, his arms outstretched, and she snuggled into them. As they kissed Finn felt Gabrielle’s body yielding against his and he felt himself harden as his own desire rose. Eventually he pulled away from her and as they began walking through the alleyways of the town, he knew he would have to be very strong that night—maybe strong enough for both of them if he wanted to protect Gabrielle.

To take his mind off his own emotions he asked her about her uncle and aunt, and their visit.

‘Ooh, it was lovely,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Their visits before were sometimes curtailed because Uncle Raoul was busy running his business in Paris, but he sold that last year. He has a weak heart and said he wasn’t killing himself for a business that would die with him anyway.’

‘Have they no children to hand it on to?’

‘No,’ Gabrielle said. ‘That’s why they think so much of Yvette and me. I do love them very much, but all through their visit all I could think of was how much I was missing you. As I said, Aunt Bernadette said that it was ridiculous for us to be sent to bed at eight thirty, but if my father didn’t insist on that, then I would never have been able to sneak out and see you at all.’

‘No, that’s true enough,’ Finn agreed. ‘The way he goes on, though, is not fair to you. You go nowhere. Even back home in Buncrana, my brother Joe and I used to go to the socials run by the Church on a Saturday evening. Mind you,’ he said,
with a rueful grin, ‘I had to fight for the right to do that. Mammy couldn’t believe that I wanted to go when I turned sixteen. But sometimes you have to fight for what you want in this life. I told my young sister the same, for she used to sway like the wind, do whatever Mammy wanted. She stood against her too in the end, because she wanted to be nursemaid to the people in the Big House.’

‘I never defy my father.’ Gabrielle said. ‘I do whatever he wants and so does everyone else in the house.’

‘That worries me a little,’ Finn admitted. ‘You have said that your father wants you to make a good marriage and I am afraid that—’

Gabrielle came to a sudden stop and, facing Finn, took his face between her hands. ‘Listen to me, Finn,’ she said. ‘I love you with all my heart and soul. My life is nothing without you and if I cannot have you then I will have no one.’

‘But if your father—’

‘If I ever felt that I couldn’t stand against my father, then I would go to my aunt and uncle in Paris,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I know they would help me.’

‘I saw you with your aunt in the town a couple of times.’ Finn said. ‘You looked so carefree.’

Gabrielle was a little irritated by what Finn said. ‘How shallow you must think me,’ she answered. ‘That carefreeness was an act I was putting on; to behave any other way would have been unkind to my aunt and uncle, and also would make my parents angry and suspicious.’ She looked at Finn
and cried, ‘My throat was so constricted with love of you I could barely eat.’

‘You’re not crying?’ Finn said, appalled.

‘I’m trying not to,’ Gabrielle said brokenly. She gave a sigh and went on, ‘But I’m hurt that you could think so little of me.’

They had reached the farmhouse and Finn kicked the door open and pulled Gabrielle inside.

‘Oh, my darling, I’m so sorry,’ he said, unfastening Gabrielle’s cape as he spoke. He let it fall to the floor as he kissed the tears from her face. He couldn’t believe he had made his beloved cry and he didn’t know how he could make it up to her. He drew her towards the sofa before the fire and lit the lamp. ‘I deserve to be hung, drawn and quartered for upsetting you so,’ he said.

‘You have no reason to distrust me,’ Gabrielle said. ‘My uncle and aunt were all for taking me back to Paris with them. Before I met you I would have loved to go, but all I could envisage were more weeks before I could see you and I knew that I couldn’t have borne that.’

‘How did you get out of it?’

‘I told them that it would be better for me to go in the spring when Yvette has left school and will be able to take my place in the shop.’

‘Captain Hamilton says that we will be gone from here by the spring,’ Finn said. ‘Some are moving out at the end of January, but I’ll not leave until the officers do. So it might be a good thing for you to go to Paris for a while.’

Gabrielle fell as if a tight band was squeezing her heart at the thought that in a few short months Finn would be gone. What was Paris to that?

She knew when he went from here it would be as if he had disappeared from her life, for there was no way that they could communicate, and she knew that that would be really hard for her, for them both; she didn’t imagine that it would be any easier for Finn to bear. She tried to bite back the sob, but Finn heard it and he held her even tighter as she said forlornly, ‘Every moment must count from now, my darling, because these are what I must commit to memory until you come back to claim me.’

Finn too felt a lump in his throat as he bent to kiss Gabrielle, and that kiss unlocked fires of passion in both of them. The poignancy of their situation and the threat of parting so soon—and maybe for years—were in their minds, and Finn felt as though desire was almost consuming him.

Gabrielle made no move to stop him as he kissed her neck and throat. Her sobs turned to little gasps of pleasure as he unbuttoned the bodice of her dress and fondled her breasts. Even when he eased her bloomers from her and slid his hands between her legs while his lips fastened on her nipples she wanted him to go on and on, and do something to still the feelings coursing through her. She wasn’t afraid, because she was with Finn and she knew he would never harm her.

There was a sudden sharp pain as Finn entered
her and then the rapturous feeling as they moved together as if they were one person. She felt enveloped in total bliss that rose higher and higher in waves of exquisite joy, so that she cried out again and again.

Eventually their movements slowed and then stopped. Finn slipped off Gabrielle and on to the floor beside her, and she lay back on the sofa in sated satisfaction with her eyes closed.

Suddenly she realised that Finn was crying. ‘My darling! What is it?’

Finn turned a tear-washed face to her. ‘Gabrielle, do you know what we have just done?’

Gabrielle nodded. ‘I’m pretty sure that you have done what you threatened to do to me before.’

‘What was that?’

‘Ravish me,’ Gabrielle said, smiling at Finn, who looked so ashamed of himself.

‘Yes,’ said Finn. ‘Dear God, I deserve horsewhipping. How could I have been so stupid?’

‘Don’t,’ Gabrielle said. ‘It’s the most wonderful experience I have ever had.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Finn said. ‘I wanted to protect you. My feelings for you just overwhelmed me. I am so sorry.’

‘It isn’t all your fault,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I could have put a stop to it if I had wanted to. Maybe when two people love as we love, it’s impossible to wait.’

Finn got up and began to dress. What if she was to have a child? That would be the very worst
thing to happen to an unmarried woman. And it wasn’t as if he would be there to share the burden with her. That thought brought him out in a cold sweat.

Gabrielle seemed not in the least bit worried about that and she looked into Finn’s eyes as she said, ‘With or without marriage I now belong totally to you, Finn Sullivan. My lover and my very own British soldier.’

Finn felt his stomach give a lurch as the passion rose in him at Gabrielle’s words. He knew, however, that he must never let himself be overcome in that way again, and he pushed her from him gently and said, ‘Get dressed, my darling, before you catch your death of cold.’

Gabrielle knew that Finn’s family would worry about him as much as she did when he left, but they at least would have letters to sustain them. Maybe, she thought, she could write to them for news of Finn. His parents might not be that understanding, but his sister or brothers were probably more approachable. So one evening she said, ‘What are your brothers like? The only thing I know about Tom is that you consider him to be a plodder.’

‘He is,’ Finn insisted, ‘and he would be the first to admit that there is little else to say about him. He doesn’t mind in the least that each day is like the one before it and he knows that tomorrow will be just the same. The only thing that disturbs him is the milk yield being down. Yet he is the kindest man that walked the earth and it would be very hard to dislike him. It’s just that he won’t stir himself to do anything, not even to come to the socials with me and Joe.’

‘So Joe is not like Tom?’

‘No,’ Finn said, ‘he is more like me, though maybe not as determined. He has been saying for a few years now that he doesn’t want to stay in Buncrana all his life. Once he told me that he wouldn’t mind trying his hand in America. I suppose the war has put paid to that, but I sometimes wonder if he will ever leave the farm. Yet after my father’s day, everything will go to Tom.’

‘Joe would do well to leave then,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Otherwise he will be left with nothing, though it hardly seems fair.’

‘I suppose not,’ Finn agreed. ‘Though in this case it seems so, because Tom suits the work much better than Joe or me. Particularly me. My father always said I was too impatient to be a good farmer. I didn’t care about that because I didn’t want to be a farmer all my life, but I tried my damnedest just the same because I loved my father dearly.’

‘More than your mother?’

‘I’m not sure what I feel about my mother,’ Finn admitted. ‘I was afraid of her for so long.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘I suppose that I have tried to respect her, but, hand on heart, I can’t say I love her. Biddy Sullivan, I would say, is a hard woman to love.’

‘What a shame,’ Gabrielle said, and then added, ‘Biddy is a strange name. Is it Irish?’

‘I suppose it is,’ Fin said. ‘Her full name isn’t Biddy, of course, it’s Bridget.’

‘Bridgette,’ Gabrielle said. ‘That is like the French name Brigitte, and it is a shame to shorten it to Biddy.’

Finn laughed. ‘It’s lovely the way you say it.’

‘And isn’t it a tragedy for people who never experience love in their lives?’ Gabrielle went on. ‘My father is the same. Somehow, I cannot imagine my mother ever loving him.’

‘From what you say,’ Finn said with a broad grin, ‘I imagine that my mother and your father would suit one another. Maybe we should maroon the two of them on a desert island somewhere.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Gabrielle giggled. ‘Maybe your mother loves your father, though. You said before that he is the only one that she listens to.’

‘That’s right, but I don’t know whether that is love or not. My father is a good man, and one I always tried to please, and yet nothing I did was quite good enough. In a way it is my father’s fault I enlisted.’

‘Did he want you to?’

Finn laughed. ‘Just the opposite. I did it, in a way, to spite him.’

‘Do you regret it?’

‘No,’ Finn said, putting his arms around Gabrielle as they sat on the sofa, ‘though I did think that a soldier’s life is more exciting than it is. I also thought I might get treated more like a man, after being at the beck and call of my father and brothers, only to find that in the army I am at the beck and call of all and sundry. But then I came to St-Omer and I met you, and my life was turned upside down because I love you with everything in me.’

‘I am the same,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Without you my life is worth nothing.’ She lifted her face as she spoke and their eyes locked for a moment, then their lips met in a kiss that left Gabrielle gasping for more.

Since they had made love that one time, their lovemaking had got more daring so that as January gave way to February and then March—coming in like the proverbial lion, gusting through the streets of St-Omer—not only did Finn know every area of Gabrielle’s body, she had began to explore his too. Finn had wanted her to do this and she had begun tentatively and timidly, hardly able to believe that she was actually touching the most private parts of a man.

In the cold light of day afterwards, just the thought of doing so had embarrassed her so much she grew hot with shame. In the heat of passion, though, it was different, and anyway, when she saw how much pleasure she gave Finn, she persevered. Her one desire in life was to please him. They did come dangerously close to making love again a few times, but Finn always made sure they stopped short of it and although this made him as frustrated as hell, he would not go any further.

Gabrielle, however, was still remarkably naïve about how babies were conceived, or how they got out once they were inside a woman, because she had been told nothing. She didn’t have the advantage of girls reared on a farm who might see the animals mating and, later, the birth of the babies, and she
had no friend with a confiding married sister or young aunt who could have put her right about things.

She knew the Church had said it was wrong to go with a man until a woman was married, but no one had told her what that actually meant. She had no doubt, though, that they would say what she and Finn was doing was a sin, because the Church semed to see sin in everything enjoyable and she certainly had no intention of telling in the confessional anything she and Finn were doing. How could you explain things like that to a man, even if he was a priest?

She didn’t know either why the bleeding that used to happen every month had stopped. When it had begun two years before and she had thought she was dying, her mother just told her that it was something that happened to women. It wasn’t to be discussed, and certainly not with men, and there was no need to make a fuss about it. She hadn’t been told that it had anything to do with fertility, and so when she didn’t have a monthly show of blood, she didn’t automatically associate it with what she and Finn had been doing.

Neither did Mariette, who knew nothing of her daughter’s nocturnal sojourn with a British soldier. She did know, however, that there had been no bloodied rags in the bucket she had left ready and she said to Gabrielle, ‘Funny that your monthlies should have stopped. Do you feel all right?’

‘Yes,’ Gabrielle said. ‘In fact I have never felt better.’

‘Well, you certainly look all right,’ Mariette said.

And Gabrielle did. She had developed a bloom on her skin that had not been there before because she was thoroughly loved by a man she loved in return. Even her not very observant parents noticed in the end and remarked on it, and many of the customers said the same, while Finn thought she had never looked more beautiful.

‘We’ll leave it for now then,’ her mother said, ‘but if they don’t return then I will ask the doctor to have a look at you. Just as well to be on the safe side.’

However, other matters took precedence. At the end of March, Yvette was fourteen and would be leaving school at Easter. In early April, Aunt Bernadette wrote to Gabrielle, repeating the invitation she had made at Christmas.

‘I don’t really know how I can refuse this time,’ Gabrielle confessed to Finn.

‘When are they arriving?’ Finn asked.

‘After the schools are closed, and that is less than two weeks away.’

‘Darling, I might be gone before then,’ Finn said. ‘The camp is on high alert. Any day we expect orders to move out.’

‘Oh, Finn…’

‘Go on with your uncle and aunt to Paris,’ Finn urged. ‘It might make it easier for you.’

Gabrielle tossed her head impatiently. ‘Nothing will make the loss of you easier.’

Finn put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. ‘My darling,’ he said, ‘in many ways I wish you and I had not met and fallen in love because it will be harder for us to part. But part we must and our lives must take different paths for some time. When the Army says “March”, then I must march.’

Distressed though Gabrielle was, she knew Finn spoke the truth, and she wished she could hold back time, even for just a little while. Once Finn left St-Omer she would be desperately worried about him. As so many soldiers had already left, he and Christy had been drafted in to help with the wounded again. She was aware that more and more came every day and the hospitals were filled to breaking point.

The talk around the Jobert table at night, and often in the shop too, was of the number of Allied soldiers, and especially British, that had been killed or injured on the battlefield so far, of the disbanded camp, and more and more troops going off to join the carnage being enacted in many areas of France.

Gabrielle never contributed in such discussions. In fact, if she could have done so she would have stopped up her ears so that she didn’t hear such things. She wasn’t stupid, and knew that when Finn left here he would probably soon be in danger, and could well become one of the casualties, but her love was so deep and all consuming that she imagined
he could fold it around him like a cloak and it would protect him from any German onslaught.

Bernadette and Raoul arrived in the middle of April, and wished to return the following day. That shook Gabrielle, who thought that she might have another few days’ grace and, despite the risks, she had to see Finn one more time. She communicated this to him in a note that she gave him with his change in the bakery that morning.

It was late that night when Gabrielle went to bed. Yvette was already asleep and Gabrielle forced herself to lie and wait until she heard everyone settle for the night and the house grow quiet.

Then she opened the window carefully. She knew Finn would be waiting for her, though she couldn’t see him for she dare not turn on her torch, her aunt and uncle’s bedroom being only a few feet away. She had never before climbed down the tree with such care, especially as she had the cape in a bundle under her arm.

In the bakery yard Finn had waited so long that he was worried that something had happened to prevent Gabrielle meeting him. He had begun wondering how long he should stay before returning to camp when he heard the distinct rustle of the tree.

Then she was above him, and the next minute in his arms and kissing him, and the next fastening her cape about her. Not a word was spoken until they were in an alleyway well away from the bakery.

Then Gabrielle said, ‘Oh, Finn, have you had to wait a long time?’

‘No matter. You are here now,’ he said.

‘I didn’t think they would ever stop talking and go to bed,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I had already—’

‘Hush,’ said Finn. ‘It is of no consequence. I would wait for you till the end of time. Don’t you know that? Now, let’s hurry. I can barely wait to hold your body close to mine.’

Once inside the farmhouse there was no hesitation. They didn’t light the lamp and so they only had the flickering light of the fire. As Finn began to caress Gabrielle, she helped him remove all her clothes for the very first time. Finn tore off his uniform, and when he too stood naked Gabrielle gasped as even in the dim firelight she could see how aroused he was.

Finn pushed her gently back on the sofa and lay on top of her, skin to skin. She shivered in delicious anticipation, and Finn knew he wanted Gabrielle more than he had ever wanted her before. Yet when she said, ‘Love me, Finn,’ he shook his head.

‘I mustn’t; I dare not,’ he said, though his hands continued to stroke her gently.

‘I will go mad if you do not make love to me tonight,’ Gabrielle said. ‘How can you be so cruel? Can’t you leave me one beautiful memory of you to hold against my heart, until you return for me?’

‘Gabrielle, you know I can’t,’ Finn said huskily.

‘You can, you must,’ Gabrielle said frantically.
‘I tell you, I will die if you do not make love to me tonight.’

‘And I,’ Finn might have said, because he felt as if he was burning up inside, such was the intensity of his desire. He was also well aware that this was the last time, perhaps for years, that he would hold this girl in his arms.

His fingers and hands stroking, caressing and gently kneading were followed by his lips kissing and nuzzling all over Gabrielle’s body. She felt as if she were being consumed by lust for this wondrous man she loved with all her heart, and when he kissed her lips, his tongue darting in and out, her need was so great that she felt as if her body was melting under his touch.

And then came unbidden into Finn’s mind a vision of him marching away and Gabrielle behind and alone, carrying his child in her belly. It took every ounce of his willpower to pull back.

‘What is it?’ Gabrielle said, her voice still husky with desire.

‘Gabrielle,’ Finn said, ‘I do love you so much. Far too much to do this to you.’

‘Oh, no, my darling Finn. Please?’ Gabrielle pleaded.

Finn hesitated. How he wanted to do as Gabrielle was begging him. Shafts of acute desire were pulsating through him, and Gabrielle’s body was all of a tremble. She cried out to Finn again and the picture he had had danced before his eyes again. Then his hands lay still on her body, and
he pulled his mouth from hers and he got to his feet, staggering slightly.

‘Don’t you love me any more, Finn?’ Gabrielle asked, and there were tears in her eyes.

‘Love you?’ Finn repeated incredulously. ‘You might as well ask me if the sun never shines. I love you so much that I cannot risk leaving you with a child.’

‘I would love to carry your child,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I would be honoured.’

‘And you will, my darling,’ Finn said. ‘When this war is finally over and we are married. We will have the rest of our lives to make love and each day we will love each other more. Think on that, my darling, darling Gabrielle. Now please, get dressed before I forget myself entirely.’

Gabrielle was still a little upset and very frustrated, but in her heart of hearts she knew that Finn was thinking of her and so she began to put on her clothes.

It was as they were walking back towards the town that she mentioned something that had been worrying her, talking in little above a whisper for sounds carry further in the night.