The Eden Inheritance (30 page)

‘Christian has just told me about it,' Kathryn rushed on. ‘How dare you do something like that behind my back?'

For a moment Charles looked almost shamefaced, then he recovered himself.

‘It wouldn't have been behind your back if you hadn't absented yourself from the table so rudely.'

‘I was sick!' Kathryn flared. ‘Not that I'd expect any sympathy from you. But that's beside the point. If you're not happy with Paul as Guy's tutor I'm the one you should be discussing it with, not your father and the rest of the family, not to mention von Rheinhardt!'

‘I have not discussed it with you since I wouldn't expect you to be objective about the matter.'

His voice was very cold and Kathryn felt a chill of alarm.

‘What do you mean by that?'

Charles laughed shortly.

‘You really think I don't know what was going on between the two of you? You swore to me, Kathryn, that he was not your lover, but you were lying. I'm not the complete fool you seem to take me for. I know you were visiting him in the middle of the night before he left, and I'm not prepared to put up with it any more.'

Kathryn was so taken aback she was unable for the moment to find words to reply, and Charles continued: ‘I should have thrown him out there and then but I didn't want to cause a scene and have my father know the sort of woman I am married to, so I thought it better to do it in a roundabout way.'

‘You bloody hypocrite!' Kathryn grated. ‘You don't give a damn what they think of me. It's
you
you're concerned about. You don't want to look a fool in front of your father, that's all. Paul is good for Guy and you know it. You've no business lying about his abilities as a tutor.'

Charles' lip curled.

‘From the reception my suggestion received it seems the others agree with you. I've not pressed the point at the moment, but at least I have laid the foundations. If your Monsieur Paul returns – which he won't if he has any sense – and if you resume your nocturnal visits to his room, I assure you I shall have no hesitation whatever in making sure my wishes are observed. I'll have him thrown out, make no mistake of it. Do I make myself clear?'

Kathryn returned his glare defiantly but inwardly the fight had gone out of her and she felt trapped and helpless. This was the moment to have it out with Charles once and for all, tell him that she and Paul were in love and that when all this was over she was going to leave Charles to be with him. But she dared not. Too much depended on Paul's remaining at the château, and not only her own peace of mind and the comfort of seeing him, however fleetingly. It had become Paul's base, a secure place from which he could conduct his operations, as well as a permanent cover for his resistance work. She must not do anything to threaten that.

She looked at Charles, seeing a man she had once loved but now despised, and knew that for the moment at least he had won.

‘You make yourself perfectly clear, Charles,' she replied quietly.

In the long days and weeks that followed it was Celestine who provided the diversion which made life bearable for Kathryn. The two girls had always been good friends, now Kathryn discovered that talking with Celestine and trying to help her come to terms with what had happened enabled her to forget, for a little while, the constant nagging fear for Paul's safety and anxiety for the future.

Celestine's moods swung between fiery defiance and black despair. She was suffering from shock and grief as well as the more normal roller-coaster emotional swings that pregnancy inevitably brings, and she was by turns insecure and bullish.

‘I don't understand how they can accept the Boche,' she said over and over again. ‘They are monsters! Maman and Papa, well yes, I suppose Maman sees only what she wants to see, and nothing but the survival of Savigny matters to Papa. But Charles and Christian … I'd never have expected them to take it lying down.

They have gone right down in my estimation, I can tell you. How can they call themselves men?'

Kathryn hesitated, tempted to tell her that Christian was working for the Resistance, but deciding against it. Though she knew she could count on Celestine's support, for her own safety it was better she did not know.

‘Don't judge them too harshly,' was all she said.

‘You wouldn't say that if you saw what the Boche did to Julien!' Celestine's eyes filled with tears and she turned away, lost in her own private hell, and Kathryn put her arms around the thin shoulders, knowing there were no words which could ease her suffering and comforting her in the only way she knew how.

‘I loved him so much,' Celestine said through her tears. ‘You can't imagine what it was like, seeing them treat him like that and not being able to do anything to help. I just had to watch them beat him up and drag him away … I wasn't even there when he died. Oh, I can't bear it! He was so beautiful, so clever … I was so proud of him. I don't know what he saw in someone like me.'

‘You are beautiful and clever too, Celestine.'

‘No I'm not. I'm plain and I'm certainly not clever. He used to help me with my studies so that the tutors wouldn't know how stupid I was. And he was brave, too. He knew the dangers of being a Jew. He should have run away, tried to get out of the country, but he just wouldn't believe they would take him like that. ‘‘Those stupid strutting little men don't frighten me,” he used to say. He was proud too, you see, proud of being Jewish. I was afraid for him but he wouldn't listen to me.'

‘At least you have his baby,' Kathryn said. ‘They can't take that away from you.'

‘That's true.' Celestine lifted her chin, pursing her lips so that her small face was a mask of defiance. ‘Maman and Papa are ashamed of me just now. They think I have let them down. But one day they will be proud. And so will I. I know my son will be the very image of his father.'

‘I'm sure he will be,' Kathryn said, but suddenly she was very cold inside. The baby Celestine was carrying was half Jewish. It had not occurred to her before and she did not suppose it had occurred to any of the rest of the family either. It hadn't seemed important – only comforting Celestine had mattered. Now she realised with growing disquiet just how very important it might be.

‘Does anyone in Paris know you are pregnant?' she asked, trying not to let her anxiety show.

‘My friends know – Agnes and FranÁoise. And of course the doctor. It wasn't common knowledge and I'm not showing yet, but word gets around. Why do you ask? You're not afraid of the scandal too, are you, Katrine? I wouldn't expect that of you.'

‘No, of course not. It's just that … I don't think you should tell anyone outside of the family that Julien was Jewish.'

‘Oh my God, I never thought!' Celestine's hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with dawning horror. ‘ You mean … if they knew, my baby might be in danger too! Of course – of course! People in Paris with Jewish blood generations back have been trying to hide their ancestry. Suppose those bastards who took Julien find out I'm pregnant! They might track me down here! They might … God knows what they might do!'

‘I'm sure that is not going to happen,' Kathryn said, with more confidence than she was feeling. ‘I do think you must be very careful from now on, though. At least you can talk about Julien without giving the game away. His name doesn't sound Jewish.'

‘No, but … everyone knew. He had to wear a Star of David. Oh Katrine, if the Boche find out he is the father of my baby … what will I do?'

‘Don't upset yourself,' Kathryn said. ‘That won't help anyone – least of all your baby. Just carry on as normally as possible and try not to worry. I'll think of something.'

But even as she tried to sound consoling she knew with terrifying certainty that if the Nazis did indeed discover that Celestine's baby was half Jewish there would be nothing she could do to save her, and the realisation added a new dimension of horror to the nightmare that was slowly but relentlessly engulfing them all.

I
N THE SMALL
anteroom of the doctor's surgery at Périgueux Paul sat waiting his turn. In the rough trousers and collarless shirt which he wore in his persona as country peasant he blended perfectly with the other patients – a middle-aged man with a heavily bandaged hand, a little old lady dressed all in black who huddled, shivering in spite of the heat of the day, a heavily pregnant girl, shifting her bulk uncomfortly and trying, without much success, to control the two small children who ran riot and clung to her skirts by turns. As he waited Paul coughed occasionally, and the feigned spasms sounded sufficiently sepulchral to make the other patients keep their distance. No one wanted a serious chest infection to add to all their other problems.

At last it was Paul's turn. Dr Ventura was writing, bending closely over his desk to enable him to see what he was doing. He needed to get his glasses replaced by stronger ones, he knew, but at present he had too many things on his mind to bother about what was no more than an inconvenience, and he wasn't at all sure that new spectacles would be available anyway. Precious little was, these days. As Paul entered the surgery he looked up, a big bluff man well past his first youth, dressed in a worn tweed suit.

‘Paul – you're back then.'

‘I'm back. How have things been in my absence?'

‘Ticking over. We got three parcels away down the line.'

Paul nodded. He knew that the doctor was referring to Allied airmen being passed along the escape route.

‘Any problems there?'

‘I don't think so. No thanks to them, though. We put them up at Madame Poire's guesthouse and they got hold of a bottle of pinot and got very drunk. One of them was singing in English, if you please. Then one of the others decided to take a walk around town and got himself lost. God, it's frightening when you think that idiots Like that are flying about the skies in great lumps of metal!'

‘They got away though?'

‘From here they did – with a good ticking-off about their behaviour. I've never been so glad to see the back of anyone in my life. I only hope I made them see the error of their ways or they'll put someone else in danger further down the line. Stupid fools.'

‘They are very young, most of them, and probably very frightened,' Paul said, feeling ashamed of his countrymen.

‘That's no excuse. They should realise they are endangering the lives of those helping them by their irresponsibility.'

‘I know. Anything else?'

‘I've recruited a couple more local lads. We'll have to watch them, they're a bit hot-headed, but they are keen and strong – they have youth on their side. And the parish priest at Bouley. He's a good sound man, should be useful. But there's something else I think you should know. It seems that an SS major by the name of Heydrich, who is based in Paris, has taken over a house at St Vincent as a sort of weekend retreat. He's a great friend of von Rheinhardt, he came down to visit him, saw the place and fell in love with it. It had been empty and boarded up for some time but it's been opened up again and all kinds of supplies have been going in through the front door – the sort of luxuries the rest of us haven't been able to get our hands on for years. From what I hear he intends installing his floozy there and coming down to stay whenever he can – which, knowing the way the SS are a law unto themselves, will probably be pretty often.'

Paul swore. An SS major on the doorstep was something they could all well do without and he said as much.

‘There's more,' the doctor said, stretching back in his swivel chair. ‘And it's serious. The Communists have got wind of what's going on and word is they intend to dispose of him.'

‘You've got to be joking!'

‘I wish I was.'

‘How do you know this?'

‘I had it from Madame Yvette. One of her girls heard about it from a client. And those girls are pretty reliable, as you know.'

Paul nodded. Madame Yvette's was a brothel, but the girls who worked for her were among the bravest and most patriotic he had met. As a result of the intimacy they shared with men from all walks of life and every political persuasion they made wonderful informants, and their pillow talk came from not only Frenchmen but Germans too. More than once he had had reason to be grateful to Madame Yvette's girls and he knew that he would sooner trust his life to one of them than to many so-called ‘respectable folk'.

By the same token he had a healthy mistrust of the Communists. They were a motley crew, a law unto themselves. In the beginning they had even sided with the Nazis, seeing their rule as a way of destroying the old order, but now that they bad defeated Russia the Communists had turned against them. But they still refused to work alongside the Resistance, preferring to run their own show, though they expected to be helped out with supplies of arms and ammunition to carry out their campaigns. They were, Paul considered, at best a nuisance and at worst a danger, for they tended to allow themselves to be carried away by the grand cause to the point of recklessness.

This plan was nothing if not reckless.

‘They must be stopped,' he said now. ‘Don't they realise the kind of trouble they'll unleash if they assassinate an SS major? The reprisals will be terrible. Von Rheinhardt would make sure of that, especially if it's a friend of his who's killed. And it wouldn't stop there. They'd have the Gestapo herein force faster than you could say the word. They'd line up local people in their hundreds and shoot them down in cold blood.'

‘I know all about that,' the doctor said. ‘But how the hell can we stop them? I've already talked to Gaultier the local leader, but he wouldn't listen. He as good as told me to mind my own business. You can try if you like. He might take notice of you, though I somehow doubt it. They have the bit between their teeth and all they can see is the satisfaction they'd get from watching a prominent SS major crawling for his life.'