The Lost Years (42 page)

The woman looked at Perys intently for a few moments, then, apparently satisfied, she nodded. ‘It is almost time for Gabrielle to sing again. A drink will await you inside.’

Turning away, she re-entered the restaurant. When the door had closed behind her Gabrielle said, ‘Madame Navarre owns the Restaurant Eugenie. She does not speak English - but I did not realise you spoke French so well.’

‘And I did not realise we were on a train from Paris.’

Gabrielle smiled at him. ‘I told her I had to go to Paris to see my sick mother. She needed to know nothing more. I must go inside now - but remember what I said earlier. I will not walk too fast for you.’

Perys had not intended to take Gabrielle up on her offer. At least, he wasn’t certain he would. However, by the time she finished singing he had drunk far more wine than he was used to - and she was a very beautiful woman.

She was aware he was following her and when she turned into a house, the door was left ajar. When he entered, she was waiting and greeted him with a kiss that aroused him even more than her singing.

‘We must be quiet,’ she whispered to him, ‘there are others in the house . . . Come.’

He followed her upstairs to a bedroom on the first floor. There was only the light from the sky outside, but it was enough to see the room was untidy, the bed unmade. But then Gabrielle was undressing and all else was quickly forgotten.

Gabrielle’s love-making was more savage than passionate and left him gasping. Afterwards, she began nibbling at his ear and whispered, ‘Your love-making is wonderful, my captain Perys. If I could, I would award you a medal for that.’

It was not long before he was aroused again but, as they were about to make love once more, they both heard the sound of the street door being shut noisily.

Gabrielle sat up as though someone had stuck a pin in her. ‘Quick,’ she gasped, ‘you must dress and go. Hurry - but do not make a sound.’

She leaped from the bed and had a moment of panic when she could not immediately find her dressing-gown. Then she located it on the floor behind the door. Pulling it on hastily, she opened the door quickly and stepped outside, closing it behind her.

She was only just in time. A voice that Perys recognised as belonging to Madame Navarre demanded, ‘You are in bed so soon? Have you been upstairs to see my son?’

‘Of course,’ Gabrielle lied. ‘He was sleeping, so as I was tired, I came to bed.’

‘The place for a wife to go to bed is with her husband. However, I realise he can no longer be the husband you would wish. I will go and see for myself that he is asleep.’

‘I will come with you,’ Gabrielle said, immediately.

‘That will not be necessary,’ Madame Navarre replied.

‘Nevertheless, I will come.’

Outside in the street, Perys hastily checked that he had forgotten nothing in his haste to dress in the darkness of Gabrielle’s room. Then he hurried back to the Restaurant Eugenie, aware that if he was fortunate, he might still ride back to the airfield in one of the lorries.

Later that night, as Rupert and Perys walked back to their respective billets from the lorries that had brought the pilots back to the airfield, Rupert said, ‘I was very surprised when you returned with us tonight. I thought you had gone off with that young French singer and wouldn’t be seen again until morning.’

Perys gave him an amused smile that was lost in the darkness. ‘You know me, Rupert, work comes before pleasure.’

Undressing for the second time that night, this time in his room, Perys thought of what had happened in Amiens. He doubted if he would ever see the lovely Gabrielle again.

He wondered how he would have returned to the airfield had they not been disturbed - or if Gabrielle’s mother-in-law had not made so much noise entering the house and had caught them in bed together?

For Gabrielle, making love with him was probably no more than a brief adventure, and one she had undoubtedly embarked upon many times before, with no apparent regard for her maimed husband who was sleeping under the same roof. He wondered whether she would have remained with such a husband had his mother not owned the Restaurant Eugenie.

He compared her conduct with that of Annie. If Polly was to be believed, she had married Jimmy because she would not add mental hurt to the wounds he had received in war.

She had become angry over a kiss she must have known was far more meaningful than a momentary thrill.

Perys fell asleep wondering how different his life might have been had Annie’s morals been more in line with those of Gabrielle . . .

Chapter 67

In the late spring of 1918 life was not easy for Annie. Jimmy was going through a very difficult period of violent mood swings. One day he would be perfectly happy to accompany Annie to Tregassick and take pleasure in the work he was able to do there. The next, he would refuse to leave the house, complaining that life had treated him badly and he was incapable of carrying out even the most simple task.

On one such day, when Jimmy refused even to leave his bed, Annie was tidying the dressing table in the bedroom. Opening a drawer in which she intended placing a cheap crucifix she had worn to a church service the day before, she saw the letters Perys had sent to her after his first visit to Heligan, and which had caused such an upset in the Bray family.

Acting upon a sudden impulse, Annie removed the letters from the drawer and placed them in a pocket in her apron.

Later, downstairs in the kitchen, she took them out and read them until tears welled up in her eyes and she was unable to read on.

She had promised to go to Tregassick and help out with the last of the lambing. She had hoped Jimmy would accompany her, but she was aware from hard-learned experience that in his present mood he would do nothing she asked of him.

Rather than go back to the bedroom, she placed Perys’s letters on a shelf in the kitchen and called up the stairs to let Jimmy know she was leaving the house.

She received no reply and had not been expecting one. When he was in one of his moods he listened only to the voices in his head, voices that could be heard by no one else.

The letters she had just read had unsettled her. Although she tried not to think about it, she could not help wondering what her life would have been like had her father not intercepted the letters.

When she entered the kitchen of Tregassick Farm, Harriet saw immediately that her daughter was unhappy.

‘Jimmy not with you this morning?’ she asked as she busied herself kneading dough with which she would make bread for the farm, with a few loaves left over to sell.

‘He’s not feeling too well this morning. I left him lying in bed. He’ll stay there until he’s feeling better - or fancies getting himself something to eat. Everything’s to hand for him in the kitchen.’

Harriet was aware of what Jimmy’s ‘not feeling too well’ meant and she was unhappy for Annie. In a bid to cheer her up, she said, ‘Go out and look at the three lambs that were born in the night. By the time you come back I’ll have a cup of tea ready. When your pa comes in we’ll have a bit of breakfast.’

After Annie had gone out into the farmyard, Harriet continued kneading dough on the kitchen table, but her mind was on her two children. She thought, bitterly, that each was a prisoner in their own way. Of the two, Martin was probably the more fortunate. When the war came to an end, with victory for Britain and her allies, as it surely must now the United States of America had declared war on Germany, he would be released and return home to a hero’s welcome. There was no such happy prospect in view for Annie. She was not able to look forward to a time when all would be well in her life. She had committed herself to Jimmy ‘in sickness and in health’. Harriet knew her daughter well enough to be aware that it was a vow she had taken seriously.

Annie was gone longer than Harriet had expected, but when she came back to the house she looked happier than when she had left.

Speaking to her mother, she said, ‘When I got to the barn one of the ewes was giving birth. She had a bit of trouble so I helped her. She’s had not one but two healthy lambs.’

‘Good for you, Annie. Your pa will be well pleased. He’s relying on the sheep to bring in a little bit of profit for us. Heaven knows, we could do with some right now.’

She did not add that even the small wage they paid to Annie for helping about the farm was really more than they could afford right now. Annie had enough problems of her own.

‘Here’s your pa coming into the yard now. Tell him about the lambs, it’ll put a smile on his face.’

Somehow, that morning seemed a happier one than usual for Annie. Two more ewes gave birth while she was on the farm. She enjoyed helping them and watching the lambs rise to their feet and take their first, shaky steps.

She was even happy cleaning out the pig-stys, work that Jimmy had learned to do.

At noon, she ceased work and went to the farmhouse kitchen to collect hot pasties to take to the cottage as a midday meal for Jimmy and herself.

She was there talking to her mother when Harriet peered through the window and said, ‘Are you expecting a visit from Winnie today?’

‘No.’

Following her mother’s gaze, she saw Jimmy’s mother picking her way through the mud of the farmyard, heading for the house.

‘She doesn’t look very happy,’ remarked Harriet.

‘She never does,’ Annie replied, with glum resignation. ‘It’s usually because she doesn’t think I’m looking after Jimmy properly. I’d better go out and meet her.’

But there was something in Winnie Rowe’s walk that caused Harriet to say, ‘No, let her come inside the house. If she has something to say to you she can say it in front of me.’

There was nothing unusual in the fact that Winnie came into the kitchen without knocking, but Harriet had been right in thinking she was visiting the farm looking for trouble. Winnie wasted no time before launching into an attack on Annie.

‘I thought I’d find you here instead of where you ought to be - at home, looking after your husband.’

‘Someone has to earn money if we’re to keep food in the house,’ Annie retorted. ‘If he’d got out of bed this morning he’d be here with me. Anyway, I’m just on my way home with some pasties for dinner. Do you want me to bring an extra one for you?’

Annie was used to Winnie’s rudeness and her constant complaining that Jimmy was not being looked after properly. For this reason she had come to dread her visits. Jimmy was always moody and far more difficult to cope with after she had gone home.

But this visit was to be like no other.

‘I don’t want any pasties and there’s no need for you to take anything for our Jimmy. He’s not there. I’ve sent him off home with our Rose. It’s where he went in the first place when he came home from the war - and he should have stayed there.’

Her statement left Annie speechless.

Harriet had always tried to keep out of the arguments she knew went on between Annie and her mother-in-law, but she was unable to remain silent now.

‘That’s taking things too far, Winnie. Annie has always taken very good care of Jimmy. I can vouch for that because most days he’s here on the farm with her, enjoying being able to do a little work.’

‘You would say that, seeing as how Annie’s your daughter. It must have been a great relief to you and Walter when you were able to marry her off on our Jimmy, but I’d have expected a bit more honesty from you, seeing as how we were once neighbours.’

‘And what exactly do you mean by that, Winnie Rowe, I’d like to know?’

‘You know very well what I’m talking about, Harriet, and it’s no use you saying you don’t. I’m talking about the goings on between your Annie and one of them up at the big house at Heligan. Did you think she might be expecting when you got her married to our Jimmy? That all the fine promises made to her by that young gent she was carrying on with would come to nothing?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Harriet was shocked by the other woman’s accusations.

‘I do,’ Annie said, angrily confronting Winnie. ‘Unless I’m mistaken you’ve been reading letters that were not addressed to you.’

Unabashed, Winnie replied, ‘If you didn’t want folk to read them then you shouldn’t leave them lying around. Of course, I don’t suppose it would matter much, what with our Jimmy not being able to see what’s been going on under his nose.’

‘My letters weren’t left lying around, they were put on a shelf in the kitchen, where only the nosiest of persons would have found them and put two and two together to make five. They were sent to me long before I married Jimmy. Before he joined the army, even. Only the most evil-minded woman would have made something out of what was written by a young man barely out of school, to a girl he hardly knew, but thought he was in love with.’

‘That’s your story,’ Winnie said, derisively. ‘I’ve no doubt you and your family will stick to it, but I don’t believe you and I doubt whether anyone else will.’

‘I think you had better get out of my house right now, Winnie Rowe, before I use language that the Good Lord might never forgive me for. Our Annie is right, you are an evil-minded woman. Why I ever let her marry into such a family I’ll never know.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m going,’ Winnie said, defiantly. Jabbing a finger in the direction of Annie, she said, ‘And don’t you come trying to get Jimmy back. He’ll be properly looked after from now on.’

With this, Winnie swept out of the kitchen, almost knocking over Walter Bray who stood looking after her in astonishment, a smile of welcome frozen on his face.

Later that evening, Polly called in to check that all was well with Annie. She had gone straight to Tregassick Farm after work and been told by a still upset Harriet what had occurred earlier that day.

She found a calm Annie putting the finishing touches to the spring cleaning she had been carrying out in her house since returning home that afternoon.

‘Are you all right, Annie?’ Polly asked anxiously.

Wielding a duster energetically, Annie replied, ‘I’m feeling better than I have for a very long time, thank you, Polly.’ Turning to her sister-in-law, she added, ‘It’s a dreadful thing to say, I know, but it’s almost a relief not to have responsibility for Jimmy, even if it turns out to be only for a short while. He’s been particularly difficult lately. Nothing I did seemed to please him.’