Escape from Passion, page 7
“Do you realise it’s our last day and that tomorrow we shall not be here?” Jack asked.
“Don’t count your chickens,” Fleur admonished him, looking round the tiny cell that had housed him for nearly four months. “There is a lot of ifs about it.
“If the weather is fine, if Henri is quite certain that the motor is going perfectly, if he can get us down to the boat and last but rather important, if we can get away undetected.”
“Don’t be so gloomy,” Jack retorted and, getting up from the table, he went and stood by the open ventilator. “If it’s a day like this, we could not ask for anything better.”
There was a thin sea-mist outside and the light in the cellar was dim.
“Are you excited?” Jack went on.
He lit a cigarette and sitting down on his bed, put up his feet.
“I ought to be,” Fleur replied, “and yet I don’t know – it is difficult to put into words but somehow I am afraid, not of the danger but of leaving here and of relinquishing the security I know for an unknown future.”
“The security of a prison?”
“I suppose it does seem like that to you! To me – well, it has been very happy.”
“Darling!”
Jack sat forward and stretched out his arms to her.
Fleur smiled but shook her head and moving away from him perched herself on the table, her feet on the seat of the only chair.
“Does that seem strange to you?” she asked, “But I have been happy, you know, terribly happy and I am afraid that everything may be altered when we return to England.”
“You are being silly,” Jack said affectionately. “We shall still go on being happy, you and I, for ever and ever.”
“Are you sure?” Fleur asked. “You will go back to your work – to your Squadron while I have to start my life all over again.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I honestly don’t know. Find out how much money I have first of all. I suppose there is some left if my stepmother has not taken it all and then – ” Fleur hesitated, but bravely she said the words, her eyes seeking his, “it rather depends on you.”
“On me?” Jack asked. “Oh, but, of course, darling. We’ll get married but we must not do anything in too much of a hurry. You must come down to my mother’s with me while we talk it all over.”
“What will your mother think of me?”
“What could she think except that you are the most wonderful woman in the world?”
Somehow Fleur was not convinced. Jack was always rather reticent where his family was concerned, she could not get a clear picture of them from what he had told her and the way he had described them. Now she felt suddenly afraid of this odd woman who had the first claim on Jack.
Every day her love for him had grown. He seemed to twine himself round her heart. She loved the boyish eagerness with which he grasped at their love and made it the axis of their very existence.
She loved his impatience with everybody and everything that kept her from him even for a few minutes.
She loved too, although she constantly protested against it, the way he brushed aside all conventionality, making it obvious even to the Bouvais that they were in love.
They played absurd tender little games together, they laughed continuously and words came tumbling to their lips in the exuberance of youth.
Sometimes Fleur wondered if despite her love for Jack she really understood him and if she in reality knew more than his superficial charms.
Now she felt a sinking within herself, a jealousy that could not be denied, as she realised how greatly Jack was looking forward to tomorrow.
He was nervous, tense and excited. He had walked up and down the cellar a thousand times that morning, going over the plans of escape again and again in case they should have forgotten something, the things they would take with them, the way that they would go and explanation that Henri must be ready to offer should there be any hitch.
Their plans had been changed slightly in the last few days because an acquaintance of Henri’s had decided to come with them. He was a young man of good family whose father owned a small estate in the neighbourhood.
Now they would leave with the fishing fleet with ostensibly two men aboard and it gave them a better chance when they were once out to sea to have three men to look after the sails and attend to the motor.
“We’ll have to use everythin’ we’ve got to get up enough speed to avoid the patrol,” Henri had told them.
There was something in the thought of being chased, perhaps of being caught, that made Fleur’s heart beat and made her desperately afraid of the project.
He reached out his arms now and held her close.
“Do you still love me?”
“I adore you. You know that.”
“Stroke my forehead, you know I love the feel of your fingers.”
She did as she was asked, moving her fingers gently until his eyes closed.
“It is a funny thing, isn’t it?” she said after a few minutes, “that war can bring so much misery and sorrow and yet such happiness as well. If it had not been for the war, you do see, I should have never met you.”
“I certainly should not have been here,” he replied. “I should have been in the old Motor Works, my nose to the grindstone. Not that I wasn’t just beginning to do pretty well.”
“What has happened to them now?”
“The Motor Works? Oh, they are turning out aeroplanes and have been enlarged to twice their size. I hardly recognise the place when I pass it.”
“It is near your home?”
“Just round the corner, up the hill and straight on.”
“Don’t be so ridiculous!”
“Well, it’s the truth. About three miles in fact. I used to go over on my motor bicycle, it seemed more distinguished somehow than catching the 8.15 in a bowler hat. That was the choice I had to make, an office boy in my father’s bank or a workman in greasy overalls in Mitcham’s Motor Works. The engines won, I never could resist them.”
“I am sure that you were outstandingly brilliant,” Fleur said teasingly. “And one day you would have owned the Works.”
Jack laughed.
“Hardly that. If you saw the boss, you would be quite certain that ‘what I have, I hold’ is his motto. He’s a fine chap all the same, you must have heard of him.”
“Who? – Mr. Mitcham?”
“Sir Norman Mitcham, please. He is one of the big Captains of industry, small town boy makes good and all that sort of thing. He started at the bottom and rose to the top a good deal quicker than most people. If you saw him, you would not be at all surprised, he is just like a Juggernaut, crushing everything under him.
“And when the war is over, will you go back into Mitcham Motors?”
Jack hesitated a moment.
“I suppose so. Although I am not certain if I would not rather stay in the R.A.F. if there was a chance for me to do so. I love flying, I think I love it more than anything else in the world.”
“More than you love me?” Fleur heard herself ask and was ashamed of the femininity of the remark.
“You cannot compare the two,” Jack prevaricated.
Then, grinning at the disappointment in her eyes, he drew her face down and kissed her.
“I love you, darling one, and cannot think of anything else at the moment, not even of slipping in and out of the clouds or the thrill of shooting down a Hun. I just want to lie here and purr like a cat while you stroke my forehead.”
“I spoil you. It was a mistake from the beginning.”
“Was it?”
He sat up and held her close, his lips sought hers again and she felt a sweet languor creep over her and she could not resist the possessive passion of him.
“You are so sweet, my Fleur.”
For a moment she let herself drift into a Heaven of close intimacy and then resolutely she pushed him away.
“Let us be sensible,” she said, and her voice was deep and moved. “It is nearly supper time, I must go and help Madame Bouvais get it ready.”
“Our last supper here,” Jack stretched his arms above his head.
But Fleur knew that it was only a gesture for his muscles were not relaxed, he was tense and alert, waiting and longing for the morrow.
She went out of the cellar, closing the secret panel and climbed the steps to the kitchen. Madame Bouvais was bending over the oven and Henri was sitting on one of the stools at the table, his head in his hands.
There was something in his attitude that made Fleur exclaim,
“What is the matter? Is something wrong?”
At the sight of her, he looked round quickly to see if they were being overheard and then started to pour forth his words quickly and vehemently.
Fleur listened and her face slowly whitened.
Henri had indeed brought us bad news. The Germans had announced that on the morrow there is to be an inspection of fishing boats, there was the likelihood of some being moved to another area and the owners would have to go with them.
With the turbulent emotionalism of his race, Henri, who had been so confident and so excited through all their planning, was now in the depths of despair. He was sure that his new and to him, beautiful boat would attract attention, he was sure that both he and it were likely to be sent away.
Fleur heard the note of anguish in his voice and in her mind she heard it echoed by Jack. Although they were of such different races, the two young men were not unlike, both prone to wild enthusiasms and equally wild despairs.
If things went wrong for them personally, it seemed as if the end of the world had come and that there was no hope and no possible chance of resuscitation in the future.
Fleur stood still, her fingers linked together tightly. What could she do, she thought, she could not bear it if Jack should be so desperately disappointed.
She knew that she would have to be the one to tell him.
It was as if she must deprive a dearly beloved child of its hope of life or sight.
Henri was still speaking.
“What can we do?” he asked. He had already asked the question several times before. “What can we do, mademoiselle?”
Fleur hesitated a moment and then she knew the answer.
“But it is easy. We must go tonight.”
“Tonight!” Henri echoed the word stupidly.
Behind him Fleur saw Madame Bouvais straighten herself and stand very still, her face expressionless.
“But, of course,” Fleur insisted, “what else could we do? Go and fetch Louis and bring your boat to the beach. At the quay you can say you are bringing it round to clean it ready for the inspection tomorrow, make some excuse, you can surely think of one.”
“But the coastguard?” Henri asked”.
Fleur stared at him, her eyes dark.
“There is only one man on duty at a time. Only one armed and the other inside the hut, perhaps asleep. And there are three of you.”
Henri understood and she saw too that her idea had taken hold of him. He was still for a moment, his eyes pensive, his fingers playing idly with a little twig and, as she watched, it was as if some machine was beginning to work inside him.
Henri’s mind had absorbed her idea and was starting to work on it.
He was moving quicker and quicker until he grasped it completely and sprang to his feet, his whole face alight.
“You are right, mademoiselle, it is perfect that way, you will see. You will be ready as soon as it is dark?”
“As soon as it is dark,” Fleur repeated.
Henri sped from the kitchen, they heard his footsteps clatter across the yard and fade into the distance. Only then did Fleur look again at Madame Bouvais.
She was still standing as if turned to stone.
Now that the moment of parting is upon her, Fleur thought, it is almost unbearable. She moved across the room, put her arms round the older woman and kissed her cheek.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered, “so terribly sorry.”
Madame Bouvais turned away, not roughly or rudely as if she refused Fleur’s gesture of sympathy, but quietly as if the burden of her sorrow was so great that there was no way in which she could express it in words.
Fleur, carrying Jack’s supper to the cellar, was concerned with her own inner regret. She had somehow looked forward to tonight in her own mind as if it was a celebration. She had planned it as a night when she and Jack must say ‘goodbye’ to the past and turn towards the future.
And now in the flood-tide of her love, another change.
‘Oh, God,’ she prayed suddenly. ‘Please let Jack go on loving me. Don’t let me lose him, I need him so.’
She felt that her prayer was selfish and yet at the same time she knew that Jack needed her too and needed her in many ways more than she did him.
If she had not come to the farm, perhaps he would have done something stupid, tried to make an escape too soon and been captured, involving himself in desperate consequences and perhaps involving the Bouvais family as well.
She had prevented that, she had given him a new strength and a renewed confidence in himself.
She knocked on the partition wall. They had a sign of their own by now, a different one from that used by Suzanne and the rest of the family. He knocked his reply, the panel slid back and she carried in his food.
“The same generous choice of soup or soup, I suppose?” Jack asked. “My goodness! It will be fun to have a decent meal for a change. Fancy a nice cut off the joint or a good steak!”
“You may have one sooner than you think!”
Jack looked at her sharply.
“What do you mean?”
Fleur told him Henri’s news and her own decision, which had changed him from despair to elation.
“So we are to go tonight!” Jack exclaimed.
“Yes, we are going tonight.”
“But that is marvellous! Now I will not have to lie awake longing for tomorrow. I could not sleep a wink last night, I was so excited and I was thinking all of the time what a state I should be in tonight. Fleur, this is stupendous! We could not have better weather for it, just look at that mist.”
“Perfect.”
Jack looked at her.
“You did not sound too pleased. It is all right, isn’t it? You are not keeping anything back from me?”
“I have told you exactly what has happened,” she said and smiled at his excitement.
“Perhaps we will be having breakfast in dear old England. Eggs and bacon! What would you think of that?”
“It sounds all right.”
In spite of every effort Fleur knew that her voice sounded flat.
“You are worried.”
Jack put his arms round her and drew her head against his shoulder. He then tipped up her chin, holding it between his fingers.
“Don’t look anxious, darling. We will make it all right, we have to. I have had the luck of the Devil all through this war and it is not going to fail me now.”
“Don’t boast,” Fleur said quickly.
“I’m not. Besides, I am touching wood.”
He put his hand against the table and then slipped it back to the softness of her neck.
“You think we are happy here,” he challenged. “Wait until we get to England. We will be married and I will show you the real meaning of love.”
“I only hope to go on being – as happy.”
“You shall,” Jack promised and then he gave out a sudden whoop of excitement. “Just think, tonight! We really start tonight.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Jack! Jack!”
“It’s all right, drink this.”
A gentle voice spoke with authority and a firm hand lifted Fleur’s head from the pillow so that she felt her lips touch some cool and revivifying liquid. She opened her eyes. She saw white walls, a calm-faced white-capped nurse bending over her. A screen at the end of the bed blocked her vision.
She was in a hospital, her brain took in that fact and then a voice commanded her,
“You are all right. You are quite safe now. Go to sleep.”
She closed her eyes, obedient as a child, and let herself drift away into unconsciousness.
Later, much later, she began to remember, to let all the events and happenings of the past hours come back to her. She saw them clearly in all their agony and suffering yet without the terror and fear that had been her most prevailing emotions at the time they had taken place.
Yet despite everything and despite what must have been the almost overwhelming odds, their adventure had succeeded and they had reached home.
At least, three of them had. Louis had died just before they were picked up by a coastal motorboat.
It was of Louis that Fleur thought most often even while she knew that in her dreams she cried out for Jack, longed for him and felt that without his sustaining love and his indomitable courage she could not go on.
For nothing, she felt, could ever erase the memory of Louis’s head in her lap, the horror of watching him grow weaker and weaker and of knowing that his life was ebbing away yet being unable to prevent it.
The whole story of their flight in retrospect seemed almost too fantastic to be credible.
As her eyes closed against the soft pillow, Fleur wondered if anyone would believe them or if it was worth telling the story and expecting people to credit what seemed sheer fiction.
She recalled the walk to the boat from the Bouvais farm, the sound of their footsteps, although they tried to muffle them by walking on the grass by the side of the road. The noise of a stone carelessly kicked was like a pistol shot.
Over and over again Fleur found herself thinking that they were really mad to attempt an escape and mad to risk comparative security for what appeared to be certain death.
Yet she knew that she was the only one who was afraid. Jack was thrilled and excited, but outwardly calm, just as she felt he must be when he took off in his aeroplane to fly over enemy territory.
The sense of adventure had swept away almost all personal feeling from him
He was out to do a job and he was determined to make a huge success of it. The fact that he himself might never complete the course was, Fleur recognised, of so little account that he hardly gave it a moment’s thought.
