A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress (20 page)

‘The most perilous part is always the journey,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll be glad when we’ve gone, though.
We're
dangerous for
you
. But it’s not so simple…’ She sighed at Cyprien, who lay against his pillows like a man punched to unconsciousness. ‘I’m not sure I can do my job without a wireless operator. Our Romeo isn’t going to be tapping out messages for a while, is he?’ She glanced around Henri’s bedroom, at the discarded napkins and the containers of discoloured water. ‘I suppose I’m a prisoner in this room now. I can’t return to my tower until it’s thoroughly dark again. Do you have books? Some Shakespeare, perhaps?’

‘I have the entire works. I admire Shakespeare very much.’

‘You have good taste for a Frenchman!’

‘I’m working on a book that proves finally that Shakespeare
was
a Frenchman.’

‘A what?’ She staggered to her feet, outrage momentarily blinding her to the glimmer in the dark eyes. ‘Oh, very funny.’ She lobbed a napkin at him. ‘I dare say I will learn to recognise when you’re ribbing me.’ A yawn ambushed her. ‘I have to lie down. I’ll put a cushion on the floor. Why don’t you try and catch some sleep too?’

‘I have too much to do outdoors. I must work and supervise the small amount of labour I can get. There are no men, you see. No young ones, anyway. The able-bodied are either prisoners of war, or in forced labour in Germany.’

‘I’m glad they didn’t send you away. How has Albert escaped?’

‘Not physically fit, a problem with his joints. He was lucky; many frailer young men were dispatched. Me, I am forty-two next birthday.’ A touching defensiveness crept into his face, a shred of that French vanity she’d warned herself against. ‘I am still strong, but my profession makes me too valuable to waste in some factory in the Ruhr. We may be at war, but wine still reigns supreme. My job is to keep it flowing.’

‘I’d love to see round your estate.’

He shook his head regretfully, took her hand, covering it with both of his. His skin was warm and dry. ‘How could I explain your presence to the old men and women who work for me? Please, be patient. I have promised you books, and will bring goose-feather cushions so you rest in comfort while you keep guard here.’ Seeing anxiety cross her face, and perfectly translating it, he nodded. ‘I will ensure Albert stays away from you, though I know you can defend yourself.’

‘Can I? I failed against you. You won hands down in the tower room.’ More than
hands
down. Blushing, she thought of herself astride him, and of the sudden reversal of position. Flipped over like a pancake, him lying across her. Was he picturing the same scene, from his advantage? ‘Had you been an assassin or the Gestapo, I’d have been done for.’

‘Next time, you will be faster and more ruthless.’

‘Is there going to be a “next time”?’

‘That depends.’ His eyes were dark diamonds, pledging his desire to resume their tussle, without a knife blade between them. Nor clothing. Nor a hard floor beneath. She lowered her eyes, then raised them because… Well, who had time for coyness? They were dancing on the lip of an abyss, the rules re-written. Hadn’t they just spent a night together? Working to save Cyprien’s arm, an intimacy had cemented itself between them. They could not retreat from that. She’d never known anyone in her life like Henri de Chemignac.
Écharde-
the-splinter had embedded himself in her skin
.
As he held her gaze, she drank in his pledge and her body fizzled with champagne bubbles.

She breathed, ‘There will be a “next time”, because I am staying as long as it takes for Cyprien to recover. And when I finally leave, I want memories worth taking with me.’

He kissed her hand. ‘Then I will consider ways to provide them.’

A
routine established itself
. Yvonne stayed at the invalid’s bedside during the greater part of the night, relieved by Jean-Claude in the early hours. Jean-Claude would limp from his quarters among the geese, happy to take up vigil in a warm and well-lit room. He was always cheerful, in spite of the broken nights and his torn ligaments. Once she had debriefed Jean-Claude, Yvonne would slide away to her bed in the tower. She never grew to like that room.

When he could, Henri joined her for the night watches. Cyprien remained in a fragile condition, often feverish, needing cloths wrung out in ice-cold pump water to be laid on his brow. He was relentlessly thirsty too, and had to have water spooned into his mouth. After a second clandestine visit to Amillac, Henri acquired quinine, which lowered Cyprien’s temperature a couple of degrees.

Through the long hours, Yvonne and Henri would read to each other. Or recite snatches of remembered poetry. Or they would talk, relating the adventures of their lives. She told him about her childhood, and her early visits to France with her mother. Henri in turn told her about his children, a daughter and son, both of whom he clearly adored. He’d sent them away for their safety, he explained, though only to a neighbouring farm. He spoke only once about his wife, telling Yvonne, ‘Marie-Louise died three years ago this month, when our son was just a few months old. He, of course, never knew her and so does not miss her but my daughter, Isabelle, still cries out for her. I never thought I would say this, but I think I would like some day to marry a woman capable of understanding my passionate little girl. Believe me, it is not a job for just anyone. Perhaps it is only suited to the sort of woman who falls from the sky.’

It was an intense time and the bond between them grew fast and strong. On the last day of June, Henri got news about the safe house that Yvonne, Jean-Claude and Cyprien were supposed to have progressed to. It had been compromised, its owner arrested. Another location would have to be found, but until the Garzenac Resistance had re-established itself, nothing could be offered. At Chemignac they must all stay.

It was a frustration, a reprieve. A courtship, of sorts. Though they never gave in to physical attraction, Yvonne and Henri’s eyes would snatch at each other across Cyprien’s bed. The brush of fingers, or shoulder accidentally meeting shoulder, would send sparks between them. Only a matter of time… But when and where?

J
une melted into July
, and Cyprien’s pulse remained erratic and fast. He drifted in and out of disordered sleep, periods of lucidity alternating with delirium when he would gasp out muddled speeches and soliloquies, or shout names that meant nothing to Yvonne, but which, if they were ever voiced in the presence of an enemy, would condemn him instantly. Most worryingly, his muscles were wasting and there were the early signs of a lung infection. ‘He isn’t going to be able to fulfil his mission,’ Yvonne confided to Henri at the end of the first week of July. ‘Not without a period of convalescence and some hearty feeding, and where’s he going to get that? No, I need to get to Bordeaux. I hope the wireless op is still in business there. I need to organise Cyprien’s repatriation.’

‘Send him home? Will SOE pick him up?’ Henri looked sceptical.

‘There might be plans to land a Lysander somewhere nearby. Agents are sometimes landed rather than dropped, and the pilot takes others home. They might allot Cyprien a space. But doubtful, I agree. Mostly likely, he’ll have to get across the border into Spain and make for neutral Portugal.’

‘The other side of the border is the Pyrenean Mountains.’ Henri sucked in a breath. ‘Even in summer, for someone in Cyprien’s condition…
Non
.’

‘Then what?’ she demanded helplessly. ‘We weren’t dropped here at huge risk and expense so we could fanny about doing nothing! What a ghastly hash-up.’

‘This is war,’ Henri reminded her. ‘There is no handbook. No timetable. I will enquire again about your safe house and will put out feelers about your ‘pianist’ in Bordeaux. Isn’t that what you call your wireless operators, because they practice their finger work on the keys every day? But, my love, you must continue to be cautious and not step outside, not even in the moonlight. The
négociant
called here last night to discuss the yields I can expect from my vines this year, and he told me that there have been more arrests in Garzenac, connected to the gun battle twelve days ago. Everybody is jumpy; nobody trusts anybody. Better to shelter here, no? At least from here, you can escape.’

‘True. Your splendid tunnel!’ As the second week of July commenced, Yvonne’s residence at Chemignac still had no definite end date.

O
n July 9th
, shortly before midnight, Henri joined Yvonne in the sickroom as usual. Only this time, he was so preoccupied he didn’t notice that instead of her customary brown check skirt and beige blouse, she was wearing workman’s blue overalls. Raymond had presented them to her, along with a green cotton shirt. They’d belonged to his older brother, who’d been transported to Germany to work in a munitions factory. Thanking the boy profusely, Yvonne had immediately washed the garments in the kitchen sink. They’d smelled strongly of tobacco and stables. Once dry and ironed, they provided a welcome change. They buoyed up her spirits as much as a trip to the shops. In this perilous, twilight world, she was learning that tiny luxuries meant everything.

She twirled for Henri, showing off her new outfit in the rhapsodising tones of a fashion commentator; ‘“Yvonne wears our dashing summer evening-pyjamas, in a shade we call ‘
bleu
’. Teamed with a frog-green
chemise
, this combination is perfect for a day’s sailing or a game of croquet on the lawn—” Hello Central, we’re not getting through! What’s wrong, Henri?’

He didn’t want to say at first, but in the end he told her. ‘My friends, Luc Roland and Michel Paulin – nobody’s heard from them since they went into the tunnel.’

‘You said yourself, they’d escape into the woods and lie low.’

He nodded. ‘But Luc has a wife and Michel a mother and sisters. It goes against the grain to leave families frantic with worry. We have a code, a way of saying ‘I am alive and well’. It is to send a button in an envelope, with a note; “You lost this the last time you called on me.”’

‘And they haven’t? There may be many reasons why they can’t send notes.’

He agreed. ‘And none of them are good.’ And then, because Cyprien seemed to be enjoying one of his rare, peaceful sleeps, he reached for Yvonne’s hand and said, ‘You look lovely, by the way. Froggy green suits you. I can’t offer croquet on the lawn, but let’s go for a walk.’

She jigged like a child. ‘You’re actually going to allow me to progress beyond the courtyard walls?’

‘It’s time you had some exercise and there’s hardly any moon tonight. I’m confident nobody will see us.’

She skipped ahead of him to the door, tutting impatiently when he insisted she put on his brown work jacket.

‘I don’t want another layer. Anyway, it’s too big.’

‘But it will make you look more like a man than a woman, just in case anyone catches a glimpse of us together.’

‘You mean Albert?’

‘I mean ‘anybody.’ If I am seen with a shadowy woman, with abundant hair and an hourglass figure, gossip will break out like influenza.’

Sighing, she slipped the jacket on. Henri found a dark beret, just like his own. Scooping her hair into a loose knot, he fixed it on her head. When she glanced at herself in the hall mirror, she saw a shapeless column.

She stopped caring once they were outside, walking between the rows of vines. Yvonne breathed in the soft, night air with the same raging urgency that Cyprien took his cups of water. ‘Tell me all about your grapes,’ she said. ‘What sort are these?’ She trailed her hand through springy foliage, feeling the hard bounce of unripe fruit. The vines stood lower than she’d imagined they would. As a child with her mother, she’d visited vineyards in the Loire Valley where the rows had towered high over her head. Of course, she’d been much shorter then.

Henri explained, ‘I prune the vines down because it discourages pests. Nor can I get copper sulphate to spray on them. All the French copper is shipped to Germany. All we can use is a mix of vinegar and water, with a little soap added. So, keeping the vines low gives some protection from airborne pests. The air near the ground is warmer too. Can you feel it around your feet?’

She could, and marvelled at it. ‘I’d have thought it would be cold near the soil, warm at head-height.’

‘No, because the soil absorbs the heat of the day, and releases it at night. Like a free radiator! I work with nature to get the best yield I can, but, as I was obliged to tell the
négociant
the other day, this year’s crop will be severely reduced. Without the muscular labour I am used to, I cannot keep the soil between the rows ploughed. I can’t pull all the weeds out either, nor can I check every single leaf every day for pests.’

‘I wish I could help. I would wear a headscarf and tie my shirt at the waist, and sing as I worked.’

He sighed, communicating a like-minded wish. ‘I have to make the authorities understand that everything is against me, or when it comes to the end of harvest they will accuse me of hiding quantities of wine from the Germans.’

‘And don't you?’

‘Good heavens, Madame, what a thing to suggest!’

The laugh tagged on to the end suggested that, in spite of regulation and government interference, Chemignac had a trick or two up its sleeve.

A
s they walked
up and down the slopes, Henri named the varieties he grew, though every few strides he’d bend to pull up some weed, muttering the French equivalent of ‘Dratted thistle!’ or ‘Blasted Vetch!’ He grew mostly red grapes, he told her, Cabernets Franc and Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot, all of which he blended to create the deep-coloured, full-bodied wine she had already tasted at their evening meals.

‘I have a few
parcelles
of white Semillon, Muscadelle and Sauvignon Blanc for our sweet dessert wine, which goes in its entirety to Germany. What doesn’t go for sweet Monbazillac makes our local Cognac. Our government at Vichy takes a great deal of
that
for its own needs
.
’