‘I think we should promise that we will stay true to ourselves. No matter what happens. No matter how bad things get. We should hold on to that truth. And I think we should all do whatever we can to prevent any more bloodshed. Even if, at the moment, it seems that the only thing we can do is pray. Pray that everyone sees sense.’
‘But what if the only way to bring an end to the bloodshed is to fight, spilling more blood along the way?’ Francine persisted.
‘Then we will fight when the time comes,’ Eliane replied, her eyes becoming sad, suddenly. But the expression was fleeting, like a cloud passing across the sun, and then her gaze became clear again. ‘Now,’ she said briskly, ‘pass me those lids and let’s get these jars ready for market, otherwise Saturday will arrive and we’ll still be standing here worrying about things we cannot change.’
Abi: 2017
The wedding party will be arriving this afternoon, so Sara and I are in the walled garden cutting flowers to put in the bedrooms and the main sitting room, and picking herbs, which she’ll be using to flavour tonight’s meal. She explains to me that, while they use outside caterers and professional florists for the celebrations in the marquee, she and her team do the day-to-day catering and housekeeping. She was a landscape gardener before she came to live in France, she tells me, and her evident talent is on display all around us.
In the shelter of the walled garden, she’s created long beds crammed full of cottage-garden flowers – blowsy peonies and scented roses, starry-blue love-in-a-mist and a foam of mock-orange blossom – with which we fill our baskets before returning to the kitchen to arrange them in Sara’s collection of pretty vases and jugs, gleaned from brocantes, which will add a welcoming touch to each guest’s bedside table.
The gardener, Jean-Marc, waves to us from his tractor-mower as he cuts a swathe through a meadow of marguerite daisies which they’ve cultivated to one side of the marquee. This grassy walkway will allow the bride and groom to make their way into the heart of the meadow of white flowers, the perfect setting for some stunning wedding photos.
Along the paths that lead to the chapel, the barn and the swimming pool, Sara and Jean-Marc have planted beds of lavender interspersed with a froth of long-stemmed white flowers (‘gaura’, she says it’s called), which dance like butterflies above the blue haze. Cream-coloured climbing roses drape themselves over stonework and around windows, and the heavenly scent of wisteria hangs in the warm stillness of the midday air.
‘What a romantic setting,’ I remark, imagining how these backdrops must set off the photos of beautiful brides and dashing grooms. It’s in stark contrast to my own wedding photo. Zac and I paused on the steps of the registry office as his mother snapped a picture on her phone. She had made it very clear that she thought her son could have done far better than marrying a penniless, family-less nanny.
I remember clearly the day we met. He was staying the night with the family I was working for in London and he’d marched into the kitchen, full of confidence in his perfectly ironed shirt (I found out only later that he’d sent them to be professionally laundered, but that he expected his new wife to do an equally immaculate job as part of her uxorial duties). I was attempting to spoon spag bol into little Freddie and had resorted to the ‘train going into the tunnel’ game to try to get him to finish what was in his Thomas the Tank Engine bowl. Some of the sauce had spattered on to my grey T-shirt (I’d given up wearing white ones within twenty-four hours of embarking upon my nannying career, two families back), and my hair was scraped back into a messy bun that was way more utilitarian than chic.
He’d ruffled Freddie’s hair (carefully avoiding a strand of spaghetti that had somehow ended up there), and then held out a hand to me. ‘Zac Howes; pleased to meet you.’
I juggled the bowl and fork, wiped my sticky fingers on my jeans and then returned his handshake. ‘I’m Abi. The nanny.’
His blue eyes, which had looked a bit cold to me at first glance, suddenly crinkled with amusement and I realised he was actually breathtakingly good-looking.
‘I see, Abi-the-Nanny, what an interesting surname you have.’ He grinned and in my confusion I dropped the bowl of spaghetti on to the floor. Freddie clapped his chubby hands and crowed his approval, picking up a wayward strand of cold pasta and flinging it down by way of his own contribution to the general mayhem.
‘Here,’ said Zac, ‘let me get that. You deal with this young reprobate before he trashes the joint.’
Freddie’s mother, who wasn’t proving to be one of my favourite employers, clicked in on her kitten heels. ‘What on earth’s going on here, Abi? What’s all this mess?’ she snapped, before noticing Zac, who was on his hands and knees scooping spag bol off the polished sandstone tiles. Her tone altered immediately. ‘Oh Freddie, I hope you haven’t been a naughty boy! Abi will take you upstairs for your nice bath.’ She made sure she stayed well beyond the reach of her little boy, clearly not wanting to risk getting any of the bolognaise sauce on her pale-pink yummy-mummy jeans. ‘Now, Zac, you shouldn’t be doing that. Let me get you a drink. Leave it and Abi will sort it out later.’
He shot me a sympathetic glance. Freddie flung his sticky paws around my neck and planted a big, sloppy, spag-bol-flavoured kiss on my nose. ‘Come on then, Freddo Frog,’ I smiled. ‘Let’s see if there are any crocodiles in the bath tonight.’
I glanced back over my shoulder as I carried my small charge upstairs. Zac was still watching me appraisingly.
And at the time, if I thought about it for more than a moment, I put it down to the way the light was hitting his face, but from that distance the warmth seemed to have seeped out of those blue eyes of his again.
Eliane: 1939
It was with a sense of numb disbelief that Eliane trudged up the track to her work at the château on the first Monday morning in September. The afternoon before – a golden Sunday afternoon – she and Mathieu had been sitting on the riverbank watching the damselflies dance above the water. It was that moment in the day when the setting sun’s rays caught the surface at just the right angle to bounce off again, like stones skimming the river’s surface. For a brief spell, the water shimmered with golden light that was reflected back up into the overhanging trees, an alchemy that transformed their leaves into a treasure trove of shimmering gilt.
As suddenly as it had arrived, the moment passed. The angle of the light changed and the colours faded as dusk began to draw its veil over the river. Mathieu stood and then reached out a hand to Eliane, helping her get to her feet.
The peace was shattered, all at once, by the sound of bicycle tyres skidding in the dust, sending a hail of pebbles scattering against the side of the barn. Yves leaped from the bike, leaning it against the wall in such haste that it immediately clattered on to the ground in a heap. Not stopping to right it, he sprinted towards the house.
‘Eliane! Mathieu!’ he shouted when he caught sight of the couple standing beside the willow tree. ‘It’s war! We’re at war with Germany.’
Eliane felt a chill sweep her body at his words and she shivered, despite the warmth of the evening. She had hoped so hard and for so long that her sense of foreboding would turn out to be misplaced. But in truth, she’d known that this moment would arrive and a great sadness engulfed her. Instinctively, she reached for Mathieu’s hand and held on fast. His powerful grip reassured her and strength seemed to flow into her from him. She knew she needed to stay calm, to resist the panic that was rising in her chest, so that she could support her family and her community through whatever was coming.
At Château Bellevue that next morning, Madame Boin was in such a state of distress that she burned the brioche for Monsieur le Comte’s breakfast not just once but twice. Eliane sought refuge in the walled garden, checking her beehives and gathering ingredients for the day’s meals. She added a good handful of lemon-verbena leaves to her basket, knowing that their calming properties might help to soothe Madame Boin’s jangled nerves.
Monsieur le Comte spent much of the day ensconced in his library, listening to the wireless. Eliane heard snatches of the news as she brought him his meals. French troops were being deployed along the eastern front, creating what they hoped would be an impenetrable line that would defend France’s borders. Great Britain had joined the mass of Allied Forces too and would be lending their considerable firepower to the fight.
The count tried his best to reassure her, saying, ‘Don’t worry, Eliane. Our army will soon have them on the run, especially with help from our neighbours. And luckily your young man is a farmer, so he won’t be called up – we’re going to need to keep production up to feed the country while the war lasts.’
But there was a forced confidence in the way he said this, which didn’t quite manage to camouflage the dread that flickered in his eyes as he turned back to listen to the next bulletin.
At first, it seemed to Eliane that the country waited with bated breath for the war to begin in earnest. As she took the last of the summer’s honey from her beehives, she looked out from her hilltop perch to scan the sky above the walled garden for signs of enemy aircraft. But all was peaceful and she could see the inhabitants of the village of Coulliac in the valley below going about their daily business. As autumn turned to winter, life continued much as it always had done.