The Walnut Tree Read online

  As we walked back, he said, “This is a respectable restaurant. It serves meals to the middle class and sometimes to working-class people looking for a pleasant evening out. You will not be insulted by the clientele. I would choose somewhere better known, but I don’t think we should be seen dining together. Not without a chaperone. And we won’t be recognized here, I promise you.”

  We stepped through the door into a long narrow space with an ornate wooden bar along one side and small tables down the other. The walls were decorated with lovely posters—I recognized one from the Paris Exhibition, and another of a pair of smiling young women cycling together down a country lane, advertising bicycles. A third expounded the glories of Venice, a gondolier in front of the famous square gesturing toward it with his straw boater. They were the only bit of color in a very sedate atmosphere.

  A few older diners occupied tables at the back. I wondered if their sons or grandsons had also been called up, for they seemed to have little to say to one another, their gaze on the middle distance, as if their minds were following their loved ones to whatever rendezvous point had been set out in his orders. So different from the Paris of only a few days ago, full of gaiety and laughter, untouched by fear. I looked up at Alain, tall and handsome in his own uniform—but he wasn’t marching in a parade, he was going off to war. I suddenly felt like crying.

  He led me to a table by the Venice poster, and then went to speak to Madame at the counter. Soon she was bringing out roast chicken, a dish of vegetables, and a basket of potatoes baked in the oven. Thick slices of bread came with a slab of butter, and a bottle of white wine. A plate of cheeses followed. Country fare. Simple but well prepared.

  In spite of everything I had an appetite. The food tasted as lovely as it smelled. Alain was hungry too, and we ate in silence for a bit. Then he said, “It won’t be long before the Germans have finished the Belgians. They’ll be on our frontier in a matter of days. I think we can hold them. And your country has already massed its regiments at the Channel ports, if they haven’t already crossed and marched toward Mons. They had agreed for decades to stand surety for Belgium’s independence. They won’t hesitate.”

  Men like my cousin Kenneth’s eldest son, Rory. He’d be in the thick of it, a career officer and a good one.

  Alain added, “I want you to go home now. While you can.”

  “But what about Madeleine? She was in such distress tonight, when Henri left. And now you. Alain, I promised her. She’ll need me now more than ever. Don’t ask me to abandon her to strangers.”

  He grimaced. I could guess how difficult their parting had been. “My sister will be all right. It’s your safety I fear for. We have cousins, and Henri has a large family as well. She has only to send for them. They’ll take care of her.”

  “But the baby—it’s likely to be rather small, the doctor said—” I began, but he cut me short.

  “God forbid that anything happens to it. But we must face reality. If Henri survives, there will be other children. The fact is, we have every expectation of stopping the Germans at the Belgian frontier. But they will be aiming for Paris, you see. If we contain them, force them back into Belgium, all well and good, the war will be over by Christmas. If we fail, well, then, who knows?”

  “That’s a rather grim picture you’ve just painted. Are you deliberately trying to frighten me into going?”

  “War is not for women. You have no idea of the hardships that lie ahead, even if we win. There will be shortages of food, of petrol, of everything. There will be few parties or concerts. Refugees will fill the city, to the point that nothing is the way it was. My sister is French, her child French. They must take their chances or move farther south, but you must go home. Elspeth, I care too much to let you stay in France, even for the sake of my sister. The fighting won’t touch England, you see. Here, we and the Belgians will bear the brunt of it. I’ve been so grateful for all you’ve done for Madeleine. God knows I am, but I want you safely away.”

  It was an impassioned plea, and I thought I knew what must lie behind it. I was proved right when he put down his wineglass and said, “I want to marry you, Elspeth. I have no title to match yours, but is that so bad a thing? I am wealthy, I can support you as my wife, and I will take pride in seeing that you want for nothing. More to the point, I love you with all my heart. I have not spoken to your cousin—there is no way to reach him before tomorrow morning. But as soon as I am free of my military obligation, I will go to him. And here is a token of that promise.”

  He reached into his pocket and brought out a small velvet box. Flicking it open, he passed it across the table to me.

  “It was my mother’s ring. She wore it with pride as my father’s wife. I offer it to you.”

  I took the box containing the ring and held it between my hands. Deeply touched, I could only stare at it. And think, looking at it, that he was marching into danger tomorrow. He would be facing an advancing army soon enough, an army already tested in its march through Belgium. What if he was killed in that early action? What if he came home lame or blind or without a limb?

  I realized in that instant that what frightened me more was a single question. What would my life be like without Alain in it?

  And like so many young women across France at that very moment, I took the ring out of its velvet box and handed it to him to slip over my finger. The dark red ruby with its circlet of diamonds flashed in the light of the candle on our table, and for a moment I could think only of blood. And then it was in place, warming my hand as he looked at me, his blue eyes just as warm.

  “I have no right to kiss you,” he said softly. “But just once—I would like it very much.”

  And in that quiet little café we rose to our feet, the table between us, and he kissed me on the lips, my hands in his. I think he meant for it to be a chaste kiss, but there was passion behind it, deep and swelling, as if to last a lifetime. And then he stepped back, smiled at me, and we sat down again.

  I don’t remember what we said in the half hour we lingered there. His voice was deep, his words reaching far inside me, and I wanted to remember them forever. But I couldn’t. All I could think of was that tomorrow morning he was going to war, and I knew then why Madeleine had gone into strong hysterics. When you cannot change something, when you want so desperately to hold on to it, and you know it is as far beyond your power as the stars, something breaks inside.

  In that moment I loved Alain too, and his ring, settling on my finger as if it had always belonged there, sealed that love.

  I told you, didn’t I, that I had always had a mind of my own.

  Sometimes it’s a blessing. And sometimes a curse.

  Chapter Two

  Paris was nearly empty of men the next morning. Only the very old, the very young, the lame, and the halt walked the streets, and they were a somber lot.

  I hadn’t told Madeleine about my evening spent in the little café. I hadn’t needed to. She touched the ring on my finger, then looked at me with bright, loving eyes.

  “You’ll be my sister. Oh, Elspeth, you’ve made me so happy I could almost forget that Henri has gone away.”

  I hadn’t taken the ring off. It was like a talisman, a promise that Alain would come back to me.

  “It’s a token only,” I said. “There’s nothing official. After all, he hasn’t spoken to Cousin Kenneth. We must have his consent.”

  “Even your cousin Kenneth is bound to like Alain. But, yes, it’s not something to make public until he’s done the right thing. But between us, I’m so very very pleased.”

  She hugged me, then lay back against her pillows. “I wish I could have gone to Villard to have this baby. If it’s a son, he should be born there. If the weather breaks, will you help me persuade the doctor that I should go north by easy stages? I’ll even take a midwife with me, whatever he wishes.”

  I remembered what Alain had said, that t
he Germans would push toward Paris, that Paris was what they wanted. And if that was true, what better way to reach the capital than to come down the Marne Valley? Straight through Villard. I’d looked at a map last night, unable to sleep, walking the floor, and then descended to the library to discover what lay ahead of us. It didn’t seem so terrible on the heavy map paper. Flat blue lines marking rivers, red dots marking towns. No concept of distance, or time. No way to judge what an army could do, marching through, cutting a swath of death and destruction. But I could see for myself that the Marne Valley was no place for a pregnant woman close to bearing her first child.

  I said, “The weather hasn’t broken. If we ask now, the doctor is bound to refuse. Let’s be patient.”

  “But it’s important to me. Henri was born there, his father and grandfather before him, and as far as I know, generations beyond that. It’s a very old name. Famous, in fact. I think Henri would like to know that his child carried on that tradition.”

  She had got it into her head now, a surprise for Henri when he came home. I’d been warned by the middle-aged woman Henri had hired to oversee the nursery that pregnant women sometimes developed strange fancies. “My last lying-in,” Nurse Berthe told me, “it was lemons. In season or out, Madame must have lemons.”

  This was a far more dangerous fancy.

  “I know how much it matters,” I said soothingly, plumping Madeleine’s pillows. “But if the war is over very quickly, then Henri will be here to take you to Villard himself.”

  That satisfied her for a few days, but she returned to the subject several times over the following week.

  And Belgium fell to the Germans. The British had declared war on Germany on the fourth of August, had sent troops. But the German Army was now poised to invade France.

  The news was not good. The frontier didn’t hold. Another week passed, and another, with rumors flying. The British Expeditionary Force was guarding the coast roads and finding itself overrun. Forced to retreat time and again. The French Fifth Army wasn’t engaging the enemy. Refugees were clogging the roads, preventing the Allied armies from moving north. Disaster piled on disaster. Then the first refugees reached the city, bringing such tales of horror and suffering that her maid, Marie, and I tried to keep them from Madeleine. Villages, houses, even churches had been shelled, looted, civilians injured and killed, livestock and stores taken to feed an army.

  We had heard nothing from Henri or Alain since their departure. Not surprising in the circumstances. But it would have been such a relief to know they were well.

  The newspapers tried to keep up with what was happening, but events were outpacing their efforts.

  On the day that we heard the Fifth and Sixth armies were not able to stop the enemy’s advance, that the Marne Valley lay open to them, Madeleine went into labor.

  I could only thank God that we were not in Villard.

  I had stayed on in France, despite the warnings from Alain and from Henri. But I felt I owed it to Madeleine. Now as I went out to find a taxi to summon the doctor, I saw a sight that I shall never forget for the rest of my life.

  I had had to walk for blocks, no taxis to be found in any direction, and then just ahead of me, I saw them. All the taxis were gathering in a great cluster, as if drawn together by a magnet, filling the heart of the city, and soldiers were everywhere. The little Renaults were being stuffed with troops, and as soon as their doors were shut, they set off at speed for the north.

  A man stopped next to me to stare at the spectacle and after a moment said, half in prayer, half in anguish, “It’s a last effort to save the city. My God, have we come to this?”

  I saw a French officer watching the scene, and I crossed to where he was standing, catching at his sleeve to pull his attention away from the taxis. “What’s happening? What does this mean?”

  He looked down at me, saw the ring on my finger, knew that someone I cared for must be in the army.

  “We are losing on all sides. The Germans are advancing down the Marne. We are sending troops to stop them, and sadly, this is the only way. The trains—they will have to march too far, you see, if they use the trains. And there isn’t time.”

  I stood there, mesmerized, as some six hundred taxis took on their complement of men and then dashed toward the outskirts of the city. Would they be in time? Or was Paris about to fall? Someone in the northern suburbs was said to have heard the guns last night. The Villard porter had brought that news just this morning.

  Tearing myself away from the unbelievable scene, I walked on to the house of Monsieur le Médicin. I found it in turmoil, packing cases everywhere, the furnishings hastily covered in dust sheets.

  He was preparing to send his family south to Lyon, to safety, in the event the Army couldn’t stop the German advance.

  I reminded him that his patient needed him, and reluctantly he agreed to come with me to the Villard house, cursing as he went because there were no taxis, and his driver had already been called up, as had the Villards’.

  We reached the house to find Madeleine in strong labor, and it was only an hour later that the child was born.

  “A boy,” the doctor came out to tell me. “A healthy boy. Nurse Berthe is here to attend to it and to the mother. Just now, I have a duty to my own family.”

  “If worse comes to worst—can she be moved?”

  “Not for several days. There is the danger of bleeding and also the danger of infection. Keep everything around her and the child as clean as may be. That’s her only chance. To put her into a motorcar just now—I couldn’t guarantee anything.”

  I went up to see Madeleine soon afterward. She was fretting that there was no way to send word to Henri that he had had a son. “And I never got to Villard,” she cried. “I had so wanted to have our child there.”

  “Paris is in danger,” I told her flatly. “And the Marne Valley is a battlefield. Be grateful you aren’t there.”

  She shuddered. “Truly?”

  “Truly.”

  “What are we to do, then?”

  “You must go south, to your family’s house on the Loire. You should be safe enough there.”

  “But Henri won’t know where to find me!”

  “Of course he will. He knows better than we do that Paris isn’t safe. He’ll expect you to go away as soon as you can travel.”

  She smiled then, satisfied. But I wondered if Henri was still alive. Or Alain. There had been dreadful casualties, according to all reports.

  I waited another few days, and by then, the news was better. The taxi army had arrived in the nick of time, and the Germans had been turned back.

  I rushed to Madeleine to tell her the news, and her face glowed with relief and happiness. I hated to tell her what I’d decided over breakfast. But it had to be done.

  “Madeleine. I came here to be with you while you were so uncomfortable with your pregnancy. And now the child is here and you’re doing remarkably well—”

  “You can’t leave me! And there’s Alain—he’ll want to know you’re here, and safe.”

  “Britain is at war, Madeleine. I feel as strongly about my country as you do about yours. I must go home.”

  “But what can you do there? It isn’t as if you were a man and could enlist. Will you grow vegetables on the lawns of Cousin Kenneth’s castle? Will you drive an omnibus in London?”

  She was right. What could I do? But I was suddenly homesick, had been for several days, dreaming of my home in Cornwall, dreaming too about Scotland, which I hadn’t done in years. Even the knowledge that it would take twice as long for Alain’s letters to reach me in Cornwall couldn’t persuade me to stay in Paris. I could come back to France, I told myself. Once I’d been to England.

  “If our circumstances were reversed, would you stay on in London while France was being attacked?” I asked her finally.

  “No, but then I ha
ve a husband here, a child. You have Alain.”

  “I’ll come back, Madeleine. As soon as possible. But first I must go to England. It’s—my cousins are probably already in the Army, friends I’ve danced with, that I’ve played tennis with, that I’ve dined with. They’re in harm’s way. I must go home and do something. Even if it’s only to write letters, to keep up their spirits.”

  “And what about Alain? France is going to be your home. Stay here and wait for Alain to come back.”

  “I’m not his wife. Not yet. Madeleine, I must do this. And I think Alain would want me to go. He tried to convince me to leave the last time I saw him. And I need to finish my life in England before I marry him. Perhaps he understood that better than I did.”

  She gave me a sad smile. “If that’s what Alain wanted, then of course you must go. But I wish you would stay.”

  “I wish I could.” It was a white lie, for her sake. I touched the ring on my finger. “I kept my promise to you, didn’t I? And I’ll keep mine to him.” I tried to smile, but it faltered. “He must ask Cousin Kenneth for my hand. Properly. Alain will come to England if he has to, to find me. Wait and see.”

  I tried to persuade her to go to the Loire, but now that Paris was saved, Madeleine wouldn’t hear of it.

  It was a sad parting, a few days later. Carrying only a single valise with the few things I would need on the journey, I left on the train for Calais.

  Of course there was no one to see me off. The chauffeur had left to join his own regiment, and the driver of the taxi saw me only as far as the Gare du Nord, and no one had gone ahead to buy my ticket. I walked through the crowded railway station and dealt with arrangements. But as I was entering my carriage, the man who had been just behind me in the queue at the ticket kiosk said, “Allow me.” He took my valise from me, settled me into my seat, and then found a place for the valise in the crowded compartment behind mine.

  I expected him to take the seat next to me, but as I thanked him, he nodded, then went back into the corridor to find where he belonged. The passenger who did sit next to me was taciturn, and I was grateful not to have to make conversation.