Page 92 of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure
Ellie stood up, realizing how late it was. “I’ll make up a bed for you.”
“No need. I’ll sleep on a sofa. I’m easy to please.” He smiled then. “But if I do have to come again ...”
“I’ll have the spare room ready,” she said. “And I’ll leave the front door unlocked.”
He stood up, too. “So what will your husband say?” he asked, his eyes teasing hers. “Will he beat you for inviting a strange man into your house?”
“My husband is currently asleep in his room with someone other than me,” she said. “I should go back to bed.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “You asked me earlier why I didn’t make you an offer,” he said. “You accepted Tommy’s because you knew he would make no demands of you. I should have wanted to make demands.”
For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her. Then he released her and went through to the sitting room, leaving her feeling a little shaken.
Chapter 37
Ellie sat on the side of her bed, staring out into the blackness of the garden, trying to digest all that she had learned and felt. That Nico was Jeannette’s son was almost too much to believe, and yet it explained his behaviour, and she had sensed he wasn’t lying to her. That he was now working with the Resistance was a worry, both on his behalf and on hers. If he stayed at this house, he would put them in danger, too, and yet she couldn’t say no if he needed help. And there was the other matter, the fact that he desired her, that she had definitely felt something for him.
I’m too old for such nonsense,she told herself, but there had been a shiver of excitement when he looked at her that way and told her he wanted her. After so many years of not being desired, of being taken for granted, of occasional passionless sex after Lionel had drunk a good deal of wine with dinner, it felt strangely exciting to realize that she might not, after all, be too old.
When Ellie got up in the morning, Nico was gone. Over breakfast she told Tommy and Clive about the nighttime visit and warned them that he might have to spend the night on occasion if he couldn’t get back into the village.
“So he’s working with the Resistance, is he?” Tommy said. “I must talk to him about that.”
“Oh, I don’t think he’d like to talk about it,” Ellie said hastily. “The less we know the better. That’s what he said.”
“No, I mean I’d like to find out how we can help,” Tommy said. “I feel that I’d like to be doing something useful, and Clive can offer his forger’s talents.”
“Oh no. Please don’t get involved,” Ellie said. “These are brutal men. Look how many Resistance workers have been executed in the North.”
“But we only have a chance of defeating those brutes if we all help out,” Tommy said. “Don’t worry. I can’t see myself blowing up any railway lines or shooting generals. But I’m sure there’s a small job I could do.”
Apparently he had a conversation with Nico, and the small job turned out to be a radio positioned under the floorboards of Tommy’s bedroom. Nico came up to instruct him how to use it, and he started leaving messages he had received in the big stone urn on the terrace for Nico to pick up at night.
“Italy has occupied Corsica,” he said at dinner one night. “That is good news. It gives us more chance of an escape route, if anyone needs it. The Italian guards won’t be as strict, and that coastline is so mountainous and rocky that they can’t put guards everywhere.”
Ellie felt a shiver of fear. Tommy was enjoying being part of the action, but now, for the first time, they were in the midst of danger and the war had become real. Rations were cut severely, and they heard that local farms had had their livestock taken. But still the chickens and goats survived at Villa Gloriosa. Ellie and Mavis took down the extra eggs and milk to be shared with those who needed them most. It seems the Germans had not yet discovered the villa. Perhaps they thought those steep steps merely led up to hiking trails to the Calanques.
After the Germans had been in evidence for a few weeks, Ellie came home to find they had a visitor. The viscount was in their sitting room, sipping a cup of herb tea. He looked less like his sophisticated andpolished self than usual; in fact he looked positively unkempt, as if he had dressed in a hurry.
“Thank God you have returned safely,” he said as Ellie walked in. “None of us is safe any longer. They came to my villa today—German officers. Horrible, rude men. They pushed my servants out of the way, looked around the house and told me to get out, as they would now be occupying it. And keeping my servants to look after them.”
“How awful, Roland. What did you say?”
“I asked where I was supposed to go, and they said there was a pension in the village that would probably have room for me if I had no relatives nearby. They stood there while I packed a couple of suitcases into my motor car. Luckily they didn’t requisition that. I got out quickly before they could change their minds. So I came here. I couldn’t think where else to go.”
“Of course you can stay here,” Ellie said. She turned to the other men. “If that’s all right with you?”
“The more the merrier,” Tommy said. “But don’t expect the Ritz. We live very simply.”
“Don’t we all these days?” Roland said. “Do you know there is no coffee to be had? And those ruffians will now get their hands on my wine cellar. I muttered to my butler that he should close it and hide the key, but I bet they’ll force it open.”
Ellie went upstairs and made up the bed in the last of the bedrooms. She was tempted to offer her own room to Roland and to take the room that was clearly designed for a servant, but she had become comfortable in that room with no wish to move, and besides it was where Nico knew to find her if he ever needed to in the middle of the night. He had not stayed at the villa again, but she had seen him cross the garden and knew that he was coming and going at night. She told Tommy to mention nothing of this to Roland. She feared he would give in all too quickly to Nazi interrogation. She wondered about herself. Of course she would not betray Nico. But what if the Gestapo came, or the Abwehr? So far it had only been regular soldiers who stayed in thevillage, but if she were ever taken for questioning, could she hold out? If they tortured her?
I know nothing,she told herself.I would genuinely have nothing to tell them. They’d have to believe that.
“That Nico,” one of the fishermen said, when she was down in the village and casually asked after him. “He’s finally decided to work for a living. He goes out in his boat almost every day now. Makes a good catch, too.”
Ellie wondered if there was a double meaning in those words. Did the man know he was also running supplies for the Resistance as well as catching fish? It appeared the Germans didn’t, so far. Nor had they yet discovered the villa. The officers held loud parties at Roland’s château. The sound of their late-night singing and laughter drifted from over the hill. Roland was proving to be not the easiest of guests. Tommy and Clive, usually so easy-going, were clearly finding him a strain.
