Page 33 of Summer of Fire
She dropped back down onto her knees and as if she was praying. With one hand, she groped beneath the bench, her fingers exploring the cool floor around her.
Nothing.
Where was the gift?
Lizzie continued sweeping her hand along the floor, searching behind her until her fingers touched something. She stretched further back and pulled the object towards her.
In her hands was a small envelope with a remarkably good sketch of a black bird on the front.
Lizzie turned hot and cold as she remembered the raven Jeanne spoke about from the tea leaf reading. Was this the sacred messenger she had prophesied?
She grabbed her thin summer raincoat, which she didn’t need in this heat but had brought solely for the purpose of hiding whatever the woman might bring her. Lizzie stuffed the envelope into a hidden inside pocket and looked around nervously. She would check the contents later when she was alone—now she must leave.
Only the old woman remained in the nave. Lunchtime for the French, even in wartime, was a sacred ritual, and most would try to get home to eat and rest during the hottest part of the day. She exited the cathedral without looking back.
The bicycle waited for her like an old friend, and she jumped on it and pedalled away as fast as she could without looking out of place.
Inside her raincoat, which was folded carefully in the bicycle basket, lay the envelope Jack had sent her to collect.
Lizzie weaved through the lanes and avoided the few brave souls she encountered who were doing their errands despite the relentless noon sun. As she reached the outskirts of the city, relief washed over her.
She had done it.
Soon she would be back in the peaceful cottage and could open the envelope and see what Hannah had discovered that was so vital to outwit the Luftwaffe.
It struck Lizzie that she still had no way to get back to England. There had been no opportunity to ask the woman for help.
Her only option was to risk being caught at the original pickup spot. The soldier had shot at the plane, but it had seemed more like a random act of aggression than an organised ambush. The soldiers were rowdy and sounded drunk. They had probably forgotten all about it by now, she consoled herself.
Lizzie’s mind ticked over as she tried to figure out what to do now that she had what she had come for. The prioritymust be to get the envelope into Jack’s hands as soon as possible. Her spirits were high as she turned the corner and took the road that wound through the vineyards towards the cottage.
Then she saw the soldier from the square watching her.
CHAPTER 16
Jack kissed his mother, Nicole, on both cheeks. They still maintained many of the French customs she’d grown up with, despite having spent half her life in London. Even their elegant family home was French Renaissance style architecture.
Jack’s father had surprised Nicole with the beautiful, terraced house when they moved to London. It was love at first sight.
‘How are you, my son?’ she asked, studying Jack’s face closely, as if it would reveal his inner secrets to her.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, accepting a glass of wine and a small cake from the housekeeper, who was like a part of the furniture at 32b Grosvenor Place. Elise, who was also French born, had joined their small household staff when Jack and his brother, Henry, were young boys, and their father was still alive.
These days, with just the two of them, Elise had become more of a companion, and he was grateful his mother wasn’t alone. Being a young widow was a tough break, but she had handled it with grace. Jack was proud of his mother. He didhis best to call in regularly, especially since Henry joined the RAF and he knew how much she worried about him.
‘You look exhausted,’ she said. ‘You need to take better care of yourself, Jacques.’ Her French pronunciation of his name rolled off her tongue. His mother chose French names for the boys, but his father insisted they spelt them the English way so they wouldn’t have a hard time at school.
Jack’s parents had been wonderfully matched, and the house was full of laughter when his father was alive. A feeling of melancholy descended on Jack as he thought of his father’s sudden premature death. He had a heart attack in his office at the factory one morning and had died slumped over his desk. That was years ago now, and although there was still some laughter when they got together, it was never the same.
A terrible sadness lurked in Nicole’s eyes. When Jack was younger and still lived at home, he made it his mission to dispel the sadness by entertaining his mother and, although he achieved some success, it was only ever a temporary distraction. The sadness soon seeped back into her haunted brown eyes.
Nicole was still a beautiful woman, charming and wealthy, and had many suitors vying for her attention since she became a widow. Jack wished she would remarry so she would have the love and support of a good husband, but she simply wasn’t interested.
When he and Henry encouraged her to accept invitations from suitors, she would merely shrug and say, ‘I will never love like I loved your father, so what’s the point?’
And when she put it like that, Jack couldn’t bring himself to argue. True love was a fickle creature. It was there, or it wasn’t. You couldn’t love someone just a bit, and he sympathised with his mother. His parents’ remarkable love story permeated his mind. That’s the sort of marriage he wanted,and it served as a reminder to him not to settle for anything less than the real thing.
So many of his friends and colleagues had married the first girl they were attracted to, and their relationships were in trouble even before the war separated them. Jack wondered how many couples would stay the course once the ‘lucky’ men made it home.
