V for Vengeance (2 page)

The lift went up only to the fourth floor, and Madeleine wearily climbed the remaining three flights of steep stone
stairs. As she let herself into the flat her mother called to her from the bedroom. Madame Lavallière had been afflicted with a stroke some fifteen months before and now being partially paralysed was permanently confined to her bed. When Madeleine had regular work and was out nursing, Madame Bonard, the wife of the
concierge
, looked after Madame Lavallière's simple needs, but she came in only in the mornings to clean the flat and cook a midday meal, then in the evenings to get supper, as the invalid had an apparatus by her bedside with which she could make coffee for her breakfast and the afternoon. On hearing the door open at such an hour she knew, therefore, that it must be her daughter who had come in to see her.

Going into the bedroom Madeleine threw her hat upon a chair and shook back her dark curls. She even managed to raise a smile for the wasted figure with the grey wispy hair, who lay propped up in the large old-fashioned bed.

‘My job is finished,' she said. ‘My patient has just left for Bordeaux, so I shall be able to be at home with you now during these bad days until things become a little more settled.'

‘That is good,
ma petite
,' the invalid nodded. The miserable life to which she was condemned was apt to make her querulous, and she often nagged at Madeleine for going out to work, although this was unjust, as without Madeleine's contribution to the little family budget they would have been hard put to it to carry on; but she was genuinely fond of her daughter and now obviously relieved to think that she had come home for a spell.

She then asked for news, and Madeleine gave her what little there was. No one in Paris knew what was happening outside it. The more optimistic still believed that the French Army was intact and that at any time General Weygand might yet launch a counter-offensive which would roll the enemy back, but optimists were rare in Paris in those days, and a terrible defeatism seemed to have closed like an icy hand upon the hearts of most of its remaining inhabitants.

‘So the Germans are here,' the old woman gave a heavy sigh. ‘I have heard nothing since this morning, but I was already becoming anxious about you. Thank God that you
have come home! You must stay here, Madeleine—in the apartment, I mean—and not go out again. The streets will no longer be safe with these beasts in them, and for a pretty girl like you—promise me that you will not go out!'

Madeleine had already thought of that several times earlier that day with a frightful sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. All that she had ever read of the fate of the inhabitants in conquered cities, tales of the occupation in 1870 and of the brutalities of the Germans in Belgium and Northern France during the invasion of 1914 lent colour to her fears. Those great strong brutal Germans would, she felt certain, loot the cafés and the wine-shops, and once they had become drunk be capable of any mischief. Woe betide the unfortunate French girl who fell into their hands! Mentally she shuddered to think of the horrible fate which almost certainly would overtake many of them that night, but she strove to make light of it.

‘I won't go out tonight at all events,' she promised; ‘and perhaps not for a day or two. But we must go on living, and with the many wounded there will be much nursing to do. Even the Germans will respect a nurse's uniform, I feel certain, so you have no need to worry,
maman.
I shall be able to take care of myself.'

Madeleine made the coffee and took some
brioches
from a bag, which had been left ready on the invalid's bedside table. While they ate these they talked, but only perfunctorily, since both were busy with their thoughts and fears as to what the future held in store for them. When they had done Madeleine took the things into the small kitchen and washed up.

She had just finished when there came a sharp ring; it was the door-bell of the apartment. Turning, she crossed the living-room to open it, but in the small hallway she suddenly paused to wonder who it could possibly be.

Madame Bonard did not normally come up to prepare supper when Madeleine was absent until half past seven, and it was not yet five o'clock. Besides, Madame Bonard had a key; yet who could it be, since it was one of Madame Lavallière's complaints that people so rarely came to see her? Perhaps one of the few old friends who occasionally called to relieve the tedium of her bedridden life had thought of her in this
sad hour and come to sit with her for a little. Yet, in such a case, knowing that the invalid could not leave her bed, Madame Bonard would have come up to let them in.

The bell shrilled again. Madeleine stilled the beating of her heart, reasoning with herself that it was much too soon for the Germans to have instituted any house-to-house visits yet, and stepping forward opened the door. A cry of gladness and surprise broke from her lips.

‘Georges!' and next moment she was clasped tight in her fiancé's arms.

He kissed her hungrily for a moment, crushing her to him, then turned and, drawing her into the room, closed the door softly behind him. She noticed then that his face was tired and strained. He had no hat, and his clothes were thick with the dust of recent travel.

‘What a surprise you gave me!' she exclaimed. ‘But you are lucky to have found me here. I've only just got back from a job, and you know
maman
can't leave her bed. Why didn't you get Madame Bonard to come up and let you in?'

He shook his head. ‘I haven't seen Madame Bonard. No one must know I'm here,
chérie.
I went upstairs in the next block, then over the roof and in through the skylight window on the landing.'

Her elation left her as quickly as it had come.

‘Georges!' she whispered. ‘What is it? Are you in trouble? Is someone following you?'

‘Not yet, I hope,' he smiled. ‘But they soon may be.'

And as she stared at him she thought again how his loose masculine figure, dark smooth hair and quick grin gave him a definite resemblance to the Englishman that she had been nursing back to convalescence.

Although the day was warm he was wearing a light mackintosh, and pulling it off he asked her for a drink. Hurrying to a cupboard she produced a bottle of Denis Mounie Cognac and two glasses. As she set them down on a corner of the table her mother's voice came, high-pitched and a little anxious, from the bedroom.

‘What is it, Madeleine? Who is it with you out there?'

Madeleine did not wish to alarm her, but for a moment could not think what to reply. Georges was holding his finger
to his lips, so it was clear that he too did not wish her mother to know about his visit. Opening the door a little farther she said:

‘It is a friend of mine—one of the doctors from the St. Pierre. He was anxious about me now that the Germans are in the city.' Then she firmly pulled the door shut.

Georges had poured out two stiff goes of cognac. She sat down beside him, and they lifted their glasses, staring over them at each other in an unspoken toast. The strong spirit made Madeleine's heart beat faster, but its mellow warmth seemed to give her new strength and momentarily to still her apprehension.

‘Tell me,' she whispered, ‘who is it that is after you? Why are you on the run?'

Having gulped the brandy he drew a deep breath, set down his glass and took her small hands firmly in his.

‘Listen, Madeleine,' he said in a low voice. ‘It's a long story—no time to go into details now. You know what is happening—what has happened—to our poor France. Some day perhaps we shall know whom to blame. At present we can only guess that many of our Generals have proved hopelessly incompetent and that many of our politicians have betrayed their trust. No one knows anything for certain, only that France has sustained an overwhelming defeat and now lies at the mercy of the enemy.'

‘But the Army,' she breathed; ‘it is still intact. Paris was only surrendered to save it from devastation. You cannot mean that the war is over and that we have already suffered final defeat?'

‘I'm afraid so. The Army will not fight. It did not do so yesterday or the day before, so why should it fight tomorrow? I don't understand it—no one does—but some extraordinary paralysis seems to have gripped all our soldiers. They just marched back and back, giving ground the moment the Germans appeared before them. They were so bemused that they did not even trouble to blow up the roads, which might have halted the advance of the Germans' tanks. Nine-tenths of our men have not yet fired a single shot, but they are already a hopeless rabble whose only thought is further retreat. In a few days at most it will be over. We must face it, dear
heart; for the time being France is finished.'

‘But, Georges, this is too terrible! I—I simply can't believe it!'

‘Nor I. Yet my own eyes and ears tell me that it is the awful truth, and I have been caught up in the
débâcle.
In such a catastrophe one man's life does not count for much, and if it were not for you, with France enslaved I think I'd almost sooner be dead.' He gave a rueful grin. ‘In any case, I will be if the Germans get me.'

Her eyes grew wide with terror. ‘But, Georges, what have you done? You are not even a soldier, but a Civil Servant. What have you done that the Germans should want to kill you?'

He was smiling now, right into her eyes, and he held her twitching hands firmly.

‘I have deceived you,
chérie
, I confess it; but I know that you'll forgive me when I tell you that it was my duty to do so. I've always led you to believe that I was a clerk in the Ministry of the Interior. You'll remember it was at a dance for the employees of the Ministry that your father introduced us, only a few weeks before he died. When the war came you weren't very proud of me, were you? In one way you were glad that I had a safe job which gave me exemption and kept me out of danger, but there were times when you felt that a man of thirty ought to have been in uniform, and you would have liked your fiancé to be a soldier. Eh?'

‘Oh, perhaps; but what does that matter now?' Madeleine knew that he had guessed her feelings rightly. It was that almost unconscious feeling that he should not have skulked behind his Civil Service job while France was in peril which in recent months had made her feelings towards him a little less warm than they had been before the war, and caused her to contemplate, just at odd moments, entering into a flirtation with some other attractive man. But she knew now that she could never have thought of anyone but Georges seriously. Gripping his hands again, she murmured:

‘Please! Don't let's talk about the past. You're in danger, and I love you. Oh, Georges, I love you so!'

‘
Chérie
, forgive me! I don't blame you for what you thought, and theoretically, at least, I
was
a clerk in the
Ministry of the Interior. But I haven't been sitting at a desk in the Préfecture at Rouen, as you believed, all through the war. My work has taken me to many places, and that is why I have never been able to get back to Paris on leave. The fact is that I am a member of the
Deuxième Bureau.
'

‘The Secret Police!' she breathed.

‘Yes—in the anti-espionage section, and I have had much to do with the catching and shooting of numerous Nazi spies.'

‘But surely the Germans would not shoot you because of that? You were only doing your duty.'

He shrugged. ‘Some of us know too much about the Boche to be healthy. Besides, if our poor France is to be crushed beneath the conqueror's heel it is men like myself who will organise resistance until she shall be free again. We understand underground methods, and therefore we are much more dangerous than any ordinary patriot. The Gestapo know that, so they will leave nothing undone to hunt us down and kill us.'

‘But nobody knows you were in our Secret Service. Even I didn't know, so how could they possibly find that out?'

He frowned. ‘There's a fair chance that by assuming another identity I may be able to keep under cover. But I've got to work quickly. You see, by this time the Gestapo will have taken over at the
Sûreté.
There are hundreds of files there connecting me with various cases in the past, and it's most unlikely that they'll all have been destroyed or removed in the last few days during the evacuation. The Germans will lose no time in going through them, and they may be on their way to my old home now in the hope of catching me there, or trying to find out where I've got to.'

‘That's why you came here?'

‘Yes, I had to get out of our Headquarters at Rouen at a moment's notice. The Germans were already entering the town. I have only the clothes that I stand up in and very little money. I want you to telephone—not from here, but from a call-box. Ring up Uncle Luc and ask him to pack up the clothes and things which are likely to be of most use to me in two suitcases, then to deposit them at the Gare de Lyon and bring the cloakroom checks to me here.'

‘You're going to leave Paris?' she asked.

‘No. My orders are to remain here in hiding, but to carry on the fight against the Nazis by every means in my power unless a formal peace is agreed between the Allied and German Governments.'

‘But I thought you said that within a few days now the French Army will be compelled to—to surrender?'

‘I fear so,
chérie.
But that does not mean the final triumph of our enemies. The Norwegian and Dutch Governments have already established themselves in London for the purpose of continuing the war with all their resources outside Europe, and, although the French Army in France may be forced to lay down its arms, we shall still have our Empire and our Fleet. Paul Reynaud seems to be a man of courage, and he will almost certainly transfer his Government to North Africa with the intention of carrying on the struggle from there. In any case, my Chief's last orders, which reached me in code early this morning, were to ignore any armistice which might be agreed in France and to work underground against the enemy as long as they remain in Paris. But we must not delay. Every moment is precious. Slip out now and telephone for me, while I have a wash and try to make myself a little more presentable.'