The Beekeeper's Promise (Page 46)

She thrust the silk scarf into her pocket, hoping he would think she had simply stepped out for a breath of air, her excuses at the ready.

But he didn’t ask for any explanation. He sprinted towards her, heedless of the narrowness of the path and the steepness of the ground that fell away sharply just beyond it.

Fear gripped her belly and she froze, waiting for him to draw his pistol and fire. She knew that, even if she tried to turn and run, she would still be an easy target, trapped as she was between the garden wall on one side and the steep drop on the other.

He was calling to her as he approached, although she couldn’t make out what he was saying above the roar of the tanks. He reached her, panting, and seized her arm. ‘Quick, mademoiselle, there is no time to lose. The soldiers are leaving, but they are destroying everything as they go. You and Madame Boin must hide yourselves. I won’t be able to protect you.’

‘I heard shooting,’ she said. ‘From the courtyard.’

‘There’s no time to explain,’ he insisted. ‘You must come now and hide with Madame Boin.’

‘And Monsieur le Comte, too. We must get him.’

A look of anguish distorted the officer’s face into a mask of anger and grief, and he shook his head, pulling her along the path towards the kitchen.

‘Eliane, it’s too late. They found him. Those shots – they came from the chapel.’

Eliane gasped, shock stopping her in her tracks. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘We must go to him!’

‘Eliane,’ he repeated, although his voice was gentler this time. ‘It’s too late.’ He pulled at her arms again, his grip tightening. ‘There’s nothing we can do for him now. The count would want you to save yourself.’

Numbly, she allowed him to lead her to the kitchen, staying as close to the shelter of the garden walls as they could. The courtyard was a scene of utter chaos. Behind the frantically manoeuvring vehicles and the running soldiers, some of the château’s windows had been broken. The formal beds of clipped box that flanked the front door had been flattened. She craned her neck to try to see the chapel and caught a glimpse of the heavy door wrenched off its hinges, leaning at a drunken angle. Beyond it, two black-uniformed soldiers emerged from the gloom of the chapel’s interior, carrying what looked like bits of equipment and a tangled roll of wire, which they flung into the back of a jeep before driving off at high speed.

She longed, desperately, to run across the open expanse of the yard to find out what had happened to Monsieur le Comte, but Oberleutnant Farber pushed her ahead of him into the kitchen. Madame Boin stood with her back to the cellar door, her biggest carving knife in her hand. Her distraught expression turned to one of relief when she saw Eliane. ‘Oh, thank God they didn’t get you.’

‘Hide yourselves, quickly,’ Oberleutnant Farber ordered, pointing to the cellar door. With panicked speed, Madame Boin managed to descend the steep steps. Eliane hesitated for a moment. She reached out her hand to Oberleutnant Farber and grasped his. Her warm, grey-eyed gaze met his for a second and she said, ‘Thank you, monsieur.’

He smiled at her and nodded. ‘Bolt the door and stay down there. Don’t come out until morning. It’ll be safe then. We’ll all be gone.’

She held his gaze for another moment and it felt as if the noise and confusion outside faded away as they stood there, two human beings, understanding one another in the midst of all that inhumanity.

‘Adieu, Oberleutnant Farber.’

‘Adieu, Eliane.’

She shut the door behind her and pushed the heavy iron bolts at the top and bottom into place, before following Madame Boin into the cellar. The cook had found the end of a candle and lit it, casting a flickering, feeble light onto the curved stone walls.

‘We can escape!’ Eliane said, leading the way to the barrels resting on their sides in the corner. ‘Down the tunnel to the mill. Then we can raise the alert and come back to find Monsieur le Comte.’

Madame Boin shrank back against the rough wall, looking unusually vulnerable and frightened. ‘I can’t make it, Eliane. Even if I managed to climb down into the cavern, I’d get stuck in the tunnel. You go, if you must, but I’ll have to stay here.’

Eliane realised Madame Boin was right. There were parts of the tunnel, especially towards the steep, lower end, that she and Jack had scarcely been able to squeeze through.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to leave you.’ She knew, too, that getting her father involved would only put his life at risk as well. ‘We’ll do as the Oberleutnant Farber said, and wait here until morning.’

Madame Boin nodded, slumping to the floor with tears rolling down her ruddy cheeks in the candlelight. ‘Do you think they’ve killed him?’ she asked.

Eliane didn’t need to ask to whom she was referring. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied slowly. ‘But they found the wireless set. And he must have been using it when they did.’

The two women wept together then, tears of despair and helplessness, tears of frustration and anger, releasing the pent-up emotions of the past four years at last as they huddled on the flagstones of the cellar.

The stub of candle guttered and then flickered out and they were left in darkness.

It was impossible to sleep. There was silence from above them, but Eliane couldn’t be sure whether or not the soldiers had departed. The solid rock above and beneath them shut out all sounds from the outside world. They sat side by side in the blackness, glad to have the reassurance of each other’s presence as the hours passed.

They had lost track of time. ‘Is it morning yet, do you think?’ Madame Boin whispered, trying pointlessly to squint at the face of her wristwatch, which was unreadable in the pitch-darkness.

‘No, I don’t think so. Probably around midnight. We should wait a bit longer.’

‘Sssh! What’s that?’

They both tensed at the faint sound of footsteps crossing the kitchen floor above them. Someone tried the cellar door, the latch clicking as it rose and then fell back into place. There was a tapping on the door then and a voice called out ‘Eliane? Are you down there?’

‘Yves!’ she exclaimed, and scrambled up the steps to unbolt the door. She fell into her brother’s arms and sobbed on his shoulder. ‘Oh, Yves, have they gone? The soldiers? Monsieur le Comte . . .’ But she couldn’t get the words out coherently.

He pulled her to one side and called over his shoulder, ‘She’s here, Papa. Madame Boin, too. They’re alright. Come and give me a hand.’

Gustave hurried in from outside and took Eliane into his strong embrace while Yves reached down to help Madame Boin up the stairs. She collapsed into a chair, fanning herself with one meaty hand as she tried to get her breath back.

In the open doorway, Eliane could see the pinpricks of stars in the night sky far above them, but a strange orange light illuminated the yard, throwing flickering shadows across the dust. She moved towards it, but Gustave held out a hand to stop her, grabbing her by the arm.

‘Wait, Eliane! Before you go out there, there’s something I have to tell you . . .’

She turned to look at him, taking in the pained expression on his face in the sickly light. ‘What is it, Papa?’

‘We found Monsieur le Comte in the chapel,’ he said, slowly shaking his head.

‘They killed him.’ Eliane said what she had already known to be true.

Gustave nodded, miserably. ‘He’s lying beside the altar. His body must have been there for some hours.’

‘He was using the radio to spread the news. I saw them take it away.’

The ominous orange light flickered and danced, and then she sniffed the air. There was an acrid smell of smoke, but it was underlain by something else. It reminded her of something . . . Something sweet . . . Caramel, or the pralines that Lisette used to make at Christmastime.

And then she realised what was burning and she wrenched herself free of her father’s grasp and ran towards the walled garden.

A sheet of flames leaped and crackled, illuminating the potager beds and the branches of the pear tree in the corner, sending showers of sparks like shooting stars into the night sky.

Desperately, she tried to douse the flames with a half-filled watering can, but the fire had already gained a stranglehold on the hives.

‘Non! Non! Non!’ she screamed, beating at the burning wood, first with her apron and then with her bare hands. The blazing wax burned her skin and the boiling honey seared itself on to her flesh, as sparks from the burning carcasses of the hives flew around her, threatening to draw her into the murderous dance of the flames as well.

And then her father caught up with her and wrapped his sinewy arms about her, pulling her away to safety.

He held her tight as she stood and watched, sobbing helplessly, as her beehives collapsed into a heap of burning embers and the acrid scent of burned honey filled their lungs. ‘But why?’ she whispered. ‘Why would they do that?’

‘To starve us further,’ her father replied grimly. ‘Or to punish you, perhaps, as they couldn’t find you in person. Or maybe it was just one last act of senseless destruction before they left. Is there any point looking for reasons in this war?’