Winged Love

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

From war-darkened London to the lush countryside of southern France, two courageous World War II pilots fall for the same beautiful French girl -- and are caught in a conflict of passion versus duty. Neir Richardson, an R.A.F. flight lieutenant, fought side-by-side with the French flyer Maurice Dupont. And when the Englishman was wounded, his comrade-in-arms insisted he go to recuperate at a romantic village in Provence. There Neil discovered Julie, Maurice's fiance -- and a love such as he had never known. To hurt Maurice would be unthinkable, but love in war is a once-in-a-lifetime affair.

Release date: April 24, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

It was Maurice Dupont himself who suggested to Neil Richardson that he should spend his sick leave in Provence.

The young French aviator had for the last six months been attached as liaison officer to the R.A.F. Reconnaissance Unit in which Neil had recently been promoted to flight-lieutenant.

In the last week of May, Neil had just escaped by the skin of his teeth from being shot down whilst flying over the Siegfried Line with a pilot-officer who was taking photographs. With a German bullet in his left shoulder, Neil had managed to bring his machine back to the French lines, and now for the last three weeks had been in hospital.

It was on a perfect day of June that he was discharged from the hospital, and returned to collect his belongings from the Château de la Marche, in La Chaume, where his unit was stationed ninety miles behind the Maginot Line.

Maurice Dupont, lieutenant d’avion, had shared a bedroom with the English airman ever since his attachment, and they had become great friends. Maurice had missed Neil while he was in hospital.

Maurice sat on the edge of the bed, smoking, whilst Neil packed his suitcases.

“I am getting quite adept at doing everything with one hand,” Neil said with a smile, as he paused to light a cigarette for himself, and inspect his labours.

“Mon Dieu, but you are lucky, to get away from this place and have some peace and some amusement,” said Maurice Dupont with a sigh.

“I’d rather not have had the bullet through my shoulder all the same,” said Neil Richardson. “Don’t much care for being an invalid.”

“But, mon brave, you will now not be an invalid any more, you will have an arm in a sling and all the pretty women will look at you, and what a time you will have!” exclaimed the young French officer.

“I’m not particularly interested in pretty women.”

“Ah! That is because you have not met one like my Julie.”

“Maybe …” admitted Neil, and his gaze turned to the photograph which stood on Dupont’s dressing-table.

It was a photograph with which he was now very familiar. He had lived with it for the last six months. He knew every feature of it by heart. It was the only photograph in the room because Neil, himself, had brought none out here. His mother was dead and he was neither engaged to nor sufficiently interested in any girl to carry her likeness about with him.

But he had become accustomed to the portrait of Julie de Vallois who was Maurice Dupont’s fiancée. Accustomed also to Maurice’s perpetual stories about her. Had they been uninteresting stories, Neil might have been bored. But it seemed that this Julie was a very unusual girl, and, in Neil’s opinion, the young Frenchman’s perpetual rhapsodies were justified by the remarkable beauty of the girl’s face.

Neil looked at it thoughtfully while Maurice made the suggestion that he should go for his sick leave to the fishing village of La Marita, where Julie lived.

Julie’s eyes looked back at Neil. Large soft eyes with sweeping lashes which, Maurice said, were raven-black like the delicate crescent brows. But that cloud of hair, looped back from her forehead and fastened with a bow at the nape of the neck, was of silver fairness. She was a true blonde, Maurice said, and had that exquisite skin which goes with it, but her face was a golden tan because she lived in the sun. She was a child of the sun. When she was not working at a hospital-supplies depot in Aix, she was out on the sea in her boat. A motor boat which she ran herself. They had an island in La Marita. Julie’s special island on which she spent long hours bathing, fishing, lying in the sun.

She adored music and she sang. Maurice had repeated for Neil the words of some of her songs. Little French sentimental songs which sounded delightful in her sweet, crooning voice.

Parlez moi d’amour … that was one of her favourites. Maurice was always humming it. It was a tune which Neil now associated with the young French officer. And he associated it also with Julie de Vallois.

So many details had he heard about Julie that he felt that he knew her. The name of her favourite scent. The way she loved to take the stalk of a cherry between her lips and then with a little quick movement jerk the ripe fruit into her mouth and laugh as the small teeth crushed it. Her amazing knowledge of flowers and the very names of the flowers which grew in profusion on the island at La Marita.

Maurice was talking about those flowers now.

“You couldn’t find a lovelier place for a rest cure, mon cher ami. The fuchsias, the zinnias of every exotic colour, the golden broom, like a sheet of gold over the rocks. Your arm is wounded, but your two legs are sound, and you can climb to the top of Julie’s island, as high as the crucifix which stands upon it, and you can look down on the blue sea and on the mountains behind the village. Ah! You do not know the beauty, the wonder of our Provence in June!”

Neil Richardson listened as he had listened a hundred times to Maurice. The young French aviator was a little too theatrical, too exaggerated at times for the Englishman, who had the reserve of his race and felt a slight embarrassment at any undue display of emotion. Yet he could not listen to Maurice without his attention being caught and held; without some envy of him, too.

It must be pretty good to come from a place like Provence and to dream of La Marita and of Julie with her dark eyes, her silvery hair, her cherry-loving lips, her songs of love, waiting for you to come home on leave. Waiting for you to marry her. They were going to be married in the autumn, Maurice said. They had been betrothed for two years now, since Julie’s eighteenth birthday. They had known each other since they were children, when both their families had lived at Aix. They had always known, according to Maurice, that one day they would be husband and wife.

Julie was not wholly French. She had had an Irish mother. Gaston de Vallois, her father, who was once a prosperous wine merchant of Aix (since retired), had spent a fishing holiday in Ireland and had met his wife there. From her Julie had inherited that dazzling complexion … the cleft in her chin … her varying moods. Maurice had told Neil how moody she could be … up and down like a thermometer … but it was fascinating … it made her an enchanting mixture, he said … the Irish and the French.

Neil was sure of it. Funnily enough he had always told himself that when he married it would be either to an Irish girl or a French one. Women of both countries appealed to him, and here was Julie de Vallois with the blood of both in her veins. Doubtless Maurice did not exaggerate her charm. There were moments when Neil had an uneasy peculiar longing to see this girl. He had thought about her while he was in hospital. He had grown so used to hearing news of her. Every other day or so, Maurice read him bits from the thin, closely written sheets of note-paper … letters from La Marita. Yet he had never dreamed until today of actually going to see Julie herself.

“There is a hotel in La Marita in which you can stay. I myself will wire to Madame Huillard who runs it. And you will receive every attention, mon brave,” said Maurice at this moment. “Yes, you tell me that you have nowhere to go, and no family waiting to welcome you in England, so why not spend your few weeks of convalescence there in Julie’s village? And you shall write to me and tell me how she looks and take photographs of her to send to me. Hein? Is it not a good idea?”

Neil Richardson hesitated, but only for a moment. What Maurice said was true. He had nobody in particular waiting for him in England. Only an aunt at whose house he was always welcome. But as for women … Neil liked beautiful women just as he liked everything that was beautiful. He had light passing affairs like any other man of his age. But there was never anybody in particular. In the mess it was a bit of a joke because Flight-Lieutenant Richardson was hard to please and not as ready as some of them to take out any little “painted piece” who made eyes at the Air Force uniform.

No, his main interest in life was in his job, in his flying; and in helping to win this war. Now that this wound had taken that away from him temporarily he had to concentrate on getting well. Why not get well in this place which Maurice Dupont made out to be a paradise? A Provençal paradise! That sounded good. And he would have an introduction to Julie and her people.

He decided that he would go, and once having taken that decision began to look forward to it. A sunlit island, a profusion of flowers, warm starry nights, and the company of people whom he almost felt that he knew because he had heard so much about them … that sounded attractive after the shock of his wound and the weary weeks of pain and discomfort in hospital. It had taken two operations to get that shoulder right.

Dupont was already writing out a telegram for Madame Huillard. He would send one of the troops down to the post office with it. His good friend Richardson would stay under the patronage of Madame at the Auberge du Clos Marita. It was right on the quayside and faced Julie’s island. The fish that Madame cooked there. … Mon Dieu, it was good, Maurice said enthusiastically. The bouillabaisse … and the gallette of Madame’s own baking. … Richardson would never wish to leave La Marita once he had tasted it.

Maurice talked incessantly. There were so many things to tell Neil. He must give him a letter and a present to Julie. He must ask how her pigeons were faring. She had two tame pigeons which she had trained and which sat one on each shoulder. Their names were Co-co and Ton-ton (yes, Neil had heard about Co-co and Ton-ton before). He would be greeting the pigeons like old friends, he told himself with some amusement. And he would ask her to sing all the songs which he had heard Maurice trying to sing (but Maurice had no ear for music). Neil loved it. Music had been his hobby before he entered the Air Force. The one thing to which he looked forward on leave was going to a good concert or opera. But on this leave he must content himself, apparently, with Julie’s singing.

He finished his packing, taking in all that Maurice was telling him. He paused in front of the glass to straighten a lock of hair which had fallen across his eye. Maurice looked at him and laughed.

“Voilà! You see something worth while to regard, is it not so? I told Julie in my last letter that my English friend, Flight-Lieutenant Richardson, was of a great handsomeness. Julie likes tall men. I am, perhaps, too short; but I shall try not to be jealous of you, my friend. …”

“You certainly need not be,” said Neil, echoing the laugh.

The two men were a complete contrast. Both aged about twenty-six or seven, the Frenchman was built broadly, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and of ruddy complexion. Neil had always found him a good officer and good-humoured, but without a great deal of personality. To Maurice Dupont, on the other hand, the English aviator was an outstanding person. He had a wit, a rapier quality of mind which Dupont admired enormously. Nothing went by Neil. He was alert and more sensitive, in the Frenchman’s opinion, than the average Englishman he had met in this unit or elsewhere. He was also an unknown quantity, which made him all the more interesting. Maurice was never quite sure what lay behind those keen grey eyes. He could be charming … he could be cold … withdraw suddenly into himself. He was without the Frenchman’s gaiety, yet Maurice had never found a better companion than Neil. When Neil chose to be gay, he was the one in the mess who kept them all laughing. And as for looks, he was, of course, superb. Six foot one, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped. Not an ounce of superfluous fat on Neil’s body. Face brown, a little thin. Hair of a dark chestnut brown with a slight wave which no amount of brushing or oiling could smooth out. A thoughtful face, but he had a sudden and very sweet smile, which showed white teeth, and in a flash made him look years younger.

He was utterly without conceit, which was one of the things that Maurice liked about him, and he was without fear. “Devil Richardson” they called him in the Squadron, and it had been hinted last night that he would be recommended for the D.F.C. for the way he had brought his machine back with those invaluable photographs of the German fortifications.

Dupont was genuinely sorry to see his English friend go off on leave that afternoon, and definitely envious.

“I am not due for leave for another four months. It breaks my heart to think of you tomorrow at La Marita, seeing my Julie,” he said, when he saw Neil off to Lille where he would get a train for Aix-en-Provence.

“It’s very good of you, Maurice, to have given me all those introductions and settled my holiday for me,” said Neil. “I’ll drop you a line tomorrow night and tell you all about everything.”

As the train steamed out, Maurice ran alongside the train, his red plump face grinning at Neil.

“Don’t forget to ask after Co-co and Ton-ton … don’t forget to take photographs of Julie … and to kees her for me … one little kees … like a brother, hein …?” he shouted laughingly.

Neil Richardson leaned out of the window of the carriage, waved his cap at Maurice and shouted back:

“I won’t forget anything …”

In the walled-in fruit garden of the Villa Vertige, Julie lay on the grass, smoked glasses protecting her eyes from the sun, reading again the telegram which Pierre, Madame Huillard’s son, had just brought her. Pierre was in the post office.

It was a telegram from her fiancé, telling her at length that the English aviator, Flight-Lieutenant Richardson, was on his way to La Marita. And Pierre said that his maman had also had one, asking her to reserve a bedroom for the English lieutenant. Maman was in a great excitement. The whole village was excited. They had not had an English flying officer here before. And as he was a friend of Maurice Dupont’s, it made the event all the more momentous.

Julie stretched her arms out on either side of her and, with Maurice’s telegram crushed in slim brown fingers, contemplated the news which she had just received.

The June sun was hot upon her face. She wore only a thin pink linen dress with no sleeves. Her throat and slight childish arms were tanned like her face to a golden brown. Her hair looked bleached against the green grass on which she was lying. Grass of which Julie was very proud because it resembled an English lawn. Ever since her family had moved here from Aix-en-Provence, they had concentrated on that piece of grass to please her mother. Everything green had pleased her dear Irish mother. Alas, she was dead now! There were few people in La Marita to whom Julie could speak the English she had been taught from birth, and which she spoke perfectly. And although she adored her native Provence, and in particular her beloved island, where she spent so many leisured hours, she had a great hunger for everything English.

Upstairs in her bedroom, there were rows of English books on the shelf. There was a big painting of the Lake of Killarney where her mother’s people lived … a landscape softened by a silver mist of rain … it often rained in Ireland, Julie had learned. And it seldom rained here in La Marita where the sun shone nearly all the year round. But sometimes she would like to have felt that soft Irish rain upon her face, and to have seen London where her mother had been educated.

It was an excitement for Julie that an English officer was coming to stay at the Auberge de Clos Marita. She knew quite well what he looked like, because Maurice had described him in many letters. Richardson le diable he was called in the Squadron. He must be very brave, Julie reflected, and now he had been wounded by those vile Germans. Poor man! But here in La Marita he would soon get well again.

Julie pondered a few moments longer upon the thought of the Englishman’s arrival and then sprang to her feet. She must go down to the quay and see old Jean Taupin about cleaning and oiling the machine of her motor boat. Neil Richardson would want to use it and go out to the island. It must be in good working order.

“Give him every hospitality and kindness …” Maurice had said in the wire. Well, of course, she would do so. She would tell everybody else to look after him, too. Was he not their English ally and Maurice’s friend? She, Julie, could not always keep an eye on him, because she had her mornings at the depot. She went by bus very early to Aix. For hours at a time she sat making bandages and splints. She would have been a nurse but her father refused to permit it because three years ago she had had an accident riding and had hurt her spine a little. It was well now, but Papa, who adored her, would not allow her to do the strenuous work of a nurse. So she did what she could.

Today was Sunday and she did not go to the hospital. But she had been to church, and had just had her afternoon “siesta” when Maurice’s wire was brought to her.

Taking off her glasses, she took a swift look around the garden. Already the fruit was ripening against the wall. Through the gate she could see the silver-green of olive trees and the swelling yellow globules of the pamplemousse, the grape fruit which grows so luxuriantly in Provence.

Close to the veranda of the villa there were rose trees which had been her Irish mother’s delight. Already they were scarlet and pink with blooms. And in front, the beds were purple with stocks and with spiced carnations.

The English officer would like this garden, without doubt, Julie thought, as it would remind him of home.

Julie, her brown slim legs bare, bare feet wearing the espadrilles (Provençal sandals), walked swiftly away down the hill to the little village. She walked gracefully … Maurice called her petite gazelle. Dear Maurice! She had missed him since the war commenced and he had been called up. At least he could speak some English with her. And she loved him. She was going to marry him. It had all been arranged between their families, and when war broke out, and he had appeared for the first time in his uniform with his fair hair shining and his jolly red face serious with love for her, she had given the assent to their engagement which she had for so long withheld. For she was not sure that she was in love with Maurice … in love as writers and poets meant when they wrote those words. Not in love, for instance, as her Irish mother must have been when she left her country and came to Provence to her Gaston. Julie had read some of the letters her mother had written when she was still Mary O’Connor. They had burned with a young girl’s ardent longing to join the man of her heart.

Sometimes Julie wondered whether she would ever really “burn with longing” for Maurice. His kisses were sweet and his caresses soothed her, and they laughed together, but she could never quite imagine herself leaving the whole world for him. Still she liked him better than any man she had ever met and it was all arranged that she should be his wife. He had loved her for years and she would reward him by marrying him when he returned from this terrible war. He wished it to be in the autumn. Julie was not quite sure about that. To become a wife would mean perhaps having to say good-bye to her youth … to running about bare-legged, bareheaded, like a child … dancing on the feast days … spending hours alone in her boat and on her island. She would have to become more dignified … a suitable housewife … and assume the decorum which would be necessary for Madame Maurice Dupont.

However, why worry about that? And what did her personal feelings matter so long as her dear lieutenant d’avion was rewarded for his bravery and his devotion?

Julie de Vallois, so well known in the village, was greeted by everybody as she walked down the narrow cobbled street towards the quay. The shops were all closed. But the good people of La Marita were out in their Sunday clothes enjoying the sun. The little café in the market-square was packed with customers. There was a smell of roasting coffee, the sound of popping corks, of wine being poured into glasses, of voices raised in discussion.

There were only two topics of discussion nowadays, Julie thought. La guerre, or the amount of fish that had been caught during the week.

Down on the quay, she found old Jean Taupin sitting on his boat mending a net, with his clay pipe in his mouth. There he was always to be found. He was part of the scenery to Julie. She was as used to the sight of him sitting there as to all the loveliness of the fishing village and the surrounding landscape. Used to it, yet never bored by it. She was of Provence and it was in her blood. She adored it all; the little white cottages, the tall cypresses, the chestnuts and plane trees, the striped awnings of the cafés, the tiny shops, the whole perfect village nestling in a hollow behind which the hills towered. High, purple-blue hills.

In the little quay, the fishing fleet was moored today. It did not go out on a Sunday. But tomorrow the red sails would make splashes of crimson on the blue waters . . .