#i cannot contain my excitement i even talked to my mam about it on the phone

[thelittlebeekeeper]

happy tears of the kingdom day to all who observe

[lostinfic]

Nubivagant 1/3

(adj.) wandering through or amongst the clouds; moving through air; from the Latin nubes (“cloud”) and vagant (“wandering”), c. 1656.

Summary: Based on the movie “A walk in the clouds” but on a sheep farm in the north of England, at Christmas. During the war, Betty ran away from her grandfather’s farm with a man. Now that he’s left her and she might be pregnant, Betty must go back and face the family she abandoned. When Colonel Mercier finds her crying at the train station, he offers to pose as her husband. Tags: Hurt/comfort! fake married! sharing a bed! huddling for warmth! and many more! Pairing: Jean-François Mercier x Betty Vates (Spies of Warsaw / A Passionate Woman) *You don’t need to have seen either show. Word count: 5500 Rating: Mature Warning: pregnancy scare

A/N: thank you to @invisiblerobotgirl for the little brainstorm and her enthusiasm. For @timepetalsprompts adoption drive

Ao3

December 22nd, 1945

Jean-François bowed his head against the wind and hiked his duffel bag higher up his shoulder. It contained all his possessions, four years in England crammed in khaki canvas.

The breeze kicked off his hat, he turned on his heels to catch it and collided with a young woman. Her suitcase fell open on the tarmac, and he dropped his bag and papers. “I’m so sorry, miss.”

They bent down at the same time and knocked their heads together. He caught her before she fell and she threw up on his jacket. The young woman visibly blanched, and her eyes widened in horror. “Oh, God, no, please, no.” Tears spilled from her eyes as she rubbed her handkerchief over the stain.

“Porridge?” he asked. She didn’t laugh, she cried harder, her hands shook. “I can clean it up. Don’t worry,” he reassured her.

“Oh, no, no, no, it can’t be.”

Her reaction seemed disproportionate given most of it had landed on the ground beside him, and he began to worry. He took her by the shoulders. “Miss Vates.” For the first time, she actually looked at him. Her doe eyes were puffy from crying, and he suspected it had begun before their collision. “I’m Jean-François Mercier, I worked with F-section.”

“I know... I didn’t think you knew me name.”

During the war, they’d worked for the same organisation but in different offices, she as a clerk for the Poland section, and he for the French section as an operations officer. He’d seen her several times, especially in the last two months-- following the end of the war, many employees had transferred to Wanborough Manor, in Surrey, to close and file everything away permanently. They had never exchanged more than a few work-related words.

“Are you all right?” She wiped her eyes with her gloved fingers and nodded. “Are you sure?” he insisted.

“Oh bugger, me suitcase.”

He helped her pick up her stuff and his. “Are you going home too?” he asked to make conversation as he pretended not to see her underwear. The mention of home brought on a new wave of tears that all her lip biting could not hold off.

A whistle announced the train for London. He was momentarily distracted, and she took that opportunity to escape his presence and questions. He watched her vanish into a great cloud of steam.

Everyone in the small Surrey train station were their coworkers, going home now that the organisation had closed for good with the end of the war. He hoped miss Vates had friends amongst them. Perhaps it’s parting from them that made her so sad.

On board the train, he made a beeline for the lavatory to clean the vomit off his jacket.

When he walked out through the coach for a place to sit, he saw miss Vates again. Two young men were talking to her. “Give us a smile, eh,” said the one beside her. She turned her face away from them, but they didn’t stop.

“Be a doll, two bonnie lads like us, we fought the Nazis, I reckon we deserve a little lovin’.” He put his arm around miss Vates’ shoulders. She leaned away, elbows pressed into her sides, shoulders tense.

“I’m not interested.”

“Had a girl like that, always used to say she weren’t interested. She never meant it, did she?” His friend agreed with a roguish laugh.

“Leave the lady alone,” Mercier ordered.

“Or what?” Both boys stood up, full of the bravado characteristic of their age. Mercier didn’t engage with them. He simply stared with an air of condescending tolerance, the kind of look he might give annoying insects he could squash with his fist.

“Hey, Frenchie, we freed your country, we did. You should be thankin’ us.”

“Yeah. We get first dib on the lassies.”

Mercier clenched his jaw, jutted out his chin and flexed his fingers. He stepped closer to them, and they stepped back, recognizing the anger of a superior officer. The train jerked, and the two boys lost balance. “Leave. Her. Alone,” Mercier repeated, walking over them.

They walked away to find seats in another carriage. Miss Vates nodded and offered a small smile, but nothing more. Whatever was troubling her, she didn’t want company, so Mercier sat a few seats behind.

He’d bought a book for the long journey back to France. A detective novel with a suggestive cover that should hold his interest all the way to Paris, and yet he zoned out every other paragraph. He kept crossing and uncrossing his legs, his palms were damp. Whenever his thoughts drifted to his home country, he felt a tightening in his chest, from anticipation or anxiety, he couldn’t tell. Restless, he got up to pace the central alley. Miss Vates looked up from her knitting, but averted her eyes as soon as he saw her.

*

White winter light streamed through the dirty arched glass ceiling of Victoria station, shining on the chaotic crowd of soldiers returning home and families travelling for the holidays. The chatter and laughter, the whistles and the metallic wail of trains made Betty dizzy. She hurried to catch a newly-vacated place on a bench. She took deep breaths to ward off another wave nausea. She closed her eyes and focused on the violin notes played by a busker, but his somber rendition of “I’ll be home for Christmas” brought fresh tears to her eyes.

Betty stared at the ticket in her hands: One-way, to Paris. Colonel Mercier must have dropped it when they ran into each other. She should find him and give it back to him, but she couldn’t help thinking it might be a sign. A sign that she shouldn’t go back to her family.

She imagined starting a new life in Paris, a small flat with a view of the Eiffel tower from her kitchen window, a cat on the windowsill, the scent of warm bread wafting up from the bakery below. She would choose a new name for herself, something optimistic like Daisy or Hope. Who would know after the war? They couldn’t possibly keep track of everyone. And she imagined a little girl, playing in the living room, making her dolls speak French and English.

But it wouldn’t be like that.

She would have the same problems in Paris as she had in London: no friends, no home, no job. And maybe a baby.

“Miss Vates.” Colonel Mercier stood before her. She noticed the stain on the tan tweed of his jacket before the steaming tea he was holding out for her.

“Thank you.” She warmed her gloved hands on the paper cup.

“If you don’t mind me saying, you look like you could use a “cuppa”— as you Brits say.” She smiled weakly and drank. “If you are sad about losing your ticket, I can fix that for you.”

“Were it that simple,” she sighed, looking at the ticket but not taking it. “I have yours too… Paris. Must be nice.”

He shrugged and sat down beside her. “Where is… Tebay?” he asked, reading the town’s name on her ticket.

“In county Cumbria, north of the Yorkshire Dales.” He nodded, but she could tell he didn’t know where any of those places were.

“And your family lives there?”

“Yeah. Me grandad, he has farm there, and the whole family on me mam’s side, we moved there during the war. Safer, you know…” She didn’t even know if they were still there. Her mother and sister might have gone back to Leeds, her aunts and cousins too. Her grandparents would be there for sure, unless, heaven forbid, something had happened to them.

“I hope seeing your family again, on Christmas no less, will make you smile,” Colonel Mercier said, obviously trying to cheer her up.

Betty curled her shoulders forward, her stomach rolled. She had no idea why he was being nice to her, or what he wanted from her, for that matter, but she didn’t want to burden him with her problems. “Yeah, sure… Go. You’ll miss your train. Thanks for the tea.”

He hesitated, brow furrowed in concern. “I apologize if I overstep my boundaries, miss Vates, but I cannot leave you like this… Do you need help?”

Betty had never told anyone the whole story, kept it bottled up inside her chest, putting on a smile at work when inside she wrestled with despair, alone with her dark thoughts and pain. For the first time, she really looked at Colonel Mercier, his eyes were a beautiful clear brown in the light, and she found genuine concern in them. Her barriers crumbled. “I don’t have anywhere else to go, but he’ll kill me.”

“Kill you? Who?” He was on high alert.

“Grandpa Marshall. Oh, God. I ran away and now I might be pregnant, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Through tears and sniffles, Betty told him a somewhat confusing summary of her situation.

In the September of ‘43, she’d found a man hiding in an abandoned shed on her grandfather’s farm. A Polish man named Alex Crazenovski— nicknamed Craze. “With a nickname like that you’d think I’d’ve stayed away.” Craze said he’d escaped from his country and was hiding from the Gestapo, he begged her to keep his secret. He was so charming, she never doubted his words.

All through Autumn, she visited him every day. She brought him food and clothes, anything he needed to be more comfortable. And they made love in the forest. It was the most exciting time of her life. It took her mind off her father’s death and her mother’s declining mental health, off the war and the bleak future.

But her grandfather found out. The food Betty had stolen to feed Craze was supposed to go to the government, all part of the obligatory war effort. He got in trouble with the agents of the Ministry of Agriculture for it. She would later find out Craze had also stolen from her grandfather. She begged her grandfather to give Craze a chance, but he refused and threatened to deliver him to the authorities.

“Craze asked me with to run away with him. Said he knew people in London. That he’d marry me.” She shook her head at her own foolishness. She was so besotted with him, and craved more than the life she had.

Craze never did make an honest woman out of her. He wanted to wait until the end of the war and marry her in Poland with all his family. “They will be your family too,” he’d say, implying she didn’t have one anymore.

“You haven’t spoken to your family since then?” Colonel Mercier asked, offering her his handkerchief.

“Not at first. I was too ashamed. I abandoned them, betrayed them. They needed me on the farm… The longer I waited, the more scared I was to see them again, you know. But last Christmas, I decided to be brave, and wrote them a letter…”

“And?”

“Nothing. I never received a reply. They had me address and everythin’, we didn’t move. They disowned me.”

Craze’s acquaintances in London gave Betty a job, doing all sorts of office work. Craze said he worked too, but he rarely brought money home. “I stopped asking questions, it upset him. I know that were stupid, and you must think I’m the most gullible girl in the world, but I swear when he talked to me, it all made sense. And he loved me. He did. I think. I’m pretty sure.”

They lived together for almost two years, in a small rented room, through bombings and war threats. Every time she was scared or sad or angry, he had a way of making her forget all about it. She simply couldn’t resist him.

“The war ended, and he said he was going back to Poland. That was in October. He said he had money there, that he’d come back with it, that we’d buy a house. Whilst he was gone, my boss sent me to Surrey. I sold what we had. I didn’t hear from Craze so I asked a Polish officer who knew him…” Betty let out a shaky breath. “The look in his eyes, the pity. He knew, they all knew, his friends, all along, that he had a wife.”

“In Poland?”

“In Norfolk! He left me, and he’d have left me wondering all me life what happened to him.”

“That’s awful.”

Around the same time, she started worrying she was pregnant. She missed two periods, but it had happened before. The nausea this morning, though, was another nail in the coffin.

The only friends she had in London were Polish, most of them had already left for their home country. And she didn’t want anything to do with those who had watched her be deceived without a word. Her only option was her family. Her grandfather was the kind of man who held grudges, and her mother had never made any secret she preferred her other daughter. Her sister would hate her for leaving her alone to take care of their mother. And Betty had to face them, with a baby out of wedlocks on top of it.

“I mucked up so bad.”

Colonel Mercier tentatively put an arm behind her shoulders, on the back of the bench, but she resisted crying on his shoulder. She tried to control her sobs, she was getting weird looks from people in the train station, and she’d already said too much.

“It’s his fault, not yours,” he said.

“No, I’m a stupid, gormless girl. Mam always said so.”

Colonel Mercier looked up at the ceiling, skewed his jaw, didn’t say anything. Betty didn’t disrupt his thoughts. After a long moment, he asked, “What if you were married?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “How d’you mean?”

He exposed his idea as he would a military strategy: he would accompany her to Tebay and introduce himself as her husband. That way it would seem like she had lived in London as an honest woman, and that she’d been right to trust him. He would spend the day with her family, and hopefully charm them and make them think he wasn’t the scoundrel they imagined. And the next morning, he would take off before dawn, leaving only a letter behind. “We can work out the details later. Your family will take pity on you and, the holiday season helping, welcome you back with open arms.”

“Why would you help me? Me, a ruined woman.”

“Would you believe me if I said it was the spirit of Christmas?”

“I’m not that stupid.”

“No, I didn’t think so. It seems to me you are a victim—” she frowned at the word— “and I cannot stand the thought of you being hurt even more. I hate that he took advantage of your kindness. I can’t blame you for following your heart.”

“I’m not that kind of girl, Colonel! Don’t think being nice to me will get you in me knickers. I’ve learned me lesson.”

He held up in hands. “I promise I will stay out of your knickers.”

She found no trace of dishonesty in his face, but then again, experience had thought her she was a bad judge of character.

He rummaged around his duffel bag and pulled out a tiny fabric pouch. “This should help.” He tipped it over and two golden bands fell in his palms.

“What are you doin’ carrying wedding rings around?”

“I was married. My wife passed away.”

“During the war?”

“No, before. Consumption.”

“I can’t wear that.” He fingered the rings, hesitating. Even his pragmatic spirit wavered in front of this meaningful memento. Betty’s wariness gave way to sympathy. “What about the one on your pinkie?” He took it off, and she studied the symbol stamped in gold. “What’s it for?”

“A ring of nobility.” He seemed almost uncomfortable admitting it, but it must be important to him if he still wore it.

“You’re nobility?”

“Just a lowly chevalier.”

A knight. How perfect. She was starting to think he really did just want to help her.

“Can you do that, though? Pretend to be me husband and lie to everyone?”

“It would not be my first time. Never in this kind of situation, but I have done some undercover work.”

“You a spy?”

“Not in England!” he reassured her quickly. “But as a military attaché I was part of several covert missions. I spied on the Germans when I was in Warsaw.”

She pursed her lips, inspected his appearance. Beside the hair colour and height and maybe something in the sharpness of his nose, he looked nothing like Craze— a good thing in her opinion— he was much leaner and the way he held himself betrayed his rank. He didn’t look like someone who could get his hands dirty. Her family only saw Craze once and that was two years ago, it might just work out. Most of all, she was desperate for a solution, and having someone by her side to face her family eased her fears.

“Okay. Be me pretend-husband.”

He slid his signet ring on her finger. She admired her hand for a moment, feeling oddly pleased.

“I barely know you, how are we ever going to look like we’re in love?” she asked.

“We have a whole train ride to figure that out, don’t we?”

*

Mercier climbed on board the red locomotive, still shocked by his own plan.

“Me name’s Elizabeth, by the way. Everyone calls me Betty. What’s your name?”

“Jean-François.”

“Jean-François,” she repeated carefully, looking at him for approval. “I’ll need to practice.”

As the train covered the first miles of a 285-mile northbound journey, they learned about each other, starting with the basics: age (26 and 37), family members (both had a sister, her father died at Dunkirk, and his own during the Great war), and favourite food (her grandmother’s lamb stew, and strawberry sorbet from Le Procope, Paris’ oldest café).

They compared war stories. Although they lived on different sides of London, they’d taken refuge in the same bomb shelters and visited the same public library near Baker street. They’d both seen the latest Humphrey Bogart movie. “We went on a date. I took you dancing afterwards,” Mercier suggested.

“I wore me red dress.”

He asked her to recount her time with Craze on her grandfather’s farm, specifically the part where they were found out. Her family knew he was Polish, but, thanks to his assignment in Warsaw, Mercier could pretend to have both nationalities. For the first time in ages, he remembered Anna Szarbek, Parisian by birth but living in Poland. A transient thought, he’d made peace with the fact that Max had successfully come between them.

Based on his work experience, he easily invented a plausible story as to how he’d ended up hiding in Yorkshire— a story in which he appeared to be a hero. “We can’t have you marry a coward,” he reasoned.

Betty shared her snack with him, her stomach too knotted for more than two bites of carrot scone.

The rest of their made-up life together was pretty much the same as what had really happened to her. Except, he had an honourable job and married her right away. They decided it was best if she waited to tell them about the pregnancy.

Together they wrote the letter he would leave behind. “Make it sound like…” Betty bit her thumb nail. “Like he loved me. Like I can be loved. I don’t want them to think it was just… physical.”

“Of course, maybe I— he thought his wife had died, in Poland, at the beginning of the war.”

“Okay, and found out she’d survived?”

“He loves you but has to go back to her,” Mercier added.

“Yeah, and you bring me back to me family, so I won’t be left alone.”

“Exactly.”

Night arrived early this time of year, and the dark pink hues of a winter sunset already filled the train car. Betty watched closely as he wrote, her chest pressed into his upper arm, her perfume wafted to his nose, something cheap and floral, too innocent for a heartbroken woman.

“Could you do that to someone?” she asked in a soft, distant voice. “If you discovered your wife was still alive.”

“I don’t know. She passed away eight years ago, and I have not loved another woman as much since.”

“I don’t know if that’s sad or beautiful.”

She tucked her chin in her shoulder, her eyelashes cast feathery shadows on her pale cheeks. And something about the nearness of her, about her own confession, made him admit, “it’s lonely.”

“D’you think, maybe, what we’re writing is what really happened?”

Mercier doubted Crazenovski’s behaviour was anything other than self-serving, he would most likely cheat again, but Betty needed to entertain some romantic notion of him, so he conceded it could be the case.

They spent the next hours in pensive silence. Mercier rehearsed his role, so to speak. Betty dozed off, but slept fretfully. She would seem peaceful for a while, but then her lips would pinch and her forehead pucker.

When they reached Lancaster, Betty talked to him again. “Every summer, I took this train to go to me Gramps’ farm. I always got so excited seeing these mountains, knowing I was almost there. He’d wait for me at the station and hug me tight, called me his lil’ chicken. And me grandma… I swear, I waited all year for this moment.”

“We have that in common.”

“How d’you mean?”

“My father sent me to boarding school, and I couldn’t wait to go back to our estate for the summer. Ride my horse, swim in the lake, run in the fields all day with my sister… I love living in the city now, but it was a nice respite.”

“Was?”

He inhaled sharply and spoke before releasing his breath. “It was destroyed during the war. Alsace shares a border with Germany, so…” He didn’t tell her the whole town was ran over by tanks and every villager sent to his death. He wasn’t ready to talk about it. Betty stroke his arm with a sympathetic smile.

As they stepped onto the train platform, in Tebay, Betty said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to walk to the farm”.

“Betty? Oh, my goodness, lil’ Betty Vates, as I live and breathe, it’s you!”

“Mrs. Jeffrey, hi! She’s Gramps’ neighbour,” Betty explained.

“You’re alive!” Mrs. Jeffrey cried out.

“I think so.”

“Your poor grandfather, he said you’d died in a bombing. Oh, it’s a Christmas miracle! Do you have a ride? Let me take you. Albert’s in the truck.” Mercier picked up their suitcases, and Mrs. Jeffrey noticed him for the first time. “And who’s this?”

“He’s… he’s me husband. Col— Jean-François Mercier.”

“Well done, Betty.” She winked.

They followed Mrs. Jeffrey outside the station.

The town square clock chimed five times. A half-moon made the frost sparkle in the dark. Wisps of chimney smoke wrapped around lamp posts and, for the first time since 1940, Christmas lights twinkled in windows, unhindered by blackout curtains.

They squeezed themselves in the back of the truck. “He’s telling people I’m dead,” Betty whispered to him. He took her hand, and she held it, a vice-like grip, the whole ride through.

They disembarked in front of a gate, a long path between ash trees stretched to a farmhouse, its whitewashed walls bright in the night. A dog, twice the size of Mercier’s pointers with its shaggy white and grey coat, ran up to them, barking. “Hercules!” Betty sat on her hunches as it sniffed around them, tail wagging, tongue dripping.

Like a good shepherd dog rounding up its herd, Hercules pushed Betty and Mercier towards the house. Its bark announced their presence, and an old man came out, holding up a hunting rifle. “Who’s there?”

“Hello Gramps.”

“Betty!” A small woman appeared behind the man and pushed past him to embrace Betty. “Where were you, girl? We were worried sick!”

“It’s a long story, Marnie.”

The old woman looked at Mercier. “Is this…?”

“Yes. We’re married,” Betty said.

“Oh, bloody hell,” muttered her grandfather before turning back inside the house.

“Oh, don’t mind the old grouch. I’m Mrs. Marshall, everyone calls me Marnie.”

“Betty has told me a lot about you, what a pleasure to meet you Marnie,” Mercier said, kissing the back of her knobbly hand. Betty smiled at him.

“Jolly nice to meet you, young man.” She pinched Betty’s cheek. “Didn’t he feed you properly?”

“No one has, what with rationing.”

“We managed here.”

“Oh, Marnie, I missed your food.”

“Good, tea’s almost ready.” The women hugged each other again, both tearing up.

Inside the old farmhouse, the air was heavy with the scent of fir tree and wet wool, from the socks and union suits drying in the scullery.

The whole family gathered in the living room. Betty’s grandparents, mother, sister and brother-in-law. They stood in a half-circle, their gaze flickered between the newcomers, on the couch, and the patriarch. Mr. Marshall was a stocky man, all strength, with sunburnt skin even in winter.

Mercier was dying to say something, but followed Betty’s lead.

Mr. Marshall finally broke the silence, “Married?!”

“I—”

“To this… this…” He shook a finger at Mercier, but with his straight back, sharp suit and perfect hair, he found nothing to say. “Who is this?”

“Colonel Jean-François Mercier.” He stood up, his hair brushed the ceiling beams. Mr. Marshall refused to shake the proffered hand.

“A bloody French? For God’s sake.”

Now that they’d heard his verdict, the other family members spoke all over the other, asking more questions than could possibly be answered. Marnie shushed them. “Tell us what happened, Betty.”

Betty took a deep breath and began telling the story they’d rehearsed in the train. “I sent you a letter,” she said, “but I never got a reply.”

“We didn’t receive any letter,” Margaret, her sister, said. The others all agreed vehemently.

“So, you’re not angry with me?” Betty asked.

“Yes, we are angry with you, Mrs. Mercier,” the grandfather replied. “Me own granddaughter, getting married to a stranger. What d’you have to go to London for?”

And the barrage of questions and judgements began anew.

Betty wasn’t the best liar, and nerves made her stutter, so Mercier took over telling the rest of the story they’d made up. “My deepest apologies, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, and Mrs. Vates, for the way I behaved back then. I was scared and in danger. But I truly love your daughter.” He placed a hand on her knee, and she startled lightly at the contact.

Mr. Marshall squinted at them, his bushy grey eyebrows brushing behind the lenses of his glasses. “Umpf.”

Supper was a tense affair. And he’d been in tense situations before. A conference with England and Russia in ‘39 came to mind. But this was a whole other kind of tension. He complimented the women on the meal, but only received curt thanks in return.

Betty barely touched her plate, her hands shook whenever she picked up her utensils. He admired her valiant efforts to encourage conversation despite the hostility in the air. Two years without seeing them, they had a lot of catching up to do. He flinched every time their answers came with passive-aggressive comments on Betty’s absence and all the hard work she hadn’t had to do. He made a point to chime in with flattering anecdotes about her. “Are you sure it’s our Betty you’re talking about?” her sister asked.

Because both he and Betty had signed the Official Secrets Act for their job, they couldn’t explain what they really did. Jean-François said he collaborated with de Gaulle which wasn’t far from the truth. Eric, the brother-in-law, who had only recently been demobed, scoffed. “You spent the war behind a desk, but I was shooting the Nazis meself, like a man.” He exposed shrapnel scars on his arm to prove his point.

Mercier clenched his jaw. This idea was proving more painful then he’d anticipated. He swallowed his pride and agreed with Eric, hopefully taking the heat off Betty. Mercier wasn’t the type to brag, but he had some go-to spying anecdotes to delight an audience when forced to, and they helped rectify his military credibility.

The Marshalls particularly enjoyed the one about smuggling out the entire Polish National bullion reserve before the Nazis could get their hands on it. “Forty cases of gold, ten ingots in each case, hidden under the floorboards and the seats. We’re heading for the Romanian border. Suddenly the train stops.”

“Why? What happened?” Betty asked, engrossed in his story.

“Don’t you know?” her sister said.

Mercier recovered smoothly. “I don’t think I ever told Betty that story. I couldn’t, not before the Polish got their gold back. State secret, you understand.”

“And what other secrets are you hiding from her and us?” Mr. Marshall said. He stood up from the table, moving his chair and picking up his dishes as loudly as he could.

“Never mind him, what happened next?” Eric asked.

By the end of the evening, some of the tension had dissipated. There attitude towards Betty-- except for Marnie-- was still far from warm. He wished she’d stand up for herself more, but she looked like she believed she deserved it all. It wasn’t his place to judge.

Marnie helped by bringing out a bottle of whiskey she’d hidden before the war, keeping it for a special occasion. “Me granddaughter’s wedding, that’s special enough, I reckon.” She put on a Bing Crosby record. “C’mon young ‘uns, time for a little jitterbuggin’.” She pulled on her husband’s arm until he gave up and stood up to dance with her. Margaret and Eric, paired up too.

Jean-François and Betty’s gazes met across the room. Well, it would seem strange if they didn’t dance. Their fingers entwined, his hand slid over her waist. Betty, who’d drank whiskey on an empty stomach, giggled nervously. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. “Our first dance,” he joked. For the first time since this morning, she smiled, a real smile, wide and bright, and there was a flutter in his chest he hadn’t felt in ages. She rested her cheek on his shoulder, and, for a moment, they didn’t have to pretend.

At the end of the night, Marnie dumped bed sheets and blankets in Betty’s arms, “You can take the blue room.” Mercier walked with her to the attic, carrying an oil lamp as that part of the house didn’t have electricity yet.

The blue room, they realized, had only one bed, and not a big one at that.

“I will sleep on the floor. It’s only for one night.”

He turned his back so she could change into her nightgown. He stared at the faded blue hydrangeas on the wallpaper and at the image of the Virgin Mary above the bed. He heard Betty’s dress fall to the floor, the click of garter and bra being unhooked, the stockings brushing down her legs, and despite himself, he saw it all in his mind’s eye.

Jean-François folded his clothes beside the makeshift bed, ready to put on and sneak out as early as possible the next morning. He placed the letter on the bedside table. As he planned his exit, guilt flickered in his chest. Craze betrayed her, not you, he reminded himself.

Betty lowered the flame of the lamp, and both laid in silence. Through the floorboards, came the hushed argument between Marnie and her husband.

“Are you okay?” Mercier asked.

She sighed. “At least they didn’t kick me out. It’ll be fine, I think… Thank you again. I’m sorry they were so awful to you. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.” And then, softly, “Don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.”

He wanted to reassure her, but could he? Did she even want to see him again? Before he could reply, the stairs creaked. “Someone’s comin’ up.” Mercier jumped to his feet, kicked his blankets under the bed and slipped under the covers next to Betty. She pulled his arm around her shoulders.

Good thing he moved fast, because the door opened right after the knock, without awaiting an answer. Mr. Marshall didn’t cross the threshold and kept his hands in his pockets. He cleared his throat. “Alright?”

“Yeah, we’re fine Gramps, thanks.”

“Alright, good night, then.” He turned back as fast as he had come in, leaving the door ajar. “Don’t forget your prayers!” he shouted from the corridor.

“What was that about?” Mercier whispered.

“That was me grandma sending him. I bet she threatened to not serve her special mince pies on Christmas.”

Mercier became aware of their legs touching under the covers, of her rib cage, expanding with each breath, of her hair tickling his chin. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d shared a bed with a woman without making love to her. With his wife maybe. Melancholy pinched his heart, and he longed for that simple pleasure. She glanced shyly at him, biting her bottom lip.

“Do you think he might come back?” he asked Betty.

“Maybe… I’ll lock the door.”

“Okay. Then I suppose I should…”

“Yeah… ”

Another beat passed and they didn’t move. Their one and only night together, what if they were to make the most of it? He was confident he could make her feel better.

“Anyways.” She laughed nervously and left the bed to latch the door. She looked at him, still in her bed. “S’not too hard, is it? The floor,” she asked.

That was his cue to return to his makeshift bed. “No. Better than a Morrison shelter, at least.”

She turned off the lamp completely and mumbled a prayer. The old bed squeaked as she tossed and turned.

“Elizabeth? Will you be all right after I leave?”

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

Part 2