Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Stella Gibbons
Author’s Note
Dedication
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Copyright
About the Book
On the dunes west of Bruges, two-year-old Ydette is found wrapped in a blanket and taken back to live in a small grocer’s shop. Opposite the shop live the wealthy van Roeslaere family and their son, Adriaan, a spoilt boy, plagued by ugliness. With overtones of Beauty and the Beast, their romance matures as they grow up together and learn what should truly be valued in life.
About the Author
Stella Gibbons was born in London in 1902. She went to the North London Collegiate School and studied journalism at University College, London. She then spent ten years working for various newspapers, including the Evening Standard. Stella Gibbons is the author of twenty-five novels, three volumes of short stories and four volumes of poetry. Her first publication was a book of poems, The Mountain Beast (1930), and her first novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize in 1933. Amongst her works are Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm (1940), Westwood (1946), Conference at Cold Comfort Farm (1959) and Starlight (1967). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. In 1933 she married the actor and singer Allan Webb. They had one daughter. Stella Gibbons died in 1989.
ALSO BY STELLA GIBBONS
Cold Comfort Farm
Bassett
Enbury Heath
Nightingale Wood
My American
Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm
The Rich House
Ticky
The Bachelor
Westwood
The Matchmaker
Conference at Cold Comfort Farm
Here Be Dragons
The Charmers
Starlight
AUTHOR’S NOTE
There is a Sintmariastraat in Bruges, but the house of the Maes sisters will not be found there. And none of the characters in the story are drawn from living people, with one exception only: some years ago I met the horse Klaartje in the (very comfortable) flesh and simply could not resist describing his occupation and appearance.
To
Ena and Donal Lenihan,
affectionately
STELLA GIBBONS
White Sand and
Grey Sand
“MARIE. MARIE.”
There was no reply to the low, angry call. The blue sky glowed, the white dunes glared in the sun, and hidden behind them the sea hissed and rustled in the high tide of noon.
There hovered in the air an extraordinary, confused murmuring; a threatening, rumbling, muffled sound that seemed to come as much from the cloudless sky as from the green land spreading rich and fruitful to the horizon. Jakoba Maes heard it, in the uneasy quiet that settled again over the dunes after her call, and she wrinkled her face into a grimace of vulgarity and violence; if her mouth had not felt so dry, she would have gone farther. She muttered something, then looked angrily around.
There was no one there, not even any of the poor fools who were running away; not a soul in sight—though they were making enough noise on the road down there behind the dunes—and as for the beasts themselves, of course they were miles off yet; even at the rate they seemed to be coming, they couldn’t be here for days, if they ever got here at all. So it was still safe for a woman to shout out loud in her own country if she wanted to, and she shouted.
“Marie!” No reply. “You silly old fool, if you’ve …”
The mutter died away into a threatening silence, as she plunged down the steep slope, which re-filled her sabots, which she always wore into the country, with sand at the first step, and made her way as fast as she could across the hollow lying beneath, with her long shadow following. In spite of the heat, her head was covered by a black shawl, framing her broad brown face and protecting her wide shoulders in their black stuff blouse from the sun; she was sable as some big bird of the meadows; black, and solid, and angry, as she strode forward against the drifting silver sand. There came from it every now and again, when the wind blew over the ridges, the softest imaginable sound, a kind of lonely whisper, dying off into silence and leaving the strangely ominous, empty sky, and the white dunes, to quietness again. But it did not last for long; it was broken by a far-off drone that swelled to a roar and three aeroplanes hurtled seawards. Jakoba flung herself beneath one of the stunted pines and lay still, with her fingers dug hard into the hot sand, as there came from the swooping machines a sharp, chattering noise.
It passed. They roared on towards Oostende (Ostend), and in a moment, lying with her face still pressed into the sand, she heard three thuds that shook the ground. The clamour from the road had grown louder, and there were screams.
She sat up, brushing the sand from her face, then scrambled to her feet and went on. She did not dare to call, now. There might be one of their men hiding in that thicket on the top of the dune, dressed as a woman or as a British soldier. And perhaps they had got Marie …
But as she toiled up the final slope, cursing the Germans and her sister below her breath and not letting herself think what she might find up there at the top, a figure appeared amidst the trunks of the pines, also dressed in black, but smaller than Jakoba, and with no shawl over her head. The arms waved, the other wide brown face showed a gleam of white, yet there came not a sound. And now she was beckoning. What for? Fool, can’t she see I’m coming as fast as I can?
“Oh, thank God, thank God you’re all right, Jakoba. … I thought they’d got you. … Our Lady heard me!” Marie gasped.
“There’s no need to bring her in … I’m not one of your old Sisters round at the Béguinage,” Jakoba retorted sourly, as she came up with her. “Why did you go off like that?” She wiped her forehead with one great freckled hand, and stood still, staring.
“I had to. I had to go behind a bush … and Klaas wasn’t asleep …”
“Klaas! I should think he’s known you long enough not to worry whether you go behind a bush or not … listen to that!” turning, with the colour leaving her face, towards the general direction of the east as there sounded five faint but tremendous explosions, “they’re getting it in Ghent, I suppose … and our turn next.” Then the blood rushed back into her face, turning it dark crimson under the tan, and she gritted her teeth. “Well, come on, come on, what are you …”
“Jakoba, I’ve found … look here. Look what I’ve found,” Marie said.
Jakoba had noticed that she was not wearing her shawl. Now, staring, ready at any instant to drag her sister away, she turned quickly as Marie pointed to something lying on the ground amongst the glittering brown pine-needles scattered thickly over the sand. It was her shawl; it was rolled up into a bundle.
Jakoba took a step or two forward … it might be some clothes, or a ham, or something else worth having, people were leaving all kinds of useful things all over the place these days.
Then she saw what it was, and made an angry sound of disappointment.
“A jochie1?” she demanded, and knelt down, bending over the bundle, “is it dead?” She stared curiously at a gleam of white showing amongst the black folds; she did not like to touch it.
“Dead, no, bless her. She’s asleep.” Marie knelt down beside her sister. “Look,” she whispered, drawing aside the shawl, “isn’t she a little darling?”
“That’s a
good silk coat,” was all Jakoba answered; “and look at her hair … that’s been taken care of … her people must have money.”
“She was all wet when I found her, Jakoba. I think,” Marie was still whispering, and as she spoke the wind went through the dark green branches of the bowed and twisted trees overhead, with a soft sighing sound, “she’d been in the sea.” The long quiet murmur died away in silence. Jakoba, turning her head, looked off towards the expanse of yellow-green water rolling below that was visible from the top of the dune. There were no sails of fishing-boats to be seen today. The horizon was veiled in a mist of heat. About a mile out, distinct against the broad sparkling pathway cast by the sun, something long and dark was lifting and falling lazily to the outward pull of the tide. Jakoba wrinkled her eyes against the glare; she could not be sure whether there were some objects scattered round the overturned boat; limp things, drifting along half under water.
She turned again to stare at the sleeping child. She seemed to be about two years old; thick, straight dark hair, tied on either side of her round forehead with white ribbons, framed her face. The lashes lying on her cheeks looked like miniature black fans. She had been crying.
“Well …” Jakoba said, “we’d best be getting on.”
She stood up, and looked across the dune which she had just crossed towards another scanty thicket of pines, where a figure wearing a blue blouse and a black cap with a peak could just be made out, sitting well back in the shade, and smoking. Behind him, and out in the sunlight beyond the trees, there could be seen a bulky object the colour of well-polished copper; as Jakoba stared, it moved forward, revealing itself as a very large horse, standing with patiently drooping head. Jakoba waved, and the figure in the blue blouse responded by a gesture made with his pipe.
“Yes, better be going,” she repeated.
Marie sat back on her heels, and, without taking her eyes off the child’s sleeping face, said in a low voice: “All right … but what’ll we do with …?” and she jerked her head at the shawl.
“Leave her here,” was the swift, hard answer, then, as her sister lifted her head and looked at her, “Well, good heavens! what else do you expect me to do? Take her with us? Aren’t we a big enough target as it is, with Klaartje the size he is, and ten kilometres to get to the farm and keeping off the roads all the way … where our own soldiers’ll get us if the German planes don’t … without you expecting me to …” she broke off, and turned away, wrapping both thick arms tightly in her shawl.
She stood in silence, with both feet in their black-painted sabots set wide apart, staring away across the distant dunes. A number of people were wandering about, little black figures against the white slopes, or lying in exhausted sleep, or crouching down swallowing a hasty meal in the shelter of the low scrub. People from Oostende and Zandeburghe on their way to the country, Jakoba thought. Oh, they’re ready enough to run out to the country now the bombs are coming down on the towns … and what a state they’re in down at Zandeburghe this morning! Her eyes swept along in the direction of that distant cluster of steep grey roofs, and the digue with its row of handsome white hotels … dashing in and out of the shops, milling around in their cars … serve them right. They’d all been much too rich for years. Now let them see what good their money did them.
Away to the east, looking across the flat land divided by lines of willow trees and poplars wearing the rich green of the early Flemish summer, there weren’t any roads to be seen any more. There were only long, black lines; jerking and crawling along under the merciless light of the sun that showed up every movement to the prowling planes. That was the refugees; pouring in from Holland, from Luxembourg, from the villages and towns beyond the Albert Canal, all making for the open country and the sea.
Well, it didn’t do any good to look at that. Jakoba turned away, and faced round and stared at her sister and the child. Marie was standing up with the black bundle in her arms, bending over it.
“I’m not going to leave her,” she announced at once, without looking up. “You can go if you like. But I’m not going to leave her.”
“Well, well, we’ll take her down to the road and see if we can find anyone who’s lost a child,” said Jakoba impatiently, beginning to plunge down the slope of the dune, “But suppose her people come back to look for her? Wasn’t there anyone about when you found her?”
“Not a soul. I looked for a long time. But there wasn’t anybody. She was sitting playing with the sand, bless her, as damp as a mussel … her pretty coat’s all sandy … you’ll see …”
She was following her sister down the slope now, keeping her voice subdued so as not to awaken her burden.
“H’m …” Jakoba’s eyes strayed towards the gap where showed the vanishing yellowish line of the sea. The black object was still just visible, drifting steadily out of sight, into the calm, glittering pathway cast by the sun, into the unknown. She kept her thoughts to herself. If she told Marie about that boat, Marie wouldn’t be content until she’d got Klaas rowing out after it … and who wanted to sit in a rowing-boat on the open sea this morning? But the elder sister kept her eyes fixed on the sea until the rising curve of the dune hid it from sight; it was comforting, somehow, the sight of the sea; it didn’t seem to be taking any more notice of what was happening than the countryside did.
“I expect her people sat down to rest and she wandered away,” Marie was saying, “and then she tumbled into the waves …”
“That’s about it,” Jakoba said. “We’ll hand her over to the police,” she thought. But she also thought that there weren’t any police nearer than Zandeburghe, and that was half a kilometre away, and she didn’t want to go back there. Towns, especially on the coast, weren’t healthy places just now. So that meant taking her back to Brugge (Bruges) with them. An much time anyone at Brugge would have to spare on a lost child. But perhaps Uncle Matthys at the farm would have her? He had promised to take Klaartje if … ever anything happened … and now it had happened and they were on their way to him, with the horse. Oh, they would find somewhere to leave the brat. But the main thing now was to get on; away from the open roads and the coast; into the shelter afforded by orchards and rows of willows and poplar-shaded lanes, which the Government hadn’t bothered to patrol with soldiers turning you back from wherever you wanted to go. The brat could be disposed of later.
As they came to the top of the slope where the man and the horse waited, the former turned to look at them. His face appeared strange in this hot, shimmering air hovering above the dazzling sand, because his skin had a bluish tinge, seeming to belong rather to the frozen winters of the harsh Flemish coast than to this morning of May-heat. At once, his small, bitter-looking eyes of a light blue became fixed on the bundle in Marie’s arms.
Jakoba did not waste time on saying where she had found the straying Marie (who had wandered off while all three were snatching a brief rest after the walk up from Zandeburghe), and she said no more about her sister’s discovery than a brief “Marie’s got herself a baby!”, accompanied with a loud laugh, before she seized the bridle of the horse, and began pulling the great animal purposefully past the thicket, and down a rough path that led direct to the Oostende road below.
That road! Marie, feeling the weight of the still-sleeping child warm and heavy against her breast, almost shut her eyes with terror at the sight of it. And they’d got to go down into that… and across it … because the road to Sint Niklaas and Uncle Matthys’ farm lay directly through the meadows on the other side. The hooting, and the shouting, and the crying of the children, and the shrill, frantic, continuous ringing of hundreds of bicycle-bells that rose up from it, curdled her stomach; it was the voice of sheer terror; she felt sick. And there was the smell from the packed, shaking, jerking cars; the stench of hot oil. She shut her eyes for a minute.
Jakoba’s eyes were fixed on the road as she tramped steadily down the curving sandy path between the white hillocks where dark grass grew sparsely. It is like the Hell, she
thought; once as a child she had been taken to see the paintings in the City picture gallery in Brugge, and she had been stirred to a kind of gloating wonder by the precisely-painted devils in one particular picture, with their smooth dry skins and their flat knobbed heads, who were dragging down the warm, weak bodies of the sinful into unimagined depths. Much of the horror of those depths, for Jakoba, had been that they would be crowded. Down there, the bodies would be packed close and tight and hot, and there would be no room to move, and there the wind from the sea would never blow. …
The road to Oostende was like that. The two lines of frantic refugees had met, and jammed; those who were trying to get out from the city, which had been bombed again that morning, becoming inextricably tangled with the masses of people and vehicles pouring coastwards from the invaded cities and villages in the east towards the sea and, perhaps, a boat and safety. The flat roofs of the cars shining through the choking dust were almost touching. The cyclists waited, supporting themselves against the side of a car, a cart, anything that was at hand, while they jerked … halted … jerked … halted, a couple of feet forward at a time. White faces looked through the windows of the cars. Some of them were asleep with their mouths open. Some were crying. “Holy God,” Marie whispered, “Holy God.”
“Wait till I say ‘Come on’, and then make a dash for it.” Jakoba had stopped with the horse at the edge of the road, and was standing still, looking down at it, and Marie, clutching the child closer in her arms, came along to her.
Motionless as two scarecrows in their black, the sisters stood side by side looking down on the confusion and the uproar below, and behind them the man, with his pipe gripped in his teeth, stood impassively, occasionally saying something in a low, harsh voice to the horse as if to soothe him. The noise did not seem to trouble Klaartje, but something did, for once or twice he moved his great bulk in a backward direction and jerked his head. But at the sound of Klaas’s voice he became quiet.