Page 18 of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure
“Do you have your bags?”
“Only this small bag behind my seat.” She reached for it and scrambled out as if she couldn’t get away fast enough.
“Get into the back seat of my car.” Ellie opened the back door. “It will be a bit cramped but better than the alternative. See if you can crouch down on the floor.” As the girl climbed in, Ellie covered her with the travel rug, then placed a hatbox on top of her. “Don’t move,” she said.
At that moment, Dora and Mavis returned.
“You won’t believe what we’ve just had to do,” Mavis said as they approached. “The toilet was a hole in the ground. I’m not joking. Just two boards on either side of a hole. That was it. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Nowhere to put me bum.”
“I’m afraid it was terribly primitive,” Dora said. “I don’t know if you want to use it, Ellie.”
“I won’t use it now,” Ellie said. “I want to be away from here as quickly as possible. Get in, please.”
“Why, Ellie, what’s wrong?” Dora asked.
“I’ll explain later. We just need to drive on before a man comes back.”
“Gracious. What on earth?” Dora said as she took her seat, and Ellie hurriedly closed the door behind her. She assisted Mavis in, then returned to the driver’s seat. The car started, and they eased out towards the road. They had to wait for a passing car and were about to turn on to the road when they heard a shout. The man had returned to his lorry and found the passenger gone. He came over to them—a big, burly man in blue overalls. “Hey, you.” He banged on the bonnet of the car. “Have you seen where the girl went?”
Ellie rolled down her window, staring at him angrily. “I’m sorry,” she said in clipped English tones, “I’m afraid we do not speak French. But do not touch my motor car.”
“Fille. Jeune fille.” The man waved his hands, trying to indicate a girl.
Ellie shook her head. “I’m sorry we can’t help you. Don’t speak French.” She spoke the words slowly and distinctly, shaking her head.
The man moved closer, peering into the back of the Bentley. He saw Dora in the front seat, Mavis with several cases piled on the seat beside her.
“I don’t know what you want, but please go away.” Ellie gave him her haughtiest stare. “Go away, or I will call the manager or the gendarmes.” She shooed him like a chicken. He ran off, checking out where the girl could have gone. Ellie put her foot on the accelerator, and they drove into the darkness as fast as she dared.
“What on earth was that about?” Dora asked. “Did that man try to accost you when we were away? What an unpleasant individual.”
Suddenly Mavis gave a scream. “Something touched me. There’s something alive here.”
“It’s all right, Mavis,” Ellie said. “We have a girl hiding in the back seat. She was being kidnapped by the driver of that lorry.”
“Blimey,” Mavis said.
“All is well, mademoiselle. You are safe. You can come out now,” she said in French. “Help her up, Mavis,” she continued in English. Mavis removed the hatbox and the rug, and the girl emerged, looking around her in wonder.
“Have you lost all reason?” Dora demanded. “Driving off with a strange girl in the car? You know nothing about her. She could have been with a relative or even a husband, and you could be the one who finds herself accused of kidnapping.”
“She looked terrified, Dora. I saw her staring out of that window. She beckoned me over and begged me to help her before he came back. She said she’d accepted a lift from him, but now he was starting to talk about his awful plans for her when they went to a hotel together. I couldn’t leave her there, could I?”
“I suppose not,” Dora said. “But I do ask myself whether it is wise to get ourselves mixed up in something that is none of our business in a foreign country.”
She turned back to the girl. “What is your name, ma fille?” she asked in her stilted, anglicized French.
“Yvette, madame,” the girl replied in scarcely more than a whisper.
“Well, Yvette, why did you agree to travel with this man? Did you know him?”
“No, madame. I was just trying to head south, and he came along and offered me a ride. It was all right to start with. He bought me some food. But then it got dark, and he said we’d go to a hotel together and I could repay him for taking me. He asked if I was a virgin, and he said awful things.”
“I’m so sorry, my dear,” Ellie said. “So why did you need a ride? Are you running away from home?”
“I had to leave my home in a hurry, madame,” Yvette said. “I was not wanted there. I thought I’d go south, where it was warm and pleasant, and maybe find work in one of the resorts on the Côte d’Azur.”
“Should you not be in school?” Dora asked.
