Yvette looked enquiringly at the sound of her name. “Nice? Antibes?” she said. “You go there?” she asked Ellie in French.
“I expect so,” Ellie said. “We haven’t made up our minds yet. But they would be good places for you to find work. What sort of job do you think you’ll want to do? What skills do you have?”
“I have no real skills, madame. I think I am not fit for anything other than being a maid,” Yvette said. “The only problem is ...”
She left the rest of the sentence hanging.
“Yes?” Ellie had come to a stop as a policeman held up traffic. Ellie turned back to look at Yvette, who had now blushed red.
“You are so good,” she said. “I was going to say that I wanted a better future than backbreaking work on a farm, but I cannot lie to you any longer. You must know the truth. My father threw me out when he discovered I am pregnant. He told me I am no longer his daughter, and he told me never to come back.”
The other two women didn’t understand when Ellie gasped.
“What did she say?” Dora asked. “Neither my French nor my hearing are as good as they were. Why did she leave?”
“She says she found out she is going to have a baby.”
“Pregnant?” Dora exclaimed. She switched to her painfully slow French. “But you’re a mere child yourself. Who is the father of this infant? Why does he not do the right thing?”
“He is far away, madame,” Yvette said. She swallowed back a sob. “He is in the army, and he was suddenly sent to North Africa before I knew that I was with child. I don’t know where he’s gone. He said he’d write to me as soon as he found out which country he’d be stationed in, but now I will never get the letter. He would marry me if he knew, I’m sure of it. He was so sweet and loving to me.”
“You poor girl.” Ellie reached back and patted her hand. “Don’t worry. We’ll try to help you. Maybe we can contact your sweetheart through the French army headquarters?”
“Maybe.” Yvette did not sound too hopeful.
“How do you plan to support yourself with a child?” Dora asked. “Or even during the latter stages of pregnancy? You will not be able to work.”
Yvette shook her head. Tears were now trickling down her cheeks. “I do not know, madame. All I know is that I have no home. No one I can turn to.”
“You have no relatives who can help?” Dora asked.
“My mother died when I was an infant. My father has raised me alone. I had grandparents, but they have now passed away, too. There is my father’s brother, but he is as bad as my father. I would not be welcome there.”
Ellie cleared her throat. “Well, Yvette, ma petite, you are in safe hands now. We will take you with us, and when we reach our destination, we will decide what is best for you.”
Yvette lifted a tear-stained face. “Really? Oh madame, I cannot thank you enough. You don’t know what it’s been like, not knowing what to do. I seriously thought of taking my life, drinking rat poison, even though I know that it would be a terrible sin, and I’d never go to heaven ...” She wiped a tear from her cheek again.
The policeman blew his whistle again and motioned the traffic forward. As they drove off, Dora moved closer to Ellie. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she muttered. “First you saddle us with a housemaid and now with a pregnant girl. Are we to be a Noah’s ark for the lost souls of the world?”
Ellie looked at her, then she smiled. “If that’s what it takes, then yes.”
They drove out of the city and took the road signposted to Toulon.
“We won’t be able to get as far as the Riviera proper tonight,” Ellie said.
“We should make it to Hyères or Toulon.” Dora was back in her role as navigator. “I hear that Hyères is most agreeable. Didn’t Queen Victoria stay there in her later years?”
“In that case, it must be good enough for us.” Ellie laughed. “How far would you say it was?”
Dora studied her map. “Fifty miles maybe. But the road looks awfully winding.”
“We should be able to do fifty miles before it gets dark,” Ellie said.
Dora traced the road on the map with her finger. “There are small villages along the coast but nothing inland until we get to Toulon. And that’s another naval town, isn’t it? I’m sure I read that the French navy are headquartered there.”
“Then definitely not Toulon. I don’t think we could handle more knife fights.” Ellie steered the car around a bend. The road was entering a wild and mountainous area, the hillsides covered in bushy scrub. It cut through a steep-sided valley, wound its way up to a crest, then down again. Ellie found herself gripping the wheel as she stared ahead. The valleys themselves were already bathed in gloom, and the sun only highlighted the cream-coloured rocky summits above them. It grew gradually darker.
“I hope it’s not too far now,” Ellie said. “We haven’t passed a village in ages, and we’ll need petrol soon.”