Page 38 of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure

Ellie walked down the steps into Saint-Benet. It was a perfect spring day, birds chirping, seagulls whirling, the air full of the scent of blossoms. She did as Dora had suggested and bought herself a pain au chocolat from the bakery.

“And how are mother and baby faring?” Madame Blanchet, the baker’s wife, asked. Nothing escaped the notice of the residents of the village.

“The baby is thriving,” Ellie said. “The mother has gone off and abandoned her. We’re taking care of the child until she comes back for her.”

“If she comes back for her,” the baker’s wife said with a knowing look.

“I know these young girls. All they want is a good time. No responsibility. My own younger one is the same—my Giselle. Head in the clouds about bright lights and city life. Wants to go off and be a fashion model for Chanel. Have you ever heard of anything so stupid? I tell her, ‘Be happy like your sister Gabi. Look at her, settled with that nice Luc and already two babies.’ But she doesn’t listen to me or my husband.

I don’t know what will happen when she leaves school .

..” She paused, wiping down her apron. “I’d say you’re stuck with the child.

But there’s an orphanage in Marseille you could think about. ”

“Oh no,” Ellie said. “I couldn’t put Jojo in an orphanage. We’ll raise her if we have to.”

“Then I wish you good luck,” the baker’s wife said. “It’s not easy raising a child these days, especially at your age.”

Ellie came out with her croissant and headed towards the harbour.

At my age, she thought angrily. Did she really look old now?

Did she feel old? Then she had a brilliant thought: Nico had told her she could take the boat out if it was not being used.

She knew where he hid the key. It was a beautiful, calm day.

She would do it! Feeling self-conscious and a little silly, Ellie climbed down into the boat, retrieved the key from its secret hiding place, and started the motor.

It sprang to life right away with a satisfying pop pop pop .

Holding her breath she eased it out of its berth, managed to turn it to face the exit and crept forwards until the harbour walls were passed.

Then she pushed the throttle, feeling the boat pick up speed.

She had no intention of the type of speed that Nico had used but kept going until Saint-Benet was far behind.

The chain of small islands grew closer, and she steered for the first one, interested to get a better view.

From her terrace at the villa, they all looked like inhospitable lumps of cream-coloured rock.

Now she saw that the biggest one showed patches of green.

Surely nobody lived there, because she had never seen a boat going to and from the shore.

She slowed the boat to a crawl as she approached the first island.

It was indeed a rocky crag with limestone cliffs rising steeply and a colony of seabirds wheeling above it.

Nowhere to land here. Not coming too close to shore, she eased slowly around it, wary of unseen rocks.

It was the change in wind direction that made her look back.

The shore seemed remarkably far away, and black clouds had now gathered over the mainland mountains, rapidly swallowing up the sky.

Within minutes a chill wind was blowing directly at her.

Waves slapped against the boat. She remembered Nico’s admonition to keep the boat facing the waves, so she steered it towards that distant shore.

How was she going to make it back? Then she looked towards the biggest island and saw, miraculously, a jetty.

So it was inhabited, or at least people came over for picnics.

As she came nearer, she saw that it might well be some kind of park.

There were steps going up, a trellis, a bench and flowering shrubs.

Giving a silent prayer of thanks, she managed to tie up the boat and climb out and was mounting the steps when the first harsh drops of rain fell.

Within minutes the sky opened. There was a rumble of thunder, then hail began bouncing around her like ping-pong balls.

Ellie looked around for shelter. Ahead of her were cultivated gardens, an orchard, and in the background some kind of rambling grey stone building.

Thunder crashed overhead, and there was a flash of lightning.

No use trying to find shelter amongst the trees of the orchard, then.

Covering her head with her hands in a futile attempt to keep off stinging hail, she ran up the gravel pathway.

There was an archway halfway down the side of the building, and Ellie staggered into it, gasping for breath, freezing cold and drenched.

At least she was out of the rain here, but someone had to live in this building and would offer her a chance to shelter and dry off.

As she stood there, she heard the sound of chanting .

.. sweet, melodic tones that cut through the fury of the storm.

For a moment Ellie considered the fact that she might have died and that this was some kind of transition to the afterlife.

Then she laughed at the absurdity of her own mind.

She came through the archway and found herself in a courtyard with arched cloisters along one side.

The chanting came from behind the tall doors at the far end.

She started towards it but had only gone a few steps when a hooded figure stepped out in front of her.

She gasped, took an involuntary step back and sat down heavily on a bench against the wall.

The figure loomed over her. Before she had time to consider whether it was a ghost, it said, in a deep man’s voice, “What are you doing here? You must not be here. Leave immediately.”

“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I was on a boat. Caught in the storm. I couldn’t make it back to land, so I saw the jetty and came here. I won’t bother you long ... I only needed to—”

“No,” the voice interrupted. “I just told you. You cannot stay. This is a place of men. No women allowed. Now go. Go.”

Ellie stood up, hesitated. She was loath to go out into the storm but had a feeling this man would hound her until she did. At that moment a door opened nearby, and another man came out.

“What’s happening, brother?” he asked. “I heard a cry, raised voices.”

“I found this woman, Father Abbot,” the first man said. “A woman. Wandering around. Here.”

“I’m so sorry,” Ellie said. “I was on a boat and was caught in the storm. I just came to seek shelter until the storm passed. I had no idea this was a monastery. I didn’t even know anyone lived here.”

“Not a monastery, an abbey,” the newcomer said.

He had a soft, gentle voice. Ellie looked up into the face of the most handsome man she had ever seen.

It was hard to tell his age. He had a square jaw, and his blond hair was trimmed very short, making him look like a Roman general, and—Ellie had read of piercing blue eyes in novels but had never experienced them until now—his eyes were an alarming blue.

They observed her now, with a hint of amusement.

“Brother Michel,” he now addressed the younger man.

“You mean well, but rules must give way to charity. Didn’t our Lord say we must welcome the stranger?

And I’m sure this lady has not come with the object of bringing us temptation.

” Now the humour spread to his lips, and he smiled. “Go back to your task.”

“Yes, Father Abbot,” the man mumbled and shuffled away.

The abbot turned to Ellie. “My dear, you are soaked and shivering. Come into my study to get warm.”

He held open a door for her, and she stepped into a simple room, one wall lined with books, the others whitewashed and bearing only a crucifix. There was a big desk with neatly stacked papers on it. At the far end, two well-worn armchairs faced a fire.

“Just a minute,” he said. Ellie waited. He disappeared, then came back, handing her a towel.

“You’ll want to dry yourself a little, then you can wrap yourself in this.

” He put a rug down on the arm of the chair.

Ellie dried her face and hair, conscious of the man standing a few feet away, then wrapped herself in the rug as she sat down.

“I’ll fetch you a tisane,” he said. “Ginger, I think, is warming,” he told her when he returned, handing her a cup.

Ellie sat, feeling the warmth of the fire on her legs and the hot liquid spreading through her body. “I had no idea this place existed,” she said. “Nobody in the village ever mentioned it.”

“We do keep ourselves apart,” the abbot said. “We are a contemplative order. We pray, we grow our own produce and of course we make the liqueur for which we are famous and which keeps our abbey going.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “I did hear once about the liqueur from the abbey, but they never said where it was.”

He came to sit in the other armchair, regarding her with interest. “You are not French, I think, although you speak it remarkably well.”

“I’m English.”

“You are visiting Saint-Benet?” he asked.

“I’m living there now, at least for the present. I’ve rented a villa.”

“Villa? That sounds impressive.”

She smiled. “It was a ruin, abandoned. We have been restoring it.”

“We? You and your husband?”

“No. I’m not married any longer.”

“Ah. A widow. A merry widow?”

Ellie shook her head. “Not widowed. Cast aside. He chose a younger woman.”

“Clearly a man of bad taste,” he said. “So who has been restoring the villa with you?”

“Two other Englishwomen ... an old lady who has been told she didn’t have long to live and wished to see the blue Mediterranean again, and my former housekeeper, who escaped from an abusive husband.”

“And you? Why here?”

“I remembered it from my youth. I, too, wanted to escape and start afresh, and I wanted beauty around me.”

He nodded, his eyes still focused on her face. “So you brought these women with you because you needed to be needed.”