She had the power to change that. Taking strength from the talisman, Aurélie said, “Never mind about driving yourself. I’ll take you.”
Jean-Marie gawked at her. “Er, that’s very kind of you, but I really don’t mind.”
“I’m a better motorist than you are, and you know it.” They’d raced last spring. She’d driven Jean-Marie off the road and beat him to the finish. It was a measure of his character that he hadn’t minded; he was used to her outrunning and outclimbing him from the time they were children.
Jean-Marie held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not denying it! But your father would have my hide if he knew I’d let you into harm’s way.”
“Who’s to say I’m not in harm’s way in Paris?” demanded Aurélie and knew from the sudden gravity of Jean-Marie’s expression that she’d hit home. “They’ll take Paris, won’t they? That’s what everyone says.”
“Your mother has friends among the Germans.”
“Didn’t they say the same in 1870? It didn’t matter who was friends with whom when everyone was starving in the siege.”
“I’m not sure Paris has the defenses for a siege,” said Jean-Marie helpfully.
“Is that meant to be comforting?”
“Yes . . . no . . . I mean, er . . .”
“At least you get to go and fight! I’ll drop you at the lines and then drive sedately back to town. I have to do something.”
“You’re not planning to bind back your hair and put on a breastplate, are you?”
Aurélie frowned at him. “I should think a breastplate would be rather conspicuous.”
“You sound just like your mother—no! Don’t hit me. I was only joking.” Jean-Marie looked at her with bemused affection. “I should know better than to argue with you, shouldn’t I?”
Aurélie had never been so fond of him as she was at this moment. “You won’t tell my mother?”
“On my honor.” He looked at her uncertainly, looking very young in his army greatcoat. “You know, I could just take a taxi.”
“Get in,” said Aurélie.
It was heaven to be at the wheel of her car, to smell the familiar combination of leather and dust. She shoved the goggles down over her eyes, tied a kerchief around her hair, and turned the car in a defiant circle that had Jean-Marie clinging to the side.
Aurélie laughed, a sound of pure joy, relief at being free, free of her mother, free of the Ritz, free of the endless waiting.
“Don’t fret,” she told Jean-Marie. “I’ll have you to your regiment by midnight.”
“No hurry,” said Jean-Marie, clutching the seat, and Aurélie laughed again, tilting her face to the breeze, watching Paris fade behind them.
The stately procession of Renaults carrying the rest of the forces were confined to one route, moving slowly down National Road 2, but Aurélie slipped away down the side roads, bouncing down rutted tracks, cutting across fields.
The swiftly falling dusk was kind, masking abandoned houses and empty fields, farms from which all the inhabitants had fled, taking their livestock with them, but nothing could hide the rumble of artillery, the scent of cordite heavy in the air.
They spoke as she drove, the desultory conversation of old friends, jumping from this to that, interspersed with long silences. Sometimes they sang, bits of old nursery songs, popular tunes, “La Marseillaise.” Aurélie felt the thrum of it, the road, the engine, the song, the battle in the distance, deep in her bones, and exulted in it, in finally being part of the war effort, the Demoiselle de Courcelles, bearing the talisman that would turn the tide of war.
It was an anticlimax to arrive, to find themselves in a confusion of cars and trucks and men rushing this way and that, tents hastily thrown up, doctors in stained aprons spilling out basins of goodness only knew what.
“I suppose I leave you here, then,” said Aurélie, as someone gestured to her to stop and turn around.
Jean-Marie rose slowly from his seat, his movements stiff, with nothing like his usual exuberance. “I suppose so,” he said.
Aurélie’s euphoria faded. She rubbed her hands along her arms, wishing she’d changed into something warmer than the afternoon dress she had been wearing at the Ritz. “A Frenchman is worth ten Huns,” she said fiercely. “Just remember that. You’ll rout them and be home in a month.”
Two months ago, she had believed that. Now, the words felt thin.