The Wild Cry of Love Read online

  There was grass they could crop and Valda was sure it would be impossible for them to escape.

  Having made certain they were securely tied Roydon came to her side and took her arm.

  “Now walk slowly and quietly,” he said. “We must not talk, otherwise the horses I hope to find on the other side will hear us coming.”

  He spoke in a low voice and she smiled as they started to move through the thicket.

  It would have been impossible to go quickly as the thorny shoots of the smilax plants caught Valda’s full skirts and the creepers seemed to be deliberately pulling at her hair to prevent her from going any further.

  They walked a little way. Then without any warning, directly ahead of them there was a sound of violent thrashing about, reed stems snapping and water splashing! There was a grunting and snorting that seemed to echo all around them.

  Then, like the devil himself with his infernal cohorts, a pack of wild boars burst from a hidden lair and ran straight past Valda.

  With their bristling black coarse hides, their tusks and their small evil eyes they seemed to her to be creatures from hell and instinctively she turned towards Roydon for protection.

  He put his arms around her and half turned his back towards the boars.

  It was all over in a matter of seconds. Only a huge black sow, the last to burst from the bulrushes, hesitated for a moment as if she might attack the intruders.

  Valda felt Roydon stiffen against her, then the sow was gone and they could hear the herd snorting away in the distance.

  She drew a deep breath and realised that she was trembling. Without thinking, she hid her face against his shoulder. His arms were very comforting.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “The boars seldom attack a man unless they have been taken by surprise.”

  “I-I was frightened!” Valda murmured, her voice unsteady.

  She raised her head as she spoke and found that his mouth was only a few inches from hers.

  Just for a moment they looked at each other, then his lips took possession of hers.

  She was too astonished to move, but, when she would have pushed him away, it was impossible.

  His lips were hard and possessive and it flashed through Valda’s mind that being kissed was as exciting as she had thought it would be.

  Even at the thought, a strange flame seemed to flicker in her breasts and up into her throat.

  It was a wonder that she had never known, an excitement like an arrow passing through her – painful and yet, as it moved, becoming an ecstasy that was indescribable.

  She felt her lips quiver beneath his and now his mouth seemed more demanding, more possessive, and she felt as if she melted into him and the beauty of the Camargue was part of him too.

  Her whole being vibrated as if to a note of music and she knew vaguely that this was what she had longed for – this was what she had wanted.

  Time stood still, it might have been a century or a few seconds before he raised his head and her lips were free.

  She looked up at him unable to move, unable to speak, only aware that her whole body was pulsating with an indescribable wild rapture.

  “You are very sweet,” Roydon said and his voice was deep.

  She wanted to answer him, but her voice seemed to have died in her throat.

  He smiled at her and it was the smile a man might have made to a child as he said,

  “We must go! There is a lot of work for us to do!”

  Valda could not reply, she only knew that she had no wish to go anywhere. She only wanted to stay where she was – in his arms.

  She wanted him to go on kissing her, to evoke within her that marvellous feeling which still seemed to be throbbing within her breasts.

  It had swept away not only her will but also her mind.

  Carrying her camera, Roydon turned and walked ahead, as if to protect her from any other danger which might appear and Valda could do nothing but follow.

  She found herself moving as if in a dream, unable to think of anything except that she had been kissed. It was more wonderful, more exciting than anything she had ever anticipated.

  They reached the end of the thicket and reeds and Roydon stopped, to stand very still.

  He put his hand out behind him, took hold of Valda’s arm and pulled her gently forward to where, peering through the leaves, she could see a stretch of dry grass and on it a herd of about thirty horses.

  With the mares were a number of foals, some of them making their first tentative, unsteady steps on their long spindly legs.

  The foals with their black woolly coats and the white patch on their foreheads made an exquisite picture against the white coats of their mothers.

  Moving his arm very carefully and slowly, Roydon handed Valda the camera.

  She took it from him and for a moment it was difficult to remember how to handle the camera or that she really was interested in photography.

  All she could think of was the pressure of his lips on hers and the breathless excitement, which still seemed to linger in her throat.

  Then because he expected it, she focused the Kodak on the herd and as she did so the stallions and several of the mares, as if they sensed danger, became restless.

  They raised their heads, their nostrils flared, their ears pricked up.

  Valda could see their muscles twitching under their gleaming white coats. Necks were taut and their legs were pressed firmly against the ground.

  As their sense of danger became more acute, Valda felt that they were ready to gallop wildly away and she might never see them again.

  Hastily she began to take her photographs.

  She remembered that Roydon had said the stallions could be dangerous and there was one magnificent animal who seemed to be looking straight towards them as if he knew the very direction from which danger might come.

  She took picture after picture. Then, without saying a word, Roydon took the camera from her and she knew he thought that they had been there long enough.

  There was no doubt that as she continued to photograph them the herd was becoming increasingly nervous.

  Walking with the utmost care, Roydon led the way back through the thicket and tamarisk bushes, passing the place where they had been frightened by the wild boars.

  Now there was nothing more frightening than the white and yellow blossom of the rockroses, the wild gladioli and the tall slim stems of asphodel, which the ancient Greeks believed, covered the plains of the underworld.

  A few seconds later they stepped back into the sunshine and found the horses they had tied to the fallen tree.

  Valda looked up at Roydon as he turned to smile at her.

  “Thank you,” she said and wondered to herself if she was thanking him for showing her the wild horses or for the wonder of his kiss.

  They rode on and it seemed to Valda as if the beauty of the land around them was even more breathtaking than it had been before.

  A delicate pale-blue haze against a rich green marked a patch of wild rosemary and she felt as if she saw it not only with her eyes but also with her heart.

  The brilliantly coloured butterflies winging their way through the air and the glittering wings of the bees and bumblebees were part of the magic inside herself.

  Now Roydon led her away from the étangs to the dunes and, as they galloped over them, there was a view of the distant sea, Avidly blue in the heat of the sun, as the Madonna’s robe.

  In front of them stretching to the horizon there was a variegated pattern of water, salicornia and brightly glistening expanses of dry mud.

  Looking back, the hilly ranges of the Chaîne des Alpilles could be seen.

  It was all so lovely and, when Roydon drew in his horse, they stood still watching the air shimmering above the hot sand.

  “I wanted you to see this,” he said. “It is a complete contrast to where we went early this morning, but it is still essentially the Camargue!”

  “It’s very beautiful!” Valda exclaimed.


  “And so are you!” he replied.

  His eyes were on her lips and she felt as if he kissed her again.

  Then he turned the horses and she knew he was taking her home.

  Although they moved at a good steady speed, they had come a long way and it was getting very hot when finally the Mas came into sight.

  “What about the flamingos?” Valda asked.

  “I think you have done enough for the moment,” he answered, “and you should rest this afternoon. I will take you out at about half past five. There is a place not far away where the flamingos can be found if we are lucky.”

  “It would be difficult to photograph them without good sunlight.”

  “There will be enough.”

  Valda had the feeling that they were saying one thing with their lips and something quite different with their hearts and yet she could not be sure of it.

  She only knew that something strange and thrilling had happened to her since they had set out that morning, which was as wild and wonderful as the Camargue itself.

  Did Roydon feel the same?

  She was not certain and once again she felt very young and inexperienced.

  They reached the Mas and Roydon helped Valda down from her horse. Before entering the kitchen she took off her muddy boots Madame Porquier had lent her. Madame was busy at her stove and turned to say with a smile,

  “You are very late, mademoiselle. I was beginning to think you would not want any luncheon.”

  “I am ravenously hungry, madame!”

  “Then it’s a good thing I kept your meal warm for you,” she replied. “It will be on the table as soon as you have washed.”

  Valda ran upstairs. Before she even took off the jacket of her habit, she looked at herself in the mirror.

  She almost expected that her face might have changed.

  But her large blue eyes, as they looked back at her, seemed very little different from normal, save they were shining as brightly as the sunshine on the étangs and her mouth was as soft and pink as the tamarisk blossoms.

  ‘I want him to kiss me again,’ she told herself and blushed because it sounded so immodest.

  *

  The next time she looked in the mirror it was too dark to see her reflection.

  The sun was sinking in a blaze of crimson glory and they had come back to the farm after photographing the flamingos.

  They had seemed unbelievably beautiful as they flew in from the Mediterranean islands.

  The sun had lost its power and Valda was a little apprehensive as to whether the photographs would be as good as she wanted.

  There had been about a hundred flamingos and she wondered if in fact any photograph could do justice in its prosaic black and white to such a colourful spectacle.

  ‘Only a painter,’ she thought, ‘could portray the birds with their long curved beaks, the fascinating rose colour beneath their wings and their long scaly red legs.’

  Roydon had taken her as near as possible to them over the hard packed salt flats and the flamingos stood almost at attention, eyes like guardsmen’s as they warily watched their approach.

  Then, after Valda had taken perhaps a dozen photographs, as if at some secret signal, they rose in unison.

  Falling in line behind their leader, honking their peculiar unmelodious cry, they swept upwards into the sky and swooped in a semicircle to land on another étang far away in the distance.

  ‘Perhaps one photograph will be really good,’ Valda thought.

  Then, with a little lilt to her heart, she remembered that there was always tomorrow.

  Roydon would take her riding again.

  She would tell him that she was not satisfied and also that she wished to photograph the Camargue bulls in addition.

  There was nothing unusual about them, they were to be seen in every part of Provence and her stepfather had a herd of them. But they would prove an excuse for her to be with Roydon.

  ‘And besides,’ she thought, ‘there are all the other birds he has spoken about.’

  The thought of spending days at the Mas in his company made Valda think again as she changed for dinner that it was an enchanted place.

  She had always expected to find romance in a castle or in some great château, connecting them in her mind with the Mediaeval Knights, whom she had thought must personify all that represented love.

  But Roydon was not a Knight, although he had come to her in the guise of a guardian carrying his trident, as if it was a lance and mounted on the leather saddle, which had borne Crusader Knights to fight for Jerusalem.

  She thought of how he had kissed her in the thicket and she felt herself quiver again with the wonder of it.

  As she finished dressing, she wished she had another gown to wear rather than the one she had worn last night. She wanted him to admire her. She wanted to see a glint in his eyes when she appeared.

  As she entered the salon, her eyes were blue in her small face and the dark red of her hair caught the last dying gleam of the sun sinking behind the plane trees.

  Roydon had been standing at the window and, as he turned towards her, he was silhouetted against the glory of the sky and she felt as if he came to her in a blaze of fire.

  They looked at each other and she felt her heart begin to thump in a strange manner within her breast and the breath come quickly between her lips.

  “I was thinking what a happy day we have had together,” he said.

  “It has been very happy for me,” Valda answered rather breathlessly. “The happiest day I have – ever known.”

  “Do you mean that?” he asked.

  Because the expression in his eyes made her feel shy, she looked away from him into the garden.

  “It was – enchanted!” she said softly.

  “That is what I thought,” he replied. “Just as you have enchanted me!”

  Valda waited for him to say more, but he turned his head towards the door and once again she realised that he had heard Madame Porquier approach with a tray.

  The table was laid and like last night there were two candles in the centre of it. After she had brought in the first course, Madame Porquier lit the oil-lamp, which cast a golden glow and took away the stiffness from the room.

  The food was as good as the night before, but Valda had no idea what she was eating.

  She was only acutely conscious of the man beside her, aware of the strength and largeness of him as she had never been before – or perhaps it was just his masculinity. She kept telling herself that she must be careful that he should not guess what she was feeling lest he should realise how strange this was to her and how all that had happened since they met was different from anything she had imagined possible.

  ‘I must talk,’ Valda told herself, and yet it was difficult to find words.

  When she met his eyes, she felt something quiver within her and she knew it was part of the same feeling that he had evoked when he had kissed her in what he had said was the heart of the Camargue.

  “You are not feeling so tired tonight?” he asked as they were finishing dinner.

  “I am not in the least tired!” Valda answered. “You made me rest this afternoon, something I never do when I am at home.”

  “What do you do when you are at home?” Roydon asked, “and where is home – in Paris?”

  “Most of the time,” Valda answered.

  “Do you walk about Paris alone as you do here?” he asked.

  There was a pause before Valda replied,

  “Why not? But I am often with – friends.”

  “Male or female?”

  “When I am walking, if that is what interests you – male.”

  She was thinking of her stepfather as she spoke and how, because the Comte insisted on taking exercise, they would walk in the Tuileries Gardens, along the banks of the Seine or sometimes even as far as the Bois de Boulogne.

  Her mother much preferred driving and Valda liked to ride, but the Comte was insistent that walking was es
sential for good health.

  When they were not in the country, Valda would accompany him and found, as he anticipated, that she returned home with glowing cheeks and a sense of wellbeing.

  They rose from the table to move, almost as if it was an instinctive need within them both, towards the open window.

  Darkness had fallen while they were at dinner and now there was only a faint translucent glow in the West and the stars were coming out one by one overhead.

  It was very quiet save for the occasional note of a bird late in going to roost.

  Below them was the rustle of some small animal creeping through the undergrowth, but otherwise there was only a deep silence like a suddenly suspended melody from a violin.

  Then from the cypress trees came the sound of the nightingales, singing in perfect harmony, softly fluting passages alternating with brash metallic ones, plaintive tones with those that were lyrically soft.

  It was so enchanting, so unexpected, that without thought, without even realising what she was doing, Valda turned towards Roydon.

  His arms were waiting for her and, as he drew her close, she felt herself tremble and it was part of the music of the birds.

  His mouth came down on hers and she could no longer hear anything but the music within her own heart.

  He kissed her until the stars seemed to fall from the sky and glitter at their feet. Then he held her closer still and she felt as if he made her his so that she no longer had any individuality of her own but was a part of him.

  He took his lips from hers to kiss her eyes, her cheeks, her small nose, then again her lips.

  Now she throbbed and quivered and felt as if he had awakened a flame within her so wild, so wonderful that it was part of the magic of the Camargue, at the same time it was her soul and she must give it to him.

  Once again he raised his head and now he said in a voice with a deep note in it she had not heard before,

  “Go up to bed, my darling.”

  He turned her round as he spoke and she did as she was told because for the moment it was impossible to think and quite impossible to speak.

  Obediently she crossed the salon without looking back and went up the stairs to her bedroom.