The Wild Cry of Love Read online

  After she had waded through the water a little way she found herself on the grass, but unfortunately there were no more bushes to conceal her.

  Luckily the grass itself was so high that by lying down in it and crawling along she was, she thought, completely hidden.

  She did not dare move quickly in case she made a noise, but she covered quite a lot of ground until finally she found that she was near enough to the horses for her to be almost sure that they were within photographic range.

  At the same time she was aware that a stallion had raised his head, and she knew that he must have sensed danger. Unless she was to drive them away, she must keep very still.

  Valda held her breath, peering through the grasses where she could see the horses clearly and realised that their beauty had not been exaggerated.

  They were not very large. In fact most of them seemed smaller even than the horse her stepfather owned, and she guessed that the majority were only about fourteen hands high.

  They were, however, thickset and she could understand how they were known as the strongest horses ever bred.

  Their necks were muscular, their brows wide and their eyes very deep-set. But it was their long mane and tail, which swept the ground that gave the horses their character and their nobility.

  ‘Little wonder, they look as if they should be ridden by the Gods!’ Valda thought to herself.

  She lay watching them, thinking that there had never been more beautiful animals, until almost with a start she realised she had been so occupied admiring the horses that she had not yet photographed them.

  Slowly, moving hardly more than an inch at a time, she crept a little nearer until she found that she was on the very edge of the grassy island.

  Between her and the horses there was an expanse of water, but by pushing her camera in front of her she could focus it on them.

  There was a viewfinder and very slowly, so that she would not attract attention by her movements, Valda raised her head to look through it.

  When she could see clearly that she could take a perfect picture of the horses grouped together, another stallion had his head still up and Valda dropped her own.

  Then, as her hand crept forward to press the shutter release, there was the sound of galloping hoofs behind her and, as she turned her head apprehensively, the horses in front of her moved away.

  She gave a little cry of fear for now she saw that the hoofs she had heard were almost upon her. In fact it seemed to her that at any moment she would be trampled on.

  Instinctively, hardly aware of what she was doing, she raised herself to her knees.

  She had a quick impression of a horse coming straight at her. Then, as she screamed in sheer terror, she fell backwards off the grassy island and into the shallow water beyond it. The water splashed around her and she screamed again. Then she saw that a man was riding the horse that had galloped up behind her.

  To Valda half-lying in the water, her face splashed and her camera beside her, he seemed dark and sinister.

  His horse was white and he was riding it with the usual long iron stirrups, his legs stretched almost at full length.

  Because she was scared and disconcerted by what had happened, Valda said the first words that came into her head.

  “Why could you not have looked where you were going?” she asked furiously. “You might have killed me!” She spoke in French and he replied in the same,

  “What in the name of God do you mean by hiding yourself in the grass? I had no idea anyone was there.”

  Valda sat up in the water and reached for her camera, which by now was floating serenely on the surface.

  “You have ruined the picture I was taking!”

  The man had drawn his horse to a standstill. Now he said in a different tone,

  “You are a photographer?”

  “I was trying to be!” Valda said crossly. “Only you have spoilt it!”

  She rose to her feet as she spoke realising that her skirt was now soaked and so was the back of her blouse. Even the red handkerchief that had covered her hair now hung dripping down her back.

  She pulled it off and looked at it ruefully. Then the man sitting on the horse watching her said after a moment,

  “You don’t look like a gypsy even if you are dressed like one! And I have never heard of a gypsy taking photographs!”

  “I am not a gypsy!” Valda snapped. “As it happens, je suis Anglaise!”

  “That explains it!” the man said in English. “I have never seen a gypsy or a French woman with red hair and blue eyes.”

  For the first time Valda looked at him directly and realised that, while he had seemed dark because he had menaced her on his horse, he was in fact very un-French in appearance.

  “You are English?” she queried.

  “Like you,” he replied.

  “Then perhaps you can tell me if there is an inn nearby where I could get my clothes dried?”

  As Valda spoke, she had the idea that his eyes were twinkling. She realised she must in fact look very strange, practically soaked to the skin and bare-legged beneath her red gypsy skirt.

  “As I am responsible for your plight,” the man on the horse said, “the least I can do is to offer you my horse to convey you to where I am staying myself. It is not far. Not more than two miles away.”

  Valda was about to reply that she had no wish to trouble him, when she told herself that it would serve him right if she did put him to a lot of trouble.

  She did not mind being wet half so much as losing the picture and she thought despairingly that she might never have such an opportunity again of finding so many of the Camargue horses together.

  “My shoes are on the roadside,” she said coldly. “I will walk as far as that. Then I should be glad to avail myself of your offer.”

  “Very sensible,” the man approved. “After all, you don’t wish to catch cold, but I am afraid your pretty fancy dress is spoilt.”

  There was something about the way in which he said ‘fancy dress’ that annoyed Valda.

  After all it was none of his business if she wished to walk about the Camargue dressed like a gypsy and she was hoping that, besides losing the picture, the whole film had not been spoilt when the camera had fallen into the water.

  She had two more rolls of film in her bag, but she fancied from what she had seen of the Camargue that she would need every one of the three hundred exposures she could take with three films.

  Besides which, she had hoped later to take some pictures of the gypsies at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

  She walked ahead of the man on the horse without speaking. When she reached the road, she found her linen bag and her shoes beside the bush.

  She picked up her stockings and garters and slipped them into the bag, then put on her shoes and did up the straps.

  As she straightened herself, she realised the man had dismounted from his horse and was standing in the roadway holding it.

  She walked towards him.

  He took the camera and the bag from her and she waited almost imperiously for him to help her into the saddle.

  She expected him to cup his hands in the correct manner, but instead he laid down the bag and the camera and putting his hands on each side of her small waist, swung her up without any effort.

  Not into the saddle but onto the horse’s bareback behind it.

  Then he fastened her bag to the pummel and looked up at her. She saw that his eyes were twinkling with amusement.

  “Are you still angry with me?” he enquired.

  “Yes, I am!”

  “I am very contrite!”

  “So you should be! I may never again have a chance of taking such a picture of the wild horses.”

  “You will!”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I will take you to a far better place to photograph them.”

  Valda’s anger evaporated.

  “Will you really do that?” she asked and her voice was eager and excited.

/>   “Only if you will stop being cross with me,” the man replied infuriatingly. “I have a strong aversion to disagreeable women!”

  Valda laughed. She could not help it.

  “I will not be cross,” she promised, returning his open smile.

  Chapter Four

  He swung himself up in front of her onto the heavy saddle holding the camera in his hand.

  As he picked up the reins of the white horse, which had stood quite still since Valda had been put on his back, he asked,

  “You are not nervous? You have ridden before?”

  “I have ridden since I was five,” Valda answered him almost indignantly.

  “I apologise,” he said with a note of laughter in his voice.

  The horse moved off and Valda realised that they were deliberately going slowly in case she should slip off the back of the horse onto the ground.

  It annoyed her when she was such an exceptional horsewoman and, yet she had to admit, it was considerate of him.

  ‘So he ought to be!’ she told herself, feeling her blouse clinging damply to her back and realising that her skirt was soaked right through to her skin.

  As she looked at the back of the man in front of her, she thought he must be a guardian.

  Monsieur Fèvre, when talking of the Camargue horses and their guardians, had told her that their Patron Saint was St. George.

  “It is most appropriate,” he had said, “a guardian riding a white horse armed with a long lance, which could easily be a trident, when warding off a wild Camargue bull could easily be attacking a dragon!”

  Valda thought that the Englishman was really too tall for his Camargue horse and yet, even when riding with the long stirrup, she guessed that he was a good rider and would, mounted on an English horse, perhaps be exceptional.

  He wore an old worn tweed jacket and long mud-splashed boots, but she could imagine that when he was dressed for one of the Festivals of the guardians in hound’s-tooth moleskin breeches, black velvet jacket, a traditional blue shirt with a flower motif and short Spanish-style boots, he would be very impressive.

  As if he somehow sensed that she was thinking about him, the Englishman said over his shoulder,

  “Perhaps we should introduce ourselves. My name is Roydon Sanford.”

  “Mine is Valda Bu – ”

  Valda hesitated.

  Because he was English, she felt it might be unwise to tell him her real name.

  It was unlikely he would have heard of her father. At the same time Sir Edward had been a well-known personality and the newspapers had constantly reported his exploits.

  “ – Burton!” she finished.

  “And you are a photographer,” Roydon Sanford enquired. “Do you work for any particular magazine?”

  Valda realised that he thought she was a reporter and smiled to herself.

  “I am taking snapshots for an exhibition,” she replied, thinking as she spoke that it was at least partly true.

  “In London?” he questioned.

  “Perhaps,” she replied. “But actually I thought Paris would be more interested in pictures of the Camargue. I only hope you have not spoilt my film.”

  “I hope so too.”

  “I had an excellent view of the horses,” she added reproachfully.

  “I have promised to compensate you for what I am certain would have been a masterpiece,” Roydon Sanford said, “by ensuring you will get a far better view not only of the horses but also of the flamingos.”

  “I shall make you keep your promise! I hope you are not boasting.”

  “I am a most efficient guide,” Roydon Sanford answered. “Where are you staying?”

  “I had hoped to find a convenient inn not far from here,” Valda replied.

  “There are not many inns in the Camargue where a woman could stay alone,” Roydon Sanford said after a moment, “but I dare say I could persuade Madame Porquier to accommodate you.”

  “Does she keep an inn?” Valda enquired.

  “No, indeed, she would be insulted by the idea! Her husband breeds cattle and has a Mas where I stay.”

  “It sounds interesting. Do you like working for them?”

  “I am here on holiday,” Roydon Sanford replied. “Because this is my third visit, they allow me to work with the guardians and ride their horses.”

  Valda was about to ask what he did at other times, then she thought it sounded somehow too inquisitive when she was speaking to a man’s back and not his face.

  She was silent and after a moment Roydon Sanford asked, “Are you feeling cold? If you hold on tightly either to the back of the saddle or to me we can go a little faster.”

  “I have already told you there is no likelihood of my falling off,” Valda answered. “I am not cold, but still unpleasantly wet!”

  “Then we must certainly get you to the Mas quickly so that you can change.”

  He spurred the horse into a trot and it was difficult to have any further conversation until they had moved off the road and across a field where in front of them was a Mas, or homestead, which in the Camargue was technically known as a maison a terre.

  It was protected by the usual barrier of cypresses and shaded by plane trees. Looking around Valda could see that the flowers were even more beautiful than those she had noticed around the farm where they had camped the night before.

  Here there was a profusion of blue flags and crimson gladioli, besides purple wisteria, golden honeysuckle and climbing roses growing over the walls and even up the trunks of the trees.

  Roydon Sanford rode past the house and turned into the yard at the back. Then he dismounted lithely and turned to lift Valda down.

  As she stood beside him, she realised that she had not noticed before that he was in fact tall, so tall that she had to tip back her head to look up at him.

  He was, however, concerned with taking her linen bag from the saddle. Carrying it and the camera, he led the way across the yard to a door that opened into a big kitchen.

  There was a beamed ceiling with hams and bunches of onions hanging from it, a stove occupying a large part of one wall and a table in the centre of the flagged floor on which a plump woman was rolling out pastry with a wooden rolling pin.

  She looked up in surprise as Roydon Sanford entered and remarked,

  “You are back early, monsieur!”

  “I have returned with someone who needs your assistance, madame,” he answered. “Owing to a slight accident she fell into the water and is very wet!”

  The woman looked at Valda and the smile faded from her face.

  “A caraque!” she ejaculated.

  “No, madame,” he said firmly, “an Englishwoman. She is merely dressed as a gypsy for some reason I have not yet been able to discern.”

  “An Englishwoman, monsieur!” the woman exclaimed. “And a friend?”

  “That is what I hope she will be,” Roydon Sanford answered with twinkling eyes, “when she has forgiven me for spoiling the photograph she was taking with her camera.”

  He held it up as he spoke.

  “You see, madame, she has what is known as a snapshot camera, and she wishes to photograph the white horses.”

  “She is not the first,” Madame Porquier replied, apparently unimpressed.

  She wiped her hands on her apron and Roydon Sanford, walking to the table, said,

  “Let me introduce Madame Porquier, Miss Valda Burton.”

  Valda held out her hand.

  “As Monsieur Sanford has told you,” she said, “he frightened me on his horse and caused me to fall into the water. I should be grateful if you would allow me to change my clothes and dry my wet ones.”

  “But of course, mademoiselle,” Madame Porquier answered. “If you will come this way.”

  Roydon Sanford handed Valda her linen bag.

  “I will wipe the camera dry for you,” he said, “but I don’t think that the water will have percolated through its leather case.”

  “I hope you are right
,” Valda said coldly.

  She knew she would be extremely annoyed if one of her precious films was damaged so that she could not use it.

  They had been speaking in French and now he added in English,

  “I will leave you to make arrangements with Madame Porquier to stay here. I am sure, now she realises you are not a gypsy, you will be very welcome.”

  Valda was about to reply that there was no need for him to wait and he could return to what he was doing before he had upset her. Then she thought that there might be a chance of taking some photographs before the afternoon was over.

  “Please wait,” she said. “I shall not be long.”

  The house formed a rectangular block as was usual in farmhouses.

  Valda had visited quite a number on her stepfather’s estate and she knew that most of them were divided into two parts by a corridor down the middle.

  On the ground floor, beside the large communal kitchen and a variety of larders, there was the one comfortable room, which served as a reception and dining room, where members of the family congregated only when they were wearing their best clothes.

  Sometimes there were two staircases and the rooms upstairs were arranged so that they were protected from the winds, which could at times be not only cold but also overpowering.

  The walls, which looked towards the sea, would, Valda was sure, be windowless except when the trees were high and strong enough to be a good windbreak.

  Going up an old staircase of polished wood, Madame Porquier came to a landing on which, as far as Valda could see, there were only two doors.

  She opened the one on the left and Valda found a delightful room containing the traditional large square curtained bed that the French always made comfortable with a number of goose feather mattresses.

  There were curtains over the window and outside strong wooden shutters that could be fastened at night and for the winter months there was a fireplace big enough to burn logs.

  The floor was covered with a mixture of mats, some of white sheepskin and others of coloured wools that the housewives in all parts of France made in the long winter evenings.