Hour of the Bells: A Short Story from Fall of Poppies

By Heather Webb

In this breathtaking short story, Heather Webb, the acclaimed author of Becoming Josephine, explores the heartbreak and devotion of a mother searching for peace in war-torn France. 

Madame Beatrix Joubert has lived her life by the rhythm of the clocks, the call of a cuckoo bird, and the gongs of bells. These once comforting sounds, accompanied by the laughter of her husband and son, now only remind her of the emptiness of her home and the anger that grows inside her. Of German birth, she is an outcast in her French village, but her homeland is the enemy that stole all she held dear. As she plots and plans, fueled by grief and the need for revenge, Beatrix will embark on upon a dangerous journey that could forever alter the life she once knew.

Originally published in the moving collection Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War, this e-book also includes an excerpt from Webb’s latest novel, Rodin’s Lover, available now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9780062476579

Heather Webb

Heather Webb is the award-winning and USA Today bestselling author of ten historical novels, including her most recent The Next Ship Home, Queens of London, and Strangers in the Night. To date, her books have been translated to eighteen languages. She lives in Connecticut with her family and two mischievous cats. 

Book preview

Dedication

To those left behind in wartime,

may there always be hope.

Also, to the man I love.

Contents

Dedication

Hour of the Bells

Buy Link to Fall of Poppies

An Excerpt from Rodin’s Lover

About the Author

Also by Heather Webb

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

Hour of the Bells

BEATRIX WHISKED AROUND THE SHOWROOM, FEATHER duster in hand. Not a speck of dirt could remain or Joseph would be disappointed. The hour struck noon. A chorus of clocks whirred, their birds popping out from hiding to announce midday. Maidens twirled in their frocks with braids down their backs, woodcutters clacked their axes against pine, and the odd sawmill wheel spun in tune to the melody of a nursery rhyme. Two dozen cuckoos warbled and dinged, each crafted with loving detail by the same pair of hands—those with thick fingers and a steady grip.

Beatrix paused in her cleaning. One clock chimed to its own rhythm, apart from the others.

She could turn them off—the tinkling melodies, the incessant clatter of pendulums, wheels, and cogs, with the levers located near the weights—just as their creator had done before bed each evening, but she could not bring herself to do the same. To silence their music was to silence him, her husband, Joseph. The Great War had already done that—ravaged his gentle nature, stolen his final breath, and silenced him forever.

In a rush, Beatrix scurried from one clock to the next, assessing which needed oiling. With the final stroke of twelve, she found the offending clock. Its walnut face, less ornate than the others, had been her favorite, always. A winter scene displayed a cluster of snow-topped evergreens; rabbits and fawns danced in the drifts when the music began, and a scarlet cardinal dipped its head and opened its beak to the beauty of the music. The animals’ simplicity appealed to her now more than ever. With care, she removed the weights and pendulum, and unscrewed the back of the clock. She was grateful she had watched her husband tend to them so often. She could still see Joseph, blue eyes peering over his spectacles, focused on a figurine as he painted detailing on the linden wood. His patient hands had caressed the figures lovingly, as he had caressed her.

The memory of him sliced her open. She laid her head on the table as black pain stole over her body, pooling in every hidden pocket and filling her up until she could scarcely breathe.

Give it time, her friend Adelaide had said, as she set a basket of jam and dried sausages on the table; treasures in these times of rations, yet meager condolence for what Beatrix had lost.

Time? Beatrix had laughed, a hollow sound, and moved to the window overlooking the grassy patch of yard. The Vosges mountains rose in the distance, lording over the line between France and Germany along the battlefront. Time’s passage never escaped her—not for a moment. The clocks made sure of it. There weren’t enough minutes, enough hours, to erase her loss.

As quickly as the grief came, it fled. Though always powerful, its timing perplexed her. Pain stole through the night, or erupted at unlikely moments, until she feared its onslaught the way others feared death. Death felt easier, somehow.

Beatrix raised her head and pushed herself up from the table to finish her task. Joseph would not want her to mourn, after two long years. He would want to see her strength, her resilience, especially for their son. She pretended Adrien was away at school, though he had enlisted, too. His enlistment had been her fault. A vision of her son cutting barbed wire, sleeping in trenches, and pointing a gun at another man reignited the pain and it began to pool again. She suppressed the horrid thoughts quickly, and locked them away in