The French Wife

by Diney Costeloe

  Annette and Pierre scurried away before he could change his mind and went into the café on the edge of the market that they had been frequenting.

  The patron grinned at them. ‘You’re early,’ he remarked. ‘Skiving, are you?’

  He let them take their usual table in a quiet corner, and at last they could speak.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she murmured. ‘You didn’t say you were coming.’

  ‘Unexpected chance,’ he said. ‘But I needed to see you.’

  ‘I needed to see you too,’ she said with the smile that produced the hidden dimples that made Pierre long to gather her to him and kiss her. He made do with touching the dimples with the tip of his finger and then said, ‘There’s something we need to discuss. First of all, Monsieur St Clair is here in Paris, so I may not be able to see you for some time. We have to return to Belair after the weekend, so I don’t know when I can come to you again.’ He took her hand as the joy at seeing him faded from her face. ‘Listen, chérie,’ he said. ‘There’s more. We’ve had a letter – at least you have, but it was addressed to me at Belair.’

  ‘A letter.’ Annette was immediately intrigued. ‘Who from?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? Just tell me.’

  ‘Sir Rupert Chalfont.’

  ‘Rupert?’ Annette was stunned. ‘But why would he write to me?’

  ‘Because you wrote to him?’

  ‘But that was ages ago. I was so angry with him that I wrote and told him Hélène was going to marry Simon Barnier. And I said I hoped the idea made him feel as sick as it made me.’

  Pierre grinned. ‘Did you now?’ he said. ‘Well, I think you got your wish.’

  ‘Good,’ said Annette viciously.

  ‘Anyway, you must read what he says. After all, although it was addressed to me on the envelope, the letter is actually for you, and so I’ve brought it with me.’

  ‘Have you read it?’

  ‘Yes, because I’d opened it and couldn’t not!’

  ‘I wonder why he sent it to you,’ mused Annette.

  ‘To make sure you actually got it, I should think,’ Pierre said as he handed it over. ‘He assumed that you were both living at Gavrineau by now. You’ll see why when you read it.’

  Annette unfolded it.

  Dear Annette

  I am sorry I haven’t replied to your letter before now. Things have been very difficult here ever since I came home from France. We have had three deaths in the family – my brother’s, which you knew about, my father’s and my wife’s. But these are excuses. I could have replied sooner but I didn’t know what to say.

  You accuse me of deserting Hélène. I would never have done that had she not cut me out of her life. She did not reply to my letters, or if she did, I didn’t receive them… or the one you mention from Pierre, for that matter. That I find strange… where did they go? To someone else? You say I caused her misery, but you must know that would be the furthest thing from my mind. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her and I love her still. That will never change.

  As she is now married, any further contact will be impossible… for both of us.

  Yours sincerely

  Rupert Chalfont

  ‘Do you believe him?’ Annette said, looking up. ‘About not receiving the letters?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Pierre, ‘but it doesn’t explain why he didn’t write to her either… at least until he told her he was married.’

  ‘I shan’t write to him again,’ Annette said, offering the letter back to Pierre. When he shook his head, she put it into her pocket.

  ‘I don’t think he’s expecting you to,’ Pierre was saying. ‘But he did say one thing we didn’t expect.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘He said,’ answered Pierre, ‘that his wife is dead. He doesn’t say how, but don’t you see? That means he could marry again… and Hélène is free.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Annette looked doubtful. ‘But I think it’s probably too late, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ answered Pierre. ‘I don’t understand what women think about these things. Might Hélène forgive him, do you think? Does she still love him despite everything?’

  Annette shook her head. ‘I don’t know either, but she swore the other day that she would never, never marry.’

  ‘Because she couldn’t marry Rupert, or because the whole idea of marriage is repugnant to her?’

  Annette shrugged. ‘Either or both. But we don’t know that Rupert would want to marry her now anyway.’

  ‘Don’t we?’ Pierre looked at her quizzically. ‘I think we do. I know you will find it hard to forgive him for what you believe he has done, but set that against Hélène’s happiness. If he suddenly came back to France looking for her and free to marry her, how do you think she would react? Would she fall into his arms or would she show him the door… or somewhere in between?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Annette.

  ‘Nor do I, though I guess probably something in between, but don’t you think there’s been enough interference in their lives? Don’t you think we should give him a chance to make his peace with her if he wants to? I know you’ll find it hard to forgive him, but we can be pretty sure it isn’t entirely his fault. We can’t play God, you know.’

  ‘There isn’t a God,’ stated Annette flatly.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not, but either way it isn’t up to us to make other people’s decisions for them. If I were Rupert I’d never forgive anyone who knew that the woman he says he still loves was free to marry him and didn’t tell him so.’ He looked at Annette, his eyes holding hers. ‘If it were you and me, wouldn’t you want to know? If you thought I was married and lost to you, wouldn’t you want to discover that I was free after all?’

  ‘I suppose.’ Annette sounded reluctant.

  ‘You don’t seem very sure,’ Pierre teased.

  ‘If it was you, of course I would,’ she said, her face breaking into a smile, ‘but I just think Hélène’s had enough to put up with. Suppose he has changed his mind? Or if he’s engaged to someone else now.’

  ‘This could be her chance of happiness, you know,’ Pierre pointed out. ‘Who are we to judge? We should leave it up to him. We should tell him that she hasn’t married Simon Barnier and that she’s living in Paris and see what happens. If he writes to her, then he’ll have made his decision and she can make hers.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Annette said. ‘Even if I do write back to him, he may never get the letter.’

  ‘That’s a risk we’ll have to take,’ Pierre said. ‘But if someone has been stealing his post they’ve probably stopped now, believing there’s no further need.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ repeated Annette, ‘and in the meantime I shall say absolutely nothing of this to Hélène. And,’ she added, ‘I shan’t tell her that you’re all going back to Belair, either, in case she tries to visit her mother again before you go.’

  ‘Certainly she mustn’t do that,’ Pierre agreed, ‘especially as her father is in the house, but if you think about what she did the other day, how much she needed to go home, we have to accept that she can’t stay hidden here indefinitely… and nor can you.’

  ‘If Jeannot hadn’t been there…’

  ‘He was and kept her safe, but this has to be resolved one way or another. I think you should write back and tell Rupert her situation.’

  Later that evening, when Hélène had gone to bed, Annette gave great thought to what Pierre had said about making other people’s decisions for them and reluctantly came to the conclusion that he was right. How would she feel if someone willingly kept her away from Pierre? She had never loved or been loved as she was now. Pierre was her rock. Could she stand between Rupert and Hélène? With a sigh she took pen and paper and wrote a short note to Rupert, addressing it to him at Pilgrim’s Oak as before. If they heard no more from him, she decided, at least it wouldn’t be her fault and Hélène would
never know she’d tried. She discarded several efforts before she was happy with what she had written. The letter she put in her pocket, ready to post in the morning; the discards she burned. There should be no trace of any letters to England. Sleep didn’t come easily that night as she lay in bed wondering if they would ever hear from him again.

  Chapter 46

  When Rupert received Annette’s letter he could hardly believe what he was reading. Not only was Hélène not married to Simon Barnier, but she was in hiding from him. How could she be so afraid that she couldn’t even live with her own family? Surely they hadn’t disowned her because she had refused to marry him at the last minute? He pictured Rosalie, a charming and sensible woman who loved all her children and had seemed particularly protective of Hélène. He must go to her at once. Annette had not given him an address but had suggested that, if he wanted to reply, he write care of Pierre as he had before. The words reminded him yet again of the mysterious disappearance of letters, both in and out of Pilgrim’s Oak.

  Someone must have intercepted them. Looking back with clear hindsight there was no other conclusion. Once he’d allowed himself to accept that conclusion, it was equally clear that there was only one person who could have done it, had any reason to do it.

  None of the servants. They would have no knowledge of letters from France, nor know the significance of such letters.

  Not his mother. As far as he knew, she knew nothing about Hélène; but even if she had heard of her, she was beyond doing anything about anything, and had been ever since the shock of Justin’s death. Indeed, she seemed unaware of either of the subsequent deaths, of her husband and her daughter-in-law.

  His father had been ill long before Rupert had come home, but he had still been head of the family and complete master in his own house. He had been determined that Rupert should take Justin’s place and marry Kitty for the benefit of both families, but Rupert knew that his strict moral compass would never have allowed him to do anything underhand. If he wanted something done or not done, he was completely honest about his wishes. He would never have resorted to stealing anyone’s mail.

  Which left Fran.

  Rupert knew it had to be Fran. She, too, had wanted him to marry Kitty. Partly because the idea was so important to her father but also because she wanted everything at Pilgrim’s Oak to remain as it always had been. He knew Fran thought it was unlikely she would marry now with her mother to look after, and that Pilgrim’s Oak would always be her home. The introduction of some strange young Frenchwoman could have changed everything.

  With the news that Hélène was not married as he’d thought and knowing that he was now a widower, it suddenly seemed imperative to Rupert that he should tax Frances with her deception. It must be brought out into the open and dealt with if he were to consider bringing Hélène to Pilgrim’s Oak as his bride… if she would have him after all the misery he – and Fran – had caused her. The decision taken, he wasted no time in implementing it. He put Annette’s letter into his desk drawer and went to find Fran.

  She was in the garden room arranging some early daffodils in a vase for her mother’s parlour. She looked up and smiled as he came into the room.

  ‘Aren’t these lovely,’ she said. ‘Quite a breath of spring, and there are hundreds more coming at the far end of the orchard.’

  When Rupert didn’t return her smile, she said, ‘Rupert? What’s wrong? Has something happened? Mama…?’

  Rupert didn’t answer any of her questions, he simply asked, ‘Frances, where are my letters?’

  He saw the colour drain from his sister’s cheeks, but she looked at him steadily as she replied, ‘Letters, Rupert? What letters?’

  ‘You know perfectly well what letters,’ he snapped. ‘The letters that came to me from France.’

  ‘Letters from France?’

  ‘And the letters I wrote to the woman I love – in France.’

  ‘Rupert, I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh yes, Fran. I think you have. Did you destroy them once you’d read them? Burn them, perhaps?’

  ‘I wouldn’t destroy someone else’s post. What do you think I am?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking myself,’ returned Rupert. ‘I know that my letters never reached Hélène, and I can only believe that those she wrote never reached me.’

  ‘There’s nothing surprising in that,’ snapped Frances. ‘International post is notoriously unreliable.’

  ‘The thing is, Frances, that since someone stopped monitoring our postbag, I have received two letters from France with very little delay. So’ – he fixed her with an unwavering look – ‘what’s happened to the other letters? I know they were sent, but I never received them. I also know that nothing I sent arrived in France. Only you could have intercepted them, Fran. While my father was ill and my mother indisposed and I was working with Foxton, Mitchell always brought the postbag to you. I’m asking you now for a straight answer. Did you take my mail?’

  ‘What if I did?’ Fran tossed her head. ‘You, the future Sir Rupert Chalfont, couldn’t possibly be allowed to marry some French chit of no family or consequence. Papa was totally against it and he was still the head of the family. It should have been completely impossible for you to defy him. I agreed with him. You had to marry a suitable bride, a lady of proper social status. You had to produce an heir so that the family’s future would be assured.’

  ‘And who were you to decide who was suitable?’ Rupert’s voice was icy.

  ‘Rupert!’ Fran’s tone was challenging. ‘If Justin had lived and married Kitty, it wouldn’t have mattered who you threw yourself away on. You were not Papa’s heir, but once you were, you should have recognised and accepted your duty to your family.’ She turned away and, snatching up another daffodil, crammed it into the vase. ‘It wasn’t even as if you didn’t like Kitty. She wasn’t some stranger foisted on you, she was a girl you’d known all your life. Someone you used to love. She certainly loved you!’

  Ignoring this outburst, Rupert asked, ‘So what did you do with my letters, Fran? Did you read them?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ replied Fran hotly. ‘I am not in the habit of reading other people’s letters and I had no interest in what they contained.’

  ‘So you just destroyed them,’ Rupert said flatly.

  ‘No, I did not!’ Frances’s temper was rising. ‘I kept them all. You can have them,’ she added dismissively, ‘if you really want them, but they are of no consequence now, are they?’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘In a box in my room.’

  Rupert kept a firm hold on his temper as he replied, ‘Please go and fetch them.’

  ‘I’ll get them when I’ve finished doing these flowers for Mama.’

  ‘Now, Fran!’ Something in his voice made her put down the daffodil she was holding and, without answering, walk out of the room and go upstairs.

  Moments later she returned, meeting him in the hall, carrying a wooden box. She thrust it at him and, apparently entirely unrepentant, said, ‘I’m going up to sit with Mama. I hope you won’t upset her with this nonsense.’

  Rupert gave no answer; he simply took the box and, going into his study, closed the door behind him. Frances was left standing in the hall with her heart thumping, her colour high and the knowledge that she had damaged, irreparably, her relationship with her brother.

  Seated at the desk in his study; Rupert opened the box and, lifted out the letters it contained. Fran had been telling the truth. They were all sealed and clearly had not been tampered with. One by one he opened them, laying them aside in date order to be read as they had been intended. His own letters were there too, those that had carried his love to Hélène, promising to come back for her as soon as he could. Those he left until last. First he had to read what Hélène had written to him, full of love and interest to start with and then gradually begging him to write. He pictured her face, so beautiful, the way she had looked at him with shining eyes on that
last day, and recognised her distress at his imagined desertion.

  There was also a letter from Pierre. If only he had received that one, he would have left Pilgrim’s Oak and returned to St Etienne immediately. He could have set everything right, but as it was he’d begun to accept that Hélène had had second thoughts, had changed her mind, and finally he had allowed himself to be persuaded into marriage with Kitty.

  He stared at the letters laid out before him, and his anger at what Frances had done fuelled his determination. He would write to Pierre as suggested and go at once to Paris. He would stay as usual at the Hotel Montreux and beg Pierre and Annette to keep Hélène safely hidden away until he got there. He told Pierre to leave a message for him at the hotel and he would contact him immediately he arrived.

  Having sealed his letter, he addressed it to Pierre, put on his coat and walked to the village to the post office.

  *

  Rupert arrived at the Hotel Montreux with his man, Parker, and a quantity of luggage on the same day that his letter reached Pierre at Belair. He was welcomed with even greater enthusiasm than usual by Jacques Rocher when Parker corrected him for addressing Rupert as Monsieur Chalfont and informed him that his master was now Sir Rupert Chalfont, baronet.

  ‘Will you be making a long stay with us, Sir Rupert?’

  ‘I am undecided at present,’ replied Rupert cheerfully. ‘I trust there will be no problem if I make an extended stay.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ responded Rocher. ‘The room is yours for as long as you wish to honour us with your presence. The suite on the first floor, with a room across the landing for your man.’

  ‘Have there been any messages for me?’ Rupert asked.

  ‘No, sir, I fear not.’

  ‘Well, I’m expecting one in the next day or two, so please let me know as soon as it arrives.’

  In her letter Annette had begged him not to go anywhere near Belair, where he might be recognised, and for the moment he was happy enough to accept this, but he knew that should there be no message in the next couple of days he would go to St Etienne and announce his intention there, and said as much in his reply.