She’d cleared up one mystery, however. ‘You ran after me at the racecourse, and I didn’t wait. You poor little kid.’
The memory that had, for years, spooled through Coralie’s head, like a broken cine film, gained its missing segment. When Florence’s control had snapped, little Cora had slithered off her father’s back and slogged through the mud, begging her mother to come back. Cora had turned her ankle, and the heel had broken off her shoe. Her heel, not her mum’s. Florence had bought them matching shoes, two pairs for the price of one, because Cora had been a gangly child with the same size feet as her pint-sized mother. Just ten years old, she’d stuffed the heel into her pocket and struggled on, shouting, ‘Mum, come back!’ until she realised she was shouting at strangers.
Gwendolen was nice, if sometimes a little ‘actress-y’; she’d followed Florence on to the boards. They wrote to each other once a month, and Coralie sent Gwendolen a hat from every collection.
Talking of which, over on the other side of the course, in the members’ enclosure, Noëlle would be soaking up the sunshine and, hopefully, buckets of admiration. Coralie had made her daughter a coolie hat of white sisal with hot-pink daisies for this gala race. Worn with a sleeveless white dress, it perfectly suited Noëlle’s exotic, elfin style. Donal had put Whiter-Than in Noëlle’s name, as a surprise Christmas and twenty-second-birthday present. So it was Noëlle, accompanied by Ottilia and her second husband, who was rubbing shoulders with the racing elite today. If in the extraordinarily unlikely event the horse won, Noëlle would lead him out in front of the Queen.
Coralie didn’t grudge her daughter the honour, and Donal preferred being on a bus, ladling out the champagne. He was never wholly at ease among public-school types – too much the self-made barrow boy – whereas Noëlle had grown up among intellectual refugees and expatriate aristocrats. She spoke four languages, attended university in Zürich and weekended in Paris. It hadn’t hurt her prospects in life that she’d also inherited much of Teddy Clisson’s wealth on his death. Ottilia’s husband, an American called Tom Finkelman, who had replaced the vain wastrel Frantz Lascar, had encouraged Noëlle’s intellect. He’d foreseen a career for her in industry or international diplomacy. Good thing she has a sweet nature, Coralie often thought, or she might have floated away from them, like a helium balloon. Though family life in Coralie and Donal’s London home assaulted her refined senses, Noëlle visited several times a year. Maman, Papa-Donal, Derek, Patrick and the twins, Amelia and Donny, were her ‘other family’. We share her, Coralie acknowledged. The price of sending her away.
It was Patrick who announced that the big race had begun. ‘Mum? Can’t you hear everyone shouting?’
‘I was miles away. Here, borrow my binoculars.’ She clasped the front rails of the bus, aware of her girls crowding behind her. Tipsy. They must be, or they wouldn’t be getting so close. Her staff lived in awe of her. Not because she shouted or found fault. The loudest noise she ever made was to rattle her bracelets, her way of making sure they always knew she was coming so she didn’t catch them talking about boyfriends, or making cheeky remarks about her. They kept their distance because she worked in a quiet bubble, impenetrable except by loved ones. They knew nothing of what she had survived because she never talked of it. They didn’t know that she’d been taken away in a car by the Gestapo, or what those beasts had done to her. They didn’t know about Ravensbrück. This clean, modern world screened out such things.
She carried the memory in limbs that could not dance, in a fear of elevators and a terror of Alsatian dogs. A Gypsy not half a mile from there had told her she would kill, back when her idea of evil was her dad’s drunken fists. Back when the notion of a loving execution lay beyond her mind’s boundaries.
‘Whiter-Than didn’t make a good start, I’m sorry to say.’ Donal pushed through the press of shrieking girls to put his arm round her. ‘You’re not using your binoculars.’
‘I gave them to Pat. They make my mascara claggy. You do the commentary.’
‘All right. They’re round the first big bend, careering down towards Tattenham Corner. A whole lot of brown horses are in the lead, and there’s a white one at the back, taking his time. I think the jockey’s getting forty winks before the next race.’ Donal let the loudspeakers take over. Later, when the winners were written up, his jaw dropped. ‘Psidium first? Sixty-six to one? How do you do it, Cora?’
‘If you have to ask, you’ll never know. Don’t look glum.’
‘This is the face of a man who just lost a hundred pounds.’
‘Fifty, you said.’
‘I put another fifty each way on that bloody white horse.’
‘Then it’s a good thing you’ve got me, Donal Flynn.’ She put her hands to his face. Her left hand carried her wedding band and pearl engagement ring. On her right, she wore a heavy gold ring with a ruby, and one of coral in memory of Ramon Cazaubon, who had been killed at Mont Mouchet, in the Auvergne, in June 1944. Of those dear, Paris friends, only Una and Ottilia remained part of her life. Louise Deveau had survived the war, but now lived almost as a recluse in her flat on rue de l’Odéon. Arkady Erdös had died upon a bed of leaves, as his mother had foretold, falling in the Tronçais forest while fighting with the Maquis d’Auvergne. His fellow Vagabond, Florian Lantos, thrived. He lived in Brittany with Micheline and their children, having taken over his father-in-law’s farm. Coralie had visited a few years before, and had found Florian looking and sounding almost like a native Breton. Only the dulcimer gathering dust on top of a cupboard linked him to the hungry, nervous lad who had come to her for shelter.
‘Where are you, my love?’ Donal asked anxiously. ‘I sometimes think your mind is in Paris, along with your heart.’
She held his gaze until she found the words that expressed what she felt for the man who had mended her, married her, taken her firstborn son as his own. He was still handsome, though his black hair was flecked with grey and his frame had filled out with good living. ‘My heart is here, with you. You are the best of fathers, the best of friends, the best of lovers.’
‘There’s a “but”. There’s always that with you, Cora.’
‘But . . . you’re a lousy picker of horses. Leave that to me, Donal Flynn.’
Acknowledgements
Second novels have a reputation for being hard to bring into the world, and while I dislike clichés, or indeed, being a cliché, I have to say that there were some tears wept over the keyboard. You have all your life to write book one. Book two comes with deadlines attached and not a few expectations, so thanks to everyone who helped me through it. The Milliner’s Secret would never have been revealed had I not had support on the way.
Firstly, my agent Laura Longrigg and editor Kathryn Taussig for being stalwart champions of my writing. Thanks to Nikki Dupin for the beautiful cover design and to Hazel Orme for her exemplary copyediting.
Heartfelt thanks to the Suffolk friends and neighbours who have hauled me through some pretty tough stuff this last year. Rusty and Amber have honourable mention, for being unconditionally loving Labradors and getting me off my chair at regular intervals. To Sam L.E., thanks for being yourself. To Chrissie, my sister Anna and Mel Hayman-Brown for always being at the end of a telephone. And to Mattie, Benita and Travis, three beautiful souls who will always remind me that life is best when it’s lived simply, in the present and with friends.
Natalie Meg Evans
Suffolk 2015
A delicious tale of hidden secrets and eternal love . . .
Shauna Vincent has just learned that the job she set her heart on has gone to a well-connected rival. Devastated, she accepts an offer in France from an old family friend: to be au pair to the woman’s grandchildren. Within a week, Shauna is deep in the Dordogne with endless hours to explore the magical landscape around her.
Her new home is the ancient Chateau de Chemignac with its vineyards and hidden secrets. Then
Shauna falls asleep one afternoon in a valley full of birdsong, and has a strange and unsettling dream. So when she suddenly awakes to find charming local landowner Laurent de Chemignac standing over her, Shauna can’t help but wonder if the dashing aristocrat might be just the person to help her untangle the secret that this little French castle amongst the vines might be hiding.
The Girl Who Dreamed of Paris Page 49