‘What happened to him?’
‘He was executed by some local people just as the war ended. It was brutal, rough justice, but the truth is, I found it impossible to grieve for him.’
‘You poor darling, what a lot you have been through.’ Grace struggled to reconcile the traumatic events her friend spoke of with the serene image the ethereal blonde maintained; Brigitte was usually so unruffled, so self-contained.
‘It could have been worse,’ Brigitte said. ‘Do you remember what I told you about the head-shaving? A few days after I returned to the château, a group of angry local citizens arrived. They wanted to inflict the same punishment on me.’
‘No! Why?’ That Brigitte might have been subjected to the same retribution she’d described while they drank chablis in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré had never crossed Grace’s mind. Recoiling, she pictured Brigitte in the hands of a crazed mob, their faces distorted by hatred, as a razor was produced and her lovely hair was brutally shaved off.
‘It was a strange, fearful time — there was a sort of madness in the air. I heard later that some of the villagers who denounced me the loudest were themselves guilty of helping the Germans — I suppose they were keen to cover up their complicity. But then, I hadn’t been around for years; perhaps everyone simply assumed that, just like my father, I too was a collaborator. Because of his Resistance sources, Philippe knew it wasn’t true. When he heard about what had happened to Papa, he grew concerned about the cousin he had never seen. Thank God, he turned up at Charincourt just in time.’ Brigitte shuddered. ‘Furious people were holding me down. They had already begun to tear at my clothes — I was terrified. Philippe confronted them, demanding they see reason. I will never forget what he said: “Why should the sins of the father be visited on the head of his innocent child?”’
Brigitte’s words resounded in Grace’s mind. She knew how it felt to be an innocent child, to be trapped in a world of deceit not of her making. But by giving up her baby, wouldn’t she be committing the same crime?
For her friend’s sake, she tried to smile. ‘Thank you. I’m very grateful for your offer to stay at the château, and yes, you’re right about the outcome of this pregnancy. I will take your advice.’
Grace felt as if she had no more ability to change the course of her life than a leaf being carried along by the swirling current outside.
Philippe rode his motorcycle slowly down Belleville’s grimy streets. The usual rotting garbage lay in the gutters where it was fought over by starving cats. But where were the inhabitants? As a rule, the French made the most of their national holiday, yet the quarter was unnaturally quiet. Perhaps the residents of this decaying corner of Paris felt they had little to celebrate.
Pulling up at the kerb, he chained his bike to a lamppost, crossed the cobblestoned lane and walked into the café.
‘An Armagnac,’ Philippe said to the barman. ‘Better leave the bottle on the table.’ He noticed they were the only people in the room. ‘Where is everyone?’ he asked, but received only a shrug in return.
Philippe couldn’t say why exactly, but something in the atmosphere caused a spike of alarm in his belly. Telling himself it was a reaction to the events of the day — he often felt a charged hyper-vigilance after a dangerous mission — he sat down and dealt with his anxiety in the best way he knew, by downing a glass of the fiery brandy.
Still, he couldn’t relax. He glanced at his watch. It was well past five o’clock, yet Grace hadn’t appeared. His eye was throbbing; he decided another glass of Armagnac might help. He did his best to peer through the window. Where was she? What could have caused the delay?
He tapped his fingers on the table as a variety of dire scenarios played out in his mind. Grace had been waylaid. Kidnapped. Assaulted, attacked or worse. No. He forced himself to dismiss his fears. Other than the policeman he’d assigned to her, there wasn’t a soul who knew where she’d been staying today, or that she was coming here to Belleville.
What, then? As he filled his glass once more Philippe was struck by a sickening thought. Maybe nothing untoward had occurred. She had simply come to the decision that she didn’t want to see him again. Groaning, Philippe put his head in his hands. After what he’d put her through, she was probably arranging a passage back to Australia. Perhaps she had even decided to return to her husband.
He wouldn’t blame her. Grace had prevented the deaths of Ambassador Bruce, himself, and who knew how many others. Yet, at the same time, she may well have killed a man. It didn’t matter how treacherous Orly had been, this was likely to create unimaginable trauma. And that is what he, Philippe Boyer, had done to her.
Grace wasn’t a professional agent, let alone a trained soldier or a resistance fighter; she’d never known war. It was only natural she’d want to escape the horror of it all, to return to the safety of life with her husband in her own sprawling country on the other side of the globe.
What folly, he thought bitterly. In my arrogance, I was bent on a mission to save the world, but who could tell what lay ahead? There were no guarantees. The one certainty seemed to be that he had driven away the woman of his dreams, the only woman he would ever love.
Over an hour had passed. Philippe paid his bill, then rose unsteadily to his feet. He had to face facts; Grace wasn’t coming. Either something grievous had happened to her, or she’d made up her mind to leave him. Either way, the situation was urgent. He had to find her.
With his heart pounding and his eye on fire, Philippe charged out of the café. He tried to avoid the rank pools of stagnant water on the ground, to ignore the sulphurous smell.
He had just reached his bike when the shot rang out. As he staggered, then fell, only the savage alley cats heard him cry, ‘Grace!’
BOOK THREE
La Femme
The Woman
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Loire Valley, 15 July 1949
Grace stared out the window of the rocking carriage. As the train gathered speed, billowing white clouds flew past, then vanished. She was fleeing Paris.
Sitting huddled in a corner, Grace bitterly recalled the boundless optimism, the sheer self-belief she’d had when she’d arrived in the City of Light. She had thought she could conquer a new world, be reunited with a loving father, that a golden future lay stretched out before her. Since those innocent days, her hopes had proven to be as insubstantial as the clouds outside. One by one, each precious dream had been torn away. Worst of all, she’d fallen in love with an extraordinary man and now she couldn’t even allow herself to see him. Philippe probably hated her, anyway, for the way she’d left him so brutally. At the very least, he would despise her for lacking the courage to face him and explain her decision.
Grace told herself she’d been nothing but a naive fool: a girl from the bush, out of her depth, beset with delusions. How the hell had she imagined she could escape her past, let alone her own limitations?
That she was now rattling through the lush countryside in the very same region where the Tatin sisters had prevailed over what they had thought an irreversible disaster, was a cruel irony. So much for Mademoiselle Elise’s inspirational stories. For, hard as she tried, Grace could not see how she could produce something splendid from her ruin. It would take more than ingenuity, or determination, or even luck. It would require a miracle.
From a distance, Charincourt appeared to Grace like a shimmering castle that belonged, not in this troubled world, but in the pages of a fairy tale. With its clusters of turrets, slender towers and silvery spires, it might have been the setting for an improbable fable.
Yet as the fanciful citadel grew nearer, Grace’s eyes widened with alarm. Its creamy limestone walls were infested with knotted spools of ivy, elaborate chimneypieces were shattered, windows smashed, and several of the statues of chevaliers that had previously stood guard atop the parapet now rested like fallen warriors on the unkempt ground. It was as if a malevolent spirit had laid waste to all that had once been noble and grand.<
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Hunched on the seat of the old-fashioned pony trap she’d travelled in from the nearby town of Orléans, Grace tried not to show her dismay. However, by the time Claude Devreaux, the aged driver, brought the trap to a halt in front of the derelict structure, her eyes brimmed with tears.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Claude said in a kindly tone as he put down the reins. ‘The old place is a sorry sight.’
Grace remained seated. She was in no hurry to enter the deserted château where, at least until her baby was born, she was sentenced to live a desolate life.
Claude climbed down from the trap, slowly straightened up, then held out a gnarled brown hand to steady Grace as she stepped onto the ground.
‘Charincourt was at its best when Mademoiselle Brigitte’s mother was still alive. In those days, there wasn’t so much as a stray leaf on the driveway,’ Claude said wistfully. ‘And you should have seen her rose garden. Those overgrown bushes at the front are all that’s left.’
‘Where do you and Madame Devreaux live?’ Grace asked hopefully.
‘In the gatehouse. Perhaps you noticed the cottage when we passed through the big stone posts covered with moss?’
Claude inclined his grey head in the direction of Charincourt. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘You’ll be all right. Marie and I have sorted out what used to be the housekeeper’s rooms. They’re around the back. Come on, I’ll show them to you.’
Grace reluctantly followed Claude as he hobbled along a pathway that led to the rear of the château. Just as he’d said, there was a sizeable, largely wild vegetable garden, although it did appear that one corner had benefited from the elderly caretaker’s attention. Grace smelt the aroma of freshly turned earth as she walked beside rows of thriving tomato vines, beans and courgettes. There was even a flourishing strawberry patch.
‘Here we are,’ Claude said, letting Grace into a cool, stone-paved hallway. ‘Just go through that door on the left.’
Grace did as he said, then came to a sudden halt. ‘This is not what I expected!’
The housekeeper’s quarters consisted of a bright, cheerful sitting room — Grace noticed someone had placed a blue jug filled with vivid red poppies on a table under its bay window — and an adjoining bedroom of about the same size. Further exploration revealed there was a lavatory down the hall and, in the next room, a huge ceramic bath with gleaming taps. On the other side of the corridor was a butler’s pantry with a larder, sink, a small stove and shelves for a few plates and glasses. A closed door was at the end of the hallway.
‘It’s all clean and fresh,’ Claude said. ‘Marie’s washed everything; she’s only just rehung those red and white checked curtains. We’ve left bread and milk in the pantry, and there’s a bit of cheese and some newly laid eggs as well. Now, what else? Oh, yes, you can help yourself to anything growing in the garden. I can recommend the tomatoes — this year’s crop is the best I’ve had. And there are some fine peaches and cherries still on the trees.’
For the first time in days, Grace felt her spirits rise. Touched by the old man’s thoughtfulness, she said, ‘Thank you, you’ve been very kind. Would you like to rest for a minute?’
Claude nodded. ‘I don’t mind admitting, lately I do find myself getting tired.’
After settling himself in one of a pair of generous blue armchairs, he confided, ‘The housekeeper left only a year ago — she was the last person to actually live in Charincourt. All Marie and I had to do was give her rooms a good airing and a going over with the mop and duster. As for the rest of the place, well, as you’ve seen from the outside, it’s in quite a state.’
‘Why is that? What on earth happened?’
Claude scratched his head. ‘It’s hard to believe, I know, but the count thought Adolf Hitler was a kind of messiah. When the war ended, some of the local people took their revenge on him. Then they set about wrecking Charincourt.’
‘What a dreadful time that must have been. All the same,’ Grace said, ‘I’m looking forward to exploring the rest of the château.’
‘Oh, you mustn’t do that,’ Claude warned. ‘There’s broken bits of furniture and what have you everywhere, and the structure is far from sound. That’s why, other than these few rooms, it’s all locked up — I wouldn’t like to see anyone have an accident.’
‘Who owns Charincourt now? Brigitte said she wasn’t sure.’
‘The family’s lawyers up in Paris pay me my wages, but the inheritance itself seems to have become a bit of a mystery.’ Claude hauled himself to his feet. ‘I’d best stop running on and let you settle in.’
The little bay mare tossed her head and whinnied when she saw Claude approaching. He withdrew a withered apple from his pocket, saying, ‘If you give this to Jezebel, you’ll make a friend for life.’
While Grace fed the pony, Claude added, ‘Now, before I forget, I left the keys on the table by the window and’ — with an effort, he swung Grace’s suitcase down — ‘you’ll be wanting this. Can I carry it in for you?’
‘Thanks, but I’m sure I can manage.’
‘Well then, Marie and I are not far away. If you need anything, just knock on our door. Tomorrow you can explore the village; it’s called Sainte Jeanne, after the abbey.’
‘Brigitte mentioned the abbey to me.’
Claude nodded. ‘She made a point of saying that I was to introduce you to Mother Francis Xavier as soon as possible.’
He hoisted himself into the trap, took the reins in his weathered hands and set off down the driveway.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Sainte Jeanne, 16 July 1949
‘That is a very sad, tragic story,’ the abbess remarked, coolly observing the nervous young woman who sat opposite.
Grace said nothing, merely continued to twist the newly acquired silver ring that encircled the third finger of her left hand.
‘But it is a story, isn’t it?’
Grace shifted uncomfortably in her straight-backed chair.
‘During the past decade I have seen many women with the same expression you have on your face,’ the abbess said in a gentler tone. ‘But let me assure you, within these walls, there is no place for shame. The world has known too much suffering, and far too many members of our sex have endured desperate circumstances not of their making. In any case, it is not for those on this earth to pass judgement. The sisters and I leave that to God.’
The abbess’s study was austere. Painted white, it had a dark timber floor and a row of narrow windows that allowed in only slivers of light. On the wall opposite was a wooden crucifix; below that, a striking painting of the abbey’s patron saint, Joan of Arc, resplendent in a suit of armour.
Grace studied Mother Francis Xavier’s face. Framed by a stiff white wimple, it had an oriental cast. The colour of her complexion was reminiscent of old ivory; she had prominent cheekbones and almost lidless, elongated black eyes.
‘Madame Dubois,’ the abbess said steadily, ‘you have told me you are to have a child in February. You have also said your husband died just a month ago while defusing a bomb. Only one of those statements is true, isn’t it?’
Grace’s cheeks coloured.
‘Perhaps you should start at the beginning,’ she said. ‘Let us walk together, and you can tell me the real reason you have come to the Abbaye de Sainte Jeanne.’
The two women, one robed in a dove-grey habit, the other wearing a pale blue summer dress, strolled side by side beneath the abbey’s stone cloisters. A light rain had begun to fall, filling the courtyard with a fine grey mist.
Grace wondered anxiously how the abbess, a woman who’d spent her life sequestered in holy orders, could possibly react with anything other than horror to what she was about to reveal.
She took a deep breath. ‘I may have killed a man,’ she said.
Grace could detect neither the shock nor condemnation she had expected. Mother Francis Xavier simply questioned Grace closely about the events that had led to such a violent act, then nodded her head.
‘The taking of a life is indeed a serious matter,’ she said solemnly, ‘although it would seem you had no choice. Remember that five centuries ago, not far from here, the holy Maid of Orléans herself acted similarly when she fought to save France. In recent years many other French women have, by necessity, done the same. I trust this abbey, and the village of Sainte Jeanne, will provide you with sanctuary.’
Grace was flooded with relief. Here, at last, was a person to whom she could unburden herself.
As if she had been able to read Grace’s mind, the abbess added, ‘Now, tell me about the child you are carrying.’
‘You were right,’ Grace said, straining to speak above the sound of the downpour. ‘The name Madame Dubois, the French husband, the ring — it’s all a masquerade. I did marry, in Australia, but now my husband and I are to divorce. Only, he forced me into a single, awful encounter when he came to Paris a couple of months ago. Now I honestly don’t know if my child is a product of that wretched experience, or the result of a serious affair with a man I love very much.’
It was raining harder now; sheets of water beat against the convent’s medieval walls.
The abbess gave Grace a penetrating look. ‘Have you spoken about this to either of the men concerned?’
‘No, and I don’t intend to — ever.’
‘But the man with whom you have had a loving relationship — isn’t there a chance he might want to take on the child?’
Grace’s mouth became dry. She felt a wave of nausea and swallowed hard. Nothing she had disclosed up to now compared to the sin she was about to reveal. Yet she knew she must continue, that only by confessing would she have any chance of respite from her current torment.
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