The Paris Model

by Alexandra Joel

  ‘It is impossible. When we began seeing each other, I had no idea. But recently, something happened that has led me to believe . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ the abbess inquired gently. ‘What is it that you believe?’

  For the first time, Grace forced herself to share the grave suspicion that haunted her. ‘That my lover and I have the same father.’

  Grace omitted to say that she still longed for Philippe’s presence, that no matter what she now knew, if he came to her, she would sin again.

  Mother Francis Xavier’s calm gaze didn’t alter. Placing her hand on Grace’s arm, she said, ‘Come, let us retire to the chapel.’

  The pair sat in silence on a long wooden pew in front of a simple altar draped with a white linen cloth. Four slender candlesticks and a silver cross were its only ornaments. The rain had stopped abruptly; weak sunshine filtered through the chapel’s stained-glass windows, tinting the paved floor with squares of amber, ruby and emerald.

  ‘You carry a very heavy burden,’ the abbess said at last. ‘I see how much you suffer. In my experience, prayer never fails to provide succour, even when one is enduring the state of extreme distress in which you now find yourself. No matter what the nature of the transgression, even if it be grave indeed, you will always be welcome in this holy place. Yet despite what you may think’ — she searched Grace’s face with her black eyes — ‘I am not so unworldly that I believe prayer alone will resolve your current dilemma. A way forward is needed.’

  Falteringly, Grace explained Brigitte’s proposal. ‘Would you help me?’ she asked.

  Mother Francis Xavier said nothing. Instead, her hands moved towards her rosary as she knelt before the cross.

  Grace waited, struggling to keep her unruly emotions in check. The plan was the only sensible, realistic course, she told herself — it would solve so many problems. And yet something hot and fierce within her heart rebelled. To abandon a child — she knew from her own painful experience just how anguished that child might be one day.

  At last, the abbess regained her seat. ‘I agree,’ she said. ‘I will seek out a family who will take the baby. That is the path you must follow.’

  Overcome by sadness and regret, Grace bowed her head.

  ‘My dear, it is clear to me this decision has caused you great unhappiness,’ the abbess said. ‘But, save for divine intervention, I see no alternative.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  August 1949

  The landscape was nothing like the one that she knew. Gone were the familiar dusty plains and muted green bush, the golden wattle and scarlet bottlebrush of her homeland. Absent too were the grey wallabies and red kangaroos, the ears of their young and perhaps a soft paw or a nose visible above their mothers’ furred pouches. Like the raucous, sulphur-crested cockatoos gliding on air currents, their chalky feathers spread wide, or the kookaburras, eyes masked like bandits, ceasing their laughter in order to seize an unwary reptile, these sights and sounds existed only in Grace’s memory.

  Now, as one balmy summer day in Sainte Jeanne faded into another, she came to know a very different environment. During long walks Grace picked wild blackberries, savouring the tiny fruits that stained her lips and her fingers with their purple juice; often she’d gather armfuls of poppies, bright blue salvia, yellow foxgloves and star-like daisies. Soon, the vibrant flowers spilled from vases and jars on every spare surface of her two sunny rooms.

  To her delight, Grace saw squirrels scamper up oak trees and descend hugging acorns, long-legged plovers strut through the grass, and wood pigeons take sudden flight, their dusky pink breasts catching the light. Sometimes, in the forest, deer veered so close she might have extended her hand and stroked their smooth hides. Instead, Grace sensed the air shift as they cantered by.

  She soon discovered that in this northern realm, twilight lasted significantly longer than in the great southern land of her birth. She grew to treasure the softly lit hours, frequently spent in the company of Claude and Marie. Beneath the spreading branches of the old lime tree that stood behind the gatehouse, time would slip by as the three of them, talking and laughing, played draughts or dominoes.

  Sometimes Monsieur Huppert, Sainte Jeanne’s sole schoolmaster and part-time mayor, would find himself in the mood for chess, although as the man was not to be rushed when pondering either his opening gambits or subsequent strategies, the denouement would, as a rule, require a long wait.

  During these companionable evenings, pyramids of local cheese and wood-fired bread, peaches and pears and slices of Anjou plum pie were eagerly consumed, washed down with sparkling spring water for Grace and, for the others, chilled carafes of Sancerre’s justly famous white wine.

  She had been briefly alarmed when, on one rare overcast day, she’d caught sight of two suspicious-looking men in dark suits prowling around the château’s grounds. Her heart had thumped wildly as she took to her heels, attempting to dodge between trees and stay in the shadows as she ran for her life to the safety of Claude’s cottage. But when she’d arrived, distraught and out of breath, he’d explained that the men were merely notaries who had been sent by the law firm that represented the late count’s interests.

  ‘Don’t worry — they’re not after you,’ Claude had said reassuringly. ‘Remember I mentioned that the estate had never been settled? There are legal matters that need sorting out and they can’t locate Brigitte’s cousin Philippe. It seems they’ve sent off letters to various places, but there’s been no response.

  ‘Apparently, they heard a rumour about someone living in the château. I told them Captain Boyer wasn’t here, but they insisted on seeing for themselves,’ he’d complained.

  If only Philippe were here, Grace had thought. The one piece of good news was, at least for now, she had nothing to fear from Orly or his men. As to what her future might hold, lulled by the comfort derived from simple pleasures, surrounded by friendship and bucolic tranquillity, it was easy for Grace to imagine that time itself had been suspended.

  September

  She pulled back her hair, now grown long and unruly, pushed a wide-brimmed straw hat onto her head and tied its red ribbons under her chin. Humming happily, Grace set off as she did every morning to work beside Claude in the now much-expanded vegetable garden. As she applied herself to weeding and watering and the removal of yellow caterpillars, Grace realised how nurtured she’d been by her life on the land in Australia. With the sun warming her back and the feel of damp soil on her fingers, it was good to recapture the sense of wellbeing that tending the earth had brought her.

  ‘Vraiment, I think you have la main verte,’ Claude declared. He was peering inside a basket brimming with the runner beans she’d just finished picking.

  ‘A green hand? That’s so funny! In English we say a green thumb.’

  ‘Ah, the English — they have no generosity of feeling. Why stop at the thumb?’ Claude grumbled. ‘You are a much better gardener than that!’

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, I think I’ll tackle those roses at the front of the château,’ Grace said. ‘I helped my mother with her rose garden often enough. Let’s see what I can achieve at Charincourt.’

  ‘Do you write to your mother?’ Claude asked, tilting his head.

  ‘We’ve had a falling out.’

  The old man regarded Grace with his rheumy eyes. ‘Even so, send her a letter. You only have one mother, you know.’

  A letter. At first she’d been too angry. Then she’d decided she would respond if Olive made contact, but no word from her had ever arrived. And now — how could she write to her mother, with all that had happened? What would she say? She’d be too ashamed. Better to wait; she did so much waiting these days.

  As summer cooled and became autumn, her body swelled. Grace saw the trees turning scarlet and tangerine, watched as the papery beech leaves were whirled by the wind into golden drifts. At night, alone in her silent room, without so much as a rustle of grass or the coo of a wood pigeon to distract her, she’d m
arvel at the sensation of butterfly wings fluttering deep inside her.

  Those were the moments when she missed Philippe most.

  Soon it was too cold to spend evenings outside. Instead, Grace sat by her pine-scented fire after a day spent helping Marie make jam and bottle late-season apricots and peaches. It was the good-natured Marie, with her silvery hair wound on top of her head and her cheeks flushed pink by the heat of the oven, who taught Grace to cook local specialities such as delicious pork rillettes, fragrant coq-au-vin and a few favourite recipes from her native Normandy.

  ‘Delicious! I couldn’t do better myself.’ Marie’s highest accolade was proclaimed on a cool November day she’d deemed ideal for Grace to perfect the golden shortbread known throughout France as sablé.

  On an impulse, Grace decided to present Mother Francis Xavier with the biscuits; she had the feeling the abbess rarely permitted herself a treat.

  ‘The ones on the left are flavoured with lemon, in the middle they’re almond, and those others I made with orange zest.’ Grace smiled.

  The abbess placed a single lemon biscuit beside her glass of mint tea. ‘You continue to be well?’ she asked.

  ‘Very well,’ Grace replied.

  ‘You have been happy enough here, I think, safely tucked away in the château. But your stay in Charincourt will soon come to an end,’ the older woman reminded her. ‘After the birth of the infant, you must return to the world. You should know that I have made contact with a suitable family. They have two children of their own but are very happy to take in another.’

  Her words shook Grace out of her complacency. It was true, she had been wandering about as if her dreamy life in the glorious countryside would go on and on. It would have been perfect, if only she could stop hoping that one day Philippe would stride into the château, clasp her in his arms and declare that neither the law of God nor man could stop them from being together.

  She had no wish to contemplate the birth of her baby — the time to do so would arrive quickly enough. Determined to change the subject, she cast her eyes about the room until they came to rest on the picture of Joan of Arc.

  ‘I see you are looking at our patron saint,’ the abbess said. ‘The painting is a good enough copy, but it doesn’t compare with the original.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Grace asked, intrigued.

  ‘Many years ago the abbey was blessed with the gift of a masterpiece by the great seventeenth-century Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn,’ Mother Francis Xavier said. ‘But as you might know, during the war the Nazis looted every treasure they could find.’

  ‘You’re saying they stole the abbey’s Rembrandt? I heard a little about their enthusiasm for art — other people’s, that is — when I visited the Jeu de Paume. Is that where the painting was taken?’

  ‘I don’t think so. There was a rumour that it was sent to a warehouse in Paris, apparently intended for the Führer’s personal collection, but’ — the abbess shrugged — ‘nobody really knows what became of it. The image you see on our wall is but a reminder of what we have lost.’

  ‘The original must be worth a great deal,’ Grace said.

  The abbess regarded Grace with her lidless eyes. ‘Sainte Jeanne is priceless,’ she replied.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  November 1949

  Grace lowered herself onto a rusty wrought-iron bench that sat in the thriving rose garden she’d worked so hard to bring back to life. She was proud of her efforts, but what would happen to it when she left? Would this scented haven revert to the tangled thicket of thorns she’d found on her arrival?

  What a ridiculous question! She shook her head. Why on earth am I preoccupied with roses when I should be worrying about myself?

  Grace jumped to her feet. Brandishing her scissors, she began snipping the stems of the full-blown red blooms, before tossing them into a wicker basket. Perhaps Marie-Hélène’s optimism had been misplaced — Madame Raymonde might not take her back. Then what would she do?

  Grace paused as, one by one, she imagined the faces of her friends from the House of Dior: Madame Carré and Tutu; Victoire, Corinne and the other mannequins. It seemed so long since she’d seen any of them.

  Then a calamitous thought struck. Le patron might already have his eye on a new jeune fille. He could be in his studio right now, discussing this beauty’s merits with Madame Raymonde. If a permanent appointment was made, there’d be no chance for her to return.

  Ferdinand would know, she thought. Oh, if only she were still his confidante!

  It was all too depressing. Grace returned to the wrought-iron bench and sat, balancing the basket on her knee. Although Brigitte and Marie-Hélène had visited, even they had seemed unusually subdued. Afterwards, she’d felt more dispirited than ever.

  Brigitte’s attempt to talk about Philippe hadn’t helped. ‘Please don’t,’ Grace had warned. ‘Remember what I said in Paris, about the way he placed me in such danger? That was unforgivable. In fact, as far as I know, my life is still at risk.’

  ‘All the same, there is something I need to tell you —’

  ‘Honestly,’ Grace replied, ‘I don’t want to hear his name, let alone learn what he’s been up to. What with this pregnancy I’m . . . well, I’m already overwhelmed.’ She knew if she listened to another word about Philippe she would be likely to dissolve into tears, abandon all restraint and beg to see him.

  ‘But it’s very important,’ her friend insisted.

  Grace felt stricken. Why was Brigitte, of all people, pressing her at a time like this? ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t bear it.’

  And there the subject had been left. Grace didn’t reveal that, try as she might, she could not extinguish her desperate longing. Nor did she confess that, each morning, she caught herself hoping this would be the day when Philippe would come to her.

  Yes, he’d been told that Grace never wanted to see him again. But she knew Philippe too well, his fierce determination. If he had a genuine desire to find her, nothing Brigitte or anyone else said would stop him. His continuing absence surely proved, in the bluntest way possible, that despite his former declarations of love, in reality she meant little to him. People spoke all the time about having a broken heart, but she had never reckoned on the all-consuming physicality of the pain. It was an ache that never ended.

  The noise made by the clattering trap as it trundled down the driveway disturbed Grace’s melancholy reflections. She looked up, amazed to see who it was in the smart grey suit and hat sitting next to Claude. Her basket of roses went flying as she ran forward to greet the unexpected visitor.

  ‘Ferdinand!’ she cried.

  ‘The very same,’ he replied, stepping down from the trap before embracing her warmly.

  ‘I was only just thinking about you and now here you are — I seem to have conjured you up!’ Grace said.

  ‘Apparently so. As it happens,’ Ferdinand added while fastidiously brushing dust from his trousers, ‘I felt an irresistible urge to once more share coffee and conversation with my favourite petite Australienne. Of course, I’m not used to having to travel quite this far in order to do so.’

  He stood back, nodding his head in approval. ‘You look wonderful, my dear, in your sunhat with the ribbons and your pink shift. And I see,’ he said drily as he gestured towards the towering château, ‘you have found a nice little place to hide yourself away.’

  ‘But what are you doing here?’ Grace asked.

  ‘First, I will help you collect all those pretty roses I have just observed sailing through the air. After that, I would like to sit somewhere comfortable with a pleasant drink in my hand and then — why, then I will tell you everything.’

  Grace turned around, her hands on her hips and a smile on her lips. ‘Right. The flowers are in water, you’re sitting down and I’ve poured you a glass of wine — although there’s coffee, too, if you’d like it. Now, you must reveal all!’

  Ferdinand raised his eyebrows. ‘What can I sa
y? Other than that last week, the Duchess of Windsor left the atelier in a huff.’

  ‘But surely there was something Madame Beguin or Madame Luling could do?’

  ‘Apparently not. She wouldn’t be stopped. And she’s not the only one of the clients who’s unhappy,’ Ferdinand continued. ‘So far, I believe there have been complaints from’ — he ticked the names off on his fingers — ‘the Countess de Ribes, Rita Hayworth and even the delightful Mrs Churchill.’

  Grace was shocked. ‘But whatever has happened? What do they say?’

  Ferdinand gave a theatrical sigh. ‘Well, that’s just it: always the same thing. They ask, “Where is that beautiful model with the lovely dark hair and emerald eyes?” It seems our fine ladies cannot imagine themselves in a gown or a dress, or even a suit unless this particular mannequin inhabits the garments first. They claim only she gives them animation, brings them to life, if you will. There is nothing else for it. As soon as you can’ — he glanced at Grace’s belly before looking tactfully away — ‘you must return in order to rescue the House of Christian Dior!’

  Grace burst out laughing. ‘Really, Ferdinand, you are impossible. What you have just said cannot be true.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Ferdinand protested with a flamboyant flutter of his hand. ‘I might have exaggerated just a little, but let me assure you, the atelier is not at all the same without you.’

  ‘Believe me, I’d give anything to go back to the maison when my life settles down.’ Grace sighed. ‘But how did you know I was here at Charincourt?’

  ‘Your friend Ferdinand knows more than you think,’ he said with an inscrutable expression.

  ‘So I don’t have to explain anything to you?’

  ‘Not if you don’t want to. Perhaps you would prefer me to pass on the latest gossip from Paris?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  There followed a pleasant hour during which Ferdinand told of the Parisians’ view of Philip of Greece — ‘handsome as a God is the collective opinion’ — who was about to be joined in Malta by Britain’s Princess Elizabeth, before traversing the state of Picasso’s liaison with Françoise Gilot — ‘nobody knows how she puts up with his dalliances’.