Chapter 45
45
The day before Bastille Day, Eliza accepted an invitation from Peter to go up to the chateau for lunch with him, his parents and Ingrid. ‘Alice and Lucas have both got a rendez-vous in Quimper, but Lucas has said he’ll drop you off here first and Alice will collect you later. So it will be just us oldies to talk things through and show you the family bible, and for you to go through the contents of the box.’
Penny cooked and served lunch for them but declined to join them, laughingly saying, ‘You’re all guests today.’ She’d been relieved when she’d learnt that Lucas wasn’t staying for lunch. She’d managed to avoid him ever since the afternoon when opening the box had changed things for them both.
When she saw the family bible with Bernadette Chevalier’s name scratched out, Eliza’s eyes filled with tears. ‘That poor woman. One cannot begin to comprehend what she went through. Such a different world in those days. No wonder she was unable to bond with her daughter.’
Edward Chevalier nodded. ‘We need to reinstate her name, add in her marriage to Alphonse Gilet and continue the family tree with her descendants. Set the family history straight.’
‘Thank you,’ Eliza said. ‘Until I read those two letters, I had no idea of what had happened in my family in the past. It seems Bernadette was a very unhappy woman for most of her adult life. The only grandparents I ever knew were my father’s parents and they died when I was quite young. Growing up, although my mother and I were close, I accepted without question that she never talked about her own mother. I remember when I was about ten, I think, I asked did she think her mother ever thought about her? She gave a shrug and said, “I doubt it. She wasn’t a maternal sort of woman”.’ Eliza gave a sniff. ‘Bernadette’s letter shows the real reasons.’
After lunch, Peter placed the contents of the box on the table. The mixture of old photos, letters, and birth and marriage certificates had been tidily sorted into date order as far as possible. Eliza picked out a letter to read, from Charles to ‘Bernadette, my dearest sister,’ when he had first enlisted, and she was still clearly living at home. Thanking her for the last letter that had finally reached him, he told her how much he missed home and her, and how he detested being a soldier. He couldn’t wait to be back and go walking the dogs with her in the countryside. Replacing it in the pile, Eliza saw a framed sketch of a large country house and picked it up.
‘Our family home near Rouen,’ Edward said.
‘It looks a substantial maison de ma?tre for a successful family. Does a Chevalier still own it?’ Eliza asked.
‘Sadly no,’ Edward answered. ‘My father had to sell it in the forties after the war when we moved to England. He hated doing it but basically, a problem with inheritance tax and no money in the bank after the war gave him no choice. I’ve driven past it on a couple of occasions when we’ve been in France and dream of buying it back. Not likely to happen.’
Eliza picked up the ring box and, opening it, stared at its contents sitting on the velvet cushion. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Try it on,’ Ingrid said.
Eliza shook her head. ‘No. It won’t fit over my arthritic knuckles.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Ingrid said. ‘Put it somewhere safe when you get home then.’
Eliza smiled. ‘Definitely.’ She looked at the family history in front of her and shook her head in disbelief. ‘I find it hard to take in that I now have relatives. I always longed to have at least an aunt and a cousin; now I have…’ She stopped. ‘What do I have exactly?’
Peter took her hand. ‘You have a whole family of new relations. We’ll work out all the family links later, but you and I are definitely related.’
Alice arrived shortly afterwards to take Eliza home. As Peter walked her to the car, he mentioned the fete.
‘Tomorrow’s the village fete. You are coming, aren’t you? Good,’ he said when Eliza nodded. ‘And in the evening, we’re having a private party for family and friends in the orangery, to which you are naturally invited. So we’ll see you again tomorrow, cousin.’ And Peter leant in and kissed her cheek.