Chapter Twelve #2
‘It happened, of course, on our wedding night. Our silly, strange wedding night. I was so foolish, so young, I didn’t realise until a long time later.
You had left on your travels, and I knew you deserved your freedom after all that had happened.
I knew—well, I knew of your feelings for Mademoiselle Aurac. I just didn’t know what to do.’
Alain did not shout at her, berate her. He didn’t demand things. He didn’t even look at her. His boots dropped to the ground, and he leaned on his knees, staring at the painting in his hand. ‘Tell me more,’ was all he said.
Oh, there was so much more to tell him! Marie’s first little steps, her first words, her favourite doll, her favourite stories, her silly little-child jokes.
Sandrine didn’t know what he wanted, where to start.
‘I went away to a little village near the sea, found a nurse. I didn’t dare tell our families.
And when she was born, she was so very small.
She was a bit early, you see. The midwife wasn’t sure she would even live. ’
And Sandrine had thought it a punishment for the mess she’d made of her marriage.
She’d been scared, hadn’t wanted a child.
When she looked into that tiny face, after all those hours of pain, she’d been flooded with love and longing.
Just like when she had first seen Alain, and she’d known that somehow everything would change.
‘But I knew,’ she went on, ‘when I held her, she would live and be strong, a little warrior. My Joan of Arc! How she would shout and wave her tiny fists all night and day. I thought she was like you. Stubborn, sure of herself.’
So Marie had turned out to be. Stubborn, passionate, sweet and loving.
‘We have such fun together! She loves to sing and laugh, tell stories, make her little drawings. She is my gift. I never, ever should have kept her from you. I should have tried so much harder to tell you, I know that. But if there was a chance for you, a chance for you and Mademoiselle Aurac to be together…’
She wasn’t sure now what she thought then, what was up and what was down.
Exhausted by the memories, by her old fears, she slumped back against the bench, shaking with emotion.
With that weakness, there was also a strange relief.
Alain knew everything at last. Whatever was meant to happen could now be set free.
She could put down that weight of fear and guilt she’d carried for so long.
‘Maudire, Sandrine!’ Alain suddenly snapped. His fist tightened around the portrait, and he shook his head. ‘I have a daughter. Why did you not tell me the instant we met again?’
‘I—I was scared,’ was all she could say. She started to reach for him, and her hand dropped again. That fear was still there. ‘And I promised her when she was born I would always protect her. I just didn’t always know how best to do that.’
He sucked in a deep breath, and his head dropped, everything going still and calm. ‘I see. Yes.’
Sandrine had the wildest hope. ‘Do you?’
‘Of course. You say you were young and foolish when we wed. So was I, a thousand times more so. I had such ideas, such wild notions! I wasn’t able to see then what I had, what the future could be.
What my commitments truly were. I cannot say now what that boy might have done, had he known.
But I am not him now. Not entirely.’ He turned his head to look at her, and she shivered with the raw pain on his face, the emotions roiling in his eyes.
‘I have seen so much, learned so much. But I promise, Sandrine, I am not scared now. I see what I have.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘Well, not entirely scared.’
Sandrine dared venture a joke. ‘Marie is certainly very fearsome, I agree.’
‘Is she?’ he asked eagerly. ‘I want to know! I want to know so many things, everything.’ He slid closer to her on the bench, watching her with such a force of hope in his eyes it made her ache. ‘Can we at last find a way to trust each other?’
She studied him in return, taking in every shift of his expression, every movement. How she longed for that, longed to know things had truly changed. ‘I think we must.’
He nodded. ‘Then may I meet her? Meet Marie?’
‘Yes.’ She had to force away that fear in the hopes of moving at last into full, bright light.
It was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
She’d worked so hard to build this life with Marie, to protect her daughter, to protect her own heart.
She could see Alain was not the same man he’d been when they first met, just as she was not the same idealistic girl.
But would she regret letting him in? The problem was, she knew she had no choice.
She needed to do this. For him and for Marie.
For the opportunity for them to know one another.
To love one another. So she had to take the chance and leap, and hope her safeguards were enough.
Alain was sure this couldn’t be real. He was walking through a dream, a haze. A second before and after that seemed to divide the whole world.
He had a child. He had a wife and daughter. He had let them down in terrible ways. He could not do that again.
But, blast it all! How could he have prevented it? How could he have known he was what they needed?
He glanced at Sandrine as they walked along the street, as she talked to him about their daughter.
She looked so calm, so closed-in upon herself, though her face was pale beneath her stylish little hat.
Since he found her again, he’d marvelled at her beauty and strength, her talent, all she had accomplished.
Now he realised he hadn’t seen even a fraction of her real strength.
Had she changed, or was it just the way he had changed himself, how he saw the world now?
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. She looked so scared, as he felt, but also brave. She had clearly decided on something, resolved to trust him with the most precious thing in the world. He couldn’t let her down.
‘… She adores marzipan, and won’t always eat her vegetables,’ Sandrine was saying, continuing to tell him every titbit about Marie, and every morsel he eagerly consumed. ‘And when she visits the seaside, she eats mussels by the dozen! So French, I think.’
As they neared Sandrine’s house, their steps slowed. ‘Sandrine,’ Alain said. ‘When she was born—what did you tell people? How did your family behave?’
She laughed, and he wondered if that was a good sign, if things had not been as difficult as he feared.
‘My parents were quite happy! A child that might be a comte one day, though of course she turned out to be a girl. Before my father died, he quite doted on her when we saw them, which was not often because of my work. And when I learned how to run my business, I told people, told Marie, that you travelled a great deal and we would see you when your business permitted, and I had to keep myself busy with my gowns. It has been a hard life, but Bath is a nice place for a child, with so many parks and amusements.’
He turned her words over in his mind, aching at all he had missed. All they had missed.
Sandrine bit her lip, as if uncertain about his silence. ‘As I said, I tried to write to you, Alain, once I knew. You were gone on your travels by then, and I always feared my letters went astray, or that you…’ She shook her head, and he was afraid he knew what her next words would be.
‘You thought I would not care,’ he said quietly. ‘Oh, Sandrine. I never meant to stay away so long. It’s just… There was always another business deal in the next city, the next challenge I wanted to meet. I had so longed to prove myself, to know I could make my own way in the world.’
‘And so did I! Look at what we have both accomplished,’ she said, pressing his hand in hers.
‘I know that neither of us meant for things to happen in quite this way. We both needed our work, needed to prove ourselves. Soon I was so busy with Marie and my work, I suppose I knew we would meet again somehow, and then…’ She laughed again, ruefully. ‘I don’t know, really.’
‘It could not have been easy, raising her on your own, running your shop.’
‘Not always, no,’ she whispered, and he found he longed to know everything that happened to her, everything she saw, every challenge she faced, so he could make it easier.
Make it all up to her. ‘Especially when she was an infant, I had no idea what I was doing! I tried to change nappies and fastened them the wrong way. She would give me such a disdainful look.’
Alain laughed to imagine his elegant wife handling nappies.
She laughed, too, and it was a wonderful, warm moment shared between them, as if they had watched it together.
Learned together. ‘I was lonely at times,’ she said.
‘Afraid our lives could not work out as I hoped. But I learned. You will, too.’
He laid his other hand atop hers, marvelling at the strength in its daintiness.
‘Sandrine. How I wish I had been there for you, always. I—I regret so many things. I want to know everything I missed! First words, first steps, things she hates. Does she like peas? I never did. I just… Everything. If you will let me.’
She smiled softly. ‘Alain. Perhaps you should just begin by meeting her.’
He nodded, feeling silly, eager, so young and uncertain again. ‘Shall I tell her who I am?’
‘Soon, I think. She does think you have been travelling, working for us, buying and selling beautiful things. We look at atlases sometimes, wondering where you are, what you have seen. She does love tales of adventure! I know she must know very soon. You deserve that, both of you. But let us take one careful step at a time.’
He knew she was right. This was too precious, too important, to ruin now. He had to build new relationships slowly, carefully. ‘Yes. I shall do as you say.’
She gestured towards the house just ahead. ‘Let’s make a start, then.’