Chapter 51
Florence wanted to go straight to Mdina after they found her aunt’s name in the land registry, but it was getting late, the bikes didn’t have lamps, and Jack persuaded her to wait.
By the next morning she hadn’t slept a wink, so eager and excited was she, but also fearful that Rosalie might have gone back to France or even England.
Cam had told her it was Maltese nobility who lived in Mdina, so how Beresford and this Addison man had a place there that Rosalie must have inherited, she had no idea.
But at least Beresford had married her.
They cycled to Mdina slowly, Florence hanging back, hardly able to bear the disappointment if, after all this, Rosalie had gone. ‘Can we stop for a bit?’ she called out to Jack, who had gone on ahead of her.
He waited while she caught up. ‘I thought you’d be itching to get there.’
‘I am. But I think I’ll cry if she isn’t there.’
‘And I think you’ll cry if she is.’
She laughed. ‘You’re right. And yet, I don’t even know her and if I ever met her, I’d only have been a toddler.’
‘What a shame you never knew her.’
‘She just upped and left, at only nineteen, and nobody knew where she’d gone. My grandparents moved away from Paris sometime after that. I never knew why. My mother wouldn’t discuss it.’
Jack shook his head. ‘Strange business.’
‘Let’s just find out if Rosalie is still in Mdina. I wasn’t that keen on the place when I was there before. It’s beautiful but feels so sad and empty.’
When they approached the ancient city a little later, she stopped again to take in the way it rose up on the hill, the high golden walls majestic but also a little unnerving just as she had thought before. It looked completely unassailable, perhaps because it was.
They cycled through the arch and then dismounted to walk around the narrow cobbled streets as they tried to work out if the address they’d found really existed and, if it did, where it was.
They searched for a little while walking past the grand palazzi, their shutters closed, their magnificent doorways bolted.
Everything proclaimed keep out. It was completely daunting.
‘They call it “the Silent City”,’ he said, lifting his hand and pointing at the stunning baroque architecture all around them. ‘And it is.’
She stopped walking to listen. ‘Apart from the wind. It makes me feel a bit melancholy.’
It didn’t take long to find the place they wanted and soon Florence was staring at the tall building. ‘It’s huge. Surely this can’t be it?’ She studied the immense double door and the two brass lion’s head door knockers.
‘I think it is,’ he said and whistled.
She nodded.
‘Go on then.’
She lifted one of the heavy knockers and, letting it drop, jumped at the deep resounding echo it made.
They waited. Nothing. Not a whisper.
‘I’ll try again.’ She lifted it again and let it fall.
Still nothing.
Close to tears, just as she had predicted, her heart sank.
‘We’ll come back later,’ Jack suggested and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Rosalie may just be out somewhere. Shopping maybe.’
‘Or gone.’
‘Could be, but we don’t know. Come on. I think you need food and wine.’
There was nowhere to eat in the old city, but they found a café in Rabat where they ate, drank, and waited and then returned to Mdina an hour or so later. Just before they reached the house, they spotted a tall man unlocking the huge front door.
‘Wait!’ Florence called out.
The man, surprised, turned round.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Don’t be. How may I help?’
‘You’re English,’ Jack said.
He held out his hand. ‘Gerard Macmillan. And you are?’
‘I’m Florence Baudin,’ she said, breathless with excitement, ‘and this is Jack Jackson, my fiancé.’
He looked at them, a quizzical expression on his face.
‘The thing is,’ Florence went on. ‘I’m looking for someone. Her name is Rosalie and she’s my aunt.’
‘Oh … my … goodness. I don’t know what to say.’
‘Is she here?’
‘How did you find her? Most people know her by another name and since her husband’s death she lives a very solitary life. She only allows me to come because we’re publishing a book together.’
‘Oh,’ Florence said, surprised. ‘Is she a writer?’
‘More of a collator. Would you mind waiting in the hall?’
He removed the key from the lock and then pushed open one side of the huge door. It was very dark inside and it took a while for Florence’s eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. He turned to go.
‘Please,’ Florence said. ‘Could you tell her that her sister Claudette sent me to find her? Claudette’s my mother and seriously ill. I have a message for Rosalie from her.’
He nodded, crossed the large hall, opened a door and disappeared behind it.
They waited for what felt like an absolute age, Florence pacing up and down, becoming more and more agitated but then, all of a sudden, he was there again.
‘Come through. She will see you.’
They entered a second hall, this one vaulted, full of shadows and odd shafts of sunlight.
‘We just need to cross the courtyard.’
They went along a corridor and an arched gallery and then outside into an internal courtyard surrounded by honey-coloured stone walls. Florence gazed at it in wonder, breathing in the delicious scents of flowering plants.
‘Beautiful, she said.
‘That’s a fig tree,’ he said. ‘And over there two orange trees.’
She saw water flowing from three decorative spouts and splashing into a large stone trough.
‘They’re wood sprites,’ he said, seeing her looking. ‘The spouts.’
‘I love that.’ She took a long breath and let it out slowly. ‘So,’ she said.
‘So,’ he replied. ‘Ready to meet Rosalie?’
She nodded.
They crossed the courtyard and climbed a stone staircase. Eventually the stairs opened onto a vaulted corridor lined with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side and paintings on the other side. Florence smelt beeswax and lemons.
She glanced out of one of the windows and looked across at another sumptuous palace with statues all along its stone balconies.
‘My goodness,’ she said. ‘These houses are all beautiful hidden palaces. You’d never know. From the front they look more forbidding, like fortresses.’
‘Wait until you see the view on the other side.’
They went through a hall and then he knocked on a door.
‘Thank you, Marie,’ he said as a woman wearing a starched white apron opened the door. ‘Marie is Rosalie’s housekeeper,’ he explained.
‘Does my aunt own the whole building or just this apartment?’
‘The whole thing.’
‘Who lives in the rest?’ she asked.
‘Nobody at present.’
She was about to reply but inhaled deeply when she saw they had been shown to a balustraded terrace with a view right across the island.
Her mind felt sharp and clear but then a woman rose from where she’d been sitting with her back to them, and Florence felt suddenly dizzy.
The woman was maybe in her forties, very thin, but there was something startlingly beautiful about her.
She had tumbling auburn curls, deep blue eyes, and the same heart-shaped face as Florence herself.
Everything Rosalie wore was black. The dress, the shoes, just her jewellery was gold, and the contrast of all that black with her red hair was incredible.
Florence froze, unable to move or speak.
‘So, you are little Florence, all grown-up?’ the woman said. ‘I can hardly believe it.’
Florence bit her lip, willing herself not to cry.
‘Come here. Let me look at you.’
Florence walked towards her, blinking like a fool. She knew she was going to cry, and she so did not want to.
The woman reached for her, and they stood holding hands but saying nothing. Mr Macmillan and Jack motionless, watching.
‘Gerry tells me you have a message from my sister.’
Florence nodded and at last found her voice. ‘Yes, I—’
Rosalie shook her head. ‘Wait. Marie, could you bring us some tea and cake? I think we all need to sit down and get over the shock of all this. And it’s getting a bit warm out here, so we’ll make ourselves comfortable inside. Please, follow me.’
They went into a sitting room. Florence couldn’t keep her eyes off Rosalie, who now sat down very upright in a hard-backed chair. Florence and Jack chose to sit together on one of two sofas and Mr Macmillan crossed his legs as he settled into a large armchair.
‘This was Addison’s Darnell’s apartment,’ Rosalie said. ‘He was my husband’s uncle and a wonderful man.’ She glanced around. ‘I still feel him here. Do you ever feel like that, Florence?’
‘Like the people who’ve gone are still around?’
‘Yes.’
‘I do. I used to feel it most in the Dordogne.’
Rosalie smiled. ‘Me too, especially on the river.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘I think we may have a few things in common, Florence. Well, it was Addison who left this beautiful old palace to me. Bobby had an apartment on the floor below but eventually I moved up here. It was easier once I started work again. Gerry and I are planning our third volume of Addison’s pictures and writings. He was a well-known artist, you see.’
‘Your aunt is a wonderful collator and editor,’ Gerry said. ‘In fact, you’ve only just caught us.’
‘Really?’
‘We’re due to sail for England in a couple of days,’ Rosalie said. ‘I had hoped to go before this, but my passport …’
Gerry laughed. ‘Don’t you mean your passports?’
‘Indeed. Both my passports were out of date. But in the end, we got it sorted and I shall be travelling under my real name once again. Gerry came over from London to help pack up Addison’s work.’
Marie brought in a tray of tea things then went back to fetch a plate of chocolate eclairs.
Rosalie poured the tea and handed out the cups and saucers. ‘Please take a plate and help yourselves to an eclair or two.’
There was a momentary pause.
‘And what about you, Mr Jackson?’ Rosalie asked.
‘Please call me Jack.’
‘Of course. Are you here to accompany Florence?’
‘I’m a restoration architect and lending a hand on a project here, but I also came to help Florence find you.’
After they’d eaten the delicious eclairs and were sipping their tea, Florence saw Rosalie take a deep breath as if collecting herself.
‘My sister is unwell?’ she asked.
‘She has incurable cancer.’
Florence saw her aunt’s sharp intake of breath.
‘She asked me to find you.’
‘Why now?’
‘I don’t know. She first asked in 1944, when I arrived in England from France, but we couldn’t travel here till now.
I suppose she knew she was ill, though she didn’t admit it and I had no idea.
’ Florence stopped, remembering their argument, the harsh words, but then later the way her mother had told her everything.
Rosalie nodded, clearly moved.
‘Of course, that’s why she didn’t tell me. If she had, I could hardly have left her.’
‘And you have a message for me?’
Florence nodded. ‘She wants me to tell you how desperately sorry she is for not helping you when you needed her. She said it’s the biggest regret of her life.’
A tear slid down Rosalie’s cheek and then another. She reached into a pocket for a handkerchief and wiped her face.
A lump formed in Florence’s throat.
Rosalie looked at the ground and then up at the ceiling, blinking more tears away. Then she rose to her feet and so did everyone else. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘In an apartment in Valletta,’ Florence said.
‘You must stay here next time you come to Malta. We have so much to talk about. I want to know everything, although I hardly know where to begin. I never thought I would see any of my family again.’ She paused, clearly finding it hard to speak. ‘And I can’t thank you enough for finding me.’
‘But you could have come back any time.’
Rosalie sighed. ‘I didn’t feel I could. The circumstances of my leaving were so awful. Anyway, you’re here now and I’m delighted.’ She held out her arms to Florence and the two women hugged.
‘We must go to Claudette. Together. Gerry, can we get tickets for Florence and Jack on the same sailing we’re booked on?’
‘We’ve already booked tickets on a passenger ship sailing in six days’ time,’ Florence said.
‘It would be nicer if we could go together,’ Rosalie said.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Gerry said. ‘It’s a cargo ship so there aren’t many passenger berths. They sometimes hold back one or two. Failing that we’ll have to go separately.’
‘I didn’t think of asking about cargo ships,’ Jack said. ‘When does it sail?’
‘In three days,’ Gerry said. ‘It’ll take about ten days or so to get to Portsmouth.’
Rosalie kept her eyes fixed on Florence as if not wanting to let her go. ‘Of course, you could stay here for the next couple of days if you like.’
‘Jack?’ Florence said.
‘If we can get tickets on the same sailing, I’ll need to organise a deputy to oversee the work on the apartment, so it might be better to stay in Valletta.’
‘But thank you anyway,’ Florence added as she looked back at Rosalie.
Rosalie took her hand. ‘Not at all, and all being well, we’ll be able to talk all the way to Portsmouth. Don’t worry about wasting the money on your other tickets. They’ll probably resell them for you. And in any case, I’ll be paying for these.’
Florence smiled, feeling light, her heart overflowing with relief and joy at finally having found Claudette’s missing sister.