Chapter 27
Going home was something Hope had never intended doing.
When she’d left, she’d meant to leave forever, but after what had happened with Gus’s mother, she hadn’t felt she had much choice.
She wouldn’t go to her parents, but there was one person she trusted enough to turn to, and she was standing in front of him right now.
The one person in the world, other than Gus, who might just care for her enough to do something extraordinary.
Which is why she’d taken the very next train to their village.
But she was fast learning that even her brother was prepared to turn his back on her in her time of need.
‘Pierre,’ Hope said, reaching for her brother’s hand as she studied his face. ‘Please tell me you’ll help me.’
‘What exactly do you want from me, Hope?’ he asked. ‘You chose to leave here, you chose to do this to yourself and—’
‘I had no choice!’ she cried. ‘You don’t understand what it’s like for a woman in this world.
You have agency over your own life, but I was never given that choice, Pierre.
I was told what to do, never asked, can’t you see?
Can’t you understand how different our lives are, and what I’ve had to endure? ’
‘Perhaps if you’d followed Father’s wishes, things wouldn’t have turned out this way. If you’d just—’
‘Let him strike me again?’ she asked, seeing the shock on his face as she threw her words at him.
‘He—’
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know what he did to Mother! We all lived in that house and we know what he did,’ she said. ‘But when he dared to lay a hand on me, I left. I only hope that you don’t stand by and let him do the same to Claudette.’
Pierre’s face fell and he opened his arms to her.
Hope, for the first time in as long as she could remember, stepped to him, letting him hold her.
It was like they were children again, her brother comforting her when she’d fallen from a tree or a bicycle as she’d tried to keep up with him.
This was the brother she’d returned home to see, not the one who’d scolded her with his words only seconds earlier.
When he let her go, his gaze was softer, as if he’d realised the truth of what she’d been through. As if he finally saw her decisions through her eyes, instead of whatever lies her father had told him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know, but I should have guessed.’
Hope only nodded; she didn’t trust her voice enough to say anything else, but if she could have, she would have thanked him.
‘I know you’ll have money, but you’ll need more,’ Pierre said, turning away from her and going to his desk. She watched as he took notes from a drawer and then bent to write something down.
‘You think I should go to London?’ she asked, finding her voice again. ‘That I should obey his mother’s order and just leave instead of trying to find a way to stay?’
When he turned back to her, he nodded. ‘I don’t see that you have any other choice, not without your Gus to care for you. If only you’d married before he left, you wouldn’t be in this position.’
Hope blinked away fresh tears as she took the money her brother pressed into her hand, staring down at the handwritten scrap of paper he’d included with it.
He wasn’t wrong about not getting married sooner, but everything had happened so quickly, and they just hadn’t had time.
If his father hadn’t hidden the conscription letter from him they would have, but by the time Gus had found it, there was nothing either of them could do.
Telling her brother that wasn’t going to help the predicament she’d found herself in.
‘What’s this?’ Hope asked, trying to keep her frustration from simmering over.
‘Our uncle’s address in London,’ he said. ‘I don’t know everything, but I do know that he might be sympathetic to you. I would seek him out, if I were you. He might…’
Hope waited. ‘He might what?’
‘I think there are reasons that will endear him to being more understanding than anyone else. From what I can gather, he wasn’t treated well by his own family when they discovered certain things about him, and certainly not by our parents. It’s why Mother never spoke of him.’
She stared at the name. Charles. Pierre was right about their mother never speaking of him, and her father had always ended any conversation that included him when her brothers had sporadically asked about their uncle, and Hope had never understood why.
It surprised her that Pierre seemed to know what he did about him, but then she supposed as the eldest son he was privy to much more family information than she was or ever would be.
‘I gather he’s well established there, and I believe he has a kind heart. Whatever you may have heard about him, whatever prejudices you might have, set that aside.’
Hope didn’t know what her brother was alluding to; she hadn’t heard anything as far as her absent uncle was concerned, and she certainly didn’t hold any prejudices against a man she didn’t know, but she simply folded the paper and nodded.
If Pierre thought this uncle Charles could help her, then she wasn’t about to disagree, although she did consider it ironic that he thought a long-lost relative would help her when her close family would not.
‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Hope,’ Pierre said. ‘You always were destined for more than what was expected of you. I should have done more to help you, before it was too late.’
She stepped closer to him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. ‘It means a lot to hear you say it.’ Hope took a deep breath, finally saying the words she needed to say. ‘Thank you.’
There was so much more they could have said, but Hope chose to leave rather than risk being seen by either of her parents.
If she left now, she could catch the train back to Paris, and by the day after, be on her way to London.
There was no one left here to look out for her, and if even Pierre thought she should go, then that’s what she would do.
Why did you have to leave me, Gus? How did things end up this way?
Fresh tears clung to her lashes as she left her brother, not bothering to glance at the house she’d never see again.
It wasn’t as if she’d ever expected to come home after she’d left the first time, but now she knew for certain that she would never return.
She would write to Pierre and make sure he knew where to find her in case he needed to be in contact, but she didn’t imagine there would ever be a time when she’d write to her mother or father.
Sometimes she found herself wishing for her mother’s touch, the hugs she’d given her when she’d been a girl, but then she’d only feel anger at what her mother had endured for so long.
All she’d ever wanted was for her mother to fight for her, to help her towards a different life to the one she’d lived herself.
Hope placed a hand on her stomach and kept walking, her head held high, vowing to be a different kind of mother to her unborn child. She’d always had to fight for her place in the world, and for the life she wanted. This was no different; only now, she was fighting for two.
Gus will come for me. I won’t be alone for long. He will come back.
If there was one thing she knew to be true, it was that Gus loved her, no matter what his mother might have said, and she knew he’d love their baby just as much.
She just needed to bide her time and trust that everything would work out as it was supposed to, that she wouldn’t be left alone to raise their baby. That he’d be able to find her.
Come back to me, Gus. Don’t you leave me to live this life without you. Don’t you dare leave me alone.
But until he did, she would have to forge ahead and find a way to look after not only herself, but also their child.
She would have to pretend that she intended to disappear and never see him again, just as she’d promised his mother, to ensure their safety.
She would have to leave the life she knew behind, certain in her heart that he would return for her just as soon as he could, that it was only a temporary goodbye.
The truth was that no amount of money would have made her turn her back on the man she loved, but Hope knew how the world worked for women like her. Which meant that until Gus did return, she would do whatever she had to to move forward and start a new life.
Even if that did mean leaving France for London. She would just have to write to him and hope that he received the letter, and believe that he’d turn the world upside down searching for her if he had to.
Two days later, Hope was packing her belongings when she heard a knock at the door of her apartment. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and it was so rare for her to have a visitor at the apartment she and Gus rented that it took her by surprise.
She opened it hesitantly, half wondering if she should bother answering at all, only to find Gus’s sister standing there.
‘Marie!’ she said, opening the door wider for her to come in. ‘What are you doing here? How did you know where to find me?’
‘Gus would never have forgiven me if I hadn’t come,’ she said. ‘And I couldn’t let you go without seeing you.’
Hope sighed and waved her into the apartment.
It seemed that it wasn’t Gus’s entire family who hated her, not if the sweet expression on his sister’s face could be trusted, but Marie clearly knew what her mother had asked of Hope.
‘You shouldn’t have come. If your parents find out that you’ve seen me… ’
‘They might banish me to London, too?’ she said, her voice laced with unmistakable anger.
‘If I had my own means, I’d leave with you and never look back after the way they’ve treated you.
You know, I heard the way she spoke to you, my mother.
Gus will never forgive her for what she asked of you, Hope.
It would break his heart to know what she said. ’
Hope fought against tears, wishing that Gus’s mother could have shown her such compassion and kindness.
‘My brother loves you with all his heart, Hope,’ she said. ‘I need you to know that I’d be proud to have you as my sister-in-law, because if Gus loves you, then so do I. He’ll find you, no matter where you go. I think he’d go to the ends of the earth if he had to. You have to know that.’
‘I do. I do know that.’ Hope’s eyes filled with tears, as they had so many times over the past weeks. ‘You’re so like him. Even angry, you have the same expression as him.’
‘I meant it when I said that he’ll never forgive her.’
Hope nodded. ‘I know he won’t, but I can’t see that I have any choice left but to do as she says. If I hadn’t taken her money and agreed to her demands, I might have ended up having this baby on the streets, or even worse, in prison. There’s only so long my money will last now I’m on my own, too.’
Marie stepped forward, glancing up at Hope before staring at her gently rounded stomach. ‘May I?’ she asked, gingerly holding out her hand.
‘Of course.’
His sister placed her hand on the side of Hope’s stomach, and Hope laid her palm over it.
‘Marie, why did you come here today?’ Hope asked.
‘To ask for your forwarding address so that Gus knows where to find you,’ she said, her hand falling back to her side as her wide eyes met Hope’s. ‘And so that I can write to you, too.’
Hope turned and found a piece of paper, copying her uncle’s address that she already knew by heart.
She’d thought she’d write to Gus and tell him, but there was no guarantee that her letters would reach him, something she hadn’t truly considered until now.
Giving the address to his sister was definitely her best option.
‘This is where I intend to go when I arrive in London,’ she said, folding it and passing it to Marie. ‘I don’t know where I’ll end up living, but he’ll find me if he comes here.’
‘I’ll keep it safe,’ his sister said, tucking it into her purse before giving Hope an unexpected hug. ‘I’d say he’ll leave the very day he returns to find you gone.’
‘Marie,’ Hope said, as they parted. ‘When Gus comes home, or if you hear from him, could you tell him something for me?’
‘Anything.’
‘Tell him that I love him with all my heart, that nothing has changed, and that I’ll be waiting for him. Tell him that even if there is a war, even if it takes years, I will never stop waiting.’
‘Of course,’ his sister said, blinking away tears. ‘I have to go, before Maman discovers I’m not where I told her I’d be.’
They said their goodbyes and Hope watched her go, her heart heavy.
If only Gus’s mother could have been as warm-hearted as her daughter.
Because if she had been, maybe she would have looked after Hope in their home while their son was away, rather than turned her out like an unwanted dog destined for the streets.
She blew out a long breath and went back to packing, carefully taking the empty bottle of absinthe they’d saved from the shelf.
She held it for a long moment, staring at the fairy on the front that it’d taken her so long to get right.
It almost seemed like another lifetime ago that she’d sat in the window and sketched her, and if she closed her eyes she could still remember the feeling of Gus’s arms encircling her from behind, the warmth of his cheek pressed to hers.
But when she opened her eyes, she was standing alone.