Chapter Thirty-Three #2
Juliette nodded. ‘She’s lovely. And she’s living all by herself: she never married and has no children. Think what we could offer her!’
Andrew held up his hands. ‘Whoa, slow down. I’m not sure we should even tell her any of this.
Does a woman in her eighties really want to know her parents are not who she thought they were?
That she had a mother who travelled halfway round the world, leaving her behind, and didn’t bother to keep in touch? That wouldn’t make me feel so great.’
‘I know,’ Juliette sighed. ‘But if it was me, I think I’d want to hear the truth, no matter how painful. Look, will you at least come to meet her? We could go tomorrow morning, before the ceremony at the town hall.’
‘Why the hurry?’ Andrew asked.
‘Because she’s old. You never know what might happen.’ Juliette had another motive, but she wasn’t ready to share it with her brother – not yet.
‘But do we have time?’ he grumbled. ‘It’s going to make the morning very rushed, and anyway, I’ve promised to show Rachel the Roman remains first thing tomorrow.’
‘Please, Andrew,’ she said. ‘This is important. It’ll be worth it, I promise.’
Eventually he agreed. ‘I guess it will be good to brush up my French. But we’re not staying long, OK?’
‘I’ve been hoping you’d call,’ Madame Leclerc said, inviting them into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. ‘And how lovely to see your brother again, after all these years.’
They chatted for a while about the wedding, and the weather, and various other inconsequential things, and then Juliette said casually, ‘I’ve met someone whose grandmother lived near here during the war. Do you remember Paulette Fayol?’
‘Very well,’ the old lady said. ‘She and my mother were friends while I was growing up. I had a crush on her son, Thierry, who was impossibly good-looking. I cried when he got married and moved away.’
‘I spoke to Thierry’s daughter,’ Juliette went on. ‘In fact, she’d interviewed her grandmother about those times and recorded her memories.’ Andrew shot her a warning look, so she stopped talking.
‘I expect they were interesting,’ Madame Leclerc said calmly. ‘Paulette Fayol knew everyone’s business.’
‘So I gather,’ Juliette replied, and then paused to sip her coffee.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Madame Leclerc told her, breaking the silence. ‘I can guess what you’re about to say.’
‘I’m not so sure. It’s pretty startling.’ Juliette winced, because Andrew had kicked her under the table.
‘I’ve kept a diary most of my adult life,’ the old lady said. ‘Surprising, really, when you think how little happens to me of any interest, but I manage to write something most weeks. It’s useful to have a record of what I planted in the garden, and when.’
Andrew yawned.
‘Anyway, the other day I looked out my diary for 1978,’ she went on, ‘and found the account of your grandmother’s visit. I’d forgotten probably the most important part of the conversation we had together, she and I.’
‘Which was?’ Juliette prompted.
‘She told me such a sad story about a friend of hers, who’d had a baby during the war but had given it up for adoption because it wasn’t her husband’s, whom she’d believed was dead.
Although this woman had thought about her child constantly since then, she hadn’t been in a position to look after it.
’ Madame Leclerc gazed at them both steadily.
‘I didn’t know why she was telling me all this at the time, but now I have a shrewd idea.
That baby was me, wasn’t it? She was my birth mother. ’
‘Yes, I’m fairly sure you’re right,’ Juliette said.
‘I’ve seen a photo of my grandmother obviously pregnant in 1942, so there were two little girls living at Chateau Albertine for a while.
Paulette Fayol told her granddaughter that Odile’s baby had been killed alongside the countess in 1944. Odile was your mother’s name, right?’
‘And Irène was my older sister,’ Madame Leclerc said.
‘I still visit her grave every year on the anniversary of her death. My mother often told me it was such a blessing she had another daughter to comfort her. My first name is Esmé, meaning beloved, and she said never had anyone been more appropriately named – though I suppose she hadn’t been the one who’d chosen what to call me. ’
‘So you don’t feel abandoned?’ Andrew asked. ‘You’re not angry with our grandmother for giving you up?’
Juliette glared at him but Madame Leclerc only smiled. ‘Not at all. I’m sure she was acting in my best interests, or what she imagined those interests to be. And my mother – the woman I always considered my mother – was the most wonderful person. I loved her dearly.’
Impulsively, Juliette seized the old lady’s hand and squeezed it. Her heart was very full.
‘It does beg a question, though,’ Madame Leclerc went on. ‘What about my father?’
‘Paulette Fayol had an idea who he was,’ Juliette said.
‘A man called Yves Toussaint, a hero of the Resistance. He was half English and spent a lot of time with de Gaulle in London, apparently, before coming back to liberate France with the Allied troops. He was killed in 1944; I haven’t been able to find out exactly how. ’
‘Although of course this Fayol woman might well have got the wrong end of the stick,’ Andrew said. ‘You know what village gossips are like.’
‘Maybe we’ll never be certain.’ Madame Leclerc gazed out of the window.
‘I’ve lived as long as I can remember without a father, but the shame of what he’d done hung over our family.
My mother became something of a recluse when the truth came out; she didn’t go to church or shop in the market for years.
If it hadn’t been for Paulette Fayol, she wouldn’t have had any friends at all. ’
Andrew glanced at his watch. ‘Well, this has been a great visit but we should really get going or we’ll be late for a wedding.’
‘Your son’s getting married this morning?’ The old lady got up. ‘Of course, you must leave right away.’
‘The civil ceremony’s today,’ Juliette told her. ‘Madame Leclerc, I know this is all rather sudden, but I was wondering whether you’d agree to come to the church ceremony tomorrow? It would mean such a lot to me – to us, I mean.’
‘I’m not sure.’ Madame Leclerc sat down again abruptly. ‘Would you really want me there?’
Andrew frowned at Juliette and shook his head.
‘I understand this might be a little overwhelming,’ she pressed on, regardless, ‘but it would be so special if you could come. My children would love to meet you, and my partner Nico too. Nico’s grandfather knew your birth mother in Paris and was a little in love with her, apparently, so you have a connection with all of us.
’ She added hastily, ‘And of course, we’d send a car to pick you up and take you home. ’
‘Let me think about it,’ Madame Leclerc said. ‘Give me your telephone number and I’ll ring you in the morning to let you know.’ She smiled. ‘But after what we’ve been discussing, at the very least you should call me something less formal. How about Tante Esmé?’
Juliette threw her arms around the old lady’s neck. ‘Tante Esmé!’ she repeated, as though she’d been given the most wonderful present.