Chapter 32
Things were a little strained the morning after our night at Le Provencal.
I had no choice but to put my evening clothes back on after a shallow bath in the once opulent bathroom, now sadly in need of refurbishment.
Stéphane seemed to be in a hurry for us to depart and not at all concerned about having breakfast.
As I followed him down the marble staircase to the foyer, I could feel a change in the atmosphere from the bonhomie of last evening.
I sensed unseen eyes watching me from hidden corners.
The receptionist behind the desk bade Stéphane a clipped, ‘Bonjour’, but ignored me completely.
Stéphane gave him a curt nod before ushering me outside to a waiting taxi.
The journey back to the pensione was quiet until I broke the silence. ‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ I said, because the evening itself had been lovely. It was only this morning it seemed to have gone pear-shaped.
Stéphane gave me an unfathomable look, before speaking.
‘I have to go to away now for several days, maybe longer, and yes,’ he held up his hand to stop me asking questions, ‘I am going to Paris again, and no, you can’t come. I’ll see you when I get back.’
Not a word agreeing how lovely the evening had been, simply cold words telling me he was disappearing again.
Feeling hurt, I sank back against the taxi seat and waited for the short journey to end.
I’d been hoping to slip into the pensione unnoticed, but I was out of luck.
Both Madame Dupont and Odette witnessed my arrival.
Madame Dupont gave me a thunderous look before turning her back on me, whilst Odette gave a slight shake of her head as she looked at me sadly.
‘Too late for la petite dejeuner, I guess?’ I asked, and carried on walking upstairs to my room.
* * *
Six days later and Madame Dupont continues to give me the evil eye, so I try to stay away from the pensione as much as I can during the day, only returning for dinner in the evening.
Odette barely smiles at me these days, she clearly agrees with her mother that I’m persona non grata.
There have been a few new guests, but nobody very sociable of an evening – I wish the Coopers would return, but I guess they are back home by now.
So I’ve been entertaining myself exploring different parts of Antibes, walking in the woods at Cap d’Antibes and one day Annie and I caught the train to Cannes and had afternoon tea. Which was surprisingly good.
Annie had offered to help me translate some of the newspaper articles I’ve found about Isabel Pell, so I took them with me.
Unbelievable the things she did for the resistance.
What a fascinating woman. And I also got the idea for a short feature to write up about nursing during the war.
I’m planning to write and send that tomorrow, after which I will write a feature about Isabel – something I’m sure Max will love.
Learning about Isabel Pell has made me so proud of being American.
Born in 1900 to wealthy parents, Isabel seems to have been something of a rebel all her life.
Certainly a bit of a daredevil with her love of fast cars and fast horses, she lived a Bohemian life, rejecting her parents’ socially connected life, preferring to mix with artists, writers and other creatives.
Rumour has it that her family paid her to stay in France rather than return to America where she would no doubt embarrass them.
When World War Two broke out, she was living on a farm in Grasse, not a million miles from here, with her long-time lover Claire de Forbin, and she promptly joined the French Resistance, calling herself Fredericka, and working with the Maquis networks in the mountains behind the Riviera.
One of the newspapers Annie helped translate for me mentioned Puguet-Théniers – a mountain village an hour inland from Nice.
Isabel and Claire were arrested by the Italians in 1943 and detained there for some months.
Unbelievably, she still managed to do undercover work for the resistance and once released she again became active with the Maquis.
I wonder if her family were embarrassed by the Légion d’honneur she was awarded by the French government in November 1944 for her service after the Liberation.
And apparently there is a square in Puguet-Théniers simply named Isabel Pell.
As well as the feature I’m planning to write, I’m beginning to think seriously about basing my novel on the story of Isabel Pell – a real-life heroine.
* * *
Evie sighed as she closed the journal. Had GeeGee experienced the 1940s equivalent of the modern-day phrase of the ‘walk of shame’? The beginning of this entry certainly read like that.
And Isabel Pell sounded an interesting woman. Eighty years on from the war, there was sure to be more information on the internet. GeeGee had never written that novel, maybe Evie could use the idea for her own novel and dedicate the book to the memory of both women. Definitely worth thinking about.