Chapter 51
Brigitte happily accepted when Evie invited her and Hervé to join Marc and Mel for aperitifs and nibbles one evening in her small apartment, as a little thank you for her friendship over the past three months. Her visa was finishing soon and she would be leaving.
‘No Rudi tonight?’ Brigitte asked, accepting a glass of red wine from Marc, who seemed to be in charge of the drinks.
‘He and his sister have flown home for their parents Ruby wedding celebrations,’ Evie said. ‘Not sure I’ll see him again before I leave.’
‘It’s been lovely meeting you,’ Brigitte said, holding her glass up in a toast. ‘Here’s to friendship and I hope you will return to Antibes and see us again.’
‘Thank you. Actually, I need to talk to you about something which, I think, is going to come as a major surprise to you,’ Evie said, looking at Brigitte nervously.
‘Sounds intriguing,’ Brigitte said, giving her an intense look.
Evie got up and fetched the Moleskine notebook from the table in the window.
‘This journal belonged to my great-grandmother, Evelyn Shoemaker, whom I called GeeGee. The one in whose footsteps I was trying to follow as I discovered Antibes for myself. She came to France as a war correspondent in January 1945, soon after the liberation of Antibes. She returned to America in late March of the same year. The journal is a personal record of her stay here.’ Evie paused and bit her lip.
‘This next bit is difficult, but I have to tell you. In this journal she details being in love – or maybe being captivated by a Frenchman describes it better – and falling pregnant. My grandmother Charlotte was born at the end of 1945 in America.’ Evie took a deep breath.
‘In her journal, GeeGee names the father as a man called Stéphane Rochefort. I believe that was your grandfather’s name? ’
Brigitte’s face went white as she nodded and stared at Evie, speechless.
Evie opened the journal at the eleventh entry. ‘In that case, I think you need to read this particular entry.’
Wordlessly, Brigitte held out her hand, took the journal and started to read, whilst the others stayed silent, occasionally sipping their wine, and waited.
Brigitte wiped a tear away as she handed the Moleskine notebook back to Evie. ‘It reads as though they were both unhappy at the way things turned out. That final paragraph where she calls out and he waves is so sad.’
Evie looked at her and nodded. ‘Definitely no happy ending for the two of them. So, Stéphane Rochefort, my great-grandfather, is also your grandfather. I guess that makes us cousins or something?’
Brigitte looked at Marc and they both nodded.
‘Will you tell me what my great-grandfather was truly like, please? You said before you spent a lot of time with him,’ Evie said.
Brigitte nodded and took a deep breath.
‘Grandfather Stéphane’s family were quite well off before the war and after.
When he and Florence, my grandmother, got married in 1943, his parents gave them the villa No.
5 as a wedding present. I spent a lot of time there as a child, and stayed there frequently, but I never lived there permanently.
’ Brigitte glanced at Marc. ‘It was, of course, Maman and Uncle Albert’s childhood home. ’
Brigitte took a sip of her wine. ‘As a child, I adored my grandfather, he was always fun to be around when I was young, but Grand-maman Flo was very strict. I don’t think their marriage was a particularly happy one, but in those days people stayed together.
And, of course, Stéphane was different with other adults and Albert, his son. ’
‘He was the reason my papa left home as soon as he could,’ Marc said. ‘They had some terrible rows, until Papa just couldn’t take any more.’
‘Stéphane died in 1977,’ Brigitte continued.
‘The villa was inherited by my maman and Uncle Albert, but Grand-maman Flo had the right to live in it till she died, so even if they had wanted to sell, which they didn’t, it couldn’t be sold until she’d passed.
Flo became a different person when she was widowed – bitter and withdrawn, but she never said what she was bitter over.
We learnt the answer to that when she died six years after Stéphane. ’
Brigitte closed her eyes briefly and shook her head as she remembered.
‘That was when all hell broke loose. What Grand-maman had never told anybody after Grandpapa died was that there were two illegitimate children who, under French law, had claims on the house. These children, that Stéphane had fathered during his marriage to Flo, still lived in the town. His legitimate and illegitimate children had grown up together – they’d even gone to the same schools.
But Stéphane had never acknowledged them.
‘Both the mothers, though, had made sure they knew that he was their father, and that French law would allow them to claim their inheritance. They’d had to wait for the six years before Grand-maman died, but eventually they forced the family to sell, and they got their revenge.
The villa was sold and the proceeds split between four not two children.
My maman has never got over losing the house in that way. ’
Evie quietly held out the butterfly-wing brooch to show Brigitte. ‘This is the rhinestone and glass brooch that belonged to his mother, which Stéphane gave to GeeGee. I think it’s part of a dress clip that when joined together would form a perfect butterfly.’
Brigitte looked at it with a rueful smile before glancing back up at Evie. ‘You are right, it is part of a dress clip. My maman has the matching half wing. But you are wrong about it being rhinestones and glass – it’s diamonds and emeralds.’
Evie gasped. ‘Really? That’s something else he lied about then.’
‘It was also a lie about the brooch belonging to his mother. It didn’t.
He bought it for my Grand-maman Florence as a wedding gift.
Apparently, she was furious when he separated it and wouldn’t tell her what he’d done with it.
She never forgave him.’ Brigitte took a sip of her wine.
‘She spent years poisoning the mind of Monique against Stéphane because of the rumours she’d heard around Antibes about him cavorting with young women.
She convinced Monique that one of the “whore mothers” – sorry, that was her word not mine – had been given it, and that she was unlikely to ever see it again.
When she died and the two illegitimate children claimed their inheritance, they were asked about the dress clip, but, under oath, they both denied all knowledge of it.
So it had simply disappeared – until now.
’ Brigitte gasped as a thought occurred to her.
‘Are you going to stake a claim now? Under French law even after all this time, I think you are perfectly entitled to.’
‘Gosh no. But this relationship was something that I felt I couldn’t keep quiet about,’ Evie said.
‘The law states that all children, legitimate and illegitimate, have to be treated equally. You have to talk to the family notaire, now you have discovered your family connection,’ Brigitte said quietly.
Evie sighed. ‘I truly do not want anything from the family. I just love the thought of having an extended family of French relatives.’
‘Oh. Mon Dieu,’ Brigitte said, rubbing both sides of her temple with her hands before turning to look at Marc.
‘Maman’s going to freak out when she hears she’s got American relatives.
We all know how she feels about Americans.
Flo quoted the wartime phrase the British coined about the Americans, “overfed, overpaid, oversexed, and over here for thirty years after the war”.
’ Brigitte gave a strangled laugh. ‘Unless – we don’t tell her?
Keep it a secret of this generation. Could we do that? ’
Both Marc and Hervé said a loud ‘Non.’ and Marc shook his head at her. ‘Not a good idea, Brigitte.’
She sighed. ‘No, I suppose not. I can only hope Uncle Albert can calm her down. Thank God I no longer live at home. So, when, where and how do I break the news to her?’
* * *
‘Did you know in advance what Evie was going to tell us this evening?’ Marc asked quietly as he walked Mel home after Evie’s news.
‘Yes,’ Mel said. ‘I did ask Evie if she wanted me to prepare you for the news before this evening, but she asked me not to. She thought, as you too are part of the family, it was best if you both heard the news at the same time.’ Mel glanced at him.
‘How do you feel about having new relatives? And Albert? Any idea how he will react?’
Marc shook his head. ‘Papa is philosophical about most things these days; he rarely reacts negatively to anything. Mention of his father, though, does provoke a few swear words, so I guess there will be some angry words, but they won’t be directed towards Evie and her family.
He will accept his new relatives quite happily. ’
‘I’m guessing that Monique will be the one to cause any problems then,’ Mel said.
‘Like Papa and I, she will have to admit Evie and her family are new relatives, but whether she will accept them as that remains to be seen.’
‘I’m wondering how Evie’s mum will feel too,’ Mel said. ‘She must be about Brigitte’s age. I know she did say that it was all in the past and best left there. Which is something I know Evie doesn’t want to do.’
‘If she’s as likeable as Evie, Brigitte will want to be friends with our new cousin. On the other hand,’ Marc shrugged, ‘maybe it would be best left in the past.’