Alexandra had time to inspect her relations as they disembarked from the vintage Rolls-Royce that had transported them for fifteen years or so. Her cousin Hubert was at the wheel. He was in his early thirties, slightly bald, with sloping shoulders and a weak chin. He was, Alexandra knew, the one everyone wanted her to marry. No one wanted her fortune to go out of the family.
His passengers were older, early sixties but full of energy. Cousin Clothilde and Cousin Aimée, elegantly dressed, wearing hats, emerged, looking around them with evident approval.
‘Alexandra!’ said Aimée, seeing her there on the doorstep. ‘How very – rural you look.’
Alexandra stepped forward and kissed her cheek. ‘Cousin Aimée. Did you tell me you were coming?’
‘No,’ said Clothilde crisply, ‘we thought it would be fun to surprise you.’
Alexandra’s mind flew back to that night in London, only a couple of months ago, when Clothilde and Aimée, accompanied by one of the older, male relations, had ‘surprised’ her when they descended on the family home in London where Alexandra was living. It had not been fun for anyone.
Antoine arrived at her side, making Alexandra suddenly feel supported and yet anxious. It was his house; all she had to do now was to explain why a Rolls full of her relations had just turned up on his doorstep. She swallowed. It was not going to be easy.
‘Antoine, may I introduce you—’ Then she remembered you were supposed to introduce the man to the woman first. ‘Clothilde, may I introduce you to the Comte de Belleville?’
She saw her cousin’s naturally haughty expression soften as she heard the word ‘Comte’ and the rest of the introductions went well.
Antoine was supremely gracious about this sudden invasion. ‘Please do come in. Would you like to refresh yourselves …?’ He turned to Alexandra.
‘Do follow me,’ she said, ‘I’ll show you to the … ladies’ room.’ She didn’t quite know how to describe the room to which she was leading them. ‘Downstairs loo’ didn’t really cover it. It had probably been built for some other purpose. It was fairly large, had a small sofa in it, and Stéphie had filled it with flowers and bunches of dried lavender. Alexandra was grateful that they’d been expecting Grand-mère for lunch. Because of her, there were beautifully embroidered antique linen hand towels and eau de cologne on the dressing table.
While her cousins were making themselves comfortable, Alexandra looked in the mirror in the hall, aware that ‘rural’ probably meant ‘peasant-like’. She was wearing her favourite dress from the market and had tied her hair back using the belt of the dress as an Alice band; she had espadrilles on her feet. With no make-up, she looked about twelve. She hadn’t been dressing for her starchy relations that morning – she’d been dressing for Lucinda, who, she realised, was the sort of woman who would be jealous of any other woman just because she was female. Thus, Alexandra had tried to look as young and nanny-like as possible. David had said she’d pulled it off perfectly. She could hardly run upstairs and put on her kitten heels now!
‘I think Antoine has taken Hubert outside to join the party,’ Alexandra said when her cousins emerged. ‘We’ll join them.’
Don’t give them a choice of where to go, she thought; just put them where you want them.
‘You call your employer by his Christian name?’ asked Aimée. ‘Is that usual?’
‘I’ve never thought about it.’ Alexandra refused to sound apologetic, although now it was pointed out to her, it probably was a bit odd. ‘He asked me to.’
‘Very well. Let us meet the family. I must say, Alexandra, it was something of a relief to us to see you were employed by the aristocracy. I do hope your French is improving because of it.’
‘Monsieur,’ said Clothilde, when her party had consumed some bread, cheese and apple crumble, served to them by David, who was fascinated to see the relations Alexandra had talked to him about so often, but whom he had never met. ‘I think we should talk. We need to discuss how long Alexandra will be here.’
‘We should,’ agreed Antoine. ‘Would you like to come with me? Do, please, bring your wine,’ he said to Hubert.
‘I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind,’ said Hubert.
Although she had not been invited, Alexandra went too. She felt she needed to be there, although she didn’t blame Hubert from wanting a short break from his tiring female relatives.
They went to the salon, which suddenly, Alexandra noticed, looked faded and in elegant disrepair. There was a long streak of damp next to the window, partly obscured by curtains which had obviously been there a very long time.
‘Monsieur,’ said Clothilde again as soon as everyone was seated. ‘How long do you need Alexandra?’
Alexandra coughed loudly. She wasn’t a piece of furniture being lent out. ‘I want to stay until the children are – settled.’
Clothilde gave the sort of patronising, don’t-speak-when-your-elders-are-talking smile at which she was so expert. ‘I should imagine the Count will want to find a nanny who is properly qualified and maybe not quite so young.’
‘Alexandra has been doing an excellent job with them so far,’ said Antoine. ‘The children are very fond of her, and my eldest daughter, who is fifteen and so at a difficult age, will take a long time to settle with someone new.’
Clothilde seemed surprised that Alexandra, who had always been a bit of a problem to her family, seemed to be so valued. ‘How very gratifying. As you will know, we have had to bring Alexandra up from a distance. It has not been easy.’
Alexandra studied the patch of damp, wondering for about the millionth time why the family hadn’t just scooped her up and taken her to live with one of them the moment she was orphaned. Donna had asked this question in Paris and Alexandra had brushed it off. But it was something she had thought about often, on and off, over the years, and had come to the conclusion that none of her relations really liked children and therefore wouldn’t put themselves out for a baby. She felt she’d had a lucky escape; she might have ended up just like them.
Antoine smiled. ‘So, it won’t inconvenience you if she stayed with us here until the spring?’ He smiled. ‘After all, you can have no need of a nanny.’ His expression indicated he had made a joke and intended people to laugh, but underneath he was serious.
Alexandra caught her breath. She had no idea that Antoine might need her that long and her heart leaped at the thought.
‘Until the spring?’ It was Cousin Aimée who answered. ‘I suppose we could enrol her into the finishing school near us for the summer semester afterwards. I can see that being with you has improved her French.’ She leant forward. ‘You will understand that we only want the very best for Alexandra, and that school is the best in Switzerland, and is guaranteed to give her all the … sophistication she currently lacks.’
Alexandra noted that her heel was bouncing up and down in frustration and got up. ‘Well, I’m so glad that’s all settled. Now, Cousin Clothilde, Cousin Aimée, I think we should let the Count get back to his guests. Would you like to see the garden?’
As Antoine also got up the moment she did, the cousins did too. ‘Oh no,’ said Cousin Aimée, ‘it’s kind but we must get on. We only called in here to reassure ourselves you were happily settled. We’re going to Aix. Maybe you could tell Hubert the route, Alexandra? Could you go and fetch him? Tell him we’d like to leave.’
Alexandra didn’t protest but she knew she’d been sent away so they could talk about her and she was determined to make sure she knew what they said.
Alexandra was surprised to find Stéphie waiting outside the door of the salon and then realised that Félicité and Henri had probably been taken over by their mother and she had been left out. She put her finger to her lips. ‘I want to listen for a moment or two.’
Together they leant near the door so they could hear better.
‘Monsieur,’ said Aimée to Antoine; she had a very carrying voice. ‘I think it’s only fair to tell you that Alexandra doesn’t come into her fortune until she is twenty-five.’
Stéphie and Alexandra looked at each other in amazement. Then there was a sharp exclamation and the sound of furniture being scraped across the floor. ‘Alexandra’s fortune is of no interest to me,’ said Antoine at his most aristocratic.
Alexandra’s mouth went dry and she gripped Stéphie’s hand. ‘Quickly, darling, run and tell Hubert the others want to go. I must stay here!’
‘All right, but promise you’ll tell me everything later!’ Stéphie whispered back.
‘Of course!’ said Alexandra. ‘Now run!’
She watched as her ally fled, obviously excited to be part of a conspiracy. Alexandra strained to hear more of what was going on but they’d obviously moved across the room to where the windows gave on to the view of the distant mountains; she couldn’t hear a word, only a distant mumbling.
She stepped back as Aimée and Antoine came out of the salon. They were obviously surprised to see her.
‘Oh! You’re there!’ said Aimée.
‘I’m going to make sure Hubert knows where he is going,’ said Antoine, and passed through into the hall.
Aimée stood at the door of the salon and regarded Alexandra in confusion. ‘Erm – I wonder if you could bring us some tea?’ she said. ‘Clothilde has a little cough and I think a hot drink would be soothing.’ She didn’t move, obviously waiting for Alexandra to go.
There was to be further private discussion about her situation, Alexandra realised. They’d got Antoine to leave the room and now Aimée was getting rid of her.
She went off down the corridor and then nipped back the moment she heard Aimée close the door. She would ignore the request for tea. Clothilde didn’t know she’d wanted it, anyway. Alexandra knelt and put her ear to the keyhole. Luckily she could now hear them fairly clearly.
Aimée was sounding apologetic. ‘Did I make a dreadful mistake telling him that about her fortune? He obviously didn’t know anything about it. I should have kept quiet.’
A chair scraped. ‘We don’t know Alexandra’s attitude to her fortune. Maybe she tells everyone she meets. You couldn’t have known that she hadn’t.’ Clothilde was reassuring. ‘And you didn’t say she’d also come into it when she got married.’
Aimée gave a little laugh. ‘Not even I am as foolish as that. Wretched Hubert! Why won’t he make a play for her? We know how wayward she is but she’s a very lovely girl. If he doesn’t marry her before she’s twenty-five someone else might. I can’t abide the thought of all that money going out of the family! It doesn’t bear thinking of.’
It occurred to Alexandra that obviously Aimée thought about it quite a lot.
Aimée was still speaking. ‘I must say, being a nanny seems to be bringing the best out in her. It’s making her a better marriage prospect than she already is!’
‘Don’t worry too much. I don’t think Alexandra has any idea she’ll get her inheritance on her marriage, even if it happens before she’s twenty-five.’
‘Doesn’t she? Oh, no harm done then. But I’ll talk to Hubert about it. He doesn’t seem interested in any other girl at the moment, does he?’
Alexandra was aware that she was shaking. She went down the corridor to give herself a couple of minutes to recover from what she’d overheard. It was outrageous that she hadn’t been told she’d get it if she married. As for marrying Hubert, she’d infinitely prefer to stay single!
The car, a very well-maintained Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith dating from the 1940s, caused quite a delay to the departure of the party from Switzerland. Maxime, David and Antoine all wanted to inspect this beautiful machine. Hubert was delighted to talk about his precious car for a while: normally people didn’t pay much attention to him. Only Jack and Penelope were missing. Apparently they had gone back to the music room.
Then Lucinda appeared wanting something and Maxime and David rushed to do her bidding. So it was just Antoine, Alexandra and Stéphie who were still there at the end, to check for the nineteenth time they didn’t need anything (this was Alexandra, not wanting them to return precipitately) and close the doors. Hubert started the engine, which purred expensively, and then Clothilde, who was sitting in the front, put her hand on Hubert’s, stopping the process.
‘Goodbye, Monsieur,’ she said loudly, as if the engine made any real noise. ‘I should just make sure you know, Alexandra is very precious to us.’
‘I am a father myself,’ said Antoine, very haughty. ‘I understand perfectly.’
Antoine didn’t move until the car had reached the gates at the end of the drive. ‘Stéphie?’ he said. ‘Go and find Félicité. Alexandra, we need to talk.’
‘Do we really?’ said Alexandra quickly, watching Stéphie run off with dismay. ‘You know all you need to know, and there are guests. Lucinda is already annoyed at being abandoned. You should really get back to the party. I’ll make some coffee—’
‘It won’t take long,’ he said.
Alexandra’s mouth went dry as she followed him into the house and back to the salon. Why did she feel that nothing was going to be the same after this? Would her being an heiress make him treat her differently? Surely not! And what about her not being twenty-five yet? He still didn’t know how old she was. She could be twenty-three. A couple of years added on wasn’t a major deception and everyone knew it was allowable to lie a little on a curriculum vitae. He’d said himself how well she was doing at the job. She decided to take control of the situation. She wouldn’t say anything about the fortune and hope that somehow he’d forget it.
But the moment they were in the salon with the door closed, she found her heart was pounding and she could hardly breathe, let alone think of something to say to get her out of trouble.
Antoine didn’t speak for what felt like hours. ‘I think you’ve misled me, Alexandra.’
She shook her head.
‘You’re not what you appeared to be,’ he said. ‘I might have to let you go.’
She swallowed and coughed and cleared her throat and eventually found her voice. This was desperately unfair. She was going to fight to keep the job she loved. ‘What do I appear to be?’
This wasn’t quite what he was expecting, she realised.
‘I thought you were a very efficient young woman from a good family who knew how to handle troubled adolescents and children.’
‘I am!’ she said, her equilibrium beginning to restore itself. ‘And I don’t remember those requirements being part of the form I filled in.’
‘True,’ he said. ‘But there was a space on the form for your age and it seems you did not fill in that part correctly.’
She put her chin up. ‘I’m sorry I lied about my age on the form but I thought that woman – the one who interviewed me – wouldn’t give me the job if I … was a bit younger. And I really wanted the job! I thought it was in Paris,’ she added, without intending to.
‘Why didn’t you walk out when you discovered it wasn’t in Paris?’ he asked.
She couldn’t tell him it was because of him. She shrugged extravagantly. ‘You’ve met my family. I wasn’t in a hurry to go to Switzerland to be “finished”.’
‘You thought rural Provence would be more fun?’
She laughed. ‘Yes, I did. And it is!’
‘How old are you really, Alexandra?’ Antoine asked, frowning. And before she could work out what age she could get away with he added, ‘The truth, if you please.’
‘I’m twenty.’
There was a brief, colloquial exclamation from under his breath. ‘Had I known—’
‘To be fair to you,’ Alexandra interrupted quickly, ‘you thought there was a housekeeper here when you employed me. Twenty is not too young to be a nanny. You only required me to cook, drive and speak English. I can do those things. I have managed everything and without the housekeeper. I had no help when I first came; it was only the children and me.’
Antoine didn’t speak for a while and then shrugged. ‘I thought I was leaving my children in the care of a responsible adult.’
‘You did. I am responsible – I have proved myself to be so; and I am an adult – old enough to get married, anyway.’ She really wished she hadn’t said this; she wouldn’t have done if she could have thought of anything else she was old enough to do.
‘None of that makes you any older,’ Antoine pointed out, still frowning.
‘Surely you should judge me on my actions and not my age?’ Alexandra wasn’t given to feeling sorry for herself but she felt again that she was being treated very unfairly. ‘When I came the children hadn’t eaten, the chateau was freezing, and there was only a bit of stale bread and old cheese to feed them on. There was no housekeeper, no help in the house and no money to feed the children with. I had to buy food at the market with my own money. But I managed.’ She was horrified to hear a break in her voice. I must be tired, she thought. It’s been a long difficult day.
He didn’t respond immediately, but when he did, his manner had softened. ‘I am so sorry, Alexandra. You should have never been put in such a position. You have managed brilliantly. Supposing I had taken on a woman in her thirties, say, who didn’t have your resourcefulness and courage? They could not have managed anything like as well.’ He paused. ‘I just wasn’t expecting you to be an heiress.’
Alexandra took some calming breaths. She’d always taken her potential fortune for granted and felt it was so far out of reach it wasn’t worth thinking about. Although this afternoon had altered that. Her money could be much nearer to her than she had thought. ‘Does it change anything?’
Antoine looked down at something on the floor for a long time. ‘No. It changes nothing. Which is just as well. And I have forgiven you for the exaggeration of your age so I won’t deprive my children of their beloved and responsible companion.’
Alexandra had to sit down. She felt weak with relief.
‘Which is just as well as I will have to go away again fairly soon.’
The bubble of joy that had risen in her for a second burst. ‘Oh.’
‘I came back before my work was finished because Maxime told me how things were here, and how Lucinda was talking about taking the older children away. When I have things sorted out, I’ll have to go back to Paris.’
‘Do you always have to work away from home?’ She wouldn’t usually have the courage to ask this although she’d thought about it for a while.
‘Yes. Unless or until I find a way of earning enough to keep the chateau and the farm going without regular injections of cash.’ He gave her a paternal no-need-for-you-to-worry-about-it smile. ‘Now we should go back to the party, and see how our guests are getting on.’
As they walked back to the terrace together, Alexandra gave a silent sigh of relief. Her fortune hadn’t lost her her job, and her relations had given her permission to stay here until the spring. The thought made her heart lift.
