Although it was very early, all three children and Alexandra got up to see Antoine off. Antoine had remembered it was Stéphie’s real birthday and gave her a very grown-up box of chocolates – the kind of box you would want to keep long after the chocolates were eaten – and Stéphie was pleased.
It was heartbreaking but all the children were brave and no one cried, although Alexandra, who almost felt she shouldn’t be there, felt tearful. The kittens and Milou did their best to help. Milou was serious, obviously understanding his beloved master was going away, and the kittens thought everyone had got up early to entertain them.
‘Happy Birthday, Stéphie!’ said Alexandra, the moment they had all come back into the chateau after seeing Antoine shoot off down the drive. ‘Let’s go and have a birthday breakfast. What about pancakes and chocolate spread?’
Although six o’clock in the morning was early for so much chocolate, it did help. But as she turned pancake after pancake on to a plate on the table whence they disappeared with terrifying speed, Alexandra decided the partings had to stop. It was just so sad saying goodbye.
When David appeared later it was to find them all smeared with chocolate, feeling faintly sick.
‘Happy birthday, Stéphie!’ he said. ‘And good morning, everyone else. Pancakes for breakfast? Excellent choice. Later, if you’re feeling up to it – maybe after a bit of a nap’ – he nodded to Stéphie who was yawning – ‘Jack and I thought you might like to see your proper present from us? But I warn you, it’s a bit like this chateau …’
‘How can it be?’ asked Henri.
‘It’s beautiful, but needs a bit of restoration in places,’ David went on. ‘Look, the kittens have gone back to bed.’ He gestured to where Milou was lying on his rug and the kittens were lying on him. One was in his groin, presumably because it was warm where he had less fur, and the other was on his neck. They all looked perfectly happy with the situation.
As he and Alexandra cleared up, the children having gone off, either to sleep or to read, he said, ‘It’s quite worrying to think that all the dog needs to do is turn his head and snap, and both those kittens would be gone. He reminds me of Antoine, rather.’
Alexandra wiped her sticky hands. ‘Milou does?’
David nodded. ‘He has a lot of power but chooses not to use it.’
A week later, Alexandra set off on her own into town. At home, the children were helping David and Jack renovate the doll’s house. Henri was learning maths doing the measurements, Stéphie’s nimble fingers were proving very adept at woodwork, making very tidy dovetail joints to create an orangerie, like the one in the chateau grounds. Félicité was painting a tiny piece of wallpaper with birds and exotic flowers which was destined for the salon in the doll’s house.
‘Who’d have thought a doll’s house could be so educational,’ said Alexandra as she said goodbye.
‘The University of Life,’ said Jack. ‘It will teach us everything if we only open our minds.’ He bowed, to indicate he knew he was sounding pompous and didn’t expect to be taken seriously. ‘Talking of which, I’ve heard of a group of young musicians that Henri could join. It would be good for his music and his social life. Do you think Antoine would approve?’
‘I’m sure he would. You could take him? Bring him back?’
‘Of course,’ said Jack with a smile.
When Alexandra went upstairs a few minutes later she felt that it wasn’t only Henri who would benefit from the sessions with other young musicians; Jack could use the hour or so while Henri was with the group to visit Penelope.
Alexandra had with her a very large parcel that was mostly layers of newspaper, wrapped round a box, in which the now mended soup cup nestled. David had packed it for her with all an antique dealer’s care. The papers that had been sent from Switzerland and were going to be discussed with Maxime were in an envelope, thrust into the old post bag that was Alexandra’s handbag.
Alexandra was looking forward to having some time on her own. Growing up, she had been very used to her own company and although subsequently she’d become accustomed to sharing her house, she found her present situation took up almost all her time and she missed solitude. And while she loved her charges and found looking after them very satisfying, sometimes it was nice only to have to think about what she wanted to do, rather than worry about the needs and wants of three children and a dog. (The kittens looked after themselves.)
Visiting Maxime was first on her list.
He had welcomed her with the friendly charm that always managed to make Alexandra feel better, and now she was sitting on the comfortable sofa and chairs he had in one area of his office. He had offered coffee and wine, and she accepted a glass of water.
‘So how can I help?’ he asked with his usual attractive smile.
Alexandra smiled back, wondering why she didn’t fancy Maxime. He was so much more suitable as a love object than the man who occupied almost all her thoughts.
She handed Maxime the envelope that was showing signs of having been stuffed in a bag a little bit too small. ‘Can you interpret this for me? I asked Hubert to send me something in writing about my possible inheritance. I’ve always known I wouldn’t inherit anything until I was twenty-five so I’ve never thought about it much – it so far away from being mine. But the other day, when my relations visited—’
‘The formidable cousins, the less formidable Hubert, and the very beautiful car …’
‘You were there! Well, I overheard my female cousins talking about my fortune.’ She smiled at his slightly shocked expression. ‘Being brought up from a distance, as I was, I learnt to survive by stealth. I’m afraid listening at doors was sometimes necessary. Anyway! I overheard them saying that I’d come into my fortune before I was twenty-five if I got married. Which was a bit of a shock, I must admit. I felt I really should understand my inheritance properly and asked Hubert to send me details. He has, very kindly, but I’m not much better off as I can’t understand what he’s sent me. Could you look over it for me and check there’s nothing else there I should know about? I speak French better than I can read or write it and these documents are full of words I don’t understand.’
‘Ah!’ Maxime said, raising his hands in a way that told her there was no shame in not understanding. ‘It is another language, even for a Frenchman. We learn it when we are studying to become lawyers. Would you mind if I looked now? Or would you prefer to go away and I’ll tell you what I think another time? Perhaps look at the magazines we have provided for clients? Not that you need magazines to look chic. You are always so elegant.’
Alexandra found this genuinely amusing, thinking about the dresses and boiler suits she’d bought from the market. ‘I’ll happily sit here and read. It will be good for my French.’
A little while later Maxime put down the papers. ‘There is nothing concerning in here. It says that if you were to marry, your fortune – quite a lot of money, Alexandra – now I understand the beautiful car! – will come to you. Otherwise, you have to wait until you are twenty-five. So nothing that you don’t know already.’
‘I suppose my cousins felt that if I knew I’d come into my fortune when I married, I might be tempted to accept the first boy who asked for my hand, just to get my hands on the loot, as we might say in England.’
‘Have many boys asked you?’
‘A few, but none of them were serious.’
‘So what if Antoine were to ask you …?’
‘He won’t!’ said Alexandra – too sharply, she realised afterwards. She laughed to soften her reaction. ‘Why should he? I am the nanny for the children!’
‘I hate to be the one to tell you this, Alexandra, but in France it is not unusual for the master of the house to—’
She broke in quickly. ‘Antoine is different. I am different! He would never …’ She swallowed as she realised just how true her words were. ‘He would never take advantage of me.’ While that was true, she also knew he wouldn’t be tempted. She was too young. He thought of her almost as one of the children, she was convinced. ‘Anyway,’ she said, smiling, ‘I won’t get my inheritance if I just have an affaire, will I?’
‘You are right when you say that Antoine is not like that. He wouldn’t do anything dishonourable, but he might well want to marry you. You are beautiful, his children adore you as you adore them, you would make the perfect chatelaine for the chateau.’
‘Maxime! Only in romantic novels does the hero marry the governess, or the nanny, or the serving wench. Not in real life!’
Maxime was not convinced. ‘You are not the same as other nannies. Your presence at the chateau alarms Lucinda and Véronique.’
Alexandra shrugged. ‘I am only temporary, until someone better can be found.’
‘Has Antoine been looking? I feel he would have asked me for help if so. He hasn’t asked me to help him with advertising for the post either, or with looking at candidates sent to him by an agency. I think he is very happy with you.’
Alexandra felt herself blush. It wasn’t something she was prone to, but she was suddenly certain that Maxime had guessed about her crush on Antoine. She straightened her back. Even if he did suspect, he couldn’t know for certain. ‘I certainly love the children and I think Antoine appreciates that.’ She paused. ‘Should I leave those documents with you, do you think? For you to study? Or do we know all we need to know?’
‘I think we know all we need to know for the present, Alexandra. If you consider getting married to anyone other than me, come back and we can discuss things some more.’
She smiled and got up. ‘I most certainly will.’ She put the papers he handed to her back into the post bag. ‘Now I am going to have lunch with Penelope. I do hope Lucinda isn’t there!’
Penelope was on her own and was very welcoming. Alexandra was ushered into the salon and given a glass of wine. When they’d made toasts and tasted the wine, she produced her wrapped parcel.
‘Here it is. I hope it’s all right. David wrapped it for me. He didn’t trust me to do it.’
‘This is very exciting. That little cup has been missing a handle for so long.’
They admired the shell-like bowl of deep blue with gold decoration. It was extremely pretty and when it was put back in the cabinet with its fellows, no one would have known it had been repaired.
Later, when Penelope had both thanked and congratulated Alexandra on the skill of her repair, they sat at a little table in the window of the dining room for lunch. Penelope had prepared an elegant lunch for them. She brought in plates with salad, hard-boiled eggs, ham and olives while Alexandra looked about her. Most of the room was used for playing and listening to music.
After a moment, Penelope said, ‘I expect you feel a bit lonely, sometimes.’
Alexandra appreciated this disregard for conventional conversation although it was rather unexpected. Penelope had a reputation in the family for formality, but she seemed to have softened lately. She looked younger, as if a light had gone on inside her.
‘David and I are very old friends and he’s great company but I do miss my female friends sometimes. We were all on a cookery course together and they shared my house in London.’
‘Why don’t you ring them? Would that be possible? A long chat on the telephone can be very restorative.’ She handed Alexandra an antique sauce boat with mayonnaise in it. ‘For the eggs,’ she said and then looked at Alexandra, waiting for an answer.
‘I hadn’t thought of it, to be honest. And of course I wouldn’t want to run up Antoine’s phone bill.’
‘I would consider the occasional call home to England one of the perks of the job.’ Penelope smiled. ‘Sometimes English slang comes back to me. I am sure Antoine wouldn’t begrudge you a phone call.’
‘And I could always make a note and pay him for it.’
Penelope laughed. ‘If you insist, but I doubt he’d want recompensing. How are the children’s lessons going?’
‘Well! I really admire the way David and Jack manage to turn everything into a lesson. They’re helping with the renovation of Stéphie’s doll’s house and it’s amazing how much maths is required.’
‘This is how the school Antoine wants to send them to works, I gather. Lucinda is very opposed to it. She wants them to go to school in England, make influential friends and possibly be very unhappy. They’ve had such an unconventional beginning; I don’t really think that’s the answer.’
‘I went to boarding school having had a very different upbringing from my classmates. Once I stopped trying to fit in and was just myself it was fine, but it took a certain amount of nerve.’ Alexandra felt a bit awkward talking about schools with Penelope as she didn’t really think it was her place. She changed the subject. ‘This is delicious mayonnaise. Mme Wilson, who taught me and my friends cooking in London, would be very impressed.’
Penelope was not to be diverted. ‘I don’t like to think of my grandchildren being so far away, in England, in places where they may not understand them. And Stéphie is far too young to be sent away.’
‘Would you never go back to England to live yourself?’
Penelope’s shrug made her look very French. ‘Well, possibly. I would prefer not, really. I have my friends here, my house. I am accustomed to the way of life now.’ She paused and Alexandra thought she looked a bit embarrassed. ‘What about your friends? Would they consider staying in France?’
‘I can’t answer for Jack, I don’t know him very well, but David might easily. He could travel to and from England to do his antiques stall and I know he’d like to specialise in French antiques. I’ll miss him when I go back to England myself.’
‘You’d go back to England? Why would you do that?’ Penelope obviously felt this was a very eccentric idea.
‘I’m English! I live in London! I’m only here temporarily.’
Penelope leant forward and put her hand on Alexandra’s. ‘It’s up to you. When you find the one you love, do not run away because you fear they may not love you. Don’t make the mistakes I made.’
But it wasn’t the same for her, Alexandra thought. She might be in love with Antoine but he wasn’t in love with her, and although she could hang around for months and months if she really wanted to, it wouldn’t necessarily change anything.
Penelope seemed lost in her own thoughts and Alexandra didn’t like to interrupt them. Eventually Penelope said, ‘It’s a funny thing but it seems to me that one gives advice to others that really you should be taking for yourself.’ She sighed and smiled and then changed the subject. ‘We have a couple of meringues for dessert. Having Lucinda here, who disapproves of anything she considers fattening, has made me want to eat sweet things even more.’
‘She does have a lovely figure,’ said Alexandra.
‘So have you, but you don’t wear a girdle or refuse to eat anything sweet. I’ll make some tea. No one here appreciates tea. It’s pleasant to share it with someone who does.’
As she was crossing the town square on the way to the chemist, Alexandra considered Penelope’s words to her, repeated as she was leaving the house. Summed up, they were: don’t turn your back on love; talking things over with an old friend is helpful; and, finally, don’t be afraid to use the telephone, even for a call to England.
The doll’s house seemed to be the focus of everyone’s attention when she got back, and because of this, Alexandra was able to find some time to telephone her friend Lizzie. She really hoped that her friend would be able to have a chat.
Apparently she’d picked the perfect moment. Lizzie, being seven months pregnant, was perfectly willing to abandon her housework to talk to her friend. Alexandra made herself comfortable at the desk in Antoine’s study and opened her heart.
When she finally went to the kitchen to make dinner she found Stéphie already there. Alexandra had left the study door open but she hadn’t heard her pass. Still, she seemed happy enough, although she gave Alexandra a slightly strange look.
‘I’m missing Papa,’ said Stéphie a bit later as they ate the chicken casserole Alexandra and David had created. ‘I want him to come home!’
‘He’s coming home for Christmas,’ said Félicité.
‘I want him home now!’ said Stéphie.
‘Oh, Stéphie!’ said Henri. ‘We can’t make him come home now. He’s working! You know how it is.’
‘Christmas is nearly here,’ said Alexandra. ‘We should start getting ready. We’ve only got two weeks.’
‘We don’t really get ready,’ said Félicité. ‘We go to Grand-mère’s on Christmas Eve. Her friends come too. It’s quite boring. Then on Christmas Day we write thank-you letters for our presents. Twelfth Night is better.’
‘Do we have to go to your grandmother’s?’ said David. ‘Why don’t we have Christmas here in the chateau instead?’
‘We’ve never done that,’ said Henri.
‘But it doesn’t mean it’s not possible,’ said Jack.
‘We could have an English Christmas!’ said Alexandra. ‘Tell us what you usually do. Then we’ll say what we do, and then we can do the bits that we like from both! How about that?’
‘Planning it is the best part, I think,’ said David. ‘All the food, making the puddings, the mince pies, the Christmas cake.’
‘I don’t think we have any of those things usually,’ said Henri.
‘Will you be here for Christmas, David?’ asked Alexandra, suddenly aware that David and Jack would be perfectly entitled to time off for the festive period.
‘Darling,’ said David, rolling his eyes in horror. ‘I told you last year how utterly ghastly my Christmases often were.’
‘What’s “utterly ghastly”?’ asked Stéphie, diverted, as David had intended she should be.
‘Christmas for me if I can’t spend it with you lot, that’s what!’
‘Do tell us,’ said Alexandra, who knew he’d make the children laugh and so cheer everyone up.
‘I have to go and stay with my two maiden – that means they’re not married – aunts who live in a very dreary suburb in the outskirts of London. It’s not proper London, with bright lights and festivity, and it’s not the country, either, with pubs and carol singers. It’s in between.’
‘And what are your aunts like?’
‘Well, they don’t hold with alcohol as a rule,’ said David, ‘but as it’s Christmas we’re allowed a very small glass of sweet sherry each. They’ve been using the same bottle for years. When we’ve drunk our sherry, we have lunch. Everything has been cooking for a very long time which means we don’t have to actually chew. We have boiled potatoes instead of roast ones because they’re more digestible and we have lumpy Bird’s custard with the pudding. Bird’s custard is made with a packet, Stéphie, and should never be confused with proper custard. Then after lunch we listen to the Queen’s Speech on the wireless. And then we open our presents, which doesn’t take long. They give me socks, I give them handkerchiefs and a box of New Berry Fruits, which is what they like best. Then I go home and find an old friend to get drunk with.’
‘Our Christmas won’t be a bit like that!’ said Alexandra. ‘Jack? Will you stay for Christmas?’
‘Certainly will!’ said Jack, enthusiastically. ‘I usually go to my brother and his wife – they’re a lot younger than me and have children which makes it much more fun than David’s Christmas. But this year, I want to spend it with you.’
And your lady-love, added Alexandra silently.
‘We’ll have a brilliant time,’ Alexandra said. ‘We’ll do everything we like best and miss out the New Berry Fruits which are, I have to tell you, absolutely disgusting. We’ll have chocolate truffles. We can make them ourselves. And, Stéphie, by the time we’ve organised everything, your Papa will be home!’
