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PROVENCE, 1926
The cream Rolls-Royce sped through the Provençal countryside towards an old farmhouse in the distance, bordered by vineyards on one side and tall cypress trees on the other. The light that filtered through the car window was lemon bright as it reached the young girl who sat mute at the back, face turned away from the view, golden hair a mess of knots, like a weaver’s nest.
The driver glanced back at her with a look of concern, as he had every half hour or so.
She couldn’t be that much older than his own daughter, around nine or ten, he thought, wondering what she was thinking, as he’d wondered for most of their long journey. She hadn’t said a word.
Not even when he’d arrived – a complete stranger – to fetch and take her to a new home after the death of her mother.
Mute, apparently.
A neighbour who’d looked after her until arrangements could be made had explained, after he’d turned up at her door in Montmartre, the fashionable area of Paris that reminded him of a village, with beautiful buildings, cobbled streets, bistros and a basilica. A world away from his home in Hertfordshire. He’d knocked on the apartment door in a building that was rendered a faded salmon colour, and a thin, kindly-faced Frenchwoman with dark hair and eyes and a faded elegance – marred ever so slightly by stained, smoker’s teeth – had answered.
He’d introduced himself as the chauffeur, doffing his cap. ‘I’m Jacob Bell. I’m here for the young miss?’
‘Madame Gour,’ she said, shaking his hand. ‘I’ll call her.’
He’d released a sigh of relief that she’d spoken English. His French was terrible, and what little he knew he’d been happy to forget after the war.
‘Elodie, viens vite, l’homme est la!’
The child had come quickly, like she was expecting him. She was small, with pale blonde hair and intense blue eyes. They completely took him aback.
They were Clairmont eyes, that was for sure.
‘Hello,’ he’d tried.
But the child only continued to stare.
Madame Gour had waved her hand, as if to scrub the air in dismissal. ‘She won’t answer – it’s not personal.’
Then just as quickly as she’d arrived, the girl disappeared.
‘Gone to fetch her things,’ Madame Gour explained when he’d looked startled, thinking for a moment that she had run away. He got a glimpse of the interior of the apartment: herringbone floors, a faded Persian rug, and a gilt table where a painted vase housed exquisite blooms, in a rich blowsy pink that he didn’t have the name for.
‘You know,’ she said, lighting a thin cigarette then taking a deep drag; when she exhaled, she blew the smoke away from his face, ‘she hasn’t said a word since it happened. Not one,’ she emphasised, holding her index finger up. ‘We found her there – with her mother’s body,’ she said, pointing with her cigarette upstairs to a flat on the left.
‘Oh no,’ said Jacob, wincing. He hadn’t known the details.
Madame Gour nodded, pursing her lips. ‘Oui. She didn’t want to leave her, kept prodding her as if she thought she would wake up.’ She made a prodding motion and he cringed.
‘That’s… well, that’s horrible.’
‘Oui, très horrible. I’ve been trying to do my best with her, but she screams blue murder when I try to comb her hair. Maybe I’m rougher than her maman. I had only boys myself, you see. Poor thing.’
He’d started to feel nervous then, now that he was here, and his task was before him. It seemed so strange to him that Lord Clairmont hadn’t wanted to come along to see his daughter here himself. The housekeeper back home, Mrs Harris, had said the last time he’d seen her she’d been just a babe.
It wasn’t his job to question his employers, though. Jacob’s mother had reminded him of that enough times when he took the post. She’d had a lifetime in service, so she knew better than most what was expected.
Still, it seemed cruel that he’d left this task to a servant, especially given that the girl’s mother had just died. Jacob wasn’t even taking the child to Lord Clairmont, he was sending her away to her grandmother in the countryside for the summer. Likely didn’t want to mess up his own vacations plans with an illegitimate child from an affair he had during the war, which had caused enough trouble in his marriage already. At least that what’s Mrs Harris speculated upon hearing the arrangement. Jacob was inclined to agree.
He’d never understand them, his supposed ‘betters,’ and that was the truth. His father, who had never learned to read or write and never had much more than a farthing to his name, had more honour and true gentility in his finger than the whole lot of them combined as far as he was concerned. Especially now when he thought of that poor child and everything she’d been through.
It wasn’t like they hadn’t been aware that the girl’s mother wasn’t well. She’d written letters apparently, most likely to avoid that very situation. Even so, Lord Clairmont had, as usual, taken his own time. Not that he would ever say any of that to Madame Gour. He wanted to, though. He felt like he ought to apologise, but of course, he wouldn’t.
‘So – she doesn’t speak – at all?’
‘Not a bean. But don’t worry, she won’t give you much trouble.’
