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‘It’s nothing like Clairmont Manor,’ he breathed, as she couldn’t understand him and would not repeat it. ‘But I’ll tell you a secret, I think if I were in your shoes, I’d prefer this – it’s charming.’ He broke into a wide grin. Charming wasn’t a description one could say about the manor house. Words used to describe that would include ‘grand,’ ‘austere’ and ‘imposing’. And, admittedly, handsome.
‘You will be all right here. I’m sure.’ Perhaps he was trying to convince himself.
The child hugged her knitted doll to her chest and didn’t meet his eyes. She showed no curiosity about where they were. Jacob could guess that for her, without her mother, it didn’t matter where she was. She closed her eyes, and leaned her head against the interior.
Jacob felt his heart go out to her; he’d never seen a child look so forlorn before. He wished he spoke her language, that he could give her some hope… but even then he wasn’t sure how much it would help.
Jacob parked on the long gravel driveway, and the pair climbed out of the car. Shortly afterwards, a small, thin woman hurried out of the farmhouse, dressed in a blue house dress. She had silvery hair, cut into a bob and had on a frilly apron that was speckled with flour.
Jacob straightened his appearance, and doffed his cap. For a moment, he was afraid that she wasn’t expecting him, until she rushed forward with a smile on her tanned face when she saw Elodie.
‘Ma petite,’ she exclaimed, enfolding the child in a hug. ‘I finally get to meet you.’
At first Elodie stood like a statue. But then, as the older woman continued to hold her, she relaxed, breathing in the scent of flour and lilacs.
The woman looked up at Jacob, and smiled, then held out her hand, adorned with several silver rings.
‘I am Marguerite Renaux,’ she said in a pleasantly accented voice. ‘Thank you so much for bringing my granddaughter to me.’ Her brown eyes were warm, and he was grateful to see the kindness in them.
‘It is my pleasure,’ said Jacob, who meant it. Feeling, for the first time in two days, that he was doing the right thing. He handed Madame Renaux the child’s suitcase, which she took in both of hers.
‘You want to come in – have something to drink?’ she invited. ‘Or eat – I have cassoulet.’
He shook his head. ‘Can’t, I’m afraid, I’m expected.’ He was due to take the car down to Cannes where his employers were spending the summer.
He hesitated, though, remembering just in time his promise to the child’s neighbour, Madame Gour. He opened a small notebook he used to record the fuel mileage, turned over to a fresh page and wrote down the neighbour’s name and address and then tore it off and handed it to Madame Renaux. Then he explained what the neighbour had said about the child being mute. Leaving out the part about the child holding on to her mother’s body – no one wanted to have that image burned into their brain.
‘She doesn’t speak?’
He shook his head. ‘Not a word, even in the two days we took to get here. I just thought you should know. The neighbour – Madame Gour – asked if you wouldn’t mind letting her know how the child fares.’
‘I will do that,’ promised Marguerite.
Marguerite looked at the child as she watched the driver go with a lost expression on her face.
‘He was a nice man?’ she asked the child.
Elodie nodded.
‘I thought so too.’
Elodie looked at her curiously, perhaps because she had spent so little time with him in comparison, and the old woman shrugged. ‘The older you get the more you get a sense for these things.’
The girl just stared with those intense blue eyes of hers.
‘So you are how old – nine?’
She shook her head, then waved a finger to indicate more.
‘Ten?’ guessed Marguerite.
She nodded.
‘You can read, write?’
The child nodded again.
Marguerite had to bite her lip to suppress her emotion; of course, Brigitte, her late daughter, would have taught her herself.
