Annette left the market and walked back towards the apartment. Several times she stopped and turned suddenly, and once she went round a corner and ducked into a doorway, watching to see if anyone was following her, but by the time she approached the apartment building she was almost certain there was no one. Even so, she first went into the butcher’s shop as if to buy something, and looked out of the window. It was then that she nearly caught sight of Parker, but he, as he saw her looking out of the shop window, continued walking and disappeared round the corner. While the street was still empty, Annette slipped out of the shop and in through the door beside it, and ran up the stairs to the apartment.
Hélène was sitting in the window, finishing collars and cuffs on some blouses. ‘They should pay more for these,’ she said as Annette came in. ‘They’re very fiddly!’ She looked up as Annette crossed to the window beside her and peered down into the street.
‘What are you looking at?’ Hélène asked.
‘Just checking that I wasn’t followed here, but I can’t see anyone down there now.’
‘Followed?’ Hélène was immediately apprehensive. ‘Who was following you?’
‘No one, but yesterday Aunt Agathe came into Paris and when I saw her she said that Simon Barnier was on the same train, and though she tried to avoid him, he saw her at the station and demanded to know why she’d come in.’
‘Madame Sauze? Was she coming to see us?’ asked Hélène. ‘To bring us news from Belair? What did she say?’
‘She told him she was coming for a funeral.’
‘And was she?’
‘No, she was coming to find me. She wasn’t coming here, as she didn’t want to risk it, but she was coming to find me at the market, as she did have some news for us.’
‘What was it? Is someone ill? Maman or Louise?’
‘No, nothing like that, but we do have to talk, Hélène.’
Hélène folded the last blouse and laid it aside. ‘Well, what news did she bring?’
Annette didn’t answer immediately. On her way home from the market she had been deciding just how she would break the news about Rupert to Hélène. She had thought she would find the words when necessary, but now they failed her.
‘Was it bad news? Come on, Annette. Tell me.’
‘Not bad news, no,’ replied Annette. ‘Just something… surprising.’
‘Come on, then,’ urged Hélène with a smile. ‘Surprise me!’
‘Pierre has had a letter – well, it was addressed to him on the envelope, but inside it was to me.’
‘Who was it from?’
‘It was… it was from Rupert Chalfont.’
The colour drained from Hélène’s face and she said, ‘I don’t think that’s a very good joke, Annette.’
‘I promise you, it isn’t a joke. He wrote to me to ask about you.’
‘Why?’ demanded Hélène angrily. ‘Why did he write to you? No, I don’t want to hear. I never want to hear a word about him, ever again.’
Ignoring her outburst and knowing she must go on until she’d told all, Annette said, ‘He wrote to me because I wrote to him.’
‘You wrote to him?’ Hélène was incredulous. ‘Why? When? What for?’
‘I wrote to him back in January, to tell him you were going to marry Simon Barnier. I said I hoped it made him feel as sick as it made me.’
Hélène managed a weak smile at that. ‘Nothing like as sick as it made me,’ she said.
‘Anyway, he didn’t write back,’ Annette went on. ‘I wasn’t surprised, I didn’t expect him to. He didn’t answer the letter Pierre wrote to him, back in the autumn.’
‘Pierre wrote to him? What on earth for?’
‘To ask him why he wasn’t answering your letters.’
‘Well, we know the answer to that now,’ said Hélène bitterly. ‘It was because he was married.’
‘Let me finish,’ Annette said firmly. ‘Let me explain everything.’
Hélène gave a heavy sigh. ‘If you must.’
‘I must,’ insisted Annette, and quietly she began to explain exactly what had happened, about the letters, about Frances, about Kitty and her baby, and finally about Rupert being in Paris.
‘He thought, because of my letter in January, that you were married to Simon now, that you were beyond his reach. He had set my letter aside as he dealt with his father’s illness and death and then the death of his wife and baby. It was only when he came across it again very recently that he answered it, mentioning the three deaths his family had suffered, one of them being his wife. It was his final farewell to you. Pierre and I didn’t know what to do.’ For a moment Annette lapsed into silence.
‘So, what did you do?’
‘We talked it through and in the end decided to write and tell him you hadn’t married Simon, that you’d run away before the wedding and were in hiding.’
‘You didn’t think to consult me?’ Hélène suggested coldly.
‘No, not then. At least, we did think of it but decided against it until we knew more.’
‘And?’
‘I did write and it was in answer to that letter that we received one the other day. It was sent to Pierre at Belair.’
‘What did it say?’ Hélène’s voice was little more than a whisper.
‘He said he was on his way, and to make sure we kept you safely hidden until he got here. Well, he’s here now, in Paris. I saw him today. He came to the market to find me… and he wants to see you.’
‘Well, I don’t want to see him.’
‘He’s given me something for you,’ Annette said.
‘I don’t want it, whatever it is,’ asserted Hélène.
In answer, Annette took the parcel from her bag and put it down on the table between them. Hélène didn’t pick it up, simply looked at it.
‘What is it? Does he think he can buy me with presents? Take it back to him, wherever he is, and tell him it’s all too late. I’m not going to marry Simon Barnier, I’m not going to marry anyone and I don’t want to see him. I’ve forgotten him now and there’s no point in opening old wounds and so you can tell him.’
‘Fine,’ said Annette, getting up from her chair. ‘I’ve brought home some chicken legs. I thought I’d fry them for supper. Have we still got onions and garlic?’
Faced with this sudden change of subject, Hélène said, ‘Onions? I don’t know.’
‘Have you finished your sewing?’ asked Annette. ‘If so, I’ll drop it off at the workshop tomorrow on my way to the market.’
Later, when they had eaten their evening meal, taken in almost complete silence, Annette said, ‘I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day, and Benny wants me all day tomorrow.’
Left alone in the living room, Hélène looked at the brown paper parcel that still lay on the small table by the window. Whatever he had sent her, she didn’t want it. But it was there, almost like a magnet, drawing her towards it, and she turned her chair away so that she could no longer see it. She pulled the curtains across the window, shutting out the night, and below in the street someone turned away, as certain as he could be that no one from that apartment was going to go out again that night.
In the apartment Hélène turned down the lamp and went into her bedroom, the one that had belonged to Fleur, Madame Sauze’s sister. Madame Sauze. Madame Sauze had seen Simon Barnier yesterday and been seen by him. What was he doing in Paris? Had he simply come up on business or was he really still looking for her? As she got undressed and climbed into bed, she shuddered at the thought of his touch on her face. She was about to blow out the candle when she changed her mind and went back into the living room. The shadows jumped about the flickering candle as she crept over to the table in the window, picked up the brown paper parcel… and carried it back to bed.
When Annette got up in the morning she noticed that the parcel had disappeared and made no comment. When she left for the market she took with her the blouses complete with their attached collars and cuffs and said she would bring more home that evening.
Once she was alone in the apartment, Hélène retrieved the bundle of letters from under her bed and laid them out on the table. She had read through them last night, squinting at the handwriting by the light of her candle. Now she wanted to study them in closer detail. To the pile she added the ones she had brought with her from Belair. As she read the earliest ones, she found herself listening to Rupert’s voice, once again bringing tears to her eyes. She had long ago promised herself she would cry no more tears for him, no more tears for any man, but despite this, she found them slipping down her cheeks. If she closed her eyes she could see his beloved face, and immediately she snapped them open again. Whatever had happened about the letters, he had allowed himself to be persuaded to marry someone else when he was already promised to her.
‘You allowed yourself to be persuaded, too,’ a little voice inside her whispered.
‘But only when I knew he was already married,’ she answered aloud.
She read all the letters through again, including the ones sent by Pierre and Annette. She had been angry that they had taken it upon themselves to tell Rupert her heart was breaking. It left her no pride, and it was pride had carried her through the dark days that followed the news of Rupert’s desertion.
She thought of Rupert, coming at once to Paris when he heard she was not married. He had spoken to Annette in the marketplace yesterday, given her the letters. Perhaps he would come to the market again today to find out what she had said. Well, she had told Annette to send him away.
She picked up the letters one by one and folded them back into their envelopes. It was too late. Whatever reason there had been, all the misery and misunderstandings, it was too late.
And with that thought in mind she put on her hat and coat and left the apartment. It was too late, she kept telling herself as she walked to the market, but perhaps she could see him, just one more time. See him without him seeing her. When she reached the market square she moved from stall to stall, keeping watch on the poulterer’s stand, seeing Annette serving customers, and then suddenly, there he was. Her Rupert. Not her Rupert. Just Rupert. He walked casually to where Annette was selling eggs to a large woman with a basket, waiting for her to be free. Benny was there too, and when he saw Rupert, he nodded to Annette and the two of them drifted away from the stall. Staying well back, Hélène watched them enter the café. It took all her determination not to follow them inside. Annette would be giving him her message now and then it would all be over. Rupert would go back home to England, he’d settle down at Pilgrim’s Oak, probably after some time he would remarry and start a family and she would never see him again. She would be able to push him into the recesses of her mind, as she had already begun to do.
Quickly she turned on her heel and, with tears flooding down her cheeks, set off back to the apartment. She had made the complete break and when she got home she would take her courage in her hands and go back to Belair, to the rest of her life. She would become a doting aunt, but she would never have any children of her own. She should never have run away, but should have stood up against the proposed marriage with Simon Barnier as soon as she’d realised his true character. No one could force her into such a marriage, and though she knew her reputation was now in tatters, she had to believe that her family would stand by her and take her back. She climbed the stairs to the apartment. She would pack up her few things and then leave, take the train home and face the music.
As Hélène was walking slowly back to the apartment, Annette was breaking the news to Rupert.
‘She says she won’t see you,’ she told him. ‘She says there’s no point in opening old wounds.’
‘Did you give her the letters?’
‘Yes, but she didn’t open the parcel, at least not while I was there. I left it on the table when I went to bed, but it had disappeared this morning, so I think she’s read them now. I’m hoping to persuade her to see you when I get back later today, but I can’t leave the stall till the market closes. Benny has business elsewhere.’
Rupert’s hopes took a fall, but they weren’t completely dashed. He gave a rueful smile. ‘I’ll come and find you again tomorrow,’ he said, ‘and hope you’ve persuaded her to change her mind. That she’ll at least see me.’
Annette went back to the stall and Rupert returned to the Hotel Montreux. Parker was waiting for him in the suite.
‘Any luck?’ Rupert asked.
‘Yes, sir. I was outside that butcher’s shop this morning and saw Annette come out of the door beside it. There are three apartments in the building and they must be living in one of those.’
‘Good man,’ responded Rupert. ‘Tell me how to get there.’