But then there was another side to the city too. In the midst of the gaiety and opulence, groups of bewildered-looking refugees limped along the streets of Paris, their faces blank and grey with the shock of finding themselves in a strange place, washed up like flotsam and jetsam on the Parisian streets, dispossessed of their houses and their belongings. They brought with them, along with their shabby suitcases and bulging carpet-bags, a reminder of the threat that continued to gather strength just beyond France’s eastern borders.
It seemed to Ella, as she began to grow accustomed to the nuances of life in Paris, that the city was preoccupied; its citizens were going about their daily lives as they’d always done, but with an air of vague distraction, keeping one ear open for the latest news of German manoeuvring. Normality and an impending sense of turbulence sat alongside each other in Paris that summer: two sides of the same coin.
In the Martets’ home, Ella spent a day helping Marianne alter and launder a trunkful of Christophe and Caroline’s cast-off clothing. ‘Cousin Agnès wasn’t able to bring much out with her when they left Austria, so these may come in handy for the children.’
‘How old are they?’ asked Ella as she took up the hem of an old skirt of Caroline’s.
‘Albert is twelve and Béatrice is ten. They’re darling children. He is rather studious and serious, always with his nose buried in a book. His sister is far more outgoing, a truly sunny little girl, with the same curly hair as Caroline. I think you will like them. You’ll meet them one day soon, we’ll have them over for lunch one Sunday once you youngsters get back from the island.’ She sighed. ‘I wish I could come with you, but I won’t get to the Île de Ré this summer. There has been too much to do here in Paris. However, I shall take great delight in thinking of the three of you there, even if only for the week.’ Pausing, Marianne put down the pair of scissors she was using to snip a thread and placed her hand over Ella’s. ‘You are like family to us you know, my dear. We are very pleased to have you here with us. You make my son, in particular, very happy indeed and that fills my heart with joy.’
Ella blushed, her gaze fixed on her sewing, then raised her eyes to Marianne’s. ‘He makes me very happy too.’ And she saw that Marianne understood all that there was to understand, and that her hopes were the same as Ella’s and Christophe’s: that their future would, somehow, some day, be shared.
Marianne nodded, smiling. Then, reaching for a shirt of Christophe’s, she said, ‘And now, let’s see if this collar can be turned to make it as good as new . . .’
Suddenly the front door rattled, the sound of it being flung open with some force which made both of them jump. Marianne put the shirt back into the mending basket and rose hurriedly.
Caroline could be heard calling as she ran upstairs, ‘Maman! Ella! Where are you?’ She burst through the drawing-room door, curls escaping from the clasps which held her hair up. ‘I have important news! I’ve been working on a special project – top-secret, I’m afraid, so I can’t tell you the specific details. But we are sending some of the artworks from the museum to other locations in France, places where they’ll be safe in case the Germans take it into their stupid heads to drop bombs on us or try to invade, or any other crazy plan.’
‘Goodness, Caroline, really! I’m sure it’s not going to come to that!’ exclaimed her mother, although Ella noticed that she raised a hand, involuntarily, to the buttons of her white blouse as if to calm the panicked thump of her heart beneath them. ‘You know that Adolf Hitler has changed his tune now; it’s all over the newspapers.’
‘Sorry, Maman, this is just in case Monsieur Hitler’s words turn out not to be worth the paper they are written on. I know it’s a bit extreme, but Monsieur le Directeur says it’s better to be safe than sorry. He says it’s like Noah building the ark – it had to be done before it started to rain, even when nobody believed it would be needed. And, hopefully, in this case it really won’t.’ She turned to Ella. ‘But I’m going to need help from you and Christophe. We have to disguise what we’re doing, so that only a very few people know where the artworks are concealed. We can’t make it obvious that we’re moving works of art around the country. I’ve been helping to pack up some of the items. And then I had a stroke of genius! One of the items is to be delivered to the Château de Chambord, which is on our way to La Pallice to catch the ferry to the island. So we’re going to take it with us and drop it off there on Monday, just as if we were stopping off to do a little sightseeing on our way to the coast. A security guard from the museum will be coming with us, of course. They wouldn’t just let us set off with a work of art in the trunk of our car on our own. It will look quite natural, as if we are two couples going off on holiday, stopping with the rest of the tourists to visit the château. We’ll drop the guard at a station just after Chambord so he can catch a train back to Paris, and then carry on to La Pallice as planned. It’s the perfect cover.’
Marianne shook her head. ‘Caroline, this plan sounds ridiculous. I think your museum Director is being somewhat alarmist. And what could be so precious as to warrant this bizarre subterfuge? There must be hundreds of works of art that need to be kept safe. Are you going to have teams of young people driving each of them around the country one at a time? Because it doesn’t seem a very efficient way of doing it if that is the case.’
‘No, Maman, most of the works that are going to be moved will go a little later, probably in lorries, when the need arises. But just a very few selected pieces are being spirited away now because they are simply too precious to risk losing. I know it sounds a little bizarre, but you have to admit these are bizarre times in which we live!’
Marianne allowed her hand to fall and rest, once again, on the mending basket in her lap. She smiled at last, although with a trace of sadness, Ella thought. ‘Well, who am I to stand in the way of a matter of state importance? Yes, I suppose you must do it. But please drive carefully. And telephone me from the island to let me know you’ve got there safely, will you?’
Caroline flung her arms around her mother and kissed her. ‘Of course! Now come, Ella, I think I can hear Christophe back from work. Let’s go and tell him . . .’
They packed on Sunday evening. ‘Just take a few things, there won’t be much room in the trunk of the car,’ Caroline urged. ‘The package is quite bulky. We won’t need much on the island anyway – Ella, you can borrow some of my summer things, which are already down there.’
Early the next day, before the Monday morning city had begun to awaken fully, Christophe brought the Martets’ car – a gleaming Peugeot, his father’s latest prized possession – around to the front of the house. They stowed their bags in the boot, and then drove carefully through the empty streets to pull up by a side entrance of the Louvre. Caroline hurried in, re-emerging a few minutes later with two men who carried between them a bulky wooden crate. Gingerly, they loaded it into the trunk of the car, rearranging the luggage around it so that it was safely wedged in place. Caroline shook hands with one of the men, listening carefully and nodding as he gave her a few final directions, and then came around to the driver’s door. ‘Sorry, Christophe but, by order of the Director, the museum’s security guard will have to drive. This is Grégoire. You don’t mind, do you? You can sit in the back, with Ella.’
Christophe climbed out and shook the hand of the guard as they exchanged places. Caroline settled herself beside Grégoire and the car pulled slowly away from the kerb and into the streets of Paris once more, heading south and then west out of the city. Christophe leaned forward and tapped his sister on the shoulder. ‘Alright, now you can tell us. What’s in the package?’
Caroline shook her head, glancing at Grégoire whose eyes were fixed on the road ahead as he negotiated the way carefully through the increasingly busy traffic. ‘You don’t need to know that. In fact, it’s far better that you don’t. Sorry,’ she said, looking back over her shoulder with a teasing smile, ‘but you two are just here for camouflage. You don’t have the appropriate security clearance for that sort of classified information!’