Ahead of them, beyond the sparse tufts of sea-grass that thatched a low-lying line of dunes, the ocean was suddenly visible again, redoubling the light as the sun’s long rays strewed diamonds across a million tiny wavelets. Off to the right sat a pretty two-storey house, a little larger than most of the cottages they’d passed, rendered the same dazzling white, but with shutters painted the blue of a soft sea-mist, framing tall sash windows that seemed glazed with gold in the light of the setting sun.
Opening a gate in the low wall that surrounded the house’s flower-filled garden, Christophe led Anaïs round to the front door which, like the windows, stood open, allowing the ocean breeze to blow through and gently lift the edges of the fine white muslin curtains that Ella glimpsed through an open doorway inside.
Christophe grunted with the effort of heaving the suitcase from the back of the cart. ‘Leave it there for the time being. I’ll bring it in after I’ve seen to Anaïs. Come on old girl, let’s get you out of this contraption.’
As he led the donkey around to the back of the house, a tall, smiling woman appeared in the open doorway. She had the same warm eyes and cascading curls as Caroline and held out both hands to take Ella’s in hers.
‘Ella, bienvenue. You are most welcome. I’d have recognised you anywhere – you are the spitting image of your mother! Please, call me Marianne, there is no formality here. You must be so tired after your long journey, but now you are here at last and there will be no need to travel much further than the beach or the village for the next six weeks. Caroline will show you to your room and you can freshen up a little before supper.’
Ella followed Caroline down a corridor of bleached oak floorboards, craning her neck to try to take in the rooms that they passed. This house by the sea couldn’t have been more different from her own Morningside home with its heavy velvet curtains and dark mahogany furnishings. The rooms she glimpsed were awash with light, their ceilings lofty with lime-washed beams, and what furniture there was had a rustic simplicity – a disparate collection of unmatched objects, yet the overall effect was one of elegant harmony.
The girls climbed a broad wooden staircase which creaked quietly beneath their feet, and then Caroline flung open a door to the left of the softly lit upper corridor. Another set of white muslin curtains billowed as they entered the room, and Ella had the sudden impression that she was standing on the deck of a boat in full sail as her travel-weary body swayed slightly, still unaccustomed to being back on terra firma.
A faded rag rug softened the wooden floor-boards, adding a splash of colour to the whitewashed room. On the bedside table, a bunch of honeysuckle and roses breathed its sweet scent into the evening air. Ella took off her hat and sank, thankfully, on to the cotton quilt that covered the bed. She eased off her shoes and wriggled her toes, still encased in their white silk stockings, luxuriating in the sudden freedom. Against the far wall of the bedroom, the mirror of a wooden dressing-table reflected the last of the day’s sunlight, making it dance amongst the curtains. Above the wrought-iron bedstead hung a watercolour painting in a fine gilt frame, a sailing boat skimming across an aquamarine sea towards a line of low-lying dunes.
‘That’s wonderful,’ Ella pointed. ‘You can almost feel the wind and the sunlight and smell the sea.’
Caroline nodded, sitting down on the bed alongside her. ‘It’s one of Christophe’s. Combining the two things he loves best, painting and sailing. He’s really getting to be rather good at both these days, only don’t tell him I said so or it’ll go straight to his head.’
The two girls giggled as they heard a loud thumping on the stairs. Christophe pushed the door wide, dragging Ella’s case behind him. ‘Don’t tell who you said what?’ he asked with a broad grin. Without waiting for an answer, he flung himself on to the bed alongside his sister. ‘Phew, well, Anaïs and I are both mightily relieved that that’s the last we’ll see of that thundering great millstone for a few weeks!’
‘Ella was just admiring your painting of Bijou,’ Caroline nodded towards the picture.
‘Tomorrow we’ll take you out in her,’ Christophe smiled. ‘She’s a beauty.’
Ella was struck by the way in which his face seemed to change with each utterance, his emotions writ large across his features. His dark eyes could go from laughing to brooding and back again in the course of just a few sentences, like a squall blowing across the sea, clouds chasing across the sun and then the sky clearing once again. She was accustomed to concealing her feelings, following the lead of her parents in suppressing overt displays of emotion at all times, even within the privacy of the family home. But the twins seemed unfettered by such constraints, and Ella felt her own heart expanding a little, yearning to experience a far greater range of sensation than had hitherto been available to it during her safe – and, she now felt, rather dull and monochrome – Edinburgh childhood. Once again, she had a sensation of expansion, just under her ribcage this time, and was overwhelmed with a sudden urge to unbutton her jacket and loosen her dress to make room for whatever it was that was happening to her heart.
A delicious scent of something savoury being cooked on the stove downstairs came wafting up into the room.
‘Allons, Christophe. We must leave Ella alone for a few moments to rest and unpack before supper is ready.’ Caroline smiled at Ella. ‘There is no need to change, unless you feel like it after your journey. We will stay as we are. I meant it when I told you we are very relaxed here. If you want to freshen up, the bathroom is the next door on the right, just across the landing there. Come down when you’re ready. We’ll be in the kitchen, or sitting outside on the terrace behind the house. When you come through the kitchen, you’ll see the doors.’
After hastily hanging up her clothes in the tall armoire that stood in one corner of the bedroom, and piling her neatly folded under-garments into a pretty chest of drawers, painted cream and decorated with garlands of pink roses, which was pushed against the far wall, Ella went in search of the bathroom.
She brushed the wind-blown tangles out of her dark blonde hair until it fell in a smooth curtain on either side of the serious, oval face that gazed back at her from the age-misted mirror hanging above the basin. Despite her determined attempt to adhere to her mother’s warning and keep her hat firmly on her head, the sun and wind had evidently still managed to creep in beneath the brim and weather her cheeks with a faint golden glow. Peering a little more closely in the fading evening light, to her dismay she counted at least five freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose. She shook her head at the frown that appeared on the face in the mirror. ‘There’s no point spending the next six weeks worrying about freckles,’ she told her reflection firmly. ‘We are très décontractés here on the Île de Ré.’ She smiled. ‘And your accent Français is already much improved, Mademoiselle Lennox.’
She washed her hands with the small bar of creamy soap that sat beside the basin, drying them on a white linen towel afterwards and noticing how soft they felt. Then, hanging her formal jacket in the armoire back in her room, she draped a soft cotton cardigan over her shoulders, in case the evening air grew chilly, and hurried downstairs, passing through the kitchen to the terrace beyond.
At the back of the house, a generously proportioned garden was enclosed by high whitewashed walls. Honeysuckle, from which she supposed the sprigs in her bedroom had been picked, scrambled up and over them, scenting the air, its perfume mingling with that of the jasmine, which trailed in starry tendrils across a wrought-iron pergola above the terrace. Through an open gate at the far end, Ella glimpsed Anaïs cropping the grass contentedly beneath the trees in a small orchard. Marianne, Caroline and Christophe sat at a broad wooden table, laid with a white cloth and ivory-handled cutlery. Blowzy, deep-pink roses spilled from a painted earthenware jug in the middle of the table, and a cut-glass pitcher of water sat alongside a bottle of red wine. Carrying on the calm evening air, the bell on the clock-tower of the church in Sainte Marie could be heard tolling eight o’clock.
Christophe was leaning on one elbow, his chin cupped in his hand, drawing something in a sketch-book which he shut hastily and pushed to one side as Ella approached.