‘But tell me all about Paris,’ she continued. ‘Have you dressed any film stars yet? How do you survive in all that noise and bustle? Among such crowds of people? I can’t imagine it.’
Eliane listened, wide-eyed, as Mireille described the basement lodgings that she shared with two of the other seamstresses, her journey to work on a careering, clanging tram, and the demanding Parisiennes who came to the sâlon for fittings of their expensive new outfits. Mireille rummaged in one of her bags. ‘Here, I’ve brought these patterns for you and Maman. I thought you might like to make some of them – they’re very à la mode.’
Yves stuck his head round the door of the girls’ room. ‘Look at you two, gossiping away there. Has Eliane told you about her boyfriend yet?’
He grinned as his sister blushed.
‘He’s not my boyfriend; he’s just a friend. And anyway, he spends more time going fishing with you than he does with me. He’s just as much your friend as mine.’
‘Ha!’ Yves exclaimed. ‘If you say so, but he and I don’t spend hours sitting under the willow tree together, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes.’
‘I see,’ said Mireille, the laughter in her dark eyes belying her serious tone of voice. ‘And what is “his” name, may I enquire?’
‘Mathieu Dubosq,’ Yves cut in eagerly. ‘He’s a great fisherman, always knows where the big ones are lurking. Knows all about hunting too. And he’s almost as much of an expert on mushrooms as Eliane is. He’s also coming to have lunch with us in a few minutes.’
‘Well, I’m looking forward to meeting him.’ Mireille diverted her brother by passing him a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied with rough twine.
Yves whistled through his teeth as he unwrapped a horn-handled penknife. ‘Just look how sharp that blade is. Fantastic. Thanks, Mireille.’
‘And now . . .’ Mireille got to her feet and gathered up an armful of similarly wrapped parcels. ‘Let’s go and give these to Maman and Papa and help set the table for lunch.’
As they scraped their plates to collect the last crumbs of succulent frangipane and sweet pastry, Eliane surveyed her family gathered around the kitchen table. She’d been concerned that this first meal at the moulin might be an ordeal for Mathieu, but he displayed none of his shyness as he answered Gustave’s questions about this year’s wine harvest and Lisette’s questions about his home in Tulle. Eliane had already told her parents that Mathieu’s mother had died of a severe haemorrhage – every midwife’s dread fear – after giving birth to his younger brother, Luc.
‘I’m taking the train home tomorrow to be back for la Toussaint. We always put flowers on my mother’s grave. I haven’t seen my father and brother since the wine harvest began, so it’ll be good to catch up. They work on a farm just outside the town – beef cattle and feed crops mostly.’
Gustave set his fork down finally, reluctantly accepting that his plate was empty now. ‘And will you go back to cattle farming when you’ve finished your stage at Château de la Chapelle, do you think?’
Unable to help himself, Mathieu glanced across the table at Eliane and a pink glow suffused his deeply sun-browned features. ‘I’m not sure. My father wanted me to try the experience of wine farming and I’ve found it very interesting. I like this part of the world too, so I may stay on with the Cortinis for a while longer. They’ve already asked me to, so I’ll tell my father tomorrow. After all, Coulliac isn’t too far from Tulle . . .’ He trailed off, suddenly conscious that he may have given too much away.
Eliane smiled at him. The most like Lisette of the three Martin children, she had inherited her mother’s intuition and her uncanny ability to see beneath the surface, reading people’s innermost thoughts and feelings. She understood Mathieu’s unspoken hope that their future would be a shared one. The first tentative flickers of mutual attraction were blossoming into something far deeper than just a friendship and were binding them together more strongly every day.
She stood up from the table to collect the empty plates and, when Mathieu handed her his, her fingertips touched his hand for a fleeting moment, a touch as gentle as the brush of a butterfly’s wing and as strong as a promise that had no need of words. He would go home to place his remembrance offering of flowers on his mother’s grave, just as the Martins would visit the little churchyard of Coulliac to pay their respects to their forebears, and when la Toussaint was over and November well and truly begun, he would return so that they could be together again.
Eliane and Mireille rested their elbows on the stable door and watched the pig as it buried its snout in the trough, snuffling contentedly as it rooted out some turnip tops from among the potato peelings.
Eliane scratched behind the animal’s ears with a stick. ‘You see, she’s forgiven us already.’
It had taken them the best part of an hour to find the pig in the forest, where she’d been turned out to enjoy an autumn feast of acorns, and then to persuade her to return to her sty with the help of a tempting bucket of swill. Perhaps she suspected the fate that was in store for her once the winter weather arrived in earnest. But until that day arrived, she would be well fed and well cared-for.
The sty was more of a small cave, really, hollowed into the wall of limestone through which the river had etched its course for thousands of years. The rock rose abruptly behind the mill house and soared upwards to form the buttress upon which the Château de Bellevue perched, high above them. Ancient underground streams – most long-since disappeared – had carved a network of tunnels through the porous rock across the whole of this region, and one of these tunnels formed an invisible link between the moulin and the château. According to Monsieur le Comte, it had been a vital lifeline when the château was besieged in the Middle Ages. The invading army couldn’t work out how the Comte’s forebears trapped within were able to survive for so many weeks without access to food and water, and eventually they’d got bored and left.
The tunnel had been blocked up at both ends for years, although Gustave had removed the rocks and rubble that had plugged the entrance at the back of the pigsty in order to use a few feet of the tunnel to store wine. This natural larder would also be used when butchering time came, as the cool, dry darkness provided the perfect conditions for curing hams and saucissons, as well as preserving the jars of pâté that Lisette would prepare to see them through the winter. An old door, overlaid with several sheets of corrugated tin, concealed the tunnel’s opening and made the outer part of the cave into a snug home for the pig, who had now settled down for a nap on her comfortable bed of straw.
Mireille took a handful of acorns from her pocket and tossed them into the trough with a sound like the rattle of hailstones, which caused the pig to open one eye. ‘I do miss lots of things about home,’ she remarked, ‘but I’ll be quite happy not to be here when your time is up.’ The pig grunted in reply.
‘It’s hard to imagine you in Paris, wearing your chic dresses and working in that elegant atelier. I don’t think I’d enjoy living in the city at all.’
Mireille smiled at her sister. ‘City life certainly isn’t for everyone. One of the apprentice seamstresses has already packed up and gone home to Normandy. She hated Paris. It can take a while to make friends there too. It’s strange that you can be a lot lonelier among all those people than you ever would be living in the countryside. But I’ve made friends with some of the other girls now, and I do enjoy the work – even if some of the clients are impossible to satisfy! Maybe you can come and visit me one day and I can show you round.’
‘Maman doesn’t like you being so much nearer to Germany. Everyone’s been nervous ever since the Nazis marched their way into Czechoslovakia.’
‘Don’t worry; Paris is safe enough. There wouldn’t be so many refugees flooding into the city if it weren’t. The best thing everyone can do is to get on with their day-to-day lives. Perhaps you and Maman could come and visit me together. I can show you all the sights. The Eiffel Tower is amazing, and the churches are simply huge!’