Page 21 of Daughters of Paris

‘Will you stay and keep me company? We could play cards or something.’

‘I should help with the laundry,’ Fleur said despondently.

Agnes had paused when Fleur had.

‘Stay with Mademoiselle Colette,’ she said, returning and patting Fleur’s cheek. ‘She needs you more than I do.’

‘Thank you,’ Colette said.

The girls wandered out into the garden. The sun was blinding and Fleur’s head ached from the cocktails. Colette fetched a deck of cards but they didn’t play and just sat in silence watching plumes of smoke rising over the city.

Usually,TanteAgnes served the evening meal to the Nadons then she and Fleur ate together at the kitchen table, but that evening they all ate together. No one had much of an appetite and picked at a platter ofsaucisson sec,chevreand figs without enthusiasm. More than once, Fleur found herself staring at the ceiling, waiting for the thrum of engines overhead but they never came. When night fell, the streets were silent and dark. Louis insisted on switching off the electricity and the house was in darkness.

‘Go to bed, everyone,’ he said. ‘There is nothing we can do. We’ll have to see what the morning brings.’

‘Goodnight,tante.’ Fleur kissed Agnes’ cheek as she always did. ‘Things will seem better in the morning.’

‘You are a good girl. I will pray for you.’ Agnes nodded absently and trudged away, leaving Fleur slightly embarrassed.

Fleur went upstairs and lay on her bed fully dressed. Waiting to hear the sound of aeroplanes overhead made sleeping impossible. For Paris to be bombed was unimaginable. Who would destroy the most beautiful city in Europe? Had Montparnasse escaped destruction? Were Café Morlaix and Ramper et Frère still standing? Tomorrow she would have to brave the streets to discover the wreckage for herself.

She woke to a meagre crack of light struggling through the shutter. The room was stuffy; usually in summer she threw the window wide open all night to let the air in but there had been no question of that last night and all shutters remained closed.

TanteAgnes was not in the kitchen. There was no answer to Fleur’s knock on the bedroom door so she opened it. Agnes was lying on her bed fully dressed. Like Fleur, she had not changed into her nightgown.

‘TanteAgnes, you’ve overslept.’

Fleur drew closer then stopped in alarm. Agnes’ mouth was open with a line of spittle trailing from it. Her eyes stared glassily at nothing.

Fleur dropped to her knees beside the bed.

‘TanteAgnes! Wake up!’

She shook Agnes’ arm, but the cold skin only confirmed what Fleur had tried to deny.

Agnes was dead.

Fleur heard a wail erupting from somewhere. She realised it was herself. The sound was terrible but felt like she was powerless to stop it.

‘What’s happening?’ Louis rushed in. He stopped in the middle of the room, his eyes taking in everything, He was usually immaculately dressed but today his hair was uncombed and he was unshaven. He knelt beside Fleur and opened Agnes’ hand to reveal the small bottle of tablets she took to help her sleep sometimes. It was empty.

‘She took them all,’ Louis murmured.

‘Did she do this on purpose?’ An invisible fist punched Fleur’s stomach; another grasped her throat. She looked from the bottle to Louis and back again. ‘Why would she?’

‘Perhaps she could not bear the thought of war again.’ Delphine stood in the doorway. Her face was made up as always and her hair was immaculate. She looked incongruous at the scene of a tragedy. ‘She was so strong throughout theGrande Guerre, but it affected her, as it affected all of us.’

‘We cannot know that, Delphine,’ Louis said sternly. He patted Fleur’s shoulder. ‘The bombing last night perhaps unsettled her mind. Perhaps she did not intend to overdose but took too many tablets out of confusion.’

‘Yes, that must be it,’ Fleur whispered, her voice wobbling. ‘She wouldn’t have deliberately… She couldn’t have.’

Her vision blurred. She wrapped her arms around herself, squeezing tightly to hold in her sobs. It must have been an accident. Itmust. The church viewed suicide as a mortal sin andTanteAgnes was deeply religious. She had prayed continually in the cellar while the bombs fell. Fleur’s eye fell on the Bible that lay open onTanteAgnes’ bedside cabinet. Her page was open, marked by a pink silk ribbon. She had been reading the crucifixion of Christ, and with a pencil had marked the verse when he cried out asking why he had been forsaken.

What if she had felt her prayers had been ignored – or worse, denied – and had rejected the church in her final moments? A sob broke free. She gulped it back.

‘Why didn’t she talk to me about how she felt?’ she wailed. ‘I don’t know what needs to be done. She’s left me and I don’t know what to do now.’

About the funeral. About the grief that wracked her. About the horrific suspicion that she might never know the truth about Agnes’ death.

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