Page 100 of Daughters of Paris

‘Why, Colette? When you were younger I might be able to excuse such reckless and indecent behaviour, but now it’s shameful.’ He raised his head and looked around the apartment. ‘And this is where you choose to live rather than accept your mother’s help?’

Colette saw it through his eyes. Sparsely decorated and shabby. Old, mismatched chairs and rugs. A double gas ring in a corner that barely deserved the label of kitchen. A cramped bathroom with only a hip bath and a toilet with a cistern that screeched when it was flushed. It didn’t look welcoming and Colette regretted that Louis had to see it before she had had the chance to make it more homely. Delphine had stood, granite faced, over Fleur and Colette as they packed their possessions and there had not been much time to gather the furnishings, ornaments and pictures that she liked. She led Louis to the comfortable chairs before the front window, sat on the arm of the chair he sat in and put her arms around his neck.

‘I’m so sorry,Papa.I did not intend to disappoint you. It was an accident and we thought we had been so careful. Don’t you see I had to leave the house though?Mèrewas going to keep me trapped inside for the next six or seven months. I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t!’

‘Your mother has strong feelings,’ Louis said. ‘She only wanted to take care of your mistake as she did before.’

Colette hugged him tighter. ‘I’m not a child and I don’t expect either of you to take care of my mistakes.’

Louis smiled for the first time since he had walked into the apartment. ‘A father always expects to take care of his daughter. I want to help you a little. At the very least I will give you an allowance of some of the money we would’ve spent keeping you at home.’

‘Thank you,Papa, but I don’t want to take your money. I have a little saved and Sébastien says he will support me until the baby arrives.’

‘You chose better this time I see. Very honourable of him,’ Louis said. ‘A man should support his child, and the mother of it.’

Colette sat up and twisted the end of her belt. ‘Sébastien asked me to marry him, but I said he didn’t have to. The situation is only temporary, after all, and it wouldn’t be fair or sensible to tie him to me for the rest of our lives.’

Louis gave her an approving look. ‘That is very sensible of you. If by some chance you decide to keep the child in the end, maybe you will reconsider.’

‘I won’t keep it,’ she assured him.

‘You say that now,’ he answered.

There was something in her father’s tone that made Colette think back to the words Delphine had thrown at her.

‘Papa, did you andMèreplan to have me?’

‘Why do you ask that?’ His brows dipped into a frown. ‘Did your mother say something?’

Colette nodded.

He sighed again and muttered something too quietly for Colette to catch.

‘No, you were not planned. It was a time of great upheaval and the future was uncertain so people took advantage of opportunities they might not ordinarily have taken. Morals were looser than they had been.’

He huffed and looked at Colette. ‘Like they are now, I suppose. Your mother intended to give you up and I was happy for her to do that, but when I held you in my arms, I could not bear to let you go. I swore to her that if she married me and raised you, I would dedicate my life to giving you both the life she desired. I have never regretted a day of it.’

There were tears in Colette’s eyes. She blinked them away. Her dear father, who worked so hard and looked increasingly tired and old. She couldn’t express the love that swelled in her as he spoke of his sacrifice.

‘Whatever your mother might say, she loves you too,’ Louis added.

Colette looked away, doubting it was completely true. Delphine had loved the idea of a daughter she could take to lunches and show off to her friends as an accessory. Someone she could form into a woman who could live the life she had wanted for herself. Marry a man she chose rather than one who she was forced together with because of her circumstances.

Louis looked around again and shook his head, sighing wearily. He stood and walked to the door.

‘This is not the life we planned for you, but how many plans have come to nothing in the past few years? Take care, my little one.’

Once he had left, Colette sat by the window at the front of the apartment. It was actually quite nice, if she ignored the furnishings, with the front window that caught the sun from late morning and the rear that caught it from late afternoon. As with her previous pregnancy, the nausea passed by mid-afternoon. She would rest in the mornings, and in the afternoons she would make the apartment into somewhere beautiful for her and Fleur to live in. She would cook and clean, work in the bookshop, and think of other ways of earning money. Perhaps Sébastien could find her some hours in the café until she became too heavy to stand for hours.

For the rest of the afternoon she set about unpacking the cases, feeling more positive. Louis had clearly been into her bedroom and stripped it as he had brought her counterpane and fresh sheets for both women as well as her small rug. There were heavy curtains and cushion covers and a couple of metres of white linen that Colette decided would make a tablecloth. She was standing on a chair, hanging pink brocade damask curtains in the front window when Fleur came upstairs from the shop. She stalked straight up to Colette, hands on her hips.

‘What are you doing? You could fall and hurt yourself or the baby!’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘You aren’t… You don’t want to, do you?’

Colette hooked the last loop over the rail and stepped off, shocked to the core. ‘No! I can’t believe you would think that I would do that!’

‘I can’t believe you would do something so risky as stand on a chair!’

‘I wouldn’t hurt myself if I fell and the chair is stable. I didn’t think it was so risky,’ Colette said. She sat and fanned herself. ‘I’ve been busy. Look at what my father brought us. I’ve been making it a home.’

---