‘Nonsense.’ I rose to my feet, stretching out one hand. ‘Of course you. can. I’ll take you home.’
The big eyes were imploring. ‘But my papa …’
‘Just you leave your papa to me.’
She sniffed and thought a moment, and then the small cold fingers curled around my own, trustingly.
‘Now, where is your house?’
‘It is up there,’ she said, and showed me. ‘Behind the château.’
She was pointing at the steep stairway leading upwards from the square. Wonderful, I thought with an inward groan. Why couldn’t I have been called to play the Good Samaritan to a child who made her home on street level? With sinking heart I started up the steps, the little girl in tow.
Simon and Paul had been quite right, I decided – the stairs were definitely more difficult to manage than the more gradual ascent from the rue Voltaire. By the time we neared the top my lungs were burning, and my heart was pounding wildly against my ribcage. I felt an old woman beside the child, who climbed with irritating ease. At the summit of the steps I paused, trying desperately to buy a moment’s rest. ‘Where now?’ I gasped.
‘This way,’ she said, and pointed. I let her lead me up the long slope to the château, then round the sheer and silent floodlit walls and down again. I would have gone on further but she held me back.
‘No, Madame,’ she told me, ‘it is here. This is my house.’
‘This is your house?’ My jaw slackened. I felt rather like someone who’d become lost and was wandering now in circles, forever coming round again to the same familiar spot. It was, after all, beyond the bounds of mere coincidence … wasn’t it? ‘This is your house,’ I echoed, as if the repetition might convince me, and I lifted disbelieving eyes to stare at the great imposing gates that rose before us – the gates of the Clos des Cloches, the vineyard of the bells.
CHAPTER NINE
A feudal knight in silken masquerade …
The gates were locked. I would have pressed the buzzer, but the child stopped my hand.
‘No, no, Madame – this way,’ she said, and led me through a smaller door set in the high stone wall. We came out in a dark and peaceful garden, heavy with the scent of roses. Still slightly dazed, I let my young friend pull me up the wide well-groomed approach to the white mansion, shining whiter in its floodlights, looking nearly as impressive as the château ruins that it faced.
With every step the house grew larger, and I felt smaller by comparison, scarcely taller than the child who held me by the hand. Even the front door, when we finally reached it, looked disproportionately huge.
‘The door, it will be locked,’ the girl informed me, matter-of-factly. ‘You must push the bell, just there.’
She pointed, and I pushed.
After what seemed an eternity of silence, the door swung open on its hinges, trapping us in a slanting slab of blinding yellow light. The face of the man who stood in that doorway was faintly grey and sternly lined, his mouth a deep horizontal slash beneath a hawk-like nose. It was easy to see why the child had feared his reaction, I thought. I rather feared it myself.
Which was why, when I finally found my voice, I heard myself stammering out the little girl’s predicament, or at least the essence of it, in a rapid rush of speech, ignoring the persistent tugging at my sleeve.
‘… and so naturally I assured her, Monsieur, that you would not be angry,’ I concluded, rather lamely.
Beside me the child gave another tug. ‘But Madame,’ she hissed, in a stage whisper, ‘this is not my father. This is only François.’
I looked in surprise from the tall grey man to the child, and back again. ‘Oh,’ I said.
The man had been staring at me steadily, his eyes in shadow, but now, as if awaking from a trance, he bent his head, the corners of his hard mouth lifting in a smile that surprised me with its kindness. ‘It is true, Madame,’ he told me gravely. ‘I am not the father of Mademoiselle Lucie. But please, do come in.’
Numbly, I stepped into the brilliantly lit foyer, and felt the child’s fingers loosen from my grasp. The man named François shut the door firmly behind us, and I noticed for the first time that he was an older man, in his sixties, perhaps, or even early seventies. Old enough to be the child’s grandfather. He drew himself up gravely and looked down at the small figure beside me.
‘So, Mademoiselle, you have had an adventure tonight, have you not? A bath, I think, and then to bed.’
‘I have not had my supper …’
‘Just water and dry bread, tonight,’ he threatened her, but he didn’t look as if he meant it, and she wasn’t a bit fooled. ‘Say thank you to the kind lady, Lucie, for bringing you home.’
She turned to me, her dark eyes noticeably clearer and less miserable. ‘Thank you, Madame.’
‘You are most welcome.’
I solemnly accepted the kiss she gave me, before François sent her off with a playfully imperious sweep of his hand. Giggling, she galloped up the elegant staircase that curved upwards from the foyer, her small feet making no noise on the thick red carpet as she trailed her hand along the painted wrought-iron railings of the bannister.
I felt the man’s eyes on my face again, with a curious intensity, but as I met his gaze the impression vanished. He cleared his throat and spoke. ‘This is a very kind thing you have done, Madame. The streets can be quite dangerous for a small child, and her adventure might not have ended so pleasantly. I am grateful to you for bringing her home.’