Her Darkest Hour

by Sharon Maas

Genres: Historical Fiction; Jewish Fiction; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; 20th Century Romance

Synopsis

"You and me - we’re sisters, not enemies. We’ve got a real enemy at our door and we need to focus on that - together, united. I don’t want to be fighting you as well." In the small French town of Colmar, swastikas hang from lampposts, tanks are lined up outside the town hall, and 21-year-old Marie-Claire is in love. She will do anything for her childhood friend Jacques, including spying on her German boss, Dietrich Kurtz. Anything to make Jacques see her in a new light, as something more than just a silly little girl. But when Jacques rejects her, everything changes. Mortified and stung, Marie-Claire feels the need for revenge. She turns her back on those she loves and is catapulted into a new life. Her little sister Victoire is aghast at her sister’s traitorous behavior, not least because Marie-Claire is endangering Victoire’s own life-threatening mission, hiding Jewish refugees in their mother’s wine cellar. And when Marie-Claire marries Kurtz, Victoire knows her relationship with her sister has been poisoned for ever. But when Victoire learns someone she loves is in terrible danger, her only choice is to trust the sister who betrayed her. Kurtz, Marie-Claire’s cruel and heartless husband, has key information and Victoire must persuade Marie-Claire to obtain it, even if it means risking Marie-Claire’s life. As secrets come to light and close bonds are broken, will the sisters be able to heal old wounds? An unforgettable story of two sisters ripped apart by World War II. Fans of The Nightingale and The Ragged Edge of Night will fall in love with Her Darkest Hour .

Release date: May 22, 2020

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

Marie-Claire knew the precise moment she fell in love with Jacques Dolch. They were both fourteen, she slightly older. It had been snowing all night, and a soft thick blanket of white covered the undulating hills around the chateau. She had risen early: the sun had just made its full and glorious appearance above the horizon, flinging a cloak of golden light over the land, and everything was sparkling and pure, as if the world was alive with a silent joyous song, so that she, too, felt sparkling and pure and full of joy. Village rooftops, just visible in a cleft between the hills below, and the meadows and rows of vines that combed the hills, all glistened as if with a million tiny diamonds; and the branches of the bare trees, silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky, were all etched in white; and life was whole and full of splendour. She opened the front door to all this, laughed out loud with glee and stepped forward, into the untouched snow.

She loved the sound of thick, pristine snow crunching beneath her boots. She loved being the first to leave footprints in the virgin whiteness, breaking the deep silence of a winter morning. She welcomed the new day with a little dance of joy, and then she hurried back inside, summoned back by the book the Christkindl had brought her last night. She had spent most of the night reading, and it was pulling her back with the strength of a mighty magnet. It was a delicious love story, just the kind of book to wrap itself around her and sweep her away to a faraway world, a world of ballrooms and beautiful dresses – and, of course, of heroines swept off their feet by charming and handsome swains.

Maman had already lit the poêle en faїence, or Kachelowa, as they called it here in Alsace, the wood-burning stove that provided heat for the entire ground floor, and the salon was filled with a delicious warmth, the kind of saturating warmth that sank into your being when you came in from a crisply cold day, the kind of cosy warmth that made you want to do nothing more than curl up with a good book. Marie-Claire was the reader in the family, and Maman had delivered gold with this particular book. She couldn’t wait to get back to it.

And so, curled up in the massive armchair just next to the Kachelowa, was where Jacques found her hours later. She had even skipped breakfast, so absorbed had she been in the story.

‘Marie-Claire! You’re wasting the morning away! Come on out – we’re going to have a snow-fight, and we need one more person to even up the teams. It’s boys against girls!’

He made to grab her book, but she pulled it away just in time.

‘Oh, Jacques, no! Go away! You really are a nuisance!’

Jacques was not a reader, so he could never understand. Nobody understood. In her family, they were all energetic, outdoorsy people, and nobody knew the magic of a good book. The nearest anyone came to understanding was Juliette, Jacques’ sister, who also read, but a different kind of book: factual books, books about things, not people. And there was still hope for Victoire, her little sister and the youngest in the family, who was slowly learning; Marie-Claire had given her a novel suitable for seven-year-olds last night, and she had seemed genuinely pleased.

Jacques and Juliette Dolch were not only their best friends and nearest neighbours: their mother had died at Juliette’s birth, and their own maman had played the mother role all their lives. Thus, they were like siblings to the four Gauthier children, and, as always, had celebrated Christmas with them last night. Their father, Maxence Dolch, was a good friend of their mother, as well as her winemaker, and the six children were in and out of each other’s homes. She had never thought of Jacques as anything but a brother, along with her own two brothers, Leon and Lucien. A quite annoying brother at that. Like now. He would not take no for an answer.

‘Come on, don’t be a boring spoilsport!’ He grabbed at the book again, and this time he was able to pull it from her hands and slam it shut, and hold it above his head, high up, so that she, considerably shorter than him, could not reach it, no matter how she jumped and tried to grab it back.

‘Now you’ve gone and lost my page! Jacques Dolch, I hate you!’

‘No you don’t. You know it’ll be fun once you get out. The book won’t run away, Marie-Claire. Come on! It’s beautiful outside. Look, here’s your book. Sorry I lost your page.’

He handed it back to her. She took it, and leafed through it looking for the place she’d left off and, finding it, settled back into her comfy chair.

‘You’re really going to spend all morning there?’

‘Yes, of course, and what’s it to you?’

Jacques shrugged. ‘I just thought you might enjoy being with us, that’s all. But if you’re quite sure…’

‘Yes, I am, thank you very much.’

She drew up her legs and, curled into a ball, began to read again, ignoring Jacques, who shrugged, turned and walked towards the door.

Marie-Claire read a few more paragraphs but discovered that she couldn’t get back into the flow of events. Jacques had made her lose not only her place in the book but her place in the story. She was out of it, and couldn’t get back in.

In the end she gave up. She placed the piece of red silk ribbon that served as a bookmark between the pages, closed the book, stood up and stretched. She might as well go outside now.

The snow-fight on the meadow in front of the chateau was in full swing, all the children laughing as they zigzagged around the field, pitching hastily formed lumps of packed snow at each other. Marie-Claire bent down, picked up a lump of snow in her mittened hands, packed it into a ball and charged at Jacques, who had to be punished for the unforgivable crime of pulling her out of her book. Her missile hit him smack in the face; he laughed out loud and soon it was a one-on-one battle between the two of them.

And then it was just as Jacques had said, girls against boys, for Leon and Lucien came to Jacques’ rescue, and Juliette and Victoire rushed in to defend Marie-Claire, and the clamour of laughter and screams was enough to bring the grown-ups – Maman, and Tante Sophie, outside, to stand before the chateau’s door and laugh with the children, egging on the girls, who seemed so frightfully disadvantaged by the sheer size and strength of the boys.

And then, disaster. Marie-Claire, twisting around to avoid a particularly large snowball fired by Jacques, fell and, when she struggled to get back on her feet, cried out in pain. Maman, though wearing only slippers on her feet, rushed forward to help.

‘I can’t, Maman, I can’t walk!’ whimpered Marie-Claire as Maman tried to help her to her feet. ‘I think it’s broken!’

‘Nonsense! It’s probably just a sprain. Nothing a bit of rest and an ice pack won’t heal. Come on, arm around my shoulder. You can limp back.’

Standing now on one leg, Marie-Claire gave a little hop, one arm around Maman’s neck, but lost her balance and fell again.

‘Let’s make this easy,’ said Jacques.

He bent over and scooped Marie-Claire into his arms as if she were a child of three rather than a quite solid fourteen-year-old. Holding her aloft, he marched across the field to the front door. ‘I’m not too heavy?’ Marie-Claire asked.

‘You’re light as a feather!’ Jacques replied, and grinned down at her.

He had lost his cap during the fight and a lock of dark hair hung forward over his eyes, and his grin was cheeky and his eyes sparkled in a way she had never noticed before; and being carried like this, by a boy as handsome and, yes, as charming, as Jacques – well, it was something very special indeed, a pivotal moment in her life. Only this morning, in the very book she was reading, something like this had happened to the heroine, a girl not much older than she herself, and even with a name, Marianne, similar to her own. And the girl had fallen head over heels in love, and it was the most delightful and moving scene in the book up to now.

And it was happening to her – just like in the book.

Later, many years later, Marie-Claire was to look back to that moment of euphoria and pinpoint it as the trigger for the whole disaster. But that was after the war.

Right now, in Jacques’ arms, her heart soared, opened up and folded around him.

They came at dawn. She heard them through closed windows: the perfect rhythmic thud of marching boots, the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, sinister against the early-morning stillness. Sounds that chilled the soul.

Juliette leapt from her bed to fling open her upstairs bedroom window. She leaned on the sill to watch. Across the street, up and down, other windows in other houses opened, other men and women, and some children, watched silently. The watchers glanced at each other and some gave slight waves to their neighbours, but mostly they simply watched the seemingly endless column of goose-stepping Germans, slate-grey-coated soldiers in perfect lockstep, left-right, left-right, arms stiffly swinging, rifles on shoulders. An occasional officer on horseback. A break in the column as a tank rolled in, or a jeep. Slow-moving motorcycles ridden by helmeted soldiers, escorting a long black car like a hearse, its windows blackened.

Juliette jumped as she felt a hand on her back, but it was only Grandma Hélène, still in her nightdress, like Juliette. She moved aside to make room. No words spoken. Arms around waists, they only watched.

And then the voice, strident through the megaphone, in German and in French: ‘Citizens of Colmar. Your city is now under the jurisdiction of the German National Socialist Government. When leaving your homes, you must carry identification papers with you at all times. Your curfew starts at 8 p.m. and ends at 5 a.m.…’ And so on and so forth.

Finally, they were gone. The empty street repossessed its stolen dawn silence. Juliette closed the window and turned to Grandma. They said nothing, not out loud. There was no need. Their eyes, locked together, said all that needed to be said, wordlessly. Then as if driven by a single impulse they fell forward, clasped each other, stood in shocked embrace for a few seconds before pulling apart, to stand, holding hands, gazing again at each other. Finally, it was Juliette who broke the mute wall of shock.

‘You must leave, Grandma,’ she said. ‘Immediately. You cannot stay here.’

‘No. I will not be chased from my home. I will not be driven away by a pack of thugs.’

‘Grandma. Be sensible. Strasbourg was evacuated; now it’s Colmar’s turn. This is no time for pride. I can’t stay with you, you know that, and you can’t stay alone. I’ll help you pack. I’ll take you to Papa. You must stay with him until it’s safe to return home.’

‘It’s sweet of you to worry, chérie, but completely unnecessary. If anyone is in danger it is you: a young, beautiful girl. They won’t harm an old woman. It is you who must go.’

‘Grandma! You know I am leaving anyway, back to university. But I’m not going to leave you here alone. I just won’t. Papa will agree with me. I’m going to get dressed now and run out as soon as the post office opens and ring Auntie Margaux. She’ll inform him and come and get you.’

Hélène tried to protest again, but Juliette, normally a soft-spoken, willingly compliant girl who went out of her way to avoid conflict or argument, was adamant, the inner steel that she kept concealed, ready for emergencies, finally emerging full-blown to assert itself, to stand tall at full height. It was Grandma’s turn for compliance in a reversal of roles.

Juliette and her grandmother enjoyed an unusually close relationship. When Juliette’s mother died in childbirth it had been Hélène who had dropped everything and rushed, husband in tow, to her son’s cottage nestled within the hillside vineyards near Ribeauvillé to take over the care of the baby. When Juliette came of school age, the three of them moved back to the family home in Colmar, this very house in which Hélène herself had grown up, leaving Juliette’s older brother, Jacques, with his father, the winemaker Maxence Dolch.

Thus, the Dolch family was split into two branches: Juliette and her grandparents, Jacques and Maxence, with Juliette flitting between the two, spending all her holidays with her father and term-time with her grandparents. She might call Hélène Grandma, but for all practical purposes she was a mother, a real mother. Grandpa had died two years previously, in 1938, and now it was just the two of them. With Juliette growing into maturity, her role was changing, and more and more her responsibility for her grandmother’s well-being came into focus. Grandma may have managed well on her own in this rather grand Colmar house, but now, with Nazis swarming through the town, it was unthinkable.

As soon as she had bathed, dressed and had her morning coffee, Juliette emerged into the street, identification documents tucked into the pocket of her jacket. The post office was a fifteen-minute walk away; it necessitated passing the town hall. It was now mid-morning, but already its façade had changed. Huge long banners hung from the upstairs window of the building: a black swastika on a white circle against a red background. Three jeeps were parked outside the building, all with swastika signs pasted onto the doors. Soldiers, proudly bearing swastika armbands, marched briskly in and out of the main entrance. Already they owned the place. Soldiers everywhere in the town square, pasting swastika posters to lamp posts.

She stopped and stared. Marie-Claire worked here, at the Mairie. Marie-Claire, the daughter of her father’s employer, Margaux Gauthier-Laroche. She and Jacques had grown up with the Gauthier children; Marie-Claire, and even more so Victoire, the youngest, were as sisters to her.

Bile rose in her throat. Where was Marie-Claire? Was she safe? And the mayor, a good friend of her grandmother – where was he? All the Mairie employees? Across the square she spotted Madame Bélanger, another member of Hélène’s wide circle of Colmar friends. She dashed across the square.

‘Bonjour, Madame! How are you?’

‘I am not well, chérie, who could be well on a day like today? This cursed war has finally come to Colmar.’

‘Yes – we watched them marching in, Grandma and I. It was shocking.’

‘I never thought I’d witness a day like today. Not after the last war. I thought humanity had learned its final lesson. I was wrong.’

‘Yes, but, Madame, do you know what happened, here at the Mairie? My friend Marie-Claire works here, and…’

But Madame Bélanger was already shaking her head.

‘The Nazis took possession of it even before the soldiers marched in. I don’t know how they got inside but they did. They simply swarmed through the place and owned it. Later when the employees began to arrive, one by one, they were sent home. They were told to return tomorrow. I know this because my nephew also works there. They will all lose their jobs, including your Marie-Claire. Colmar will now be a town administrated by Nazis. You can see how they have already decorated it in their stirring colours.’

She gestured towards the building, not looking.

‘I can’t even bear to look at it. Our beloved Mairie, festooned in swastikas. It’s a tragedy. So Marie-Claire will have returned home?’

‘I expect so. But what about you, my dear? Your grandma?’

‘I want her to leave, to go and stay with Papa. She doesn’t want to go, but she can’t stay here alone.’

‘Quite right. I’m glad you’re looking after her. It’s different for me: I will stay, my whole family is here, my husband and sons and daughters. We will keep Colmar alive and French. But Hélène should go back to Maxence. You are at university, aren’t you?’

Juliette nodded. ‘Yes. But I must move on – I’m just on my way to the post office to ring Tante Margaux and ask her to come and get us.’

‘Give her my regards, and your father, when you see him.’

‘I will. Au revoir.’

They parted, and Juliette moved on. She couldn’t help it, however; she looked once more at the Mairie and shook her fist at it, a gesture of utter disdain and defiance. Which did not go unseen.

She had not taken five further steps before two officers in greatcoats stepped into her path.

‘Guten Tag, Fräulein; where are you headed?’

Absolutely none of your business, she thought, but pride must now take second place to sagacity. There was no point in invoking Nazi ire. The words she spoke, clearly, confidently and curtly, were:

‘To the post office. To make a telephone call.’ No wasted words. Eyes glazed, looking straight ahead, not down, not meeting theirs.

‘Papers.’ A gloved hand, held out. She pushed her own hand into her coat, brought out her ID card, student card. Shoved them into the black glove. The officer took it, read it, looked up. Looked down, at the photo, and up again. It was a good likeness, but he pretended to doubt. This time she did meet his eyes, but made sure hers gave nothing away. No emotion. No fear, no irritation. She held his gaze, and he looked down again at the papers.

‘You live in the rue Courvoisier?’

‘Yes.’

‘With your family?’

A slight nod. ‘My grandmother.’

His eyes narrowed, and dropped to the thick plait that fell over her shoulder, long and black. He reached out and gave it a flick with his fingers.

‘Such dark hair. Are you Jewish?’

‘No, I’m not.’

He shook his head as if doubting her, then finally handed back the papers. ‘You may proceed. Do not loiter.’

She retrieved her documents without a word and only a slight flare of the nostrils, turned away, walked a few metres and spat on the ground. Hurried onwards.

‘Fräulein!’ She stopped abruptly. Pushed her hands deep into her pockets because they were trembling furiously, uncontrollably. Did not look back. Held her head up. Waited for the officer to stride up from behind and once again plant himself in front of her on the pavement. She met his eyes with a cold stare.

‘I will have you know,’ he barked, ‘that I have the authority to arrest any citizen who does not comply with my orders, or who in any way resists allegiance to German authority. You have been warned. Go on your way.’

It took all her strength to hold back the retort straining at the tip of her tongue, but she did. She nodded, and since he did not budge but simply stood there blocking her path, she walked around him. Her pocketed hands still trembled and did not stop shaking until she reached the post office.

There was a long queue for the telephone booth; it seemed that many Colmar citizens had similar needs to hers. The waiting people spoke among themselves in hushed voices. Snippets of conversations reached her ears.

‘Do you think…?’

‘Did you see…?’

‘We are leaving as soon as we can.’

‘…the next train. Down to…’

Many of them greeted Juliette with a friendly word.

‘Bonjour, Juliette, how’s Madame Dolch?’ said M. Bordeleau, her grandfather’s former tailor, as he joined the queue behind her.

‘She’s well, but I think it’s better she leaves Colmar. She’s on her own now so she’ll go to live with Papa.’

M. Bordeleau nodded. ‘That is a very good decision. Colmar is no longer what it was. France is no longer what it was. Seeing as how les Boches simply marched into France and took over… well. Terrible times. And now they are here in Colmar too.’

‘Living as we do on the border to Germany, it was only a question of time,’ put in Madame Coulon, who had just joined the queue to stand behind Juliette.

‘So much for the Maginot Line,’ said M. Bordeleau. ‘The Boche simply ignored it.’

‘Well, they might think they own Alsace but they don’t. They never will. Alsace will stay Alsace.’ Juliette’s voice was defiant.

‘There’s Alsace Français, and Alsace Allemand,’ said Madame Coulon. ‘Back and forth, back and forth. A tug of war, which has now literally come to pass. You of course are too young to remember the last time we were German. Do not underestimate the damage that can be done. Why, your own name, Mademoiselle Dolch, is a testimony to that, a German name. When the Germans come they mean business. Everything will change: our names, the language, everything.’

Juliette merely nodded; she’d heard it all before. She was now at the head of the line; the person inside the booth was shouting into the mouthpiece, gesticulating as he spoke as if the person on the other end could see. Juliette rapped sharply on the glass, pointed to the long queue behind her, shrugged a question mark. The man understood. He slammed the receiver into its holder and stormed out of the booth.

Juliette entered, dialled Margaux’s number. She picked up right away.

‘Juliette! Thank God… are you all right? We heard the news on the wireless. I hoped you’d call… How’s Hélène? What’s going on?’

‘We are all right, Tante Margaux, but Grandma’s a bit shaken as you can imagine. I think it’s best she move in with Papa for the time being.’

‘But of course! It’s what I’ve been saying all this time. And you want me to come and get her?’

‘Yes, if you have the time.’

‘For you, always; I just hope the traffic isn’t too bad. I’ve heard everyone’s fleeing Colmar, and the roads are packed.’

‘But the roads coming in to Colmar should be free, don’t you think?’

‘Who knows? It is terrible, terrible.’

‘But it was only a question of time, wasn’t it. If they can take Paris, they can take Strasbourg and Colmar. We are just small fry after Paris.’

‘Not at all! Colmar and Alsace: they are precious to Hitler and to Germany. It’s more than just a small town in their eyes, chérie – for the Germans, Alsace is the crown jewel of France. But we will discuss all that later. I’m going to look after the animals and as soon as I’m finished, I’ll come for you both. Adieu, ma petite.’

‘Adieu, Tante Margaux, and thank you.’ She hung up the phone, left the booth, nodded goodbye to M. Bordeleau and Madame Coulon as she walked past them – many more had by now joined the queue which now snaked out into the street – and headed for home.

Tante Margaux was, of course, not her real aunt; she was, in fact, her father’s employer, but more than that, a good old friend of the family. Margaux’s vineyard Château Gauthier-Laroche produced possibly the best wine in all of Alsace – an arguable estimation, the subject of many rigorous discussions in many a public house in all the Alsatian towns and villages between Thann in the south and Strasbourg in the north.

But a wine is only as good as its winemaker, and it was Juliette’s father Maxence who worked the magic that transformed Margaux’s Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer grapes into the wine people called nectar of the gods. Once, half of the Gauthier-Laroche vineyards had actually belonged to Maxence, but Max was a bad businessman and hard financial times and sloppy accounting had forced him to sell – on condition that he remained as winemaker. Margaux had been only too happy to form that alliance, because if her wine was indeed nectar of the gods, then Maxence was the magician whose wand performed that divine miracle of transubstantiation.

But to Juliette, Maxence was simply Papa. Her adoration was complete, and it was mutual, and as a child she had loved nothing more than returning ‘home’ in the school holidays, to frolic behind her father up and down the rows of vines; to learn from him, to cuddle on his lap of an evening while he read her to sleep beside the fireplace or, in summer, beside the outdoor fire he and Jacques made and on which they roasted their sausages and potatoes. Life on an Alsace vineyard was idyllic.

But close behind Maxence and Jacques, and Grandma and Grandpa – the Dolch clan – came the Gauthier family: Tante Margaux and her brood of children: Marie-Claire, Lucien, Leon and Victoire. They had all grown up together, in and out of each other’s homes, all the parents and grandparents parenting all children, all the children like brothers and sisters.

Adolf Hitler was a living threat to all that. For years the province had lived under fear, fear of the looming menace just across the river, behind the Maginot Line and the River Rhine. Of what would happen should Nazi boots cross the Rhine and the Line. And now they had.

On the walk home Juliette noticed that already every single lamp post carried a swastika poster, and even more tanks were lined up outside the town hall. Even more soldiers walked smartly in and out of it, carrying briefcases and boxes and an aura of brisk efficiency. They had wasted no time in claiming ownership of her hometown. She walked past them all with her head held high, but bristling internally.

She arrived home, to the terraced house on the shady street she had played in as a child, only to find that there was no escape. The Germans were here too. Her front door stood open, and as she walked up the drive the very same officer who had stopped her earlier in the day, who had demanded her papers and asked for her home address, that very same officer stepped out.

‘Ah, Fräulein Dolch!’ he said as he saw her. ‘Good that you have returned. We have decided that this house and all its furnishings shall be requisitioned by the German Army. Ten officers have been billeted here and shall be moving in by 6 p.m. today. You and your grandmother are free to stay, or to vacate. It is entirely up to you.’

Margaux arrived a few hours later; by that time several army vehicles, all liberally plastered with swastikas, were parked along the street so that she had to park the van around the corner and walk back to the house. It swarmed with soldiers, the front door wide open, men in uniform walking in and out as though they owned the place. Margaux, striding into the hall, ignored them all.

‘Coo-coo! Juliette! Hélène! Where are you?’

Juliette returned the call. ‘We’re here, in the kitchen!’

Margaux pushed open the kitchen door and entered. She found Hélène sitting at the central table calmly sipping tea; Juliette, who had been marching back and forth, unable to contain her nervous energy, rushed towards her, grabbed Margaux by the hand.

‘Tante! Thank goodness. We’ve been waiting ages.’

‘Sorry I took so long – Marie-Claire came home in hysterics; they’ve invaded the Mairie, chucked out all the staff… what’s going on?’

‘They’re throwing us out! Out of our home!’

‘Not quite true.’ Hélène’s voice was calm as she rose to her feet to greet Margaux. The two women kissed each other in greeting. They were an incongruous pair: Margaux, tall and strong, buxom, even, with a dishevelled head of pepper-and-salt hair, dressed for farm work in tired overalls and a bulky pullover, her face carved with lines drawn by life; Hélène, petite, elegantly attired, now, in a prim grey woollen skirt and a dusty-pink cardigan buttoned up to the neck, not a hair of her neat chignon out of place, her face porcelain-smooth (not without the help of an expensive cream or two), her lips finely drawn and accented with a discreet pink lipstick, perfectly matching her cardigan. A single string of pearls circled her neck.

Hélène shrugged, and gestured towards the four packed suitcases standing against the wall, along with several baskets packed with food. ‘They gave us the option of staying; I could have kept my bedroom and shared facilities – bathroom and kitchen – with them. I’d have been happy to do so. These thugs don’t scare me and I won’t be thrown out of my own house. But I suppose my will doesn’t count. She wouldn’t allow it.’ She gestured towards Juliette.

‘Oh, Grandma! It’s nothing to do with me allowing you or not. You know very well you can’t live in a household of – well, thugs you said, and thugs they are. Tante Margaux – she can’t possibly stay here, can she?’ Her eyes pleaded with Margaux. Support me, agree with me! I’ve been arguing with her for hours!

‘I should think not,’ said Margaux briskly. ‘But I don’t understand. Why you? Why this house in particular? I don’t see them in any of the other houses?’

‘That may happen yet. It’s my fault. I think I annoyed one of the officers this morning and it’s a sort of revenge.’ She related the incident on the way to the post office. ‘I suppose provoking them didn’t help. They must have come straight here. I had to give him my address.’

‘That was a silly mistake, chérie. But you are young; you do not yet know that it is easier to catch flies with honey than with pepper. You will learn.’

‘You should have seen them, Tante, marching in lockstep, right past the house. It was horrible, horrible! I wanted to kill them!’

Margaux placed an arm around her waist, hugged her close. ‘We all want to kill them. But tell me – have they yet discovered the cellar?’

‘Not as far as I know,’ said Juliette. ‘I haven’t seen them go down. They’ve been up in the bedrooms, mostly, carrying up boxes. It looks as if they’re going to be setting up offices as well as accommodation. Why?’

‘Well, you know what is down there! Do I have to spell it out?’

Hélène shrugged. ‘Who cares about a few bottles? They’ve got the house. My family home, the house I grew up in. It can’t get much worse than that.’

‘What sacrilege! It’s a good thing your good husband isn’t around to hear those words! But, you know, it