Peach (23 page)

Leonie glanced at Peach, alarmed. “Do you feel ill?”

“No, no. But please don’t make me go in, Grand-mère. Please?”

Leonie looked at the Maddox Charity Orphanage, at Mrs Grenfell’s expectant face and the grey children lined up in front of that grey building. She understood why Peach didn’t want to go inside. “Wait here then, darling,” she said opening the car door. It was her duty to go in, to see what her organization could do to help. She wished now she hadn’t brought Peach with her.

Leonie shook Mrs Grenfell’s hand, a warm smile lighting her still beautiful face. A small girl in an unbecoming print dress offered a stiff bouquet of gladioli wrapped in cellophane. Leonie bent to kiss her and the child stared at her, mouth open in amazement, a hand on her cheek where she had been kissed. Leonie progressed down the rows of children, smiling, shaking hands, pausing to pat the head of a little one, questioning the older ones. Her interest was real and her concern genuine and Peach thought she almost shone with love for those poor children.

Peach slumped back against the seat with a sigh of relief as they filed inside. She couldn’t have borne to sit with them and have lunch, the way she did at the Château d’Aureville. This place terrified her. Somehow she knew how it would smell without even going in there—of strong disinfectant and stale food—and unhappiness. Sitting up she stared out of the window at the closed front door. The steel letters glittered in the wavering sunlight. Maddox Charity Orphanage.

A skeletal face appeared suddenly at the car window, its eyes as light and steely as the letters over the door. Peach pulled back with a gasp of alarm.

“Sorry,” the boy muttered, “sorry. I just wanted to look
at the car.” He walked away, head down, hands jammed in his pockets.

Peach rolled down the window and stared after him. He didn’t seem very old. The boy’s grey trousers were too short and flapped around his skinny ankles and his cropped head looked vulnerable and pathetic. Sliding quickly across the seat, she called after him. “Wait a minute.”

Noel walked on, blinking to clear his eyes of the vision of her. He must be dreaming that she had called him.

“Please,” called Peach, “wait a minute, wait for me.”

Noel heard her light footsteps on the gravel and felt the slight pressure of her hand on his arm.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Peach de Courmont. Who are you?”

She was even more beautiful than at first glance, a glowing girl with a cloud of russet hair. Her skin looked soft—not red and chapped from the wind like the girls he knew; and her eyes—oh her eyes were this marvellous deep, dark blue—the blue of summer lakes he had never seen but knew must exist. For other people, not for him.

Peach smiled at him tentatively. “Well?”

Noel hung his head. “Well, what?”

“What’s
your
name?”

“Noel.”

“Noel—
who?
”

“Maddox—Noel Maddox.”

Peach’s glance rested on the steel letters over the door. She wished she hadn’t asked. “Why aren’t you inside having lunch with the others?”

Noel thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. “I wanted to look at the car, that’s all,” he muttered, hanging his head.

“Well, come on then.” Peach took his arm, “Come on, I’ll show you.”

The shock of her touch made Noel shiver, so that the
hairs on the back of his neck bristled. Shyly he allowed her to lead him towards the car.

“Look all you want,” she said. “I couldn’t tell you how fast it goes because Grand-mère never drives over thirty miles an hour.”

Her high sweet laugh sent shivers down Noel’s spine. “Can I … I mean would it be okay if I looked inside?”

“Of course.” Peach flung open the door and stepped back.

“No. No I mean
inside
. Under the hood.”

“You want to see the
engine?
” She had thought he would want to admire the luxurious interior. “I’m not sure how to open it,” she confessed.

“Here, let me.” Noel located the lever and walked around the front of the car. Lifting the hood he gazed at the immaculate, still hot engine.

Peach leaned companionably over the side. “What’s so fascinating about engines?” she asked.

Noel’s hungry gaze took in the details of the machine’s construction and capacity. His hand itched for a wrench, he could have poked around in that engine for hours. “Don’t you see?” he murmured. “It’s all so perfect. The plugs, the hoses, each little piece plays its part in creating power. It’s all so logical and so easy.”

“It certainly looks complicated to me!”

Noel lifted his gaze from the engine. Peach’s arm rested on the rim of the car next to his hand. It was faintly golden from the kind of sun that never shone here, with a scatter of blonde hairs. Noel gripped the edge of the car tighter and his voice deepened as he answered. “That’s because you’re a girl.”

Peach tossed the hair out of her eyes, laughing. “Ah, but I’m a
de Courmont
girl.”

The name rang in his head with the impact of the fair-ground
bell struck with the full blow of the hammer. “
De Courmont!
You mean the
automobile
de Courmonts?”

“That’s us,” smiled Peach, meeting his stunned gaze. Really he had nice eyes when he lifted the veil of defence and allowed you to see into them, a light grey and with long, dark lashes. “My grandfather practically built the first one himself.”

“They’re
wonderful
cars,” said Noel, awestruck. “Of course, I’ve never seen one for real … just in books.”

Peach sighed. “We’re not sure that there’ll be any more now. The factories were destroyed in the war—there’s not much left.”

Noel tried to imagine what the de Courmont factories must have looked like. They were important enough to be destroyed in the war …

“
Noel!
”

He spun round as Mr Hill’s familiar tread crunched across the gravel.

“Noel! What are you doing out here? You’re supposed to be inside with the others. You’ve missed Madame Leonie’s talk and your place is conspicuous by your absence in the dining hall!”

“Sorry,” mumbled Noel, hanging his head.

Peach looked at him in alarm, it was as though somebody had turned a switch, cutting off the burning eagerness in his eyes. He was dispirited, disinterested … “It’s my fault,” she smiled, holding out her hand. “I’m Peach de Courmont, Leonie’s granddaughter. I didn’t feel too well,” she gestured towards the car. “Noel noticed and stayed behind to see if he could help me.”

She could see the man didn’t believe her, but she was Leonie’s granddaughter. He would have to accept her explanation. He shook her hand politely.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Miss de Courmont?”

Peach shook her head. “Thank you, I’m feeling better now. I’ll just wait here in the car, for my grandmother.”

“Then you’d better come with me, Noel, lunch has already begun.”

“Goodbye, Noel,” called Peach. Their glances met as he turned to follow Mr Hill to the house and Peach closed one eye in a conspiratorial wink, grinning as she climbed back into the car.

When Leonie re-emerged on the steps of the Maddox Orphanage an hour later her face still wore a smile but Peach thought she looked tired. It wasn’t surprising, her grandmother was almost seventy and the Maddox looked enough to exhaust anyone.

With a final goodbye, Leonie climbed into the car and switched on the engine. “Wave farewell, darling,” she murmured, still smiling, as they drove smoothly down the drive towards the tall iron gates, held open for them again by two small boys.

“Thank God,” she breathed, tears stinging her eyes as the gates clanged shut behind them. “Oh thank God, Peach, that you never had to belong in a place like that.”

Noel lingered by the gate watching until the car was no more than a speck on the straight road that led to the horizon. One more instant and then it was gone. Peach de Courmont was a golden girl, as unattainable to him as a dream. Her world was one of love and laughter, freedom and success. The fields of wheat rippled under the wind and a sigh as deep as eternity swept through his thin body. A sigh of longing. He now had two things he knew he wanted from life. He wanted to work with automobiles. And he wanted a girl like Peach de Courmont.

The Pan-Am Clipper from New York landed late after a bumpy eighteen-hour flight and Leonore trudged thankfully through the Paris rain to the Le Bourget terminal. New York was not her city, it was too fast, too glossy, too
new
. A few days of New York’s pace left her drained and reluctant to leave her hotel room. It was the same with planes. Flying was fast and efficient but why did it leave her body feeling as though she were still in New York when her eyes and her mind told her she was home?

In the taxi to the Ile St Louis she decided she would take the train south to the Riviera the following morning. The door was opened by Oliver, the new English butler. “A gentleman called to see you this afternoon, Mademoiselle de Courmont,” he told her.

She hadn’t been expecting anyone. “Did he leave his name, Oliver?”

“No, Mademoiselle, he merely said he would call again.”

Leonore trailed tiredly up the curving staircase. All she wanted was a hot bath, a cup of tea and bed. But the house was so
quiet
. She hadn’t realised just how used she had become in a few weeks to New York’s constant backdrop of traffic and sirens and parades. Hands thrust in the pockets of a fluffy white towelling robe, she pressed against the window pane, searching the familiar view. The river Seine wore its decoration of lights and car headlamps formed patterns across the bridges and avenues, yellow one way, red the other. Everyone in Paris seemed to be out tonight. Leonore
knew that the cafés of St Germain would be crowded. Street entertainers would be out in force making little befrilled dogs jump through hoops or walking on stilts or juggling plates and playing jazz on out-of-tune saxophones; and someone would be singing softly to a guitar as lovers tossed coins into their waiting caps.

And on the smart Right Bank beautifully gowned women would be arriving at grand restaurants on the arms of handsome men, and lovers would walk hand in hand along the banks of Paris’s magical river. How could she possibly go to bed at eight o’clock when Paris waited? Pulling on a pair of black trousers and a fine jade green cashmere sweater, Leonore fastened its tiny pearl buttons hurriedly, as though she were late for a date. She unpinned her long blonde hair from its familiar chignon and shook it free. She would taste Paris on her own, go for a walk, maybe drop into a café for a drink …

Her loafered feet took the stairs two at a time and slinging her purse over her shoulder Leonore ran across the hall, through the big double doors into the warm Paris night.

A man was turning into the courtyard as she came out and they side-stepped each other quickly to avoid a collision. “Excuse me,” he said in German.

“Pardon,” she said simultaneously in French. The street lamp outlined his tall figure, the straight light hair …

“Ferdi,” she gasped.

“Lais. Oh Lais.”

Ferdi’s arms were around her, his mouth on hers. She was pressed against his body, lost in his kiss …

Leonore struggled free, pulling her mouth away from him. “Ferdi, no … no. Please, Ferdi.”

He held her face in his two hands, “Lais,” he said wonderingly, “it’s really you. I thought Kruger had killed you. They put me in prison, you know, after I shot him. But
someone told me there were rumours that you were in hospital, that they had taken you away to America. Others said you were dead … I wanted to believe you were alive, I hoped you’d be waiting for me. I came back to find you as soon as I could. Oh Lais, Lais …”

“Ferdi.
Please
,” begged Leonore. “
Please listen to me
. I’m not Lais. I’m Leonore.”

Ferdi picked up a strand of her long blonde hair, running it through his fingers. “No,” he said. “No.” Leonore’s hair wasn’t like this.

Leonore realised suddenly that tonight she did look like Lais, wearing casual clothes and with her hair loose. Leonore was the one with the tight-pulled hair, buttoned into the business suit. But her eyes were different, Ferdi would know she wasn’t Lais when he saw the colour of her eyes.

“Here Ferdi,” taking his hand she lead him to the street lamps. “Now look at me!”

He looked so deep into her eyes she felt he must be willing them to change to blue, waiting for some magic that would make her Lais. “I’m sorry Ferdi,” she whispered as his hands fell from her shoulders.

“Then it’s true,” he said quietly. “Lais is dead. It was too much to hope for.”

Leonore hesitated only a moment. Lais lay in the hospital in New York suffering tortuous treatments in the hope that she would recover from the shock that had left her silent since the shooting. Hopes had faded that one day the pieces of her puzzled mind would suddenly fit together and she would be their old Lais. And she never really could be, for there were no treatments that would ever help Lais to walk again. It would be better for Lais if Ferdi never saw her the way she was now, better he thought her dead.