Page 47 of Summer at the Château
‘Pixie darling, I’m way too old to be of any use helping you run the place, I’d just be in the way.’
‘Nonsense. You’d be our front-of-house person – you’re so good with making people feel at home.’ Pixie looked at her anxiously. ‘If you don’t want to move here permanently, I’ll have to think again because I’m not leaving you in Devon on your own, okay?’
‘Sounds to me like you’re trying to bully your own mother into agreeing,’ Gwen muttered.
Pixie smiled at her. ‘Maybe I am, but it’s with the best intentions in the world.’ At that moment, the sound of Pixie’s mobile ringing in the kitchen was heard and she jumped up to answer it. ‘Talk amongst yourselves for two minutes.’
Picking up the phone from the kitchen table, the caller ID showed her it was Jean-Yves.
‘Hi. How are you?’
‘Wondering whether I could buy you that supper I promised you one night this week? Maybe tomorrow?’
‘That would be lovely, thank you.’
‘I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock then. A bientôt.’
‘A bientôt,’ Pixie echoed as she returned to the terrace. ‘That was Jean-Yves. I’m having supper with him tomorrow evening.’
31
After taking Ferdie to school the next day, Justine returned to the cottage intending to make herself a cup of coffee and some toast. She’d slept badly again for most of the night, only falling asleep at five thirty and then sleeping through the alarm. It had been a real struggle to get Ferdie to eat his breakfast and get him to school on time. Making something for herself hadn’t been an option. Coffee was definitely needed now though before she went across to the barn to start on an order of five baskets for a new shop customer in Rosteren.
Justine leant against the work surface after cutting and flattening two pieces of stale baguette and forcing them into the narrow slots of the toaster and then pressing the button on the coffee machine.
Waiting for the two machines to do their stuff, Justine tried to marshal her thoughts into some sort of order. She had no doubt that Pixie would be over at some point demanding to know who her mother was, not that she could or would say.
Justine smothered a sigh. She hadn’t phoned her mother yet to tell her that Frank’s wife was living in the château for the summer. That piece of information alone would be enough to set her mother off, add in the news that Justine had actually told Pixie who she was, well, that would have a similar effect to lighting a Catherine wheel on Bastille Night. The sparks would fly everywhere. She’d leave off telling Brigitte until she saw her again, it would be easier that way.
A gentle tap on the cottage door and Justine caught her breath, before squaring her shoulders and going to open the door.
‘May I come in?’
Silently Justine held the door open and Pixie walked in.
‘Is something burning?’
Justine let the door go and ran back to the kitchen. ‘Merde! My toast. I’ve never understood why French toasters are so ridiculously narrow they can’t manage a teacake let alone a piece of baguette.’ She unplugged the toaster and threw a tea towel over it, picked it up and carried it outside. ‘I’ll leave the door open for a bit. I’m about to have a coffee, would you like one?
‘Please.’
Justine poured two mugs of coffee and held one out to Pixie. ‘Sorry, I don’t have any milk. Ferdie had the last of it for his breakfast.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I quite like it black.’ Pixie took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry about the other day, accusing you of… you know, but I do have questions I need the answers to.’
‘I don’t mind answering your questions,’ Justine said. ‘But there is one question that I won’t answer and I think it’s probably the one you desperately want to know.’
‘Your mother’s name?’
‘That’s the one and I’m afraid I was sworn to secrecy and made to promise I wouldn’t tell you.’
‘Frank’s death has changed things, surely?’
‘My mother is still alive and she insisted on me making the promise as much as Frank.’
‘Okay. I’ll leave that one for the moment. Where did you grow up?’
‘Mostly here in Brittany, St Malo. My mum married William when I was about one and he adopted me. I had a great childhood and I adore William.’
