I manage a smile. I know something of the romance of this City of Lights; how it can steal your heart as easily as a glance from the person you adore more than any other in the world.
Snowflakes pepper the mahogany strands of Margaret’s hair, and dust the shoulders of her coat. Her cheeks glow with that rare kind of excitement one only gets in Paris at this time of year. Her arms are laden with Christmas treats and packages which she lays out on the kitchen table, recounting each of her prizes: wedges of cheese, sugared beignets and almond biscuits, rosewater soaps crafted in the luxuriant French style, and a bundle of holly berries tied with ribbon. But it’s the spiced aroma of vin chaud that sends my senses soaring, and in the flames of the fire I see the woman whose smile could buoy me on the worst of days. There she is, cradling a goblet of warm wine in her hands, her gaze fixed upon mine, her cheeks aglow with life.
My heart thuds a painful beat. The irregular rhythm of grief.
“Oh! I almost forgot.” Margaret pulls a letter from her handbag. “This was in the mailbox downstairs. I presume it is from Delphine. You were clever to have her send her response here. You would have missed it in London.”
Nodding, I take the letter from her, noting Delphine’s familiar handwriting on the envelope. Dear Delphine. I will be so glad to see her again. I open the envelope carefully and unfold the perfumed square of paper inside.
14th December, 1968
Dear Tom,
I am, of course, delighted to hear you are coming to Paris for Christmas, although I must admit, I am a little worried about you making the long journey. I would counsel against it, but I know you won’t change your mind once it is already made up, so I will simply say that I am looking forward to seeing you again.
I know it will be especially difficult for you to be here this year, but it wouldn’t be the same without you. We will make the best of things and find some of that vin chaud you’re so fond of.
I will call the apartment in a few days’ time to check you have arrived safely.
With warmest affection,
Delphine
My hands tremble as I fold the page and return it to the envelope. So many distant faces and memories flicker to life, stubborn flames that will not die.
“Is everything all right, Mr. Harding?”
I nod, and turn to my nurse. “Yes, Margaret. Except my cup appears to be empty. A little more vin chaud, perhaps?” She hesitates. I know the thoughts that cross her mind: What about his medication? Is a little more wine a good idea? “It seems a shame to waste it,” I press.
She smiles and fills my cup, and her own, before raising hers to mine. “Salut, Monsieur Harding. Joyeux No?l.”
“Merry Christmas, Margaret.”
I cradle the warm mug in my hand and leave Margaret to admire her packages as I take the next bundle of letters from the writing table beside me. 1915. She was so meticulous in her organisation. The next year of the war. The next year of our story.
Before I continue reading, I glance towards the window. Silently, I make a promise to the snow clouds that lace the sky, and wish a Merry Christmas to those I hold most dear in my heart . . .
PART TWO
1915
“If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.”
—Rupert Brooke, “The Soldier”
From Evie to Thomas
1st January, 1914 1915
Richmond, England
Dear Lieutenant Harding,
Bonne année! I still can’t get used to your official title. Most unlike the young fool Tom Harding whom I remember shooting at sparrows on the lawn. So much is changing, Tom. I can hardly remember you and Will as rowdy young boys in short trousers, running among the flowerbeds with your peashooters. How could we have possibly known how real those boyhood games would become?
So, here we are in 1915 and I must wish you a Happy New Year, although I cannot find much to be happy about as war creeps on, and ever closer to home. There was more bombing here—on Christmas Eve, would you believe. We read about it in the papers. Thankfully nobody was injured or killed this time. A rectory gardener was thrown from the tree he was pruning. Poor chap. War felt so distant at first, but not anymore. What if they start to drop bombs on London? Hurry up and finish them off, would you?
Alice would tell me to be more positive—and she is right. I do hope my letters cheer you and make you smile and remind you of home, and what better time to look ahead than on the first day of a new year. A whole unblemished twelve months stretching out before us like a blank ream of writing paper waiting to be filled. I keep telling Mama to stop looking back on what was or what might have been (she still weeps at the mention of Charlie Gilbert and the marriage proposal he took with him to his soldier’s grave). I remind her constantly that all we can do—what we must do—is look forward to better times, and dancing at The Ritz.
You are sweet to recall the dress I wore at last year’s Christmas party. I had forgotten it entirely. I wore it again this year, in your honour, although nobody offered me a puff of their cigarette, or their jacket, or told me I looked bewitching beneath the winter moonlight. Do I make you blush, Tom? Had you forgotten how your compliments flowed as easily as the wine?
I only tease you because I have little else to do.
In other news, we have an infestation of mice. I hear them scampering behind the skirting boards and the chimney breast. It makes me shudder to hear the scritch scratch of their dreadful little claws. Mills has put traps down and I can tell you there is nothing more unpleasant than the snap and crack they make when they are sprung. It turns my stomach. So much so that I am on the hunt for a good mouser. I’m not especially fond of cats, but anything must be preferable to that dreadful sound. I’ve put a notice in the post office window and eagerly await a reply.