“Well?” she asked. “The tales, please.”
Andrew began as he carried the loaves to a warm spot on the counter and made them both a pot of tea. He explained to Sorrel how it was that Delphine knew so much about the Kirkwoods and their tapestries. As he talked, Sorrel put her chin in her hands and closed her eyes. There was something soothing in Andrew’s voice, and she found that now she could imagine him giving a sermon, she could see him teaching children about, well, she wasn’t sure what he taught, but Sorrel decided it was some kind of magical combination of faith and fairy stories. Which, of course, it wasn’t; along with religious studies, which for the little ones were indeed filled with stories of a certain kind of derring-do, Andrew also taught literature with its fair share of enchantment. At any rate, his tale of Delphine and the tapestries was compelling enough that Sorrel stopped daydreaming and started really listening.
It was pure serendipity that had brought Delphine to the Kirkwoods that first summer. The agency was meant to send a Parisian girl to teach Graham and Fiona French and oversee Fiona’s eleven-plus exam preparation while her brother, already accepted at boarding school, ran wild through the estate. Instead, Delphine Vermeil arrived, French (and Flemish) speaking, yes, but not terribly interested in schoolwork. Delphine was happy to speak only French with the children, happy to show them how to find their way around a kitchen, particularly when it came to anything made with butter and sugar, and happier still to play hide and seek through the countless rooms of Kirkwood Hall. She did the very minimum of study with Fiona and even less with Graham, who couldn’t take his eyes off the spritely au pair. She was lovely, no doubt about that, but she was also so full of energy that both children soon learned that if they had longed for an adventure through the cold winter and gray spring, here it was and they’d best leap and hope the net appeared.
Delphine was a skilled and enthusiastic seamstress and embroiderer, and while she may have been a bit loose with her attention to homework, when it came to art history and the stacks of books Fiona had to consult as she revised, Delphine was fascinated. Eventually, as she got to know Kirkwood Hall better, she became so captivated with the treasures she found, as well as the children she shepherded that unseasonably warm and sunny summer in the countryside, that while she went back to Brussels to complete her education at the lycée, Delphine would never call that city home again. She returned the following summer and stayed for good. She worked for the Kirkwoods through the year, traveling with them to London and helping Lady Kirkwood, Graham’s mother, run two complicated households; over one particularly harried year, she earned her chef’s certificate at the revered Leiths School of Food and Wine. Soon enough an invitation to the Kirkwoods of London and Kirkwood Hall was most coveted, and Graham and Fiona, both at boarding school by then, required less and less of Delphine’s attention. They remained, however, her dear friends despite the age differences, and to this day Fiona kept all of Delphine’s early letters in a sweets tin in her house in Granite Point. The box lived in the kitchen because Delphine always included recipes along with her stories of parties and outings in London while the children were away. In fact, her letters were still coveted by both Graham and Fiona, and Stella wouldn’t have dreamt of entertaining without her guidance.
All this talk of Delphine’s accomplishments made Sorrel wish she’d stayed to tell the stories herself. But once Andrew settled in beside her on the long cushioned bench under the kitchen windows, bread baking serenely in the oven, Sorrel decided that perhaps it was a fine thing that Delphine had hurried off. She leaned her head back and let the story wash over her.