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her uncovered neck.
    Whatever happened now, she knew she would go. They could rant and rave but she had breached the ramparts and Grandmama’s tone alone told her they knew it. For years she’d let
Maman
’s quiet submissiveness be her guide, watched as
Maman
saved her energy and held her ground only for her children, only for the biggest, most momentous things in their lives. She’d copied her, but it had never suited her character, and now she was a new creature. Her father’s daughter!
Tante
Louise’s niece! Cicely’s cousin! All of these people, yet more importantly, she was herself, and she was about to find out who that person really was.
    She walked for hours, not thinking too much, just content to know that she herself had made this move. It was enough for the moment. Later they could tellher what they had decided in these further discussions of theirs. Either they would pay her fare and send her, in which case she would have to put up with tiresome weeks of interference before she finally boarded any train, or they would remain immovable, in which case she would simply go around them and sell the jewellery her mother would never have grudged her. The latter would be simpler really. She could then just leave, maybe stay with Cicely while she arranged tickets, a passport, then go independently to Paris. The mere thought was as exhilarating as the wind.
    Night fell early in March, and by the time she made her way back along the too familiar country roads to the house a half-moon was trying to show itself through the clouds. She’d left the house without a coat or gloves, and only by tucking them into her jumper could she keep any feeling in her hands. Her feet were also as cold as ice, and she knew that the rest of her would feel the chill as soon as she went indoors. But the cold was like a triumph, vital, rejuvenating. It quickened the breath and strangely fired up the heart.
    She entered the house by the side door, looking for the first time at her watch. They would already be at dinner. Life was marked at the moment by a series of mealtime encounters, it seemed, by the monotony of the round of breakfasts, lunches and dinners all served in that same green dining room with its oppressive mahogany sideboards and the huge table of which the three diners occupied one tiny end. Casserole for lunch, what would it be for dinner? Fish, probably. Grandmama liked toeat light foods in the evening. They never ate badly at Forsham, Madeleine acknowledged. Grandmama was French, after all. It was the predictability of each meal, and the repetitive conversations, and the long silences, and the criticisms hovering in waiting for any misplaced word which had annihilated Madeleine for years. Now she went in head high and smiling. Who cared, after all?

C HAPTER T HREE
    The Gare du Nord was teeming with people at the rush hour as Madeleine and Robert hauled their cases off the train from Boulogne and looked around for a porter. At first sight the station looked just the same as any busy London station: dark, grimy, metallic, smelling of oil and dirt. Even the passengers looked the same with the harried look of passengers everywhere. Madeleine felt a pang of disappointment, but as the porter reached them, muttering in French, pulling on a chewed cigarette, a whiff of French tobacco came towards her and she felt a surge of excitement. Further along the platform café tables spilt into the alleyway, and as she followed the trolley towards them she was hit by the smell of intense, freshly ground coffee. Men in work clothes leant on the café bar’s counter drinking what she thought must be pastis, cloudy and yellow in thin, straight, painted glasses. Workers inoveralls stood alongside raincoated office workers with an eye on their watches, not a word passing between them. Madeleine slowed to pass the tables, stepping around a child playing on the grubby floor, his mother in furs, gazing intently at her companion over something long