‘Girls! We’ll be there in five minutes! Put away your things, now, and tidy yourselves up!’

Obediently, silently, solemnly, Elena and Sibyl closed the books they were reading, packed them into the little canvas bags their mother had given them for the journey, bent over to find the shoes they had wriggled free of soon after leaving Paris, and buckled them into place on their feet. Without a word.

This wasn’t right, Kathleen thought. They should be bouncing up and down in anticipation, squealing with excitement. Not once had one of them cried out, Are we there yet? Not once, in so many hours. Sibyl hadn’t once complained, Mama, I’m bored! – screwing up her freckled pixie-face, tossing her auburn curls. As for Elena, her little chatterbox: she’d been as silent as… but no. Not that word.

Both girls had been perfect angels all the way from London; reading their books, playing card games, holding Mama’s hand at station platforms, sitting quietly on the ferry instead of running to the rails to peer into the Channel’s swirls, going to the lavatory when Mama told them to, eating their packed sandwiches without a grumble. This angelic docility was unnatural, disturbing; it might make life much easier for a parent, but Kathleen would have given anything for just one little squeal of impatience during the never-ending journey. Shellshocked. That was the word. All three of them. Still shellshocked. Though there had been no shells. The telephone call from Mervyn’s secretary, Miss Hughes had been bombshell enough.

And now, this flight to France.

Through her numbness Kathleen remembered train journeys from when she was their age, back in British Guiana. She and her sisters Winnie and Yoyo had been squirming bundles of eagerness, even though they knew the Rosignol to Georgetown trip like the back of their little hands. And her girls, too, had until recently, behaved like children should on day excursions to the seaside. Train trips were inherently adventures, even from London to Brighton. And now, London to Colmar? The girls should be brimming over with the thrill of it all, unable to contain themselves. But then she herself was hardly bursting with exuberance. Hopefully Margaux wouldn’t be too disappointed. For so many years they had planned and promised to meet again; and now that time had come and she was just a shadow of herself, of the bouncy schoolgirl Margaux would be expecting. Well, no wonder. Margaux would surely understand. That’s why she was here. To recover from it all. Kathleen sighed, and helped Sibyl with her bag. That’s why they were all here. Before they withered down to nothing from sheer sadness and broken hearts.

She stood up, straightened her clothes, removed a brush and comb from her travelling case and tidied her own hair in the compartment mirror, before attending to Sibyl’s tangles and Emily’s plaits, loosened considerably throughout the trip. They all put on their hats, edged themselves from their compartment into the narrow corridor and along it to the doors. They had left their three suitcases near the exit; now, Kathleen pulled them free as they waited for the train to chug into Colmar station. She leaned forward past the girls, pressed the handle, swung open the door and urged the them to jump down to the platform. She got out herself and reached back into the train for the suitcases.

‘Kathleen! Kathleen! There you are! C’est moi! At last! You’re here! Welcome, welcome; and these are your little girls! Elena, Sibyl, I am your auntie Margaux! I am so happy to meet you at last! Let me look at you – Kathleen, you are so thin! And your girls, so tall! And so pretty! Little English roses! Come, give your auntie a hug and a kiss! You understand French? Shall I speak English? You understand me?’

It was Margaux, indeed, just as she remembered her, the words, bubbling from her lips, some English but mostly French. As ever, kisses and hugs everywhere, all the exuberance so lacking in herself spilling out all over them so that, in spite of herself, she smiled and flung her arms around her friend. And clung to her, not letting go. And shuddered, so that Margaux at last drew still and hugged her again, this time in silence, and in reverence, and in depth.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Margaux whispered into her ear. She only nodded. Yes, this was Margaux. The same Margaux who had coaxed her, Kathleen, out of her shell when she arrived at Château Montrouge, a shy eighteen-year-old shunted off to a Swiss finishing school by grandparents who, having failed to secure a suitable bridegroom, didn’t know what to do with her. Her dormmate Margaux, brimming over with energy and conviviality, had opened doors to Kathleen’s spirit; they’d giggled into the night, broken all the rules, and earned themselves the nickname les jumeaux terribles, the terrible twins. They had stormed the gates of adulthood together, only to be torn apart the following year when Margaux returned to her family vineyard in Alsace and Kathleen had been summoned back to Norfolk and staid British upper-class convention. Since then, the letters had flown back and forth; they had promised again and again to visit each other, but marriage and then childbirth had interfered. Until today: Kathleen precipitated into Margaux’s arms by catastrophe.

Aware of the girls, who stood silently watching next to the suitcases, Kathleen pulled away. The two women gazed for a few seconds into each other’s eyes. Kathleen’s were moist with unshed tears. She was afraid a dam would break, and it was too soon for that, so she forced a smile, and, for the first time since alighting on the platform, spoke: briskly, calmly, as if she had not just been on the verge of a complete breakdown. She had to hold on…

‘Come on girls, remember your manners: shake Auntie Margaux’s hand!’

Which they did, solemnly and politely.

Fortunately, Margaux too quickly regained her own composure. With the help of a porter and a luggage trolley she whisked the newcomers through the station and to the carpark, bundled them and the cases into the battered Renault waiting there, tipped the porter and settled herself into the driver’s seat. The flow of words continued the moment they turned into the road, and Kathleen was glad of it. Already she felt perked up. Hopefully the girls would feel the same, especially as Margaux was addressing them specifically.

‘My children are so excited,’ said Margaux. ‘They can’t wait to meet you. Elena, Marie-Claire is just about your age – you’re ten, aren’t you? Nine? Ten? She’s ten-and-a-half, as she insists, and she can’t wait to have some more girls her age around the place, because Victoire is only three – a baby. Leon and Lucien – well, they might be only boys but Leon’s Sibyl’s age and he is eager to show you around. He’s a bit rough and tumble, a typical boy, but he’s friendly enough. I hope you like animals, because Leon has two dogs of his own and he will share them with you – he raised them from puppies! And Jacques of course, like a third son to me… Is it the first time you have been to France? Your first time in wine country? Let me know if I am speaking too quickly – remind me to slow down and if you don’t understand something, just shut me up and ask! But your maman said you have a French nanny? So you are almost bilingual? Is that right?’

‘They had a French nanny,’ Kathleen corrected, in French. ‘We had to dismiss her, of course. After – after it happened.’

‘Oh. Oh, yes of course, I’m sorry. So sorry.I keep forgetting. How you say it in English? I put my foot in it, didn’t I? Me and my loose tongue. So terrible. I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘But you must tell me. What happened… You said you’d write a letter with the details but you never did. Just telegrams. I only know that…’

‘I will tell you everything,’ said Kathleen, softly, looking over her shoulder to the back seat, where the girls sat quietly; looking out the window, hopefully absorbed in the countryside fleeing past. ‘Later.’

‘Yes. Yes of course. Later. Later we will have a long chat, you and I, and you will tell me the whole story. So sad. Devastating. When your telegram came I immediately rushed to the phone, but no-one picked up. But of course, you could come! You have always been welcome. You can stay for the whole summer, all of you, in fact, stay as long as you like. There is plenty of room at Château Gauthier. You have come at exactly the right time, too! Golden September, and the grapes are just plump and bursting to be plucked, little jewels shining in the sunshine, heavy on the vines! The whole of Ribeauvillé is golden with sunlight and everybody will be out in the vineyards and you will love it – those succulent grapes! And the wine, Kathleen! It is all exquisite, like heavenly nectar – the best wine in all of France! And now – here we are!’

She turned into a driveway and had not even drawn to a halt before the mansion at the end of it before the front door opened and a horde of small people poured out of it and swarmed around the car, squealing and hopping, hugging and kissing in French exuberance. Normal happy children, children whose lives had not been blown apart from one moment to the next. This will be the cure. Kathleen breathed out a long sigh of relief. She could already feel the healing seeping into her. Ribeauvillé was the remedy.