Page 26 of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure

Meanwhile Tommy and Clive had been examining walls and furniture with Dora and made lots of notes about what was needed.

“If we listen to them, we’ll be bankrupt in a week,” Dora muttered to Ellie as they made their way down again.

“That Clive fellow might have a good eye for colour, but he has extravagant tastes. Silk wallpaper indeed. Just because it was once silk, we’re not going to replace it.

I see nothing wrong with plain white walls, do you? ”

Ellie smiled. “With a view like that through the windows, I don’t think the walls matter much.”

A shriek from the dining room made her go running. Clive was standing there, pointing. “A mouse,” he said. “A mouse just ran across the floor, right in front of me.”

“We know there have been mice,” Ellie said. “We’ve seen the damage they have caused. We’ll bring up traps from the village.”

“What you need is a cat,” Clive said. “There are certainly plenty of those in need of a good home. I’ll keep my eye out for a nice kitten.”

Ellie went through to the music room, taking the dust cover from the grand piano.

She ran her hand over the smooth surface, feeling a shiver of joy.

A piano, like the one she had left behind.

She sat on the bench, opened the lid and tentatively touched some notes, then some chords, then did a run up the octaves.

It clearly needed tuning, but the notes seemed to be all there.

“Oh, there you are.” Dora came in. “I thought I heard music. Is it still playable?”

“After a tuning,” Ellie said. “Do you play?”

Dora shook her head. “I never learned, but I have always enjoyed listening to someone else play.”

Ellie closed the lid again. “I shall so enjoy sitting here, with this lovely view, playing and thinking of the opera singer, sitting here before me.”

Dora shook her head. “You never struck me as a romantic before now,” she said. “I think this trip has awakened a new side of you.”

Ellie looked up, smiling. “Maybe,” she said. “And a new side of you, too.”

“Perhaps,” Dora agreed.

Progress was slow to start with. Dustsheets were removed, rooms swept, windows washed, furniture assessed.

Louis worked on the kitchen stove and boiler while Mavis scrubbed shelves, table, pantry.

Mr Tommy produced Bruno, a big, lumbering lad, who smiled shyly and said he liked to work.

He immediately was put to stripping wallpaper beside Ellie and Yvette while Dora checked and wiped down furniture.

“I don’t like him,” Yvette complained. “He’s creepy. He stares at me.”

“He’s more like a small boy than a man, Yvette. Don’t worry.”

“He is big and strong for a small boy,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at where Bruno was working. “I would not want to be alone with him.”

Ellie studied the girl. Yvette must have had bad experiences in her life, she thought.

She was fearful of men. Ellie herself found Bruno quite lovable.

When you praised him, he’d give the most beaming smile, and it didn’t matter what you asked him to do—he’d nod his head and off he’d go, not stopping until it was done.

He also had the endearing habit of humming or singing to himself as he worked, mostly hymns but sometimes popular songs, too, of which he clearly didn’t understand the words, since some were risqué.

His speech was slow and ponderous, and sometimes he was a little hard to understand.

When Ellie or Dora misunderstood and got it wrong, he would laugh and say he was supposed to be the stupid one.

Louis produced two men who came to repair the roof and replace the missing tiles, the damaged shutters and the leaking ceiling. They worked happily on the roof, swiftly putting on new tiles, but they seemed uneasy to be working inside the house.

“It’s because of the ghost,” Louis said. “They think the place is haunted.”

“Do you?” Ellie asked.

He shrugged. “I’d like to see a ghost take me on,” he said. “I reckon I’ve got enough solid flesh to win any fight against a spectre, don’t you?”

There was a tense moment when they tried to turn on the water.

Louis was sceptical that the villa would be connected to the water mains that supplied the village.

He went hunting and discovered there was a well outside.

After much grunting and quite a lot of swearing, he got the well cleaned out and the pump working again and declared the water was good.

It was an exciting moment when they first lit the stove. The delightful smell of burning wood came from the kitchen.

“Now if only we had tea things here, I’d make us all a cuppa,” Mavis said. She had been working tirelessly, taking on the hard jobs and remaining cheerful.

“We’ll bring up tea and milk next time we come,” Ellie said.

This did not prove to be easy. French people do not drink English tea. In the small tabac, there were herb teas, rose hip tea and chamomile tea, but no black tea at all.

“You may find it where the English people stay,” the shopkeeper said. “In Hyères, perhaps.”

Ellie asked Mrs Adams and was given the name of a shop in Marseille where she usually managed to find hers. “Also I have parcels sent out from England,” she said. “You want to ask your family at home to send you out what you need.”

“Unfortunately I’ve no family at home,” Ellie said.

“My sons are abroad. My parents are dead. So it better be the shop in Marseille. We have to go there anyway to get all the supplies we need. I’ve been making a list, and Tommy’s been adding to it.

” She turned to Dora. “Goodness, I hope it’s not all too expensive.

I might have to telegraph my bank and ask for some kind of advance. ”

“Don’t worry, my dear,” Dora said. “I told you I have funds, and I’m quite happy to use them. I’ve had nothing to spend money on for a long time. Let’s go into Marseille and enjoy ourselves. I shall be looking for some sensible clothing, and you should, too. And you need a bathing suit!”

When Tommy heard about the expedition, he insisted on coming with them.

“You’ll need Clive’s good eye if you’re choosing fabrics and paint,” Tommy said.

“I’m not sure we’ll all fit in the car.”

But then Yvette said she did not want to come with them. “You do not need me,” she said. “I have no money and no interest in your plans for the villa.”

Ellie frowned as she walked away. She was glad they’d have enough room to take everyone, but what young girl would not want to look at shops in the big city?

Unless her pregnancy was making her feel unwell all the time.

Ellie remembered her own sickness and felt sympathy for Yvette.

She was essentially alone in the world. She didn’t know what would happen next.

No wonder she was withdrawn and scared. She had nobody to tell how she was feeling.

Ellie resolved to do her best to help Yvette find her beloved and see her happily reunited with him.

So the five of them crammed into the Bentley, and they set off, Ellie holding her breath that the Bentley had been well and truly mended.

It purred along beautifully, negotiating the windy mountainous road, and they reached Marseille quickly.

Luckily Tommy and Clive knew the layout of the city and directed them through complicated suburbs, and they parked on a busy shopping street near the old port and Galleries Lafayette department store.

Mavis went off to the kitchen department.

Ellie had to restrain Tommy and Clive from buying expensive fabrics, but they settled on good material for curtains and reupholstering.

She gave in to Clive’s desire for bright cushions after he insisted on buying the fabric as a present.

There were new bed linens and towels to buy.

Luckily some of the linens they had found in the linen closet were miraculously still good, but the eiderdowns were beyond saving, as the mice had enjoyed them over the years.

Tommy arranged for the shop to deliver the large items that wouldn’t fit in the car.

Meanwhile Dora had been shopping for clothing. Ellie joined her and was persuaded to get simple skirts, trousers and sandals, as well as that bathing suit.

“How ridiculous, when you think of it,” Dora said, with what sounded like a giggle. “Buying clothes at my age and in my condition. So frivolous of me. I certainly won’t ever have the chance to get good use from them.”

Ellie turned to stare at her. Sometimes she forgot that Dora had only been given a short time to live. And here she now was, making a joke about it. Impulsively she took Dora’s hand. “Let’s hope they were all wrong and you wear those clothes out,” she said.

Then it was on to a hardware store for paint—white for the interior, blue for shutters, pink for the exterior walls.

Ellie was glad of Clive’s good eye. She would have had no idea which shade of blue to use.

They stowed their packages in the boot of the car, then had lunch at a little café—a delightful grilled cheese, called croque monsieur, and a sparkling water.

Then Tommy and Clive went off to do a bit of shopping of their own.

Dora said she was tired and would sit on a bench outside a church.

Mavis volunteered to stay with her, not liking the look of some of the sailors who passed them on the street.

Ellie went off alone, asking directions to the public library.

There she found the address of the War Department for Yvette, then, on a whim, she asked a librarian to search the archives for information on the villa’s mysterious owner, Jeannette Hétreau.

After quite a long wait, the librarian returned.

“Not very much, madame,” she said. “You should write to Paris, maybe. I’m sure they will have more.

” There were several articles on Jeannette performing, once in Marseille, once in Nice.

Her lovely voice as Violetta in La Traviata .

But not a single mention of her living in Saint-Benet.

So it seemed she had kept it a secret, a private love nest for her and the duke.

The last call was to the grocery where the Adamses shopped.

There they found their English tea, as well as tins of baked beans, favourite biscuits and chocolate bars.

They were in a triumphant mood as they drove home, everyone with packages on their laps and the car boot fully laden.

Tommy started singing, and they joined in all the old music hall songs they could remember.

Ellie saw for Tommy and Clive it was a time of great nostalgia, a reminder of the life they once knew and had given up.

She’d probably feel the same way if she stayed long enough, she thought.

This made her consider ... How long did she intend to stay away?

Just for the winter? For a year? And if less, then why all this effort and expense on the villa?

Until I’m ready to go home, she decided.

In the library there had been English newspapers.

She had read them while she waited for the librarian.

The news of Hitler and the possibility of war looked more like a real threat.

Mr Chamberlain had been to Munich and had returned declaring “peace in our time.” So perhaps Hitler had been appeased and would be content to occupy Czechoslovakia.

And she could go on happily living in Saint-Benet.