Chapter 5

5

PROVINS, FRANCE, 1927

‘No, Maman. I will not marry him or anyone else of your choosing!’

Evelina stood, her hands fisted at her sides, as her mother’s face contorted with anger. She braced herself when her mother’s palm connected with her cheek, but she refused to show how much it hurt. Her father sat at the table, his spoon halfway between his bowl and his mouth, but if he cared that his eldest daughter had been struck, he certainly didn’t show it. Perhaps he would have preferred her to nurse her face and howl in pain, rather than to stand stoically as her mother berated her. Perhaps if she’d played the part of simpering daughter, he might have shown more sympathy towards her.

‘You’re eighteen, Evelina. It’s time to forget your daydreams. You need to get married and think about having a family. It’s what you’re supposed to want at your age.’

Tears pricked her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She wanted to ask her mother if she’d had dreams once, before marriage and children, before her family had told her what they expected of her. She wanted to know why she would want her daughter to settle for a life in the same village she herself had spent her entire life, when there was so much of France she wished to see, when her life could be so much bigger and more exciting.

‘Maman, please,’ she said, finally lowering her gaze in an effort to placate her mother. ‘This isn’t the life I want. I’m asking you to believe in me, to let me make my own decisions.’

‘Not the life you want?’ Her mother laughed, but it was her father who stood to his full height, his cheeks red with anger, as if she’d just said something that was worthy of him rising to his feet. ‘Who do you think you are, Evelina? A princess? This is nonsense, what you’re saying. You read too many fairy tales as a child.’

Before Evelina could answer, her father’s voice rumbled through the room.

‘You think you’re too good to marry a farmer, is that what you’re saying? Have I not provided for you and given you a roof over your head and put food on the table?’ He muttered. ‘You ungrateful little wench.’

Evelina bowed her head. How could neither of her parents understand that having the bare necessities wasn’t enough for her? She didn’t just want to exist, she wanted to live . She wanted a different life to that of her parents and her grandparents before that.

‘I want to live in Paris,’ Evelina whispered, closing her eyes for a moment and seeing the city in her mind. She’d only been once, with her mother, to attend the funeral of a distant relative, but she had a painting of the city in her bedroom, one she’d spent so many hours staring at that she knew every landmark, every colour, by heart. She lifted her voice, determined to be heard. ‘Papa, I am grateful for the life you’ve given me, but I’m not ready to marry and spend the rest of my life here. Is it so wrong to want to see the world before starting a family?’

‘Then you have a decision to make, Evelina, because I will not have any daughter of mine being corrupted by the city and then returning home with all that nonsense in her head,’ he said, moving to stand beside her mother. She could tell how angry he was, because his face was still a deep shade of pink, anger heating his cheeks and making him clench his jaw as he stared at her. For a moment she feared that it might be his bear-sized hand that connected with her face next.

Evelina looked to her maman , saw the way her shoulders slumped, her faced etched with what Evelina could only guess was sadness, or perhaps it was simply acceptance. She lifted her chin and met her father’s gaze, ready to accept her fate, for the very first time realising that maybe her mother was only behaving in such a way because she had to, knowing that if she didn’t, her husband would be even harder on her.

‘Evelina, I want you to listen to me very carefully. You can leave this house today and never come back, or you can forget your fanciful ideas and obey our rules,’ he said, speaking so calmly it was as if he’d asked her to prepare a meal or go and fetch her sisters. ‘Because dreams like yours are poison, Evelina, and I won’t have you getting those ideas into your sisters’ heads. Not under my roof, not after everything I’ve done for you girls. You do what I say, or you don’t live here any longer, it is as simple as that.’ He glared at her. ‘The city is a place of sin, do you hear me? They don’t value what we do. The people there are nothing like the good, hard-working people from here.’

Her lower lip trembled as the weight of his words settled heavily on her shoulders, as she wondered how he could say such a thing. What had he done for them, other than provide the very basics of life? It was she and her mother who made all the meals, sewed the clothes, cleaned the house and sold flowers and food at the market. They worked so hard, until sometimes Evelina had wondered if her fingers might bleed. She yearned to tell her parents about Coco Chanel, to explain to them that she’d been an orphan, yet had still made her way to Paris and was now one of France’s most famous fashion designers, with her own perfume. Surely she wasn’t an immoral woman, just because she worked and lived in the city? But her father didn’t want to hear about her dreams; he wanted to quash them. She knew then that he was afraid; afraid that she might leave and then tell her sisters about the world beyond their village; that her mother might want to leave, too, and that he would be left alone. Her only regret about the decision she had to make was that her sisters would now have to do the work she usually did each week, the work she’d always fought so hard to shield them from so they could enjoy what was left of their childhood. It would be their fingers aching from cutting flowers or doing the washing if she left; their backs that would hurt from the hours bent over working at the market. She only hoped they’d understand that she’d kept them from it for as long as she could.

‘Papa,’ she said, as demurely as possible, hoping that he’d soften if she asked him the right way. ‘You’re asking me to choose between my dreams and my family? You would truly see me leave and never come home?’

Evelina looked to her mother, who simply lowered her gaze. It was then that it dawned on her that her maman wasn’t going to beg her to stay, or to plead with her father not to give her such an ultimatum. Her mother stayed silent as her father slowly shook his head from side to side. She is going to accept whatever her husband decides, as if I mean nothing to her. The one time I need her to have a voice, she has lost it .

‘I shall go then,’ Evelina said, as a solitary tear slid down her cheek. ‘May I at least say goodbye to my sisters and gather my belongings?’

He nodded, and when her mother at last lifted her gaze, she saw that there were tears streaming down her cheeks, despite her silence. But she still didn’t say anything to contradict her husband’s words. Evelina had truly believed that, despite her anger, her mother would choose her over her husband, that she would never let him force one of her daughters from the house.

How wrong she’d been.

‘You have an hour to leave my house,’ he said, as he settled back in his chair at the kitchen table. ‘Once you leave, you may never return, so consider your decision carefully.’

Her mother made a choking sound in her throat, but Evelina didn’t look to her again. She couldn’t see the point. Instead, Evelina simply gave her father a curt nod of acceptance and left the room, finding her two younger sisters sitting on the stairs, their eyes wide with fear, their young fingers clenched around the banister. They’d heard every word.

Evelina gestured for them to run ahead of her, her heart almost breaking wide open as she watched them, their full skirts lifted to show their ankles as they hurried along. Evelina had made their skirts herself, always searching for fabric at the market and spending what little money she had on them, and taking things apart to make new clothes for them. Clothes I will never have the chance to make for them again . It broke her heart to think of what their life would be like without her.

‘Lina,’ Caitlyn said, clutching her hand when they were safely in Evelina’s bedroom. ‘You can’t go.’

‘Can’t you marry the man Maman tells you to?’ Margot asked, her voice full of innocence as she blinked up at Evelina. ‘You just have to say yes, the wedding won’t be for another year.’

‘No, my love,’ Evelina said, bending to kiss first Margot and then Caitlyn. Both girls threw their arms around her neck, and she dropped to her knees to hug them back, trying to commit to memory how it felt to hold her sisters in her arms.

She’d argued with her parents before, fought to stay in school for longer than the other girls in their village, told them that she wouldn’t be a farmer’s wife, that she wanted to live in the city one day. But never before had she ever imagined that they might tell her to leave, or that she might never see her sisters again.

‘Why?’ Margot asked, barely nine years old, her tear-streaked skin blotchy as Evelina held her at arm’s length and smiled down at her.

‘Because I want to live my own life, Margot,’ Evelina said. ‘I don’t want to marry a man of our parents’ choosing, and live the same life that Maman has, and her mother before her. I want something different. I want to live in the city and make beautiful dresses for women, to eat croissants and drink coffee from my balcony as I stare at the Eiffel Tower, to explore Paris. I want to choose my own life.’

She knew that neither of her sisters could possibly understand what she was saying, or dream the dreams she had, as they were still girls and yet to know the life that lay ahead for them. But they did understand what it meant for her to leave and never return. Evelina gathered them both in her arms again, remembering them, loving them; dropping more kisses into their hair.

‘I’ll write to you,’ she whispered. ‘I will write to you when you’re older, and if you decide to leave one day, you’ll know where to come.’ They would never have to make this choice without somewhere to go. Never . ‘You will always have a second home with me—you never have to accept what Papa tells you to do when you’re older, unless it’s what you want. And one day when Papa isn’t here anymore, I’ll come home to visit. I promise.’

She finally let them go, gently caressing a thumb over each of their cheeks to wipe away their tears. Then she walked into her bedroom, found some bags and began packing her clothes. It wasn’t until she’d almost finished folding her things that she looked up and saw her mother standing in the doorway, watching her. Evelina stood, her breath shallow as she met her maman ’s gaze, but her mother didn’t say anything, and so neither did she. What was left to say that hadn’t already been said?

When her mother disappeared, she went to her bed and reached underneath her mattress for the handful of francs she’d saved, putting them safely in her pocket. Then she took her warm coat from the wardrobe and put it on, knowing that she’d regret not taking it, even though it would add to how much she had to carry.

‘Evelina?’

She turned and found her mother standing there again, her face as white as a sheet.

‘Take this,’ she said. ‘It will get you to Paris, and pay for a boarding house for a few nights at least.’

Evelina wanted to refuse, to remind her of the sharp slap that she’d dispensed only minutes earlier, or her silence that had clung to Evelina like a cloak. But she wasn’t too proud to take the money offered to her. It came with no hug or kiss, no tears or fanfare, and certainly no apology; her mother simply pressed the francs into Evelina’s palm and then turned to walk silently through the hall and back down the stairs.

Evelina imagined that her father had returned to the fields, that she may have already seen him for the very last time, and so she went to the window to look for him, to see his retreating figure one last time. As much as she hated everything he stood for, it hurt to know that she’d never see him again; that he hadn’t even tried to understand what she’d spent her entire life dreaming of. He was there, wearing his sturdy boots and jacket, his back bent from all the years he’d spent on the farm from when he was a young boy, and it wasn’t lost on her that he’d followed in his father’s footsteps and was already stooped from the life he’d been expected to lead. She only wished that he understood why she didn’t want to live the same life as him, that she could change her own destiny. That she was brave enough to imagine something different.

But as work-broken as he appeared, the gardens around him were magnificent. They may have been a beautiful prison to her, but she imagined that to someone who hadn’t seen them before, the property she’d grown up on would have looked storybook-perfect.

Evelina’s heart cracked open a little more as she heard one of her sisters sobbing behind her, but she kept her shoulders squared when she turned from the window, walking down the stairs and into the kitchen. She placed her bags on the floor and took an apple from the bench, before cutting herself two thick slices of bread and then wrapping some cheese in a cloth. She expected to be told not to take anything that didn’t belong to her, but her mother simply sat rigid, silent in her chair at the table as Evelina packed the food into her satchel.

She kissed and hugged Margot and Caitlyn one last time, wiping their wet cheeks before bravely collecting her bags and walking out of the door. Once she’d stepped out into the sunshine she didn’t stop, because if she did, she knew there was a chance she would turn back round. She didn’t call out goodbye or look over her shoulder; didn’t wait for someone to tell her not to go. Because as much as she hadn’t been ready to leave, she also wasn’t ready to stay for the life that was waiting for her. She only wished she’d had time to plan how she was going to start the life she wanted, instead of being turned out into the afternoon with little sense of what to do or where to go.

The only time she stopped was to pick a white rose from the garden. Her father’s roses were beautiful, with hundreds of colours and varieties growing on their farm, and she tucked it into the pocket of her jacket as she began her long walk down the road to the train station. If she was lucky, someone would stop and give her a ride.

‘Goodbye,’ she whispered under her breath, as the sun beat down on her blonde hair, the breeze lifting it ever so lightly from her neck as the dust from the road clung to her skin. One day, when everyone in Paris knows my name, I’m going to come back here. They won’t turn their backs on me then .