As soon as she decently could, Alexandra escaped to her bedroom, ostensibly to wrap presents, actually to lie on her bed and wonder what she should do. She knew that Véronique was here with Antoine, and knew she should leave, and was wondering when and how she should go about this, when Stéphie came in, one kitten sitting on her shoulder, the other in her arms.
‘Oh, here you are! I’ve just been downstairs, outside Papa’s study.’
‘Why were you there, Stéphie?’ Alexandra asked, thinking there couldn’t possibly be a sensible reason.
‘I heard Papa and Véronique talking.’
For a second, Alexandra fought with herself. She knew she should reprove Stéphie for listening to other people’s conversations, but she was struggling. ‘You know you shouldn’t listen outside closed doors—’
‘So don’t you want to hear what Véronique said?’
Alexandra exhaled. ‘All right, tell me. I can see you really want to.’
‘She said that Papa should dismiss you.’
Alexandra gasped. Surely she hadn’t done anything bad enough to get her the sack. ‘Did she say why?’
‘She said that you’d let “the children”, although you didn’t let me,’ – Stéphie appeared to be a bit resentful about this – ‘attend a party that was quite unsuitable. And you let Félicité paint on the walls.’
‘And what did your papa say?’ This was the important bit. Alexandra knew perfectly well that Véronique would do anything to get rid of her.
Stéphie seemed disappointed. ‘He didn’t answer. I looked through the keyhole and could only see his mouth, which was in a line. He opened it as if he was going to say something but I didn’t hear. Milou woofed because one of the kittens bit his leg and so I had to run away up here.’
Alexandra didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to tell Stéphie off for doing something she would certainly have done herself and they had already done together, but she didn’t think she could just leave it either.
Stéphie seemed to understand her dilemma. ‘Lexi, I know you think I shouldn’t have listened, but you are pleased to know what Véronique said, aren’t you? And sometimes you have to listen at doorways to find out important things no one is going to tell you because you’re just a child.’
‘That’s very true,’ said Alexandra, who’d done a fair bit of eavesdropping herself growing up. ‘But we shouldn’t do it unless it’s really important. Now let’s go and help David with dinner.’
As she followed Stéphie and her kittens downstairs, she felt she hadn’t really handled the situation; she’d just let it ride. Maybe Véronique was right: she was a bad nanny.
Chapter Twenty-six
It was Christmas Eve and Alexandra and her three charges were squashed in the back of the car. They were off to have dinner – le réveillon de Noël – with Penelope.
Alexandra had suggested she should take the other car, with the children, and Véronique was keen on this idea. Antoine, however, decided they should travel as a family. Alexandra decided he still thought of his children as small. It wasn’t a very long journey, after all.
Jack was already at Penelope’s, and David had an engagement of his own for the evening. Alexandra wasn’t terribly looking forward to the gathering. Véronique was being dreadfully possessive of Antoine and Lucinda was bound to be very maternal about her children. While there was nothing wrong with this, of course, it seemed to Alexandra to be a rather artificial sort of love and it set her teeth on edge. Also, when Véronique and Lucinda got together they seemed determined to condemn Alexandra as the nanny and while there was nothing remotely to be ashamed of, she found being haughty in the face of their disapproval quite tiring.
However, everyone seemed to be on their best behaviour. Penelope’s old friend Gérard was there as well as a couple of older gentlemen; Alexandra suspected that Penelope invited everyone who was likely to be on their own. Christmas Eve was the big day of celebration in France, which was why she and David could do an English Christmas on 25 December.
Eventually, Gérard and the more elderly members of the party went home and everyone was called into dinner. Penelope told Alexandra that the old people were very happy to have a drink but didn’t want a long and heavy meal which would stop them sleeping. ‘And although traditionally we should be eating this meal after Midnight Mass, I couldn’t have managed that even as a young person.’
‘Nor could I!’ said Alexandra. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
But Penelope had engaged some young women from Saint-Jean-du-Roc as waitresses and Alexandra’s help wasn’t required.
Everything was going well, if slightly boringly, when Stéphie suddenly remembered something.
‘Papa? You never told me what happened to the truffle? The one that Milou found in the forest?’
‘Oh, chérie!’ said Antoine. ‘I am so sorry. So much has happened since then. I sold it to my friend – the one who taught us all about truffle hunting that day. I got quite a lot of money for it, and next season, we will hunt for more!’
Stéphie clapped her hands delightedly. ‘So you will never go away to work again?’
‘Stéphie,’ said Véronique in a voice like honey, ‘your father is an important man. He cannot stay at home and look after you.’
‘And although I did get quite a lot of money for the truffle, all thanks to you and Milou,’ Antoine added, ‘it wasn’t quite enough for us to live on. Although in the years to come we will find more truffles and earn more. There just isn’t quite enough right now.’
