Paris: The Novel

Until she came to a note. It was from the firm’s Paris office. It was not long. It thanked the then partner in the London office for his discreet handling of the business and remarked that his client Monsieur Blanchard was most grateful. It was signed: James Fox.
    He knew then. He knew everything.
    “You realize that I could probably have you arrested.”
    His voice. He must be standing behind her in the doorway. She did not turn.
    “I doubt that you could. Or that you would. So you actually arranged my birth, and my mother was Corinne Petit. Was she French?”
    No answer.
    “And who is Monsieur Blanchard? My father, I assume?”
    She heard him sigh.
    “Corinne Petit is dead. She was a nanny for some years. Then she married and, sadly, died in childbirth. I promise you this is true. Her family had turned her out when she became pregnant. She had nowhere to go. She was very young. I have no hesitation in saying that I did the best thing possible for her and for you. It was sheer luck that I had heard from our London office about your parents, who wanted a child and couldn’t have one of their own.”
    “And my father?” Now she turned. “Monsieur Blanchard: Is he dead too?”
    “You are assuming he was the father. He might have been helping a friend, with a completely different name.”
    “You won’t tell me.”
    “Certainly not. Are you going to raise this with your parents?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Then I shall have to tell them how you came by the information. Otherwise they might suspect me of a breach of confidentiality.”
    “I shan’t tell them. It wouldn’t get me anywhere even if I did.”
    “I am sure you are right. Will you promise me that? I must defend myself.”
    “Yes. I promise.”
    “To save you more wasted effort, I closed our Paris office at the start of the war. There is nothing for you to find in that quarter. As for Blanchard, it’s a common name, and the father you seek may not have that name at all. I should be sorry if you wasted your life looking for someone whom you would never find.”
    “Is he alive?”
    He paused, and chose his words carefully.
    “It’s years since I was in France.” He shook his head sadly. “Their war casualties have been worse than ours, you know. Far worse.”
    “Well, anyway,” she said brightly, “the war’s over, and it seems I’m French.”
    “Personally, I’d have said you were English.”
    But being French sounded more of an adventure to her.
    “No,” she declared, “I’m French. Good-bye, Mr. Fox. Do I owe you a fee for this consultation?”
    “I’d settle for an armistice,” he answered with the hint of a smile.
    After she’d gone, he sat at his desk for a while. Then he laughed. He wondered whether to tell Marc that he’d met his daughter. He supposed that would be a breach of confidentiality. Could he tell Marie about it? No, he thought. Better not. Her family wouldn’t like it.

Chapter Twenty-one
    •  1920  •
    Marie Fox had certainly not expected to become a widow when she did. But in the spring of 1919 she’d lost her husband, James.
    The great influenza epidemic of 1918 and 1919—the Spanish flu, as it was called—did not enter the popular imagination of the age. Yet it killed more people than even the Black Death nearly six centuries before. In Britain, a quarter million people died; in France, nearly half a million; in Canada, fifty thousand; and in India seventeen million. Around the world, of those who caught the flu, between ten and twenty percent died. The death toll was especially high among the young and fit. Not only was it a human tragedy, but a huge statistical event. In the United States, as a result of the flu, life expectancy fell by ten years.
    But there were plenty of deaths among the middle-aged as well.
    The flu came in great waves. In England there had been two waves in 1918 and a third in March 1919. It was the third that carried off James Fox.
    He became sick one afternoon. That night the aches and fever of flu began. All through the next day he grew worse, and during the night it seemed he was developing pneumonia. The following afternoon, as Marie watched, he began to turn a strange, pale shade of blue. And not an hour after teatime, she heard the rattle in his breath, and he left her.
    Marie was holding his hand when he died. Despite her protests, Marie wouldn’t let their daughter, Claire, into the room. “Those are the doctor’s orders, and it’s what your father