The Last Will And Testament Of Daphné Le Marche

He wanted a simple life. Books, a woman with dark hair and dark eyes who would read him love poems, while she lay naked in their bed, and a child when the time was right.

When he spoke of his last wish, without pressure or embarrassment, Elisabeth wanted to jump up in the bar and scream, Pick me, pick me.

Instead, she felt a quiet calm cloak her and, emboldened by Taittinger and lust, she drained her champagne and stood up. ‘Shall we have dinner or go and read naked, in your bed?’

Henri’s room was upstairs from the bar, and the walk to the elevator was silent. They were silent as the elevator doors opened, and Henri took her hand and led her into the small space.

He didn’t let go of her hand until the doors opened again and he found his room key, then led her down the lush carpeted hallway, past the art that probably cost more than her ticket over to London and towards a door with the number three hundred in gold on the front.

At the door, he turned and held her face in his hands. ‘L’amour est la poésie des sens.’

Then Elisabeth kissed him. Was it the Balzac quote, or the fact that something like this moment happening was so extraordinary to a girl who lived such an ordinary life that she became someone else for a moment? Or was this who she always was?

As they kissed, he managed to open the door and they fell inside the suite, hands pulling at clothes, words in French and English being muttered.

Elisabeth felt as though she needed to feel every part of him inside her. She wanted to touch him, suck him, lick him, kiss him, caress him until she knew every single part of his body and soul.

Naked on the bed, she felt his hands slide up her slim frame, and gently cup her breast. ‘You, Elisabeth, you are my dream.’

‘Love is the poetry of the senses.’ She repeated the Balzac quote back to him in English, as she pulled him to her.

She never told him she was a virgin. It didn’t matter any more. She realised she was only ever meant for Henri.

* * *

Elisabeth spent a week in bed with Henri, learning every part of him and him, her. She was fired from Hatchards at the end of that week and, on the following Monday, she phoned her parents from the hotel.

‘Mum, I’m moving to Paris,’ she exclaimed.

‘Paris? What’s in Paris?’ her mother asked, confused.

‘Henri Le Marche, my future,’ said Elisabeth. ‘I’m going to write poetry, and become a professor and have a mystical little baby. If it’s a girl, we’ll call her Sibylla and if it’s a boy, we’ll call him Antoine.’

‘Elisabeth, don’t be ridiculous,’ her mother cried from the other side of the world.

‘There’s not a thing you can say to make me change my mind, the heart wants what the heart wants.’

And then she put down the phone and fell back into Henri’s waiting arms.

Chapter 7

Edward

After the funeral, Edward took a plane back to London.

Daphné had died in London, but requested to have her funeral in Paris, which was fine, except it took a whole day, and Edward didn’t have a whole day to spare, not even for Daphné.

He had avoided Robert and Celeste at the funeral, which was easy since they were surrounded by hangers-on and work associates. He had felt almost sorry for Celeste, having to organise the funeral at such short notice, and, while it wasn’t as full of pageantry as Daphné Le Marche would have expected, it was appropriate and the right sort of people had turned up to pay their respects and/or to be seen.

He checked his phone and saw missed calls from the office and from Robert, but no international calls. He opened the world clock. It was midnight in Melbourne, and he wondered if Sibylla Le Marche would still be up. If she were anything like her cousin, then she would most likely still be out, he thought.

Taking a risk, he dialled the number that Elisabeth Le Marche had given him the third time he had spoken to her.

The estranged side of the family was proving to be very difficult, he thought, as he listened to the sound of international connection and then the echoing ringing of Sibylla’s phone.

‘Hello?’ came a muffled voice.

‘Sibylla Le Marche?’ he asked, needing to be sure.

‘It’s Billie March, who is this? You do know it’s midnight?’

Her accent was jarring after being with the French all day, and he screwed his face up, as though this would help him to listen more clearly.

‘This is Edward Badger, I’m your grandmother’s lawyer,’ he started to say.

‘Edward Badger, are you serious?’ asked Sibylla.

‘Yes, I’m Daphné Le . . .’

‘That’s quite a name,’ she said and he thought she might be laughing.

‘What is?’ he asked, confused.

‘Edward Badger. Teddy Badger. You sound like something from The Wind in the Willows. How hilarious.’

Edward was silent. She was mad, he decided. Absolutely, convict raving mad.

‘Oh I’m sorry, I’ve offended you,’ she said. ‘It’s actually quite sweet, isn’t it? My name is Sibylla, but I go by Billie. If we got married, I’d be Billie Badger. Teddy and Billie Badger, and their adventures in Toy Town.’

‘Have you finished?’ asked Edward, ruing Daphné’s decision. He had thought it was a good idea, better than working under Robert, but this girl was nuts, and she was rude.

‘Yes, I’m sorry. I tend to talk too much when I’m nervous.’ Her voice sounded normal now.

‘I know my grandmother died, and Mum said she left me something in the will, but, honestly, I don’t want it. I’m fine here. I didn’t even know who they all were besides a cousin Mum mentioned and who I have vague memories of, so I don’t need any money, I mean we’re fine and I work. I have my own little flat, which I’m doing up. It’s lovely. I’m going for a whole Nordic feel, very clean lines and bright fabrics.’

Edward listened to her prattle and waited until she realised he wasn’t responding.

‘So yeah, whatever it is, maybe you can just pop it in the post or whatever . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

‘It’s a bit hard,’ he said drily. ‘And since you won’t be here for the will reading on Friday, I think you should know, she’s left you half the company.’

‘What?’ she yelled and he held the phone away from his ear.

‘What about Celeste, or whoever else is in the family?’

‘Celeste is the other inheritor,’ said Edward, starting to enjoy himself. He had hoped to do this in his office, so he could see the horror on Robert’s face when he realised he had lost his bet, but this was almost as good.

‘And there is an uncle, Robert Le Marche,’ he said, trying not to colour his voice with distaste.

‘Oh my God, an uncle? Dad’s brother, yes, Mum said he’s a prick,’ Billie said.

Edward didn’t argue with the truth, so he left her statement as it was.

‘So you will come?’ he asked.

‘No. I don’t want it, sell it to Celeste or something. She can have the lot.’

‘It doesn’t work like that, Sibylla,’ he said.

‘Billie, please, Billie.’

‘OK, Billie,’ he said, pronouncing her name slowly. ‘You will have to come over here and sort out the details, as there are caveats on the will and clauses about selling and so on. I think it’s something you will need to discuss with Celeste.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake, I’ll think about it,’ snapped Billie, then there was a pause before she spoke again. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t swear, it’s just that sometimes I can’t seem to find a more appropriate word.’

Edward thought he hadn’t been this entertained at work in a long time, and he hoped Billie Le Marche would come to London, just for a while, to shake up Celeste and Robert. With her foul mouth and candour, she was exactly what Le Marche was lacking now Daphné was gone.

Edward’s role as the most trusted advisor to Daphné had been accidental, or was it? he wondered now.

He had seen the lack of insight from her lawyers in the London office that represented her. Le Marche might not be their biggest client, but it was certainly their most loyal, and since they were moving their head office to London, Edward saw an opportunity for the firm to step up and create more value for the company.

Except none of the other partners cared to hear his opinion.

‘It’s an ailing cosmetics brand, run by a French Miss Haversham, what do we care? As soon as she dies, she will leave it to the son, who will sell it off. It’s not worth the time. God knows why she’s moving the company to London either. I’m sure no one supports that inside the business.’

But Edward could see her reasoning for the move. Closer to the rest of the English-speaking world, and part of the London beauty legend, Le Marche was popular in France, but it was relatively unknown to the rest of the world.

And then he took the biggest risk of his twenty-five years. He flew to Paris on his own ticket and told Daphné that she needed to change legal firms, and explained why. He then said he would be leaving also and he wished her the best. He had always liked the sharp old woman, who spoke to him as though he was more than a junior.

‘I don’t need a legal firm in London any more,’ she said imperiously

‘Oh you will, I’m sure, just maybe one that’s more respectful of what you have achieved and what your international goals are for Le Marche,’ he explained.

She shook her grey curls, perfectly set in a chic bob.

‘No, I have you, you can be my legal firm, you can come and work for me, and you get some lawyers you like to help you and we can do it together,’ she had said with a wave of her crêpe paper-like hand, a huge aquamarine surrounded by diamonds catching the light on her ring finger.

She’s mad, he thought, as he pasted a smile onto his face.

‘I’m not sure that would work,’ he said slowly, trying to make her understand.

‘It will work,’ she said with a roll of her eyes. ‘I know you can do it. I trust you, you just have to trust yourself.’

And so Edward Badger went to work for Daphné Le Marche.

Edward sat in the back of the taxi he had hailed as the driver asked him where he wanted to go.

Edward had two choices, the silence of his riverside apartment, or a ton of work at the office?

No one would begrudge him if he took the afternoon off when the boss had died, would they? Edward thought about his sterile apartment, with its iconic view of the Thames, and made the right decision for him—he went right back to the office. After all, what was waiting for him at home?

The problem with working for Daphné Le Marche was that you didn’t get a social life. The woman was working on her deathbed, for God’s sake, he thought, as he paid the cabbie and went into the Grosvenor Street address.

Orange roses filled vases in the hallway, and a plethora of flowers with cards attached lined reception.

‘Mr Badger, where shall we send these?’ asked a pretty receptionist whose name he forgot.

He glanced at the flowers and shrugged. ‘Send them to nursing homes in the Greater London area. Someone should enjoy them,’ he suggested.

The girl nodded and smiled. ‘Good idea, Madame Le Marche would like that.’

Edward thought that Madame Le Marche probably wouldn’t care what happened to them, since they were all white. Lilies, chrysanthemums, roses and delphiniums spilled over the desks and he found the smell sickening.

‘Take something for yourself,’ he offered generously.

The girl blushed. ‘Thank you, Mr Badger,’ she gushed.

He nearly asked her to call him Edward but then refrained. The last thing he wanted was an office dalliance. The last time that happened, she left him with a set of spreadsheets of their finances and moved to a rival company. He had nearly lost his job, and Daphné had reminded him, no, he thought again, warned him to never mix business with pleasure again, unless it was family.

He strode up the hallway and nodded at those who passed him by, and finally found the silent security of his office.

His capable secretary, Rebecca, barrelled in with her six-month pregnant stomach and barked messages at him, and he listened while watching her bump in its tight jersey top.

‘Is that thing moving?’ he asked, peering at her.

Rebecca stared down at the bump. ‘Yes, they’re busy today. It’s because I had laksa for lunch and now they’re all high on chilli and lemongrass,’ she laughed, cupping the twins in their safe house.

Edward laughed but wished for a moment she wasn’t going to leave next month to have the babies. How on earth would he replace such a wonderful assistant?

Rebecca was still speaking. ‘And Sibylla Le Marche called for you,’ she said.

Edward looked up. ‘She called here? To the office?’ he asked.

‘Yes, she said she had trouble getting through to you on the mobile,’ said Rebecca, glancing down at the notepad she was holding. ‘She said, thanks but no thanks.’ Rebecca raised her eyebrows and waited for his instruction.

Edward sighed and leaned back in his chair. This whole arrangement was proving to be more difficult than he had imagined and he wondered if he should have just gone home after all.

He sat thinking. There was no way he was going to leave Daphné’s legacy to that useless idiot Robert. He wanted to believe in Daphné’s granddaughters, but he had his doubts that the two estranged cousins had anything in common, let alone the ability to turn around a business.

Sometimes Daphné made impossible requests when she was alive, but he did his best to fulfil them. When he made her a promise, he never broke it, which was probably why he wasn’t a successful barrister with chambers at Gray’s Inn. But there was something about the Le Marche dynasty that was compelling, and Daphné’s energy was everywhere, even after her death.

He felt his eyes hurt with unshed tears for his boss and friend and he squeezed them tight to make them disappear.

Don’t frown, you’ll get lines, he heard her voice say and he smiled to himself as he opened a file. As long as the company was still under the Le Marche name, then it would have his loyalty.

Chapter 8

Giles, Paris, 1956

Giles Le Marche had closed his pharmacy for lunch was and preparing to go home to a cooked meal, thanks to his housekeeper, Bertie.

Giles liked routine, procedure and process, and his owning his own pharmacy in Montreuil, right next to the main Paris bus depot, afforded him a good living with all number of people coming for their travel sickness remedies and medicines they were unable to find in their village.

He adjusted his hat on his dark head of hair—a genetic gift, thanks to his maternal grandfather, but he told his gentlemen customers the bounty on his head was due to the hair tonic he made, and used daily.

Men willingly bought the tonic, just like women bought all manner of balms and lotions for their ageing.

Everyone was looking for something, he thought, as he closed the door and locked it with his brass key and slipped it into the inside pocket of his suit coat and set out on his walk home.

As he passed the bus station, he saw a small group of people gathered, all quibbling over the price of something.

Perhaps it was some delicious figs that a farmer had brought up from Autignac. He had a lovely blue cheese that would go well with the figs and a class of Tempranillo after dinner.

Moving to the back of the crowd, his height gave him a vantage point to see the spectacle below, but instead of a valise of figs, there was a young girl selling what looked to be cakes of soap, wrapped in raffia ribbons. Glass jars of varying sizes were filled with a lotion that the women in the crowd were trying on their hands and arms and murmuring to themselves.

‘Very soft.’

‘Lovely.’

‘How much did you say?’

As the women discussed the product and the price, Giles stepped forward and dipped a finger into the jar that one of the women was holding. He smeared it onto the back of his hand and sniffed it, then gently rubbed it in.

His skin absorbed the smooth emollient and left it feeling fresher and, dare he say it, almost younger.

He picked up a cake of soap and held it to his nose. Lavender, he noted, and picked up another and recognised pungent citrus scents.

‘How much?’ he asked the girl, who looked up at him with indigo blue eyes, and a shock of dark curled hair.

‘The soap? Two francs. The lotion is five francs,’ she said, as a woman handed her the money for one of each of the products.

He rubbed the back of his hand again and noticed that his skin was still dewy where he had sampled the cream. There was something different compared to the creams he made in his pharmacy, but he couldn’t quite place the core ingredients.

There was lard, which was common, but there was something else.

‘What is in it?’ he asked her, feeling his stomach rumble. If he had the ingredients, he could experiment in the pharmacy and create his own Le Marche creams.

The girl looked up at him, and he saw her tired smile. It was amused and defeated all at once, and he felt sorry for her for a moment. So many girls like this came into Paris to find work, but the city was becoming overrun with the country mice just like her.

He waited for an answer impatiently. She handed a woman her change and a jar of cream and then leaned over and put her hand on Giles’ shoulder and whispered in his ear.

He could feel her mouth next to his skin. Her hair smelt of sunshine but her whisper was redolent with ambition.

‘An enchantress never reveals her magic,’ she said and stepped back from him. He felt the hairs on his neck rise with a feeling he thought would never visit him again.

‘I will buy them all,’ he said, without thinking twice.

And later, when surrounded by the cakes of soaps and lotions, he wondered if it was the product he wanted or the girl from the country.

* * *

Daphné Amyx stood opposite him in the small pharmacy, her hands twisting around each other, as though she was resisting the overwhelming urge to touch the rows of perfectly lined up bottles with their pretty labels.

‘I can make more,’ she said, as she watched the man line up the jars and soap on the marble-topped bench in the dispensary.

‘When you’re next in town, bring me some,’ he said brusquely.

Daphné shook her head. ‘No, I mean I can stay here and make more for you. I could work for you. I’d be an excellent assistant.’

He looked up at her, as though seeing her for the first time. She was ten years younger than his own son and yet she had more self-possession and directness than anyone he had met of that age.

He was used to the teens coming into the store, the girls trying to shoplift the peroxide for their hair, the boys wanting the hair cream for their pompadour.

But this girl with the cloud of dark hair and a waist he could have spanned with his outstretched fingers was beguiling him.

‘I don’t need an assistant,’ he snapped.

‘I think you could.’ She gestured around the space. ‘Women like other women to recommend things, it’s part of the secret women’s business,’ she said with that smile that shifted his perspective of the world.

It had been twenty years since he had loved a woman. His existence was carved out of routine and duty, yet this girl turned his mind into a whirling dervish, spinning him back in time before responsibility and duty took over his life.

‘An assistant,’ he harrumphed. He was fifty years old and being manipulated by a woman. It seemed time didn’t change a thing. He liked to sleep with whores, that way there was no misunderstanding about the future.

‘Where are you from?’ he barked.

‘Calvaic,’ she answered.

‘And your parents?’

‘Only my mother is alive now, she works a small property with a few animals and vegetables. If I worked here, I would send her money to help.’

He paused, thinking of Yves, who never asked for anything or ever offered him anything. ‘Where would you live in Paris?’

‘I have friends in Le Marais I could stay with until I found something more suitable.’

He snorted. ‘Le Marais? Jews.’ He shook his head as he spoke the last word.

Daphné raised her head proudly. ‘Yes Jews, and my friends. My mother and I hid them for a time during the war, and I would do it again for anyone, even you.’

Giles looked up startled at the hardness that crept into her tone. ‘Of course,’ he said quickly. ‘I agree. I am just commenting on them taking my business. There are more and more pharmacies opening and a few of them are run by Jews.’ He felt ashamed as he spoke, realising his shame at not doing more during the war, in fact, avoiding it at all costs.

The war had interrupted his routine. He’d sent his son Yves to Switzerland to finish school and stay safe with his chemistry teacher’s family from university and, since then, Yves had stayed there, much to Giles’ disappointment. A trip back to France once a year for a weekend didn’t allow them to connect as a father and son. Instead, they were polite, like cousins once removed, knowing the skin of each other’s life but not the bones.

Yves mother, Louise, was the unspoken ghost in their lives, dying when Yves was fourteen years old.

The conversations about Louise and her death hadn’t evolved into a respectful mourning from both of them, and then the war started in earnest and Yves was sent away.

Daphné adjusted the belt on her teal dress, which was well made from shabby fabric. She would need clothes, he imagined, and he thought of the pharmacies on the Champs-Élysées where the women wore white shirts with little black bows tied around their necks.

‘I can pay you sixty-four francs a week,’ he said, waiting for her to argue. Instead, her eyes opened wide and she smiled with such radiance, he thought he might be thrown backward by the force of her happiness.

What had happened, he thought, as she clapped her hands? How had he been so bewitched by her? He had lost his mind, he thought, and was about to rescind his offer when she leaned forward and touched his face with her soft hand. Too soft for a rural girl, he noted, as she leaned into his ear again, whispering conspiratorially.

‘Goat’s milk,’ she said and pulled back, and he saw amusement in her eyes. She smiled again and he inhaled sharply, as everything within him that was dormant woke.

* * *

Daphné went back to Calvaic to get her possessions and see her mother again, on the strict instructions from Giles she was to return in three days’ time, ready to work.

She was all he could think about during those three days, with her absence draped around his mind and body.

Daily he told himself off for his desire, nightly he indulged in fantasies far beyond anything he and Louise had experienced during their marriage, or even anything he had done with the occasional whore he found in the back alleys of La Marais.

Then she walked through the door on the third morning. He could hardly concentrate all morning, waiting for her arrival, just before he set off home for Bertilde’s leek and Gruyère tart.

‘You’re here,’ he stated, as though she wasn’t going to come back to him.

The girl nodded, and he saw her eyes her were red, and she was pale.

‘Your farewell to your mother was difficult, I imagine,’ he said, somewhat more kindly.

She nodded, and he saw her eyes fill with tears again. ‘Have you eaten?’ he asked.

She shook her head and he picked up his jacket from the hook next to the dispensary and slipped it on, adding his hat and picking up his keys for lunch.

‘Home then,’ he said and he walked out of the shop with Daphné following him, locking the door after them.

Bertilde had left him the tart, still warm, covered by a linen tea towel on the dining room table. A small salad but enough for two sat next to it in a glass bowl, with a vinaigrette in a little jug. It was all exactly as it was every Thursday but to Giles it felt unusual and exotic.