Free The House with Blue Shutters by Lisa Hilton

not as if she is a governess, even,’ sniffed Cook. Oriane thought Mademoiselle Cleret must be rather lonely, pushing the baby carriage up and down the lanes all day with no one to talk to.
    She went to Mass with Cook and Clara on Sundays, but she barely spoke to them the rest of the week, keeping to the nursery and her little bedroom on the third floor, where she had her own wireless and a big pile of fashion magazines passed on from Madame. Mademoiselle Cleret wasn’t old, but she looked it in her starched navy uniform. It was English style, with stiff white collars that Oriane had to press, all seven, when she ironed on a Wednesday. Perhaps she could be friends with Mademoiselle Lafage, though Oriane
    would never dare to suggest it. When Mademoiselle Cleret did speak, it was to tell tales of the d’Esceyracs’ house in Paris, which was in the very best part of town, a place called St-Germain, where there were always parties with the very best people, and she took little Charles-Louis for walks in a park called the Luxembourg gardens with the babies of duchesses. ‘The very best duchesses, no doubt,’ said Cook. Mostly though, Mademoiselle Cleret was stuck with Castroux, where she grumbled about the dust and the heat, or if not that, the mud and the cold, and she made Amélie scrape at the clogged wheels of the baby carriage with a stick.
    Clara and Amélie lived in, sharing one of the attic bedrooms next to Cook, who snored something terrible. The long dormitory above the stable was empty now, a place of sunlight and cobwebs. Two of Amélie’s Lesprats cousins saw to the horses and the odd jobs, though they were very superior about their real job as chauffeurs, which meant they polished the Marquis’s car when it was there and fiddled unnecessarily under the bonnet. There were Lesprats everywhere, old Camille had been one of fifteen and had had thirteen children himself, so Amélie had relations from Landi to Monguèriac. The boys had made a snug, smelly nest for themselves in an alcove off the tack room, which had a fireplace, and on Sundays they went for their dinner to Amélie’s parents in the village. Monsieur Contier, Yves’s father, was the gardener, though he was nearly as old as Papie Nadl. He was too old to farm, but he had a wonderful touch with roses, Madame said, and she was so proud of the sweetness of the d’Esceyrac melons she would often drag old Monsieur Contier out to meet her guests when they came down from Paris in thesummer. He mumbled and touched his cap, but didn’t tell them about the holy water. In fact, there were not guests from Paris so very often, Monsieur le Marquis was usually away, and Madame was often with him, fetched in a car from the station at Monguèriac and driven away to dance with the very best people in St-Germain.
    Cathérine slept at Murblanc, but though she walked up with Oriane in the morning, she worked the full day, so Oriane returned alone, taking the track down through the woods to fetch William. Sometimes she would stop and sit down at the little shrine to the Madonna and leave her a posy, or just trail her fingers in the brook. It was nice to sit and think, and plan the chores for the afternoon. Cook allowed her to take some bread and a bit of cheese or sausage for William, so often they sat on the bridge over the Landine while he ate his lunch, and then they walked into Castroux. Oriane felt very grown up as she counted her own money from her own purse to pay for a few nails or a loaf from Charrot’s bakery. Sometimes she left William playing in the square and stuck her head into the kitchen of the café, where she would share a
sirop
with Betty Dubois and tell her about the doings up on the hill, how the funnel of the copper had got clogged with a ball of string, or how Charles-Louis had escaped into the drawing room and broken a porcelain figurine. Betty liked to hear about the food Cook made, though that was better when Monsieur was there because Madame