found them easily. Impoverished aristocrats were selling their ancestral homes, and their contents. The country was still badly scarred by the Occupation, and the advance of Allied troops across France during the Liberation. The stories they heard were tragic, of husbands sent to work camps never to return, their homes occupied by the Germans, the rape of women and young girls by German soldiers, and the deaths of sons and daughters in the Resistance. The people they met were strong and determined, but in dire need of money to survive. Some were still trying to save their homes, but selling everything in them, others were selling their chateaux with their contents. Again and again, Alex and Eleanor found beautiful antiques and purchased them for the low prices their owners were asking for them. They felt bad at times paying as little as the owners requested. Almost every chateau was up for sale, and many were badly damaged, or in serious disrepair. They went to a few country auctions and brocantes, which were like yard sales, and found treasures there.
What they found in England was similar, although the British were trying to hold on and rebuild their lost world, with considerable difficulty. Many were living in poverty and had sold their land to preserve their home. They were running enormous estates and castles with only a handful of people to help them. They were selling their possessions, but unwilling to relinquish a way of life that had existed for centuries and was foundering in the modern world. It tore at Alex’s and Eleanor’s heartstrings, reminded them of their own losses years before, and they were frequently invited to dinner by the people who were selling the contents of their homes. France had seemed more shell shocked after the Occupation, but England was just as poor. They had protected the country from invasion, but their old way of life was impossible to maintain. Life in the States seemed more secure, but the country hadn’t been invaded or occupied, and had greater resources to fall back on, and the post-war industrial boom was breathing new life into the economy and filling the nation’s coffers, and creating a whole class of the newly rich.
They found equally beautiful things in the castles in Ireland, and Eleanor had the thrill of seeing the Houghtons in Dublin. Wilson and Eleanor flew into each other’s arms like long-lost relatives, as Houghton smiled at them benignly with damp eyes. They had aged considerably since Eleanor had last seen them in 1930, but they were healthy and in their seventies now. They both said that they missed California and their life in the States, but had a small tidy cottage and a good life in Ireland. They were living on their careful savings, and hadn’t tried to find work since the war, and there was little to be had anyway. London was still severely damaged by the bombings, although Alex and Eleanor had seen construction going on everywhere. Britain was determined to recover.
By the time they got back to Cherbourg to board the ship again, they had filled three large trucks with priceless antiques to send back to San Francisco. In a month or so, their shop would be full of pieces to sell that were as beautiful as the antiques of the Deveraux, which they had been selling for two years. The trip had been a great success, although it had been poignant and humbling to see firsthand the suffering that Europe had experienced during the war.
It was a peaceful trip home on the familiar ship. The crossing was smooth. They were both tired after moving from place to place constantly for a month, examining the contents of castles in England and Ireland and chateaux in France. And for each piece they bought, they knew they would remember the stories that went with it, and the owners who had touched them with their courage and their losses. It had been a trip that they knew neither of them would ever forget. And Deveraux-Allen had a store full of new merchandise to sell.
* * *
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When Alex and Eleanor got back to San Francisco, Camille looked to them as though she had grown a foot. She was six now, and she had learned new songs from Annie while they were gone. The child’s singing talent was undeniable, and she was as sunny and happy as she had been for all six years of her life so far. Eleanor