Half an hour later, when the glue was not fully dry but at least no longer wet, Legrand put away the wineglasses and helped Daisy gather the books into a basket. “Congratulations,” he said. “You’re now employed by the Mouton Noir, delivering books to customers.”
Daisy had drunk only a single glass of wine, but it landed on top of Grandmère’s cognac and gave her a heady feeling. Or maybe it was the danger, the terror and the thrill of having recklessly cast her dice like this, of becoming an entirely new Daisy in the space of a day, of having spent an hour in the company of Monsieur Legrand and his pipe and his warm blue eyes. She found herself raising an eyebrow and asking, “Is that so? And where are my wages?”
His lips parted, but he didn’t speak. He looked at her mouth, and she looked at his eyes looking at her mouth, and her hand slipped around the handle of the basket.
“If you need to give me a message,” he said, “you should come to the bookshop and leave it inside this book.” He held up the copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel. “It will be on the shelf of English books—Philippe can show you—in alphabetical order, and when you have put your message inside, you will replace the book next to the Dickens. I will do the same. If you see the book out of order, it means there’s a message. Understand?”
She nodded.
“And if the Gestapo have come, and I am gone, then you will not see the book at all.” Daisy started to interrupt, but he held up his hand. “You will leave the store immediately and return to the Ritz, where you will order a drink from the bar, rue Cambon side of course, and when you pay for this drink you will give the bartender—”
“You mean Frank? He’s an agent?”
“Not an agent, just a kind of postbox. You will give him a note for the Badger.”
“Who is the Badger?”
“It’s not important. In this note you will simply write that the Swan has been trapped.”
“Who is the Swan?”
Legrand put his hand on the lever that opened the passageway back into the bookshop.
“Me,” he said.
In the end, it was much easier than she imagined. Mundane, even. She went to the address on rue de Bretagne, which turned out to be some apartments above a café. Inside, the foyer was modest and shabby, smelling of damp, the stonework chipped. A concierge sat at a desk, an old woman who read from a book by the light of an ancient lamp with a bowl of green frosted glass. She looked wary when Daisy approached. She folded down the corner of the page and slipped the book under the desk.
“Yes, madame? You have business here?”
“I’m here from the bookshop with a few books for Madame Bisset,” said Daisy, quite cool. “Apartment 3.”
The old woman tilted her head to the stairs and said to go on up.
As Legrand had told her, she knocked three times and called through the door that she was here from the bookshop with the books Madame Bisset had ordered. The handle turned and the door opened a crack.
“You are from the bookshop?” said a thin voice. “The Mouton Noir?”
“Yes. I have your books. The first is La dame aux camélias. Do you remember the name of the second?”
The door opened wider to reveal a woman about Daisy’s age, except even thinner, in a brown dress that matched her hair. Her voice was warm with relief. “La chartreuse de Parme, I believe.”
Daisy handed her the books, and the woman expressed her thanks.
“It’s nothing, madame,” said Daisy. “I hope you will enjoy them.”
She turned for the stairs, feeling immeasurably lighter, relieved of much more than the weight of the volumes in the basket. As she began her descent, the woman’s voice drifted down behind her.
“God bless you, madame.”
Daisy returned to her apartment just in time to greet the children, home from school. It was not Justine’s day to help, so Daisy made them their dinner—coarse bread, boiled turnips, a lump of cheese, a bit of meat—and helped them with their homework until it was time for bed. Pierre had not yet arrived. His dinner remained in the oven, keeping warm. She tucked the children into bed and then climbed in next to Madeleine to read a story. Her hands, she saw, were still trembling a little. Her veins still throbbed with her own audacity.
By the time she had finished, Olivier was asleep, but Madeleine remained awake, cuddled into her side. Daisy stroked the dark, straight hair, so unlike her own and that of Grandmère. The warm skin, the child smell of her.