A Key to Paris: MRS DUCHESNEY MYSTERIES

By Peggy Kopman-Owens

Cover Art © Roger Kopman. In Paris, there were simply too many beautiful women hiding too many secrets, and this case was becoming too personal and too intriguing for Mrs. Duchesney to solve on her own. There was only one name on the engraved invitation, "Louie Arnaud Bertrand" making it perfectly clear that Mrs. Duchesney was not welcome at Chateau de Robinesque-Roussel. Investigating the very delicate nature of this mystery would become her sleuthing partner Louie's first solo assignment. Mrs. Duchesney had to admit Louie was an excellent private detective, but at times like these, his weakness for fiery-tempered women always made him act a bit too charming and foolish… and always far too seductive for his own good.  It was so curious. Why would a woman, who kept the chief inspector of the Paris police on her speed dial, prefer the help of a former lover in solving a mystery? Unless, of course, there was more to her story or something far more interesting to hide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PKOBOOKS LLC
• Release date: Mar 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215369739

Peggy Kopman-Owens

Peggy Kopman-Owens writes suspenseful fiction, gentle mysteries with touches of romance that inspire readers to search for their passports. Her literary properties, reflecting her work in 35 countries, include three series set in Paris. SIMON PENNINGTON MYSTERIES, MRS. DUCHESNEY MYSTERIES, and SEVEN PARIS MYSTERIES now available in eBook, paperback, hardcover, and / or audiobook. (author's photo: © Michael D. Owens)  Cover Art © Roger Kopman. Online gallery at KOPMANPHOTOS.com "My mother wrote stories and songs, becoming my inspiration, teaching that passion and patience are inseparable partners. From my father and mother, both musicians who loved to travel, I learned to embrace a world full of diversity and endless possibilities. I can never thank them enough for bestowing this lovingly unselfish gift of intellectual freedom."

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Key

M onsieur! Mrs. Duchesney called out from her table in the park-side café. Monsieur, vous avez laissé tomber quelque chose.

The old man continued walking away, heading towards an entrance to Parc Montsouris. Perhaps, he had not realized that a shiny object had slipped from his hand. Perhaps, he had not seen it at the table, where he had been sitting. Perhaps, too, he had not heard Mrs. Duchesney as the traffic was a bit too loud for his tired old ears. Or perhaps, she had used the wrong French words.

It was not her problem, and so, Mrs. Duchesney made a fleeting attempt to return to her lunch, but worry set in immediately, because it was simply her nature to meddle – a bit. Getting up to close in on her target for a better look through her thick glasses, Mrs. Duchesney could see clearly in the sun that the object was a metal key. Taking an embroidered handkerchief from her pocket, she snatched it up into a closed fist, with the intent to hurry after the man.

Returning a lost key was something important enough to break a rule. Ladies don’t run! It was her grandmother’s warning resounding in her head as she squinted, watching his image shrinking away in the distance. It was obvious that this old, bent Eiffel Tower of a man was not stopping, and so, feeling compelled by the stranger’s pace, she grabbed up her purse, and hurried off.  The waiter (who knew her well) would safely count upon her return – to pay him. Time was of the essence, and so, what other logical choice did she have?

Crossing the street, she purposefully raised her voice to its loudest capacity, calling out to him a second time. What rushed forth from her lips was not a pleasant sound. It had never been her talent, to raise the volume of her voice without also raising the pitch of it nearly an octave. This time, heard above the traffic, she succeeded in alerting at least some to her plea. Birds, terrorized by the sound of her voice, flew from the trees in all directions, a most certain response to an uncertain enemy. Mon Dieu! they screeched. What was that?

In mid-stride, Mrs. Duchesney wanted to examine what the man had left on his table at the café, but his speed of escape was competing with her curiosity. Perhaps, he thought it was nothing worth his retrieval. Why should she bother herself with chasing him? Her sudden decision to stop was awkward, nearly toppling her over onto her head. She caught herself, and her dangling glasses, just before hitting the ground. However, youth did have its advantages. Once re-balanced, she leaped forward and accelerated. She feared she might lose him entirely.

As she lengthened her steps to outpace his, she saw him navigate a bend in the sidewalk and leap over a low hedge. Again, she pleaded, Monsieur, votre clef! S’il vous plaît! Arretez! Votre clef! Then, breathlessly, this time in English, You forgot your key! But, he did not react as if he had heard her at all, except that she caught a slight scrunching of his shoulders at the sound of her words in English. It was the same posture, which the birds had assumed on their branches, just before executing their mass exodus from the park.

If he had heard her, the man deliberately refused to turn around and acknowledge her. He, also, refused to stop. Instead, he put his long old legs into even higher gear, and nearly sprinting over a second short hedge, dropped into the seat of a large black limousine, where moments before a driver stood waiting with open door. Through the wrought-iron fence, Mrs. Duchesney watched a blurry image vanish behind darkened windows. In her hand, she still grasped the stranger’s key.

At this point, she was panting, Silly ol’ fool aloud to no one in particular. Now, what am I suppose to do with this? It was said with a degree of disgust before opening the delicate handkerchief to study the key closely for the first time. There was no hotel name, no address, nothing more than a tiny mark, not a letter, not a number, engraved upon the metal key. Its shiny surface spoke of little use and an unwritten history, but it would take a locksmith’s book to determine what kind of lock it might open and even then, it seemed unlikely she would know much more. Without an address, without the old man’s name, she would be stymied.

Mrs. Duchesney walked back to her favourite café across from Parc Montsouris, hoping that the remains of her sandwich might still be there, and continuing to mutter under her now near-normal breath, Silly ol’ fool. But, in fact, she was starting to feel sorry for the old man. She envisioned him arriving home and finding himself unable to rest his tired old legs, until a locksmith, or a neighbour, or his chauffeur came to his rescue.

Why had he run, when he could have walked? She hardly looked like a mugger. What sort of threat could her voice have presented? A foreigner asking directions? At a full out run? Even a pickpocket would not have been chasing someone through the park to return a key. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it had not fallen unnoticed from his hand. Her eyesight was not very good. Maybe, it belonged to someone else and that was why he had purposely left it behind. Maybe, it had been on the table, when he sat down. Not knowing what to do with it, he simply left it for the owner to return, which is what she should have done.

No, she was certain. A man had sat down, after she had arrived. She had not really noticed him because the sun was in her eyes in his direction. She could barely see through her thick glasses in that direction, because today the morning sun was very bright. She had not bothered to glance over the top of her newspaper into the sun to see his face, but she did recall seeing that particular table empty, earlier. Had a key lay there, with the bright sunlight reflecting off it, she would have noticed. Such things did not escape her, even through her very thick lenses.

What she had noticed some time later was a pair of trouser legs, appearing beneath the far right edge of her morning newspaper, two tables away. She caught, then, the sounds of a man ordering breakfast in French, and the waiter asking if the man preferred jam or butter with his baguette. The man had muttered softly, not pronouncing his words very clearly or loudly. The French were keenly aware of their surroundings in a café, and it seemed to Mrs. Duchesney that they rarely spoke above a whisper, even when there was no one seated next to them. So, from this, she gathered the man was most likely French.

The key also most likely belonged to the stranger. He had been the only person within nine feet of the sparkling object. There was no other logical alternative. It was his or was there when he arrived. Or could the waiter have given it to him? Someone else, perhaps, passing by? No, again. Unlikely. Why had he run? What was the man thinking? If only he had slowed his pace a bit, so she could have asked. If only he had given her enough time to return his key ... the silly ol’ fool. 

As Mrs. Duchesney suspected, when she returned to her favourite café table, her favourite sandwich was gone, torn to pieces, and the birds above the café canopy were looking very suspect. Dutifully, Mrs. Duchesney cleaned up their mess, before the waiter was compelled to do so. She was culpable in their crime because she had tempted them. Tomorrow, she would remember to bring them an extra bit of bread to leave on the sidewalk several feet away, before sitting down at her favourite table, so that they might leave her and other customers in peace. She would also remember to mind her own business – if someone should decide to toss away something valuable – like a house key. It was a house key, wasn’t it? Or was it? One must never assume, she reminded herself.

Mrs. Duchesney found the uncertainty of what had happened – unsettling. As she dutifully paid the waiter, who seemed unconcerned with her earlier disappearance, her stomach growled. The mysterious stranger now owed her a meal. Had she been smart, she would have brought Arthur along to guard her food, even though Arthur did not care much for going outside. He also did not care for her choice of eating under the trees. This particular café named nine Parc Montsouris, because of its location across the street from the park, was guarded by far too many aggressive birds.

No, Arthur was an indoors sort of guy. Never had he, even once, expressed interest in taking a walk through Parc Montsouris on a leash, as he had seen other Paris felines do. It wasn’t masculine to be paraded around on the end of a rope, even if that rope was gilded or imbedded with diamonds. If he disliked being placed on a leash, he loathed a cage for any reason.

She imagined (now that she and Arthur had been roommates for more than a year), that in his haughty opinion - Arthur knew, also, that there were too many dogs in the 14th Arrondissement. Where there were too many dogs, so too would there be too much dog poop. For him, it was irrefutable proof that staying put on one’s own known territory was a wise choice. Parisian streets, seen from his fourth floor windowsill, were close enough.

Looking up as she returned to her apartment building, she imagined Arthur’s steely gaze looking down, and the smirk, which, up close, he did not hide. His whiskers would have a decidedly upward twist to them, accenting his smug, Ah Ha! face.  Even now, she could sense this greeting was waiting for her.

Unlike Arthur, who had lived in Paris much longer than she had, Mrs. Duchesney had learned only recently to accept the many hazards of her urban environment. Arthur refused because his sense of smell was far keener than hers, and his personality too... well, too aristo-Catic, if not his pedigree, to socialize with mere street mutts. Unlike her furry-faced friend (a cat with forged papers validating his origin), she had been born an alley cat sort of human being, and any attempt to fane greater status was simply a waste of time and ink. There was no refuting the fact, that she felt an equal amount of discomfort in the company of bon vivants or vagabonds.

However, she had learned to accept her social uneasiness a long time before arriving upon the scene in Paris. Here, no one expected her to fit in. It was only when encountering new clients that she found it especially difficult to relax. They had expectations of a Parisian sleuth, and she did not always know what those expectations were, or how to act.

Your accent is? the usual conversation would start.

Some days, she would answer, Canadian. Some days, Australian. Others, from New Zealand. She wisely decided the United Kingdom was too close to Europe and her ability to fake a British or similar accent too easily impugned.

When she was feeling especially threatened by someone’s question, she claimed nativity in a land totally invented by her imagination, in order to baffle the listener. Mrs. Duchesney had become adept at distorting and elongating her words, declaring quite unexpectedly that she was from Brooophtanica, a place that required a drop of her jaw, a heavily accented ooo, then, a quick roll backwards of her tongue into her tonsils, ending with a final gulp in her throat.

Where? a rare and only mildly interested Parisian might ask.

Most often, Mrs. Duchesney would launch into a well-rehearsed explanation that her father had been an ambassador to this little known territory north or south of some spontaneously seized upon latitudinal and longitudinal lines near one of the poles. If the audience still stood attentively, she might go on and on about the various invasions by other countries, which had rendered the place hardly recognizable on a map. This usually brought a vague look and nod of agreement, as in –Who has not had that problem? and provided a gratefully good stopping point for any more questions.

Brooophtanica? Louie asked. Never heard of it. I thought you were from the American Midwest. Is it somewhere near Omaha?

In the American Midwest, Mrs. Duchesney would answer, before rolling her eyes and ending the subject entirely, everything is near Omaha.

Louie would be left wondering, but Mrs. Duchesney knew his knowledge of world geography, anything outside of Europe, was sorrowfully poor. He hardly knew what lay past Malta to the west or Italy to the east, and could not have named the U.S. State capitals, much less the names of the States themselves.

As Mrs. Duchesney withdrew her door key, she examined it carefully for the first time. She had not paid much attention to her own door key, now wondering if she might not recognize it – should it be lost and returned to her. The most easily ignored objects were those used every day. Removing the lost key from her pocket, she compared the two. They were nothing alike. Hers was quite large and old, the metal dull and scratched, a reflection of the lock, which had not been replaced since the last world war. This lost one was smaller, with far less evidence of use, although it did not appear entirely new. Perhaps, the lost key was not a front door key at all. But, then, what sort of lock was opened so rarely that it left no marks on the key? The thought was still rumbling around in her head as she entered the apartment, placing both keys on the bookshelf by the door.

A sleepy Arthur stretched, and slipped gently down from the windowsill to meet Mrs. Duchesney at the door, reminding her with his loud baritone Meow! that he needed to be fed. He was not at all happy that the birds had stolen her croissant, adding his now-famous I could have told you so look. Adopting her friend Rudy’s cat, Mrs. Duchesney had discovered that old cats and old men were not much different in nature. Both became more finicky and stubborn with every passing day. However, she had developed a soft spot in her heart for both, foolish old souls who had lived too long to change their stripes or file their fingernails.

Mrs Duchesney Mysteries

Chapter 2

A Typical Tuesday in Paris

On Tuesday evening , Mrs. Duchesney pulled a brightly coloured, flowered dress up over her newest red lace underwear, painted her lips bright red, and slipped into the highest heeled shoes she owned. Then, she covered her entire ensemble with a plain grey duster coat. She was setting off for the park, but not Parc Montsouris. This time, her destination was Jardin du Luxembourg, where even from a distance she could hear the weekly event had begun without her.

Mrs Duchesney Mysteries

Chapter 3

A Not So Typical Thursday in Paris

On a typical Thursday , it was off to Parc Montsouris for Mrs. Duchesney’s morning walk, followed by lunch at her favourite café, where she met each week with Monsieur Dumand. Theirs was a special sort of friendship, and no matter how much there was to do, Mrs. Duchesney (respectfully) put the world on hold for at least two hours on Thursdays.

Sometimes, their noonday discussions carried on much longer. On two occasions, they had stayed put at their favourite table for both lunch and dinner, turning their discussion into a marathon of sorts. Their favourite waiter did not seem to mind prolonged visits from his customers, and when he was not too busy, he was known to join them for a glass of Sherry and a cigarette.

Louie had long ago stopped asking Mrs. Duchesney, where she had been, or what was so important on Thursdays that she could not be found at home and at her desk. It was not that he was no longer curious. Quite the opposite was true. Initially, he had been quite unreasonably jealous. But, because he had followed her one day, seeing for himself that Monsieur Dumand was no competition for Mrs. Duchesney’s affections, Louie dismissed his jealousy, along with his imagined competitor.

This was because Monsieur Dumand looked to be a harmless old fellow, at least 80 years old, who – despite dressing quite smartly – could barely lift a fork. It fascinated Louie, that of all the men in Paris who might have stolen two hours away from one of Mrs Duchesney’s workdays, it was this croaky-voiced, exquisitely-fashionable, scarf-tied old dinosaur who had won that honour.

No, no competition at all. Louie assured himself that he had youth on his side, even though 36 years old was not as young as he might prefer, in light of the fact, Mrs. Duchesney was still in her 20’s. On the day he discovered their rendezvous, Louie had stood in the shadows of a tree across the street from the café. He did not worry that Mrs. Duchesney might spot him, as she was too focused upon Monsieur Dumand’s every word, and unless she had her binoculars actually in hand, she would not be able to recognize him from this distance.

For her hidden sleuthing partner, Mrs. Duchesney’s encounter with the older fellow was mesmerizing to observe. She leaned forward, leaned back, smiled, giggled with her hand to her mouth like a little girl, and tossed her curls. Then, she casually reached over and, twice, patted her ancient companion’s hand – as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. This implied familiarity. How long had they been meeting? Louie wondered.

After a few more moments, reassured that the dinosaur was harmless, not a lover, (as a lover would not have let her hand slip from his arm) ...Louie relaxed a bit, but not entirely. Thoughts of a greater attachment were quickly cast aside. However, oddly, the idea of Mrs. Duchesney having any secret meetings with any man still bothered Louie. Why keep it a secret? Why? Was she courting a new client? She was too straightforward a person to keep a potential client hidden from Louie, unless... 

No, Mrs. Duchesney was not up to anything of that nature. For reasons too numerous to name, Louie was assured that she was still a virgin – in every possible sense of the word. Still, the idea that he might not one day be her first bothered him. Mrs. Duchesney was never a tactile person in public, and certainly, not with strangers or new acquaintances.

No, even circumstantial evidence could be conclusive. Mrs. Duchesney knew this man quite well, to touch his hand, and yes, there! She did it, again! But, this time, she had placed her hand further up on his arm, tapping it, gently. What was that? The old man appeared to be blowing her kisses! What was this? See! He made her laugh. She touched his cheek and blew him a kiss back! Yes, a definite pucker of the lips!

This was too much. Louie turned away, unable to watch any longer. As much as Louie’s better self told him to ignore the encounter, he had to admit, he was jealous – very jealous. He could not remember the last time that he had made Mrs. Duchesney laugh, or the last time that she had reached across a table to touch his hand. He had to leave, before he did something stupid, like march right over to the table, and demand an explanation from them both.

At last, his better self intervened, and although, irritated, rational thought returned so that he was able to dismiss them both. Let them have their little twisted tryst – or whatever this is! It was no longer any of his business! With that, he slipped away, unnoticed, but six blocks away, was still tasked with the continued reconciliation of his feelings. He would no longer ask where she went on Thursdays, and he would no longer follow to her favourite café. It was not worth the aggravation. Women! Why did he let this one get under his skin?

Why was Francesca Robinsworth Duchesney the one woman, who could make his life so difficult? Louie Arnaud Bertrand was about to find out...

There was another one.

Mrs Duchesney Mysteries

Chapter 4

A Rainy Sunday in Paris

E ntre ciel et terre , il ya Paris. Mrs. Duchesney picked up the book and began reading it aloud, but this time in English. Between Heaven and Earth, there is Paris.

A proper translation of all words French was still a struggle, but her previous attempt to read in Italian had proved embarrassing in front of a man who spoke it fluently. She had not studied the quee and kee differences between Italian and French pronunciation, causing the amateur student to stumble through what should have been eloquent passages, and her audience of one to cringe. Today, she would not have made even an amateur's effort, had Louie asked.

Thankfully, instead, he had surrendered saying, Today, you read me English and so, she did as the storm brewing outside the window competed for her audience’s attention.

"The thought of home tugged at my heart, leaving the last crumb tasteless on my tongue. The gaiety of those nearby no longer distracted from my melancholy. The bittersweet memories of childhood were too strong. I wondered if any of the people I had known were still alive, or if they - like my past - had simply vanished in the light of dawn.

Parisians mused about the weather, but not with the intensity that we in the countryside had dissected and chronicled it. Every sunrise held promise. Every sunset, a mystery. Clouds carried clues. We learned to read them carefully, as our fathers, and our grandfathers taught us. Our lives depended upon our understanding, our interpretation, our acceptance of powerful things outside our reach, and therefore, of the benevolent blessings or unavoidable curses upon our lives.

This year would be wet, dry, cold, and hot. Tomorrow a crop would rise, drop, thrive or die, and with it our hopes for a more abundant life. With each season, we prayed we might rise from our humble status - serfs upon the land of free men. But, most often, we found ourselves bowed to God's rejection of our labour and forced to humble ourselves under the yoke of our Earthly masters. We accepted our condemnation and continued as peasants, marionettes pulled and contorted by invisible hands, whose will we did not understand or question aloud.

With my childish heart, I dared, but in silence. Why was such hard work our lot in life? I looked to the village priest for answers, as those much older than I seemed drawn in the direction of the church at times such as these. In the dark of the confessional, he warned that my place in this world was not for me to question. To accept God's will was 'enough.' 

The walk home was long for a young soul as hungry for understanding as the stomach growling for bread. In the firelight of supper, my family whispered of that time, when 'enough' might be hidden away, and freedom for at least one among us might be obtainable; a brother's freedom might be bought and with it - a learned skill. A sister might be given 'enough' of a dowry with which to entice a free man to husband her. For more generations than I could count, such had been our family's earthly purpose for waking, working, and continuing in the face of what seemed to me to be hopelessness.

The priest had said, 'Think not of your hunger. The pain of earthly toil is but a season. The reward for those things, which God asks of us, lasts forever... in a place called Heaven.'  With that, he dispatched this child on that well-worn path, which she knew too well. Enough was never enough. The hopes of the family would go unfulfilled except, but in fire-lit dreams. The unknown world beyond our village would exist as little more than a vanishing point at the end of a long, dusty...and for us, untraveled road."

Louie got up and moved to the window, where he stood at first staring at Mrs. Duchesney. Mrs. Duchesney did not look up, but she could feel his eyes poised on her as she continued reading. Before long, the rain had drawn Louie’s eyes to a spot on the street below. From this point on, he ignored Mrs. Duchesney’s words, and she ignored him. She was enjoying this particular book, even if he was not.

"Childhood memories were filled with long and short goodbyes, as those around us, abandoned their land and traditions for things we could not see and could not, yet, fully appreciate. We stood firmly affixed to our fields, our roots buried too deeply to move.

'Free people are free to do foolish things,' my Father said. These fools were sacrificing all for passage to a place known only as a new country; one offering promises of freedom, free land, where soil was fertile, and food abundant. New nations, flying new flags, needed a steady supply of cannon fodder and soldiers.

Father warned my brother not to join the others. 'This new country keeps its own bonded peasants chained to the fields, and buys strangers to die on their battlefields. There, we are nothing more than turnips that have been uprooted and cast out to rot upon the ground, before we are ripened. Such fools they are!’  He spit the words out as if he knew of this place that he had never seen.

We believed him, as he had never lied to us. What these newly freed fools did not know, but my Father did, was that there were countries, which did not care if foreigners died a long way from home; did not care if young men fought for things they did not understand nor embrace.

Brother leaned upon his hoe in the field and stared with a hunger that I had never before seen in his eyes. When we paused in our labour to watch these fools depart, at first, our known burden seemed lighter than their unknown did. However, I could not reject the truth of their excitement, even if their path was - as my Father said, 'woefully misguided.' 

Often, the travellers sang their goodbyes, like the first birds of spring announcing freedom from winter, and we waved to them as if we knew them. But, soon, we did not bother to look up, nor did we wave. Their songs and promises drew others out of the darkness like bats from caves, but not us.

Father shook his head in wonder as so many able men left fields fallowed and forgotten. Mother wept for the loss of friends and neighbours. The countryside grew ever quieter with the disappearance of yet another, then, another wagon down the long dusty road.

Sister counted them, prospective husbands, who would never return to claim her. In time, strangers from an even more distant land would be found to work the land around us, and these poor souls would never know the history of the soil beneath their feet.

Our family refused to reject what we knew. We knew the land that fed us. The family, who owned it, had for generations lived far away, and in absentia allowed us to imagine the land was ours. In many ways, in all the ways that mattered, it was. It had saved us, and we - it. We knew it as we knew our fingers and our toes; and the history of our family upon it ...and beneath it, where lay our many ancestors, who had given life and limb to protect it.

How could we turn our backs on the certainty of our past to embrace an uncertain future, to fill an unmarked grave in a wilderness? We were rooted in the knowledge of who we were. These fools were rootless chaff left to the mercy of the wind."

Louie now stood with his back to Mrs. Duchesney, studying the darkening sky. The storm had been with them all morning. It would be with them all day. That much seemed certain. They had discussed it over coffee and croissants, and were waiting for a small break in the weather to run to the corner supermarket for the ingredients still missing from Sunday dinner. The few leftovers she had brought from her apartment still waited in the kitchen to be reheated. Louie had a proper oven. She did not. However, these were meant only as appetizers.

Until the weather permitted a quick escape to the grocer, Mrs. Duchesney had suggested reading as a way to distract Louie, a man easily bored when held captive. Another wave of rain clouds arrived and with them, a heavy downpour and it became too late to add to their dinner. The window of opportunity had come and passed. The supermarket, three blocks away, would close in less than 20 minutes, and this irritated Louie, who had wanted to leave earlier, but stayed because she had insisted upon finishing this chapter.

As Mrs. Duchesney continued to read, they could hear the drops pelting the slate tiles on the roof, even though three floors above separated Louie's apartment from the open sky. The abundance of chimneys magnified the sound throughout the old building, using open fireplaces as loud speakers. At one point, Mrs. Duchesney considered putting down the book, until the latest thunderstorm passed. It was becoming too much competition for Louie's attention. She could see that he seemed lost in thought; not lost in her words, but she continued anyway - fuelled by her own emotional response to the story. Louie had been correct. It was one of her favourites.

"By summer, half of the village had disappeared, but we stayed. Father said we had made a choice, but I knew that we had none to make. My father was as bound to this land (and to its owner) as my very blood bound me to him. He would die upon this land, most likely at his labour, as his father and his father before him had done. Mother knew that one day she would find him slumped over upon his plough, dead, dragged halfway through a field by the horse that - like him - could not stop without being told. The horse and his master knew no other way to go, but to follow the path laid out before them.

Hope brought us out of warm beds on the coldest of dawns and kept us half bent in the unforgiving heat of late summer nights. In winter, we shivered beneath heavy grey skies and threadbare blankets; in summer, we baked beneath the relentlessly clear skies, and sought sleep on stone floors. In spring and autumn, we talked hopefully of the next season and the next.

In this way, we imagined we laboured for ourselves, and that the only whip to our backs was the invisible one held by the true taskmaster - one whose name we dared not whisper...starvation. He was an enemy so unforgiving that he did not deserve to be heralded openly. Many nights, we felt his breath at the door, but by the Grace of God, never let him in.

It was in the sharing of our dreams, along with our burdens that we found the strength to withstand inevitable disappointments. It was together that we blessed each morsel, which redeemed us for another day's toil. No one needed to tell us that there would never be 'enough' to change anything in our lives.

The story had been written, and remained the same for enough generations, we could well remember. Any of us by the age of six could name the people, whom most of us at the table could still envision in empty chairs. The family's story had a much longer history, but the faces of those ancestors had been - long ago forgotten.

We were not the class of people, afforded the luxury of portraits or gold lockets filled with the images of departed loved ones. What remained for us to touch and remember were locks of hair, embroidered into hand-woven linens; a well-worn tool once held by a great grandfather; and a loom, where grandmother after grandmother had woven the fabric of her dreams into the tales of our ancestors. In a way, handed down generation after generation, hope and worry had been bound together to produce cloth finer than anything worn by Kings.

‘See how tight and strong the cloth?’  Grandmother would say, admiring still a tiny piece of her grandmother's work, which she had hidden away as if time could not destroy what it could not