I stood very still and indeed if I had tried to move I believe I should not have been able to do so.
The figure moved slightly; a pair of burning dark eyes seemed to be boring through me.
Then a voice said: “It’s Claudine… Oh, Claudine, you don’t know me.”
I cried out: “Aunt… Aunt Sophie.”
Then I knew she was back. Jonathan, Charlot and Louis Charles had gone over to rescue her.
And Jonathan would always do what he set out to do.
What a homecoming that was!
Even as Sophie embraced me I heard my mother’s voice. She appeared on the stairs and Dickon was with her.
“Claudine! David! We didn’t expect you today.” My mother hugged me. “My dearest, you look so well. It is wonderful to see you.”
“There is important news,” said David. “They have sent the Queen of France to the guillotine.”
Dickon, who had come out, did not speak. He stood very still and I saw that he was frowning.
“We were at the Cranthornes’,” went on David, “and the news came through to John Cranthorne. They wanted you to know at once.”
Dickon nodded and my mother looked at him anxiously.
“We shall leave for London tomorrow,” he said.
There was a brief silence and my mother said: “You see what has happened.”
“Aunt Sophie…” I began.
“It is wonderful that she is here.”
“And Charlot?”
My mother looked sad. “Charlot has not come back. Nor has Louis Charles. They have joined the army… the French army.”
“Oh no!” I cried. “They’ll be fighting against us.”
“Fools,” said Dickon.
My mother laid a hand on his arm.
“Charlot was always fretting to get back,” she said. “At least he is alive and we have news of him at last.”
There was one question I wanted to ask and I felt too emotional to say his name. But my mother answered it for me. “Jonathan brought Aunt Sophie back with Jeanne Fougère. You remember Jeanne Fougère?”
“Yes, yes, of course. So… Jonathan is safely home.”
My mother looked at me intently. “Yes, Jonathan is back.”
When David and I went down to dinner he was there. My heart leaped with excitement; he looked different—older and even more attractive than he had before he went away.
I looked at him quickly and then averted my gaze. I hoped no one noticed how the colour in my cheeks had risen.
Jonathan said: “I’ve been hearing about the wedding. So I have to congratulate you both.”
“Thank you,” I said faintly.
He came towards me and, placing his hands on my shoulders, kissed me lightly on the cheek.
“So,” he said scoldingly, “you stole a march on me.”
He gave a little laugh and I tried to smile. “How long have I been away? Eight months? And I come back to find you a wedded wife!”
He raised his eyes to the ceiling. He had spoken as though it were a joke and I felt relieved in a way because he took it all so lightly.
“When did you return?” I asked.
“Two days ago.”
Two days, I thought. While I was riding in the Park, so contented, laughing, so happy, Jonathan had been coming home with Aunt Sophie. If I had known…
Sabrina, who had joined us, said: “Dickon is so relieved that Jonathan is home.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Poor darling, it has been an anxious time for him.”
Aunt Sophie appeared then. That is the way to describe her movements. She glided rather than walked, and she was so quiet that one was almost unaware that she was there; and then suddenly one would lift one’s head and see those burning intense eyes in the half-shrouded face.
I wondered what she looked like without her hood and how deeply scarred she was by those terrible burns she had received in the Place Louis XV at the time of the wedding of that Queen who was now a headless corpse.
She wore a gown of delicate mauve with a hood to match. I could see the dark hair at one side of her face—the hood hid the other side. There was about her an ambiance of tragedy, of which all must be aware.
“We are very very happy to have Sophie safe with us.” My mother seemed almost pathetically anxious to make Sophie feel at home. She had always been like that with Sophie. I remembered that there were times when she almost seemed to hold herself responsible for Sophie’s disfigurement, just because she had been present when the disaster had happened and my father, who had at that time been engaged to Sophie, had brought my mother safely out of danger while my Uncle Armand had rescued Sophie. It had happened long before I was born—about twenty-three years ago, so all that time Sophie had been living with her disfigurement. She must be nearly forty years old now.
“Jeanne Fougère has come too, I am happy to hear,” I said.
“I wouldn’t have left Jeanne behind,” said Sophie.
“Of course not,” put in my mother. “Jeanne has been a wonderful friend. I wanted her to join us at table but she would not. She is a stickler for formality. ‘Jeanne,’ I said to her, ‘you are a dear friend. That is how we regard you.’ ‘I am Mademoiselle Sophie’s maid, Madame,’ she said. ‘And that is what I wish to be.’ I could not persuade her.”
“If you have no objection I shall eat with her as I have always done,” said Sophie. “It is a special occasion tonight and I wanted to be here to greet Claudine.”
“Thank you, Aunt Sophie.”
Her eyes were on me and I saw in them a hint of the warmth she showed for Jeanne Fougère, and I felt rather pleased that this strange woman should have a certain feeling for me. She always had had—and for Charlot too—but I think particularly for me. I remembered long ago in the Chateau d’Aubigné before that day—so far in the distant past now—when we had left for a holiday in England and never came back. It was the last time, before this, when I had seen Aunt Sophie.
“Do come to the table,” said my mother. “They have brought in the soup and it will be getting cold.”
We sat down to dinner and Jonathan said: “I claim the honour of sitting on the right hand of the bride.” Whereupon he took the chair next to mine.
“No need to ask if the honeymoon was a success, is there, Dickon?” said my mother.
“Bliss and contentment shine from their eyes,” replied Dickon.
“And to think,” said Jonathan, “that while you were discovering the joys of matrimony, I was bartering for a boat in Ostend.”
“So you came that way,” said David.
“My dear brother, where else? How do you think an Englishman would fare in Calais or some more convenient port? An Englishman… bringing Frenchwomen across the Channel! Have you any idea what it is like out there?”
“A vague one,” replied David. “I did not expect for one moment that you could come through France.”
“Jonathan will tell you about it sometime,” said my mother. She was flashing a look at me and glancing at Sophie. I understood what she meant and so did David. The subject was too painful to be talked of in front of Sophie. We should hear all later when she was not one of the company.
“Well, here you are now and that is wonderful,” I said. “We have been so worried.”
My hand was lying on the table and Jonathan pressed it briefly. It was outwardly a brotherly gesture, but the touch of his hand on mine made me shiver.
“I have given Aunt Sophie the nursery rooms,” said my mother.
“Oh… they haven’t been used for years.”
“I liked them as soon as I saw them,” said Sophie.
“They arrived in the early hours of the morning. What a day that was!” My mother went on talking quickly. “I was so delighted… and then I looked for Charlot.”