“Oh dear,” said my mother lightly, “are you so eager to leave us?”
“I do not wish to encroach…” replied Sophie.
“My dear Sophie, we are overjoyed to have you.”
Sabrina, who had appeared to be dozing, suddenly said: “Enderby is a strange house. But when my mother was mistress of it, it was a very happy house. It was only after she died that it became morbid again.”
“Well, you know the old house better than any of us,” said my mother. She turned to Sophie. “Dickon’s mother was born there. She lived her childhood there. So she can tell you what you want to know about it.”
A glazed look came over Sabrina’s eyes. “It is so long ago,” she said. “Oh years and years and yet sometimes I remember those days more clearly than what happened yesterday.”
“I look forward to seeing this house,” said Sophie. “I will talk to Jeanne, and tomorrow, if that is possible, we will see it.”
“We could send over to Grasslands for the key,” said my mother.
“May I come with you?” I asked eagerly. “I should love to have a good look at the house.”
“Won’t it be rather tame going in through the front door after climbing through the window?” asked Jonathan.
“It is really something of an adventure setting foot in that house.”
So it was arranged.
Dinner was over and my mother said: “Sabrina is very tired. I shall take her to her room. And I daresay Sophie would like to retire also, wouldn’t you, my dear?”
Sophie said she would.
“Claudine will take you up.”
“I can find my own way,” said Sophie.
I went to her and laid my hand on her arm. “Please, I should love to see Jeanne again.”
Sophie gave me that rather special smile which I noticed she rarely gave to anyone else, and we went up the stairs together.
Jeanne was waiting for her in the nursery rooms. “Jeanne,” I said, “how good to see you!”
She grasped my hand and I studied her intently. There were grey strands in her dark hair. She had lived through much stress and strain.
“Mademoiselle Claudine,” she said, “I am happy to be here and have Mademoiselle Sophie safe.”
“Yes, your ordeal must have been terrible.”
Jeanne nodded to me meaningfully. “You are tired,” she said to Sophie.
“A little,” admitted Sophie.
“Then I shall say good night,” I said. “If there is anything you need…”
“Your mother has taken good care of us,” Jeanne told me.
“I have heard of a house,” said Sophie to Jeanne.
“I will leave you to talk about it,” I said. “Don’t get too hopeful. Enderby isn’t everyone’s home.”
Then I said good night and left them.
On the way down I met my mother on her way from Sabrina’s room. She put an arm round me and held me close to her.
“I am so glad you are back… and happy. Oh yes, I can see you are happy. It was wonderful in London, wasn’t it? You with David…”
“It was perfect,” I told her.
“What a pity you had to cut it short.”
“I couldn’t really see why.”
“Dickon is deeply involved with… affairs. I worry sometimes. He has secrets… even from me. I think the death of the Queen will have some important effect on things over here. In any case, you and David can go back to London later.”
“Of course.”
“What do you think of Sophie?”
“She was always a little… strange.”
“I thought she seemed more—friendly… more shall I say—normal. She must have suffered a great deal.”
“I suppose all that would change anyone. Wasn’t it wonderful about the jewels?”
“It was a terrible risk. However, you’ll hear about it. We don’t want to go through it all in front of Sophie. Jonathan will tell you all about it.”
The men were in the punch room, where a fire was burning in the fireplace. They rose as we entered.
“Come and sit down,” said Dickon. “Unless you are tired.”
“I’d like to talk a little,” I said. “There is so much to hear about.”
Jonathan had come swiftly to my side; he laid a hand on my arm. “Come and sit down,” he said; and I sat between him and David. My mother took the chair opposite Dickon.
“I didn’t want to talk too much in front of Sophie,” said my mother. “It must have been a nightmare she has been living through all this time. Just think of it. Day in, day out… never knowing when the mob would turn against them. Jonathan, do tell Claudine and David the story you have told us.”
“I had better start at the beginning,” he said. “We had already made arrangements for getting across when we left the house that day and made our way to the coast where the boat was ready waiting for us. It was a fishing boat and the owner was doing a very brisk business with émigrés. He was able to change our money into French currency, and there was a small rowing boat in which we were taken ashore at a very lonely spot on a dark moonless night.
“So we were there. Charlot was quite ingenious. He is a good actor. He transformed himself into a small trader with a cart—which we managed to acquire, with a horse, not very handsome in appearance but a strong creature of whom we all became very fond. Louis Charles and I were the servants. I was of a lower grade posing as dumb, as I was unable to speak the language proficiently. They were afraid for me to open my mouth, which they said would have given the whole show away.
“We made a slow journey to Aubigné, encountering difficulty after difficulty. I could not keep up the dumb act, so they thought my French might be mistaken for a patois. I was to be a native of the country in the south, right on the Spanish border, which was to be the reason why I spoke so badly. You’d be shocked if you could see the place, Step-mama. There are chickens running all over the lawns, the flowerbeds are overgrown and the pools full of stagnant water. I never saw it in its grandeur, but there was just enough of an outline left to show me how splendid it must have been.”
“It was splendid,” put in Dickon. “All that good land… gone to waste. The stupid vandals! They will ruin their country.”
“Well,” went on Jonathan, “our big disappointment came when we reached the château, for neither Sophie nor Jeanne was in residence. We dared not ask for them and we were in a quandary then. Charlot did not want to go too far away—and in any case we did not know where to go. But he was afraid he might be known and recognized if he went to an inn in the town, despite his disguise. Louis Charles also felt that. So I went to the wine shops there. I would sit about drinking and listening to the talk… not saying much and pretending to be a little foolish and not understanding what they were talking about. They were quite tolerant of me.”
“It is always a good thing to act the fool,” said David. “It makes others feel superior, and that is what they enjoy.”
“Well, I did quite well really. There was a girl who served the wine. What was her name? Marie… that’s it. She took pity on me and used to talk to me. I marked her down. I could discover a good deal from her, I believed. I could ask her what I dared not ask the others. I did rather well with Marie. I would creep out of the wine shop and join the others, who were sleeping in the cart. In time I got Marie to talk to me about the old days and the family at the château. What scandals I heard, dear Step-mama!”
“There are always scandals about people like my father.”
“It seems he was quite good at making it. I heard about his romantic marriage with your mother and how she died. That was shocking. I plied Marie with the grape and finally I discovered that Armand had died and they had buried him at the château. His companion had left, so there were only three women at the château then.