Lance was silent.
I said; ‘There is the loss of the jewellery to explain. What could that have to do with Jeanne’s being attacked in the woods?’
‘That,’ said Lance, ‘we shall have to find out.’
‘But… how?’ asked Aimée.
‘Well, someone sold the jewellery to the London jeweller from whom Clarissa bought the bezoar ring.’
‘Oh yes, I see,’ said Aimée slowly.
‘We’ll get to the bottom of it in time,’ said Lance. ‘At least poor Jeanne has been exonerated. Poor girl… to die like that… and to be blamed for stealing…’
‘Dear Jeanne,’ I said, ‘I never really believed it of her. At least some good has come out of this attack on me.’
‘I shall go up to London at once,’ said Lance. ‘I’ll call on that jeweller.’
There was no talk of anything but the fate which had befallen Jeanne. In the village, in the servants’ hall, it was discussed endlessly. Most people declared that they had always known Jeanne was honest and that there was something decidedly odd about her disappearance, which was not true, of course, as most of them had stated at the time of Jeanne’s disappearance that you never could be sure of foreigners.
After a few days Lance came back from London. It was a stormy evening when he returned and he had had a difficult journey from London because of the weather. He had seen the jeweller and questioned him. The man had repeated his story about a Frenchwoman coming in with the jewellery and the tale she had told about leaving England in a hurry. Did he think he would know her if he saw her again? He was sure of it.
More enquiries were being made, said Lance, and they would go on until the mystery was solved.
The next morning Madame Legrand and Aimée were missing.
‘It began to seem rather obvious,’ said Lance, ‘from the time we found Jeanne’s body. A Frenchwoman selling the jewellery could very likely be Madame Legrand or Aimée.’
‘Yes,’ I pondered, ‘but what has that got to do with the death of Jeanne?’
Lance thought that when she had disappeared, they might have had the idea that they could steal the jewellery and make it appear that Jeanne had taken it—which it did.
‘They are obviously running away now,’ he said. ‘You can depend upon it, they will try to get to France. I’m going to get them back because there is a lot of explaining to be done. They might try to make for Dover. On the other hand that would take time. How would they get to Dover? The horses are all in the stables… besides, Madame Legrand cannot ride. I am sure they will take one of our little boats and try to get along the coast in it… to Dover, possibly, where they can take ship for the Continent. I’m going to get down there and see what I can find out.’
I watched him ride away. Sabrina was with me. She looked pleased; although she said nothing she was reminding me by her very expression that she had always known there was something wrong with both Aimée and her mother.
All through that day I waited. It was late evening when Lance came back, bringing Aimée with him. She seemed more dead than alive and unaware of what was happening to her. We got her to bed and the doctor was sent for. She was like someone in a trance.
While we were waiting for the doctor Lance explained to me. In desperation they must have taken one of the boats and attempted to get along the coast as he had thought they would. The sea was rough and their craft very frail and they could make no headway. They were washed back to the shore again and again, but when Lance found them they had been carried out to sea. He watched them, contemplating how he could best get out to them. He saw their boat capsize and the two women washed overboard.
He saw that they were in danger of drowning. Madame Legrand went under but he managed to save Aimée.
One or two of the grooms were with him, but they could not save Madame Legrand although they made several attempts. Aimée was half-drowned, but when Lance applied artificial respiration she survived. He thought the best thing was to get her back to the house, and here they were.
Aimée recovered in a day or so. She was deeply shocked and very frightened, but I think there was a certain relief that she could tell the truth. This she did, throwing herself on our mercy.
She was wicked; she was a cheat and a liar, but she begged our forgiveness and said that if we could possibly give her another chance she would go back to France and try to earn her living there as a dressmaker, which was what she should have stayed in France to do all the time.
I was sorry for Aimée. She was quite different now from the girl I had known first at Hessenfield Castle and later here in my home. She was very fearful of the future; she was subdued, almost cringing in her terror.
She seemed to be afraid of Lance and turned her pleading eyes on me as though begging me to save her from her deserts.
When we heard the whole story, Lance and I decided we must not blame her too much, for she had been under the influence of her dominating mother. She did what she did because she had always obeyed her mother without question, and it did not occur to her that she could do otherwise.
The truth as Aimée told it to us—and I do not think she was lying, for there was no point in doing so now—was as follows:
Giselle Legrand was in fact Germaine Blanc who had lived as a servant in the hôtel where my parents had lived. Germaine had an illegitimate daughter who was Aimée and whose father was the footman in a nearby hôtel. Because Germaine was in the household she saw my father frequently, which was why she could give such an accurate account of his habits and talk of him so knowledgeably. When he and my mother died almost at the same time through what was believed to be some sort of plague, Germaine had seized her opportunity. She had stolen my father’s watch and ring. It must have been easy to pilfer from his dead body. He had realized that he was suffering from some fatal illness and had written a letter to his brother about my mother and me; but as he did not mention our names—as he had already mentioned us to his brother—it was easy for Germaine to say that the letter was given to her by my father and concerned her and her child.
Germaine had always been a clever woman. She had waited for the right moment to act, realizing of course that it might never come. But when it did she would be ready, and she was. When Aimée grew up and there was easy traffic between France and England because the war was over, she had decided to send her to Lord Hessenfield. My father had had a reputation as a philanderer and Carlotta, my mother, had been one of his many mistresses. It was logical to assume that Germaine might have been another. Who was to know that she had been a servant in the household? Shrewd and good-looking as she was, she had become the mistress of a bookseller on the Left Bank and when the Hessenfield household had broken up she went to live with him. The plan had been growing in her mind for some time and she thought it would provide very well for her daughter’s future; and when that was established she might decide to join her, which was really how it worked out. Aimée was to present herself to the living Lord Hessenfield as his brother’s daughter, and one who, according to the letter, was to have a share in the estate.
‘I did not want to do it,’ Aimée kept assuring us. ‘But I was afraid of my mother… I always have been. So I came and it was easy at first… and I liked the life. It was so much better than what I had had to do in Paris. I really made myself believe it was true… I was your half-sister, Clarissa. After all, it all seemed to fit… and it could have happened just like that. Only it didn’t. You were so kind to me… you and Lance… I could have been happy and forgotten it was all a fraud… if she hadn’t come here.’