Au Château

13

Au Château

    Linnet woke to a light-filled room. Rose was sitting on the end of the bed in a pink quilted satin dressing-gown, watching her.

    “Good, you’re awake,” she said.

    “Yes. Is it breakfast time?” said Linnet groggily.

    “Dunno. I think my watch is on Hong Kong time or something.”

    Linnet realized abruptly where she was and struggled upright. “Help! We’re here!”

    “Looks like it, yeah. It’s apparently tomorrow, too,” she said with a grin.

    “Um—yes. You were asleep, old Louis carried you up to bed. And Sidonie was looking after Fergie.”

    Rose nodded. “The old dame with a face like a horse? Yeah, I’ve met her. And the fat old dame with the mo’s her sister, is that right?”

    “Bernadette, yes. They’re not at all alike, are they?”

    Rose smiled. “No, they’re not. But then we’re not much alike, either.”

    “No. Is Fergie awake?”

    “Yes. She seems to have taken to old Sidonie like a duck to water. I can’t see why, she’s the opposite of what I always imagined a children’s nanny ’ud be like. I mean, she’s tall and bony and—and sort of scraggy!” she said with a laugh.

    “Yes. What’s she got on this morning, Rose?” asked Linnet eagerly.

    Rose grinned. “Baggy black slacks that sort of droop round the bum, and huge red slippers. And a grungy green twinset, a sort of olive green, I suppose you’d call it, with a black overall sort of thing over the lot! Um—you remember those horrible gym rompers they made us wear at school? –That sort of material: shiny.”

    Linnet sighed happily. “Perfect! Last night she had on a man’s tweed jacket. It was definitely a man’s, the buttons were on the wrong side. I looked specially, because she was wearing men’s boots. And baggy black pants—probably the same ones—with a pink lacy jumper under the jacket!”

    Rose giggled. “She’s a character, eh?”

    Linnet nodded, smiling. “Have you met the Comtesse yet?”

    Rose shook her head. “What’s she like?”

    “I’ll tell you in a minute. But my theory is that she passes on her jumpers to Sidonie! Because guess what: last night she was wearing a lacy blue twinset in the same pattern as Sidonie’s jumper!”

    Rose choked.

    Sniggering, Linnet said: “Yeah! –You’ll like her, I think. She’s very nice. And kind. But very, um… posh, ’ud be the only word.”

    Rose gulped.

    “She sounds... I was gonna say, a bit like the Queen. Only she’s even posher, if you can imagine it.”

    Rose shook her head numbly.

    “She’s very pretty. A bit like Annie. But she’s got Gilles’s eyes.”

    “Fat or thin?”

    “Um—medium. Not as scraggy as Sidonie!” said Linnet with a laugh. “Fairly tall.”

   Rose sighed. “I was imagining her a bit like Marie-Claire, only older. Plump and cosy, y’know?”

    “I wouldn’t call her cosy. Only she is very nice,” said Linnet.

    Rose groaned.

    “What have you got on?” ventured her sister.

    “Eh? Oh. There’s one here for you, see?” It was on the end of Linnet’s bed: Rose held it up. Pale green quilted satin. The revers and pocket were embroidered with tiny pink rosebuds.

    “Where did they come from?” gasped Linnet.

    “Dunno. Maybe it’s a custom in posh French country houses to give your guests expensive dressing-gowns.”

    “Hah, hah.”

    Rose tossed it at her. “Put it on, and come and have a look outside!”

    Linnet smiled and put her arms into it. “Is it still snowing? We had to wait in the village last night while they cleared the road for us. You were asleep. It was awfully—awfully lowering, Rose: Marie-Claire told me airily they were Gilles’s men, and of course they’d clear the road so as we could get home!”

    Rose wrinkled her nose. “Figures. –Come and see,” she said, over by the window, “It’s like a Christmas card. –I bet it’s all his as far as the eye can see, what’s more.”

    Linnet got out of bed and did the dressing-gown up. “Well, Uncle Jim’s view was his as far as the eye could see, come to that.” She went over to the long window. “Heck!” she gasped.

    “Sidonie said it’s not very thick. But it’s pretty, isn’t it?”

    As far as the eye could see the landscape was covered in snow. Linnet had thought, from the amount of light in the room, that the sun must be shining, but it was a pale grey day. The light was coming off the snow. All the trees, hedges and bushes were cushioned with snow. Apart from some out-buildings over to their left, there were no other buildings in sight at all, except— “Is that a church steeple?” said Linnet, peering.

     Rose screwed up her eyes. “Think so. Sidonie says the village is over there.”

    “Help; will we have to go to church, do you think?”

    “Ugh. Dunno. –Didn’t you say he wasn’t religious?”

    “He isn’t, but maybe his mother is. Maybe it’s the custom—you know.”

    “I haven’t been to church since Mémé used to drag us when we stayed with her for the May holidays.”

    “Me neither,” agreed Linnet.

    “They’ll be Catholics, what’s more,” she warned.

    Linnet shuddered.

    “It’s all in English—no, I mean French—these days,” Rose reminded her.

    “The vernacular,” said Linnet faintly. “Yes, I know, but that won’t help us much, if we don’t know when you’re supposed to kneel or cross yourself or anything.”

    “No.”

    There was a short silence.

    “Maybe his mother isn’t. Isn’t she English?” said Rose hopefully.

    “Yes. But they have English Catholics, still,” replied Linnet glumly.

    “Oh, yeah: I know!” said Rose with a sudden laugh. “Brideshead Revisited!”

    “What?’

    “You know! It was on a few years back! Everybody watched it!”

    “Um... No.”

    “They were Catholics—in England, I mean—and they lived in a huge great mansion in the country. Well, I say mansion; it was like a ruddy great palace or a museum or something! Actually, I thought it was really overdone. Gold everywhere.”

    Linnet shrugged, looking blank.

    “Well, that lets you out, as far as gracious country living in a ruddy great Catholic mansion’s concerned!” said her sister crossly.

    “Yeah, doesn’t it? –What’s Fergie doing?” asked Linnet kindly.

    “Letting Sidonie give her a bath, last time I looked.”

    “Crikey, she must like her!”

    Rose shrugged. “Yeah.”

    “Has she had her breakfast?”

    “Yes. When I woke up Sidonie was stuffing her on brioche and warm milk.”

    “Not croissants?”

    “Nope. Brioche, redcurrant jam from their own redcurrant bushes, and warm milk.”

    “That sounds okay.”

    “Yeah. Well, go and have a pee, then we can go downstairs and look for some.”

    “Um—like this?” she quavered.

    “If you look carefully,” Rose replied on a dry note, “you’ll see that they’ve nicked all our clothes.”

    “Ugh!” said Linnet with a loud giggle. “It’s like that awful story Mémé used to read to us: La Belle et la Bête!”

    “Yeah, well, if he’s turned into the Bête, I’m not offering to take him off your hands,” said Rose, sitting on the bed. “—Go on.”

    “Where is it?”

    “You’ve got your own ensuite. –Go on: it’ll be that door over there.”

    Linnet tried the door. It was. “Maybe they’ve only put our clothes away in some of those cupboards,” she ventured.

    “No, I’ve looked. They’ve all vanished. But Sidonie’s got Fergie tricked out in a stretch fabric all-in-oney. Helluva cute.” She waited until Linnet had gone into her bathroom and added drily: “If it is black.”

    “Black?” gasped Linnet from the ensuite.

    “Yeah. Black. I will admit it’s got a white angora bunny on its pocket and a white blouse under it. With a hand-embroidered broderie Anglaise collar.”

    The toilet flushed. Linnet’s head poked round the door. “Did you say hand-embroidered?” she gasped.

    “Yep. Suitable for—what’s the phrase? The daughters of the landed gentry,” said Rose with relish. “Yeah, well, I didn’t believe it either, but Sidonie was blahing on about it, you see, and I took a really good look at it, and it is.”

    Linnet gulped, and retired to wash her hands.

    “According to Sidonie, Madame la Comtesse has always wanted more grandchildren!” said Rose loudly over the sound of running water.

    “Help!” she called with a loud giggle.

    Rose replied to this: “You’ll need it.” But not with much conviction: she was grinning all over her face.

     Gilles had breakfasted much earlier, but he went upstairs at around eight-thirty and looked in on Roma. She was sitting up in bed placidly eating brioche and reading a paper. He kissed her cheek, and she asked after Linnet and Rose, but he reported they were still asleep. So was Bertrand, which judging by the level in the brandy decanter by his bedside, was hardly surprising, he noted. Fabien was up and had just gone out to see if the men were having any luck getting his car out of the ditch. And Marie-Claire was just about to have breakfast, also in bed.

    Roma nodded, and said: “That reminds me, dear, I saw Catherine Langlois just the other day. She was asking after Marie-Claire.”

    “Langlois?”

    “One of the younger generation, dear,” she murmured. “Her husband’s with Semences ULR.

    “Oh: one of our employees from ‘Garden City’?” he said, the last phrase in English.

    Roma winced. This was Gilles’s name for the new housing development on the outskirts of the village of Touques le Minard which was occupied largely by young couples and small families where either or both of the spouses worked for ULR in the nearest town, Tôq, where ULR owned three factories and had a regional office, and in fact provided a good deal of the employment in the region, or for Semences ULR, which had its head office, its large research arm, extensive glasshouses, and a big processing plant about another half hour’s drive down that road. Much of the agricultural land thereabouts was also owned by Semences ULR, though leased out to individual growers. The rest of the land in the region was owned personally by Gilles de Bellecourt.

    The development consisted mainly of small detached or semi-detached houses, and they did all have small gardens. Typically the young professionals would have planted a small silver birch or weeping elm in these, with perhaps a few roses. None of them grew vegetables, although the back gardens, though not large, would certainly have allowed them to do so. They shopped in the village and once a week drove into the large supermarché in Tôq to stock up. The villagers, whose gardens were crammed with such useful items as cabbages, carrots and currant bushes, regarded these newcomers’ activities with pitying scorn, not understanding that most of them were city people who had grown up out of sight of even a blade of grass. Those who weren’t, like the young Langlois couple Roma was referring to, conformed even more slavishly to the social norms of “Garden City”.

    “Don’t call it that, dear,” she said with a sigh.

    Gilles shrugged. “Louis calls it ‘Les Mues.’”

    Roma bit her lip. “Oh dear. Those houses do look a bit like his pheasant coops.”

    “Standing on end,” he agreed drily.

    “Yes; it’s the big windows, I think.”

    Gilles nodded, grinning. “What about this Langlois woman, Maman?”

    “What? Oh! Well, only that she seems a very nice girl, dear. She’s got a little boy about Fergie’s age. And they must be relations, you know.”

    “They— Oh, mon Dieu. Oui, oui… I’d forgotten. Linnet and Rose must be related to all the Langlois and Ferry tribe.”

    “En effet. Well, not all, I suppose. Though they do seem to have intermarried, over the years! The mémé was a Langlois, is that right?”

    “Eugh… A Langlois, yes. Michel Ferry’s aunt on his mother’s side,” he recalled with an effort.

    “Well, there you are, dear,” she said placidly.

    Gilles sat down heavily on the end of the bed. “There I am what?”

    “This Catherine will be a nice friend for Rose.”

    “Eugh—yes. Where and when did you meet her, if it’s not asking too much?”

    Avoiding his eye, his mother said brightly: “I was really feeling so much better, dear, and I was very sick of being cooped up inside, and after you’d left for Paris the sun came—”

    “The minute my back was turned you went out into the freezing weather,” he groaned.

    “Pas du tout! The sun came out in the afternoon, so I just took the Renault into the village, dear. And Catherine Langlois was buying pears.”

    “Buying pears. I see. –Would these be the self-same pears that old Pierre-Xavier Langlois grows in his walled orchard behind the church?”

    “I expect so, dear; they are excellent keepers,” she said placidly.

   Gilles rolled his eyes. “Surely he must be— What? A great-uncle or—or something!—of the girl’s husband?”

    “I’m sure he must be, yes. But never mind: it’s making the wheels of village commerce go round nicely!” said Roma with a gurgle. “Anyway, we had a lovely chat, and then we collected the little boy from the maternelle, and—well, I asked her to come up to the house tomorrow for tea; dear. I was sure you wouldn’t mind.”

    “Have tea with the whole tribe of Langlois, if it makes you happy!” he said wildly.

    “They’re very nice. And I think we should mix more,” she said firmly. “Bertrand is so old-fashioned and stiff-necked about these things, but it won’t do for Rose and Linnet to cut themselves off from the young people who live nearby.”

    “No, I see what you mean. Splendid. Give them a damned English orange cake.”

    “I’ve already asked Bernadette to make it.”

    He groaned.

    “Darling, you didn’t have anything specific planned, did you?”

    “No. Well, a proposal of marriage or two, possibly—yes. But that’s nothing, I can do it at any time!”

    “Did you really?” she said uncertainly.

    He made a face. “Well, yes. –I suppose I could still shove Rose off onto Marie-Claire and the two of them could entertain this Langlois girl. But it might look rather pointed.”

    “I think you’d better be there, dear.”

    “Don’t spell it out,” he sighed.

    “I wasn’t going to,” said Roma with dignity, retiring into her newspaper.

    Gilles got up, grinning. He kissed her hair lightly and said: “Invite the whole of the petite bourgeoisie if you like, Maman; I promise to be nice to all of them without exception. –Oh: but I wouldn’t invite Vaks, if I were you.”

    “Nice Dr Vaks? Gilles, what do you mean?”

    He went over to the door. “From what Jacques was saying he was furious at having been called out by Bertrand for nothing more than a bruised bum in the middle of a blizzard. And I can’t say I blame him. I gather he told Bertrand in no uncertain terms he should have come in to the surgery like the rest of the population.”

    “In that case I’ll invite him as soon as possible. To dinner, what’s more!”

    He went over to the door, grinning. “I don’t advise it,” he said, and went out.

    “Pourquoi pas?” cried Roma loudly.

    Her son’s head appeared round the bedroom door, grinning. “I have it on the best of authority he’s a communist, Maman.”

    “Whose authority?” she cried indignantly.

    “Bernadette’s, of course,” he said solemnly. “Ciao!” His head disappeared. His footsteps retreated down the passage.

    “A communist?” said Roma dazedly. “Nice Dr Vaks? Rubbish! –Well, even if he is, he can still come to dinner,” she decided. “I’ll make a list!”

    She picked up the pencil and the small writing pad that were on her bedside table and began to make a new list, headed (in English) “Dinner for Locals”. There were now quite a few other lists on the pad. Some were merely shopping lists. One was headed “Wedding” and began: “Mathieu & P. Best man? Ask G.” Another was headed: “Nursery” and included such items as “G’s cradle—attic?” and: “Mend rocking-h for F.” and: “Pale yell. wash—walls? Ask P about frieze”. The new list was awarded: “Dr V. (nice man). Think is b, check f. NB may be PC, do not put next to Père Durand.” After some thought she added: “C. Langlois. name of m.? Mtre F & f., unless f.f. with above, ask B. J-L. Duvallier. NB G seems jealous, do not put next L. Is he m.?”

    Sometimes Roma forgot what her initialisms meant but in this instance they all seemed clear enough to her on re-reading. It didn’t dawn on her that as she had used “f.” twice, and indeed used it consistently in her lists, for “femme”, the symbol “f.f.” was not immediately going to indicate “family feud” in a week’s time; that “m” stood for both “mari” and “married”, though possibly that was near enough; and that the “PC” which seemed so crystal-clear at the moment was destined to cause immense confusion when she was about to issue the invitations and would necessitate consultations with the entire household in order to clarify that it had nothing to do with English policemen and that she must have meant “Parti Communiste.”

    The Château de La Rance was not a large mansion and Rose would very speedily discover—to her great relief—that it bore no resemblance to the museum that had featured in Brideshead Revisited The Television Version. It was a grey stone house, basically two-storeyed with the addition of attics, a large basement, and of course cellars. The structure dated from the seventeenth century but apart from a few small rooms on the ground floor which still retained their original proportions and their original honeycomb ceilings, little remained of the château of Louis XIII’s day. It had been extensively remodelled in the eighteenth century, most of the main rooms having being enlarged and much of the panelling replaced with plaster. The house had suffered only minor damage during the Revolution, though the La Rance family had fled to Austria. Then under the Second Empire the Comte de Bellecourt who had been Adélaïde’s husband had modernized again, making a large drawing-room out of two medium-sized reception rooms on the ground floor, knocking down several out-buildings and rebuilding the stable block, and adding a ballroom and a conservatory as a separate wing. Gilles referred to this addition as an excrescence, or sometimes, if he was in a very grouchy mood, as a carbuncle, but as it was set well to the rear of the old stone house it didn’t make it look too lopsided.

    Besides the modern nursery suite which consisted of a night nursery, a small nurserymaid’s bedroom, a bathroom, and a large day nursery, the château had only six bedrooms on the first floor, although Gilles’s suite consisted of the master bedroom and a dressing-room as well as his bathroom. When Roma had come to live in it at the end of the War the house had been very poorly provided with bathrooms, the nursery was on the attic floor, and the servants’ bedrooms, also in the attics, were apparently unchanged since the eighteenth century, or even the seventeenth.

    The kitchen hadn’t been much better. Roma was used to old English country houses but, partly because she knew the Bellecourts were a wealthy family, and partly because her own mother was an American who had speedily sorted out John McEwan’s old country house, she had been horrified at the conditions which the Bellecourts considered suitable for their servants and children. Mrs McEwan had been called in to advise and between the two of them they had ruthlessly modernized the château. Old Fernand de Bellecourt had let them: he was secretly very relieved that his son’s English widow had agreed to bring the heir to La Rance to France. Besides, Mrs McEwan was a wealthy woman and Fernand didn’t mind if she wanted to spend her own money on putting bathrooms into his house. –Roma and her mother had never realized it, but the stiffness of the local ladies had been partly due to their resentment at the lavish way in which the two foreigners were throwing their money around at the château. Not to mention the fear that their own servants might demand modernized suites on the strength of it.

    With the addition of Rose and Linnet to the household, as well as Marie-Claire, Bertrand and Fabien, the first floor was, of course, now full. In fact they had put Rose in what was really the nurserymaid’s room. But it adjoined the night nursery and Roma had thought she’d want to be next to her little girl in any case.

    The modernized attics contained, as well as rooms for Bernadette, Jacques and Estelle, a couple of extra bedrooms which included the one Annie always used and which she had claimed as her own when she’d promoted herself from the nursery: a little white room with a sloping ceiling and a round oeil-de-boeuf window.

    On the ground floor, besides Gilles’s study and the adjoining library, there was, of course, Roma’s little sitting-room as well as the large Second Empire drawing-room which the family did not normally use. There was also a dining-room, a large affair full of heavy Second Empire mahogany, and a small, pretty breakfast room, which Gilles and his mother usually dined in also, unless most of the family was with them or they were entertaining.

    The kitchen was still in the basement but Granny McEwan had forced Fernand to have the area at the back excavated and more windows put in, so that it now looked out not onto a grimy ditch-like space and a dank stone wall, but a warm, sheltered, paved terrace, with a little grapevine, tubs of herbs, and some lemon trees in pots. At the moment the lemon trees were swathed in sacking and straw and the vine was dormant, but in the warmer months the whole household used this sunny patio for eating, reading the paper, and just plain sitting. Not to mention, in the case of Bernadette, Estelle and Roma, shelling peas and similar exercises. Needless to say Granny McEwan had installed the most modern of stoves that was available to a generous American purse and that could be operated on the primitive fuels available at La Rance in the year 1947. Bernadette still used it, even though the whole district  was now electrified. She didn’t want an electric stove. Gilles had offered to have a gas one put in for her when he’d had gas-fired central heating installed, but Bernadette had refused. It wasn’t that she was old-fashioned, she explained carefully: it was just that the old stove did such an excellent job.

    These days during the hotter months she would use her little gas ring to make a pot of coffee or whip up an omelette, unless Madame la Comtesse had ordered something for dinner that needed the stove. It had not dawned on Bernadette that in the heat of summer Roma avoided ordering meals that needed the stove. And she had tactfully decreed that although Bernadette’s bread was better, the château should be seen to patronize the local baker: it encouraged local commerce and fostered good relations between the big house and the village. So Bernadette no longer rose before dawn in order to light the stove and set her dough to rise. Not in summer, anyway. Roma hadn’t been able to prevent her from doing so in winter: even if they got the baguettes and the pain de seigle from the boulanger, Monsieur Gilles would still want her brioches and croissants! Roma had tried, since Gilles was often away in Paris during the week, pretending that all she herself wanted for breakfast was cornflakes and a cup of coffee, but Bernadette had been scandalized. With the house now full, Bernadette was in her element.

    Bernadette, Sidonie and Estelle, it would gradually dawn on Linnet and Rose, were all in their seventies. They didn’t look it, though they didn’t look young, but as Bernadette and Estelle had looked after the house for “feu M. le Comte” during the War and Sidonie had been old enough to be Gilles’s nanny when Roma brought him over just after it, they must be. Jacques was only a young thing: he’d only been with “feu M. le Comte” since 1953. Before that? He had done his military service, Mademoiselle Linnette. That meant he couldn’t be far off sixty. Help.

    Bernadette and Roma, with assistance from Estelle, ran the house. Jacques apparently did what he was told. Before long Bernadette would explain scornfully to Linnet that he was a good enough fellow, but had no initiative. They were all, of course, local people, as were the burly twins who managed the outside jobs, and old Louis, the head gamekeeper. Sidonie didn’t normally form part of the household: she had her own cottage on the outskirts of the village.

    Two women from the village came in to help with the housework, several days a week. One of them was a cheerful, middle-aged person who, according to Bernadette and Estelle, had to be kept up to the mark. Neither Linnet nor Rose ever saw any signs of this: Mme Frois was a very hard worker. Her husband was related only very distantly to the long-dead Hubert and Madeleine with the mo’: there were many Frois in the district. Her co-worker, Simone, was an energetic young woman in her early thirties, whose husband was a glasshouse technician at Semences ULR. She soon confided to Linnet and Rose that she thought it was pretty much of a giggle, landing a job at the château, but it was good money and Mme la Comtesse and Bernadette were a lot nicer to work for than such personalities as the pharmacien’s wife or the mayor’s wife, who were, roughly translated, too big for their boots and stuck-up cows with their noses so far in the air it was a wonder they hadn’t fallen over their own feet. Likewise Semences ULR’ s top boss’s wife.

    It was perhaps from the friendly Simone’s artless confidences as much as anything that Linnet and Rose would come to realize that they’d entered what was very much an enclosed, complete little world. The suburban sort of life they’d known in Adelaide was very different: you had your own little circle and your own neighbours, and of course your local shops, though many small independent stores had vanished in favour of large supermarkets or huge, roofed-over shopping complexes known as “malls”, but... Well, for one thing, you met a completely different crowd at work. And then, if you belonged to a club or something there’d be different people there, again. Not all of the suburban neighbours had known absolutely all of everyone else’s business, but here—! There was also the point that the Bellecourts were to all intents and purposes local royalty. Their every move was the subject of breathless interest to most of their small community.

    When the two sisters came downstairs in their quilted dressing-gowns the house was quiet, but little old Estelle was in the panelled front hall with a duster. She was not actually dusting, but it didn’t dawn on Rose and Linnet that she’d been stationed there for the express purpose of taking them into the breakfast room. She bustled forward, beaming. Rose hadn’t met her, so Linnet introduced them and urged Rose in English to shake hands. Estelle greeted her as Madame Bayley, and Rose asked her to call her Rose instead. Linnet took a look at the little old woman’s face and said: “Appelez-la plutôt ‘Madame Rose’, si vous l’aimez mieux, Estelle.” Rose forthwith became “Madame Rose” to the entire household and, they’d discover before long, a large part of the surrounding countryside.

    Estelle was dressed as she had been the night before, except that this morning’s cardigan was a greyish pale blue. The girls would soon realise that, apart from Jacques’s striped waistcoat and Bernadette’s huge white aprons, none of the château’s servants wore anything approaching a uniform, let alone a livery. Which was a considerable relief to them. Estelle normally removed the floral overall on formal occasions, such as serving tea. Only for very formal occasions, such as a dinner party where she would help Jacques to serve, would she wear a maid’s apron. But she never wore a cap on her neat grey head.

    Estelle led the girls into the breakfast room, explaining that the rest of the family had eaten. There was a short wait while she hurried out, and then she hurried in again with a large plate of hot croissants, a large plate of hot brioches, a crystal dish of redcurrant jam, another crystal dish of English marmalade, a silver dish of butter which she was obviously doubtful about, explaining that it was on the orders of Madame la Comtesse, a steaming silver pot of coffee, and a large steaming china pot of something else. The little old woman then retired, beaming and assuring them that if there was anything else they wanted, they had only to ring the bell.

    In her wake there was a short pause.

    “At least it’s warm enough,” said Rose limply.

    “Yeah. Gilles said they’ve got central heating.”

    “Oh. Um, what’s that, do ya reckon?” she said, staring at the china pot.

    “Dunno. Tea?” ventured Linnet.

    “Not in France, ya nana!”

    Linnet looked at the smallish, deep bowls in front of each of them. “Liquid French porridge?”

    “Idiot!” she spluttered. “Uh—well, here goes nothing.” Cautiously she lifted the china teapot’s lid with her serviette. “It’s white,” she reported.

    “See? Liquid French porridge!” said Linnet with a loud giggle.

    Rose was sniffing it. “Looks likes milk, smells like milk, gotta be hot milk,” she reported.

    Linnet looked blankly at the bowls. “Then she’s forgotten the porridge.”

    “Ye-ah... Ooh, no! I know!” she gasped. “Cups!”

    “She’s forgotten those, too,” agreed Linnet.

    “No, these are cups!”

    Linnet stared at her. The remark was so obviously barmy that she wasn’t even capable of telling her that she’d gone barmy.

    “No, honest! I remember Mum once saying when she was a girl Mémé always used to give them huge bowls in the morning with coffee in them!” She grinned. “Very milky coffee for the kids.”

    “Mum always hated coffee.”

    “Probably why,” conceded Rose fairly. “Come on, Linnet, that’s what it’ll be: the milk’s so’s you can make it as milky as you like, and the bowls are to drink it out of!”

    “I don’t remember anything like these at Mémé’s place,” said Linnet dubiously.

    The bowls were plain white, unlike the rest of the china on the table, which was very pretty, with gold rims, then a broad dark blue band, and the rest a white background with lots of flowers on it. Mainly pink roses. The plates, in particular, were very pretty indeed, with the pink roses in the middle.

    “No… No, that’s it!” she remembered. “Mum said they’d all got broken, and Mémé was really pissed off because she couldn’t get anything like them in Adelaide!”

    “Rose, are you sure? I’d hate to do the wrong thing. They’ll think we’re peculiar. Well, I mean, they think we’re peculiar anyway, they’ve taken our clothes off us.”

    Rose looked disconcerted. “You’ve got a point.”

    They looked at each other uncertainly.

    “Um—ring the bell?” squeaked Linnet.

    “Could do, yeah. –If we could figure out what the bell is; and if we want old Estelle to know we’re definitely peculiar instead of just guessing it.”

    Linnet looked round the room. “What does a bell look like in a huge great country mansion? You’re the one that saw that thing on TV.”

    “Um, well, it was a while back… I never noticed them ringing any bells or anything.”

    “That’s two of us that are a dead loss as far as gracious living in a Catholic country mansion’s concerned, then!” said Linnet with satisfaction.

    “You said it. –I’m awfully hungry, and I’m dying for a cup of coffee,” admitted Rose.

    “I wouldn’t mind an orange juice, actually,” admitted Linnet with a sigh. “That soup last night was pretty salty.”

    “Didja have soup? What sort?”

    “Dunno. What I mean is, Bernadette told me, but I didn’t understand the words.”

    “Should’ve asked Gilles,” said Rose, looking round the room in case there might be something labelled “Ring Me.”

    “I did: that’s what I mean: I didn’t understand the words in English!” she squeaked.

    “Hell’s bells, what could it have been?”

     Linnet shook her head. “No idea. It tasted like some sort of meat.”

    Rose gave a strangled cough.

    “No! Not horse!” she said crossly.

    “That’s good,” acknowledged Rose, grinning. “Um—look, he’s your boyfriend: you nip out to the passage and see if you can find anyone to ask.”

    “You come, too,” she said plaintively.

    Rose shook her head. “No. It’s your turn. I’ve already made a twit of myself by asking Sidonie what Fergie’s brioche was.”

    “I thought you were throwing the word ‘brioche’ around extra-casually!” said Linnet with a giggle. “Hey: was she giving Fergie the warm milk in a funny pudding-bowl?”

    “No. An English mug with Peter Rabbit on it.”

    “Blow.”

    “Get on with it. With any luck it won’t be the Comtesse in person that you’ll bump into out there.”

    “Well, at least she’s English: she’ll understand why there’s a problem.” Linnet got up reluctantly.

    “Go on, before the coffee gets cold. –Do ya reckon we’re not supposed to eat the butter?” she added as Linnet went slowly over to the door.

    “Um—well, she was peculiar about it, wasn’t she? Um—hang on, Mémé never had butter for breakfast.”

    “Granddad did, though.”

    “That’s really helpful!” said Linnet crossly, going out.

    She crept down the short side corridor and went cautiously into the front hall. Jacques was dusting the newel-post, looking casual. He beamed and greeted her enthusiastically.

    “Bonjour, Jacques,” replied Linnet politely. She swallowed.

    Jacques immediately asked if there was anything he could do for her. Linnet said weakly that there was, would he mind coming into the salle à déjeuner with her? Jacques followed her politely.

    “I found Jacques,” she said to her sister in English.

    “Good. And now you’ve found him, ask him what’s what. –No, I’ve met him; he brought some stuff up for Sidonie,” she said as Linnet tried to introduce her.

    Weakly Linnet said to Jacques in French: “We don’t understand this crockery, Jacques. Could you explain?”

    Jacques looked puzzled.

    “English breakfasts are different,” said Rose weakly in French.

    “Oui. Eugh—does one put the coffee in the bowls?” asked Linnet feebly.

    “Or do we need cups?” asked Rose.

    Jacques still looked puzzled but after a moment realised that they were asking him to pour for them! Yes, he would be most happy to serve mesdames, and please would Mademoiselle Linnette be seated?

    Linnet sat down, looking despairing. Jacques bustled around pouring hot milk and coffee into the bowls and handing sugar, brioches, croissants and jam. As an afterthought he asked if they would like butter. Rose took some but Linnet was too chicken.

    “At least we know, now,” said Rose limply as he retired to the sideboard and stood there with his back against it, beaming at them.

    “Yeah, but he—he must think we’re barmy or something! Or—or impossibly snot-nosed little madams!” hissed Linnet in despair. “Estelle obviously expected us to serve ourselves!”

    “I don’t mind if he wants to serve me,” said Rose, stirring her coffee vigorously.

    Linnet stirred hers more cautiously. “He’s just standing there.”

    “Yeah: drink that up and he’ll pour ya some more. They do that. –Dunno whether I saw it on Brideshead Revisited or not,” she admitted with a giggle, “but I’m sure that’s what they do!”

    “You probably saw it on that American thing you and Mum always used to watch. With the man with the big hat.”

    “Oh! Dallas!” realised Rose, laughing. “They had a lady in a pastel uniform with an apron, I think. They did on Dynasty, too. –Yeah: she used to pour them their orange juice and that.”

    “Yes,” said Linnet weakly. “—This china’s awfully pretty, isn’t it?”

    Rose nodded enthusiastically and swallowed. “Never seen anything like it at Meyer! Or even DJ.’s!”

    “No.”

    Rose removed turned her plate over. “Nothing,” she reported. “Wouldn’t be Jap, would it?”

    Linnet replied with feeling: “If it’s Jap, I’m a Dutchman!”

    “Yeah. –Hang on, has yours got a squiggle on it?”

    Linnet inspected her plate, one eye on Jacques. “N— Well, sort of.”

    “It’ll be a china mark, I read about them in a House & Garden. Think it was an English one: one of Monica’s. This’ll be antique,” she said cheerfully.

    Linnet put her plate down with a hand that shook.

    “I suppose all this stuff is antique,” said Rose thoughtfully, eyeing the china and then the room generally. “He’ll know!” she decided, and forthwith asked him, referring casually to the lovely china plates as “ces trucs-là”.

    “Don’t call them trucs!” gasped Linnet in horror,

    Jacques, however, was looking very pleased. He came up to the table and explained that the coffee bowls were merely modern, M. le Comte preferred them. And one would not perhaps call the breakfast set antique, it was Second Empire.

    Rose rolled her eyes enquiringly at Linnet.

    “Victorian!” she gasped. “19th-century!”

    Rose gulped.

    But, continued Jacques, very pretty. Mme la Comtesse was fond of it. The bowl of flowers on the table was Sèvres, of course. The girls had heard of Sèvres: they looked at each other limply. The period of Louis XVI; it was said to be the last of a set that had been lost during the Revolution. Unfortunately Linnet then transferred her gaze to the coffee-pot. The coffee-pot: ah! Now that was English, an excellent piece, Georgian. It had come to Mme la Comtesse from madame, sa mère. One could tell by its lines, and the handle, naturally, though of course that was imitated very much... After that it didn’t surprize them at all, really, to learn that the sugar bowl, which was not originally a sugar bowl at all, was also Louis XVI, though a different pattern from the flower bowl, bien entendu, and Mme la Comtesse was fond of it and had decided they should use it. And the pretty flower paintings which perhaps mesdames had remarked were—

    Linnet recognized those from her perusal of Uncle Jim’s books. “Dutch? 17th-century?” she suggested.

    Jacques was ecstatic: Mademoiselle knew about paintings! Hurriedly Linnet explained she didn’t, really, she’d recognized the style from some she’d seen in books.

    Jacques then poured them a second round of coffee, rapidly dismissing the silverware as he did so as only late 19th-century, and explaining that of course the Dutch still-lifes should really be with the rest of the picture collection, but Mme la Comtesse thought they went rather well in here.

    Linnet and Rose could see they were meant to agree. Limply they did so.

    “No need to ask who rules the roost in these parts,” muttered Rose. “Does You-Know-Who even get a say as to what goes on in his own house?”

    Linnet gulped.

    “Ask ’im about that thingo he was leaning on. Five’ll get ya ten it’s in here because Madam la C thinks it looks ‘joli’ in this room.”

    “Shut up!” she hissed with a stifled giggle.

    “All right for you. I’ve already had a helping of it this morning,” explained Rose, eating croissant hungrily. “Boy, these are good, eh? Better than Mémé’s!”

    “And miles better than DJ.’s!” squeaked Linnet ecstatically.

    Rose grinned through hers, nodding. Mémé had had a run-in—a French run-in—with DJ.’s in Adelaide over their croissants. DJ.’s reckoned they did the most classic croissants in town. Mémé reckoned they were half-baked.—Literally, but figuratively as well, from what the Mullers had been able to gather.—Raw on the inside, soggy on the outside. Even when warmed up in the oven. Oh, boy. After that she’d gone straight over to their kitchenware department and cancelled her order for a real French tisanière. Like what they reckoned they’d ordered in specially for her from France. Mémé had won: DJ’s had accepted the cancellation of the order, had refunded her the money for the croissants and offered her a dozen fresh ones free, and generally crawled; but she’d never darkened their doors again. “Rabid” had been the word for Mémé Frazer, all right.

    “A helping of what?” asked Linnet.

    “Mm? Oh!” Rose glanced warily at Jacques. He beamed. Rose beamed back. “Of Madam la C,” she said in a lowered voice to her sister. Linnet gulped.

    “Sidonie,” explained Rose, pulling a face. “According to her, Madam You-Know-Who decided I’d better be in the next room to Fergie—old Sidonie slept in the other bed in the nursery, didja realize?—and Madam You-Know-Who chose the all-in-oney for Fergie at ‘un magasin de première qualité’,”—she pulled a face—“and Madam You-Know-Who bought a set of blimmin’ hand-embroidered blouses for Fergie—she’s forgotten how hard little kids are on their clothes, either that or your Gilles was a little angel,” she noted by the by—“and Madam You-Know-Who ordained that Fergie could have the English mug with Pierre Lapin on it—”

    “Probably just as well, she’d never manage these huge things.”

    “True. There’s probably a trick to them that he isn’t letting on about,” she noted with a glance at Jacques. “Where was I? Oh, yeah: Madam You-Know-Who’s redecorated the night nursery for Fergie—you oughta see it, talk about your House & Garden, not to mention your Pierre Lapins—and Madam You-Know-Who thinks you might like to have a say in how the day nursery’s done up.” She eyed her blandly. “Though in the meantime Madam You-Know-Who’s more or less decided on a nice unisex pale yellow, so I’d choose pale yellow if I was you. If ya want peace in your time, that is.”

    Linnet was now a sort of puce shade. “She didn’t really say that, did she?”

    “Well, not exactly ‘night nursery’ and ‘day nursery’. What she actually said was ‘la nour-sair-ree de nuit’ and ‘la nour-sair-ree de jour’, so I’d say Madam You-Know-Who’s got her pretty well trained up.”

    “No: about pale yellow and everything!” she gasped.

    “Of course she did, ya nana, what did you expect? They’ve got your name down to produce the son and heir, hasn’t that dawned by now?”

    Linnet bit her lip.

    “Don’t you want to?” said Rose, taking the last croissant.

    “He hasn’t even asked me!” she gasped.

    “No, but he will. Well, heck, Linnet, up-market Froggy families don’t start talking about repainting the nursery for nothing! –And I grant you Madam You-Know-Who has decreed that the rocking-horse has to be done up for Fergie—you oughta see it, it’s got a real mane and everything, it looks just like a real horse—but Fergie’s a bit too big for a cradle.” She eyed her blandly.

    Linnet gulped.

    “If you haven’t started thinking about it, start now,” she recommended kindly.

    “I—I never thought of myself as the sort of person that might have babies,” said Linnet in a low voice. She pushed her plate away.

    “You are the right sex for it,” said her sister kindly. “Gilles seems to have noticed that, too.”

    “Shut up!” she gasped. “Um—I don’t think I could cope with them, Rose!”

    Rose wasn’t surprized to hear it. She merely replied mildly: “You’ve been coping with Fergie okay. Well, you’ve even got her to sit quietly and listen to a book, she’d never let me read to her. And she obeys you, too. Kyle was starting to get really ratty because she never took a blind bit of notice of me.”

    “That was the terrible two’s, I think. She just grew out of it,” said Linnet limply.

    “Well, that might have helped, yeah. Anyway, you won’t have to cope on your own, will you? Sidonie’s horribly competent. Had Fergie saying ‘merci’ before she knew where she was.”

    “Eh?” she gasped.

    Rose nodded. “True’s I sit here. Explains why Gilles has got such good manners, doesn’t it? –Non, merci, Jacques,” she said as he came up, ascertained the coffee-pot was empty and asked if they’d like some more.

    Linnet shook her head and smiled at him. “Non, merci, Jacques. Le petit déjeuner était délicieux.”

    “Tell him to thank the cook,” said Rose in a remarkably neutral tone.

    Blushing, Linnet said doggedly: “Et voulez-vous remercier Bernadette de ma part  pour le petit déjeuner? –Merci,” she said as he bowed, good grief, actually bowed, and said he would. They watched limply as he grabbed up a whopping great silver tray from the sideboard that he’d somehow overlooked in his examination of the room’s antiques and staggered out with the breakfast things on it.

    They looked at each other weakly.

    “He bowed to you,” said Rose at last. “Has he done that before?”

    Linnet shook her head feebly. “No. And nobody curtseyed to me, thank God. But last night Estelle—you wouldn’t call it a curtsey: um, what’s the word? Um—yeah: she bobbed to Madam You-Know-Who.”

    Rose choked. “You’re getting the young Madam You-Know-Who treatment, then!”

    “Yeah.”

    “Mémé should see us now,” said Rose, smirking.

    “Ye-ah…” said Linnet slowly. “Rose, I know it sounds mad, but has it occurred to you...?”

    Rose raised her eyebrows. “All part of the original Mémé Frazer plan? Well, God knows,” she said, shrugging. “Wouldn’t put it past her, though: take over the tontine dough, take over the château—who knows, dare say she had one of our sons down as the President of France, in that cunning ole Froggy brain of hers!”

    “At the very least. Or President of a United Europe.”

    “No, France is much more important than Europe!” Rose reminded her.

    They went into spluttering hysterics.

    As they spluttered there was a sharp rat-tat! on the long windows. They both yelped, and spun round. It wasn’t Madam You-Know-Who, or even Gilles or Marie-Claire, it was an ancient, whiskery, squashy-nosed old character huddled in layers of coats and scarves. One scarf was actually tying on his elderly tweed hat. As they stared, he grinned a gap-toothed grin and touched this hat.

    “That’s not the old uncle, is it?” gasped Rose.

    Linnet bounced up. “What? Oh, Monsieur Bertrand! Heck, no, he’s got silver hair and looks like the complete French aristo! –Oui, bonjour, Louis!” she cried loudly, struggling with the window.

    Rose got up and came over to help her. From outside, Louis made encouraging motions. With his free hand: the other hand held, Rose saw to her horror, a bunch of feathers that contained a corpse. Or two.

    “It’s old Louis, he’s the head gamekeeper!” gasped Linnet. “Ow!”

    “Like this, ya dozy moo,” said Rose tolerantly, twisting the handle the other way. The long vertical bar immediately came out of its socket and the window opened.

    “Bonjour, Louis; ça va?” said Linnet, smiling at him. “Voulez-vous entrer? Il fait très froid ce matin, n’est-ce pas?”

    Chuckling, the old creature croaked something that Rose thought was that he wasn’t allowed to come on the carpet in his boots, and nodded and touched his hat to her and called her “Madame Rose” without being introduced to her, and explained that it was just “pour montrer ceci à Mademoiselle Linnette.” –Thrusting his handful of murdered wildlife at Linnet.

    “What’s he saying now?” said Rose faintly as more garble ensued, holding onto her sister’s arm in case Linnet threw a faint or threw up or something. And also because she herself wasn’t finding the sudden spectacle of dead wildlife right on top of a peaceful breakfast all that entrancing, either.

    “Um... Oui, oui!” Linnet said to him, nodding and smiling. “I think he’s trying to say they’re what Bernadette put in last night’s soup. Though how he got to know that I... Oh, well, never mind,” she said weakly, as Rose shook with chuckles. “Um... des bécassines? C’est ça?“ she said to the old man.

    He nodded happily and gargled something that neither of the girls got.

    “Oui,” said Linnet weakly, smiling.

    “I think he’s trying to tell you that he shot them for you,” said Rose at last as he stopped and looked at them expectantly. She nodded hard at him and smiled. “What’s ‘to shoot’?”

    “Dunno,” she gulped.

    “Um... Vous les avez tuées, vous-même, n’est-ce pas, Louis?” Rose ventured. “Whew! Got that one right!” she said as he beamed and nodded and assured them that he had. “That’ll be the gun,” she noted, looking at the huge thing slung on his back. “Dates from the First World War, I’d say.”

    “Shut up. Um—oui, je comprends maintenant, Louis. C’est la soupe de bécassines, la soupe de Bernadette, n’est-ce pas? –Oui, c’est ça,” she said limply as this went over really well.

    As the old man’s speech in reply finished Rose said: “I dunno if he’s going too fast or if it’s just the local accent, or the absence of teeth; did you understand any of that?”

    Linnet shook her head, smiling at the old man. “Not much.”

    “Lapin?” ventured Rose.

    “Mais oui, bien sûr, Madame Rose—”

    “Crikey,” she muttered. “It’ll be dead bunnies next.”

    “Well, they are vermin,” said Linnet fairly.

    “Uh—not here, I don’t think,” said Rose weakly.

    “Actually, I think he’s trying to say— Louis, il y avait aussi du lapin dans la soupe, c’est ça?” she said to him.

    More torrents of gargle.

    “Oui, oui,” they said, smiling weakly and nodding a lot.

    “How do we get rid of him?” hissed Rose as this set him off again.

    “My dears, one doesn’t, it’s impossible!” said an English voice from behind them.

    They jumped and goggled feebly as the Comtesse came forward smiling and said firmly to the old creature: “Alors, vous avez amenés des bécassines pour que Mademoiselle Linnet puisse voir ce que c’est qu’une bécassine, Louis? Oui, c’est ça. C’est très gentil de votre part, et je suis sûre que Mademoiselle Linnet est très reconnaissante.”—Linnet nodded numbly: if the old gamekeeper spoke like a Frenchman gargling, the Comtesse was like an old-fashioned phrase-book.—“Mais il ne faut pas retenir les jeunes dames ici par un temps pareil. –Oui, oui, sans doute,” she added as he gargled something about la neige. “Mille remerciements, Louis,” she said, nodding and smiling, as she grasped the door handle. “One must just shut the door on him, my dears,” she explained. “Oui, merci, Louis!”

    “Merci, Louis,” the girls echoed feebly as she shut the door firmly on him.

    He grinned, touched his hat, brandished the corpses at them, and ambled off.

    “My dears, someone should have warned you, I’m so sorry!” she said with a laugh. “Come over to the fire.” There was a small fire burning in the grate: she led the way. “I’m afraid old Louis considers himself quite part of the family; and it would never have occurred to him that not everyone might want to see dead birds at breakfast time, of course!” she added with a sharp glance at Linnet.

    Linnet gulped. “I’m okay. Um—I’m sorry: this is Roma, Rose,” she said feebly. “Gilles’s mother.”

   Rose’s jaw dropped: she’d been expecting her to call Gilles’s mother “Madame la Comtesse.”

    Roma laughed a little and said: “How are you feeling, Rose, my dear? Did you have a lovely sleep? I feel I know you already: I peeped in on you several times last evening!’

    “Did you?” said Rose weakly. “It’s—it’s awfully nice of you to invite us.”

    She held out her hand; but though she squeezed it gently, Roma laughed again and said: “Linnet’s already assured me that a kiss wouldn’t be too impossibly Frenchified!” And kissed her cheek.

    Rose promptly burst into snorting sobs all over Madame la Comtesse.

    “I’m sorry!” gasped Linnet in horror.

    “It’s quite all right, my dear,” said Roma, patting Rose’s back gently. “I understand: she’s had a very hard time of it, poor darling, hasn’t she?”

    Linnet nodded, chewing anxiously on her lip.

    “Yes. –Just leave her to me, Linnet, I think would be best. Go and find Gilles: I think he’s in his study. Jacques is in the hall, he’ll show you. And perhaps in half an hour Gilles could bring me the brandy—okay?” she ended, suddenly sounding just like her son.

    Linnet nodded numbly and went out, abandoning her sobbing sister to the Comtesse’s ministrations.

    “There you are!” said Gilles, looking up with a smile as Jacques showed her in and—help—bowed himself out!

    “Yes. –Merci, Jacques,” said Linnet hurriedly.

    “Come and sit down,” said Gilles, smiling. He got up and placed her carefully in a chair facing the desk, with its back to the portrait, which she hadn’t yet noticed.

    “Are you working?” she said weakly, looking at the piles of papers and ledgers on the desk.

    “Yes. Accounts for the estate, today. Did you sleep well?”

    “Yes, like a log,” replied Linnet. “Um—this isn’t mine,” she added, plucking at the pale green dressing-gown.

    “I think it is!” he replied with a little laugh.

    “No. Um—it was on the end of my bed.”

    “Didn’t Maman explain? It’s a Christmas present. There’s a pink one for Rose; I thought a pale green would suit you better.”

    “Oh. Um—no, she didn’t have time to, really. –Rose is crying; she said I had to come in here!” she burst out.

    “Maman sent you in here? Then you’d better stay until sent for!”

    “Yes. She said could you bring her the brandy in half an hour,” gulped Linnet.

    “Très bien. –Don’t look so anxious, darling. Maman and I thought this might happen. Rose was a little—a little over-excited yesterday, hein? Before she went to sleep,” he added with a twinkle.

    “Yes, but she seemed okay this morning! She was making jokes and everything!”

    “Yes. But she has been through a great deal, hasn’t she? I think we must not expect her to be herself again for many months. If you should not dislike the idea, Pauline has found a most excellent psychiatrist.”

    “I don’t dislike the idea. But it’s her that has to want to see him, isn’t it?”

    “Yes. But I think Maman will put it to her the right way.”

    “Well, that’d be really good,” said Linnet with a sigh. “It’d be awful if she went to bed all the time again. And I don’t think it’d do Fergie much good to have her suddenly switch off again, now that we’re in a new place and everything. Well, she might be okay, Rose was saying Sidonie seems very competent and Fergie likes her, only—only it won’t do much for their relationship, will it?”

    “No, indeed it won’t,” he said, propping himself on the front of his desk. “Maman and I also think that is a good reason for Rose to see this nice doctor.”

    “Yes. –Gilles,” said Linnet, going very red: “how soon can we sort out the money?”

    “It is in the way, isn’t it?”

    She nodded.

    “Yes,” he said. “Well, I shall sign anything you wish me to sign, my dearest. Though I maintain that you should take eighty percent of the ULR shares, at the very least. The lawyers tell me that as you were each named individually as the heirs to the tontine investment, there would be no problem if each of you were to settle separately with us. I think that Bertrand and I, as the joint heirs of Great-Uncle Gilles and Grandpère, should sign everything; but don’t worry about that, I can assure you that Bertrand will do as I say,” he ended grimly.

    Linnet looked at him dubiously: the silver-haired old aristo she’d met last night hadn’t struck her as likely to knuckle under to anyone. “Oh. Well, that’s all right, then. I think Jimmy really thinks that eighty percent of the shares would be more than generous, too. It’s just that the Morpeths—um—are suspicious of you.”

    “Yes; it’s fairly clear that they think I have something up my sleeve, isn’t it? What do they imagine it can be? A huge undeclared asset? Great-Uncle Gilles’s signed confession that he stole the tontine money?” Linnet twitched: he said: “I see. Well, I’ve finalized the sale of the Paris house, you must take the eighty percent of that between you.”

    “But—”

    “No buts,” he said, scowling.

    “But Gilles, what about buying that flat your mother wants?” she cried.

    “I’ve already explained to Maman that she isn’t to have the casting vote,” he said with a smile.

    Linnet looked at him with a frown.

    “In any case, you needn’t worry about it,” he said.

    “I can’t help worrying! I don’t even know what you want or—or what I’m going to do!” she cried.

    “I see,” said Gilles, chewing his lip. “Ah... Before I say anything more, Linnet, turn round and tell me what you think.”

    “What?”

    “Get up,” he said, taking her hand, “and turn round.”

    Linnet got up and turned round. “Help,” she said numbly.

    He smiled. “Yes, that’s Adélaïde de la Rance. You could be her twin.”

    “Mm. Her face is a bit rounder, I think.”

    “Yes. And her bosoms are, I think, a size smaller!” he said with a laugh. “Though of course her corset is pushing them very much up. And it’s hard to tell if the nose is exact, from the pose, but I think it is.”

    “Her eyebrows are different, I think,” said Linnet, feeling hers dubiously.

    “She has plucked them, I fear, naughty little lady!”

    “Oh.”

    Gilles took her elbow gently. “My sillier relatives, and even my sensible Maman in her more nervous moments, are afraid that I have fallen in love with a chimaera. That I—I’m projecting my mental image of Adélaïde onto you. What do you think?”

    Linnet frowned over it. “I don’t know. I’d think a person’s character must count for something. I mean, I might look like her, but if you didn’t like me as a person—well, I mean, if my personality wasn’t the sort that appealed to you... I don’t know,” she ended feebly.

    “No, it’s difficult. But now that you’ve seen her, does—does the possibility that I might—might be doing something as silly as that, does it—” his voice shook—“does it deter you?”

    “You mean put me off?”

    Gilles waited but she didn’t say anything more so he croaked: “Yes. Does it?”

    “I don’t think anything could. Except maybe if you’d done a murder or something awful like that. Only if you had, you wouldn’t be you, would you?” she said seriously.

    “No. So you believe I—I love you for yourself?”

    Linnet looked up at him. “I think you’re obviously attracted to the type. And I do think you might expect me to be nicer than I am. But like I said, if I had the wrong sort of personality, I’m sure it would have put you off.”

    “Yes, I’m sure, too!” he said with a crazy little laugh. “Come here!” He hugged her strongly.

    “What do you think I’m like?” she said thoughtfully into his chest.

    Gilles blenched. “Eugh—one cannot define a person, ma mie.”

    “No. I’m trying to decide what I think you’re like, but I can’t.”

    “No. Well, certainly I think you are very sweet, and—and kind, and honest, and—and a serious person, not at all frivolous. But you have a dear little sense of humour.”

    “Ye-es... I’m very stubborn,” she said dubiously. “Everybody says so.”

    “Well, I think to be absolutely malleable, that would be rather boring, wouldn’t it? And you have intelligence, of course you will form opinions!”

    “Yes. I drive people mad,” said Linnet anxiously. “They can’t stand it after a while.*

    “They can’t stand what?” he said in astonishment.

    “I’m not sure. If I knew, perhaps I’d try not to do it. Um... Dad used to say my logic’d be the death of me. Well, he said I was like Mémé, actually.”

    “Well, yes, you would get your logical mind from the French side, doubtless!” he said with a laugh. “Is that so bad?”

    “I don’t know. Granddad once said that Mémé never saw people as people, she saw them as pawns. You know: like in chess. I don’t think I see people like that. I can’t help noticing what they do, and—um—noticing when it’s illogical.”

    “Most of what people do is illogical: it would be hard to miss it.”

    “I think so, yeah,” said Linnet, sighing. “Only Dad used to get really mad if I said so.”

    “Perhaps he did not wish to have his child consider him illogical!” he said with a little laugh. “I’m sorry: was that unkind?”

    “No.” Linnet gulped. “It was logical,” she said into his chest.

    “Yes! There, we have the same fault, I think!”

    “Mm,” she said, looking up at him with a smile.

    “Shall we just—just stop trying to define the undefinable, then, and—and agree that we love each other?” he said in a trembling voice.

    “Yes.”

    “And—and even if it’s far too soon and we should discuss all the details and—and—”

    “What?”

    “Well, please understand, Linnet, that you may withdraw from it at any time, if—if you agree.”

    “Um—ye-ah...”

    Gilles swallowed. “Will you marry me?”

    There was a moment’s silence.

    “I want to,” said Linnet, “but why do you?”

    His mouth trembled. “Why? Because I love you, and—and I don’t wish to go on living without you. Why did you think?”

    “I thought it might be because you wanted a son and heir. Rose reckons Sidonie told her your mother’s already got the redecoration of the nursery well in hand. And I thought that since I look like Adélaïde and you really fancy that type,” said Linnet, narrowing her eyes, “and because I’m not very experienced, you might have thought that I could be suitable and you could make me into the sort of lady that would be correct.”

    There was a short silence.

    “This is the logical mind speaking; I see.”

    “Yes. My mind just does it. It hasn’t really got anything to do with the way I feel about you. Only I thought I’d better say it, because I can’t be a lady that would be correct. Now that I’ve met Roma I can see that she’s perfect as the lady of the manor, only I couldn’t ever be like her.”

    “Are you implying that I wish to marry my mother?” he said dazedly.

    “Um—not precisely. Only that you might like a wife like her.”

    “Darling, for Heaven’s sake!”

    “Sorry,” she said meekly.

    “Well—well, what more can I say? I love you and I don’t wish to turn you into a facsimile of Maman, for God’s sake! And I don’t want a correct wife, I just want you.”

    “You think you do,” she said earnestly, looking up at him.

    Gilles’s nostrils flickered angrily and he said tightly: “As far as is within my capacity to determine, yes. I believe I want to marry you because I love you, I believe I don’t want to make you into a correct lady or the likeness of my mother, and I am not proposing in order to get a son and heir! Unfortunately that is as far as I can go. I can’t explain what’s happening in the depths of my subconscious, because I have no idea what it may be.”

    “Don’t be cross. I didn’t mean to—to be nasty or anything. I just thought if I didn’t tell you now you might be sorry later on.”

    “Yes. I see. You were trying to be honest with me.”

    She nodded earnestly.

    Gilles’s eyes filled with tears. “I thought you— Now I don’t know whether you want to or not.”

    “I said I did,” said Linnet in surprize.

    “You didn’t!” he cried. He swallowed painfully. “I don’t think I could feel like this if I had heard you say ‘yes’.”

    “Oh,” said Linnet in a small voice.

    “You asked me instead why I wanted to marry you. I— Language is inadequate to define these things, Linnet; surely you know that?”

    “Yes. I just thought there might be some practical reasons,” she said earnestly.

    Gilles gave a mad laugh. “There are no practical reasons!”

    Linnet sighed. “That’s a blessing. –I can see some people might think there might be a lot of practical reasons why I’d want to marry you, but there aren’t.”

    “Well, no, you have made that fairly clear.”

    She looked up at him hopefully.

    “So—so will you?” he said hoarsely.

    “Yes.”

    Gilles went very red, crushed her against his chest and kissed her fiercely. “Bon Dieu, j’étais sûr que t’allais dire non!” he gasped.

    “I said I wanted to.”

    “But you didn’t say ‘yes.’ And you said you wanted to with—with a big ‘but’.”

    “I’m very sorry if I hurt you, Gilles,” she said politely.

    “You— Yes, I was very—very hurt and puzzled. But I can see that you wished to be honest with me.”

    “Yes. I can never do things right,” said Linnet on an anxious note.

    He laughed and hugged her gently. “But you have done this very right, at last!”

    Linnet leaned against him and sighed deeply. “Good. –I don’t think I’m ever gonna understand the local accent, mind you, so be warned.”

    “Oh, dear. Which of them was it?” he said with huge resignation.

    “Louis. He brought some dead bécassines to show me.”

    “WHAT?” he shouted.

    “Don’t be cross. I suppose someone must have told him I was asking about the soup. Rose and me couldn’t understand most of what he said, but he seems to have gone out and shot them on purpose. –Gilles, what are they?” she said on a desperate note.

    “What? But my darling, you have seen for yourself! Small gamebirds!”

    “Yes, but what are they in English?”

    “I told you last night; have you forgotten? Snipe.”

    There was a short silence.

    “You were very tired last night, darling, but we did talk about—”

    “Well, what’s one?” said Linnet.

    “Eugh... a snipe.”

    “‘A snipe.’ That sounds peculiar.”

    “Wait!” he said with a laugh. He went over to one of the bookcases which lined most of the room apart from Adélaïde’s wall, and knelt. “Here,” he said, hauling out a dark blue volume. “Prends ça. Ah—careful, it’s heavy!”

    Linnet took it, staggering. “You’re right, it weighs a ton!”

    Gilles began sliding more heavy volumes out, laying them on the floor. “Look it up, darling.”

    “Yes,” said Linnet in a vague voice, as of one with a head in the Oxford English Dictionary. “You’re right, it is ‘a snipe’. It’s a collective singular... I suppose that’s what this means. –What are you doing? We don’t need all of those.”

    “We need them all to be out.”

     Linnet got down on the floor beside him. “Why?”

    Gilles was fiddling with the board at the back of the shelves. “Because— Ah! Voilà!” He drew it out. Behind it there was a very shiny safe.

    “Is that a combination lock?”

    “Yes.” He turned it carefully.

    Linnet watched with clinical interest. “If there’s a stuffed snipe in there I don’t wanna see it.”

    “Silly one,” he said, opening it.

    Linnet looked inside with interest. There were neat piles of official-looking papers, and several smallish velvet or leather containers which even her innocence could not fail to identify as jewel cases. “What’s in there?” She indicated the neat wooden box that occupied the bottom half of the safe.

    “Wait.” He took everything else out. “Don’t try to lift it.” He opened the lid.

    “Gold?” said Linnet dazedly. “Hang on.” She picked one up. “These are Krugerrands, aren’t they?” she said accusingly.

    “Eugh—well, yes. I did not think you would know enough to—”

    “The taxman knows you’ve got them, does he? –Don’t answer that. Why on earth are they here instead of in a safe deposit?”

    “Well—ah... Of course it is silly, but…”

    Linnet goggled at him. “Come the revolution? You’re paranoid!”

    “Well, it has happened— No, no. Not in the same way. But odd things happen in politics, and—” He shrugged. “Just a little insurance.”

    “Little! And what if the house burns down, had ya thought of that?”

    “The safe will withstand very high temperatures indeed. But gold, you see, will merely melt. It will not be—eugh—transmuted into another substance.”

    “You’ll look good, picking up a lump of melted gold that size,” said Linnet drily. “Let alone trying to hock it. –Well, close the box; I’ve never seen it.”

    “D’ac,” he agreed weakly, closing it.

    “These’ll be bearer bonds,” she noted, picking up a bunch of them.

    “Yes. –Linnet: you recognize Krugerrands—merde, that you have even heard of them! And now you recognize bearer bonds? What in God’s name have you been reading?”

    Linnet grinned. “Some dumb paperbacks Jimmy gave me for the plane. He got them at the airport bookstall. They were all about spies and hijacks and stolen treasures and absconding financiers and stuff. They were terribly badly written.”

    “That is astonishing.” He picked up a small case. “This is what I was looking for. It was Adélaïde’s. She has it in the portrait. Though as the man who gave it to her looked like Bertrand, perhaps you won’t care for it! But I will say this for him: he had exquisite taste,” he said, opening it carefully, “in both women and jewels. –Qu’est-ce que t’en penses?”

    Linnet just gulped.

    “In Bertrand’s opinion it is a Second Empire vulgarity to cut an emerald in this fashion. It is called marquise; one would certainly cut a diamond this way and perhaps a sapphire. Then, of course, the vulgarity is compounded by surrounding it with the small diamonds.”

    “Small! Gilles, it must be worth a king’s ransom!”

    “It predates the tontine.”

    “That wasn’t what I— That was NOT FUNNY!” she shouted.

    “Hush!” he said with a laugh. “Try it on.”

    “You’re not seriously— You don’t mean as an engagement ring?”

    “Yes: let’s confirm my horrible relatives’ worst suspicions.”

    Linnet held her hand out limply.

    Gilles picked up the ring. “If you dare to say ‘Oh, Mr Rochester’ I will hit you with that box of Krugerrands that you have never seen,” he warned.

    Linnet rolled her lips together very tightly.

    “Merde, you were going to!” he gasped.

    “I’m sorry,” she gulped. “Um—I wouldn’t feel safe wearing anything this valuable.”

    “It is insured. But do not take it off to wash your hands, and especially not in restaurants and such places.”

    “No-o...”

    “If the stones get a little soapy one has them cleaned,” he said, sliding it on carefully. “But of course when you are washing at night you will remove it, okay?”

    “Ye-ah... And put it back on?”

    “Hein? Oh, to sleep? Yes, of course,” he said vaguely, sliding it up and down. “I think it is just a little loose.”

    “I don’t think it’ll slip off.”

    “No, it’s not that loose,” he agreed. “It may twist, though. We’ll take it to a jeweller in Paris and have it tightened, okay?”

    “How?” said Linnet, staring at him.

    “Eugh… Well, they have their techniques, darling. Possibly he will add just a sliver of gold inside. It is not so loose that he will need to cut a piece out, I think. –Well, I am not very sure. You must ask him, if you wish to know.”

    “Yes, I will,” she said, nodding.

    Gilles sat back limply. “So you like it?”

    “Of course I like it: it’s beautiful. Only I’m nervous about wearing it.”

    “But you—you wish to wear it?”

    “Mm.” Linnet held her hand up experimentally.

    “So perhaps you could kiss me?” he said meekly.

    Linnet looked at him with a twinkle in her eye. “Doesn’t that depend on whether it’s really for me, or whether it’s got to remain in the family?”

    His jaw sagged.

    “Hang on; did you give it to Isabelle?” she said, frowning suddenly.

    “No! La petite dame’s ring? No!” he said indignantly.

    “Weren’t you in love with her, then?”

    “I— Well, no. I wanted her, I will not lie about that. And she was most suitable. Our families had known each other for a long time. And—and I thought she would be a correct sort of lady,” he said, making a horrible face.

    “I see,” said Linnet, trying not to laugh.

    “Also, you see, I was an idiot,” he explained courteously.

    “You must have been! Marrying a lady that you weren’t in love with!”

    “I had tried—eugh—a passionate relationship, but it was a dismal failure. –I was very young at the time and we were quite incompatible,” he admitted, making a face. “Marrying Isabelle seemed the sensible thing to do. And—eugh... Well, Mathieu was married, but—ah—”

    “You thought you’d better have an heir.”

    “Yes. But all that distasteful business is now unnecessary, as Mathieu has three sons.”

    “Stop it,” said Linnet, trying not to laugh.

    Gilles slid an arm round her shoulder. His other hand went under her chin. She gave a little involuntary shudder.

    “Yes. It’s nice to have my hand there, hein?” he said.

    “Mm.”

    “Perhaps marriage won’t be so distasteful after all,” he discovered, kissing her gently.

    Linnet kissed him back eagerly and pressed against him. After some time one of his hands found its way inside the pale green dressing-gown. Linnet went bright pink.

    “The lace on this nightgown is horrid—scratchy?” he said, frowning.

    “Yes. The seams are scratchy, too.”

    “I’ll buy you many pretty ones, handmade, with no scratchy lace. Silk, okay?”

    “Not if some poor slave has to wash them by hand, you won’t.”

    “Oh,” he said limply.

    “I usually just wear cotton. Tee-shirts, or something.”

    “Mm,” said Gilles vaguely against her shoulder, squeezing her breasts gently. “Yesterday in Isabelle’s kitchen it was very good,” he said dreamily.

    Linnet swallowed. “Yes.”

    “You were embarrassed when I pushed your tee-shirt up?”

    “Mm.”

    “I thought that was what it was for,” he said dreamily.

    “What a lie!”

    “Non, non: always when ladies wear their tee-shirts without a bra—”

    “Shut up!” she said, laughing, and bashing his back.

    “Ow! There is a penalty for that,” he warned, grinning.

    “What?” she said uneasily.

    “It is to have me unfasten this dressing gown,” he said, suiting the action to the word, “and investigate— Non?” he said sadly, as Linnet held her nightie down with a grip of iron.

    “No!” she gasped in horror.

    “I only wish to look,” he said plaintively.

    “Not in here!” she gasped.

    “Ouais, in there,” he said, looking hard at her.

    “No! In this room! In the middle of the day!” hissed Linnet, trying to do her dressing-gown up while still holding the nightie down.

    “You wish to go upstairs?” he said politely.

    “No. Don’t be silly.”

    Gilles sighed. He laid his head on her bosom. “Okay, I won’t be silly. Just put your arms round me, okay?”

    Linnet tried to pull her dressing gown over her thighs.

    “Hug me,” he said into her bosom. “I won’t be naughty, c’est promis.”

    She hugged him gingerly.

    “Je t’aime; je te veux bien,” he said in a muffled voice.

    “Moi aussi,” said Linnet faintly.

    “These bosoms are so nice,” he said in a muffled voice.

    “Are they?” she squeaked. She swallowed hard.

    “Yes. So nice.” One hand crept up and squeezed one.

    Suddenly Linnet put one of her own hands over his and pressed it to her tightly, closing her eyes.

    There was a long silence.

    “Would May be too soon?” he said.

    “What for?” asked Linnet groggily.

    “To be married. Early May.”

    “You’re not planning a huge hooley, are you?” she said suspiciously.

    “I don’t think so, but I don’t know what it is!” he said with a laugh, releasing her, very flushed. “What is it?”

    Linnet did up the dressing-gown. “A big fuss.”

    “Ah! A grand society wedding with photographers and five hundred guests. Not unless you wish it.”

    “No,” she said with a shudder.

    “Good.” He kissed her gently. “Mm—very nice. –No, just the family, okay?” He kissed her again.

    “Yes.”

    “Good.” He kissed her again. “There is a lot of business to sort out before then. And I think I must come to a definite arrangement with Jimmy, okay?”

    “Mm.”

    “Yes. Well, I shall get Béjart’s fellow to write it all out very clearly—and then perhaps I’ll ask you to vet his English!” he said with a laugh. “I think we must be clear where we stand.”

    “Yeah. And talking of that, you never said. Does the ring stay in the family?”

    “Hein?” he said blankly.

    “Adélaïde’s ring. Does it stay in the family?”

   Gilles picked up the hand that wore the ring. “When you are a very, very old lady, this will still be on your finger—long after I am gone, tu vois?”

    Linnet began to protest: “No—”

    “Yes. Then when you die, very far in the future, surrounded by our sons and daughters and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the ring will come back to our eldest son. And perhaps one day his grandson, he will give it to the lady he loves, okay?”

    Linnet nodded dumbly.

    “Don’t cry, my darling,” he said, putting his arm round her shoulders and pulling her against him. “Why are you crying?”

    “I—don’t want—you—to die!” she sobbed.

    “No—good. Well, I do not plan to, just yet. Only I am twenty-two—no, twenty-one years older than you, this month!” he said with the ghost of a laugh. “So it is probable that I will die before you. But in the meantime I think we had better hurry to get married and have these sons and grandsons, don’t you?”

    Linnet sniffed dolorously. “Yes. And daughters and granddaughters.”

    “Certainly. –Mouche-toi,” he said, giving her his handkerchief.

    “Thanks,” she said, blowing hard.

    Gilles kissed her ear. “Okay?”

    “Mm.”

    “Help me put these things away, then,” he said, kneeling on the floor again. “Non, non, that little box belongs to the ring: keep it.”

    “Oh. Right.” Linnet handed him cases and papers without asking him what was in any of the cases. Gilles smiled a little, but didn’t insist on showing her.

    “Is it half an hour yet?” she asked as he replaced the last of the volumes of the dictionary and stood up.

    “What, my darling?” he replied vaguely.

    “Half an hour,” she repeated. “Your mother said to bring her the brandy in half an hour.”

    “Hein? Oh!” He looked at his watch. “Wet, I have no idea. It feels more like an eternity. Let us say that it is at least half an hour, though,” he said, smiling at her. ”I’ll get the decanter from the salon— Oh; no, I won’t, Bertrand took it up to bed with him,” he remembered. “As medicine for the bruises, I think,” he added with a wink. “I’ll ring for Jacques,” he added over Linnet’s spluttering fit.

    He went over to the small fireplace and pulled the bell rope that hang discreetly in the chimney embrasure. He then found that he had to confirm that that was the bell, and explain how the system worked. After Jacques had duly gone to get the brandy, this led on to the alarm system and how it worked...

    When Jacques returned with a bottle of Cognac and some glasses on a tray the engaged couple were sitting on the couch under the windows. Jacques registered with interest that his master’s arm was around Mademoiselle Linnette’s shoulders. Then he registered with even greater interest that Mademoiselle Linnette was wearing la petite dame’s emerald ring! It would not have been true to say that he shot out of the study like a rocket when Gilles thanked him and dismissed him, but for the proper manservant of an old French family it was pretty near a dash.

    Gilles got up and picked up the tray. “Come along. And once we have seen that Rose is okay, we shall have to break the news.”

    “Already?” said Linnet faintly.

    “Yes—if we wish the family to learn about it from us rather than from the servants.”

    “What?” she said confusedly, getting up.

    Gilles went over to the door. “You are wearing several million francs’ worth of Bellecourt family property on the ring finger of your left hand; I don’t think Jacques will have missed it!” He went out, grinning.

    “Oh, help,” gulped Linnet.

    “Tu VIENS, ou PAS?” he shouted from the passage.

    “Tais-toi, ne m’engueule pas comme ça; j’arrive!” replied Linnet on a cross note, following him.

    “I practise for when I am the grumpy husband,” he said airily.

    “Yeah, an’ I’m practising for when I’m the nagging wife.”

    “I noticed!” he gasped, sniggering helplessly.

    “Dépêche-toi, Gilles, ta maman nous attend!” She marched off.

    Gilles followed meekly with the brandy to where his Maman was awaiting them. He knew there was an English expression which meant “henpecked” but just at the moment he couldn’t think of it. But he would, in time!

    Rose perched on Linnet’s bed very much later that night. “It’s okay, then?” she said.

    “Yes,” said Linnet, yawning, and getting into bed.

    “Old Bertrand was mad as fire, heh, heh,” she noted.

    “Who cares, mean old thing,” returned Linnet, scowling.

    “Well... Maybe he thinks you’re not good enough for his blessed nevvy—or whatever he is.”

    “Yeah,” she said, making a face.

    “Give us another dekko at the ring,” said Rose.

    Linnet held out her hand

    “Extra,” she pronounced at length with a deep sigh.

    “I’m terrified I’ll lose it.”

    “Don’t take it off.”

    “No,” she agreed.

    “Has he said anything about money?” asked Rose cautiously.

    “Um... Well, Marie-Claire used her credit card in Tôq this afternoon,” she reminded her.

    “Yeah, but for Pete’s sake, Linnet! We can’t go on asking Marie-Claire for every little thing!”

    “No. –I’ll need some tampons soon,” she remembered.

    “Well, exactly! I’d ask Roma, only she’s so old, she won’t remember what it is,” she said, grinning. “Likewise Sidonie. –’Ve you got any cash?”

    “I’ve got some dollars and a few travellers’ cheques. About two hundred dollars’ worth, I think.”

    Rose groaned.

    “It’ll buy a few boxes of Tampax,” said Linnet, yawning.

    “Yeah, but is there a bank in the village? –Don’t answer that.”

    “There’ll be banks in Tôq, it’s quite a big town.”

    “Mm. –I always thought Touques-les-Bains was the big town hereabouts.”

    “It was, in Mémé’s day. Gilles says it’s gone downhill since then. Tôq’s got the railway line to Paris and everything. We can change our money there.”

    Rose nodded. “Goddit. Anyway, have you asked Gilles about money?”

    “Um—sort of. He wants to get everything signed before we actually get married.”

    “Oh. Well, that’s a start. But we need some cash.”

    “Mm. Does your licence let you drive on the wrong side of the road, Rose?”

    “Crikey. I dunno.”

    Linnet sighed. “There’s lots of things we never thought of.”

    “Yeah. But it’s not the back of beyond, is it? Well, I mean, like I tried to tell Monica, it is a civilized country!”

    “Mm.”

    “You are okay, are you?” said Rose with a sharp glance.

    Linnet nodded, smiling at her. “Yes. I’ll ask Gilles tomorrow about Tampax and banks and everything.”

    “Eh? He is male, ya know,” she croaked.

    “Yes!” said Linnet with a loud giggle.

    “Ooh, you’ve noticed, that’s a relief. –Are you seriously sitting there telling me that you, Linnet Muller, are gonna speak to a man about Tampax?”

    Linnet sat up in bed, hugging her knees. “Yes, I am, actually. I’ve been thinking about it all day. –Not Tampax, ya goop!” she said with a giggle. “No, we sort of agreed that we’d better get on with getting married and having kids and grandkids and so forth, because he’s not getting any younger. And I’ve decided that it applies to everything. It’s no use me feeling shy, I’ll just have to start thinking of him as—as part of my life from now on.”

    “Yes,” said Rose feebly. “Good.”

    “Are you all right?”

    Rose wrinkled her nose. “Well, I felt better after I’d bawled all over poor Roma. Only I think I would like to talk to this doctor her and Pauline have got lined up. If he’s a mad Dr Freud with a beard I can always stop going to him!” she added with a grin.

    “Yes,” said Linnet, nodding. “I think he’ll probably be nice, though.”

    “Mm.” Rose got up and bent over her. “Give us a hug.”

    Linnet hugged her strongly.

    “Linnet, if you change your mind, we can always go home,” she said in a low voice. “Jimmy’d send us the dough.”

    “I won’t change my mind. I know it might be hard, but— Well, however hard it is, being with Gilles’ll be much, much better than anything I could have back home.”

    “You don’t just mean in—in material things?” said Rose dubiously.

    “No, idiot,” said Linnet, hugging her.

    “No, well, I didn’t really think so. And you will ask him tomorrow?”

    “Mm? Oh, yeah, ’course. Remind me,” she said, yawning.

    “I’ll do that. Night-night,” she said, going over to the door.

    “Night-night, sleep tight, mind the bugs don’t bite,” said Linnet sleepily.

    Rose gave a shaky laugh and went out. It was one of Granny Muller’s sayings, and Mum had picked it up from her: she used to say it when they were little. For a minute, there, Linnet had sounded just like her. After only one day at the château? Couldn’t be all bad, then! Rose went off to bed, smiling.

Next chapter:

https://frazerinheritance1-adelaidesdaughters.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-mysterious-stranger.html