Jeanne closed the door and returned to the bedside, settling herself on a hard chair, her work-roughened hands clasped together in her lap. Emilie, glancing at her over the rim of her coffee cup, though she looked like a schoolgirl waiting for her teacher to speak, and felt annoyed by the impression. Jeanne was both her friend and her confidante, and yet at times she deliberately assumed the humility and servile disinterestedness of an ordinary servant. This usually meant that she was hurt or annoyed, and with what was for her an unusually clear perception Emilie realised that at the moment Jeanne was both these things.

So she knew then! All the trouble they had taken last night to move quietly so as not to waken her had been unnecessary. Jeanne had been awake and now was resentful that she had not been called downstairs.

Emilie set down her coffee cup with a clatter in the saucer.

‘Jeanne, something occurred last night,’ she said. ‘A visitor arrived.’

‘Indeed, Madame!’

Jeanne’s reply was without surprise. Quite unexpectedly Emilie laughed.

‘Stop looking injured, Jeanne! You know as well as I do that someone came here unexpectedly, I repeat unexpectedly. I had no idea she was coming, not for three weeks at any rate, and long before that I meant to tell you all about it. The child informs me that she wrote four days ago, but the post is so abominable that her letter has never been received. Think of it Jeanne, the poor girl arriving alone at the station with no one to meet her, no one to welcome her. She had barely enough money for a conveyance.’

‘It is Mademoiselle who has arrived then,’ Jeanne said sourly.

Emilie was still smiling good-humouredly.

‘You know very well that it is Mademoiselle, for if you have not already inspected her luggage in the hall, you have peeped into the guest bedroom to look at her. She is still asleep, I suppose?’

Jeanne forgot her pride.

‘Oui, oui, Madame, she is sleeping like an angel! When I saw her, my heart almost stopped beating. “A veritable angel”, I said, “from Heaven itself.”

‘The child is pretty,’ Emilie agreed. ‘I had always believed that she would be so, but this last year has made all the difference. She is eighteen! Can you believe, Jeanne, that eighteen years have passed since Alice died?’

Emilie’s voice was suddenly raw with pain, her lips tightened and her eyes seemed to narrow a little. Then with a gesture she thrust her breakfast tray aside and went on, her voice rising,

‘Attention, Jeanne, for there is a great deal to be done this very instant.’

‘I am listening, Madame.’