‘Where are we?’

‘This is the chapel. I use it as a hiding place. The reason that it’s safe is because she never comes here. She’s not Catholic. Now, I’ll take you to Micheline. You’d better sleep in my room.’

From that first day Suzie had been under Sabine’s rule. Sabine had wanted to be her friend. For a long time she had had no friends, so Sabine’s eagerness for her companionship was at first a solace. But it came at a price. Sabine wanted her alliance in her war with her stepmother and watched Suzie carefully for any sign of defection. Suzie had at first tried to retain the friendship of both, because she needed them both. She could see no harm in Madame Ariane; indeed, she seemed full of good will, refusing to notice Sabine’s rudeness to her. But Sabine would not permit any intermediate position. Suzie had to take sides: if she wasn’t for her, she was against her.

Suzie learned what that meant one evening soon after she arrived when they went to receive their goodnight kiss from Madame Veyrines, Madame de Cazalle and Madame Ariane, who were sitting together on the terrace. Madame Ariane had kissed her cheek and then, impulsively, put both arms around her, whispering in her ear, ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be all right one day.’

In their bedroom Sabine had exploded with fury, ‘You mustn’t let her do that. She’s trying to take you away from me, to turn you into a traitor.’

Suzie had protested feebly, denying her pleasure in the moment, insisting that she had only received, not given anything in the exchange. Sabine’s emotional tirade had been kept up late into the night until, sobbing, beaten, Suzie had promised to have no conversations with Madame Ariane. She would hate her, for Sabine’s sake, she swore. From then on she had to ignore all overtures of intimacy from Madame Ariane and to ally herself with Sabine. She had no choice but to submit to Sabine’s regime of terror.

Chapter Seventeen

Florence reappeared in the forest after a couple of hours to summon them home, where they found the Germans installing themselves in the house, and Micheline and Madame Ariane busy moving their belongings and those of the aunts into the tower. The officer in charge had demanded a roll-call of the household and seven o’clock found them, all of them, in the hall waiting for the hour to strike, to knock on the door of the library.

‘There is something profoundly humiliating about queuing at the door in one’s own house,’ Madame Ariane remarked to Henri, ‘which is presumably why we have to do it. They’ve already made me take them round and recount the history of Bonnemort, as if they were guests being given a house tour.’

‘More likely so that they learn what is valuable, in order to carry it off to Germany,’ Henri replied cynically.

One officer was seated at the desk with another, wearing an eyepatch, standing behind him. The residents of Bonnemort lined up in front of him, as if for a family photograph. Madame Ariane and Henri encompassed the group at either end; in the middle stood the aunts, radiating a haughty indignation, refusing to look at the Germans. Micheline and Florence also lowered their eyes, each of them clutching a child. Suzie shrank into the comforting softness of Micheline’s belly, her shoulders wedged just below her bosom. Sabine, Suzie observed, like Madame Ariane, stared boldly ahead. The lieutenant took the bundle of their papers and placed it before the major, who examined each one.