Two days later it happened again. Micheline had sent the girls to pick peas for dinner. They had brought back the basket and Suzie had been set to pod them. She was much more apt than Sabine for such tasks. Willing, patient and dextrous, she had learned many kitchen skills from Micheline and Florence in her two years at Bonnemort. She could fillet a fish, or bone a chicken, deftly manipulating Micheline’s fiercely sharp knives, skilfully separating flesh and bone. Sabine, on the other hand, was impatient and clumsy, usually cutting her own finger and mingling her blood with the meat. Suzie loved to be with Micheline, sitting at the table in front of the open fire in winter or squatting on the doorstep in the summer, tranquilly peeling vegetables.

That day she had placed a colander on the step and was stripping the tiny peas into it, dropping the pods into a basket to feed later to the rabbits. One of Micheline’s young turkeys was parading up and down the farmyard, his regular course to and fro mimicking that of the guards in front of the house. Every so often he puffed out his chest and gobbled, his black wattles shaking with self-importance.

Henri walked through the yard, crossing the turkey’s path, causing the bird to swell with indignation and rivalry. Henri caressed Suzie’s head in passing and went inside, closing behind him the glass-paned door with its red and white check curtains. A little later Micheline opened it again.

‘Run to the tower, Suzie, and tell Madame that Henri’s here. He wants a word with her.’

Suzie dropped her pea pod and set off. Halfway up the stairs she saw from the tower window Madame Ariane approaching through the garden. She turned back and they met on the stairs. Madame Ariane descended with her to see Henri. In the dimness of the hall Suzie was startled to find a black figure standing at the foot of the stairs waiting for them: the major. Madame Ariane showed no sign of having seen him, passing straight out into the sunlight of the farmyard. Suzie followed more slowly and sat down again on Micheline’s step. He had not been there when she went up. Had he been following Madame Ariane, was he stalking her, laying traps for her? Madame Ariane had not noticed, or did not want to notice. Should she warn her?

She finished her job, not drawing it out as she usually did, and put the containers of peas and pods quietly inside the kitchen door, without asking Micheline for another task. She crept into Lou Moussou’s little house. The dust danced in the sun shafts that broke through the cracks in the door, and in the womb-like dark of her straw nest, she tried to work out what Madame Ariane was doing. She had dinner every day with the two officers; they all knew that. They all knew that she hated doing it, was obliged to do it. It was not her fault if the major followed her around.