For Claire, at least, London was her home. She had gone to the Francis Holland School, near Sloane Square. This suited her parents’ religious compromise, for though Church of England, the school was so High Church that its observances could almost have been mistaken for Roman Catholic. Its academic standards were unsurpassed. French at the school was even taught by a Frenchwoman—a concession that lesser schools might have viewed as rather suspicious, but which Francis Holland could carry off with aplomb. Since Claire’s parents had always made a point of speaking French in the home, she always came out top of the class in that subject.

But her friends were English. The games she played, the entertainments she went to, the music she loved were all English. And her mother was content for this to be so. Marie had been happy with James in London.

As the months went by after James had gone, however, Marie could not help feeling a little lonely. She missed her own family in France. And toward the end of the year, she began to think that perhaps she should take Claire to see her family in Paris for a while.

“I should like you at least to know your French family a little better,” she told her. Matters were brought to a head in December 1919, when she received a letter from Marc to say that her aunt Éloïse was not well, and that he thought she should come over before too long.

A month later, she and Claire crossed the Channel. They had no particular plan.

Even in the depths of winter, the simple charm of the family house at Fontainebleau with its welcoming courtyard and its long garden brought Marie a sense of peace and restoration she had needed more than she realized. Her father was in his eighties now, rather smaller than she remembered him. Her mother was remarkably unchanged, except that she walked stiffly, and her hair formed a sort of fluffy, snowy white aureole around her head.

They were delighted with Claire, especially pleased that she still spoke near-perfect French.

“But it’s formidable how she resembles you,” her mother remarked to Marie.

It was true. Claire had the same golden hair and blue eyes. Was her face just a little longer than her mother’s? people might ask themselves. Perhaps. She was certainly an inch taller.

Claire was delighted to find herself with the old couple. She hadn’t seen them since before the war when she was a young girl. Now she had all sorts of questions she wanted to ask. She was delighted to learn that Jules’s grandfather had bought the house a century ago, and that he had been present in the French Revolution and known Napoléon.

“Can we stay here awhile?” she asked.

After two days, Marc brought Aunt Éloïse down to stay for a few days.