While the girls were beginning to make plans upstairs, Estelle Leclerc and Agathe Sauze were discussing the situation downstairs in the kitchen.

‘Annette can stay here as long as is necessary. Madame St Clair has already paid me to look after her until she is well enough to return to Belair.’

Agathe stared at her in surprise. ‘Madame St Clair has?’

‘Yes, she sent a groom here yesterday with a letter and some money.’ Estelle shook her head sadly. ‘It’s a dreadful thing to say, but in the circumstances it is, perhaps, a blessing that the baby did not survive. Your niece is young. She may marry again, and a woman alone with a child could find it more difficult to attract a man who would take on a child that was not his.’

For a moment Agathe had thought that Estelle, mentioning Annette’s situation, had been told the truth, but her comments about ‘marrying again’ assured her that she still believed Annette to be a widow giving birth to a posthumous child.

‘That’s very generous of Madame St Clair,’ she said carefully. ‘It will certainly be better for my niece if she is able to come back to Belair soon. Work is one way to cope with grief.’

‘I agree,’ said Estelle, ‘and sadly I speak from experience.’ She went into the cool of her tiny pantry and picked up the pitcher of lemonade. As she did so, she went on. ‘Father Bernard came to visit her, but she wouldn’t see him. When she refused I told him she was asleep and should not be disturbed. The baby has been buried just outside the churchyard. He wasn’t baptised, of course, which meant he could not be buried in hallowed ground, but there is a corner beyond the eastern wall where they bury those like him.’

Those like him, thought Agathe – someone of no consequence, unbaptised, a non-Christian… as if he’d had a choice in the matter! Encouraged by some of the priests, this was how many people thought, so she made no comment, simply nodded. She knew how Annette felt about priests, however, and she wasn’t surprised that the girl had refused to see him, though she herself had met Father Bernard, an elderly priest, and had thought him a gentle and sympathetic man.

To change the subject, she asked, ‘How long do you think Annette will be here with you?’

‘It’s hard to say,’ Estelle replied. ‘Physically she is beginning to recover; she has started to take a little food and her strength will return. Her mind is a different matter. She makes no effort to do anything. Your visits will help, but it’s hard to lose a husband and a child in such a short time.’

‘I’ll tell her that Madame St Clair says her job is waiting for her as soon as she can return,’ Agathe said.

When they went back upstairs, Estelle and Agathe found two very different girls in the bedroom. Annette was out of the chair, the bag was open on the bed and Hélène was helping her to get dressed. It was such a reversal of their normal relationship that Agathe paused in the doorway, staring in amazement.