Annette bobbed a curtsy. ‘There’s nothing to tell, sir,’ she replied. ‘He’s gone back to England.’

‘I know that, stupid girl,’ he snapped, ‘but what news from there?’

‘I don’t know, sir. Miss Hélène doesn’t talk to me about him, so I can’t tell you nothing.’

‘Hmm. Well, if you hear anything, make sure you do!’ And with that he strode off across the square, unaware that she stared after him with visible dislike.

Back at Belair, Annette didn’t tell Hélène that Simon Barnier had been asking questions – there was no need to worry her any more than she was already. However, as soon as she got the chance, she spoke to Pierre.

‘What should we do?’ she asked. ‘Monsieur Chalfont asked us to look after Hélène and keep her away from Monsieur Barnier. Should we write to him – Monsieur Chalfont, I mean?’

Pierre gave the idea serious consideration before he said, ‘One letter, perhaps. But if there’s no reply to that, well, we’ve done what we promised.’

‘You’ll have to write,’ Annette told him. ‘It would be better coming from you. What will you say?’

Pierre sighed. ‘I don’t really know. Just that Hélène’s pining for him and he must come back?’

They decided that was enough and that evening Pierre wrote a brief note and sent it to the address Rupert had given him.

‘Now all we can do is wait,’ he said. And wait they did until the letter came.

*

At Pilgrim’s Oak, Rupert was also waiting. There had been no word from France for the past month. He had given up looking expectantly at Mitchell when he came in with the post. He had written once again, but when that letter produced no response, he finally accepted that Hélène had changed her mind and had written no more. He briefly considered going over to France to see her. He even mentioned the idea to Fran.

‘If I could just see her,’ he said, ‘perhaps I’d understand.’

Fran had a vision of the letters in her drawer and knew an appalling guilt, but she said, ‘I don’t think that would answer, Rupert. It would reopen wounds for both of you. If she’s changed her mind and stopped writing, she must feel that a clean break, without long explanations about why, would be the easiest thing for both of you.’

‘But if I could just see her…’

‘What good would it do?’ Fran asked. ‘You’d just be hurt all over again.’ She thought of the last letter that had arrived. It was not addressed in the same hand as the others, but Fran was not prepared to risk Rupert receiving it, even if it wasn’t from his Hélène girl, and she had squirrelled it away with the rest.

No further mention was made of ‘the French girl’, but one windy afternoon in late October, Rupert was summoned to the library.

‘It’s time you sorted yourself out,’ said his father. ‘I want to see you settled before I die. I want to see you married.’