She knew that she should have explained before, so that Hélène would not have been frightened, but she had continued to put off the explanation for fear of reviving memories of what had happened to her during the siege. Now she must risk that, so that Hélène would be ready for the bedchamber on her wedding night. She could only hope that Simon would be a careful and gentle lover. She could procrastinate no longer and summoned Hélène into her parlour.

‘Shut the door, chérie,’ she said, ‘and come and sit by me.’ Hélène did as she was told and waited.

‘Hélène, you remember I told you when your monthly courses started that you were now ready for marriage.’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘Well, when a man and a woman are married, they have a very intimate life with each other. Very often they share the same bed and when they are sleeping close to each other they become…’ She paused, looking for the right word. ‘…entwined.’ She paused again before she went on, ‘It may take you a while to get used to sleeping next to someone like that, but it can be very comforting to fall asleep in a man’s arms.’

For a moment Hélène remembered the feel of Rupert’s arms about her, but she forced it away. That way led to misery. It was Simon’s arms in which she would fall asleep.

‘And after such a night together, you may find you are carrying his child.’ Rosalie had still not explained how this last was achieved, but, she reasoned, very few brides actually knew before their wedding night exactly what was expected of them. It wasn’t customary to go into detail; a new wife learned as she went along, and once she had found herself expecting a baby, as Clarice was now, she accepted that whether she enjoyed the experience or not, that was the way babies were created.

That evening Hélène sat at her dressing table while Annette brushed out her hair, and looking at her maid in the mirror, she wondered about Father Thomas. Annette had said he used to come to her bed at night. That was what her mother had just explained would happen when she and Simon were married. She was very tempted to ask Annette about it, but she knew Annette had hated what had happened, and surely that couldn’t be the same for all women, or there would be no children. So, she asked nothing and relaxed as the strokes of the brush soothed her. She wouldn’t know what to do, but she guessed Simon would, and they would have babies.

Chapter 37

It was extremely cold. Rupert walked over from the Dower House to Pilgrim’s Oak to visit his father. Sir Philip was dying. They knew it and he knew it and he was facing death with his usual fortitude. In the chilly weeks after Christmas he had contracted a loud and hacking cough, but he had only taken to his bed when his temperature had risen to thirty-nine degrees. Fran was at his bedside. She held a cup of wine mixed with a little warm water to his lips and said, ‘You must try, Papa.’