Pierre drove down one side, past the Mairie, and at the far end turned out of the Place towards the village church, standing atop a rise. With grey stone-flinted walls and a slender tower topped with a steeple looking out across the countryside, the church seemed to grow up out of the hill on which it stood, its encircling walled graveyard gathered protectively around it. Annette stared up at it as they drove past; it was nothing like the cheerless churches that had dominated the streets and squares of Paris, but she was done with churches and determined that she would not set foot in another unless she were forced to do so.

When Pierre turned the pony in through the gates of Belair and they were driven up the drive, they had their first sight of the house that was to be their home for at least the next few weeks.

It stood as if dreaming in the midday sunshine, symmetrical and well proportioned, with two wings extending forward a little from the main part of the house, which stood three storeys high. The walls, cream-painted stucco, were punctuated by tall windows that flashed gleams of sunlight across the drive, three to each wing and two on either side of the arched portico above the front door.

What a beautiful house! Agathe thought as, ignoring the carriage sweep at the front of the building, Pierre drove the pony and trap past the door and on round to the stable yard at the back before pulling up to allow his passengers to alight.

Could this really be the place where she might find a permanent position?

Annette had stared up at it and, assailed by an increasing fear, wished she were back in Paris. She had looked at the emptiness of the countryside from the windows of the train and longed for the close-lived bustle of the city streets she knew. And now the house. How would she ever find her way about such a large house?

Pierre got down and called to a stable lad who had appeared from the stables, ‘See to the pony, Henri, I’ll take these indoors to meet Madame Choux,’ adding as he turned back to the two women in the trap, ‘She’s the housekeeper.’

He did not hand them down as he would have one of the family, but as Annette stepped down her foot slipped on the cobbles and she would have fallen had he not put out his hand to steady her. For a moment he gripped her arm and then she pulled free, colour flooding her face as she whispered her thanks.

‘This way,’ he said, and with that they picked up their bags and followed him through a side door into the house.

Madame Choux was in the kitchen and it was clear when she received them that they were not welcome. She looked them over for a few moments, taking in Annette’s pregnancy with a pursing of her lips. She already knew that Agathe Sauze’s niece was expecting a baby, that had been explained in Madame’s letter, but she resented the fact that these two women had been engaged at all and without any reference to her.