She tosses the paper to the table. “Are you certain of that, darling?”

“What the devil does that mean?”

Margaret picks up the cigarette, smokes it; picks up the tea and drinks that. The cup rattles in the saucer when she returns it. Her eyes are a little glassy, I think.

“Maybe that’s not his only grandchild, I mean.” She makes a thin, bitter smile. “It seems my father was paying a lawyer in Paris to track down a certain woman and her daughters.”

“Oh, dear.”

“And what’s more, it seems he succeeded.”

“How—how—”

“How the mighty are fallen, perhaps?” She points her cigarette to the letter. “See for yourself, then. I don’t give a damn.”

I reach across the table and pluck the letter from atop the layer of envelopes, all of which are addressed, I perceive, in the same elegant handwriting, to Maj. W. B. Thorpe. Except this one, typewritten, dated the thirtieth of June. The day before he went into battle. Margaret lights herself another cigarette and rises from her chair to stare out the window above the sink. She’s wearing another of her shapeless housedresses, which hangs from her slender frame, reminding me a little of the duchess. The same shape, except it’s not cultivated, it’s not fashioned the way you fashion a mannequin, it’s not displayed to its best advantage. It’s just what it is, a woman who’s naturally slender, who isn’t eating as well as she should, smoking too many cigarettes, fretting.

From time to time, the duchess liked to speak to me in French, in order to polish her fluency. So while it’s been some time since I picked up a work of French literature, or wrote out a sentence or a paragraph in that language, I find I can read the words pretty well, without stopping to translate in my head. When I come to the woman’s name, I look up.

“Charlotte Kassmeyer? But that’s not a French name.”

“No. They’re German. Look at the children’s names.”

I turn back to the letter. “Ursula, Frederica, Gertrud. How odd.”

“There’s nothing odd about it. Probably some woman he met when he was stationed somewhere, before the war. He arranges for her to live in a nice little flat in Paris, so as to be conveniently nearby. Men, they’re jolly clever, aren’t they?”

“Then why was he paying a lawyer to find her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t especially care. It all adds up to the same sum, doesn’t it?” She blows out a cloud of smoke. “Poor Mama. No wonder.”

“No wonder?”

“No wonder she was so unhappy. All that time, you know, I thought they were in love. I thought—I thought they were like a fairy tale, like the prince and princess in a story for children—”