Camille St. Rémy and Lotti sat in the back garden on a little terrace under a vine-covered gazebo, holding hands on a wicker sofa Lotti remembered well from scores of summer afternoon naps as a little child. A tray laden with tea and cakes lay before them, brought by the slightly shamefaced housekeeper and untouched because neither grandmother not granddaughter could bear to let go of each other.

“I wrote and wrote,” Camille said. “All of that first year, every week like I promised, even though you didn’t answer. I thought perhaps you were too little, that I shouldn’t expect a reply, but eventually I wrote to your uncle to ask if anything was wrong, if you were all right. He replied asking me to stop writing to you. He said my letters reminded you too much of your parents, that you had told him you wanted to forget them, to forget me … He said they upset you too much, that you cried uncontrollably when you read them …”

“But I never did receive them!” Lotti cried. “I wrote to you every week as well. When your letters stopped, I couldn’t understand it. I thought you must not love me anymore. He said you didn’t love me anymore!”

“As if I could stop loving you!” said Moune. “Oh, I should have known it wasn’t true, I should have trusted you, but he was so forceful, so adamant …”

“He must have stopped forwarding your letters to me when I went to school,” said Lotti, thinking. “And at school, the housemistresses read all our letters. He must have ordered them to stop my letters to you. But why?”

Camille sighed. “I think I know.”

And then she told Lotti something Lotti had never known—that in their will, Théophile and Isobel had made it clear that should the arrangement with the Netherburys prove unsatisfactory, Camille St. Rémy should be given full guardianship of her granddaughter, and take over responsibility for Barton Lacey.

“But why couldn’t I just live with you in the first place?” asked Lotti. “I would have much preferred that.”

“Your parents thought it would be better for you to have a younger guardian,” Camille explained. “And also that you would prefer to stay at home in England. Of course, they never imagined that any of this would be necessary … As to your uncle, it was better for him if you and I were separated. He sent you away to have Barton all to himself, then made sure you and I never spoke so I never learned of his cruelty to you. My poor darling, were you really away from home for so long?”

“Four and a half years.” Lotti rubbed her cheek, then in a small voice asked, “Moune, you won’t send me back, will you? I can come and live with you?”

Her grandmother hugged her very close.