“Oh Mrs. Frenshaw, Mr. Frenshaw, I am so glad you have come. A terrible thing has happened.”

“What?” I cried.

“It’s Alberic. They’ve found him.”

“Found him!” cried David. “Where has he been all this time?”

“He’s dead, Mr. Frenshaw. His body was washed up by the sea.”

“Drowned!”

Jeanne dropped her head and was silent for a few moments. I was trembling, wondering what was coming next.

“All this time,” murmured Jeanne, “and we were wondering where he was.”

“Drowned?” repeated David.

“Murdered,” Jeanne corrected him. “They said he’s been shot through the lungs. I don’t know what will happen now.”

“But who…” began David. “Just a minute. This is such a shock. I think my wife does not feel very well.”

He lifted me from my horse and kept his arm about me.

“It’s such a shock,” he said.

“Come into the house,” said Jeanne.

“Yes, I think we’d better, darling,” said David.

I sat in the cool hall and the faintness passed. So they would know now. What would they do? What would be the verdict as to what had happened to Alberic?

There was no talk of anything but Alberic’s death. It was impossible to escape from it. Rumour was rife. Who had killed Alberic? Poor innocent Alberic, who had done nothing wrong but to take out a boat for a little pleasure trip.

His friend Billy Grafter must have been with him, they said, since Billy had disappeared at the time Alberic came back from London.

There was an inquest. There was no doubt that Alberic had been shot at, although he had died by drowning. The verdict was murder against some person or persons unknown.

It was terrible to have to live with such a secret. I had nightmares and would awake crying in the night. David would hold me close to him soothingly and I wanted to be beside him, thankful for his presence.

In the morning I would try to reason with myself. Jonathan was right. The times were dangerous. I must remember what had happened to my mother and my grandmother, Zipporah. I could picture the latter going into the little town to shop in her splendid carriage with the d’Aubigné crest emblazoned on it, and coming out to the mob. Alberic’s death was a judicial killing. One should not look on it in a different light. It was logical. It was the law of survival.

During the day I could believe that. It was at night when the hideous dreams came.

Jonathan had come back to Eversleigh for the inquest.

I did not attend, but immediately it was over he sought an opportunity to be alone with me.

I said: “They will search for the one who killed him. Jonathan, what if—?”

He shook his head and smiled at me rather sardonically.

“They will talk of an enquiry. They will make a show of having one. But I can assure you that nothing will be revealed. That has been taken care of. It is for the country’s security, and that is understood in certain quarters.”

“It is all so… subversive.”

He laughed. “What did you expect? It is the very nature of the matter. How are you feeling now? You’ve not told anybody?”

I shook my head firmly.

“Not even David? He’d understand, of course. He’s always logical. But there is no point in people’s knowing when it is not necessary. I’m only sorry you had to see it.”

“What of Billy Grafter?” I asked.

“He got away. Never mind. We know what he looks like. He might provide a useful lead. And we know Léon Blanchard is—or has been—in London. I shall shortly be going to London again and when I come back I daresay Dickon and your mother will come with me.”

I put my hand to my head and said wearily: “I wish it would all end.”

“Poor Claudine! Life is very complicated, is it not?”

“I want mine to be simple… peaceful.”

“Oh come, you are too young for peace.” Then he kissed me briefly. “Au revoir, my love,” he said.

I was glad when he went. He added to my disturbed state of mind.

I went to see Aunt Sophie.

Jeanne greeted me. “She is in bed. She’s been poorly. This has upset her more than I would have believed possible.”

She certainly looked wan lying in her bed with the blue curtains drawn back.

“Oh, Claudine…” she said.

“Dear Aunt Sophie, you have been unwell, Jeanne tells me.”

“This is a house of mourning, Claudine,” she answered. Her fingers picked restlessly at the sheets. “Why is life always like this to me? Why is it that when I have a fondness for someone something like this happens?”

“There is always tragedy around us, Aunt Sophie.”

“For me, certainly,” she said.

“I’m sorry…”

“That poor boy, that poor innocent boy…”

Ah, Aunt Sophie, I thought, not so innocent. It is amazing how little we know of those with whom we live closely.

“What did he do? He only took out a boat… for a pleasure trip… and some wicked villain shot him. Can you understand it?” she demanded. “It doesn’t make sense,” she went on piteously.

“It is difficult to understand, Aunt Sophie. Why was he in the boat, do you think? Hadn’t he just returned from London? You thought he had gone back because he had forgotten something. But why should he have taken that moment to go out in the boat?”

“A whim,” she said. “People do have whims. His horse, Prince—how he loved to ride Prince!—found his way back to the stables. He must have ridden down on Prince to get to the sea.”

“Did you know he had a boat?”

“No. He never said. He and Billy Grafter must have acquired it between them. Poor boys… poor innocent boys.”

I said: “It seems rather odd that they should both have decided to go out then.”

But Aunt Sophie was not interested in why they had gone. All she cared about was her grief. I should not talk either. I should not set people speculating. Let it be thought that the young man, having been in London, was so eager for a breath of fresh air that he could not wait to take his boat out.

Aunt Sophie said: “Murdered! Cut off in the prime of his youth. He was a beautiful boy, bright and merry. It made me happy just to have him here.”

“I’m so sorry, Aunt Sophie.”

“You, my child, what do you know of loneliness? You have your husband, your dear child… You are fortunate, whereas I…”

“But, Aunt Sophie, we’re here. We’re your family. My mother…”

“Your mother was always lucky. Fortune smiled on her. She had Charles de Tourville… and now this husband of hers who thinks such a lot of her. Oh, I know she’s beautiful and she has the sort of nature that people seem to like, but it’s so unfair, Claudine, so unfair. And just because this young man is pleasant and makes me laugh and I have enjoyed having him in my house, someone has to murder him.”

I looked helplessly at Jeanne, who lifted her shoulders. I supposed she had to endure a great deal of Aunt Sophie’s self-pity.

Sophie was looking straight at me. “I shan’t rest until I know who killed him. And when I do, I’d kill him… I would.”

“Oh, Aunt Sophie…”

“Please don’t try to soothe me. I will not be soothed. I lie here, Claudine, and the only thing I have left to me is my hatred… my desire for revenge. When I know who killed Alberic, I will find a way of getting even with him.”

I could not suppress a shiver. She looked hardly sane with the fanatical light in her eyes, and her hood had fallen back. I could just catch a glimpse of the wrinkled scorched skin which she took such pains to hide. The unusual colour in her face accentuated it.

I felt an overwhelming pity and terrible fear, because somewhere in my mind was the terrible conviction that if she knew what had happened she would call me his murderer. True I had not fired the shot, yet but for me it would not have been fired. No one would have known of Alberic’s secret life but for me, and he would now be charming Aunt Sophie and working for his country against ours.

I said I would have to go. I kissed Aunt Sophie and she gripped my hands.

“If ever you should discover anything,” she said, “let me know. I am determined to find Alberic’s murderer.”

Jeanne walked downstairs with me.

“That is how she is, most of the time,” she said. “Sometimes I think it is a good thing to let her go on about it. While she is thinking of revenge she is not brooding on his death.”

I shook my head, and Jeanne went on: “She will grow calmer. She will accept his loss, for perforce she must.”

I went slowly back to Eversleigh.

By the end of May the death of Alberic had become a nine-days’ wonder. At first people had expected startling revelations. There were rumours of Alberic’s having enemies in the neighbourhood; there were even suspects, though it was hard to imagine who would have wanted to kill such an amiable young man. The weeks passed and nothing happened. People watched out for Billy Grafter’s body to be washed up and there was even a wild story in circulation that he had been found on the beach riddled with bullets. This persisted for two weeks and then died down. I think people gradually began to accept that Alberic’s murder would never be solved and that Billy Grafter had been with him and they had drowned together.

My mother came to my room on her first night back from London.

“You must not let this upset you,” she said. “It had to be. He was a spy. We cannot afford to let them go… however pleasant they may appear to be. Believe me, Claudine, I’ve been in the thick of it. I’ve seen Armand come back scarcely alive after his sojourn in the Bastille… put there by spies. You can say that killed him. Then there was my mother. I never forget that, and what they would have done to me but for Dickon. Living through that does something to you. It makes you understand that enemies of the state have to be eliminated, and if it can be quick—as it was with Alberic—that is the best way. I am only sorry that you were there when it happened.”