The Reckoning by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page A

braid and the frogging and new buttons.'
    ‘ So you did. How clever!'
    ‘ And John chose the bonnet. I think he had very good taste, don't you? I wasn't sure at first if perhaps there weren't too many feathers, but he says it suits me. You don't think it's too fine, do you?'
    ‘ I think it's charming. A new bride has every right to be fine.'
    ‘ Not such a new bride now,' Mathilde said seriously. 'It's a year and two months and thirteen days ... But I didn't come to talk about me. I came to see how you were. I heard there'd been some trouble in the village. Are you all right? You do look rather pale.'
    ‘Oh no, I am quite well. What did you hear?'
    ‘ I was at the Somerses', and they said you'd discovered a runaway frame-breaker at one of the village houses, and that Edward had gone to arrest him with half-a-dozen constables. Only when they got there, of course, he'd rubbed off.'
    ‘ I did not know he had escaped. Your information is later than mine.'
    ‘ All the Somerses are chattering away like disturbed starl ings about it.' Mathilde studied her. 'It's upset you, too, I can see that. There wasn't any — unpleasantness, was there?'
    ‘ Not in the way you mean. But it has worried me.' She looked at Mathilde's healthy, happy face under the smart, exceedingly over-trimmed bonnet, and her next words died in her throat. Mathilde remembered nothing of the France she had fled as a child not much older than Benedict, nor of the mother who had died under the guillotine's knife; and if she had, it would only have made it even more impossible to talk to her of such hideous fears. Mathilde was just starting out on the adventure of married life, and no shadows should be cast over that.
    ‘ I'm merely being silly, however,' Héloïse said firmly. 'Tell me, how is your new house coming along?’
    Mathilde was easily distracted on that subject. The house had been building since the second month of her marriage. ‘Oh, very well. It's beginning to look like a house at last. In fact, it would be finished by now,' she laughed, ‘if John didn't keep thinking of new things to add. He's decided to have a sort of turret room now, on the side — like a French castle, you know. It will have splendid views over the moors. John says he'll use it as his study. I expect he'll get even more and better ideas, up in the clouds like that.’
    She was silent a moment, looking at some agreeable internal landscape. Benedict slaughtered some more French infantry, and resurrected Boney to meet his fate again. Mathilde came to the end of a train of thought and sighed, and looked at Héloïse.
    ‘ There is something particular I wanted to talk to you about, if you don't mind.'
    ‘ Of course not,' Héloïse said. 'I hope you will always feel you can bring your problems to me.'
    ‘ Oh, it isn't a problem. Well, yes, it is in a way, but it's good news — the best news. I wonder if you've guessed already?' She blushed, and Héloïse looked at her blankly, but it was enough for Mathilde. 'You have guessed. I can see.’
    Enlightenment crept in slowly. ‘Mathilde — ma chère petite — can you mean —?'
    ‘ Yes! I'm expecting a child! John and I are to have a child!’
    ‘ Oh my dear! I am so very happy for you! When does it come?'
    ‘ Oh, not for ages yet. Not until January. I wish it could be sooner. January seems such a long way away, and I want it to be here now.'
    ‘ It will pass soon enough,' Héloïse smiled. 'Oh, but this is wonderful news! You are so like a daughter to me, dear Mathilde, that it will be like being a grandmother, and I have long wanted to be a grandmother!’
    Mathilde blushed more deeply. 'Well, that's rather what I wanted to talk to you about. I mean — well, in a sense, you will be the grandmother, won't you?’
    Héloïse's attention sharpened. She looked at Mathilde carefully, but said nothing.
    ‘ So I wondered if you could advise me how — or rather what, exactly — we should tell James.' Héloïse was too