A Legacy (35 page)

"Always late," Marie said; but she said it with pleasure in her voice.

Then she was there. "Frau Baronin is as lovely as ever," said Marie.

My mother bent to kiss her. She was in furs and a little veil. I had thought of Marie as a robust and bulky figure, and of my mother as small. Now I saw that it was not so. Marie was frail and old. "You must have been overestimating the ravages of three years," she said; "but I wish you'd call me Trafford; as you always used to at first in Spain, do you remember?"

"Ah Spain—" said Marie. "Oh Miss Trafford!"

"Well perhaps not exactly Miss?" said my mother, turning to me. "Now let us see what you look like," she said. "Do you still speak English, duck?"

"No, yes, I don't know," I said and found that I did.

"Your garments —" said my mother.

"That is only because they are new," I said. "It is not what I usually wear."

We went to another platform. There was not much time.

"I brought a letter from Frau Edu, ma'am," Marie said.

"Oh, give it to me," she said. "How is she?"

"Getting on, like the rest of us. If you ask me, ma'am, she's been badly cut up by Herr Baron."

My mother sat in a compartment and read the letter, while Marie saw to my things being put on.

"I must send her an answer," she said. "Duck, do you travel with notebook and pencil? I thought not." She opened her own bag.

The guard began banging doors. "Oh never mind," she said. She went to the window. "Give her my love. Will you? Oh, and there is something I must answer. Marie, are you capable o£ remembering a message? Will you tell Frau Edu, with my love, that the letters that were found were inside The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert; they were letters in Spanish of no importance to me—have you got that? unimportant Spanish letters— I put them there myself; I thought Jules never read." We were pulling out now, I was on the step hugging Marie. "Tell her," Caroline said, "tell her I was wrong about that too."