Will You Love Me in September

"I could not. But you are so kind. I understand you have your husband. He will not wish me to impose. You have been good to Aimee and for that I thank you with all my heart. But for me ... I shall go back to France. I will find some way of keeping myself. I am clever with my hands. I am a seamstress of some quality, am I not, Aimee?

Oh, how I should love to make up that beautiful silk you have bought for my little one. But no matter.”

"I am going to insist that you come and stay with us for a while," I said. "You must get to know your grandson. Besides, Aimee will be most upset if you go away just as soon as you have come.”

She cast down her eyes and shook her head.

Aimee took her hand. "Please, Maman," she said.

Madame Legrand hesitated and then said, "Very well. For a little stay. A little rest before I go away. A little time with my daughter and my grandson.”

"You are very welcome," I told her.

Aimee said eagerly, "Let us go back to your inn. You can settle there and come right away.”

"Oh ... no ... no ... Give me today. Tomorrow I will come.”

"Then let it be so," said Aimee. "Clarissa, may I have the carriage tomorrow and come and collect my mother?”

"But of course. And I will come too. We'll bring the children. Jean-Louis and Sabrina will love that.”

Madame Legrand covered her face with her hands.

"You are too good," she murmured. "And I am too ... too happy.”

So it was arranged.

So Aimee's mother came to stay with us in Albemarle Street. Lance welcomed her with his usual charm. "Strange," he said, "we lost one member of the household and have acquired a new one.”

"Lance," I said earnestly, "you don't mind her being here?”

"Mind! Of course not.”

"I could do nothing else but invite her. She is, after all, my sister's mother.”

"Such complicated relationships," he murmured. "It all comes of your having such a colorful personality for a father.”

"I'm sorry it happened that way.”

"It's the way of the world," he said, putting a light kiss on my cheek.

Madame Legrand proved to be quite an asset to the household. She was voluble in her gratitude and at the same time determined to make herself useful. Like her daughter, she had a wonderful way with clothes. She could make them and wear them so that the simplest looked elegant. She could dress the hair and apply the right amount of cosmetic to the face; she could make a dress to show off the advantages of one's figure. She was good with the children, who were both a little fascinated by her strange accent, and her gesticulating conversation was a source of wonder to them both. Even Sabrina was at first impressed by her, She did a great deal for me. She asked if she could dress my hair. She was sure she could show it off to better advantage. She understood I had had a French maid. Aimee had told her that the woman had turned out to be a thief and had upset us all by running away with valuable jewelry.

"I still can't believe it," I said. "I thought I knew Jeanne.”

"Aimee tells me that she came from the slums of Paris.”

"Oh, it is a long story, but I owed her a good deal. I will never really believe what everyone says is the only answer to her disappearance.”

"Ah, people are strange," mused Madame Legrand. "They are good in one way ... bad in another ... but if the bad is there, or the good, it will break out sometime, and then some part of the nature is revealed.”

She altered my clothes. "A little taken in here ... you see ... and we show off that pretty little waist. A little lower here, to show the white throat and just a little beginning of the bosom, eh'? And a full skirt ... sweeping out from the waist. I will make a dress for you and you will be so beautiful... . Yes, let me make it for you, dear Clarissa, to show you how happy I am to be here.”

Sometimes she talked of going away. We persuaded her to wait a while. A whole month passed and she was still with us.

I knew she wanted to stay and would be desolate if she had to leave us. She was devoted to her grandson, and he would sit on her lap and listen to stories about France-how the children collected snails after a rainy day and put them in a basket to take to the kitchens to be cooked and served with garlic; how they picked the grapes and danced on great tubs of them; how they put slippers by the fire on Christmas Eve, when presents were put into them and opened on Christmas morning.

Sabrina listened too; she was clearly a little fascinated by Madame Legrand.

Then came the day when I knew for sure that I was pregnant. I was delighted. For the first time I ceased to think of Jeanne. The incident was now fading into the past, but I was still not convinced that what appeared so obvious was true.

I did think, however, how excited she would have been at the prospect of my becoming a mother. It was something she had always wanted.