She was French and she came, Kelda discovered, from a family that was well-known and respected in France.
Kelda was not supposed to make friends with any of the girls, but only to wait on them by pressing their gowns and mending anything that was beyond their own capabilities.
Kelda had managed by sheer persistence to ingratiate herself with the pretty French girl until Yvette confided in her and talked to her as an equal.
Even so she was afraid to presume too much on their association and she thought now that Yvette, who was often unpredictable, might resent it if she intruded on her grief.
What, Kelda asked herself, could have made Yvette cry?
She was not like some of the other girls who wept if one of the Teachers was angry with them or who when they first arrived were desperately homesick.
Yvette was proud and in consequence had no particular ‘bosom friend’ in the school to whom she could turn in times of trouble, real or imaginary.
Her weeping, however, sounded so desperate that Kelda could bear it no longer.
She knocked gently on the door and after a moment’s silence Yvette’s voice, quavering and hesitating, asked,
“W-who – is it?”
Kelda then turned the handle and, because she did not wish to be overheard, replied in a whisper,
“It is me, Kelda.”
“Come in.”
Kelda slipped into the room.
It was very small, as were all the rooms in the Seminary, but it had a personal look about it because Yvette had so many pretty things of her own in it.
There was an expensive lace cover in the narrow bedstead and a frilly satin cushion on the only chair. The wardrobe door was open and Kelda could see a good profusion of gowns in bright colours all of which had come from expensive Paris dressmakers.
But the face that was turned up towards Kelda was very different from Yvette’s usually attractive one.
Her eyes were swollen, her small nose was red and tears were running down her cheeks.
“What is the matter?”
Kelda saw as she spoke that Yvette held a crumpled letter in one hand and the other one clutched a handkerchief sodden with tears.
“Has something happened to someone you love,” Kelda asked.
It was what she always suspected whenever she found that anybody was deeply unhappy, remembering how she had felt herself when her father and mother had died so suddenly and there had been nobody she could turn to for comfort.
“No – it is not – that,” Yvette stammered.
Kelda knelt down beside her.
“Tell me what has upset you,” she said. “Perhaps I can be of help.”
“Nobody can – help,” Yvette replied, her voice breaking.
“Please, tell me,” Kelda begged.
“I have had a letter, a letter ‒ from my uncle.”
“And it has upset you?”
“I hate him! I have always hated him and now I have to go and live with him.”
Kelda remembered that like herself Yvette was an orphan. Nevertheless she had a great number of relations in France. Every holiday when she returned to Paris she had stayed with aunts and uncles who had impressive-sounding titles and romantic Châteaux on the Loire and Villas in the South.
Yvette returned to the school with stories of the exciting times she had had, how many parties she had attended and it seemed very strange now that she should be thrown into such despondency.
Aloud Kelda said,
“I did not know that you hated any of your relatives. Which uncle are you to stay with?”
“My English uncle,” Yvette answered. “He is horrible and if I live with him I shall never see France again – and all my friends.”
She burst into tears once again and Kelda rose to fetch her a fresh handkerchief from the chest of drawers.
She put it into Yvette’s hand and then, as the French girl mopped her eyes, she said,
“I had no idea that you had an English uncle. You have never spoken about him.”
“Why should I – tell you? I hate him, but my aunt married him.”
“And he lives in England?” Kelda asked. “Well, that will not be too bad. After all you have many friends who are English here at the school.”
“He does not live in England,” Yvette replied, “but in Senegal.”
It took Kelda a second or two to remember where Senegal was and then she thought that she must be mistaken.
“You cannot mean Senegal in West Africa?”
Yvette nodded.
“My uncle lives there because he dislikes Society. He is a recluse – an eccentric. Why should I have to live with someone like that?”
Her voice sounded desperate.
“Is there any – reason why you should – obey him?” Kelda asked her hesitatingly.
“Mama and Papa made him my Guardian a long time before they died,” Yvette replied.
She paused for a moment to mop her eyes before she went on,
“Aunt Ginette was alive then and, as she was Mama’s younger sister, I suppose that they thought that, if anything should happen to them, Aunt Ginette would take Mama’s place. But she is dead and that leaves Uncle Maximus whom I have always hated and who I am sure hates me.”
“If that is true, why would he want you to go and live with him?” Kelda then asked her practically.
“I expect he wants to imprison me in Africa where I can never see anybody I am fond of and have no parties or enjoy anything that will amuse me and I will then just become old and embittered as he is.”
“How do you know he is like that?” Kelda asked.
“I saw him five years ago,” Yvette answered, “and some of my other relatives have seen him since and they say that he has grown even worse than he was then.”
Kelda could think of no reply to this and after a moment Yvette went on,
“There is some mystery about him which makes them always stop talking when I come into the room, but I have often heard my cousins say laughingly that I have too much money and might become cynical like Uncle Maximus.”
“He is rich then,” Kelda said. “Perhaps he wants to leave you all his money.”
“I don’t want his money,” Yvette retorted. “I have plenty of my own. Papa and Mama left me everything they had. I may not spend it until I am twenty-one and that is more than three years ahead! Three years when I shall have to live with Uncle Maximus and ask him for every penny I require.”
She burst into such a huge flood of tears that Kelda could only put her arms round her and hold her close.
“It may not be as bad as you think,” she said soothingly, “and it will be interesting for you to see Senegal.”
She remembered her father talking to her about West Africa and claiming that he would like to go there for a visit.
Kelda had been with him once to Algeria, but that had been a long time ago and it was difficult to remember very much about it except that it had been full of sunshine and she and her father and mother had found a great deal that amused them.
They