He’d stood up for himself, of course, and told him what had really happened; how that stupid, toffee-nosed Sub-Prefect had insisted on taking his dog into a first-class compartment, even though there was a second-class carriage specially reserved for huntsmen and their hounds, and how they’d had an argument and ended up exchanging angry words. The manager said that he had been perfectly within his rights to insist on the regulations. The real problem was something he had said; something, in fact, that Roubaud admitted he had said: ‘You lot won’t be the masters for much longer!’ People were saying that he was a republican. There had recently been a considerable amount of debate at the opening of the 1869 session of Parliament and fears about the forthcoming general elections13 were making the government very edgy. He would certainly have been sent to another station had it not been for President Grandmorin, who had spoken up for him. Even so, he’d had to sign a letter of apology. It was Grandmorin himself who advised sending a letter; he even had it ready prepared.

Séverine interrupted him:

‘So it was just as well I wrote to him and we went to see him this morning before you got your telling off. I knew he’d sort things out.’

‘He’s obviously very fond of you,’ said Roubaud. ‘And he knows how to influence people. But what’s the point of trying to do your job properly? All right, they give credit where credit is due; could show more initiative perhaps, conduct impeccable, does what he’s told, very willing. What more could you ask? But if I hadn’t been married to you, and if Grandmorin hadn’t spoken up for me just because he happened to have a soft spot for you, I’d have been out on my ear. They’d have sent me to some God-forsaken station in the middle of nowhere.’

Séverine had a steady, faraway look in her eyes.

‘Oh yes,’ she murmured, as if talking to herself, ‘he certainly knows how to influence people.’

For a while neither of them spoke. Séverine had stopped eating and sat gazing into the distance, with big wide eyes. She must have been thinking back to her childhood in the château at Doinville, just outside Rouen.

She had never known her mother, and was just thirteen when her father, Aubry, the gardener, died; and it was round about then that the President, who had lost his wife several years earlier, had taken her under his wing. He brought her up along with his own daughter, Berthe. The two girls were placed under the tutelage of Grandmorin’s sister, Madame Bonnehon, who had been married to a factory owner but who was, like Grandmorin, also widowed, and now owned the château. Berthe was two years older than Séverine and she had married six months after her. Her husband was a Monsieur de Lachesnaye, a judge in the Rouen law courts, a sour-faced, sickly-looking little man. Grandmorin had remained President of the Rouen law courts, in his native Normandy, up until only a year ago, when he retired, after a long and distinguished career. He was born in 1804, was appointed as deputy public prosecutor at Digne after the 1830 revolution and went on to hold similar posts at Fontainebleau and in Paris. He rose to become chief public prosecutor at Troyes, advocate-general at Rennes and eventually the presiding judge at Rouen. His fortune ran into millions. He had been a local government councillor14 since 1855. On the day that he retired, he was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour. To Séverine, he didn’t seem to have changed for as long as she could remember him — stocky, well built, his hair cut short and prematurely white, a lustrous golden white, the legacy of the fine blond hair of his youth. He wore a neat, close-cut beard, but no moustache. He had an angular, square-shaped face, with steely blue eyes and a prominent nose, which made him look very stern. He had an abrupt manner that was intimidating.

Roubaud raised his voice. Twice he had to ask her, ‘Séverine, what are you thinking about?’

She jumped. A small shiver ran through her, as if something had suddenly startled her.

‘Oh, nothing in particular,’ she answered.

‘Why aren’t you eating? Have you lost your appetite?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m fine.’

She drank the remaining wine from her glass and finished the slice of pate on her plate.