Read Online Black Diamond by Rachel Ingalls - Free Book Online

all were alike. Such an explanation seemed far-fetched. And anyway, she hadn’t been staring. She wanted to talk to someone about it, but she felt that Claudia wasn’t the right person to go to. She needed someone who was grown up and who had lived in the city long enough to know who everyone was. Was it possible that her father had been in love with another woman before he’d married her mother? Perhaps if she’d had a sister, or even a brother, the idea wouldn’t have made such an impression on her. As it was, her sleep became so disturbed that at last she was summoned to the office of Mme Bonnier, the principal of the school.
    She stood by the desk. Madame sat on the other side; she was impeccably dressed, as usual, and looked as if she found life highly enjoyable. She told Beatrice to sit down, asked her the cause of her distress and said that it simply wouldn’t do to drift around the schoolrooms, looking like a ghost and falling asleep over her lessons.
    Beatrice told her. She described the girl from the shop and said, ‘Do you know who she is?’
    Mme Bonnier dismissed the story. The old woman, she said, wasn’t right in the head; you wouldn’t believe the things people muttered to themselves when they relaxed their concentration – even young, sane people.
    â€˜But who is she?’
    The identity of the girl couldn’t possibly be of importance, Madame said, because the old woman didn’t know what she was talking about.
    Mme Bonnier was embarrassed. Years later, Beatrice was to understand the nature and extent of the embarrassment: onceshe’d realized that her father had been quite a ladies’ man and that he’d know Mme Bonnier, as well as many other women. Beatrice might have had sisters and brothers over half the globe.
    But at the time, her attention was trained on one person: the girl in the shop. And her worries were mainly theological. If the girl were a sister, she reasoned, that would mean that her father had been married twice. It followed that the other wife had to be still alive, otherwise the daughter would have stayed with him.
    â€˜And if that’s true,’ Beatrice said, ‘then in the eyes of the Church, his second marriage, to my mother – you see what I mean? I might be the child of sin. One of us has to be.’
    â€˜Nonsense, Beatrice.’
    â€˜Well, is that girl’s mother still living?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Then she’s the real daughter. And that makes me –’
    â€˜Your father,’ Mme Bonnier said, ‘was never married to this girl’s mother. Nor, as far as I know, to anyone but your mother. Does that make you feel better?’
    â€˜Of course,’ Beatrice said. ‘It’s a great relief.’
    â€˜Good. I’m glad to hear it. Now you can get some sleep.’
    â€˜But is it true? Is she my sister?’
    â€˜I’ve just told you.’
    â€˜No, Madame. You’ve just told me that they weren’t married.’
    â€˜I see. In that case, I must say that to the best of my knowledge, no: she isn’t. But her mother is one of those women who’s always lived a very free life. So, people gossip about her.’
    â€˜And my father?’
    â€˜I’ve never heard anyone say a malicious thing about your father. He’s always talked of with kindness. This is more the sort of tittle-tattle you’d expect to hear directed against a woman.’
    â€˜It was directed against me. She wanted to hurt me.’
    â€˜You know the kinds of people who gossip,’ Mme Bonnier said. ‘And you say she was old. Perhaps she didn’t see well. There seemed to her to be two girls in her shop, both of them to her mind looking foreign. Do you understand? There’s no great mystery about it.’
    Beatrice had once heard her father say that when it was amatter of something serious, it was always a good idea to get a second opinion. She went to