Of course I grew shrewd, "artful as a wagonload of monkeys" as Nanny Grange put it. "If there's mischief about, Miss Ellen will be in it. As for Miss Esme, she's led there by her naughty cousin, that's what." I suppose in my way I was as much a force in that household as Cousin Agatha.

In the winter we lived in a tall house opposite Hyde Park. I loved the trees which would be growing bronzed and golden when we returned from summer in the country. Esme and I used to sit at one of the topmost windows and point out the famous buildings to each other. From the north we looked right across the Park, but from the east we could pick out the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the Brompton Oratory. We used to listen for the muffin man's bell and watch the white-capped maids come running out with their dishes to buy his wares. Nanny Grange always sent for some and then we would sit by her fire toasting them and reveling in their soft buttery succulence. We used to watch the crossing sweepers—barefooted boys who made us unhappy because they looked so poor; and we both shed tears when we saw a man running behind a luggage-laden cab on its way to Paddington Station, where he hoped to earn a few pence by carrying the luggage. I made up a story of heartrending squalor which had Esmeralda weeping bitterly. She was very kind-hearted and so easily touched that I had to amend my story and tell it the way Cousin Agatha would have done. He had come from a good family and had' squandered his patrimony in gin and beer shops. He beat his wife, and his children went in terror of him. Poor sweet and simple Esme! She was so easily swayed.

In the afternoons after lessons we would walk in Kensington Gardens with Nanny Grange. She would sit on a seat in the flower walk while we gamboled around. "And not out of sight, Miss Ellen, or I'll have something to say to you." She rarely had to worry on that score because I liked to hang about and hear what she said to the other nannies.

"Esme's mother. My word, what a tartar. I'd not stay if it wasn't for the fact that my aunt was her nanny, and it's right and proper to keep these things in families. Sickly little thing, Miss Esme. As for that Miss Ellen, a real little madam. My patience, you'd think she was the daughter of the house instead of the poor relation. Mark my words, it will be brought home to her one day."

The other nannies would talk of their employers and their charges and I would make Esmeralda be quiet while we listened. Our companions shrieked, threw their balls to one another, spun their tops or cuddled their dolls and there would I be seated nonchalantly on the grass behind the seat on which the nannies sat, shamelessly listening.

I was obsessed with curiosity about my mother.

"My aunt says she was really pretty. Our young miss is the living image, I reckon. And we'll have trouble with her, I shouldn't wonder. But that's to come. Come home she did, said my aunt. She was in a state. Something went wrong—she never knew what, but back she came to her mother, bringing the child with her. My goodness me, it must have been jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I heard they never let her forget what she had done. As for Miss Ellen's grandmother, she was another such as her cousin Agatha. Looking after the heathen and seeing he gets his soup and shirts and making her own daughter's life a misery... and the little 'un's too. Then Miss Frances goes and dies and leaves our Miss Ellen, who's never let forget that she's a burden. I mean to say an old lady like Mrs. Emdon and a lively young child ... it didn't work! And when she died she took her in. Couldn't do anything else really. She's not likely to let the child forget what she's doing for her either."

Thus at an early age I gleaned the hazy facts about my beginnings.

They intrigued me. I often wondered about my father, but he was never mentioned and I could discover nothing about him. Contemplating my past, I felt I had not been exactly precious to anyone. Perhaps Cousin Agatha wanted me in a way, though, but only because I was a little check mark on her calendar of virtue.

I was not the sort of child to brood. For some remarkable and fortunate reason—or so it then seemed—I had an infinite belief in my ability to get the best out of life, and Esmeralda at least was glad to have me as a surrogate sister. In fact she was lost without me. I could never be alone long because she would soon seek me out; she had no desire for her own company. She was afraid of her mother, afraid of the dark and afraid of life. In being sorry for Esmeralda I suppose I could be glad to be myself.

In the summer we went to Cousin William Loring's country house. What an upheaval that used to be. There would be packing for days and we would grow quite wild with excitement planning everything we would do in the country. We traveled in the brougham to the railway station and there followed the feverish bustle of getting into the train and debating whether we should face the engine or have our backs to it—an adventure in itself. We were accompanied by our governess, of course, who made sure that we sat erect on the plush seats and that I was not too noisy when I called Esmeralda's attention to the villages and countryside through which we passed. Some of the servants had gone on ahead and some would follow. Cousin Agatha usually arrived a week or so after we did, a blessed delay, and then she transferred her good works to the country instead of the town. The country estate was in Sussex—near enough to London to enable Cousin Agatha to go to town without too much effort when the worthy occasion demanded and Cousin William Loring could also attend to his vast business interests and not be altogether deprived of the fresh country air.

Esmeralda and I learned to ride, visit the poor, help at the church fete and indulge in the country activities of the gentry.

There was entertaining in the country as there was in town. Esmeralda and I were not as yet included in that, but I was vastly interested in it and I would sketch the dresses of the guests and imagine myself in them. I used to make Esmeralda hide with me on the staircase to see them arriving and watched with delight as they entered the great hall where Cousin Agatha, very stately, and Cousin William Loring, looking quite insignificant in comparison, received them.

I would drag Esmeralda out of bed and make her peer through the banisters at the brilliant array, sometimes darting to the head of the stairs so that had any looked up I should have been in full view of them. Esmeralda would tremble with fear and I would laugh at her, knowing that I should never be sent away because above all Cousin Agatha must boast of her goodness to me. I would caper round our bedroom and make Esmeralda dance with me.

It was in the country that I became really aware of the great importance of the Carringtons. Even Cousin Agatha spoke their names with a certain awe. They lived in Trentham Towers, a very grand house on a hill—a mansion—and Mr. Josiah Carrington was a sort of squire in the neighborhood. Like Cousin William Loring, he had big interests in the City and had a London residence—in Park Lane in fact. Nanny Grange had pointed it out to us on several occasions. "That's the Carringtons' Town Place," she said in hushed tones, as though it were paradise itself.

They owned most of the Sussex hamlet and the surrounding farms, and Mr. Josiah Carrington's wife was Lady Emily, which meant that she was the daughter of an earl. One of Cousin Agatha's great ambitions was to live on terms of familiarity with the Carringtons, and as she was a woman who only had to want something to get it, she did, after a fashion. Cousin William's Sussex house was pleasantly Georgian with gracious portico and elegant lines. The drawing room was on the first floor and as it was large and lofty with a beautiful molded ceiling it was ideal for entertaining. Here Cousin Agatha "received" every Thursday when she was "At Home" in the country, and the dinner parties and the balls she gave were very well attended. She would be most disconsolate if for some reason the Carringtons were not present.

She was very gracious to Lady Emily and claimed great interest in everything that lady did while Cousin William and Mr. Josiah Carrington discussed "the Market" with equal passion.

Then there was Philip Carrington, who was about a year older than I and some two years older than Esmeralda. Cousin Agatha was very anxious that he and Esmeralda should be good friends. I remember our going to the country in the early summer and meeting Philip for the first time. Esmeralda had been formally introduced to him in the drawing room; I had been excluded. Then Cousin Agatha had instructed Esmeralda to take Philip to the stables and show him her pony.

I waylaid them on the way and joined them.

Philip was fair, with freckles across his nose and very light blue eyes; he was about my height and I was tall for my age. He looked interested in me, for I could see he had already decided to despise Esmeralda and was put out because he had been sent off with a girl, and a puny one at that.

"I suppose you ride ponies," he said rather scornfully.

"Well, what do you ride?" I asked.

"A horse of course."

"We shall have horses later on," said Esmeralda.

He ignored her.

I said: "We could ride horses just as well. They're no different from ponies."

"What do you know about that?"

So we bickered all the way to the stables.

He scorned our ponies and I was angry with him because I loved my Brownie passionately, but it is true that I never felt quite the same about the poor creature after that. He showed us the horse he had ridden over on.

"A very small one," I pointed out.

"I bet you couldn't ride it."

"I bet I could."

It was a challenge. Esmeralda trembled with fear and kept murmuring, "No, Ellen, don't," as I mounted his horse barebacked and rode it recklessly round the paddock. I must admit I was a bit scared, but I wasn't going to let him score over me and I had the insult to poor Brownie to answer.

Philip mounted then and performed some tricks for us to admire. He showed off blatantly. He and I sparred all the time, but there was no doubt that we enjoyed the sparring. It used to upset Esmeralda because she thought we hated each other.

"Mama wouldn't like it," she told me. "Remember, he's a Carrington."

"Well, I'm a Kellaway," I said, "and that's as good as a Carrington."

Philip had a tutor that summer and we saw a great deal of him. It was then that I first heard of Rollo.

"What a silly name," I said, which made Philip flush with fury.

Rollo was his brother, who was ten years older than he was. Philip spoke of him with pride. He was about twelve then, so Rollo was twenty-two. He was at Oxford and according to Philip could do everything.

"A pity he can't change his name," I said just to plague him.

"It's a great name, you silly thing. It's a Viking name."

"They were pirates," I said scornfully.

"They ruled the seas. Everywhere they went they conquered. Rollo was the great one who went to France and the King there was so worried he gave him a great slice of his country and that became Normandy. We're Normans." He looked at us disparagingly. "We came over here and conquered you."

"You didn't," I cried. "Because we are Normans too, aren't we, Esmeralda?"

Esmeralda was not sure. I gave her a little push. She had no idea how to deal with Philip. Not that either of us took any notice of her opinion in any case.

"We were better Normans than you were," said Philip. "We were the dukes and you were only the common people."

"Oh no, we weren't..."

And that was how it went on.

Once Esmeralda said to me: "Mama would be cross if she knew how you quarreled with Philip. You forget he's a Carrington."

I remember when Rollo came down from Oxford. I first saw him riding in the lanes with Philip. His horse was white and as I said to Esmeralda after he had passed he ought to have had one of those helmets with wings at the side, then he would have looked just like a Viking. We did not speak to him. Philip called a greeting to us as he passed, making it clear that he had no time to waste on two girls with such a magnificent creature about. Rollo himself scarcely looked at us.

He was invited to the house of course and a great fuss was made of him. Cousin Agatha practically fawned on him. Nanny Grange said afterwards that you'd think he was some sort of a god and that Madam had her claws out to pick him up for Miss Esmeralda. "He'll be the heir of all those millions, I suppose," she said. "Though I reckon Master Philip will have his little picking."