"We don't want a lot of ceremony."

"You don't want it. You forget you will be marrying into the Carrington family." Again that twitch of the nose. "It's true, he is only a younger son. But, of course, a Carrington. When you are married you will be required to mix in certain circles. I doubt not you will wish Esmeralda, who has been your companion since childhood, to stay with you now and then."

I felt suddenly powerful. It was a marvelous feeling. I couldn't resist smiling benignly on Cousin Agatha and saying graciously that I hoped Esmeralda would be a frequent guest at my house.

I'm happy, I thought. I'm gloriously happy. Everything has changed. Talk about Cinderella! Fancy Philip's being my fairy godmother! I suppose this is being in love.

"I couldn't have people saying that we had not given you of the best," she went on. "This strange thing has happened and unless Philip changes his mind it seems that you will marry into the family. You will always remember of course your amazing good luck and whence it came. No doubt you will feel gratitude towards those who cared for you and but for whom you would never have been presented with this golden opportunity."

I let her talk on. Happiness had made me more generous, and it seemed a small compensation for her disappointment. Fortunately I was never of a vindictive nature and could quickly forget the slights and indignities of my childhood.

"I'm afraid Tilly will not be capable of coping with what we shall need. She could make a housedress or so perhaps. Lady Emily may wish you to go to her couturiere. You will need a very elegant going-away dress and of course there is the wedding dress. I was speaking to your cousin Mr. Loring about it only a short while ago. He is willing to foot the bills so that you may step into your new life with grace. After all, as I said to him, it will reflect on us, and we have Esmeralda's future to think of."

I was scarcely listening. So many exciting things were happening.

Philip was always calling at the house. We rode together in the Row. I had a new riding habit—a present from Mr. Loring, prodded no doubt by Cousin Agatha because riding in the Row made one very prominent. We were constantly being photographed.

"What a bore," said Philip. "Who wants all this? I just want us to get away together."

He was very happy and it was wonderful to know that he was so much in love with me. He teased me and bantered with me just as he always had; and we were constantly engaged, it seemed, in our verbal battle, which was a delight to us both. I was nineteen, he was nearly twenty-one, and life seemed good to us. I don't think he knew very much more of the world than I did, which was precious little. Sometimes, though, it is better to know little of what the future has in store.

It was pleasant to be welcomed by his family. Lady Emily's vagueness was rather charming and she confided in me once that she was looking forward to the little babies we would have. She liked to talk a great deal in a rambling fashion. There had always been boys in the Carrington family, she told me. She had had Rollo a year after her marriage and then there was a long gap before Philip arrived. Two very different boys they were. "Rollo used to frighten me sometimes, my dear. He was so clever. Philip was not like that."

It was a Carrington tradition to have boys, and in view of Rollo's misfortune in marriage Philip and I were to be the ones to produce the all-important male Carringtons. There was a certain implication that Philip and I should not delay too long before producing the first grandson.

The thought of having a baby thrilled me and there was not a cloud in my sky during those first weeks after the dance. I think I really believed it would go on like that forever.

We went down to the country for a week as the Carringtons wanted to celebrate our engagement among their friends there. I had always been attracted by the house from the first moment I had seen it, but now that I was to be a member of the family and it would occasionally be my home too, I was more than ever excited by it.

Trentham Towers was an old mansion dating back to Tudor times, although a great deal of reconstruction had been done on it during later periods. Built on a hill, it looked imperiously down on the countryside in what I had thought of as a true Carrington manner. But since I had been taken into the family I realized I had maligned them. It was Cousin Agatha who had given me my opinion of them. No family could have welcomed me more warmly, which was really very remarkable considering the circles in which they moved.

I told Philip I wanted to look over the house and, catching my excitement, as he often did about something which in the ordinary way would have been of little interest to him (it was one of his most endearing characteristics), he was delighted to show me. I was familiar with the gardens, which I had explored thoroughly during my childhood, and it was the house which interested me.

He took me through the great hall to the chapel, then to the dining room, where the portraits of his mother's family were displayed.

After that he led me down a stone spiral staircase and, throwing open a heavy oak door, he explained: "This is the old armory. It's now our gun room."

"What a lot of weapons!" I cried. "I hope they're just for ornament."

He laughed at me. "They're used now and then during the season. I'm a crack shot, I can tell you."

"I hate shooting things," I said vehemently.

"I don't suppose you mind partaking of a succulent pheasant now and then," he said. He had opened a case lined with red satin, in which was a silver-gray pistol and a place for another.

"Isn't that a beauty?" he demanded.

"I'd scarcely call it that."

"That's your ignorance, my darling."

"Where's the other one? There should be two, shouldn't there?"

"Oh, that's in a safe place."

"What do you mean by that?"

"What if I'm alone in a wing of the house? Stealthy footsteps creeping along the corridor. The door opens slowly and in comes a man in a mask. He's going to steal the silver, the pictures, the family treasure. What do I do? I feel under my pillow. I draw out my pistol. 'Hands up, villain,' I cry. And what happens? What can he do against me and my little beauty? The family treasure is saved and all because of this." He touched the pistol lovingly before he closed the case.

"You don't really keep a pistol under your pillow, do you, Philip?"

"Until we are married, yes. After that I shall have you to protect me."

"You are an idiot," I said. "And I don't like these guns and things. Let's continue exploring."

"Your wish is law," answered Philip. "Come on."

I loved the old butteries and storing houses. I was enchanted by the room in which Queen Elizabeth was reputed to have slept; there was even the four-poster bed which she was said to have used. The most delightful room was the solarium with its sunny aspect. It was here that I turned to Philip and said: "When shall I meet Rollo's wife?"

Philip looked uneasy. "We don't meet her. We don't even talk about her. It's the most unfortunate thing and so unlike Rollo. One couldn't imagine him involved in anything like that. He's always been so wrapped up in the business... finance and all that... every bit as much as my father... perhaps more. They're always dashing about the world, discussing the market. It seemed to me that they didn't think about anything else. And then to marry like that!"

"It was a hasty marriage then?"

"It must have been. I didn't hear anything about it until it was a fait accompli. Then after the honeymoon he found out."

"Found out what?"

"I never heard the details. I just knew she wasn't the sort who could mix in society ... his sort of society. She wasn't one of us. She would be a hindrance in his career. There was also a rumor that she drank too much."

"And this didn't come out until after?"

"I suppose so... or he wouldn't have married her."

"I should have thought some of it would have been obvious. Not being able to meet people, for instance."

"Well, he must have been infatuated with her. It's a common enough story. He married in haste and when all the excitement wore off he realized his mistake."

"It seems so odd that that should have happened to him. He seems the last person to be carried away by his emotions."

"People are often not what you think. You're sure you know someone and then you find they do the last thing you'd expect them to. That's how it was with Rollo. In any case it was a ghastly mistake and he keeps her out of the way. She lived in this house at one time. He engaged a companion for her. But it was difficult with the family coming down as they did. So now she's somewhere else."

"Where?"

"I don't know. We don't talk of it. It's Rollo's affair. He wants it that way."

"He must be very unhappy."

"You never know with Rollo. But don't speak of it to my mother. It upsets her. Everyone's upset by it ... most of all Rollo, of course, but he doesn't show it much. He never did show his feelings."

"I wonder what she feels like... being kept away from the family... knowing that they're ashamed of her."

"She probably doesn't care. People like that can be insensitive."

"You said she was once in this house."

"Yes, for a while Rollo kept her here. There was a very good woman who looked after her... and then when it seemed impossible ... they left here."

"I'd like to see the rooms she occupied."

"Whatever for?"

"I've just a feeling I'd like to."

"They're right at the top."

"Come on," I commanded. "Show me."

We mounted the oak staircase with its delicately carved banisters, and came almost to the top of the house. A spiral staircase took us right there. These lacked the lofty ceilings of the lower rooms and were much smaller. There were four of them together—a sort of apartment with connecting doors. Two of these were bedrooms. One for Rollo's wife, I thought. One for her companion.

I am sensitive about dwellings and as I stood savoring the atmosphere I fancied I could detect suffering in these. I shivered, and Philip said : "You're cold."

"No, just a shiver."

"Why are you shivering then?"

"Someone walked over my grave, as they say."

"Let's go down."

"Not just yet. I want to linger awhile. I wonder what she felt like up here. Perhaps she was trying to be different so that Rollo and his family wouldn't be ashamed of her."

"Come on. Let's go down. You're running on again. I can't tell you anything more about her. We don't talk of her. She's Rollo's affair."

"Hers too," I reminded him. I went to the bed and touched the quilt, then the back of a chair. She had lived with these things. I wanted to know about her, to see her. Perhaps I could talk to her, help her in some way.

We don't talk about these things, Philip had said. But that was the Carrington way of life. When something was unpleasant you pretended it didn't exist. I could never be like that and I couldn't stop thinking about Rollo's wife.

While we were in the country Philip insisted we go to Dead Man's Leap. We walked through the woods together and came to the spot near the path where there was a wooden seat. We sat down and Philip said: "It brings it all back, doesn't it? It'll always be one of my favorite places. You were a bit scared to come here alone, admit it, Ellen."

"Well, just a bit."

"I was a beast to make you."

"You were a horrid little beast quite often."

"But you were such a know-it-all that you had to be brought down a peg or two sometimes. It does seem a bit weird here, doesn't it?"

"I wonder how many people have sat on this seat and thought about jumping over."

"If rumor's true, quite a number."

Philip stood up to go to stand at the edge of the path as he used to.

"Come back," I shouted.

He obeyed, laughing. "Why, Ellen, you're really scared. You didn't think I was going to leap over, did you?"

"I thought you might show off once too often. There ought to be a rail of some sort up there."

"I'll speak about it. It's our land, you know."

I was surprised that he remembered to do so, and before we left London an iron rail was put up.