There has been a little controversy about what I should call her. There have been one or two occasions when I have forgotten and the name Miss Gilmour has slipped out. That did not please her... nor my father.

It is amazing how one can manage for a long time without calling people anything—and that was what I did. One day, just as we were leaving the dining room, she put her arm round me and said in that cosy little voice which she uses now and then: "Wouldn't it be nice if you could call me Mother... or Mama... or something like that?"

"Oh ... I couldn't," I blurted out.

"Why not?" Her voice was sharp and I could see that my father looked pained.

"Well," I stammered. "I remember my mother so well. There couldn't be anyone..."

My father looked impatient but she said, soothing now, "Of course ... of course ..." She sighed a little and then smiled sweetly. "Perhaps, Stepmamma. Could you manage that?"

"Yes, I suppose so," I said.

So I am to call her Stepmamma.

But I know that for quite a lot of the time I shall succeed in calling her nothing at all.


June 1st

Mr. Featherstone is still here. He waylays me just the same as ever, and I still avoid him when I can. I have decided not to be polite any more, and there are certain verbal battles between us which I find easier to handle than all that forced politeness.

When he said: "You were hoping to dodge me, weren't you?" I replied: "Yes, I was."

"Why?" he demanded.

"Because I want to be alone."

"A clash of wills! I want to be with you."

"I can't think why."

"I find you beautiful and stimulating. How do you find me?"

"Neither beautiful nor stimulating."

"I asked for that, did I not?"

"Indeed you did."

"What a forthright young lady you are!"

"I hope so."

"Very truthful."

"I try to be."

"Unkind."

"No, I don't agree."

"You cut me to the quick."

"You should not lay yourself open to cutting."

"What can a lovelorn fellow do?"

"Take himself off to more fruitful ground."

"But where would I find such beauty and wit?"

"Almost anywhere on Earth," I retorted.

"You are wrong. It is here ... only here ... and this is where my heart is."

I could laugh at him now. I was losing my fear of him. Everything seemed a little better since the return of my father and his wife. The pursuit of me was not quite so intense. I could ride out some days and never see him.

I wondered sometimes about the future. I was now seventeen. My stepmother said we should entertain more. "Don't forget," she told my father, "you have a marriageable daughter."

"I was lax in my duties until you came to look after me, my dear," he said.

"We have to think of Ann Alice," she insisted. "I'll invite people."

Desmond Featherstone came to the house to dine this evening. I was dreading it. I always hate to think of his being in the house. It is an odd creepy feeling, which is quite unaccountable, for what harm could he do? I wondered if I could plead a headache and not appear for dinner. I supposed that would be too obvious. Moreover it would not be so bad with others present.

I was right. It was not. I was aware when he looked at me across the table that it was different. He was now indulgent ... as he would be to a very young person. He carefully addressed me as Miss Ann Alice, and he made it sound as though he thought I was just out of the schoolroom. I could hardly believe that this was the same man who

had been trying to convince me that I was the young woman with whom he was in love. I could easily have convinced myself that he had been playing a game all the time.

I had the feeling that it was something to do with my stepmother and a strange quirk of fate enabled me to confirm this.

After the meal when they went into the drawing room, I said I would go up to bed. I often did this because they would drink port wine and usually stay up until very late, and although I dined with them as an adult, this part of the evening was considered to be a little unsuitable for my years.

I was very glad to escape so I came up to my room to write in my journal and to think about the strange behaviour of Desmond Featherstone and how different he seemed at some times when compared with others.

As I sat writing I heard sounds from below—the clopping of a horse's hoofs coming from the stables.

I went to my window and looked out. It was Desmond Featherstone coming from the stables on his way to his lodging. I dodged back quickly. I did not want him to see me.

Then I heard a voice and I recognized my stepmother's.

She spoke sharply and her voice was quite distinct.

"It has to stop," she said. "I won't have it."

Then his: "It is nothing ... Only a game."

"I won't have it. You shall go straight back."

"I tell you it's a game. She is only a child."

"Sharper than you'd think. In any case, it is going to stop."

"Jealous?"

"You had better not forget ..."

Their voices faded. I turned swiftly to the window. He was riding away and my stepmother was looking after him. He turned to wave and she waved back.

What did it mean? I knew they had been talking about me. So she was aware of his attempts at flirtation and she did not approve of them. She was warning him that it had to stop.

She had sounded angry.

I was glad.

But I think it is very strange that she should know and be so vehement.

When I have finished writing I shall put my journal away very carefully in future. I am glad I started it. It is so interesting to look back and remember.


June 5th

I have taken out my journal today because something astonishing has happened. Desmond Featherstone has gone away. It is so strange. He did not say goodbye. He just went.

I had seen him only once since that night when I overheard the conversation between him and my stepmother and then he seemed somewhat subdued. I think he really must have taken heed of her warning.

I have been thinking lately that perhaps I have misjudged her. I have disliked her without reason. One should always have a reason for liking or disliking people. Now I come to look back, I ask myself did I dislike Lois Gilmour simply because she was not Miss Bray to whom I had grown accustomed? People do unreasoning, illogical things like that.

She has been very pleasant to me always. She has gone out of her way to be kind and she really does seem concerned about getting eligible young men to the house as possible husbands for me. My father is delighted with his marriage so I suppose he has good reasons for being so.

A few days ago he was not very well. I did not hear about it until the afternoon because I do not normally see a great deal of him. He does not always come to breakfast, but then we take it at odd times and always help ourselves from the chafing dishes on the sideboard, so that if anyone is absent it can easily pass unnoticed.

But at lunch time my stepmother told me that he was spending the day in bed. She had insisted that he stay there because he was a little unwell. It was nothing to worry about she said. We must remember that he was not as young as he sometimes believed himself to be and she had insisted on his staying in bed.

She nurses him most assiduously. When I went to see him in the afternoon he was sitting up in bed looking, I thought, rather pleased with himself because my stepmother was fussing over him, wondering whether he was in a draught from an open window and whether he should have his dressing gown round his shoulders.

"You spoil me, my dear," he said.

"Get along with you. You're unspoilable."

"But you do fuss, you know, Lois."

"I worry about you, of course."

I watched them. He seemed so happy—and so did she.

Yes, perhaps I have misjudged her.

I will try to like her. I have promised myself to do so. It has been rather silly to dislike her just because I was so upset at losing Miss Bray and then again because she has taken the place of my mother.

I must be sensible. And really she has made my father very happy and everyone says what a wonderful solution it is for him.


September 2nd

I feel so ashamed because I have neglected my journal for so long. I really forgot about it. Then a little while ago I was searching for a pair of grey gloves to go with my new gown. I knew I had a pair and could not find them. And there they were caught in the back of the drawer and when I was trying to get them out I found my journal. I felt so ashamed—after all my resolutions to write in it more or less regularly. But I think this is a fairly common way people have with journals. They have—as I had—such good resolutions—and then they forget.

This is a good time to start again. I have read through what I wrote before. How it brings it all back! And how young I seemed when I wrote some of it.

I have come to live fairly peacefully under my stepmother's rule. I have tried very hard to like her but I can't really although I often think it is unfair of me not to. She is so good and kind to my father. She has looked after him so well when he has his turns. He has had about three in all and she insists on nursing him and he says she makes much more of them than they really are.

I have heard the servants talking about men who marry women so much younger than themselves. They whisper together mysteriously. "It's too much for them. They can't keep it up."

My stepmother insisted on his seeing the doctor. Dr. Brownless could find nothing really wrong. He merely said he must take life more slowly. My father is following his advice and does not go every day into Great Stanton as he used to. My stepmother is not very interested in the Shop, as we call it. I believe it is a very profitable business and highly respected throughout the country. Quite a number of people in the business of cartography come to Great Stanton to see my father and his manager. They are often entertained at the house and as far as that is concerned my stepmother is proving an excellent hostess.

I heard my father say to her: "It was the luckiest day of my life when you came to teach Ann Alice."

And she replied fervently: "And of mine."

So it is a very contented household and I am sure my father is quite happy to stay at home more so that he can be with my stepmother; and in any case there is an efficient manager at the Shop to deal with everything there.

We went to Bath during the season. My stepmother thought the baths might be good for my father; and he said that to humour her, he would try them.

My stepmother hinted that among the company there might be a suitable husband for me. It seemed hardly likely that I should find

anyone among the gouty old gentlemen—mostly accompanied by their gossipy wives; and those exquisite young gentlemen, the beaux of Bath, could hardly be expected to notice me. More than once I had heard them declare in loud voices that they found the place devilish dull and that they felt inclined to desert the place and join H.R.H. without further delay. There were the fortune hunters, quizzing young women through their monocles, and doubtless comparing their charms with their alleged fortunes; there were simpering young girls and not-so-young ladies presumably looking for husbands.

I felt rather homesick for the fields and meadows and a life of freedom. I suffered emersion, which everyone seemed obliged to endure, and felt very ridiculous in my jacket and petticoat and most unattractive bonnet.

How long the days seemed! Drinking the water, taking the baths, going to the Abbey for the religious services, to concerts and the occasional ball at the Assembly Rooms.

My stepmother fitted perfectly into the life. Most people thought her charming. I noticed that quite a number of beaux ogled her, but although she was obviously aware of this and I thought I detected a secret satisfaction, she never strayed from my father's side.

She appeared to be interested in putting me forward, but I sometimes wondered whether she really was. That was how I constandy felt about her. I was never quite sure.

I did ride a little but always in the company of my father and stepmother and as she was not very keen on the exercise we did not do it often. But I could walk in the meadows and I did so every morning. There were people there so I was able to go alone and it was there that I encountered Desmond Featherstone. I was completely taken by surprise, not having seen him for so long.