Now she was gone, Francine took over completely. She talked to the visitors and made them feel they were getting bargains. I don't know how we should have got through that year without her. When our mother was laid to rest in the little cemetery close by the olive groves we should have been a desolate household but for Francine. She became in a sense the head of the household, although she was only fifteen years old. She shopped; she cooked; she kept us going. She refused to take any more lessons with the Butterfly, as she called Antonio, but she insisted that I should. Our father lived with his stone but his figures had lost a certain magic which they had had before. He didn't want Francine to pose for him. That brought back too many memories.

The gloomy months began to pass and I felt a change in myself. I was at that time ten years old but I ceased to be a child.

Our father talked to us during that time. It was in the evenings when we would sit on the green slope which ran down to the sea, and as the darkness fell we would watch the sheen of phosphorescence which came from the shoals of fish and were like will of the wisps on the water ... eerie and yet comforting in a way.

He talked about his life before he came to the island. Francine had been curious about it for a long time and had gleaned a little information which she had extracted from him or our mother during their unwary moments. We often wondered why they were so reluctant to talk about the past. We were soon to discover. I suppose everyone who had lived in Greystone Manor would want to escape from it and even forget he or she had ever been there. For it was like a prison. That was how our father described it, and later I was to understand.

"It's a fine old house," said my father, "a mansion really. Ewells have lived in it for four hundred years. The first Ewell built it before the reign of Elizabeth. Think of that."

"It must be strong to stand up to all that time," I began, but Francine silenced me with a look, and I knew she meant that we must not remind our father that he was thinking aloud.

"They knew how to build in those days. Their houses might have been uncomfortable, but they could stand up not only to the weather but to attackers."

"Attackers," I cried excitedly, only to be silenced again by Francine.

That was when he said, "It was like a prison. To me it was a prison."

There was a deep silence. Our father was looking back right over the years to when he was a boy, before he had met my mother, before Francine was born. It was hard to imagine a world without Francine.

Our father was frowning. "You children have no idea," he said. "You have been surrounded by love. We have been poor, yes. It has not always been a comfortable life—but love there has been in abundance."

I ran to him and threw myself at him. He held me very tightly in his arms. "Little Pippa," he said, "you have been happy, yes? You must always remember Pippa's song. We named you for that, Pippa.

'God's in his heaven-

All's right with the world.'"

"Yes," I cried. "Yes, yes."

Francine said, "Go and sit down, Pippa. You're interrupting Father. He wants to tell us something."

Our father was silent for a while and then he said, "Your grandfather is a good man. Make no mistake about that. But sometimes good men are uncomfortable to live with—for sinners that is."

Silence again, this time broken by Francine who whispered, "Tell us about our grandfather. Tell us about Greystone Manor."

"He was always proud of the family. We had served our country well. We had been soldiers, politicians, squires, but never artists. Well, there was one ... long ago. He was killed in a tavern near Whitehall. His name was never mentioned except with disgust. 'Poetry writing is no life for a man,' said your grandfather. You can imagine what he said when he knew I wanted to be a sculptor."

"Tell us," whispered Francine.

Our father shook his head. "It seemed just impossible. My future was planned for me. I was to follow in his footsteps. I was not to be a soldier, nor a politician. I was the only son of the squire, so I should follow in my father's footsteps. I should learn how to manage the estate and spend the rest of my life trying to be exactly like my father."

"And you couldn't do that," said Francine.

"No—I hated it. I hated everything about Greystone. I hated the house and my father's rule, his attitude towards us all—my mother, my sister Grace and myself. He regarded himself as our master. He wanted obedience in all things. He was a tyrant. And—I met your mother."

"Tell us about that time," said Francine.

"She came to the house to make dresses for your Aunt Grace. She was so gentle, so fragile, so beautiful. It was meeting her that decided me."

"So you ran away from Greystone Manor," said Francine.

"Yes. I broke out of prison. We ran away to freedom— your mother from a life of drudgery with the dressmaking house for which she worked ... I from Greystone Manor. We neither of us ever regretted it for a moment."

"Romantic ... beautiful," murmured Francine.

"There were hard times at first. In London ... in Paris ... trying to make a living. Then we met a man in a cafe. He had the studio on this island and he offered it to us. So we came. Francine was born here ... and so were you, Pippa."

"Didn't he come back to claim the studio?" asked Francine.

"He came back. He stayed with us for a while. You were too young to remember that. Then he went to Paris, where he became quite wealthy. He died some years ago and left me the studio. We have managed to make a living—a poor one, but we have been free."

"We have been very happy, Father," said Francine firmly. "No girls could have been happier."

Then we all embraced one another—we were a demonstrative family—and Francine suddenly became very practical and said it was time we all went to bed.

It was only a few weeks after that conversation that our father was drowned. He had taken the boat out to the blue lagoon as we so often did when a sudden storm blew up and the boat capsized. I wondered afterwards how great an attempt he had made to save himself. Since our mother's death, life had certainly lost its savour for him. He had his two girls, but I think he thought Francine was more capable of looking after herself and me than he was. Besides, he would have guessed the turn events would take, and perhaps he thought it was the best thing for us.

I felt fatalistic, almost as though I knew what was going to happen. I had already come to the conclusion that nothing could be the same after my mother's death. We had tried to regain our old cheerfulness and Francine had managed very well, but even she could not entirely pretend.

We faced each other in the studio on the day he was laid beside my mother near the olive groves. "It was where he wanted to be since she was put there," said Francine.

"What are we going to do?" I said.

She was jaunty almost. "We have each other. There are two of us."

"You'd always be all right and see that I was," I replied.

"That is so," she answered.

Our friends on the island smothered us with kindness. We were fed, caressed and made to feel that we were well loved.

"It's nice for a beginning," commented Francine, "but it won't go on. We have to think."

I was nearly eleven then, Francine sixteen. "Of course," she said, "I could marry Antonio."

"You couldn't. You wouldn't."

"I am fond of the Butterfly, but you are right. I couldn't and I wouldn't."

I looked at her questioningly. She was rarely short of ideas but on this occasion she was. There were dreams in her eyes. "We might go away," she suggested.

"Where to?"

"Somewhere." Then she told me that she had always known that one day she would go away. She could not bear to be shut in, and that was what we were on the island. "It was different when our parents were alive," she said. "It was our home then. It isn't any more, really. Besides, what should we do here?"

Our problem was solved by a letter for Francine.

"Miss Ewell," said the address on the envelope.

"I am that," Francine explained. "You are Miss Philippa Ewell."

As she opened it I saw the excitement in her eyes. "It's from a solicitor," she said. "He's acting for Sir Matthew Ewell. That's our grandfather. In view of the unfortunate circumstances, Sir Matthew wishes us to return at once to England. Our rightful home is Greystone Manor." . I stared at her aghast, but her eyes were shining.

"Oh, Pippa," she said. "We are going to the prison."

There was the excitement of preparing for departure, which was a good thing in a way because it stopped our brooding on our loss, and how great that was we had not yet begun to realize. There was the packing up and the disposal of the studio and its contents which Antonio sadly took over from us.

"But it is best for you," he said. "You will live like great ladies. We always knew that Signor Ewell was a grand gentleman."

One of the men from the solicitor's office came to take us to our new home. He wore a black frock coat and a shiny top hat; he looked quite out of place on the island, where he was regarded with great respect. He was a little shy of us at first, but Francine soon put him at his ease. She had become very dignified since our father's death, very much Miss Ewell who was of higher rank than Miss Philippa Ewell. His name was Mr. Counsell and it was clear that he thought the conducting of two girls to England was a very strange task for a man in his position.

We said a sad farewell to our friends and promised to return. I was on the point of inviting them all to England, but Francine gave me one of her warning looks. "Imagine them in the prison," she said. "They would never come," I told her. "They might," she answered.

It was a long journey. We had made the trip to the mainland on several occasions, but it was the first time I had been in a train. I found it absorbingly interesting and I was a little ashamed of myself because I was enjoying it. I was sure Francine was too. People looked at Francine as I realized they always would. Even Mr. Counsell was a little fascinated by her charm and treated her as a beautiful young woman rather than a child. She was, I suppose, in between the two. In some ways she was a very innocent sixteen, in other ways quite mature. She had managed our household, dealt with the customers and taken on the role of guardian of us all. On the other hand, life on the island had been lived simply and I think that at first Francine was inclined to judge everyone by the people she had known all her life so far.

We crossed the English Channel, and to Mr. Counsell's dismay we missed the train which was to take us to Preston Carstairs, the station for Greystone Manor, and were told we had several hours to wait for the next. He took us to an inn near the docks, where we had a meal of roast beef and potatoes in jackets, which seemed exotic and delicious, and while we were eating the innkeeper's wife came to talk to us. When she heard that we had to wait so long she said, "Why don't you see a bit of the countryside while you're waiting? You could take the trap out a little way. Our Jim's got an hour or so to spare."

Mr. Counsell seemed to think it was a good idea, and that was how we came to see Birley Church. Francine had cried out in delight as we were about to pass it by. There was something very interesting about that church. It was Norman, grey stone and, said Francine, exciting when you thought of all the years it had stood there. Mr. Counsell said he did not see why we should not visit the church, so we did. He himself was quite an authority on architecture and he enjoyed passing on information of which he was clearly proud. While he pointed out the interesting features, Francine and I stood in wonder. We didn't care that the pillars and semicircular arches held up the high walls of the clerestory; we were interested in the queer smell of damp and furniture polish and the stained glass windows with the beautiful colours that threw blue and red shadows everywhere; we studied the list of vicars who had held office since the twelfth century.

"When I marry I should like to be married in this church," said Francine.

We sat in the pews. We knelt on the prayer mats. We stood in awe before the altar.

"It's beautiful," said Francine.

Mr. Counsell reminded us of passing time and we went back to the inn and from there to the station, where the train took us to Preston Carstairs.