When we arrived there a carriage was waiting for us. It had an elaborate crest on it. Francine nudged me. "The Ewell crest," she murmured. "Ours."

Relief now sat on Mr. Counsell's homely features. He had delivered his charges safely.

Francine was looking excited, but, just as in my case, the apprehension was beginning to take hold. It was all very well to joke about the prison when it was miles away. It was a different matter when you were within an hour of being incarcerated.

A stern-faced coachman was waiting for us.

"Mr. Counsell, sir," he said, "is these the young ladies?"

"Yes," answered Mr. Counsell.

"The carriage is here, sir."

He was studying us and as was to be expected his eyes rested on Francine. She was wearing a simple grey cloak, which had been our mother's, and on her head was a straw hat with a marguerite in the centre and ribbons under the chin. It was simple attire but Francine could never look anything but enchanting. His eyes scanned me and then he was back to Francine.

"Better get in, young ladies," he said.

The horses' hoofs rang out on the road as we skimmed along past green hedges, through leafy lanes until we came to a wrought-iron gateway. The gates were opened immediately by a boy who touched his forelock to the carriage and then we were bowling up a drive. The carriage stopped before a lawn and we alighted.

We stood together, my sister and I, hand in hand, and I knew that even Francine was overawed. There it stood, the house which our father had spoken of so vehemently as the prison. It was huge and grey stone as its name implied and there were embattled turrets at either end. I noticed the battlements and the lofty archway through which I could see a courtyard. It was very grand, awe-inspiring, and it filled me with apprehension.

Francine pressed my hand firmly, holding it very tightly as though she took courage from the contact, and together we walked across the grass towards a great door which had swung open. A woman in a starched cap was standing there. The coach had gone forward under the archway into the courtyard and the woman stood in the doorway watching us.

"The master is ready to see you as soon as you arrive, Mr. Counsell," she said.

"Come along." Mr. Counsell smiled reassuringly at us and we went forward towards the door.

I shall never forget stepping inside that house. I was quivering with excitement, which was really a mingling of apprehension and curiosity. The ancestral home! I thought. And then: The Prison.

Those thick stone walls, the coolness as we stepped inside, the awesomeness of the great hall with its vaulted roof, the stone floor and walls on which glittered weapons presumably used by long-dead Ewells—they thrilled me and yet made me fearful in some way. Our footsteps sounded noisy so I tried to walk quietly. I saw that Francine had lifted her head and was putting on that bold look which meant that she was a little more apprehensive than she would like people to know.

"The master said you were to go straight to him," the woman repeated. She was rather plump with greying hair very tightly drawn back from her forehead and all but concealed by her white cap. Her eyes were small, her lips tightly shut, like a trap. She seemed to suit the house.

"If you'll step this way, sir," she said to Mr. Counsell.

She turned and we followed her to the grand staircase, which we ascended. Francine was still holding my hand. We went along a gallery and paused before a door. The woman knocked and a voice said, "Enter."

We did so. The scene remained imprinted on my mind forever. I was vaguely aware of a darkish room with heavy draperies and large, dark pieces of furniture, but it was my grandfather who dominated the room. He was seated there in a chair like a throne and he himself looked like a biblical prophet. He was clearly a very big man; his arms were folded across his chest and what struck me immediately was his long, luxuriant beard, which rippled over his chest and concealed the lower part of his face. Beside him sat a woman, middle-aged and colourless. I guessed she was our Aunt Grace. She looked small, ineffectual and modest, but perhaps that was in comparison with the imposing central figure.

"So you have brought my granddaughters, Mr. Counsell," said my grandfather. "Come here."

This last was addressed to us and Francine advanced, taking me with her.

"H'm," said my grandfather, his eyes surveying us intently, giving me the impression that he was trying to find fault with us. What astonished me was that he seemed unimpressed by Francine's charm.

I had thought he might have kissed us or at least taken our hands. Instead he just looked at us as though there was something rather distasteful about us.

"I am your grandfather," he said, "and this is now your home. I hope you will be worthy of it. I doubt not that you will have much to learn. You are now in a civilized community. It will be well for you to remember that."

"We have always been in a civilized community," said Francine.

There was silence. I saw the woman seated beside my grandfather flinch.

"I would disagree with that," he said.

"Then you would be wrong," went on Francine. She was very nervous, I could see, but she sensed in his remarks a slur on our father and she was not going to tolerate that. She had immediately transgressed against the first rule of the house, which was that our grandfather was never wrong, and he was so startled that for a moment he was lost for words.

Then he spoke coldly: "Indeed you have much to learn. I had expected we might have to deal with uncouth manners. Well, we are prepared. Now the first thing to do is to give thanks to our Maker for your safe journey and we will express the hope that those of us in need of humility and gratitude will be granted these virtues, and will follow that course of righteousness which is the only one acceptable in this house."

We were bewildered. Francine was still smarting with her indignation and I was growing more depressed and afraid every moment.

And there we were, tired, hungry, bewildered and desperately apprehensive, kneeling on the cold floor in that dark room, giving thanks to God for bringing us to this prison and praying for the humility and gratitude which our grandfather expected us to feel to him for the miserable home he was giving us.

It was Aunt Grace who took us to our room. Poor Aunt Grace! When we referred to her it was always poor Aunt Grace. She looked drained of life; she was extremely thin and the brown cotton of her dress accentuated the sallowness of her complexion. Her hair, which might have been beautiful, was drawn straight back from her brow and plaited into a rather unwieldy knob in the nape of her neck; her eyes were pleasant, nothing could alter that. They were brown with abundant dark lashes—rather like Francine's except for the colour—only where my sister's sparkled, hers were dull and hopeless. Hopeless! That was the term one immediately applied to Aunt Grace.

We followed her up another staircase and she walked ahead, not speaking. Francine grimaced at me. It was rather a nervous grimace. I guessed that Francine was realizing she would not find it easy to charm such a household.

Aunt Grace opened a door and stepped into a room, standing aside so that we could enter. We did so. It was quite a pleasant room, but the dark curtains which half obscured the windows made it gloomy.

"You are to be together," said Aunt Grace. "Your grandfather thought there was no point in using two rooms."

I felt a sudden surge of pleasure. I should not have relished sleeping alone in that eerie mansion. I remembered Francine's once saying that nothing is all bad—or all good, for that matter; there had to be a little bit of the other, however slight. It was a comforting thought just now.

There were two beds in the room.

"You may choose how you will use them," said Aunt Grace as though, Francine afterwards remarked, she were offering us the kingdoms of the world.

She said, "Thank you, Aunt Grace."

"Now you will want to wash and perhaps change after the journey. We dine in an hour's time. Your grandfather will not tolerate unpunctuality."

"I am sure he will not," said Francine, and there was a note of hysteria in her voice. "It's so dark in here," she went on. "I can't see anything." She went to the windows and pulled back the curtains. "There! That's better. Oh, what a lovely view."

I went to the window and Aunt Grace came and stood immediately behind us.

"That is Rantown Forest down there," she said.

"It looks interesting. Forests always do. How far are we from the sea, Aunt Grace?"

"About ten miles."

Francine had turned to her. "I love the sea. We lived surrounded by it, you see. It makes you love it."

"Yes," said Aunt Grace, "I suppose it must. Now I will have hot water sent up to you."

"Aunt Grace," went on Francine, "you are our father's sister, yet you don't mention him. Don't you want to hear about your brother?"

I saw her face clearly in the light Francine had let in. It twitched and she looked as though she were going to cry. "Your grandfather has forbidden us to mention him," she said.

"Your own brother ..."

"He behaved—unforgivably. Your grandfather ..."

"He makes the laws here, I see," said Francine.

"I—I don't understand you." Aunt Grace was trying to look severe. "You are young," she went on, "and you have much to learn, and I will give you a piece of advice. Never, never again speak to your grandfather as you did today. You must never say he is wrong. He is—"

"Always right," added Francine. "Omnipotent, omniscient —like God, of course."

Aunt Grace suddenly put out a hand and touched Francine's arm. "You will have to be careful," she said almost pleadingly.

"Aunt Grace," I put in—for I thought I had glimpsed something which in her indignation Francine might have missed—and it was in that moment that my aunt became poor Aunt Grace for me, "are you glad that we have come?"

Her face twitched again, and there was a clouded look in her eyes. She nodded, and said, "I will send the hot water."

Then she was gone.

Francine and I stood looking at each other.

"I hate him," she said. "And our aunt ... what is she? A puppet."

Oddly enough, I was the one who could comfort Francine. Perhaps because she was older than I she could see more clearly what our lives would be like here. Perhaps I was clutching at straws for comfort.

"At least we are together," I reminded her.

She nodded and looked round the room.

"It's better now you've let in the light," I added.

"We'll make a vow. We'll never draw those hideous curtains again. I expect he ordered them to be put there to shut out the sun. He would hate the sun, wouldn't he? But, Pippa, they are all so dead. That woman who let us in ... the coachman ... It's like dying. Perhaps we are dead. Perhaps we had an accident on that train and this is Hades. We are waiting while it is decided whether we shall go to heaven or hell."

I laughed. It was good to laugh and soon she was laughing with me.

"Puppets," I said. "They are like puppets, but puppets can be jerked, you know."

"But look who is the puppet master!"

"We're not his puppets, Francine."

"Never!" she cried. "Never!"

"I think Aunt Grace is rather nice really. Poor Aunt Grace."

"Aunt Grace! She is nothing. 'Never again speak to your grandfather as you did today ...'" she mimicked. "I will if I want to!"

"He might turn us away. Where should we go if he did?"

It was a sobering thought and she was at a loss for words.

I put my hand in hers and said, "We have to wait, Francine. We have to wait... and plan."

Plans always excited Francine.

She said slowly, "You're right, Pippa. Yes, you are right. We have to bide our time ... and plan."

We lay in our beds without speaking for a long time. I was reliving that strange evening and I knew that Francine was doing the same.

We had washed and changed into the dresses of coloured cotton which we had always worn on the island. That they would seem incongruous here did not strike us until we joined our grandfather and aunt. Poor Aunt Grace's look of horror warned me. I saw our grandfather's cold eyes on us and I prayed that he would not provoke Francine beyond endurance. I had a vision of our being turned out, and although I was by no means enamoured of Greystone Manor and my relations, I realized that there could be worse fates than that which awaited us here.