"How do I like him?" cried Francine. "I don't like him in any way. The answer is, Not at all."

Our grandmother was silent.

"Why are you disturbed?" I asked.

Our grandmother reached out for Francine's hand. "I think I should warn you," she said. "Your grandfather has plans. Arthur is a sort of second cousin to you it is true, but second cousins marry."

"Marry!" cried Francine. "Cousin Arthur!"

"You see, my dear, it would make a neat solution and your grandfather loves neat solutions. You are his granddaughter and your children would be in direct line, but he does not want the name of Ewell to die out. So if you married Arthur, your children would be Ewells and a direct descendant would carry on the family. It won't come for about a year or so, but Francine, my dear, I did not want it to be a shock when it did come."

We were silent with horror. I knew Francine wanted to get away to discuss this fearful possibility.

We had talked it over and over. We had discussed what we should do if it were ever suggested. We should have to get away, said Francine. Where to? We would lie in bed talking about it. Perhaps we could go back to the island. To do what? How could we live? We should have to go and work somewhere. Could she be a governess? Francine wondered. And what of me? What should I do? "You would have to stay here until you were old enough to get away."

But then we should be separated and that must never be.

For a few days the shadow hung over us while Francine's distaste for Cousin Arthur grew. During religious instruction she was curt with him. I was surprised how meekly he took it. Then it occurred to me that she might be having the same effect on him as she had had on many others. In his mild and very proper way he was rather attracted by her. But perhaps this was due to the fact that he knew our grandfather intended them to marry.

It was not like Francine to be depressed for long and after those first few days of gloom she began to recover her spirits. It wouldn't be for a long time. She was only sixteen. It was true our grandmother had been sixteen when she had married, but there was time to start worrying when it was suggested to her. In the meantime she would indicate to Cousin Arthur that her feelings towards him were very cold indeed, and perhaps his pride would stop him pursuing the matter. Moreover the older she grew the easier it would be to find a solution. So the matter was shelved.

After what we had heard of Aunt Grace's romance our curiosity led us to the yard close to the vicarage and there we made the acquaintance of Charles Daventry. We liked him at once because he reminded us of our father, and because of who we were he was interested in us.

He made tea on an old spirit lamp in his workshop and we sat on stools drinking it and telling him about the island and how we had lived there. He showed us some of his models. I fancied most of the women had a look of Aunt Grace.

He was a sad, quiet man, Francine said of him afterwards. "He makes me impatient. They deserve their fate because they just let life flow over them ... tossing them wherever it wants to. They make no effort. That's no way to live. We'll never be like that, Pippa. Our father wasn't, was he? We won't let that old patriarch rule our lives."

Summer had come. The countryside was beautiful—in a different way from that of the island. I realized that there had been a sameness about the blue sea which only changed when the rain came and the mistral blew. Here everything seemed different almost every day and it was wonderful to see the burgeoning of the trees—the forming of the buds and the bursting into flower, the blossoming of the fruit trees, wild roses and strawberries in the hedgerows and mayflies dancing over the water on the ponds, to listen to the cries of birds and try to recognize them, to see the bluebells under the trees and later the foxgloves, the honeysuckle filling the air with its sweet perfume—and the long twilight hour which made one feel that the daylight was reluctant to depart. I had a feeling that I had come home, which was strange when I had been born on the island and had lived most of my life there.

I liked to be alone and lie in the long grass listening to the sound of the grasshoppers and the buzzing of the bees who were marauding the purple buddleia or the sweet-smelling lavender. I thought then: This is peace. And I wanted to hold time still and stay like this for a long while. This was probably because I sensed a menace in the air. We were getting older. Soon our grandfather would be making his wishes known to Francine and she would never obey. What then? Should we be turned away?

I remembered how our father had talked to me when we had sat outside the studio and he had looked over the sea with a kind of nostalgia which all exiles must feel at some time. He quoted to me what he called my song. "Pippa's Song," he would say, "written by a great poet who knew what it was like to long for home."

The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hillside's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven-All's right with the world.

I felt it, lying there in the grass. "All's right with the world." And just for that moment I could forget the gathering clouds.

"The clouds pass," my father used to say. "Sometimes you get a drenching. But then the sun shines and afterwards all's right with the world."

Later that day Francine and I took our walk and it led us past Granter's Grange. We hardly ever passed it without taking a look through the windows at the shrouded furniture and Francine wailed as she invariably did, "Oh, Grand Duke, when are you coming to enliven the scene?" I always pointed out that it would make no difference to us whether they came or stayed away, to which she said that it would be nice to have a glimpse of grandeur.

We went to see Charles Daventry. We liked to watch him work. He was glad to see us and liked to tell us stories of the life he and our father had led at Oxford, and how they had had grand plans for sharing a studio in London or Paris and having a sort of salon where artists and the literati assembled.

"You see what tricks life plays," said Charles. "Your father ends up in an island studio and I am here ... a sort of stonemason. What else?"

"It's what you want," Francine pointed out. "If you take what you want, you must take the consequences with it."

"Ah, we have a philosopher here," said Charles.

"As I see it, you have to be bold in life," Francine went on. In her heart she continued to be impatient with him because he was living here alone and Aunt Grace was at Greystone Manor, and neither of them had the courage to defy our grandfather.

Francine leaped up suddenly and said we must go, and as she did so she tripped over a block of stone. She picked herself up and tried to stand, but found she could not do so. She would have fallen if I had not caught her.

"I can't put my foot to the ground," she said.

"It's a sprain, most like," said Charles, kneeling and feeling her ankle.

"I'll have to get back. How?"

"There's only one way."

Charles lifted her up and carried her. When we arrived at the house there was tremendous excitement. Daisy came dashing out, her mouth a round "O" of astonishment when she saw Francine was being carried and when she realized by whom, her excitement increased. She went to get Aunt Grace, who turned red and then white. I learned afterwards that Charles had been forbidden to enter the house and Grace to have any communication with him. My grandfather would have liked to banish Charles from the neighbourhood, but the vicar stood out against him and was not going to turn his nephew away to please him, and they were on bad terms because of this.

Aunt Grace murmured, "Charles!"

"Your niece has had an accident," he said.

I was sure Francine was enjoying the drama even though she was in some pain. Charles said he would carry her to her bed and then go off and ask the doctor to call.

White-faced Aunt Grace, delighted and yet fearfully apprehensive, stammered, "Oh yes ... yes please, Charles ... and thank you. I am sure Francine is very grateful."

Charles laid her on the bed and Grace was in a fever of impatience to get him out of the house while at the same time she longed to keep him there.

The doctor came. It was a bad sprain and she would have to keep to her bed for a few days, possibly a week, and we were to apply hot and cold poultices. I had instituted myself as my sister's nurse and Aunt Grace sent Daisy up to help.

The pain subsided considerably within the next few hours; Francine only felt it when she put her weight on her ankle and, as the doctor's orders were that she was not to do this, she hopped everywhere with my help or that of Daisy. She was soon feeling comfortable and congratulating herself for once again escaping those interminable meals, prayers and the company of the odious Arthur.

There followed the most pleasant week we had known since coming to Greystone Manor. We were in our little oasis, as Francine called it, and Daisy was constantly with us. She entertained us with local gossip and showed us how to tighten our dresses so that we showed our figures to advantage.

"Not that you've got one yet, Miss Pip," she said. She called me Miss Pip, which amused Francine and me. "But you will," she added. "As for you, Miss France—" (she had a habit of shortening names) "—well, you've got a figure in a thousand, you have. Curves in the right places, shaped like an hourglass, and no spare flesh to speak of. It's a sin to put you in that blue serge. I once saw some of the grand ladies up at Granter's. Their dresses was all sparkling. It was a ball or something and they was all out of doors... . You could hear the music. I was rather friendly with one of the footmen there. Hans ... or something like that. Funny name for a man, but he was Hans all right. Hands everywhere they shouldn't have been if you ask me—but I shouldn't be talking like this in front of Miss Pip."

"My sister is well aware of your meaning," said Francine, and we were all laughing together.

"Well," went on Daisy, "this Hans got very friendly with me. He used to take me into the kitchens and show me round. Used to give me things to take home. It was before I got a place up at Greystone. We was hoping I'd get a place at Granter's and I would have done if they'd stayed. Let me comb your hair for you, Miss France. I've always wanted to get my hands on that hair. It's what I call real pretty hair."

Francine laughed good-humouredly and let Daisy dress her hair for her. It was amazing what she did with it.

"I've got a real gift. One of these days I'll be a lady's maid, you see. Perhaps when you get married, eh, Miss France?"

The talk of Francine's marrying set a gloom over us.

"Oh, it's that Mr. Arthur, is it?" said Daisy. "He looks a cold fish, but you never know with men. Not your sort at all ... no more than he would be mine. Not that he'd look at me—well, not with a view to marrying. Some of them has notions though ... a quick bit of fun and no more said and the next day looking at you as though he can't remember who you are. I know that sort. But Mr. Arthur is not one of them."

Aunt Grace came up to see us. She had changed and Charles Daventry's coming to the house had had its effect on her. There was an alert look in her eyes. Was it a hopeful look?

Francine said she was proud to have been the means of bringing them to each other's notice again.

"Now," she said, "we will watch for results."

How we revelled in those days of freedom I To be in this ancient house was exciting, as it was to feel its mystery and lure, to laugh, to forget the menace of the future. What pleasure that was! And we lived in the present—Francine and myself—and I fancy Daisy did all the time.

Aunt Grace was the first one to break the spell. She paid daily visits at precisely the same time every afternoon and brought messages from Cousin Arthur. Daisy said he would consider it improper to enter a girl's bedroom unless he were married to her. That sobered us a little. Talk of marriage in the same context as Cousin Arthur always did.

There was a softness about Aunt Grace. I wondered whether she had visited Charles Daventry and came to the conclusion that she had. She looked at Francine with great sympathy in her doe's eyes. "Your grandfather is pleased to hear that you are progressing well. He always asks how you are."