"Aunt Patty! What do you mean?"

"I should have warned you. Led up to it. Things have not been too flourishing for the last three years."

"Oh, Aunt Patty."

"Dear child, don't look so tragic. I am sure it is going to be all for the best. I'm sorry I have to confront you with a fait accompli. But there was no help for it, was there, Vi? We talked it over and over and this offer came along. The house needs a fortune spent on it. Times haven't been so good for some years. I've had some bad debts."

I guessed that. I knew of at least three pupils whose parents hardly ever paid the fees. "Bright girls all of them," Aunt Patty used to say. "A credit to the school." Times were hard. No watered-down soup for Grantley. I had often wondered how she managed at the fees she charged, but as she had never mentioned the matter to me I had supposed that all was well.

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

Aunt Patty burst into laughter. "We are going to cast aside our troubles and enjoy life. That's right, eh Violet?"

"So you say, Patty."

"Yes," said Aunt Patty, "the fact of the matter is, dear, that I have been thinking for some time that I should retire and I should have done it long ago but for ..." She looked at me and I said: "But for me. You were keeping it for me."

"I thought it would be a future for you. I thought I'd retire and just be an adviser when I was wanted or something like that. It was the idea behind Schaffenbrucken."

"And you sent me to that expensive school when you were already in financial difficulties."

"I was looking ahead. The trouble is things have gone a bit too far. There would have been the enormous expenditure on repairs. It would have been crippling. Well, not exactly but it would have made the alternative impossible. So ... the opportunity came and I decided to sell."

"Will it be a school?"

"No. Some millionaire who wants to restore the place and be a lord of the manor."

"Aunt Patty, what about us?"

"All arranged, dear. Most satisfactorily. We have an enchanting house in Moldenbury ... near Nottingham. It's a lovely village right in the heart of the country. It's not as big as Grantley of course and I can only take Mary Ann with me. I hope the rest of the staff will stay on to serve the new owners of Grantley. The parents have all had their notices. We are closing down at the end of the Spring term. It is all settled."

"And this house-where is it? Moldenbury?"

"We are negotiating for it. It will pass into our hands shortly. Everything is arranged to our mutual satisfaction. We shall have enough to live on in a simple way perhaps but adequate for our needs and we shall give ourselves up to life in the country, following all sorts of pursuits which we never had time for before. We shall adjust happily, as I keep telling Violet."

I glanced at Violet. She was not quite as optimistic as my aunt, but optimism was not one of Violet's qualities.

"Dear Aunt Patty," I said. "You should have told me before. You shouldn't have let me go on at that place. It must have been ridiculously costly."

"Having put my hand to the plough I was not going to spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar, and if a job is worth doing it is worth doing properly. I can't think of any more maxims but I am sure they abound to support me. I have done the right thing by you, Cordelia. Schaffenbrucken will never be wasted. I'll tell you more later on. I'll show you the books and how things are going. Also I've got to talk to you about our new home. We'll go and see it one day before the start of next term. You'll love it. It's the dearest little village and I have already made the acquaintance of the rector who seems a very charming gentleman with a wife who is overflowing with welcome for us. I think we are going to find it very amusing."

"And different," said Violet sombrely.

"Change is always stimulating," said Aunt Patty. "I think we have been moving along in the same groove for too long. A new life, Cordelia. A challenge. We shall be working for the good of our new village ... Fêtes, bazaars, committees, feuds. I can see we are going to have an interesting time."

She believed it. That was the wonderful thing about Aunt Patty. She saw everything as amusing, exciting and challenging and she had always been able to convince me, if she was not managing to do the same with Violet. But then Aunt Patty and I always said that Violet enjoyed adversity.

I went to bed rather bemused. There were hundreds of questions to be asked. The future was a little hazy at the moment.

During the next day I learned more from Aunt Patty. The school had been, as she said, ticking over, for some little time. Perhaps her fees were not high enough; she had, she was told by her financial advisers, overspent on food and fuel, and the amount of those costly items was out of proportion to receipts.

"I didn't want to make it into a Dothegirls Hall such as Mr. Dickens wrote about in his wonderful book. I didn't want that at all. I wanted my school to be ... just as I wanted it, and if it can't be that, then I'd rather there was no school. So that is how it is going to be, Cordelia. I can't say I'm sorry myself. I wanted to pass it on to you, but there is no point in passing on a concern which would have tottered into bankruptcy. No, cut your losses, said I. And that is what I am doing. In our new home we'll all have a rest for a while and we'll plan what we are going to do next."

She made it all sound like a new and exciting adventure on which we were embarking and I caught her enthusiasm.

In the afternoon when classes were in progress I went for a walk. I left about two o'clock intending to be back before it was dark, which would be soon after four. School would be breaking up in the next week or so and after that only one more term. There would be the bustle of departure; the mistresses would be arranging journeys for the girls, seeing them to trains, just as it had been at Schaffenbrucken. I supposed many of the teachers were anxious, wondering about their new posts and certain that they would not fend many employers as easy-going as Aunt Patty had been.

I detected an air of melancholy over the house. Both pupils and mistresses had appreciated the atmosphere of Grantley Manor.

Without Aunt Patty at my side to stress how wonderful everything was going to be, I too felt the depression. I tried to imagine what my future would be. I couldn't just live all my life in a country village even though Aunt Patty would be with me. Somehow I did not think Aunt Patty believed I could either. I had caught her almost speculative gaze on me, rather secretive as though she had something up her sleeve which she was going to produce to the wonderment of all who perceived it.

I always enjoyed my first walk after returning to Grantley. I usually went into the little town of Canterton, looked into the shops and stopped for a chat with the people I knew. It was always a pleasure. Today it seemed different. I did not feel the same urge to talk to people. I wondered how much they knew about Aunt Patty's move and I couldn't really talk about something of which I knew so little as yet.

I passed the woods and noticed that there were plenty of berries on the holly this year. The girls would be picking it very soon now, for the last week of term would be given over to Christmas jollity. They had already decorated the Christmas tree in the common room and put the presents they had bought for each other under it. Then there would be a concert and carol singing in the chapel. The last time ... What a sad phrase that was.

A pale winter sun momentarily showed itself between the clouds. There was a chill in the air but it was mildish for the time of year.

There were not many people about. I had not met anyone since I had left the Manor. I glanced towards the wood and wondered whether the girls would fend much mistletoe this year. They usually had to hunt for it, which made it seem precious, and made a great show of fixing it in those places where they could be caught and kissed-if there were any males about who might be tempted to do so.

I hesitated by the woods. Then as I was deciding that I would skirt them and go as far as the town without actually going in, I heard a footstep behind me. I felt a rush of emotion and told myself afterwards that I knew who it was going to be before I turned round.

"Why?" I cried. "You ... here?"

"Yes," he said with a smile. "You told me you lived in Canterton so I thought I would have a look at it."

"Are you ... staying here?"

"Briefly," he replied.

"On your way to ...?"

"Somewhere else. I thought I would call to see you while I was here, but before doing so I was hoping to meet you so that I could ask if it would be correct for me to call. I passed the Manor. It is a fine old place."

"You should have come in."

"First of all I wanted to find out whether your aunt would receive me."

"After all," he went on, "we have not been formally introduced."

"We have met four times, if you count the time on the train."

"Yes," he said slowly, "I feel we are old friends. Your welcome home was very warm I gather." "Aunt Patty is such a darling."

"She is clearly devoted to you."

"Yes."

"So it was the happiest of homecomings?" I hesitated.

"Not?" he asked.

I was silent for a few seconds and he looked at me with some concern. Then he said: "Shall we walk through the forest? I think it rather beautiful at this time of the year. The trees without their leaves are so beautiful, don't you think? Look at the pattern that one makes against the sky."

"Yes, I have always thought so. More beautiful in winter even than in summer. This is hardly what you call a forest. It's more of a wood ... just clumps of trees which don't extend for more than a quarter of a mile."

"Nevertheless let us walk among the beautiful trees and you can tell me why your homecoming was not as usual."

Still I hesitated and he looked at me with a slightly reproachful air. "You can trust me," he said. "I will keep your secrets. Come, tell me what worries you."

"It was all so different from what I expected. Aunt Patty had not given me a hint."

"No hint?"

"That everything was not ... as it should be. She ... she has sold Grantley Manor."

"Sold that beautiful house! What of the flourishing establishment?"

"Apparently it did not flourish. I was astounded. I suppose one takes these things for granted. There was no reason why I shouldn't. Aunt Patty had never as much as hinted that we were becoming poorer."

There seemed to be a sudden chill in the forest. He had stopped in his walk and looked at me tenderly. "My poor child," he said.

"Oh, it isn't so bad. We're not going to starve. Aunt Patty thinks it is all to the good. But then everything that happens seems to her all to the good."

"Tell me about it ... if you wish to."

"I don't know why I am talking to you like this ... except that you seem so interested. You just seem to appear, first in the forest, then on the ship and now ... You are rather mysterious, you know."

He laughed. "That makes it all the easier for you to talk to me."

"Yes, I suppose it does. I was going to avoid going into the town because I didn't want to talk to people there who have known us for years."

"Well, tell me instead."

So I told him that Aunt Patty had had to sell the Manor because it was too expensive to keep up, and that we were going to a small house in another part of the country.

"What shall you do?"

"I don't know ... We have this little house somewhere in the Midlands, I believe. I really haven't heard much about it yet. Aunt Patty makes it seem ... not so bad, but I can see that Violet-that's her very special friend who lives with us-is very disturbed."

"I can imagine so. What a terrible blow for you! My deepest sympathy. You seemed so merry when I saw you with your friends in the forest, and I fancied they were all a little envious of you."

We walked across the stunted grass and the wintry sun glinted through the bare branches of the trees. The smell of damp earth and foliage was in the air and I couldn't help feeling that something significant would happen because he was with me.

I said: "We have talked about me. Tell me about yourself."

"You won't find that very interesting."

"Oh, but I shall. You have such a way of... appearing. It is quite intriguing, really. The way you came upon us in the forest ..."