Perhaps she understood my impatience for she said: ‘Well, that is what I wanted to tell you.’

‘Dear Mother,’ I replied, ‘it is lovely to see you here. It is the most exciting and beautiful place you could imagine. I love it. And it is wonderful that you and the Comte are going to be so happy.’

‘He is so fond of you. He was delighted with you as soon as he saw you.’

‘I like him, too. Good night, Mother. I’ll see you in the morning. There is so much to talk about.’

‘Good night, my child,’ she said, ‘and always remember that everything I have ever done has been for your good.’

‘I know that. Good night. Sleep well.’

Then I was gone.

As soon as I was in my room I slit the envelope. Dearest little Lottie [he had written],

When you read this Eversleigh will be mine. It was like a miracle. Prince Charming appears out of the blue and whisks your mother off to his romantic castle and she leaves Eversleigh to me.

Isn’t that exciting? I often think of you and our little romance. It did amuse you, didn’t it? Our little game of pretence? We tried to forget that you were only a child and I must admit that at times you did not seem so. But facts are facts. You are going to live in France now. You will meet interesting people, for I believe Monsieur le Comte leads a very colourful life. I am so pleased that you will have such a wonderful time.

I shall soon be installed in Eversleigh with my mother and your grandmother. It is a family house, isn’t it? Generations of the Eversleigh clan have lived here … so even when I marry they won’t be moving out. I dare say that will be fairly soon. I am really so much older than you, Lottie, and it is time I was settled—especially now that I have Eversleigh and new responsibilities.

My blessings on you, dear Lottie. I hope you won’t forget the pleasant times we had together.

Dickon.

I read it through again. What did he mean? There were three facts which kept going round in my head. Eversleigh was now his. I was a child. He was going to marry soon.

It was all over then. Dickon no longer loved me, no longer wanted me. He wrote as though what had been between us had been some game of make-believe.

I began to see it all very clearly. It had been Eversleigh he had wanted. And now that he had it I had no place in his picture of the future.

I had never felt so miserable in the whole of my life. I threw myself on to the bed and stared up at the tester.

It was over. There was no need now for Dickon to marry me to get what he wanted.

So … he had jilted me.

The Procuress

THERE WAS GREAT EXCITEMENT throughout the capital and indeed throughout the entire country because of the royal wedding. The people seemed to have forgotten their grievances and were growing excited at the prospect of all the fetes and entertainments which would be planned to celebrate the great occasion. The weather was beautiful; the may was in blossom; and it was a time for rejoicing.

It was three years since my mother had married my father and it amazed me to see how happy they were together. I think I had grown a little cynical. Dickon’s defection had made me grow up overnight. I still thought of him; he was enshrined in my heart as the perfect lover and no matter what I heard of him, nothing could change that. I used to talk about him to Lisette and Sophie and would build up romantic dreams, the theme of which was that there had been a terrible mistake; he had not written that letter jilting me; he had not married, and all this time he had been pining for me, for he had received a false letter from me.

It eased me, that dream, ridiculous as it was, for there were letters from my grandmother and Sabrina telling us how wonderful Dickon was and how happy with his dear wife Isabel, who had brought him a fortune and new interests in life.

My mother always gave me the letters to read with a certain embarrassment and apprehension, but I had learned to hide my feelings; I would read them avidly and then go away and tell myself I didn’t believe a word of them.

‘Dickon’s father-in-law is a very influential man,’ wrote Sabrina. ‘He is a banker and some high official at Court. It is all rather secret and we are not sure what he does there. He has his finger in many pies … and that means Dickon has too. You may be sure he makes the most of everything that comes his way …’

Once my grandmother and Sabrina came to visit us. They wanted to assure themselves that my mother and I were really happy.

Dickon did not come with them. ‘I suppose he can’t get his fingers out of all those pies,’ I said maliciously.

They laughed and replied that Dickon was indeed busy. He was in London a great deal and there was Eversleigh to run. He surrounded himself with good men … the right people.

‘He talks of you often, Lottie,’ said my grandmother. ‘He was so sweet to you when you came to stay, wasn’t he? Not many young men would have taken so much notice of a little girl.’

My mother put in rather tartly: ‘He took a lot of notice of Eversleigh and that included Lottie at that time.’

My grandmother ignored that and insisted: ‘It was a charming gesture to take so much interest in a little girl and he used to do everything to make Lottie happy.’

Yes, I thought. He kissed me in a way that I find hard to forget. He talked to me of marriage … and how happy we should be together. He persuaded me to love him. He tricked me, and when he got Eversleigh he jilted me.

I knew now that my mother had contrived it. She had sent for my father who had come and changed everything. Then she had given up Eversleigh because she thought that when Dickon had it he would cease to want me.

And how right she had been! I suppose I should have been grateful to her, but I wasn’t. I wouldn’t have cared for what reason Dickon wanted me. Perhaps I refused to let myself forget him; perhaps the idea of lost love pleased me, made me feel that my life, though tragic, was full of interest. That may well have been the case, but the fact remained that Dickon was always ready to come into my thoughts, and with the memory would come that frustrated longing.

‘There is only one fly in the ointment,’ said Sabrina; ‘they can’t get children.’

‘Poor Isabel, she does so long for a healthy child,’ added my grandmother. ‘There have been two miscarriages already. It seems as though she is ill-fated. Dickon is most disappointed.’

‘It is the only thing he cannot win for himself,’ I commented.

My grandmother and Sabrina never recognized irony when it was directed against Dickon. ‘Alas, that is so, my dear,’ said Sabrina sadly.

So there I was at the time of the royal wedding. The little Austrian girl who was about my age was coming to France to marry the Dauphin, who himself was not much older. The Comte would be at Court and I supposed we should all go to some of the entertainments. There would be balls and ballets and we should be able to catch a glimpse of the notorious woman, Madame du Barry, who was causing such a scandal at Court. She was vulgar and breathtakingly beautiful, I believed, and the King doted on her. Many had tried to remove her from her position, but the King remained enslaved.

There was always some intrigue in progress; life was rich, colourful and uncertain—the more so because on occasions we heard of the rumblings of discontent throughout the country. News would reach us of riots in a small town, a farmer’s haystacks being burned down, a baker’s shop raided … Small outbreaks in remote places. We took little notice of them. Certainly not during those golden days before the wedding.

The château had become my home by now but I never really got used to it. It could never be home to me as Clavering and Eversleigh had been. There I had been in the houses of my ancestors—but in a way the castle was that too; yet there was something alien about it. It seemed full of echoes from the past and I could never quite forget those dungeons which the Comte had shown me soon after my arrival.

My mother had settled in with ease and had taken on the role of Madame la Comtesse without any apparent effort. I supposed that was because she was happy. I marvelled that she, who had lived rather quietly, could suddenly become a figure in society, although throughout it all she preserved a certain air of innocence which was very attractive. There was mystery about her. She had a virginal air and yet it was well known that she had borne the Comte’s child—myself—all those years before when she had been the wife of another man, and the Comte had had his own wife and family. As for the Comte, he had become a doting and faithful husband, which I was sure was something society had never expected of him. It was a miracle. The miracle of true love. That, I would say to myself, is how Dickon and I would have been had we been allowed to marry.

I was educated with Sophie according to French custom, which meant that there was an emphasis on what was considered gracious living rather than academic achievement. Literature was important, as was an appreciation of art in any form, and fluency of language and the ability to converse with wit and charm; we must be skilled in courtly arts such as dancing, singing and playing a musical instrument; and we had special teachers for these subjects. I found them very interesting—far more so than the tuition I had received from my English governesses. Lisette shared our lessons.

Lisette was very bright and learned with a feverish application as though she were determined to excel, which she did. Sophie lagged behind. I often tried to point out to her that it was not so much that she was slower to comprehend as that she believed herself to be, and so willed it.

She would always shake her head and Lisette said that she would never grow out of it until she married and found a husband and children who adored her. ‘And that,’ added Lisette, with one of her looks of wisdom, ‘will never come about because she will not believe it even if it were actually the case.’

Lisette and I were high-spirited. If something was forbidden we were always seized with the urge to have it. We broke the rules set down by our teachers and once, when we were in Paris, we slipped out after dark and walked through the streets, which was a very daring thing to do. We were accosted by two gallants and were really frightened when they took our arms and would not let us go. Lisette screamed and attracted the attention of some people who were passing. Fortunately they stopped and Lisette cried out that we were being held against our will. The gallants released us and we ran with all the speed we could muster, and so reached the hôtel in safety. We did not try that again, but it had been a great adventure and, as Lisette said, it was experience.

Sophie was quite different, timid and subdued; and we always had great difficulty in persuading her to do anything which was forbidden.

So Lisette and I became the friends, whereas Sophie always remained something of an outsider.

‘It’s as though we are the sisters,’ said Lisette, smiling fondly at me.

There was one person of whom Lisette was afraid and that was Tante Berthe. But then the entire household was in awe of that formidable lady.

Sophie’s continual fear was that a husband would be found for her; she dreaded that and had already made up her mind that whoever was chosen for her would dislike her for being expected to marry her.

Lisette said: ‘There is one consolation in being the niece of the housekeeper. One will very likely have the privilege of choosing one’s own husband.’

‘I should not be surprised if Tante Berthe chose one for you,’ I commented.

‘My dear Lottie,’ she retorted, ‘no one, not even Tante Berthe, would make me marry if I did not want to.’

‘Nor I,’ I added.

Sophie listened to us round-eyed and disbelieving.

‘What would you do?’ she demanded.

‘Run away,’ I boasted.

Lisette lifted her shoulders which meant: Where to?

But I had an idea that if I were desperately determined my mother would not want me to be forced and she would persuade the Comte not to do so … so I felt safe enough.

This was the state of affairs when one day—it must have been about six weeks before the wedding—my mother told me that she and the Comte were going to visit some friends north of Angoulême and they were taking Sophie with them.

This threw Sophie into a state of trepidation for it could mean only one thing. It must be something to do with betrothal because the Comte was not very fond of Sophie’s company, and I was sure that if it had been a matter of pleasure only they would have taken me with them.