I did not believe I wanted anything, but when the tea came I made them bring two more cups and sit with me and it was amazing what comfort they brought me.

I found myself telling them what had happened, of Julian’s death and my decision to leave my husband. They listened in awed silence but their sympathy was great. I did not, of course, tell them of the temple.

“Jane, Polly,” I said.

“I shall have to make a new life. You will have to help me.”

“There ain’t nothing we wouldn’t do ain’t that right. Poll?”

Polly said emphatically that it was.

“I want a complete break with the old life. I want to try to forget. I shall never forget my boy … but there are other things.”

I was amazed at their tact. They did not ask questions but waited for me to speak.

“I want to be an entirely different person. I am not Mrs. St. Clare any more. I want to forget I ever was.”

They nodded. I had made it clear to them in that brief statement that my marriage was no longer tolerable to me.

“I am going back to the name I had before I was married. I shall be known as Miss Pleydell.”

There were more nods.

“I am not even calling myself Susanna. I shall be Anna.”

That had occurred to me on the train. My ayah’s voice had come back to me over the years. Once she had said: “There are two of you; Susan and Anna. Susan … she is the gentle one who wants to live at peace, who will accept what is. But there is Anna. She will be the strong one. She will go and get what she wants and take nothing less.”

She was right. I had a dual personality; and now I needed all my strength, all my resilience, all the resolution which was in the stronger side of my nature.

Already Anna Pleydell seemed a different person from Susanna St. Clare.

“So you will call me Miss Pleydell. You can do that easily.”

“Well, we looked after Colonel Pleydell so now it will be natural to look after his daughter. Miss Pleydell,” commented Jane.

“You two know how I loved my father … and my son.”

Jane bit her lip and Polly turned her head away to hide the tears in her eyes.

“I shall never forget them …” My voice faltered and suddenly the tears started to flow. It was the first time I had wept since the beginning of my sorrow. And then I was sobbing broken-heartedly and Jane and Polly with me.

Jane was the first to recover. She poured out a cup of tea and brought it to me.

“There,” she said.

“This won’t drive the pigs to market, will it, as the farmer said when the wheel came off his cart and the horses run away.”

Polly looked at me and smiled through her tears.

“No,” I said, ‘it won’t. We’ve got to be practical. I have to work out what I am going to do. I don’t know yet. Plans won’t come. I just know that I’ll be better here than anywhere else even though there is so much to remind me of my father. “

“He was a dear good man and so kind to us,” said Jane.

“He was one in a million,” added Polly.

“We’ll look after you, Mrs. I mean Miss Pleydell. It takes a bit of getting used to, calling you that, but we’ll manage it.”

“I’ll put the warming pan in your bed. Miss Pleydell,” said Polly.

“You’d better,” added Jane.

“We’ve had some nasty damp days lately.

Damp gets in everywhere. “

I felt I was right to come.

Later I went out to the stables and saw Joe. He had already heard the news.

“It’s good to see you back. Miss Pleydell,” he said, with a wink to remind me that he had remembered the instructions which had already been passed on by Jane and Polly.

“Carriages is meant to be driven not left standing. They don’t like it. They’ve got wills of their own, carriages have. Don’t I know it doing the London to Bath run all them years.”

I could see the sympathy in his eyes; Jane and Polly would have told him all I had told them; they had all loved my father and Julian. They shared my grief as I felt no one at the Minster had.

Yes, I thought, I believe I can make a fresh start.

It wasn’t easy. When I awoke in the morning the depression descended upon me. I had had vague dreams of Julian. I thought: What am I doing here? What hope is there of starting a new life? What does it matter where I live? Whether I am here or at the Minster, the loss is the same.

Jane came in with a cup of hot chocolate. And what would I like for breakfast? she asked.

“Nothing, thank you, Jane.”

She shook her head at me.

“Was the bed comfortable? Did you have a good night?”

“The bed was comfortable. When I sleep, I dream.”

“Well, drink up that chocolate. It’s nourishing.”

She stood there, implying that she would not move until I had drunk it. She reminded me of my ayah in a way. I was thinking a good deal about her lately. She had known something about that Devil Doctor. I wished she had told me.

I drank the chocolate to please Jane, and then lay there asking myself what I should do when I got up. I should have to take a ride to please Joe.

“Carriages are not meant to stand idle.”

He could go and collect my luggage from the station and I should then unpack. The day would pass somehow. Why had I thought it would all be so different in London?

Slowly the days passed. I took a ride now and then through the streets of London to please Joe. I did a little desultory shopping. Jane and Polly devised meals for me at which I pecked like a bird, said Jane disgustedly.

“You’re getting like a skelington,” Joe told me.

“I reckon you want to put on a bit of flesh. Miss Pleydell. Bones ain’t much good without it.”

“I’m all right, Joe,” I said.

“Begging your pardon, Miss Pleydell, you ain’t,” he retorted sharply.

I guessed he discussed me with Polly and Jane. They were really getting quite anxious about me.

I don’t know how long I should have gone on in that state of lethargy but for the accident in Oxford Street which brought Lily Craddock into my life.

Now and then I went out shopping. I would buy little things for the house, and I liked to find small presents for Jane and Polly to whom I was very grateful. Our relationship was not that of mistress and maids. There was a feeling of belonging to a family in that house.

It had been so with my father; and it was doubly so with me, I think, because of the circumstances. They felt for me; they made my grief theirs; and I knew that they were all worried about my health. Aubrey would have said that it was their own future which concerned them, not mine, for if I were ill and died what would become of their comfortable jobs? But I was sure they really felt for me Jane, Polly, Joe, all three of them.

Joe had taken me out on one of those little shopping expeditions, and as we were leaving the shop where I had bought some gloves and were trotting along Oxford Street in the midst of a certain amount of traffic, all of a sudden Joe pulled up with a jerk. I looked out of the window. We were stationary and people began to gather. Joe had alighted and I got out of the carriage. I stared in consternation, for lying in the road, with blood on her face, was a girl.

Joe looked at me.

“She dashed right off the pavement … right under the horses’ feet and before I could say Jack Robinson she’d gone down.

There wasn’t time to pull up. “

I knelt down by the girl.

She was pretty with masses of fair curly hair; her blue eyes looked at me appealingly.

I said: “It’s all right. We’ll take care of you.” I put my hand on her forehead. She closed her eyes at once and seemed comforted.

The driver of a passing carriage leaned out and shouted:

“Whatcher been up to, Joe? Better get her to the hospital… quick.”

I said that was a good idea.

A policeman was making his way through the crowd which had gathered. I told him that the girl had run out into the road right under our horses.

“I’d like to take her to the hospital,” I said.

The policeman thought that would be the best thing to do.

Some instinct made me take charge.

“We must be careful that she hasn’t broken any bones,” I said.

“If she has, we shall need a stretcher.”

The policeman said: “Can you stand up. Miss?”

I said: “Let me.” I knelt beside her. She turned her eyes to my face and I was aware that she trusted me, which sent a warm glow through me. I suddenly felt capable and glad that I was there to do what I could for her.

I said: “You have been knocked down. We want to know if you have broken anything. May I just see what I can do?”

I touched her legs. She did not wince so it occurred to me that if she could stand up there could be no fracture. I helped her up r’r. I she stood without pain. Obviously there were no bones broken.

“We’ll take you to the hospital,” I said.

She looked alarmed but I whispered to her soothingly, “It’ll be all right. We’ll see what they have to say.”

The policeman nodded his approval and we helped the girl into the carriage.

“St. David’s is not far off,” said the policeman and added that he would accompany us.

The girl sat between us. I noticed she shrank from him. I put my arm around her and she lay against me. I was very relieved because I did not think she was badly hurt.

I asked her her name, which was Lily Craddock. I gave her mine and my address, but I doubted she was in a state to take it in.

We arrived at a tall grey building.

“I think I’d better take her in. Miss,” said the policeman.