I said I would and they went away. Soon after that Damaris and Jeremy were married and Enderby Hall became my home.

Jeremy had lived there by himself and when Damaris married him she was determined to change it a great deal. In the days before the wedding she would take me there. The place fascinated me. There was a man called Smith who had a face like a relief map with rivers and mountains on it; there were lines everywhere and little warty lumps; and his skin was as brown as the earth. When he saw me his face would crinkle up and his mouth went up at one side. I couldn’t stop looking at him and I realized I was seeing Smith’s smile.

Then there was Damon. He was a great Newfoundland dog who stood as tall as I was; he had curly hair, lots of it, half black, half white, with a bushy tail which turned up at the end. We took one look and loved each other.

‘Careful,’ said Damaris, ‘he can be fierce.’

But not with me—never with me. He knew I loved him immediately. We had had no dogs in the hôtel and certainly not in Jeanne’s cellar; and I was so happy because I was going to live in the same house as Damon, Damaris, Jeremy and Smith. Smith said; ‘I’ve never seen him take to anyone like that before.’ I just put my arms round Damon’s neck and kissed the tip of his damp nose. They all watched with trepidation but Damon and I knew how it was between us.

Jeremy was very pleased that we liked each other. Everybody was very pleased about most things at that time, except of course when they thought of Carlotta, and when I thought of her and dear handsome Hessenfield I was sad too. Damaris assured me that they would be happy in the place they had gone to and that made me feel that I could be happy where I had come to—so I started to be.

Enderby Hall was a dark house at first, until they cut down—some of the bushes which were all round it and made lawns and flower-beds. Damaris took down some of the heavy furnishings and replaced them with lighter colours. The hall was magnificent; it had a vaulted roof and beautiful panelling, and at one end were the screens beyond which were the kitchens and at the other a lovely staircase which led to the minstrels’ gallery.

‘When we entertain we shall have musicians to play there, Clarissa,’ Damaris told me.

I listened with awe, taking in every detail of my new life and savouring it all with complete delight.

There was one bedroom which Damaris hated to go into, and I soon sensed that, and with the directness of a child asked her why. She looked astonished. I think that was because she knew she had betrayed her reluctance.

She merely said: ‘I’m going to change it all, Clarissa. I’m going to make it unrecognizable.’

‘I like it,’ I said. ‘It’s pretty.’ And I went to the bed and stroked the velvet hangings. But she looked at it with loathing, as though she was seeing something I could not. I understood later—much later—what that room meant to her.

Well, she changed it and it certainly looked different. The red velvet was replaced by white and gold damask with curtains to match. She even changed the carpet. She was right. It did look different, but she did not use it as her and Jeremy’s room although it was the best in the house. The door was always shut and I believe she rarely went there.

So this was my new home; Enderby Hall, about ten minutes’ ride from the Dower House and an equal distance from Eversleigh Court, so I was surrounded by my family.

That Damaris and Jeremy were happy together there could be no doubt; as for myself, I was so pleased to have escaped from that Paris cellar that I lived in a state of joyful appreciation of everything for those first few months. I used to stand in the middle of the great hall and look up at the minstrels’ gallery and say: ‘I’m here.’ And I tried to remember the cellar with the cold stone floor and the rats who came at night and looked at me with their baleful eyes that seemed yellowish in the darkness. I did this to remind myself that I had escaped and told myself I would never, never go back there again. I did not like to see cut flowers in pots because they reminded me. Damaris loved them and gathered baskets full from the garden. She had a special room called the flower room and she used to arrange them there. She would say: ‘Come on, Clarissa, we’ll go and get some roses.’ She quickly noticed, though, that I grew quiet and mournful and I often had a nightmare the following night. So she stopped cutting flowers. Damaris was very perceptive. More so than Jeremy. I think he was too concerned with the way life had treated him before he met Damaris to think much about how it had treated others. Damaris thought of others all the time, and believed that what had gone wrong in her life was largely her own fault rather than fate’s.

When the violets came she took me to the hedgerows and we gathered wild ones. She said: ‘It was violets, you remember, that brought us together. So I shall always love violets. Will you?’

I said I would, and it seemed different picking them after that; and in time I didn’t mind about the flowers. To show Damaris this I went into the garden to pick some roses for her. She understood at once and hugged me tightly, hiding her face so that I should not see the tears in her eyes.

In those early days they were always talking about me—not only at Enderby but at the Dower House—and there were conferences at Eversleigh Court. I often heard someone say: ‘But what would be best for the child?’

The cocoon was being woven very tightly round me. I had had an unusual start. Therefore I needed very special care.

Perhaps that was why I felt very much at ease with Smith. I used to watch him doing the garden or cleaning the silver. Before Damaris became mistress of the house he used to do everything, but now servants from Eversleigh Court used to be sent over by Great-Grandmother Arabella. Jeremy did not really like that; Smith didn’t like it either.

Smith treated me, as he would say, ‘rough’. ‘Don’t stand there idle,’ he would say. ‘Satan finds mischief for idle hands to do.’ And I would have to arrange the forks and knives in their cubbyholes, as he called them, or pick up branches and dead flowers and put them in the wheelbarrow. Damaris was often present and the three of us would be very happy together. With Smith I felt completely at ease—not the child whose welfare had to be continually considered, sometimes at some inconvenience to others, I feared—but a fellow worker of very little importance. It seemed strange to want to be of no importance, but I really did. It was an indication, of course, that I was already beginning to feel the bonds of security tightening around me.

There was a discussion in the family as to whether or not I should have a governess. Damaris had said she would teach me.

‘Perhaps you are doing too much,’ said Grandmother Priscilla anxiously.

‘Dear Mother,’ smiled Damaris, ‘this will be a great pleasure, and I’ll be sitting down all the time.’

Great-Grandmother Arabella wondered whether I should have a governess—a French one. I could speak French because I had learned it side by side with English in the hôtel with my parents, and later in the cellar no one had spoken anything but French.

‘It would be a pity to lose that,’ said Arabella.

‘They never do,’ was Great-Grandfather Carleton’s comment. ‘Not once they have acquired it. The child would only need a little practice at any time in her life. And you could not get a French governess with a war between our countries.’

So it was decided that for the time being Damaris should teach me and the idea of a governess was shelved.

All the talk of French reminded me of Jeanne. I had loved her very much in those days of trial. She had been a bulwark between me and the harsh Paris streets. If anyone had ever represented security to me, she had. I often wondered about her. I knew that Damaris had offered to bring her back to England with us, but how could she leave Maman and the old Grand’mère? They would have starved without her.

Damaris had said: ‘If ever you felt free to come to us you would always be welcome.’

I was glad she had said that and I knew she had rewarded Jeanne for what she had done for me. Jeanne was a clever manager and would make what had been given her last a very long time.

So the year began to pass. I had my pony and Smith taught me to ride and I had never been happier in my life than when I was riding round the paddock with Smith holding a leading rein and Damon running after us barking with excitement. It was better even than riding on Hessenfield’s shoulders.

There were long summer days sitting at the table in the schoolroom learning with Aunt Damaris, and then going out to ride—off the leading rein now—walking with Damon, lying in the grass with Damon, going to Eversleigh Court or the Dower House to drink lemonade and eat fancy cakes in summer or steaming mulled wine and pies straight from the oven in winter. I loved all the seasons: Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent; the interminable service and the sadness of Good Friday alleviated by hot cross buns; Easter with daffodils everywhere and the delights of simnel cake, sitting in church close to Damaris and counting the blues and reds in the stained-glass windows, the number of people I could see without turning my head, and how many Ahs, Ers and Wells Parson Renton uttered during his sermon. There was Harvest Festival with all the fruit and vegetables decorating the church, and best of all Christmas with the crib in the manger, ivy, holly, mistletoe, carols, presents and excitement. It was all wonderful and I was at the heart of it. They were always questioning themselves and each other about ‘the child’.