Rupert’s glance had cut through Anna’s mood like a sword, and excusing herself from her latest partner, she had slipped away, wanting now only that this long night should end at last.

“Annoushka! Mylienkaya! Eto ti?’

The voice, known and loved since childhood, the tender Russian words, brought her to her feet — and into the arms of the tall man coming towards her.

‘Seriosha!’

For a moment they stood locked together in an embrace of homesickness and love. If there was one person in the world that Anna needed at this hour it was the cousin who was now brother and father, protector and friend. If there was one person who could make him think well again of women, it was this girl with her steadfastness and courage, her spiritual grace.

‘I didn’t know you were here, Sergei. Why didn’t you come into the house?’

‘I’m not a guest, little idiot; I’m the Nettlefords’ chauffeur. Or I was.’ And he quickly told her what had happened, making her smile through her tears. ‘And you?’ he pursued, looking down at her. ‘You are in fancy dress? Or…’ his voice sharpened, ‘or have you been working also? Tell me the truth, Annoushka.’

There no longer seemed any point in concealment. ‘But Petya must never know, Sergei,’ she said when she had recounted the events of the evening. ‘He’d leave school at once if he knew we were penniless. So please just help me to get away quickly now. Then when I have seen Mama and Pinny I can begin to look for another job.’

‘No! You shall not work again like this! I forbid it absolutely!’ And as he spoke, Sergei knew exactly what he would do and that the lie he had told the Nettleford girls had been a prophetic one. ‘I’m going to marry Larissa Rakov,’ he went on. ‘She’s a kind, understanding person; it will be all right, you’ll see. And you and Petya and your mother shall live with us, and Pinny too. And if you’re good,’ he continued, gently flicking away a tear, ‘I shall find you a rich husband — one who will beat you only twice a week.’

She tried hard to smile. ‘No, Seriosha… I don’t want a rich husband. Or any husband except…’

Sergei took out his handkerchief. He had dried the eyes of countless weeping women, but none more tenderly than those of this girl. ‘Poor coucoushka,’ he said, settling her head against his shoulder. ‘Now, tell me everything, please. Of course if he has harmed you I shall kill him, whoever he is,’ he added matter of factly. ‘But otherwise, perhaps something can be done.’ He gave a last dab at her face. ‘Blow your nose, dousha,’ he commanded, ‘and begin.’

So she told him everything, always blaming herself for not seeing in time what was happening, and as he held her and stroked her hair, he caught from her voice the immensity of her love, her inexhaustible tenderness and the total lack of hope that came from the sense of another person’s honour. And it seemed to him that she had grown up and surpassed him, this girl who had always been to him a younger sister, such was her committal and her certainty.

It was thus that Rupert, looking for Anna in the garden, found them. Leaning against each other as if they were one substance, the man bending over her, holding her close, while she turned to him in total trust — and her hair, loosened by the dance, streamed across them both.

14

It took one hour and twenty minutes for news of Anna’s sudden elevation at the ball to reach the servants’ hall at Mersham. One of the Heslop chauffeurs, going to fetch late arrivals from Mersham Halt, had mentioned it to the station master, who thought it of sufficient interest to merit a telephone call to his old friend Mr Proom.

Though it was late, only the bossy Mildred who had replaced Mrs Park’s beloved Win, and the two new, enormous and asinine footmen imported for the wedding had gone to bed. Mrs Park was patiently icing the exquisite petits fours and mille-feuilles with which she proposed to supplement the five-tiered perfection of the wedding cake. James and Sid, cobwebbed from a long session in the cellar, were polishing the Venetian decanters; Peggy and Pearl, resting their aching feet on the slumbering Baskerville, were folding damask table napkins into intricate flower shapes; Mr Cameron, on a rare visit indoors, was giving Louise instructions about the disposition of his orange trees.

Mr Proom’s entry put a stop to all these activities.

‘A countess!’ said Mrs Park, putting down her forcing bag and sitting down suddenly. ‘Well, I never!’

‘The Russian aristocracy is more numerous than its British counterpart,’ said Mr Proom judiciously. ‘For example, all the offspring of a prince or a count will carry the title.’ But he was considerably shaken all the same.

‘It’s that Charles’s face I’d like to have seen,’ said James, who had suffered at the hands of Heslop’s first footman.

‘Fancy her dancing with his lordship,’ said Peggy. ‘It’s like that film… you know, the one with Lillian Gish, where she comes up from the country all innocent like…’

Mr Proom and Mrs Park exchanged glances. Certain things about Anna’s recent behaviour were becoming clear to them.

‘A countess, eh?’ Mr Cameron, into whose ear-trumpet the news had duly been shouted, had begun to wheeze with unaccustomed and silent laughter. He knew, now, what to call his new rose, and the joke — obscure, private, pointless — was just the kind he particularly enjoyed.

‘Remember that day she first came,’ said Pearl, ‘when she went and sat down right at the bottom of the table, below Win, even?’

‘Aye.’

For a moment they were silent, all in their different ways remembering Anna.

‘It just shows about that dratted dog, doesn’t it,’ said Sid. ‘Bloomin’ snob. ’e must have known.’

But sharp Louise had seen another aspect. ‘She won’t be coming back, not for a minute. We’ve seen the last of Anna.’

‘Anna’s not like that,’ said Peggy hotly. ‘She’d never—’

‘It’s nowt to do with Anna,’ interrupted Louise. ‘It’s that Miss Hardwicke. She won’t have Anna in the house, not after his lordship’s made such a fuss of her. Not for a minute.’

Proom inclined his domed head in acknowledgement that Louise spoke the truth.

‘Mrs Proom will miss her,’ he said heavily.

‘She’s not the only one,’ said Mrs Park, brushing away a tear.

In the small hours, after the ball, the weather broke. A niggling wind shuffled the leaves, clouds scudded in from the west, it began to rain.

To the girl stumbling in her torn sacking dress up the grassy path that led from Mersham woods to the kitchen gardens, the rain meant nothing. She was in the last stages of exhaustion; her hair filthy and matted, her bare feet bleeding, a frayed tape with a number stamped on to it still clinging to her wrist. Every so often she would stop for breath and turn her bruised, vacant face towards the woods, listening for pursuit, before she was off again and as she ran she sobbed continously like a child.

She had reached the kitchen gardens, passed through the door in the wall, crossed the orchard. In her clouded brain there was only one bright image: one room, one person to whom she could no longer give a name.

Nearly spent now, she stumbled across the servants’ courtyard, dragging herself along the damp stone walls of the kitchen quarters, groping, putting up a hand with its torn fingernails to feel for the window, the one window behind which was sanctuary.

She had found it. With a last desperate effort she leant across the water butt and tapped once on the pane of glass behind which Mrs Park lay sleeping, before she slithered, unconscious, on to the cobbles.

Win had returned.

‘There’ll have to be an enquiry, Rupert,’ the distraught dowager said to her son. ‘Dr Marsh says there’s no doubt Win’s been seriously ill-treated. It must be an absolutely diabolical place — she was dressed in sacking, literally. She’s half-starved, too, and terrified. If you go up to her, even though she’s barely conscious she puts up her arms as though she expects to be hit. I’m going to get it closed down if it’s the last thing I do. And Rupert, you must speak to Muriel — the servants are dreadfully upset! Mrs Park’s given in her notice — she’s going to take Win to her sister’s when she’s well enough. I can’t think how Muriel came to find such a place. It’s miles away, thank heavens, and notorious, I understand.’

‘Surely Muriel must have made enquiries?’ said the earl, dragging himself out of his private hell to attend to his mother.

‘Well, she should have gone herself to see it, Rupert. You can’t imagine how much harm this will do below stairs. They’re upset enough about Anna’s going, and though it’s noble of her it’s quite unnecessary because Minna asked her to stay and the Rabinovitches also—’

‘Noble?’ Rupert’s voice tore at the dowager’s raw nerves like sandpaper. ‘That’s rich! That’s very rich! Anna hasn’t gone alone, I assure you. She’s eloped. I found her in the garden carrying on like a guttersnipe with one of the chauffeurs.’

‘The chauffeurs?’ The dowager’s brow cleared. She smiled. ‘Oh, yes, I forgot you weren’t there when that came out. It seems that the Nettlefords’ chauffeur was her Cousin Sergei, the one she’s so fond of! You can imagine how Honoria carried on when she found she’d let a perfectly good prince get away.’

‘I see. That explains it.’ Rupert’s voice was grimmer than ever. ‘Well, they should make a very handsome couple — and at least we’re spared the strain of having our coals carried upstairs by a princess.’

‘No dear, I’m sure Anna—’

Rupert swung round and the dowager stepped back a pace. Never in all her life had she seen him look like that.