Schaffenbrucken itself was not impressive. The setting was, though. We were a mile or so from the town and surrounded by woods and mountains. Madame de Guérin, French-Swiss, was a middleaged lady of quiet authority with what I can only call a "presence". I could see how important she was to the Schaffenbrucken legend. She did not have a great deal to do with us girls. We were left to the care of the mistresses. There was dancing, drama, French, German, and what they called social awareness. We were meant to emerge from Schaffenbrucken fit to enter into the highest society.

I soon settled into the life and found the girls interesting. They were of various nationalities and naturally I became friendly with the English. Two girls shared a room and it was always arranged that nationalities should be mixed. I had a German girl for my first year and a French one for the second. It was a good idea, for it did help us to perfect our languages.

Discipline was not strict. We were not exactly children. Girls usually came between sixteen and seventeen and stayed until nineteen or twenty. We were not there to be fundamentally educated but each of us must be formed into a femme comme il faut as Madame de Guérin said. It was more important to dance well and converse gracefully than to have a knowledge of literature and mathematics. Most of the girls would go straight from Schaffenbrucken to their debut into society. There were one or two of them like myself who were destined for something different. Most of them were pleasant and looked upon their stay at Schaffenbrucken as an essential part of their upbringing-ephemeral but to be enjoyed as much as possible while it lasted.

Although life in the various classrooms was easy going there was a certain strict surveillance kept on us and I was sure that if any girl came near to being involved in a scandal she would be sent packing at once, for there would always be some ambitious parent eager to put a daughter into the vacant place.

I went home for Christmas and summer holidays, and Aunt Patty and I would have a hilarious time discussing Schaffenbrucken.

 "We must do that," Aunt Patty would say. "I tell you that when you come home from Schaffenbrucken we'll have the finest finishing school in the country. We'll make Daisy Hetherington green with envy."

That was the first time I heard Daisy Hetherington's name. I asked idly who she was and received the information that she had a school in Devonshire which was almost as good as Daisy thought it was, and that was saying a good deal.

I wished I'd asked more later. But naturally then it did not occur to me that it might be important.

I came to what was to be my last term at Schaffenbrucken. It was late October-wonderful weather for the time of year. We got a lot of sun at Schaffenbrucken and that made the summer seem to last a long time. It would be so hot in the day and suddenly, as soon as the sun disappeared, one would realize what time of year it was. Then we would huddle round the common-room fine and talk.

My best friends at that time were Monique Delorme, who shared my room, and an English girl Lydia Markham and her room-mate Frieda Schmidt. The four of us were always together. We talked constantly and used to make excursions into the town together. Sometimes we would walk and if the wagonette was going into town, a few of us would go in that. We took walks in the woods, which was allowed in parties of six-or at least four. There was a certain amount of freedom and we did not feel in the least restricted.

Lydia said that being at Schaffenbrucken was like being in a railway station waiting for the train that would carry you to a place where you would be a properly grown-up person. I knew what she meant. This was merely a stopping place in our lives- a stepping stone to some other place.

We talked about ourselves. Monique was the daughter of a noble house and would be whisked almost immediately into a suitable marriage. Frieda's father had made his fortune out of pottery and was a businessman of many interests: Lydia belonged to a banking family. I was a little older and as I should be leaving at Christmas felt very much the senior.

We noticed Elsa almost as soon as she joined the establishment. She was a small pretty girl with fair curly hair and blue eyes; she was vivacious and had a certain elfin look. She was unlike any of the other servants and she was engaged on short notice because one of the maids had eloped with a man from the town and Madame de Guérin must have thought she would give Elsa a trial until the end of the term.

I was sure that if Madame de Guérin had really known Elsa she would not have allowed her to stay even until the end of the term. She was not at all respectful and did not seem to be in the least in awe of Schaffenbrucken or anyone in it. She had an air of camaraderie which implied that she was one of us. Some of the girls resented it: my own intimate quartette was rather amused by it; perhaps that was why she was always turning up in our rooms.

She would come in sometimes when the four of us were together and somehow sidle herself into the conversation.

She liked to hear about our homes and asked a good many questions. "Oh, I'd like to go to England," she said. "Or France ... or Germany ..." She would lure us to talk and she looked so pleased to hear about our backgrounds that we couldn't help going along with her.

She herself had come down in the world, she said. She was not really a serving maid. Oh no! She had thought she was set for a comfortable future. Her father had been, well ... not exactly rich, but not wanting anything. She was to have been launched onto society. "Not like you young ladies, of course, but in a more modest way. Then my father died. Hey Presto!" She waved her arms and raised her eyes to the ceiling. "That was the end of little Elsa's glory. No money. Elsa on her own. There was nothing for me to do but work. And what could I do? What had I been trained for?"

"Not as a housemaid," said Monique with good French logic.

At which we all laughed, including Elsa.

We couldn't help liking her and we used to encourage her to come and talk to us. She was amusing and very knowledgeable about the legends of the German forests where she said she had spent her early childhood before her father brought her to England, where she had lived for a while before coming to Switzerland.

"I like to think of all those trolls hiding underground, she said. Used to make my flesh creep. There were nice stories too about knights in armour coming along and carrying of maidens to Valhalla... or somewhere."

"That was where they went when they died," I reminded her.

"Well, to some nice place where there was feasting and banquets."

She took to joining us most afternoons.

"What would Madame de Guérin say if she knew?" asked Lydia.

"We'd probably be expelled," added Monique. "What luck for all those on the waiting list. Four at one go."

Elsa would sit on the edge of a chair laughing at us.

"Tell me about your father's château," she would say to Monique.

And Monique told her about the formality of her home and how she was more or less betrothed to Henri de la Creseuse, who owned the estate adjoining her father's.

Then Frieda told of her stern father who would certainly fend a baron at least for her to marry. Lydia spoke of her two brothers who would be bankers like her father.

"Tell me about Cordelia," said Elsa.

"Cordelia is the luckiest of the lot," cried Lydia. "She has the most wonderful aunt who lets her do just what she likes. I love to hear about Aunt Patty. I am sure she'll never try to make Cordelia marry some baron or old man because he has a title and money. Cordelia will marry just whom she pleases."

"And she'll be rich in her own right. She'll have that lovely old manor house. It'll all be yours one day, Cordelia, and you won't have to marry someone to get it."

"I shan't want it because it means Aunt Patty would have to die first."

"But it will all be yours one day. You'll be rich and independent."

Elsa wanted to know about Grantley Manor and I gave a glowing description. I wondered if I exaggerated a little, stressing the splendours of Grantley. I certainly did not in describing the eccentric charm of Aunt Patty. No one could really do her justice. But how happy I was talking of her and how the others envied me, coming as they did from sterner and more conventional homes.

"I reckon," said Elsa one day, "you'll all be married very soon."

"Heaven forbid," said Lydia. "I want to enjoy myself first."

"Have you ever been to Pilcher's Peak?" asked Elsa.

"I've heard of it," said Frieda.

"It's only two miles from here."

"Is it worth seeing?" I asked.

"Oh yes. It's in the forest; a strange rock. There's a story about it. I always liked those stories."

"What story?"

"If you go there on certain times you can see your future lover ... or husband."

We laughed.

Monique said: "I've no particular desire to see Henri de la Creseuse just now. Time enough when I leave."

"Ah," said Elsa, "but it may be the fates have decided he is not meant for you."

"And the man who is will appear at this place? What is this Pilcher's Peak?"

"I'll tell you the story. Years and years ago they used to take lovers caught in adultery to Pilcher's Peak, make them climb to the top and then throw them down. They always took them there on the night of the full moon. So many died that their blood made the ground fertile and the trees grew round the Peak and made the forest."