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and telling myself that I must find out from Ellen who he was when I was suddenly aware that there was something unusual about one of the drawers in the escritoire. It was smaller than the others and I could not understand why.
    Excitedly I ran down to Aunt Charlotte’s sitting room where she was busy with her accounts. I said I thought there was something rather strange about the escritoire, and that brought her up to the top of the house at great speed.
    She tapped on the drawer and smiled. “Oh yes. An old trick. There’s a secret drawer here.”
    A secret drawer!
    She gave me the benefit of her grim mirthless laugh. “Nothing extraordinary. They had them made to conceal their jewelry from casual burglars or to put in papers or secret documents.”
    I was so excited that I could not restrain my feelings and Aunt Charlotte was not displeased.
    â€œLook here, I’ll show you. Nothing very special about this. You’ll often come across them. There’s a spring. It’s usually about here. Ah, there it is.” The back of the drawer opened like a door and displayed a cavity behind it.
    â€œAunt, there’s something there.”
    She put in her hand and took it out. It was a figure, about six inches long. “It’s a woman,” I said. “Oh…it’s beautiful.”
    â€œPlaster,” she said. “Worthless.”
    She was scowling at it. Clearly it had no value. But to me it was intensely exciting, partly because it had been found in a secret drawer but chiefly because it had come from Castle Crediton.
    She was turning it over in her hand. “It’s been broken off from something.”
    â€œBut why should it have been in the secret drawer?”
    She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not worth much,” she repeated.
    â€œAunt, may I have it in my room?”
    She handed it over to me. “I’m surprised you are interested in a thing like that. It’s of no value.”
    I slipped the figure into my apron pocket and picked up my duster. Aunt Charlotte returned to her accounts. As soon as she had gone I examined the figure. The hair was wild, the hands were outstretched, and long draperies were molded to look as though they were blowing in a strong wind. I wondered who had put it there in the secret drawer and why, if it were of no value. I also wondered whether we ought to take it back to Lady Crediton, but when I suggested this to Aunt Charlotte she pooh-poohed the idea. “They’d think you crazy. It’s worthless. Besides I overpaid her anyway. If it had been worth five pounds it would have been mine…for the price I gave her. But it’s not. It’s not worth five shillings.”
    So the figure stood up on my dressing table and comforted me as I had not been comforted since my mother’s death. I very quickly noticed the half obliterated writing on the skirts and with the aid of a microscope I made out the inscription: The Secret Woman .
    ***
    My father came home that year. He was changed, more remote than ever without my mother’s softening influence. I realized that the future I had looked forward to could never be. I had always known it could not be ideal without her but I had had dreams of joining my father, becoming his companion as she had been; I saw now how impossible that was.
    He had become very silent and he had always been undemonstrative, and I had not the power to fascinate him that my mother had had.
    He was leaving India, he told me, and was going to Africa. I read the papers and would know that there was trouble out there. We had a large Empire to protect and that meant that there would always be trouble in some remote spot on the globe. He had no desire now for anything but to serve the Queen and the Empire; and he was grateful—as I must always be—to Aunt Charlotte, for making it possible for him to feel at ease as to my welfare. In a year or so I should go to Switzerland to