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disappointment. She had thought of him often since his visit to Pringle House. As time had gone by, she had begun to picture him as a noble and generous hero, the type of man who would be above her sister’s petty wiles. But he had just proved to be like all the rest. And what Cordelia wanted, Cordelia always got.
    Harriet gave a little sigh and followed Aunt Rebecca and Agnes from the drawing room.
    The rooms allocated to them were an insult: two poky little chambers on the top floor, each sparsely furnished. Agnes’s face was a careful blank.
    “This is to be your sitting room, I believe,” intoned Findlater, leading the way along a low-ceilinged corridor.
    The room he ushered them into was little better than their bedchambers. It had obviously been a schoolroom once. A battered spinet stood in one comer, and a pile of slates lay on a chipped and scarred table. A large rocking horse stared glassily at them from beside the empty hearth. There was an odd assortment of furniture that had found its way up to the schoolroom when its use downstairs had been over. The room was very cold.
    “We would like fires lit in
all
our rooms,” said Harriet in a thin, little voice.
    Findlater opened his mouth to say that he had been given no such orders, but there was something in the proud tilt of Harriet’s little chin that silenced him.
    “Well, here we are,” said Aunt Rebecca brightly when the silent Agnes had left, followed by the butler. “At least Cordelia has welcomed us.”
    “She did not welcome us
at all,”
said Harriet furiously. “She would have thrown us out had it not been for the opportune arrival of the Marquess of Arden and his cousin. She is as hard-hearted and selfish as ever she was. But beggars cannot be choosers. At least we are in London. I will talk to Cordelia about her shabby treatment when we see her at supper.”
    But they were not to see Cordelia. It transpired that all their meals were to be served to them in the schoolroom.
    “I don’t care,” said Harriet as they prepared for bed after having hung their meager stock of clothes away. “I just don’t
care.”
    But she cried herself to sleep, because the Marquess of Arden had not shown the slightest flicker of interest in her and because all her hopes that Cordelia might have changed had been dashed.
    In the days that followed, Harriet and Aunt Rebecca were given to understand by a tight-lipped and embarrassed Agnes that Cordelia did not wish to see them belowstairs.
    She had agreed to feed them and give them house room provided they kept out of the way. If either of them made a nuisance of herself, they would be turned out.
    At first it was hard to bear. It was hard to sit at the window and watch Cordelia, dressed in an array of bewitching gowns, going out to balls and parties or for drives in the park with the Marquess of Arden.
    If he or Mr. Hudson had asked to see me, thought Harriet sadly, Cordelia would have
had
to ask us downstairs.
    Despite her initial brave front, Harriet was, in truth, afraid of her sister. She desperately did not want to be sent away before she and Aunt Rebecca had had some respite from the drudgery and poverty of Pringle House. Time and again she berated herself for her lack of spirit. Time and again she set out to descend the stairs to the drawing room to confront Cordelia. And time and again she was forced to admit to herself that she lacked the necessary courage.
    The servants treated her with thinly veiled insolence but were too unsure of her exact status in the household to stint on either food or coals.
    Harriet tried to count her blessings. They had food and warmth. London lay before them. They had no money, but at least they could venture out and go for walks in the parks and look at the shops.
    But Aunt Rebecca felt the humiliation of their situation keenly and indulged her “delicate nerves” to the hilt, depressing Harriet by constant complaining until Harriet could only be relieved when Aunt Rebecca