The Queen Anne bureau-bookcase was one of Lydia’s favorite pieces of furniture in the London house. Two hundred years old, it was of black lacquer decorated in gold with vaguely Chinese scenes of pagodas, willow trees, islands and flowers. The flap front folded down to form a writing table and to reveal red-velvet-lined pigeonholes for letters and tiny drawers for paper and pens. There were large drawers in the bombé base, and the top, above her eye level as she sat at the table, was a bookcase with a mirrored door. The ancient mirror showed a cloudy, distorted reflection of the morning room behind her.

On the writing table was an unfinished letter to her sister, Aleks’s mother, in St. Petersburg. Lydia’s handwriting was small and untidy. She had written, in Russian: I don’t know what to think about Charlotte and then she had stopped. She sat, looking into the cloudy mirror, musing.

It was turning out to be a very eventful season in the worst possible way. After the suffragette protest at the court and the madman in the park, she had thought there could be no more catastrophes. And for a few days life had been calm. Charlotte was successfully launched. Aleks was no longer around to disturb Lydia’s equanimity, for he had fled to the Savoy Hotel and did not appear at society functions. Belinda’s ball had been a huge success. That night Lydia had forgotten her troubles and had a wonderful time. She had danced the waltz, the polka, the two-step, the tango and even the Turkey Trot. She had partnered half the House of Lords, several dashing young men, and-most of all-her husband. It was not really chic to dance with one’s own husband quite as much as she had. But Stephen looked so fine in his white tie and tails, and he danced so well, that she had given herself up to pleasure. Her marriage was definitely in one of its happier phases. Looking back over the years, she had the feeling that it was often like this in the season. And then Annie had turned up to spoil it all.

Lydia had only the vaguest recollection of Annie as a housemaid at Walden Hall. One could not possibly know all the servants at an establishment as large as that: there were some fifty indoor staff, and then the gardeners and grooms. Nor was one known to all the servants: on one famous occasion, Lydia had stopped a passing maid in the hall and asked her whether Lord Walden was in his room, and had received the reply: “I’ll go and see, madam-what name shall I say?”

However, Lydia remembered the day Mrs. Braithwaite, the housekeeper at Walden Hall, had come to her with the news that Annie would have to go because she was pregnant. Mrs. Braithwaite did not say “pregnant,” she said “overtaken in moral transgression.” Both Lydia and Mrs. Braithwaite were embarrassed, but neither was shocked: it had happened to housemaids before and it would happen again. They had to be let go-it was the only way to run a respectable house-and naturally they could not be given references in those circumstances. Without a “character” a maid could not get another job in service, of course; but normally she did not need a job, for she either married the father of the child or went home to mother. Indeed, years later, when she had brought up her children, such a girl might even find her way back into the house, as a laundry-maid or kitchenmaid, or in some other capacity which would not bring her into contact with her employers.

Lydia had assumed that Annie’s life would follow that course. She remembered that a young undergardener had left without giving notice and run away to sea-that piece of news had come to her attention because of the difficulty of finding boys to work as gardeners for a sensible wage these days-but of course no one ever told her the connection between Annie and the boy.

We’re not harsh, Lydia thought; as employers we’re relatively generous. Yet Charlotte reacted as if Annie’s plight were my fault. I don’t know where she gets her ideas. What was it she said? “I know what Annie did and I know who she did it with.” In Heaven’s name, where did the child learn to speak like that? I dedicated my whole life to bringing her up to be pure and clean and decent, not like me don’t even think that-

She dipped her pen in the inkwell. She would have liked to share her worries with her sister, but it was so hard in a letter. It was hard enough in person, she thought. Charlotte was the one with whom she really wanted to share her thoughts. Why is it that when I try I become shrill and tyrannical?

Pritchard came in. “A Mr. Konstantin Dmitrich Levin to see you, my lady.”

Lydia frowned. “I don’t think I know him.”

“The gentleman said it was a matter of urgency, m’lady, and seemed to think you would remember him from St. Petersburg.” Pritchard looked dubious.

Lydia hesitated. The name was distinctly familiar. From time to time Russians whom she hardly knew would call on her in London. They usually began by offering to take back messages, and ended by asking to borrow the passage money. Lydia did not mind helping them. “All right,” she said. “Show him in.”

Pritchard went out. Lydia inked her pen again, and wrote: What can one do when the child is eighteen years old and has a will of her own? Stephen says I worry too much. I wish-

I can’t even talk to Stephen properly, she thought. He just makes soothing noises.

The door opened, and Pritchard said: “Mr. Konstantin Dmitrich Levin.”

Lydia spoke over her shoulder in English. “I’ll be with you in a moment, Mr. Levin.” She heard the butler close the door as she wrote:-that I could believe him. She put down her pen and turned around.

He spoke to her in Russian. “How are you, Lydia?”

Lydia whispered: “Oh, my God.”

It was as if something cold and heavy descended over her heart, and she could not breathe. Feliks stood in front of her: tall, and thin as ever, in a shabby coat with a scarf, holding a foolish English hat in his left hand. He was as familiar as if she had seen him yesterday. His hair was still long and black, without a hint of gray. There was that white skin, the nose like a curved blade, the wide, mobile mouth and the sad soft eyes.

He said: “I’m sorry to shock you.”

Lydia could not speak. She struggled with a storm of mixed emotions: shock, fear, delight, horror, affection and dread. She stared at him. He was older. His face was lined: there were two sharp creases in his cheeks, and downturning wrinkles at the corners of his lovely mouth. They seemed like lines of pain and hardship. In his expression there was a hint of something which had not been there before-perhaps ruthlessness, or cruelty, or just inflexibility. He looked tired.

He was studying her, too. “You look like a girl,” he said wonderingly.

She tore her eyes away from him. Her heart pounded like a drum. Dread became her dominant feeling. If Stephen should come back early, she thought, and walk in here now, and give me that look that says Who is this man? and I were to blush, and mumble, and-

“I wish you’d say something,” Feliks said.

Her eyes returned to him. With an effort, she said: “Go away.”

“No.”

Suddenly she knew she did not have the strength of will to make him leave. She looked over to the bell which would summon Pritchard. Feliks smiled as if he knew what was in her mind.

“It’s been nineteen years,” he said.

“You’ve aged,” she said abruptly.

“You’ve changed.”

“What did you expect?”

“I expected this,” he said. “That you would be afraid to admit to yourself that you are happy to see me.”

He had always been able to see into her soul with those soft eyes. What was the use of pretending? He knew all about pretending, she recalled. He had understood her from the moment he first set eyes on her.

“Well?” he said. “Aren’t you happy?”

“I’m frightened, too,” she said, and then she realized she had admitted to being happy. “And you?” she added hastily. “How do you feel?”