The door opened behind her and she heard Charles's step. She turned, the letter still in her hand.

"Charles, I have decided to go and spend a few days, perhaps a week or so, with Lady Callandra Daviot."

"Do I know her?" he said immediately, his eyes widening a fraction.

"I should think it unlikely," she replied. "She is in her late fifties, and does not mix a great deal socially."

"Are you considering becoming her companion?" His eye was to the practical. "I don't think you are suited to the position, Hester. With all the kindness in the world, I have to say you are not a congenial person for an elderly lady of a retiring nature. You are extremely bossy-and you have very little sympathy with the ordinary pains of day-to-day life. And you have never yet succeeded in keeping even your silliest opinions to yourself."

"I have never tried!" she said tartly, a little stung by his wording, even though she knew he meant it for her well-being.

He smiled with a slightly twisted humor. "I am aware of that, my dear. Had you tried, even you must have done better!"

"I have no intention of becoming a companion to anyone," she pointed out. It was on the tip of her tongue to add that, had she such a thing in mind, Lady Callandra would be her first choice; but perhaps if she did that, Charles would question Callandra's suitability as a person to visit. "She is the widow of Colonel Daviot, who was a surgeon in the army. I thought I should seek her advice as to what position I might be best suited for.''

He was surprised. "Do you really think she would have any useful idea? It seems to me unlikely. However do go, by all means, if you wish. You have certainly been a most marvelous help to us here, and we are deeply grateful. You came at a moment's notice, leaving all your friends behind, and gave your time and your affections to us when we were sorely in need."

"It was a family tragedy." For once her candor was also gracious. "I should not have wished to be anywhere else. But yes, Lady Callandra has considerable experience and I should value her opinion. If it is agreeable to you, I shall leave tomorrow early."

"Certainly-" He hesitated, looking a trifle uncomfortable. "Er-"

"What is it?"

"Do you-er-have sufficient means? "

She smiled. "Yes, thank you-for the time being."

He looked relieved. She knew he was not naturally generous, but neither was he grudging with his own family. His reluctance was another reinforcement of the observations she had made that there had been a considerable tightening of circumstances in the last four or five months.

There had been other small things: the household had not the complement of servants she remembered prior to her leaving for the Crimea; now there were only the cook, one kitchen maid, one scullery maid, one housemaid and a parlor maid who doubled as lady's maid for Imogen. The butler was the only male indoor servant; no footman, not even a bootboy. The scullery maid did the shoes.

Imogen had not refurbished her summer wardrobe with the usual generosity, and at least one pair of Charles's boots had been repaired. The silver tray in the hall for receiving calling cards was no longer there.

It was most assuredly time she considered her own position, and the necessity of earning her own way. Some academic pursuit had been a suggestion; she found study absorbing, but the tutorial positions open to women were few, and the restrictions of the life did not appeal to her. She read for pleasure.

When Charles had gone she went upstairs and found Imogen in the linen room inspecting pillow covers and sheets. Caring for them was a large task, even for so modest a household, especially without the services of a laundry maid.

"Excuse me." She began immediately to assist, looking at embroidered edges for tears or where the stitching was coming away. "I have decided to go and visit Lady Callandra Daviot, in the country, for a short while. I think she can advise me on what I should do next-" She saw Imogen's look of surprise, and clarified her statement. "At least she will know the possibilities open to me better than I."

"Oh." Imogen's face showed a mixture of pleasure and disappointment and it was not necessary for her to explain. She understood that Hester must come to a decision, but also she would miss her company. Since their first meeting they had become close friends and their differences in nature had been complementary rather than irritating. "Then you had better take Gwen. You can't stay with the aristocracy without a lady's maid."

"Certainly I can," Hester contradicted decisively. "I don't have one, so I shall be obliged to. It will do me no harm whatsoever, and Lady Callandra will be the last one to mind."

Imogen looked dubious. "And how will you dress for dinner?"

"For goodness sake! I can dress myself!"

Imogen's face twitched very slightly. "Yes my dear, I have seen! And I am sure it is admirable for nursing the sick, and fighting stubborn authorities in the army-"

"Imogen!"

"And what about your hair?" Imogen pressed. "You are likely to arrive at table looking as if you had come sideways through a high wind to get there!"

"Imogen!" Hester threw a bundle of towels at her, one knocking a front lock of her hair askew and the rest scattering on the floor.

Imogen threw a sheet back, achieving the same result. They looked at each other's wild appearance and began to laugh. Within moments both were gasping for breath and sitting on the floor in mounds of skirts with previously crisp laundry lying around them in heaps.

The door opened and Charles stood on the threshold looking bemused and a trifle alarmed.

"What on earth is wrong?" he demanded, at first taking their sobs for distress. "Are you ill? What has happened?" Then he saw it was amusement and looked even more confounded, and as neither of them stopped or took any sensible notice of him, he became annoyed.

"Imogen! Control yourself!" he said sharply. "What is the matter with you?"

Imogen still laughed helplessly.

"Hester!" Charles was growing pink in the face. "Hester, stop it! Stop it at once!"

Hester looked at him and found it funnier still.

Charles sniffed, dismissed it as women's weakness and therefore inexplicable, and left, shutting the door hard so none of the servants should witness such a ridiculous scene.

Hester was perfectly accustomed to travel, and the journey from London to Shelburne was barely worth comment compared with the fearful passage by sea across the Bay of Biscay and through the Mediterranean to the Bosporus and up the Black Sea to Sebastopol. Troopships replete with terrified horses, overcrowded, and with the merest of accommodations, were things beyond the imagination of most Englishmen, let alone women. A simple train journey through the summer countryside was a positive pleasure, and the warm, quiet and sweet-scented mile in the dog cart at the far end before she reached the hall was a glory to the senses.

She arrived at the magnificent front entrance with its Doric columns and portico. The driver had no time to hand her down because she had grown unaccustomed to such courtesies and scrambled to the ground herself while he was still tying the reins. With a frown he unloaded her box and at the same moment a footman opened the door and held it for her to pass through. Another footman carried in the box and disappeared somewhere upstairs with it.

Fabia Shelburne was in the withdrawing room where Hester was shown. It was a room of considerable beauty, and at this height of the year, with the French windows open onto the garden and the scent of roses drifting on a warm breeze, the soft green of the rolling parkland beyond, the marble-surrounded fireplace seemed unnecessary, and the paintings keyholes to another and unnecessary world.