My mother was all eagerness to hear. Dorabella prattled on.

“He lives in Cornwall. He is Cornish, actually. Dermot Tregarland. Isn’t it a lovely name? He’s very amusing, isn’t he, Violetta? We liked him very much.”

“What was he doing in Germany?” asked my mother.

“Walking.”

“You met him at the schloss.”

“Well, not exactly. He was staying in the town.”

“I look forward to learning all about him. And he is coming here, you say?”

“You’ll love him,” repeated Dorabella.

“When is he coming?”

“I thought we’d work that out with you.”

“I’m glad of that,” said my mother with light-hearted irony. Then she turned to Gretchen and said how glad she was that her family had let her come to stay with us.

Gretchen replied that it was indeed good of her to allow her to do so.

My mother did not say that she had been given no choice in the matter, but I saw the amused smile on her lips.

She had once mentioned the fact to my father that we rarely consulted her about the people we brought home and it was the custom for her to be presented with them at a moment’s notice. To this he had replied in his indulgent way: “Well, darling, it is their home, you know.”

When we arrived at the house, Gretchen expressed the usual admiration of its antiquity. Robert came dashing out. He was back from Devon and would, to his chagrin, soon be going back to school. He was introduced to Gretchen.

“Kurt’s sister,” he said. “Where’s Kurt? Why didn’t you bring him back?”

“How was Devon?” I asked.

“Brilliant,” he said. “But I’d rather have been in Germany. It must have been fun.”

And so we had arrived home.

No sooner was I in my room than my parents came to see me. I had expected them. They would want to know more about this young man whom Dorabella seemed to be so involved with.

I gave them a brief account of what had happened, how we had met Dermot, how he had rescued us when we might have been lost in the forest, and I went on to the attack on the schloss and the reason why we had brought Gretchen with us.

They were astounded and deeply shocked.

“Poor Edward,” said my mother. “He seems to be fond of the girl.”

“It is all rather sudden,” said my father.

“Well, these things happen,” put in my mother. “Of course, Edward has visited them before and she is Kurt’s sister. Sooner or later he would be thinking of marriage. But what of Dorabella’s affair? She is very young.”

“We are the same age,” I reminded her.

“Yes…but she always seems younger. And…she is very impressionable.”

“It may probably blow over,” suggested my father.

“Violetta, how does it seem to you?” asked my mother. “You’ve seen her go through these stages before.”

“I think this is rather more than usual.”

“Really! And what do you think of the young man?”

“He’s very pleasant…very charming. He was extremely good at getting us out of the forest.”

They wanted a more detailed account of that adventure.

“It seems a very dangerous place,” said my mother, frowning.

“It seemed idyllic until all that happened. Then it became horrible. But it is what is happening all over Germany.”

I could see their minds were on Dorabella.

“We’ll ask the young man here as soon as possible,” said my mother. “Then we’ll see what we think of him.”

“Perhaps Dorabella has already made up her mind that she is going to marry him,” suggested my father.

“She has been known to change her mind…”

At that moment Dorabella herself came bursting in.

“I knew I’d find you here. Learning all about it, of course, from sensible Violetta. Well, what has she been telling you?”

“About the adventurous time you had in Germany,” said my father.

“Oh, it was wonderful…until all that put an end to it. Dermot was marvelous, wasn’t he, Violetta? The way he got us out of that place…and then he rescued us in the forest, you know.”

“He was the perfect knight,” I said.

“Actually, he is really rather marvelous. Wait until you two see him.”

“I suggest we do not wait too long before we do,” said my mother. “We’ll invite him very soon.”

Dorabella hugged her.

“You will love him. You really will. I have never met anyone quite like him. He’s the nearest thing to Daddy you can have.”

My father was greatly touched, but I could see my mother was wondering whether this was just another of Dorabella’s transient enthusiasms.

Edward took Gretchen to see my grandparents. Their house was as much home to him as ours was, for my mother had only been about sixteen when she took him home and her mother had really brought him up.

A few weeks after our return Dermot Tregarland visited us. People sometimes seem different against another background and I wondered whether Dermot would. But no, he was the same exuberant, charming person at Caddington as he had been in the Böhmerwald.

He was interested in the house, which he naturally compared with his own home. There were many similarities, he told us. He wanted us all to pay a visit to Cornwall soon.

By this time it was mid-September and Dermot stayed with us for two weeks and, I think, during that time my parents decided that he would be a suitable match for their daughter.

He met people in the neighborhood—the doctor and his family, the rector and his—and although there was as yet no announcement of an engagement, it was taken for granted that he was Dorabella’s fiancé.

Dorabella was at the height of excitement. She was radiant and her happiness enhanced her beauty.

In contrast to her exuberance, I felt faintly depressed. I was lusterless beside her. I came to the conclusion that I did not want change. I wanted us to be schoolgirls again. Perhaps I was a little resentful that she needed me less. Someone else had moved closer to her. Dorabella was in love. I was dearly loved by my family, but it was not the same.

Perhaps I felt envious. Always before, when people noticed her and made much of her, I accepted the fact that I lacked her charm, and I had been pleased that she was so popular. I might be becoming a little tired of being the sensible one…the one who was expected to take responsibility…the one who must be there when needed to help Dorabella.

It had been my role to look after her, and although sometimes I may have complained, I did not want that changed.

I often thought back to that moment when Else’s young man had suddenly stood up and begun the riot. I thought that after that nothing would ever be the same again.

That was nonsense. This would have come in any case. It had had nothing to do with the riot. Dorabella would have met Dermot—and even if she had not met him, it would have been someone else one day.

But now, because of what had happened, I was aware of evil as I had never been previously. I could not accept life as I had done previously.

It was arranged that we should pay a visit to Dermot’s house. My mother decided that we would not wait until Christmas, much to my brother’s disgust. He declared that beastly school was going to spoil things for him yet again.

It was October when we left for Cornwall—my parents, Dorabella, and I. We spent a night in London in what had been my grandparents’ home in Westminster and which was now the home of my uncle Charles. My grandparents were at Marchlands most of the time but came up to London on this occasion to see us. Edward and Gretchen were staying at Marchlands. I wondered whether Gretchen compared Epping Forest with the Böhmerwald.

“What a nice girl Gretchen is,” said my grandmother. “Don’t you think so, Lucinda?”

My mother said she did. My uncle Charles and his wife, Sylvia, were very interested in the political situation and as a Member of Parliament, my uncle knew a great deal more about world affairs than we did. He muttered something about not liking the noises that fellow Hitler was making.