But one pot of hand balm could hardly be counted an ornament and Mistral, contrasting her own room with Jeanne’s, knew that the latter was far more homely. Photographs of Jeanne’s great-nieces and nephews stood on the mantelpiece, a shell box held her hairpins, a china tidy with a motto written on it for her combings. The table by her bed contained besides her Missal a statue of St. Anthony, her best Rosary of ivory and silver beads, which she only used on Saints’ Days, and an embroidered spectacle case, which had been a Christmas present over twenty years ago. There were pieces of Normandy pottery, a pincushion fashioned into a glass slipper, a lucky elephant from India, and a needlework picture of the Holy Family, which went with her everywhere. There was no doubt about it, Jeanne’s bedroom, wherever it might be, would always be individual.

What was wrong with hers, Mistral thought, was that she had nothing personal with which to surround herself.

Even as she thought of it, the memory came to her of those long years at school when she had longed so often and so passionately for someone to love her, someone to care for her individually.

The Nuns had been kind and they had taken an unceasing interest in all their pupils, but it was impossible not to realise that their hearts were given to God, that first and foremost in their affections, in their loyalty, and indeed in everything they did came He to whom they had vowed their service.

Mistral was deeply religious, but she also wanted human love, human understanding and the knowledge that she belonged. She felt the loss of this most in the holidays when all the other girls, excited and chattering of their plans, had gone to their homes and she had been left at the Convent with only two other pupils to keep her company.

One was a child whose mother and father were in Africa, and the other had no mother, but her father was Governor of Devil’s Island, where she visited him only once every three years. But deprived as the other two girls were of holidays at home, they had at least relations who wrote to them, parents who gave them presents on their birthdays, at Christmas and Easter, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins to whom they could pour out their hearts in long letters and who sent them loving messages in reply.

Mistral wrote dutifully to Aunt Emilie every week, but sometimes three or four months would pass before she would get a letter in return. Then it was brief, telling her no news of any kind or description. In fact, the letters were almost identical in that they invariably commanded her to work hard, to apply herself more fervently to her lessons and to do exactly what the Nuns told her.