Mistral pressed them against her cheek. If only they could talk, if only they could tell her what her Mother had been like and if she would have loved her had she lived. Aunt Emilie would say so little and what she did say was often terribly disconcerting. Why, for instance, had her Mother christened her ‘Mistral’, and why had she been here at Monte Carlo shortly before her own birth?

They were questions which continually presented themselves, but to which Mistral could find no answer, and Aunt Emilie would give none. She had always found that following in their train was the question – who was her father? Long, long ago, soon after she had first gone to the Convent, Mistral had realised that she used her mother’s name while other girls used their father’s. She had said nothing, but when Emilie next visited her she had asked her about it.

‘Is my father dead?’ she asked.

‘No!’

Emilie’s voice was abrupt and harsh.

‘Does he not want to see me – ever?’ Mistral enquired a little wistfully.

‘No!’

‘He does not like me then?’

‘The question does not arise,’ Emilie said. ‘Your father has no part in your life. Forget him! You are your mother’s child. It is her name you bear.’

But why am I different?’ Mistral had insisted. ‘Other girls use their father’s name.’

‘Your mother wished you to use hers,’ Emilie said. ‘It is a good name, the name of a fine English family. Is that not sufficient for you?’

There was something so hostile in the question that frightened and intimidated, Mistral had agreed that it was, and probed no further. She was so anxious to do as Aunt Emilie wished that she tried not to think about her father, yet inevitably a consciousness of him remained. He existed and she was part of him, whatever Aunt Emilie might say, however much she might try to prevent every possible reference to him.

He was somewhere in the world, but did he know that she was grown up and that sometimes she longed for him with an overwhelming longing?

Home! That word had never meant anything to Mistral. The long hours, as she sat alone in her bedroom thinking of things which in the Convent had been forbidden subjects, depressed her and made her suddenly sad.

Things were not improved when Jeanne finally came into the room.

‘I have come to put out your dress for the evening,’ she announced. ‘Your Aunt wishes you to wear the grey satin.’