‘It’s so odd. When she arrived, she was furious at having to leave them.’

‘And at the time she did not seem so very fond of her stepmother.’

‘It has been particularly hard since Ariane left …’

‘We didn’t mean to bring this up as soon as you arrived, but since it has arisen …’

‘She doesn’t eat …’

‘She goes for long walks, or rides alone. It’s not suitable.’

‘It’s not safe.’

‘She behaves abominably. She answers back and is rude to Micheline.’

‘We can do nothing with her.’

‘Next it’ll be boys.’

We need a man’s authority.’

Theo was aghast. This was not what he had come home for. The door opened and Sabine came back in and sat down again by the fire. ‘I’m sorry, Papa,’ she said.

‘Sabine,’ said her father, ‘I don’t want to force you to go anywhere you would be unhappy. If necessary, I shall find another school. Did you not like the convent?’

Sabine did not reply.

‘You liked it once,’ Aunt Marguerite said, encouragingly.

‘I hated it. I won’t go back.’

It was a world impossible to describe to anyone who had not lived there. They had lived within an invisible barbed wire fence, so that they could see the outside world, but were never part of it, held captive by the discipline of self-denial and spiritual exaltation. She had been so young when she was sent there that she had thought this was the world outside home, how it had to be. This is what the sisters taught. Others might live otherwise, which would only lead to their damnation, but within the wire, contained by their strict routine, they were leading the good life: obedience to God, to the Reverend Mother and the sisters, to priests, to men, to older people. Since she had left, she had cancelled as much as she could from her memory, and all that was left was sensation:

Cold: no heating in the dormitories; a single pipe in the classrooms running, against all scientific principles of the conduction of heat, along the ceiling. Throughout the winter they all had running noses, raw upper lips, chilblains swelling their fingers and toes, cracking and suppurating.

Fear: the rules were tyrannical in their senseless detail and precision. The least infraction (walking on the wrong side of the corridor, inattention during the twice-daily services) was punished by deprivation of food and public humiliation, standing in a reserved spot during mealtimes while the rest ate.

Hunger: the food was horrible, inedible. She could visualise the dry, gristly slice of grey meat that appeared on their plates twice a week, which she would chew and chew and could never swallow. She used to hide it in her handkerchief, tucked into her sleeve. On Fridays and fast days the glutinous gratin of fish with its seasoning of fine bones made her stomach heave.

Pain: for the most heinous offences beating was prescribed, and at first, failing to understand the system of deceit for self-protection, she was often caught in some dereliction and beaten on her bare legs.