Eugenie put her head down and tried to marshal her thoughts, chewing the end of her pen in concentration. The classroom was silent except for the scratch of nibs as the pupils set about their allotted task. When was it the empress had died? What was it the history book said? She tried to picture the words on the pages she’d been reading yesterday … Ah, yes, she remembered now. After Napoleon III was overthrown and captured in 1870, his empress fled to England and died at Farnborough.

After putting in the final full stop, she grimaced at the page. Miss Staples wasn’t going to be very impressed with this effort. It was too short, and even the fact that she’d made her writing larger and spread the words out to cover more space couldn’t disguise the puny effort. Well, it would just have to do; she really couldn’t think of anything else to say. Now, if they’d asked her to write about the Pankhursts, then she would have had plenty to say. She admired the way they had fought, and even been imprisoned for their passionate belief that women should be given the vote. Last year the voting age had been lowered to twenty-one, and that had been a tremendous achievement for all those women who had struggled for so many years.

A quick look at the clock on the wall told her that there was still nearly an hour of the lesson left, so she put her head down as if working on her essay and returned to her musing.

Would she be able to go home for Christmas? How she hoped so. The lovely house they had in Russell Square was always so festive, with a huge brightly decorated tree and crackling wood fires burning in the grates. Her mother made a great show, trying to outdo her friends. That was important to Elizabeth Winford: the social round and making an impression seemed to be the only things driving her mother’s life. Her daughter came very low on her list of priorities. Eugenie accepted that. She really didn’t know her mother all that well, as she’d had a nurse from the time she’d been born and then off to boarding school at the age of six. Her father loved her, though, and she adored him. He was from New York and still spent most of the year there. She didn’t know much about his business, but Cyrus D. Winford was obviously a wealthy man. She had asked him many times to explain his work, but she found it hard to understand. It was all very confusing. Still, she’d ask him again when he came home. He was very patient.

‘Miss Winford.’ Miss Staples was standing beside her. ‘You are to go to see Miss Patterson-Hay at once.’