There was nothing for it but to wait until she arrived home, and she felt like crying in frustration. Why all the secrecy? She was so bewildered that it was impossible to stop all manner of disasters running through her fertile mind. Yet she couldn’t come up with one reason that could wrench her so abruptly out of the school. Fifteen minutes ago she had been struggling with an essay … She wiped away a tear as it trickled down her cheek. She’d never know what Miss Staples thought of it now.

There was a strange hush about the house when Eugenie rushed into the drawing room. As soon as she saw the scene, she knew that some great disaster had befallen them. Her mother was prostrate on the couch, moaning, with her personal maid, Gladys, trying to comfort her. As Eugenie rushed to her mother, she was stopped as someone caught her arm in a fierce grip.

‘Leave her!’

Eugenie looked into the harsh face of her mother’s sister: her Aunt Gertrude. How she disliked this woman. She was sharp, unkind and never had a good word to say about her father. Wrenching free, she knelt in front of her mother. ‘Where’s Papa?’ She used that term of address because it always made him laugh.

Aunt Gertrude hauled her to her feet. ‘He’s dead. Lost all his money and shot himself, the coward.’

Eugenie almost fainted as the callous announcement stunned her. She held on to the back of a chair to steady herself. The word that raged through her mind was not one Miss Patterson-Hay would have approved of. The bitch! The lying bitch!

‘Don’t look so shocked. I always knew he would end up in trouble.’ Aunt Gertrude’s expression was smug.

Incensed, Eugenie lashed out at the considerable bulk of her aunt. ‘He wouldn’t do that!’

‘Well, he has,’ her aunt sneered, ‘but at least he had the decency to do it in America. That saves us the expense of a funeral.’

A red mist gathered in front of Eugenie’s eyes and she launched herself at the taunting woman but was caught from behind and lifted off her feet by the only man in the room. And if she disliked her aunt, she loathed him. He was supposed to be a good friend of the family, but she knew that her father had never liked him. And she tried to stay out of his way, because he was always trying to touch her. She kicked back with her foot and caught his shin, making him grunt in pain. He dropped her and laughed. He actually laughed.

She spun round to face him, fists clenched ready for a fight. ‘You’re lying! How could he lose all his money? And if he did, he wouldn’t kill himself. He isn’t a coward! He isn’t!’