And then we headed home again, riding across the marshlands. Near to home we asked the horses into a trot for a stride or two. I am not bold enough yet to canter on my own, but when my balance improves it will come, I am sure of it.

August 5, 1853

My life now has a routine. Each day I rise at dawn and I ride one of the horses out with Pierre or Chantal, and then I return and eat lunch and begin to paint. I have almost finished my grand work now, the painting that is three metres long and has dominated my bedroom and my life over the past year. It is very nearly done, and my new concern is that I might push it too far, add one more brush stroke where it doesn’t belong and ruin it all. Aunt Mimi has just come in to look at the work, and I asked her what she thought.

“I have an art critic arriving tomorrow,” she said. “He has a greater eye than mine. Let us wait and ask him.”

An art critic? Coming here to Flamants Roses? Who can she possibly mean?

Chapter 17: Sold!

One mid-summer afternoon in June, my dad and I took the winding footpaths through Kensington Gardens to the Georgian-style red-brick building that stood by the lake. It was a lovely walk, except for the bit where I had to make Dad stop and wait while I threw up in a hedge.

“Are you OK?” he asked me as I emerged from the bushes looking pale and strung out.

I nodded. “It’s just nerves.”

“You’ve got nothing to be worried about,” Dad tried to reassure me.

But in truth he looked as sick as a dog too, and we both hesitated at that moment and stood on the path to catch our breath before I said, “Can we skip it and just go to McDonald’s instead?”

Dad laughed. Then he put his arm around my shoulder and hugged me tight. “That would mean we’d miss your debut exhibition at the Serpentine.”

“So that’s a no?”

“They’re all waiting for you, Maisie. Some of the most famous art critics in Europe will be there.”

And that was when I had to duck into the bushes and throw up a second time.

It has been a year since I left Paris. And in that year my life has been extraordinary. After the auction at Lucie’s, when Claude ended up selling for a colossal two hundred thousand euros, I became an instant superstar. For some kids, I guess the fame would have gone to their head. With me, it had the opposite effect. I felt like it had all happened too fast and I didn’t deserve the accolades. I was worried that I had peaked in life at the age of thirteen! It would all be downhill from here!