NEVER HAD I been more aware of my constant friend concealed in my pocket than I had been in the course of those three weeks. The routine of my life seemed to move with the regularity of that device, tapping out the hours.

In the mornings, I was at liberty to do as I pleased and quite happily occupied my time with my paints or books or in tending to my journal. At midday I might expect Madame de Buffon to enquire after me. Shortly thereafter we would set out to take the air, accompanied by our noisy companions, Fantouche and Moustache. Dinner would be had, with or without the company of the silent, wretched-faced Madame de Laval, and following this sombre affair, La Buffon would take to her bed. As the infant grew, so her limbs weakened, she complained. Upon rising, she would then insist that I read to her. Much to my surprise, I discovered an entire trove of English books in her dressing room which she had had delivered from London.

‘I wish to improve my English,’ she begged while handing me Mrs Radcliffe’s Romance of the Forest. She would listen intently, mouthing the words which were unknown to her and pausing to enquire as to their meanings.

Several times a week we were joined in the evenings by Orléans. Often he brought with him a handful of officers destined for the battlefields of Flanders. There would be supper, wine and cards. At the conclusion of this entertainment, I would withdraw to my rooms and await Orléans. He would appear with absolute regularity, take his pleasure with me in precisely the same fashion as he had upon our first encounter and then retire to his mistress’s bed. And so the mechanism would be rewound and the entire course of events repeated the following day.

It was during those undisturbed hours of the morning that I would undertake my duty to Mrs Elliot. As I have described, it required some time before I gathered the courage to pen her a letter. When at last I accomplished this and dispatched it under cover to Thérèse, I was fraught with anxiety. I feared it might be intercepted, that she might not receive it, or that its contents would fail to please her.