Returning to London, the Thorns took up quarters in the seventeenth-century mansion at Pereford. Life became a beautiful dream, for Katherine especially; so perfect it was almost frightening. At their country house she could remain in seclusion being nothing more than a mother to her adored child; then, when she chose, she could emerge to be her husband's hostess at diplomatic functions. Now that she had her child, she had everything, including her husband's adoration, and she blossomed like an orchid; fragile, yet in full flower, pleasing everyone with her freshness and beauty.

The Pereford mansion was elegant and steeped in English history. It had a cellar where an exiled duke had hidden until he was found and executed, and it was surrounded by a forest where King Henry V had hunted wild boar. There were secret passages and drafty crawlways; but mostly there was joy, for the house was filled with company and laughter at all hours of the day.

For household duties, there was a staff of day help as well as a permanent couple, the Hortons, very English, very dignified, who acted as cook and chauffeur. To entertain Damien when Katherine was occupied with official chores, there was a plump English girl named Chessa, no more than a child herself, but a delight to everyone and an indispensable addition to the family. She was bright and full of play, and adored Damien as though he were her own. They would often spend hours together, Damien toddling after her on the vast lawn or sitting quietly by the pond where she would catch tadpoles and dragonflies for them to bring home in jars.

The boy was growing into an artist's rendering of the ideal child. In the three years since his birth the promise of physical perfection had been fulfilled, and his health and strength were phenomenal too. He had a kind of composure, a contentment, that one rarely sees in the young, and visitors occasionally found themselves unnerved by his gaze. If intelligence could be measured by attention span, then he was a genius, for he would often sit for hours, positioned on a small wrought-iron bench beneath an apple tree, his eyes trained on the people who came and went, absorbing every detail of what took place before him. Horton, the chauffeur, occasionally took him out on errands, enjoying his silent presence, amazed by the child's fascination with everything that went on in the world.

"He's like a little man from Mars," Horton once remarked to his wife. "Like he was sent here to study the human race."

"He's the apple of his mother's eye," she responded. "Wouldn't do you no good to be heard saying that."

"I'm not downing him. Just that he is a bit unusual."