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marriage simply to further her hatred of me. Looking back, I doubt that had much to do with it. Her extravagant tastes and Lord Powerstock’s deficient financial management had probably rendered a remunerative union essential if she was to continue to live as she wished. Payne, for all his obvious faults, had made enough money out of the post-war building boom to ensure that she could be kept in the manner to which she’d become accustomed. Or so she must have calculated.
    But the true consequences of their marriage went beyond anybody’s calculations. If Payne, his odious son and their circle of acquaintances rendered me a stranger in my own home, I had at least an ally in Fergus and school, in term-time, to retreat to. So when Angela Bowden, a schoolfriend whose father owned a chain of estate agents along the south coast, told me that Payne had been implicated in a building scandal, I thought little of it. When she showed me a newspaper cutting which talked of land subsidence beneath some new houses he had erected on the slopes of Portsdown. Hill, just outside Portsmouth, I was at first merely amused. When I read the allegations of bribed building officials and corrupt City Councillors, I didn’t really understand what it all meant. I simply reckoned that anything blackening Payne’s name was to be welcomed.
     

I N P A L E B A T T A L I O N S
    27
    The true significance of events dawned on me the day I returned to Meongate for Christmas in December 1933. It was exactly a year since Olivia’s engagement party, exactly a year since she had, as she thought, sealed her prosperity for life. I walked up from the station wondering what I would find at the house, dreading every prospect that occurred to me yet never once guessing what truly did await me.
    No party was in progress this time. No chandeliers were blazing, nor fires crackling. There was not even Fergus to greet me. I went into the drawing room, where I could see a light was on, and encountered Payne, asleep in an armchair, snoring loudly and smelling of whisky. I dropped my bag heavily on the floor but he did not stir.
    Growing puzzled, I rang the bell. After several minutes had passed, Sally appeared, looking more sullen and pinch-faced than ever.
    “Where’s Fergus?” I said.
    “ ’E’s left us, Miss. Didn’ the mistress tell you?”
    “No. Where is she?”
    “In the study, like as not.”
    I found her where Sally had said, seated at what had been my grandfather’s desk. She looked tired and much older than when last I’d been home. Her only greeting was an icy glare.
    “Sally told me Fergus has left,” I said.
    “Fergus was dismissed.”
    “Why?”
    “Prying once too often.”
    “But he’s been with the family—”
    “Too long. Far too long. Old ways are changing here, Leonora.
    Fergus going is just one example.” She rose and crossed to the window. I noticed for the first time that her prodigious self-control had deserted her. She was angry, though for once not at me. “My husband has declared himself bankrupt.” “Bankrupt?”
    “I thought you would have heard about it.”
    “You mean those houses on Portsdown?”
    “You have heard. Yes. The houses on Portsdown. My husband’s prosperity, it seems, was as poorly founded as they were. He’s a ruined man, facing criminal charges. But that’s a small matter. My 28

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    concern is to avoid being ruined with him.” She turned to look at me quickly enough to catch a glimpse of my immediate reaction.
    “And don’t think you’re not implicated, because you are.”
    “It’s nothing to do with me.”
    “Oh, but it is. You won’t be returning to Howell’s after Christmas. I can’t afford the fees. I’ve just been writing to your headmistress.”
    “Not . . . returning? You can’t—”
    “But I can, Leonora. I can.” She moved closer. “As your guardian, I can do exactly as I like. Your education is now an unwarranted extravagance.”
    “But what . .