Anne put her hair up and wore the earrings at dinner on her birthday. Miss Oliver, who was very fond of Anne, ordered a special dinner, and allowed her and the other senior girls to taste wine for the first time. They drank a toast to her while she sat blushing under the unaccustomed attention, her brown eyes bright, her cheeks pink. There was no gentleman there to notice it. Anne knew no young men: for all her intellectual maturity, she was as innocent as a rose; and, on that day at least, as lovely.

It was on the following day that the letter arrived to say that her father had died of typhus at Riga six weeks before. Contrary winds had delayed his last letter to her; and it seemed somehow a bitter thing that he had already been dead a month, even as she read his happy words to her and unwrapped his birthday gift.

The mind does not retain a clear recollection of great anguish, only that it occurred. It was as well, Anne thought, or how should we ever survive? She remembered little of the darkness that overwhelmed her, or of the fear and loneliness that followed when, night after night, she would wake to the knowledge that she was alone in the world, that there was no single soul who bore any responsibility for her, who owed her any affection, care or protection. For the rest of her life, only her own labours, or cold charity, would keep her from starvation. It was too aweful a thought for a seventeen-year-old.

Miss Oliver, good friend that she was, kept Anne on at the school for a time, earning her keep by instructing the younger pupils, then helped her to find a position as a governess to a private family. Anne was without family or fortune, and it was the only profession open to her. She took up her position with the Murrays in April 1800, to teach Miss Murray and Miss Caroline, who were then fourteen and twelve years old.

Lady Murray was a very silly, ignorant woman, but there was nothing ill-natured about her, and her placid good humour was only ruffled if she were obliged to do something she didn’t like, or if her daughters were not sufficiently admired, or if her son Hartley’s extravagances were forced on her notice. Then she would grow vexed and fancy herself ill, and the house would be thrown into a turmoil. But she hadn’t the force of intellect to be really bad-tempered, and Anne discovered that if caught in time she was easily distracted into a better frame of mind.

The Miss Murrays, though inclined to be uppish, contrary, idle, and conceited, like most girls of their station and upbringing, were good-hearted enough underneath it all, and Anne soon learned the knack of coaxing and jollying them into doing what she wanted. Accomplishments fit for the drawing-room were all that was required for them, but for her own pride she extended the frontiers a little, and the Miss Murrays were tricked into learning quite a number of things more than their friends and contemporaries.

Life in the schoolroom jogged along comfortably for most of the time. There was no conflict of authority: any attempt by the girls to enlist their mother’s support against their governess met with a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘For heaven’s sake, Maria, your father pays Miss Peters a handsome salary to know best about these things.’ The Miss Murrays were as fond of their governess as it was in them to be, and occasionally they even allowed themselves to enjoy her company, when there was no entertainment to compete with it.

Anne had little to do with the male division of the family. Sir Ralph never noticed lesser beings unless they annoyed him; and though Mr Hartley had liked playing practical jokes on her when she first arrived – putting a frog into her bed or a handful of gentles into her reticule – he soon tired of it and turned to other sports, after which he acknowledged her only by a nod of the head if they happened to pass on the stairs.

So she settled in at Margaret Street. Her room was comfortable, the servants treated her politely, and she ate with the family unless they had guests. She even found something to admire in Lady Murray. As the daughter of a self-made man, her ladyship hated to see money wasted, which was the principal cause of her dissatisfaction with her son, who liked doing nothing better. She ran her household efficiently, and though she liked show, she was rarely misled by the tawdry, having and instinctive understanding of value for money.

Her manner towards Anne, though offhand, was never insolent. Indeed, she boasted to her acquaintance of Miss Peters’s intelligence and good family.

‘Indeed,’ Lady Murray would say, nodding over the tea-things, ‘if only the poor thing had any money, or was a little more handsome, she might have made quite a good match, for her mama, you know, was a Miss Strickland, and related to the Talbots of Northallerton.’

Lady Murray soon began to call on her for all sorts of extra services. Anne gradually took on the duties of secretary, sorting and reading her correspondence, accepting and refusing invitations, and replying to letters at Lady Murray’s dictation. Lady Murray liked novels, so when there was no company in the evening, Anne was required to sit by her mistress and read to her, or, when even the effort of listening was too great, to play cards. Lady Murray discovered that Miss Peters’s needlework was superior, and began to give her those delicate little tasks like repairing the hem of the lace ball gown, embroidering a silk bed gown, or trimming Lady Murray’s chemises.

Anne accepted it all with a good grace, for though she had a great deal of pride, she also craved human warmth. She had no home, no family, no human beings on whom to centre her life, apart from her employers. So whether ordering the dinner or arranging the flowers, preventing Miss Murray from buying the violently purple silk shawl she saw at the Pantheon Bazaar, or obliging Miss Caroline to practise her piece rather than sit staring out of a window, she entered wholeheartedly into the life of Margaret Street, and tried to become indispensible..

Anne reached the open space in front of the cathedral of Notre-Dame, and paused to gaze up at the delicate tracery of the great rose window, set for contrast between the stern Roman arches of the twin towers. Her father had had the mathematician’s love of architecture and had taught her how to look at buildings. Like so much in Paris, Notre-Dame seemed familiar, and yet subtly alien, and she wished passionately for a moment that Papa were here so that she could discuss it with him. But to be here at all, in a foreign country, was a source of delight to her.

The first conversation which took place between Sir Ralph and Lady Murray on the subject had occurred just after breakfast one day when her pupils were upstairs being measured for new pattern gowns, and Anne was writing letters to Lady Murray’s dictation. Lady Murray broke off suddenly to address her husband, who was still sitting amongst the bones and shells, reading the newspapers.

‘I have been thinking, Sir Ralph, that we had better all go to Paris with you. Mrs Cowley Crawford says Lady Whitworth is to go. She was formerly the Duchess of Dorset, you know,’ she added for Anne’s benefit. ‘She is a charming woman. She has twenty thousand a year of her own, but I hear she is immensely affable.’

‘Thirteen thousand,’ Sir Ralph corrected her without looking up, ‘and she is very proud.’

Lady Murray was unperturbed. ‘Anyone has the right to be proud, with thirteen thousand a year,’ she said easily, ‘but I dare say she is very charming after all. And situated as we shall be in Paris, there will be no avoiding the intimacy. What a wonderful thing it will be for our girls! We shall meet everyone. Maria will make a great match – a French duke or count with a large estate and several castles.’

‘French dukes and counts do not have large estates, since the Revolution,’ Sir Ralph replied, turning a page.

‘Someone must have them. They can’t belong to no one,’ Lady Murray concluded reasonably.

Sir Ralph, who had stopped listening, turned another page in silence, and Lady Murray paused a moment before taking a new direction. ‘It will not hurt, Sir Ralph, to be taking Hartley away from his present companions.’

At this, her husband did look up. Hartley Murray had come down from an expensive three years at Cambridge only to torment his parents by taking up with the most heedless set of peep-o’-day boys he could find. ‘True, ma’am. Foreign travel and new experiences must do him good; and at least it will break the hold that villainous young Cadmus seems to have over him.’

‘Harry Cadmus is the great-grandnephew of the Duke of Bedford,’ Lady Murray demurred, shocked; but then she sighed, ‘though I must own he does seem very wild. Well, so it is settled, then, Sir Ralph, that we should all go. Miss Peters, you must pay special attention to the girls’ French lessons. It would give them a great advantage over other girls if they could address these French dukes and counts in their own language. Just a few polite phrases, of course,’ she added hastily. ‘I should not wish them to be turned into scholars.’

The arrangements for the journey were made by one of the secretaries at the Embassy, while another was sent ahead to find a suitable house to rent. The passports were written out, and their passages booked on the packet Maid of Rye, which was to leave from Dover on the third of November. Hartley Murray, who had been sulking furiously for weeks over being taken away from his unlawful pursuits, commented tartly that he hoped she wouldn’t turn out really to be made of rye, or they would all be drowned.

The party left in three separate vehicles: one for the luggage, one for the servants, and bringing up the rear, Lady Murray, her daughters and Anne travelling together in the family berlin. Sir Ralph, his private secretary and Hartley were to go down later by post.