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by speaking to her severely.
    Then, when her uncle continued to beat her on every occasion he could find an excuse to do so, she realised that it was because he was still infuriated that he could not call the Duke of Avon his brother-in-law.
    It was also a humiliation that his sister had caused such a scandal.
    On the other hand Ula knew that the Countess disliked her because she resembled her mother.
    Although she had produced such an exceptionally beautiful daughter, the Countess herself was a plain woman.
    The beauty in the family came from Lady Louise’s mother, who had been not only a famous beauty, but a woman of great charm and goodness and who was the daughter of the Marquis of Hull.
    Sarah was always told that she resembled her grandmother and Ula, having seen portraits of the Countess, knew that this was true.
    Her own looks were, however, different from Sarah’s.
    Although she resembled her grandmother in her colouring, she had her father’s eyes and, while she was unaware of it, his character, which was exceptional.
    Daniel Forde had talked to his daughter since she was very small as though she was grown up and could understand exactly what he was saying.
    His philosophy of life, his kindness, his understanding of other people, had therefore been transmitted to her.
    She had inherited not only this as his child but he had also communicated to her the wisdom of his experience and made her aware, as he was, that everyone one met in the world was a human being like one’s self.
    Ula had therefore grown up perceptively aware of other people’s inner selves in a manner that was exceptional for a girl of her age.
    She had known, as no one else would have, the reason that she had been treated so hatefully and cruelly at Chessington Hall. Even though she understood it, it did not make the pain of it any easier to bear.
    Night after night she had cried despairingly into her pillow, telling her father and mother how unhappy she was and finding it unbearable that they should have left her alone.
    She was living with people who both condemned and punished her for sins that she herself had not committed.
    “Save me – Papa – save – me!” she had cried out the night before the Marquis had called on Lady Sarah.
    When driven beyond endurance by Sarah’s blows, by her uncle’s threats and the fact that she was given so many services to perform and was punished when she was slow at carrying them all out, she had run away.
    It was then that her father, by sending the Marquis to rescue her, had answered her prayers.
    Every night since she had come to London she had thanked him on her knees and again before she had gone to sleep.
    ‘How could I doubt that Papa would save me?’ she asked herself every morning.
    She was sure when she put on the party gown that the Duchess had bought for her that her mother was looking at her approvingly from the other world, where one day she would join her.
    ‘I am so happy, so very very happy! I feel it cannot be true!’ she told herself on Friday morning.
    By the time she had seen the ballroom decorated with garlands of flowers, with pink candles instead of white in the sconces and chandeliers, which the next day would be the talk of London, she was saying it again.
    How could any girl not be happy when she had even more gowns to wear than she had ever imagined even in her dreams?
    Then the Marquis had a new idea, which again would give the gossips something to talk about.
    He had erected a small fountain in the anteroom of the ballroom which sprayed, instead of water, a delectable perfume of roses.
    “How clever of you to think of it, Drogo,” the Duchess had said.
    “I must be honest and say that I saw something very like it in Paris when I was in the Army of Occupation,” the Marquis replied. “But I think mine is an improvement because the fountain in Paris sprayed champagne!”
    “I think scent is far more suitable for a debutante ,” the Duchess agreed.
    To Ula it was