'Oh.' She began as if automatically to get to her feet, and then, after a moment, decided against it out of tiredness and relaxed. 'Are you,' she said slowly, keeping her distance, 'one of the waiters?'

'Yes, Miss Lorrimore.'

'The one who told me I had to pay for a Coke?'

'Yes, I'm sorry.'

She shrugged and looked down at the lake. 'I suppose,' she said in a disgruntled voice, 'all this is pretty special, but what I really feel is bored.'

She had thick almost straight chestnut hair which curved at the ends over her shoulders, and she had clear fine skin and marvellous eyebrows. She was going to be beautiful, I thought, with maturity, unless she let the sulky cast of her mouth spoil not just her face but her life.

'I sometimes wish I was poor like you,' she said. 'It would make everything simple.' She glanced at me. 'I suppose you think I'm crazy to say that.' She paused. 'My mother would say I shouldn't be talking to you anyway.'

I moved as if to stand up. 'I'll go away, if you like,' I said politely.

'No, don't.' She was unexpectedly vehement and surprised even herself. 'I mean… there's no one else to talk to. I mean… well.'

'I do understand,' I said.

'Do you?' She was embarrassed. 'I was going to go on the bus, really. My parents think I'm on the bus. I was going with Rose… Mrs Young… and Mr Young. But he…' She almost stopped, but the childish urge in her to talk was again running strong, sweeping away discretion. 'He's never as nice to me as she is. I think he's tired of me. Cumber, isn't that a stupid name? It's Cumberland, really. That's somewhere in England where his parents went on their honeymoon, Rose says. Albert Cumberland Young, that's what his name is. Rose started calling him Cumber when they met because she thought it sounded cosier, but he isn't cosy at all, you know, he's stiff and stern.' She broke off and looked down towards the Chateau. 'Why do all those Japanese go on their honeymoons together?'

'I don't know,' I said.

'Perhaps they'll all call their children Lake Louise.'

'They could do worse.'

'What's your name?' she asked.

'Tommy, Miss Lorrimore.'

She made no comment. She was only half easy in my company, too conscious of my job. But above all, she wanted to talk.

'You know my brother, Sheridan?' she said.

I nodded.

'The trouble with Sheridan is that we're too rich. He thinks he's better than everyone else because he's richer.' She paused. 'What do you think of that?' It was part a challenge, part a desperate question, and I answered her from my own heart.

'I think it's very difficult to be very rich very young.'

'Do you really?' She was surprised. 'It's what everyone wants to be.'

'If you can have everything, you forget what it's like to need. And if you're given everything, you never learn to save.'

She brushed that aside. 'There's, no point in saving. My grandmother left me millions. And Sheridan too. I suppose you think that's awful. He thinks he deserves it. He thinks he can do anything he likes because he's rich.'

'You could give it away,' I said, 'if you think it's awful.'

'Would you?'

I said regretfully, 'No.'

'There you are, then.'

'I'd give some of it away.'

'I've got trustees and they won't let me.'

I smiled faintly. I'd had Clement Cornborough. Trustees, he'd told me once austerely, were there to preserve and increase fortunes, not to allow them to be squandered, and no, he wouldn't allow a fifteen-year-old boy to fund a farm for pensioned-off racehorses.

'Why do you think it's difficult to be rich?' she demanded. 'It's easy.'

I said neutrally, 'You said just now that if you were poor, life would be simple.'

'I suppose I did. I suppose I didn't mean it. Or not really. I don't know if I meant it. Why is it difficult to be rich?'

'Too much temptation. Too many available corruptions.'

'Do you mean drugs?'

'Anything. Too many pairs of shoes. Self-importance.'

She put her feet up on the bench and hugged her knees, looking at me over the top. 'No one will believe this conversation.' She paused. 'Do you wish you were rich?'

It was an unanswerable question. I said truthfully in evasion, 'I wouldn't like to be starving.'

'My father says,' she announced, 'that one's not better because one's richer, but richer because one's better.'

'Neat.'

'He always says things like that. I don't understand them sometimes.'

'Your brother Sheridan,' I said cautiously, 'doesn't seem to be happy.'

'Happy!' She was scornful. 'He's never happy. I've hardly seen him happy in his whole life. Except that he does laugh at people sometimes.' She was doubtful. 'I suppose if he laughs, he must be happy. Only he despises them, that's why he laughs. I wish I liked Sheridan. I wish I had a terrific brother who would look after me and take me places. That would be fun. Only it wouldn't be with Sheridan, of course, because it would end in trouble. He's been terrible on this trip. Much worse than usual. I mean, he's embarrassing.' She frowned, disliking her thoughts.

'Someone said,' I said without any of my deep curiosity showing, 'that he had a bit of trouble in England.'

'Bit of trouble! I shouldn't tell you, but he ought to be in jail, only they didn't press charges. I think my father bought them off… and anyway, that's why Sheridan does what my parents say, right now, because they threatened to let him be prosecuted if he as much as squeaks.'

'Could he still be prosecuted?' I asked without emphasis.

'What's a statute of limitations?'

'A time limit,' I said, 'after which one cannot be had up for a particular bit of law-breaking.'

'In England?'

'Yes.'

'You're English, aren't you?' she asked.

'Yes.'

'He said, "Hold your breath, the statute of limitations is out of sight. "'

'Who said?'

'An attorney, I think. What did he mean? Did he mean Sheridan is… is…'

'Vulnerable?'

She nodded. '… for ever?'

'Maybe for a long time.'

'Twenty years?' An unimaginable time, her voice said.

'It would have to have been bad.'

'I don't know what he did,' she said despairingly. 'I only know it's ruined this summer. Absolutely ruined it. And I'm supposed to be in school right now, only they made me come on this train because they wouldn't leave me in the house alone. Well, not alone, but alone except for the servants. And that's because my cousin Susan Lorrimore, back in the summer, she's seventeen, she ran off with their chauffeur's son and they got married and there was an earthquake in the family. And I can see why she did, they kept leaving her alone in that huge house and going to Europe and she was bored out of her skull and, anyway, it seems their chauffeur's son is all brains and cute, too, and she sent me a card saying she didn't regret a thing. My mother is scared to death that I'll run off with some…'

She stopped abruptly, looked at me a little wildly and sprang to her feet.

'I forgot,' she said. 'I sort of forgot you are…'

'It's all right,' I said, standing also. 'Really all right.'

'I guess I talk too much.' She was worried and unsure. 'You won't…'

'No. Not a word.'

'Cumber told me I ought to mind my tongue,' she said resentfully. 'He doesn't know what it's like living in a mausoleum with everyone glowering at each other and Daddy trying to smile.' She swallowed. 'What would you do', she demanded, 'if you were me?'

'Make your father laugh.'

She was puzzled. 'Do you mean… make him happy?'

'He needs your love,' I said. I gestured to the path back to the Chateau. 'If you'd like to go on first, I'll follow after.'

'Come with me,' she said.

'No. Better not.'

In an emotional muddle that I hadn't much helped, she tentatively set off, looking back twice until a bend in the path took her out of sight, and I sat down again on the bench, although growing cold now, and thought about what she'd said, and felt grateful, as ever and always, for Aunt Viv.