She tiptoed over to one of the tables. Very occasionally she found a magazine discarded in Victoria Park and would pore over it for months until it finally fell apart, but these were new and irresistible. She picked up a magazine with the enticing title Lady about Town and an illustration of a long-limbed lady beside a long-limbed hound on the cover. Lydia held it close to her face to inhale the scent of strange chemicals that wafted off the crisp pages, then turned the first page. Instantly she was captivated. A picture of two women posing on the steps of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London. They looked so modern in the latest helmet hats and dresses so like her own that she was able to dream herself right into the photograph. She could hear their laughter and the pigeons cooing at their feet.

‘Get out.’

She almost dropped the magazine.

‘Get out of here.’

It was Mr Theo. He was leaning forward and staring straight at her. Only it wasn’t the usual Mr Theo. She nearly did as he said, she was so used to jumping to obey his orders at school, but something in the sound of his voice caught at her, made her stare back. The wretchedness she saw in his eyes shocked her.

She took a hesitant step toward him. ‘Headmaster?’

His whole body seemed to wince as if she’d laid a finger on an open wound, and he ran a hand over his pale face. When he looked back at her, he had regained control.

‘What is it, Lydia?’

She had no idea what to say. How to help. She was unsure of herself, but her feet in their little satin shoes refused to walk away.

‘Sir,’ she said, uncertain what would come next, ‘… are you a Buddhist?’

‘What an extraordinary question. And a very personal one, I may say.’ He tipped his head back against the maroon leather and suddenly looked very weary. ‘But no, I am not a Buddhist, though many of his sayings tempt me to try out the path to peace and enlightenment. God knows, those are rare commodities in the blackened soul of this place.’

‘Of China?’

‘No, I mean here, this place, our International Settlement.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Where nothing is settled except through greed and corruption.’

The bitterness of his words found its way into the corners of Lydia’s mouth, like the taste of aloes. She shook her head to be rid of it and abandoned the magazine on a table. ‘But sir, it seems to me that for someone like you… well… you have, I mean… everything. So why…?’

‘Everything? You mean my school?’

‘Yes. And a house and a car and a passport and a place in society and a…’ She was going to say mistress, a beautiful exotic mistress, but stopped herself in time. She didn’t mention the money either. He had money. Instead she said, ‘Everything anyone could want.’

‘That,’ he said rising abruptly to his feet, ‘that is all mud. As Buddha points out with such clarity, your everything soils the human soul.’

‘No, sir. I can’t believe that.’

His stare fixed on her with a narrowing of his eyelids that was intimidating, but she refused to drop her gaze. Unexpectedly his mouth broke into a smile, but it didn’t have the strength to reach his eyes.

‘Little Lydia Ivanova, all togged up in your finery, looking like a delicate ripe magnolia bud about to burst open. You are so innocent, you have no idea what goes on. So unspoiled. This is a world of corruption, my dear. You know nothing about it.’

‘I know more than you think.’

At that he laughed outright. ‘Oh, I’m sure that’s true. I don’t take you for a docile dormouse, like some of your classmates. But you’re still young and you still have the capacity to believe.’ He sank down into the chair once more and let his head rest on his hands. ‘You still believe.’

Lydia looked down at the long, tormented fingers buried in his fine, light brown hair and she felt a knot of anger rise on her tongue. She moved close to the chair as the faint sound of a snore drifted from the other side of the room, and she bent forward, so that she was almost speaking into his ear.

‘Sir, whatever future I want, I’m the only one who can make it happen. If that’s believing, then yes, I believe.’ The words came out in a fierce little hiss.

He tilted his head to look at her, a hint of admiration lurking behind the frown. ‘Passionate words, Lydia. But empty. Because you don’t know where you are. Or what it is that makes the wheels of this sordid little town turn. It’s all filth and corruption, the stench of the gutter…’

‘No, sir.’ Lydia shook her head vehemently. ‘Not here.’ She gestured toward the leather-bound books, the ormolu French clock quietly ticking their lives away, and the door that led to the elegant world watched over by Sir Edward Carlisle, where everything was stable and serene.

‘Lydia, you are blind. This town was born out of greed. Stolen from China and packed full of greedy men. I warn you, by God or by Buddha, it will die by greed.’

‘No.’

‘Yes. Corruption is in its heart. You of all people should know that.’

‘Me? Why me?’ A kick of panic in her chest.

‘Because you go to my school, of course.’

Lydia blinked, baffled. ‘I don’t understand.’

Abruptly Theo withdrew into himself. ‘Go away, Lydia. Take your shining hair and your shining beliefs and dazzle them out there. I shall see you on Monday morning. You will be in your Willoughby Academy uniform, your wrists sticking out too far from your fraying cuffs as usual, and I will be in my headmaster gown. We will forget this conversation ever took place.’ He waved a hand at her in dismissal, reached for a cigarette, and lit it with an air of quiet despair.

Lydia shut the door behind her but the conversation would not be forgotten. Not by her.

‘Lydia, my dear, how lovely you look.’

Lydia turned and saw Mrs Mason, Polly’s mother, descending on her. At her side was a woman in her forties, tall and elegant, who made Anthea Mason look dumpy by comparison.

‘Countess, let me introduce Lydia Ivanova. She’s the daughter of our pianist tonight.’ She turned to Lydia. ‘Countess Natalia Serova is also Russian, from St Petersburg, though I suppose I should really call her Madame Charonne now.’

Countess. Lydia became breathless at the thought. Her evening dress was of watered silk, the colour of deep burgundy, but it seemed oddly old-fashioned to Lydia with its full skirt and leg-of-mutton sleeves. Her aristocratic back was straight and she held her head high, pearls clustered at her throat, her pale blue eyes surveying Lydia with cool interest. Lydia had no idea what was expected of her, so she bobbed a small curtsy.

‘You have been well taught, child. Devushki ochen redko takie vezhlevie.’

Lydia stared at the floor, unwilling to admit she didn’t understand.

‘Oh, but Lydia doesn’t speak Russian,’ Anthea Mason said helpfully.

The countess raised one skilfully arched eyebrow. ‘No Russian? And why not?’

Lydia felt like digging a hole in the floor and climbing into it. ‘My mother brought me up to speak only English. And a little French,’ she added quickly.

‘That is disgraceful.’

‘Oh, Countess, don’t be so harsh on the girl.’

‘Kakoi koshmar! She should know her mother tongue.’

‘English is my mother tongue,’ Lydia insisted, though her cheeks were burning. ‘I’m proud to speak English.’

‘Good for you,’ said Anthea Mason. ‘Fly the flag, my dear.’

The countess reached out, tucked a finger under Lydia’s chin, and lifted it an inch. ‘That is how you would hold it,’ she said with an amused smile on her lips, ‘if you were at court.’ Her Russian accent was even stronger than Valentina’s, so that the words seemed to roll around inside her mouth, and she gave a little shrug of her shoulders but her cool gaze examined Lydia intently, so that Lydia felt she was being peeled, layer by layer. ‘Yes, you are a lovely child, but…,’ Countess Serova dropped her hand and moved back, ‘far too thin to wear a dress like that. Enjoy your evening.’ She seemed to glide away across the hall with her companion.