CHAPTER ELEVENAs the train rattled through the darkness towards safety, the Duchesse sat in her bunk with a glass of brandy in her hand and talked and talked.
She had clearly forgotten that Gardenia was her niece or indeed younger than herself. She talked as if to a contemporary, to another woman who would understand what she had felt and what she had suffered and how strange and at times entrancing her life had been.
And, as the hours passed, Gardenia grew from girlhood into womanhood.
She was not shocked by what she heard. It was just that she began to understand for the first time so many things that had puzzled and perplexed her. She now realised humbly how foolish and stupid she had been and at the same time how strange and often wonderful life with all its complexities could be.
