They went to the theatre on Tuesday, visited Anne's cottage on Cape Cod on Wednesday, gyrated to the Grizzly Bear and the Temptation Rag on Thursday, shopped for antiques on Friday, and made love on Saturday. After Sunday, they were rarely apart. Milly and John Preston were 'absolutely delighted'

that their match - making had at last proved so successful. Milly went around Boston telling everyone - that she had been responsible for putting the two of them together.

The announcement during that summer of the engagement came as no surprise to anyone except William. He had disliked Henry intensely from the day that Anne, with a well - founded sense of misgiving, introduced them to each other. Their first conversation took the form of long questions from Henry, trying to prove he wanted to be a friend, and monosyllabic answers from William, showing that he didn't. And he never changed his mind. Anne ascribed her son's resentment to an understandable feeling of jealousy; William had been the centre of her life since Richard's death. Moreover, it was perfectly proper that in William's estimation, no one could possibly take the place of his own father. Anne convinced Henry that given time William would get over his sense of outrage.

A=e Kame became Mrs. Henry Osborne in October of that year at the Old North Church just as the golden and red leaves were beginning to fall, a little over ten months after they had met. William feigned illness in order not to attend the wedding and remained firmly ht school. The grandmothers did attend, but were unable to hide their dis - approval of Anne's remarriage, particularly to someone who appeared to be so much younger than herself. 'It can only end in disaster,' said Grandmother Kane.

The newlyweds sailed for Greece the following day, and did not return to the Red House on the Hill till the second week of December, just in time to welcome William home for the Christmas holidays. William was shocked to find the house had been redecorated, leaving almost no trace of his father. Over Christmas, William's attitude to his step - father showed no sign of softening despite the present as Henry saw it - bribe as William construed it - of a new bicycle. Henry Osborne accepted this rebuff with surly resignation. It saddened Anne that her splendid new husband made so little effort to win over her son's affection.

William felt ill at ease in his invaded home and would often disappear for long periods during the day. Whenever Anne inquired where be ' was going, she received little or no response: it certainly was not to the grandmothers. When the Christmas holidays came to an end, William was only too happy to return to school and Henry was not sad to see him go.

Only Anne was uneasy about both the men in her rife.

9

'Up, boy. Up, boy.'

One of the soldiers was digging his rifle butt into Wladek's ribs. He sat up with a start and looked at the grave of his sister and those of Leon and of the Baron, and he did not shed a single tear as he turned towards the soldier.

'I will live, you will not kill me,' he said in Polish. 'This is my home, and you are on my land!

The soldier spat on Wladek and pushed him back to the lawn where the servants were waiting, all dressed in what looked like grey pyjamas with numbers on their backs. Wladek was horrified at the sight of them, realising what was about to happen to him. He w.~s taken by the soldier to the north side of the castle and made to kneel on the ground. He felt a knife scrape across his head as his thick black hair fell on to the grass. With ten bloody strokes, like the shearing of a sheep, the job was completed. Shaven - headed, he was ordered to put on his new uniform, a grey rubaskew shirt and trousers. Wladek managed to keep the silver band well hidden and rejoined his servants at the front of the castle.

While they all stood waiting on the grass - numbers now, not names - Wladek became conscious of a noise in the distance that he had never heard before. His eyes turned towards the menacing sound. Through the great iron gates came a vehicle moving on four wheels, but not drawn by horses or oxen. All the prisoners stared at the moving object in disbelief. When it had come to a halt, the soldiers dragged the reluctant prisoners towards it and made them climb aboard. Then the horseless wagon turned round, moved back down the path and through the iron gates. Nobody dared to speak. Wladek sat at the rear of the truck and stared at his astle until he could no longer see the Gothic turrets.

The horseless wagon somehow drove itself towards Slonim. Wadek would have worried about how the vehicle worked if he had not been even more worried about where it was taking them. He began to recognise the roads from his days at school, but I - Lis memory had been dulled by three years in the dungeons, and he could not recall where the road finally led. After only a few miles, the truck came to a stop and they were all pushed out. It was the local railway station. Wladek had only seen it once before in his life, when he and Leon had gone there to welcome the Baron home from his trip to Warsaw. He remembered the guard had saluted them when they first walked on to the platform; this time no guard saluted them. The prisoners were fed on goats' milk, cabbage soup and black bread, Wladek again taking charge, dividing the portions carefully among the remaining fourteen. He sat on a wooden bench, assuming that they were waiting for a train. That night they slept on the ground below the stars, paradise compared with the dungeons. He thanked God for the mild winter.