‘Yes.’ He nods as if this is something that he’s heard a lot. The dresses seem to mesmerise him, and he gazes from them to me and back to them again. He says abruptly, ‘Well, I’ll be off. I just wanted to say hello.’

‘Nice to see you again, Mr Aston.’

He raises his hand in a wave and disappears into the Stables.

A few moments later he comes back again.

‘You seem a very understanding person.’ He leans towards me, looks furtively around and lowers his voice. ‘I’m afraid I lied to you when I came into the store. I wasn’t looking on behalf of my wife.’

‘That’s okay,’ I say quickly, imagining some flashy ageing mistress in the background. ‘You don’t have to explain.’

‘No, of course not,’ he says. Again, he looks over his shoulder and turns back to me. ‘I suppose you guessed that the dress was for me.’

I look at him in surprise, wondering if I’ve heard right and then clearly remembering his nervousness, his hesitation, his growing confidence in what he was looking for. ‘I had no idea,’ I tell him truthfully.

‘No? I wish I’d told you at the time. I’ve been informed since that that sort of thing is quite acceptable now?’

I can see the eagerness in him and I nod. ‘Oh, absolutely.’

His face relaxes again. ‘You see, it was hard for me to talk about it because my wife didn’t know.’ He shakes his head violently as though he’s trying to dislodge the idea. ‘Good grief, no. I consider that was one of the strengths of our marriage, that she saved me from myself.’ He gives a small, self-deprecating smile. ‘And I’m a member of the golf club. There would be questions about which tee to drive from.’

I laugh. When a person can make a joke, there’s always hope, in my opinion. ‘So you never told her?’

‘Never. Although, I got close once. That dress – she found a stray blue feather on the floor. She puzzled over it for days. I should have told her then but I couldn’t risk her disapproval, and yet … she might, like her friends, have turned out to be a woman of her time and understood it.’ He presses his lips together and tucks his hands in his jacket pocket, shoulders hunched. ‘The truth is, I don’t know what she would have thought. I never gave her the chance to tell me.’ His voice is full of regret.

‘You didn’t want to upset her, I suppose.’

All this time, his faded eyes are holding mine. ‘Yes. That’s one way of looking at it. I want you to know, that dress was what kept me strong through her illness. It was better than brandy for helping me to escape for a time. It gave me the courage to keep going.’

‘I know what that feels like.’