Like her fellow role-players, this woman was acting her part to perfection. So much so, that Lou felt like she was standing before the headmistress, accused of bunking off class. ‘I’m sorry, but there’s been some kind of mistake,’ she said. ‘I only came in because the front door was unlocked. I’m not part of your … group. I’m really not expected.’

‘Not expected!’ The housekeeper’s composure slipped. She took a small notebook from the pocket of her dress and consulted a page. ‘I took instructions from her Ladyship this morning. We are to expect the arrival of Miss Louisa Arnold today. You are Miss Louisa Arnold, are you not?’

‘Yes, but –’

The housekeeper snapped her notebook closed, just a hint of a smile turning up the corners of her lips. ‘Please, Miss Arnold, won’t you follow me?’

Trying to work out if she had actually let her name slip to this woman or any of her troupe, Lou followed the housekeeper out into the corridor. They were met with the commotion of the footman and a small army of men hauling crates and packages down the outside steps. The chef leant over an open hamper, inspecting a haunch of meat packed in hay. The young maid, Mary, stood to one side, wearing a clean apron, holding a tray containing two glasses of beer. Up at ground level, Lou could just make out the wheels of a cart and some horse’s hooves. A horse and cart! There were no local farms. They must have shipped it in from miles away.

‘Please, this way, Miss Arnold,’ the housekeeper said. Lou followed her back up the stone steps, waiting for the woman’s act to slip and for her to deliver a tongue-lashing for gate crashing the party. Instead, Mrs Moriarty’s spine remained ramrod straight, keys chinking against her hip as she led the way down the network of passageways.

Lou was sure they were retracing her earlier journey, but they couldn’t be; these passageways were well lit and clean. They passed a set of bells and pulleys high up on the wall. Did houses have two sets of bells? Finally, they came to a door. Convinced she was about to be unceremoniously ejected into the outside world, Lou braced herself for a blast of cold air. Nothing could have prepared her for what she actually saw when Mrs Moriarty held the door open for her to step through.

Lou’s breath escaped in a long gasp. She was in the hall. It couldn’t be … but it was! Gone were the charred remnants of the interior, the mould and the rubbish. Every window was now glazed and high up in the ceiling, two floors above, sunlight flooded through a glass dome. Beneath her feet was a floor of intricate mosaic tiles; a pattern of tulip-like bronze flowers on a background of white. Statues and busts of the purest marble sat on plinths in recesses in the pale wood panelling cloaking the walls. Two stone fawns flanked the fireplace, bearing the weight of the mantelshelf on their shoulders, one playing a flute, the other, a lyre. Sweeping down into the centre of the hall was the staircase; a continuous swirl of finely carved wood decorated with small creatures and fruits. Every tread, every stair-rod holding the scarlet carpet in place, even the exotically carved pineapples topping the newel posts, were intact. And above the roaring fire in the hearth, the chimneybreast was clad in a single slab of Portland stone. It bore a crest in relief of two lions holding aloft a globe: the coat of arms of the Mandevilles.