‘I go every morning for Mass,’ says Serena. ‘I live each day as it comes. I get up at four-thirty every morning to prepare myself for the day.’

On the wall beside the Indian tapestries, is a Byzantine painting of Our Lady, Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ. The walls leave no space. A Picasso reproduction. Jamini Roy. David Paynter has been removed. The George Keyt too. The eyes are bemused by this visible historical album. This minuscule museum of lives whose relevance to their history will soon be effaced.

‘I have my own ideas,’ Serena says. ‘I want continuity. Things to flow. Things to be as they have always been. My mother was, someone said, a most unpleasant woman. She was alone. She had no friends. She wanted no one in her life. She bullied my father. She did not encourage anyone to visit her.’

They prepare to leave, Serena and Lydia. Lydia takes one last look at the house. She will never return. An embellished shell. A blind man will only touch and feel sharp edges mat will hurt.

‘I have my ideas. No, no home for the aged. That’s what the church wanted.’ She gives a tremulous laugh. Like cobwebs, broken. ‘How nice it would be if children from this terrible war could come here … or … if I could have a gallery … the Thirties …’

‘May I close the door?’ Serena asks Lydia.

‘Yes, I am ready.’

‘I’ll walk back with you,’ Serena says, as if she does not want the visit to end.

The greater part of the house with its many windows has already been sealed with white tape. In this silenced house, dispossessed of its chatelaine whispers, the past and present settle into a gathering dust softly, subtly. It is late evening. The hills which stretch beyond the house and garden begin to darken with shadows. The security man walks restlessly on the threshold. He holds in his hands a piece of white tape for the front door. Lydia and Serena go out into the garden. Serena points to the enormous severed trunk of a thick-girthed tree. It had been cut at the base.

‘It fell onto the building and destroyed it. Deliberate,’ Serena says. ‘They wanted it to be destroyed, the servants. Evil. Didn’t you see Heen Menike carrying away the grinding stone? She had paid for it, she said.’

Soon the house will be emptied. The secrets locked within its walls.

‘I must stay up all night to make inventories. People want, want, want … Marie says, “I want to buy your house.” Out of the question, I tell her.’

Marie is a Joceleyn Nursery girl. She had emigrated to Canada and made good there. Serena feels that the bastions of privilege are still impregnable. Not everyone can aspire to assail them.