Of all my Edinburgh friends, Douglas was the only one I regularly corresponded with. He always seemed to enjoy hearing work stories, and he particularly enjoyed hearing about a claim made by a visiting duchess that I’d become embroiled in lately. She’d lost her spectacles on the journey between Lake Victoria and Nairobi and was demanding every train guard be fined as an example. As tedious as it was, at least it gave me plenty of fodder for my letters. The old bat has a pretty unshakeable belief in her own importance, I wrote. She’s mostly upset that no one else seems aware of it.

Believe me, he wrote back, I know the type. I’m in the civil service, remember.

I thought the story might amuse Maud too, and decided to spend the following weekend at Kiboko. I hadn’t seen her since the morning after Freddie’s party, six weeks ago, but she’d apologised over breakfast for snapping at me, and I was anxious to make sure everything was fine between us.

She wasn’t on the veranda when I pulled up, and didn’t answer when I stood in the doorway calling her name. The house smelled of wood polish and I could see the gleam on the candlesticks over the fireplace from across the room. No sounds came from the kitchen. I caught myself hesitating to go in and tried to laugh it off, but without the usual bustle the house seemed unnatural somehow. I wondered if this was how my mother felt about it, and why she was never around any more.

I pulled myself together, and was about to go through to see if Joseph had fallen into the cauldron when I caught a reflection of movement in the screen door. I turned. Maud was walking back from the servants’ enclosure. She raised a hand to wave at me.

‘You never let me know when you’re coming home,’ she called.

‘Keeps you on your toes. Have you let everyone go?’

‘I gave them the evening off – we’ve been cleaning all day.’

‘I can tell.’

She reached me and I drew her in for a hug. The smell of the polish had clung to her hair, mixed with soap and something earthier. She hugged me back, laughing, then stepped away.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to eat my cooking tonight.’

‘We’ve all got our cross to bear.’

She smiled. ‘Come and keep me company in the kitchen.’

I followed her through. She started opening cupboards and lifting lids on the pots already sitting on the stove. ‘Joseph’s left a soup – clearly he has no faith in me either.’

‘Soup sounds perfect.’

She lit the hob. ‘Find me a spoon, will you?’