She stopped Bulawayo, who was halfway out of the room. ‘Are you staying for supper? We should let Joseph know.’

‘I’m staying for the weekend.’

‘Bulawayo, tell Joseph there’ll be three of us tonight,’ she said.

‘Three?’ I asked.

‘Mother’s going to be home, too. I had to change the menu.’ She smiled for the first time since I’d arrived. ‘The women have been teaching me to make chapattis and beans, like we used to have in Tanganyika. I was going to help Joseph, but I don’t remember Mother liking the dish much.’

I took a sip of my wine; even though we hadn’t mentioned the Happy Valley set, I had the sense that Maud was still holding herself away from me, and the drink tasted bitter. The idea of telling her what had happened with Sylvie seemed impossible now. ‘Does she like anything much?’

Maud sighed. ‘She likes her work with the League.’

‘Doesn’t she want you to join it with her?’

‘I’ve got enough to do running this place.’ She picked up her sewing again. ‘Especially if I manage to find some land to farm.’

‘You’re nearly twenty-one now. Aren’t you supposed to get married and have babies?’

She tied off the thread she’d been using and selected another bobbin. ‘I don’t know. No one’s told me.’

‘You haven’t met any young men you like?’

She looked at me strangely. ‘I haven’t met any young men I like.’

‘Why not?’

‘If this were Scotland or England twenty years ago they’d all have bought themselves a country estate, or an officer’s commission. I suppose a few of them might have passed the civil service exam.’

‘So what?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘But it’s not, or maybe they don’t have the capital. So they come out here to be gentlemen. Of course they love the lifestyle. But they don’t love Africa, not really. I want a normal African life out here, not a pretend-English one.’

‘I wonder if Father ever thinks about the normal life he was supposed to have. Normal wife, normal children.’ For some reason, Nicolas’s face suddenly appeared before me, and I felt my stomach cramp up.

‘You’re too hard on him,’ Maud said. ‘He knew it would be different with Mother. Remember Uncle Percy?’

‘What about him?’

‘He was six years younger than her. And Grandma and Grandpa died when she was eighteen. She must have still been taking care of him when she met Father.’

‘So?’

‘Not everyone would raise someone else’s son – they’d have sent him off to boarding school.’ She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. ‘Father’s kind like that.’

I left my chair to join her on the sofa. ‘How do you manage to see the good in everyone all the time?’ I asked, kissing her cheek.