‘What would you like to drink, my dear?’ Lottie smiled and rang the bell for the houseboy. ‘We have some sherry from the Cape. Or a shandy perhaps?’

‘I’ll try the sherry, please.’

On previous weekends at the farm the girls had been offered home-made lemonade or ginger beer, and during the past year an occasional glass of cold lager. But tonight Lottie had brought sherry and wine from the cellar, and the best of everything from her kitchen garden. This would be their last visit before they left school and began new lives in distant places. Sarah had sampled sherry before and had not enjoyed it particularly, but she had no idea what else to choose. Her mother liked a Spanish sherry that was dry and pale, woody in flavour. But this South African variety glowed dark in the glass, and was sweet. Potent too. Sarah sipped and felt it go immediately to her head. She glanced self-consciously around. Hannah sat on a stool beside her father’s chair, her strong legs folded beneath her, blonde hair tied in a single plait that she had pulled down over one shoulder. Her wide face glowed with health.

‘You look good, Sarah! Different. I wonder what the rest of the company’s going to say?’

‘I thought you’d drowned in the shower. I was just coming to look for you.’ Camilla glanced up from the sofa, allowing her face to catch the light and to display a delicate ear and the lustre of unblemished skin. Her hair fell in a gleaming pageboy and she had draped her sweater across her shoulders, tying the sleeves in a knot between her breasts. She held her glass with a hand that seemed to float in the air.

‘Sit down and pay no attention to these two.’ Lottie’s expression was kind. But knowing too, Sarah realised. ‘Hannah’s right – you look fine. In fact, you all look lovely tonight, each in your own way. Like perfect new blooms in my garden. Flowers made of light, as the poem says.’

‘You’re very romantic tonight,’ Jan said. ‘These girls will all get carried away with your Italian notions, Carlotta, and then they won’t be able to concentrate on their final exams. Better steer them back to reality for now, I’d say.’

‘There’s no harm spending a few minutes in the clouds, while we’re waiting for Piet. But it won’t be for long because I know my son, and he’s definitely experiencing hunger pangs by now. He doesn’t usually take this much time to get cleaned up for dinner.’

‘He doesn’t usually have three young ladies surrounding him at the dinner table.’ Jan raised his tankard of beer to his daughter and her friends. ‘That must have had something to do with his turning down the rugby weekend in Nanyuki.’

‘Evening, Ma. Everyone.’