‘Never.’

‘Well, if you had you’d know what the Jews felt about their temple. Quomodo sedet sola civitas…it’s a beautiful chant. You ought to go once, just to hear it.’

‘Still trying to convert me, Cordelia?’

‘Oh, no. That’s all over, too. D’you know what papa said when he became a Catholic? Mummy told me once. He said to her: “You have brought back my family to the faith of their ancestors.” Pompous, you know. It takes people different ways. Anyhow, the family haven’t been very constant, have they? There’s him gone and Sebastian gone and Julia gone. But God won’t let them go for long, you know. I wonder if you remember the story mummy read us the evening Sebastian first got drunk – I mean the bad evening. “Father Brown” said something like “I caught him” (the thief) “with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.” ’

We scarcely mentioned her mother. All the time we talked, she ate voraciously. Once she said:

‘Did you see Sir Adrian Porson’s poem in The Times? It’s funny: he knew her best of anyone – he loved her all his life, you know – and yet it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with her at all.

‘I got on best with her of any of us, but I don’t believe I ever really loved her. Not as she wanted or deserved. It’s odd I didn’t, because I’m full of natural affections.’

‘I never really knew your Mother,’ I said.

‘You didn’t like her. I sometimes think when people wanted to hate God they hated mummy.’

‘What do you mean by that, Cordelia?’

‘Well, you see, she was saintly but she wasn’t a saint. No one could really hate a saint, could they? They can’t really hate God either. When they want to hate him and his saints they have to find something like themselves and pretend it’s God and hate that. I suppose you think that’s all bosh.’

‘I heard almost the same thing once before – from someone very different.’

‘Oh, I’m quite serious. I’ve thought about it a lot. It seems to explain poor mummy.’

Then this odd child tucked into her dinner with renewed relish. ‘First time I’ve ever been taken out to dinner alone at a restaurant,’ she said.

Later: ‘When Julia heard they were selling Marchers she said: “Poor Cordelia. She won’t have her coming-out ball there after all.” It’s a thing we used to talk about – like my being her bridesmaid. That didn’t come off either. When Julia had her ball I was allowed down for an hour, to sit in the corner with Aunt Fanny, and she said, “In six years’ time you’ll have all this.”…I hope I’ve got a vocation.’

‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘It means you can be a nun. If you haven’t a vocation it’s no good however much you want to be; and if you have a vocation, you can’t get away from it, however much you hate it. Bridey thinks he has a vocation and hasn’t. I used to think Sebastian had and hated it – but I don’t know now. Everything has changed so much suddenly.’