She knew who they would pick out for her. Well, if not who exactly, then certainly the sort. He’d be polite, clean fingernails, a neat moustache the length of a toothbrush, possibly stooped, the only son of a vicar or the eldest son of a doctor perhaps. A safe pair of hands. To pick her up and guide her.

She was correct. He was pointed out to her at the interval, the man they thought she ought to marry now. He was at the other end of the foyer, a long, low-ceilinged, poorly ventilated room; the inconvenient red and orange lighting, the heat from the crowds and the cigarette and cigar smoke all conspired to blur her vision as she peered across. He looked isolated. He was standing by a giddy group of young men that, in his lighter moments, her father might call bucks. They were laughing, drinking, slapping one another on the back. It wasn’t clear whether he was with them or not. He had oil-sleeked hair; Vivian couldn’t help but think of otters, which had never been her sort of animal. His shirt collar was stiff; it wore him rather than him wearing it. He had quite square shoulders and he wasn’t small, but was he tall? She supposed he was tallish. Darkish. The ishness was the abounding impression. That was the best she could say.

‘What do you think?’ Susan asked in a whisper. She was still young and naïve enough to imagine that what Vivian thought might count.

‘I’m trying hard not to hate him even before I am introduced,’ Vivian mumbled.

‘You have met him before, at least twice,’ Mrs Foster informed her, ignoring the surly rudeness. Vivian knew this was quite possible; she saw no reason to argue. ‘You danced with him last year.’ Something that had obviously left a more enduring impression on him than it had on Vivian.

‘He has a tailcoat so you think I ought to marry him,’ she wailed.

Mrs Foster took hold of her arm with a grip that was firm enough to be called a pinch. ‘He has rather more than that to offer.’

‘Has he?’ Resentment sharpened her voice. She knew she needed to stay calm and be accommodating, but she resented the fact that her mother might be right. Might have a point. He was to save her even if she didn’t wish to be saved. He was her access to adult life; without him, or some man or other, she would be tied to her parents for all her days. There wasn’t an independent route. There wasn’t an alternative. A poor, beautiful man would have her, but she did not want to be poor. She would not like to be one of those women who had to manage and make do. Their windows were always smutty; they began to dread the sunlight because it showed up their slovenliness and difficult circumstances. She had visited such homes that were not at all quite all. Scuffed wallpaper. The smell of staling cheese drifting from the pantry, through the kitchen, sometimes as far as the dining room. She didn’t want to become one of those women whose hands smelt of the washing-up bowl, with weak nails that were forever snapping.