People expected things from her. Well, they would: invitations, dinners, visiting cards and such. Her mother visited once a week; she always brought a friend and never stayed longer than thirty minutes. She usually timed her visits to coincide with when Lady Owens was out, insisting she didn’t want to intrude. Vivian suspected she also found Aubrey’s mother distant and dull. If probed, Mrs Foster would tell Vivian which invitations she should accept and which she should issue. She wouldn’t suggest menus but she did glance over seating plans. She never repeated herself and her visits often felt like extremely efficient church meetings. Mr Foster and Vivian nodded at one another over coiffured heads at the theatre and opera.

A lot of the time Vivian felt overwhelmed and lost. Her world was insincere. She rarely said what she thought or felt, and as the practice had dwindled, she found that the ability to even know what she was thinking and feeling was dwindling too.

They’d cast her adrift without giving her a lifebuoy or even a whistle. It was clear: she’d made her bed and must lie on it. She could not expect them to be running to her every five minutes. Susan needed supervision. Toby and Babe still required care. Mrs Foster assured her that she would manage. She’d have to. ‘Remember, the marriage is a success. After all, you are invited to suppers and dinners, to the theatre and balls.’ Mr and Mrs Owens, son and daughter-in-law to Sir Charles and Lady Owens, were welcome in society in a way that a disgraced Miss Foster could never have been.

Timidly, Vivian explored the house. The clutter and enthusiasm for taxidermy was off-putting but on the whole the rooms were comfortably proportioned, the furniture good quality, although heavy and too dark for her tastes. Besides the drawing room, there was a morning room, a dining room, a library, a study and six bedrooms (Aubrey’s parents occupied two, and another was kept for his older sister; when she, her husband and children visited, the nursery was dusted off as well). There was an en suite to their bedroom as well as another bathroom and two indoor lavatories. Vivian twice visited the kitchen and the rooms off the kitchen to introduce herself to the servants.

She wandered around the house trying to find somewhere of her own. Certainly that room was not the drawing room. Even if she could get used to the plethora of beady dead eyes staring at her from all directions, it unequivocally belonged to her mother-in-law. The study was out of the question, its masculinity unmistakable and explicit; it oozed the smell of dusty files, pipe smoke and alcohol. She supposed it ought to be the morning room – that was where she entertained – but the chimneypiece was of mean proportions and she found the dark green walls cold and unwelcoming; she pitied her visitors. The hearth in the library was enormous and she sat in there most often, although she couldn’t imagine anyone would think that a library could be called her natural home. Books gleamed on the shelves; fine stripes of leafing held between leather. The firelight leapt at them and flashed around the room. It was pretty enough, although on her first visit she’d ascertained that there was nothing to entertain her. She found dusty French, German and Latin books that made her think how close the word tome was to tomb, and skipped past those; her schoolgirl French was adequate enough to allow her to swap pleasantries in a drawing room if called upon (she never was), but not much else. ‘Where are the novels?’ she’d asked Aubrey.