Monica came back with a hanger on which hung a tiny velvet item that she declared was a tunic. ‘But wear it over tights, with these boots’ – she produced the long, pale green suede pair that Fenella had been wearing when Laura had first met her – ‘and it’s an outfit.’

‘But it’s summer. I can’t wear boots, and besides, that – dress is terribly short.’

‘Put it on!’

As Monica was sounding very like Laura’s mother when getting Laura dressed to visit her grandparents, she did as she was told.

‘Fantastic! You look great! Now let me get at your hair.’

‘I look like a pixie having a bad hair day,’ said Laura when she had manoeuvred herself in front of a mirror, Monica following behind holding said bad hair.

‘You won’t when I’ve finished with you. Just stand still!’

Laura was not at all sure she liked the impression she gave but she had to admit that the bits of her legs that showed between the short dress and the long boots did look rather fine.

‘It doesn’t really matter what I look like anyway,’ she said.

Monica made as if to clip her round the ear.

When they got to the house everyone was wearing their finest. There was quite a lot of sparkly black; Eleanora’s jewellery was longer and more glittery than ever. The men wore suits or dinner jackets; Grant was wearing a white dinner jacket with a black sequinned bow tie. Laura noticed one of the romantic novelists writing things down in a tiny notebook.

Rupert, particularly dashing in a velvet tuxedo, filled everyone’s glasses with either champagne or elderflower pressé that had a few stars of elderflower in it. Then Sarah banged something against a glass.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Rupert. ‘Fenella was supposed to be doing this opening speech but she absolutely refused, so I’m doing it.’ There were polite murmurs and sips of champagne. ‘She and I and all the festival committee have worked incredibly hard to make this first Somerby Festival a roaring success, and I’m sure it will be. But one person has done more, gone to lengths far greater than anyone else, to get the literary side of it all going, and that’s Laura Horsley.’

Laura blushed so deeply she thought she would spontaneously combust, and vowed to take out a contract on Rupert’s life at the first opportunity. The applause was loud and extremely embarrassing. The cries of ‘Speech, speech’ got so loud she realised she’d have to say something.