‘Buona sera, caro,’ she said. ‘Come sta?’

‘Molto bene,’ he answered, ‘and what a caldo day. I’ve brought a little music across with me in case you felt inclined. Mozartino.’

‘What a good idea! We will have un po’ di musica afterwards, but I’ve got tanto, tanto to talk to you about. Come in: dinner will be ready. Any news?’

‘Let me think,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t think there’s much. I’ve got rather a bruised shoulder where Daisy knighted me the other day –’

‘Dear Daisy!’ said Lucia. ‘A little heavy-handed sometimes, don’t you find? Not a light touch. She was in here this morning talking about the fête. She urged me to take part in it. What part do you think she suggested, Georgie? You’ll never guess.’

‘I never should have, if she hadn’t told me,’ he said. ‘The most ludicrous thing I ever heard.’

Lucia sighed.

‘I’m afraid not much more ludicrous than her being Queen Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘Daisy on a palfrey addressing her troops! Georgie dear, think of it! It sounds like that rather vulgar game called “Consequences”. Daisy, I am afraid, has got tipsy with excitement at the thought of being a queen. She is running amok, and she will make a deplorable exhibition of herself, and Riseholme will become the laughing stock of all those American tourists who come here in August to see our lovely Elizabethan village. The village will be all right, but what of Elizabeth? Tacete un momento, Georgie. Le domestiche?’

Georgie’s Italian was rusty after so much disuse, but he managed to translate this sentence to himself, and unerringly inferred that Lucia did not want to pursue the subject while Grosvenor, the parlourmaid, and her colleague were in the room.

‘Sicuro,’ he said, and made haste to help himself to his fish. The domestiche thereupon left the room again, to be summoned back by the stroke of a silver bell in the shape of a pomander which nestled among pepper-and mustard-pots beside Lucia. Almost before the door had closed on their exit, Lucia began to speak again.