Mr Fortescue sat at my right-hand side and Becky Miles loaded the rest of the expanse of mahogany with as many dishes as she could, to conceal the fact that there were just the two of us, camped out at one end of the table.

‘Did you enjoy your ride?’ Mr Fortescue asked politely as he started to eat his soup.

I watched him. He did not bend over his bowl and spoon directly from bowl to mouth with as little distance as possible. Nor had he crumbled his bread up into hearty bits to float in the soup as I had already done. I flushed again, this time with annoyance. He had kept his bread on his plate and every now and then broke off a little piece and buttered it. I tried to sit straighter but it seemed to put me a long way off from the table. I was sure my hand would shake as I was lifting the soup to my lips and then I would drop soup on my new dress. I remembered the small cloth and spread it on my lap. It all seemed designed to make it harder to eat. But if this was the way it had to be done I thought I could pick it up in time.

‘Yes, it was a nice ride,’ I agreed inattentively. When Mr Fortescue finished his soup he did not wipe around his bowl with a piece of bread. He left the bowl dirty, he left nigh on a whole spoonful spread around the bottom. I followed his example though I watched the wasted soup longingly as Becky Miles took the bowl away.

She set a great silver salver with a rib of beef on it before Mr Fortescue and he started carving into wafer-thin slices which he laid in a fan on a plate for me and Becky Miles walked around the table and placed it before me. The smell of the roast beef, dark on the outside and pinky in the middle, made me lean forward and sniff, water rushing into my mouth. Becky Miles brought me roast potatoes, crunchy and brown, new potatoes glazed with butter, tiny young carrots and new peas and half a dozen things which looked like green miniature bulrushes.

‘Do you like asparagus, Sarah?’ Mr Fortescue said, pointing at them.

‘I don’t know,’ I said honestly. ‘I’ve never had them before.’

‘Try one or two then,’ he recommended. ‘We grow them on the Home Farm here under glass. Will Tyacke has it in mind to put some more glass houses up and grow more of it.’

I nodded and Becky Miles put two of the green slivers on my plate.

She held out a great sauce boat of deep red shiny gravy and poured it thickly over the meat.