“Impossible! Valuable books will be ruined!” The gargoyle waved her arms and flashed her eyes, glaring at me as if I might be capable of any kind of vandalism.

“Only temporarily,” Fig explained.

The gargoyle gave a large and dramatic sigh, grabbed my heaviest suitcase and stomped upstairs with it to a large gloomy library. The walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with old musty books. Most of the floor space was taken up with a mahogany map table. We managed to push this against a wall and there was just room for a camp bed. Nowhere to hang my clothes. No mirror. Clearly they didn’t want me to stay long.

I felt tears of anger and frustration as I unpacked some of my toiletries and put them on the table. I should never have come. If the queen had wanted me here, she should have given me money for a hotel. She should have known that any relative of Fig’s would be stingy in the extreme.

I freshened up and came downstairs to see if tea might be imminent. Through an open door I heard Fig’s voice, or was it Ducky’s? “At least she can keep an eye on the children, can’t she? And she could give Maude some lessons; then you wouldn’t have to look for a tutor.”

“Maude’s a particularly bright child. I’m not sure your sister-in-law would be up to the task. But I suppose we could try. It would save considerable expense.”

I coughed as I entered the room. “Is it teatime?” I asked.

“We’re not having tea while we’re here,” Ducky said. “We’re dining early so that Maude can join us, as we are on holiday. It’s good for her to learn to participate in adult conversation.”

“We’ve had nothing to eat all day,” I pointed out. “You don’t mind if I ask your cook to make us sandwiches, do you?”

“I suppose not,” Ducky said grudgingly.

“And Georgiana,” Fig added, “we thought you might help out with the children. Give them some lessons, you know. Otherwise they’ll just run wild.”

I managed to obtain a cheese sandwich for Queenie and myself, but my stomach was growling by the time the dinner gong went and I went down in anticipation to find that dinner was cold ham and a couple of lettuce leaves with boiled potatoes. It was served by the gargoyle, with the occasional sigh and groan as she walked behind us.

“Cold ham, old thing?” Foggy asked. “Didn’t we just have ham sandwiches for lunch?”