“I don’t know. Good heavens, I am tired of those three words,” she added with feeling. “Bill and Jonty keep asking me, but I simply don’t know. I have to find some sort of purpose, though; I’m not ready to fill my idle hours with trivia. I want something to do.”

“What sort of something?”

“I thought I might teach shooting,” Pat said. “If one had a school, just ladies, so they could practice without men offering comment... It’s just an idea. I’ve some money of my own, I wouldn’t need to make a fortune, but it would be an occupation. I’ve had an occupation all my life and I don’t know what to do with myself now it’s gone.”

Fen’s face was such a picture of sympathy that Pat had to look away. “That seems dreadfully unfair.”

“It can’t be helped. Jonty is entitled to marry and I hope they’ll be very happy. But it did remind me that I have no place in the world. It’s an odd feeling to find myself uprooted.”

“You don’t seem rootless,” Fen said. “We’re rootless, Daddy and I, because he’s risen out of his sphere. His family are embarrassed to mix with a very rich man and the people we do mix with tend to look down because of where he came from. I’m betwixt and between. Whereas you seem to know exactly who you are.”

“I did. I’ve a family line that goes back to the Plantagenets. I had a house to run and a lot of brothers to look after. And now Jonty has Olivia, and I barely see Bill any more, and it’s not my house, and the Plantagenets aren’t much of a comfort under the circumstances. I need to find a life of my own, only I don’t really know what that ought to look like, and I don’t want to end up a put-upon companion, or one of those unwanted elderly spinsters always in people’s way. Sorry,” Pat added. “I’m pouring all my troubles into your lap and they’re really very insignificant.”