“I don’t think he’s the old duke’s ghost, the one who plays the bagpipes on the ramparts at midnight.” I grinned. “Of course he’s my mother’s father.”

Fig held out her hand and said, “How do you do?” in the frosty manner she employed with anyone not of her class.

Granddad took the hand and pumped it heartily, “Pleased to meet yer,” he said.

“Are you just passing through the area?” Fig asked, still plum-in-mouth frosty.

“No, he’s going to be staying for a while.” I watched her face. “If that’s all right,” I added.

I could see Fig trying to picture my Cockney grandfather at table with a prince or two. She opened her mouth several times then shut it again.

“In one of the empty cottages,” I said. “He’ll be able to keep Nanny company.”

Relief spread across her face. “One of the cottages. Of course. Of course.” And she gave an almost hysterical laugh.

“I’m taking him there now,” I said. “Please excuse us.”

I led him out of the front door and down the steps.

“Blimey,” he said. “That’s your sister-in-law?”

I nodded.

“Looks like she’s got a bad smell under her nose, don’t she?” he said.

“She does rather.”

“No wonder you wanted to get away.”

We crossed the forecourt. I noticed one of the shooting brakes being loaded up with guns and bags in readiness for the shoot at Balmoral. Poor Earl—he had been looking forward to a shoot. Now the party from here would be reduced to Prince Siegfried, the cousins, and Hugo Beasley-Bottome. I wondered if the Simpsons were included in the invitation. Hardly.

“So what did your friend Mrs. Huggins say about leaving her to travel up here?”

“It worked out nicely because her daughter’s taken a cottage down in Littlestone on the Kentish coast and she wants ’Ettie to go with them. ‘You go and enjoy yourself, Albert,’ she said to me. ‘It will do you a world of good.’ So here I am.”

“I’m so glad.” I beamed at him.

It was a misty morning and rooks were cawing madly from the big elms. The cottages loomed as indistinct shapes through the mist. We opened the one I had in mind and I set to work taking dust covers off furniture and then locating a broom to give the place a good sweep.

“Cor blimey, look at you wielding that broom.” Granddad laughed. “Don’t let that lot up at the castle see you doing that. They’ll have a fit.”

“It’s what I do for a living these days,” I said. “I’m actually getting rather good at it, don’t you think?”

“Oh yes. Smashing,” he said, coughing through my cloud of dust.