‘I am well.’

‘Of course you are . . . you always look wonderful but it hits me afresh each time I see you.’

Louisa stooped to fondle the ears of the little spaniel that was squirming at her feet, angling for attention. ‘Hello, Flapper,’ she said. ‘I remember you, of course – but who’s this other portly person? I don’t think we’ve met before. Is she new?’ and she indicated the extremely stout miniature wirehaired dachshund whose stomach almost touched the ground and whose rod of a tail was going like a metronome set for double tempo.

‘Oh dear – that just shows what ages it is since you were last here,’ said Isobel. ‘This is fiendish but ingratiating Lozenge and she’s four. Technically she belongs to Edward, but you know what it is with children’s animals. . . I do all the caring and then when he comes home she switches allegiance to him in the most maddening way. I’m afraid she’s addicted to eating baby rabbits, which is great for the garden but bad for Lozenge – and presumably not much cop for the baby bunnies either. This time of year she’s at her most unattractive, poor darling, because she blows up like a balloon and gets these bald patches from excavating burrows.’

‘I wondered if that hairless strip along her back was distinctive of a special breed,’ said Louisa, laughing, ‘a sort of short-legged opposite of a Rhodesian ridgeback – a Perthshire leatherback perhaps. Has she ever got stuck down a rabbit hole?’

‘All too often – it’s a constant hazard. We’ve several times had to dig for her and we all live in dread of her disappearing because Ed would be inconsolable if anything happened to her – actually we all would. You mightn’t think so, but she’s on a very strict diet at the moment!’

‘Well, it can’t be very successful,’ said Louisa. ‘I don’t think Weight Watchers would approve. By the way, I hope it’s all right that I’ve come round to the front?’

‘Of course it is! You’re special and I’ve given you a room in the main house with us so that you and I can have lovely gossips about everyone in between times – so we’d have to bring your things in this way anyway. Catherine Hickman’s over here too, but the others will all be in the new accommodation we made out of the old steading. How about a mug of tea before we get inundated with everyone else arriving? I’m dying for one myself.’

‘Tea would be ace.’

‘Let’s go and put the kettle on then and I can bung these flowers in water. It’s such a shame you’ve just missed the daffs.’

Louisa followed Isobel up the steps to the front door, through the hall and into the big kitchen, once the billiard room in Giles’s father’s day, and now the hub of the house.