Catherine had opted to eat by herself for this first meal and not meet her prospective pupils till later, but supper for everyone else had taken place in the dining room of the main house.

Isobel, an excellent hostess, always tried to inject the atmosphere of an informal house-party into any gathering to help break down barriers of reserve between the participants. She did not think the present group appeared to be a very homogeneous bunch so far, but as this was often how it seemed to start with she was not unduly worried about it. Giles, at the head of the table, appeared to be having a hard time between the retired teacher – a baby-faced blonde of uncertain age, dressed in a décolleté dress of mauve tweed worn with tangles of scarves and costume jewellery, from whose mouth a positive Niagara of words poured out – and Marnie Donovan, who responded to his efforts to draw her out as though she’d taken a Trappist’s vow of silence. There was something about Marnie that made her instantly noticeable, though certainly not because she gave off encouraging signals for anyone to approach her. Marnie could be really attractive, Isobel decided, if only she would smile occasionally, but as it was she reminded her of an aggressive small dog – a terrier perhaps – who at the slightest hint of unfriendliness from a potential adversary would be ready to spring into action and go straight for the jugular. Unlike the garrulous ex-schoolmistress, she seemed impervious to her host’s easy social charm, and Giles, she thought, looking at her husband with amusement, did not usually meet with such a lack of response from the female sex. She sent him a mocking look down the table and he laughed back at her, quick as always to pick up her unspoken message.

Isobel wondered what events in her life had caused Marnie Donovan to be so mistrustful of her fellow human beings. She made a marked contrast to Louisa who was sunnily chattering away to her neighbours, happily confident that they would all soon become the best of friends.

Isobel had seated herself between Colonel Smithson – the only man in the room wearing a tie – and a large lady from Cornwall called Morwenna Gilbert, around whom a gentle gloom seemed to hang like a permanently temperate climate; she started to spark a little once Isobel discovered her love of gardening and displayed an encyclopedic knowledge of plants, but whenever Isobel tried to show enthusiasm about any particular species she would shake her head apologetically and murmur: ‘But I doubt if you could grow that here,’ like the response to some mournful horticultural litany.