Looking at Rose and Pierre, my friends, together, contented and companionable, I realize how little anyone seems to mind about Rose’s affair with Jesse Marlon. In London, the topic would have absorbed book groups and Pilates classes and cappuccinos at Ottolenghi up and down the Royal Borough for months on end, as people would have taken sides, recommended divorce lawyers and generally had a wonderful time with it. But here, having an affair with someone half your age is clearly accorded the least-said, soonest-mended treatment.

‘It’s because, in the country, everyone has to muck in, they rely on each other, it’s a small village,’ explained Ralph, whose mother, Selina, conducted a long, illicit affair with a belted earl for many years without anyone, least of all Ralph’s father, complaining. ‘You can never afford to mount the haut cheval, you see, because it could always be you next.’ He gave me a meaningful look, which I ignored indignantly.

Last to arrive is a small but naughty-looking Frenchman, mid-fifties, who is wearing a green forestière hat with sprigs on it, a Loden hunting jacket replete with flaps, plus-fours disappearing into green socks with terracotta pennants, and fringed brogues on his rather tiny feet. Alongside was a woman of his age who unfortunately looked 1. cross and 2. old enough to be his mother.

‘Esmond,’ cries Granville, warmly. ‘Jacqueline! You know everyone?’

When it comes to me, Esmond does that delicious, tummy-fluttering thing of raising my hand to his lips but not making contact while looking deeply into my eyes, as if he doesn’t care a jot that I’m swathed from head to toe in waterproof Thinsulate, I am still one hell of a woman. Jacqueline does not even give me a glance, which is fair enough, as I am neither well dressed, rich, nor in the Almanach de Gotha.

As we leave the kitchen, I pull Granville over to one side. ‘As I’m going to be bored rigid and freezing for the next three hours, at least explain who those two are,’ I beg. ‘The baron’s fascinating! But she seems, you know, less…’

‘He’s a mensch, and she’s… oh, Jacqueline’s perfectly all right really,’ says Granville, steering me into his study. ‘Shooting’s just not her scene. She doesn’t usually come, stays in Paris. And nor are the English her scene, to be perfectly frank.’ Then Granville closes the door behind us so we can continue chatting. Standing up by his desk, he clicks, and his screen makes a waking-up noise and fills with light.

I can’t help seeing that on the screen is the draft of a letter he is writing. To the Tavistock Clinic. I quickly absorb its contents, before he notices anything, and instantly see that it is a letter of application to start a training course, for counselling and psychotherapy. I can hardly believe this. Hunting, shooting and shrinking!