‘It’s global warming,’ says Ralph, still looking straight ahead, clearly wishing he were standing thigh-high in the Lar in his waders, casting a fly over that clever trout who liked to lurk in the pool by the dam rather than wasting precious weekend time at a splashy society wedding.

‘Shhh!’ say Posy and I, flanking him like firedogs and twisting our necks to see who or what it is.

My eyes search past the rows of waving orders of service, fuchsia feathers and elaborate hair-pieces in the shape of artists’ palettes, Eiffel towers and bunches of grapes, past a fruity Gloucestershire filly wearing, in a direct homage to the late lamented Isabella Blow, a vertical unicorn’s horn which thrusts like a twisting, pointy phallus from her white forehead and pomaded hairline. My eyes search past that blonde who looks as if two large, silvery-diamanté dragonflies have alighted on her Princess Leia-style up-do, complete with blonde plaits clumped in muffs around her ears, and come to rest on a defiant figure, wearing an arresting outfit, standing framed in the doorway at the back of the church, where only a few moments before, Serena Cobb in her Alexander McQueen wedding gown and her proud father in his bespoke Huntsman morning suit, had been so picturesquely composed.

‘Oh my God,’ I say, as I, along with the rest of the congregation (apart from Ralph, regally impervious to gossip and scandal), take in the astonishing details of the surprising personage, in her narrow tailored suit of dusty pink moiré and killer Emma Hope suede peep-toe heels in exactly the same shade.

‘Wow,’ says Casimir, as he turns to look.

‘Everyone’s right. The world is definitely getting hotter.’

The apparition’s outfit is topped off with a black mantilla that manages to combine perfectly a nod to the presence of so many high-net-worth guests with a respectfully sombre attitude to the sacred estate of holy matrimony.

‘What on earth,’ I hiss to my husband, ‘Is she! Doing here?’

11.45 a.m.
Rose

With the sunlight streaming in, it is difficult to make out the identity of the speaker at the back of the church and, like a digital video-camera, I have to adjust to the darkness within the church and the glare outside before I can make the person come into grainy focus. Ceci and I and even Pierre, the veterans of more boring church weddings than I care to remember, are agog with excitement at the interruption.

‘I do!’ comes the stentorian cry from the back of the church, as the entire congregation rivetedly looks on. ‘You didn’t think you were going to start without me, did you?’ the woman says in carrying tones which, on a clear day, can reach from the top of Hamble Hill all the way to the gibbet.