Then, Oh my Lord, it’s Gwenda Melplash stalking down the aisle with all the chutzpah of a Naomi Campbell returning to own the catwalk for Cavalli after a long stint of boiler-suited community service. It is a dramatic solo echo of the recent procession of Granville, Serena on his arm, and the six bridesmaids. And she looks fantastic. She’s in proper tailoring. If not couture.

Scary Gwenda marches right up to the front pew, where Mr and Mrs Watts, the butcher and sons are sitting with Colin’s Auntie Joan, who used to be married to a Jehovah’s Witness whose name I forget.

‘Not without the mother of the groom, I hope,’ Gwenda continues unabashedly. ‘Come on, budge up, Mike.’

Everyone scoots along obediently and Gwenda takes her place in the pew. Alongside Sir Michael Hutton. She folds her gloved hands in her lap, gives a quick glance from side to side, making sure everyone is looking at her, which they are.

Serena looks as if she is going to cry. Colin looks startled, but is holding it together. He has taken Serena’s arm. The Revd Wyldbore-Smith is frozen in mid-flow, while Sir Michael and Lady Elizabeth Hutton’s faces are stony in their determination not to betray any emotion whatsoever.

The village of Honeyborne is enraptured. And so am I. Not so much by this public declaration that Scary Gwenda is Colin Watts’ mother, no, we all knew that Colin was adopted and there had always been village gossip about the Watts family, and there was a bit of speculation, now we all remember, when he started helping out at the stables every weekend. No, it is Scary Gwenda’s structured, tailored outfit with those cut-outs at the clavicles – a jacket that I can easily identify as a Galliano piece – combined with her publicly calling Sir Michael ‘Mike’, and the distinct hint that ‘Mike’ was Colin’s father, which showed almost kamikaze bravado.

Colin Watts seems to wink at his birth mother, then he gives a reassuring smile to his parents, Mr and Mrs Watts, and a shrug, then pivots on his heel to face the Revd Wyldbore-Smith, whose look of pained acceptance of human foible is slowly turning – as this scene progresses – into a ghastly rictus that says, please let this be over soon. Serena is managing not to storm out of the church but, mainly, I think, because the retinue of bridesmaids is still standing in the aisle, blocking her way.

I don’t dare look at Mr and Mrs Watts, because it’s too awful to contemplate how they are feeling. I peep quickly at the Huttons who, like the Watts, are about the only people in the church not staring at Gwenda with horrified fascination. Sir Michael, I notice, has gone a funny colour.