Then she goes on to worry out loud over the phone that Ana has some sort of allergy to something in the house, which means she sniffs constantly, and blows her nose. ‘And Mirabel thought that when Ana said “I am Ana,” the girl was announcing she was anorexic,’ Mimi continues, ‘so now Mirabel is in a huff because I laughed at her and is refusing to speak to Ana, who she says is a neek.’

There is a pause. ‘What’s a neek?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I could always ask Ceci.’

Mimi is telephoning from her bedroom, out of earshot. ‘So then I told Mirabel that any young girl who was prepared to give up the best years of her life living with us in the back of beyond’s bound to be a little bit strange, and she should try to be nice to her, and Mirabel says, like a shot, ‘Well, you’re not nice to her and I heard you say horrid things about her behind her back to Dad when he came home, so why should I?’

‘Did you?’ I ask, smoothing the embroidered linen runner on my dressing table and aligning my collection of cut-glass antique Guèrlain scent bottles around a blowsy vase of peonies. ‘Thank God I only have Ceci,’ I say. I take the telephone and walk over to the windows and retie the swags on the bedroom curtains; they’re so pretty, with toile de Jouy on one side and lined with cashmere on the other. ‘Even though having Pierre is like having a two-year-old in the house all the time I’ve never needed help,’ I say, as if I did all my cleaning and childcare myself, which I don’t, because I have Joan, of course. ‘I could never bear to share my house with anyone who wasn’t family and go through all that palaver. Nannies’ egos and au pairs’ period pains and homesickness, all of that. So exhausting.’

‘Please come with me,’ begs Mimi, ‘to the stables! Everyone here’s either on horseback or in huge off-roaders, it’s as if everyone’s looking down on me… it makes me worry that the real reason everyone rides is so they can literally feel superior to the little people who don’t. And, by the way, you know what I said in That New Place?’

‘Yes,’ I say, alertly.

‘Well, I think I am,’ she says, then lowers her voice, ‘pregnant,’ she whispers. ‘I did a test.’

So of course I say yes. Not only is Mimi in need, she is also having entry problems to our closed rural community and, as her only friend, I feel I should help.

We were in the village shop only yesterday, and Mrs Hitchens was telling me in her happy voice, the one she reserves to impart bad news, that the horrible supermarket in Godminster was to close after thirty years of supplying locals with addictive substances and processed food past its sell-by date.

‘But I didn’t even realize there was a spa in Godminster,’ Mimi had exclaimed, loudly, excitedly. ‘I’ve been looking for somewhere to take care of my, you know, female admin for ages! I used to go to the Cowshed in Clarendon Cross, you know, next to Julie’s’ (this last bit was directed at me, rather than the red-faced rep from the feedstock supplier) ‘and now it’s closed before I can even get a wax or a peel. Damn! Bang go my plans for Botox and non-surgical liposuction. What a shame. Maybe I will go to that spelt spa after all.’