Marta and Josephine nodded, but Lancaster shook his head. ‘I came here as a child. We used to holiday in Cornwall with my grandmother.’

His wife looked at him curiously, as if his childhood memories were new to her. ‘Are we the first to arrive?’ Marta asked casually, not quite brazen enough to enquire specifically about Marlene.

‘No, the Reverend Hartley and his wife came over this morning, and Mr Fielding has been with us since yesterday. Everyone else is arriving later this afternoon.’ So Archie was still on the road, Josephine thought, and would no doubt be taking his time; there was little point in travelling with a Hollywood star unless you planned to make an entrance. ‘It’s just as well you’re staying for a couple of days,’ Trannack added. ‘There’s rough weather coming in later, and you won’t get on or off the island until it’s passed.’

‘Even at low tide?’ Mrs Lancaster asked, looking anxiously across to the cobbled pathway, which seemed so safe and inviting.

The chauffeur smiled, apparently accustomed to her scepticism. ‘It changes quicker than you’d think. You get a southerly gale and a swell building, and the causeway’s covered for days at a time.’ He went into a detailed explanation of neap tides, wind direction and the cycle of the moon, which Josephine tried in vain to follow. ‘In an emergency, three or four of us might get across at low tide if we roped ourselves together, but thankfully we don’t have many emergencies on the island.’

‘Well, if we’re here for the duration, it doesn’t bother me,’ Lancaster said. ‘It just gives us all a chance to get to know each other better.’ 79

He beamed round at them, and Josephine could already see by the look on Marta’s face that she was unlikely to change her mind about people called Gerald. Trannack opened the rear door and Lancaster stood aside to let the three women get into the back seat, but his wife hesitated. ‘Can we walk across the causeway?’ she asked, looking appealingly at her husband, and Josephine got the impression that she was trying to delay her arrival at the house for as long as possible. ‘Some air might be nice after the journey.’

The chauffeur hesitated, wrong-footed by the request, but Lancaster saved him the trouble of replying. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling. How long do you think that would take? Get in.’

She did as she was told, and Marta glanced at Josephine, who rolled her eyes. She hated the way that Lancaster had so publicly dismissed his wife’s suggestion, even if it was impractical: Marazion Station was set apart from the town, where the causeway began, and to access the Mount on foot would first have involved a lengthy walk across the sand and pebble beach, which stretched for miles in front of them. The car took them out into a narrow country lane, parallel with the railway track, and they travelled back the way they had come until they reached Marazion. Josephine looked with interest at the little market town, which seemed to be organised around one winding street with houses straggling up the hill on the left-hand side. Its ancient buildings and curiously named alleyways intrigued her, suggesting a rich past independent of its connections to the Mount, and she hoped for a chance to explore it more thoroughly before they left Cornwall.