She bent to pet Jongy, who had left his cage and was running round them in circles. ‘Hello there, little fellow,’ she said gently. He let her stroke him while he chittered softly with pleasure and to her amusement, he tried to grab the royal nose.

Stephen asked if she would do them the honour of signing their window, but the diamond stylus wasn’t in its usual place. The Courtaulds went off to search for it, leaving Elizabeth in the dining room.

Luckily, it didn’t take long to find, it was buried under a pile of silk cushions on Ginie’s bed, by Jongy probably. She took it back to their guests. Just outside the half-open door, she heard Elizabeth say, ‘It’s exactly like a film set. I thought they were staging a production of some sort.’

Ginie stopped dead. Her face turned red and her palms were clammy.

‘He’s involved with Ealing Studios,’ replied the ­attendant. ‘He has financed films like Whom the Gods Love and The Show Goes On.’

‘Well, then it makes perfect sense.’

Ginie took a deep breath, straightened her back and forced herself to walk into the room before anything else was said.

Stephen abhorred gossip. He refused to speculate about whether David would marry Wallis, even after the silence of the press had broken and the whole country was shocked that their King could hesitate between his duty to the throne and his love for an American with two divorces under her belt, whom they believed to be an adventuress.

Ginie felt terrible for the couple. She wished the public could see how charming and wise and sympathetic Wallis was, and how good she was for David. His abdication, when it came, was no surprise. They listened to his speech on the radio.

‘I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love,’ he said. Once it was finished, she gathered the animals to her and went to bed. Her chest ached with their loss.

Now Wallis was ‘de-crowned,’ almost an untouchable. Ginie could hardly bear to contemplate the emptiness of her and David’s future, the terrible waste of their talents. The Courtaulds wrote a letter of commiseration to Wallis and a letter of congratulation to the new Queen Elizabeth, but neither replied. People with connections to the Court began to turn down invitations to Eltham Palace and Ginie realised that the abdication had caused the tide to turn once more against divorcees.