Fanny gave a heavy sigh. ‘Must even the bath chairs be old?’ She laid back down, too, and studied the plasterwork on the high ceiling.

As Marianne stroked her feet, to no good effect, Lizzie wailed on. ‘We are just so very worried you have not thought the scheme through.’

‘Through?’ Fanny stretched out a hand, groped for the compress in the hope of re-covering her eyes. ‘Through to where exactly?’

‘You know perfectly well, Fan,’ Lizzie retorted. ‘But if you must make me say it …’ She lowered her voice, in case a servant was passing, and hissed, ‘Marital love.’

‘Oh,’ Fanny said dully. ‘That.’

‘Believe me, it is not a mere trifle,’ Lizzie declaimed with the full pomp of the married lady. ‘And it is not just about the quest for more babies, you know …’ She leaned in to her sisters, and whispered again. ‘It goes on all the time, and is not – so one hears – to everyone’s taste. Though, as it happens’ – she licked at one finger and dampened a ringlet – ‘I rather like it!’

The two girls squealed their signature squeals of delight – the sharp sound of wildlife being slaughtered at night – and fell back on the bed in fits of giggles.

Fanny felt faintly queasy, and turned on her side. ‘Thank you for that, dear. Perhaps now I might rest?’

‘Of course, darling!’ Marianne stood up at once and, with a glance of warning, dragged Lizzie up to her feet. ‘We will see you at dinner.’

‘There is one other thing, though,’ Lizzie insisted. ‘We just wanted to make absolutely sure that you intend to do your duty by Marianne before you go?’

‘My duty?’ Fanny asked blankly.

‘Indeed! Why, oh why, is she not officially out yet? It is the most baffling business. We talk about it between us all of the time. You did buy her the loveliest white dancing shoes—’

‘I do love my dancing shoes,’ Marianne put in. ‘So kind, Fan.’

‘But a meagre two dances and that was that! Not even the races and why ever not? No one can understand it! Especially as we all remember the great fuss you made over moi, which I must say’ – she held out a flattened palm – ‘one neither wanted, nor did one require.’

‘Oh, hardly at all.’ Marianne was earnest.

‘But then comes her turn, and almost nothing occurs. And will you look at the girl?’ Lizzie placed a hand on each of Marianne’s cheeks. ‘The face of an angel. It’s simply too cruel. But if you are not abandoning us all yet, you have plenty of time to bring her out and get her matched before it’s too late. Do you not?’

Fanny seemed to remember Lizzie’s engagement as one long holiday of trousseaus, dances and presents. Clearly, her own would be more on the arduous side. ‘I am sure that will be possible.’