‘Do you know a story about horses?’ Lilibet asked.

‘I can tell you the story of a horse I met on holiday when I was little.’

‘Yes please.’ Lilibet politely folded her arms and began to listen.

Marion told them about a pony she had ridden on a beach in Skye when she had been around six years old. Looking back, it must have been the time her mother had remarried. Marion had never known her father who had died when she was just a year old. When her stepfather came along five years later, Marion was uprooted from the house in Kilmarnock, where her grandfather, her mother and she had been born. Her stepfather took them to his house in Dunfermline, where she was enrolled in a new school. Her stepfather was kind, easy-going and made her mother happy. Life had felt more secure from then on. Marion had always thought of him as her father and called him ‘Dad’.

The trip to Skye might have been her mother and stepfather’s honeymoon. She hadn’t thought of that. It had been a good holiday. The pony ride on the sand had been an extravagance that her mother had tried to stop but her stepfather insisted. Marion was sorry she hadn’t enjoyed the ride – but she hadn’t. The rolling gait, the stirrups slipping from her feet, the ground so far beneath her. She had gripped the pony’s mane so tightly that the horse man who walked beside her had told her off and she’d wanted to cry. She had not been near a horse since.

‘… And the big brown horse took me all the way into the forest, and there we met his friends.’

‘What friends did he have?’

‘Well now, let me see. There was Mr Fox. He let me stroke his whiskers.’

‘Did he?’

‘Very gently. Then I met Mrs Rabbit with her children walking back from school.’

‘How many children?’

‘Three. Two boys and a baby girl.’

‘What was the little girl’s name?’ Lilibet wanted to know the details.

‘Primrose.’

‘That’s nice. Carry on.’

‘And then I met the big old owl.’

‘Woo woo,’ said Margaret.

‘It’s not woo woo, Margaret.’ Lilibet wagged a finger. ‘It’s twit-too-woo, the way Papa tells us.’ She looked up at Marion. ‘Go on. What happened next?’

Marion wrapped the story up on a happy note, with the horse going back to its stable for a brush, a carrot and an apple. Lilibet seemed satisfied.

‘Now then, girls.’ Marion gathered them up. ‘I expect you are ready for your tea?’

Lilibet led her to the drawing room. ‘Mummy, Papa, we’ve had a lovely day, but Margaret still can’t say twit-too-woo.’

Margaret frowned and began shouting, ‘Woo woo,’ all around the room.

‘Poor Miss Crawford.’ The Duchess put her arm out to catch the noisy Margaret as she sped past.

‘She’s called Crawfie now, Mummy,’ Lilibet managed, as she followed her sister.

‘So I understand.’ The Duchess smiled graciously. ‘My husband and I wondered if you would like to join us for a little cocktail when the children are in bed? We would like to talk more about your work here.’