We set off at first light the next day. The journey did not start too auspiciously as Queenie overslept (no doubt as a result of that large piece of sponge cake and the remains of the jam roly-poly she made for dinner) and did not wake us with the customary cup of tea.

When she found out we were about to depart that morning she looked hurt. “You’re buggering off, without me?” she said. “I might be the cook now but I’m also your maid, ain’t I? It’s not right that you go off without a maid. Who else is going to take care of you?”

I found this rather touching. She had been the worst maid in the history of service but, as I told Belinda, she had also been awfully brave at times. I found myself smiling. “That’s very kind of you, Queenie. But we are going in Miss Belinda’s little sports car and frankly you wouldn’t fit inside. Besides, it’s not as if we are attending a house party where a maid would be in order. We are just going to look at a piece of property.”

“Bob’s yer uncle, then,” she said. “But if you’re buggering off, there ain’t no point in my making them cakes you wanted, is there?” And she went back to her kitchen before I could reply.

When we went to retrieve the motorcar from the stables we found that yesterday’s glorious weather had turned into a more normal October day of blustery rain that peppered windows and swirled up dead leaves. Belinda and Phipps had to wrestle to put up the roof of the sports car and we discovered that it wasn’t exactly wind- and rainproof. We set off, both of us feeling a little grumpy.

“We could wait for better weather, I suppose,” Belinda had said.

“It could rain for the whole rest of the month,” I pointed out.

She nodded agreement. “Perhaps it will be better in Cornwall. I always remember such glorious weather during my summer holidays there.”

“It’s all right. I’m used to rain,” I said. “Up at Castle Rannoch in Scotland this kind of weather was the norm. All summer too. So depressing. My brother, Binky, is the only one who manages to remain cheerful. I’m so glad I’m far away.”

“From your frightful sister-in-law, Fig, you mean?”

“I do. The last time she wrote she suggested it might be fun for them to come down to us for Christmas, since I have now inherited such a large house. Can you imagine Christmas with Fig? Father Christmas would take one look and not come down the chimney.”

Belinda laughed. I stopped talking hurriedly and grabbed on to the door as we skidded around a corner. “Perhaps you should slow down a little on these wet roads,” I suggested.