“Oh, I should think so. It’s in the blood. They probably have stopped deliberately wrecking ships by luring them onto the rocks and then plundering them, but who knows? They are a wild bunch down here, you know. Mad Celts.”

“Aren’t you one of them?” I gave her a challenging glance.

“Not really. My grandfather bought the house in Cornwall when they returned from India when my mother was a child. We’re not a Cornish family. So I’m actually perfectly civilized.”

“Most of the time,” I added.

I think we were keeping up the banter to keep our spirits cheerful. It really was a most dreary place. Occasionally a wheelhouse of a tin mine would rear through the mist like a strange creature, but then we’d be driving through nothingness again, the cold damp mist swirling around us.

“Just how big is this moor?” I asked. “It’s not the one with the hound of the Baskervilles, is it?”

“No, that’s Dartmoor. We’ve already done that.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I said. “I think a giant slavering hound might be the last straw right now in making me want to spend a penny.”

“We could stop and you could go beside the road,” Belinda suggested.

“Belinda, I certainly couldn’t do that.”

“There is nobody else for miles, Georgie.” She put her foot on the brake and pulled to the side of the road. “There. A bush for you.”

Reluctantly I got out and was instantly enveloped in moist, sticky mist. I picked my way over tufts of rough grass.

“Watch out for bogs,” Belinda called after me. “Bodmin Moor is famous for its bogs.”

“Thanks a lot,” I called back. “I had an encounter with a bog on Dartmoor once and I have no wish to repeat it.”

“You got stuck in one?”

“No, I watched somebody disappear in one. It was horrid.”

“You’ve lived an interesting life,” she called after me. Her voice echoed strangely through the mist. Although I was only a few paces from the motor it was hard to say in which direction it was. I took care of the most urgent matter as quickly as I could and was thankful to find the road again. I got in, brushing moisture from my face. “It’s truly miserable out there. I hope all of Cornwall isn’t going to be like this?”

“Oh no. Just the moor. You’ll see, when we reach the town of Bodmin, we’ll be on the other side and all will be fine again. Cornwall is noted for its good weather, remember. The English Riviera.”

“Really.” I peered into the gloom.

At last the uplands came to an end and we encountered our first house. We stopped for a cup of tea and a bun in the town of Bodmin and then on again.