I hadn’t found out until recently that Sir Hubert had made me his heir and had now invited me to come and live at his lovely house called Eynsleigh while he was off climbing mountains. More than that, he had told me to consider the house as my own and to do what I wanted with it. He had come home for my wedding but now had gone off again, back to Chile to find more peaks to scale. I think this had been prompted by my mother’s departure. She had been staying with us all summer, after her own impending marriage to a German industrialist fell through, and I could see that Sir Hubert still had feelings for her. I rather suspected that she might still have feelings for him and hoped that something would come of it. He would make a more suitable husband than Max von Strohheim. I had nothing personally against Max. He clearly adored my mother, but he was also becoming remarkably thick with the Nazis in Germany. I suspected his factories might now be making weapons and tanks rather than motorcars and household items. I had been secretly glad when his father died and, not wanting to upset his puritanical mother, he declared he could no longer marry Mummy, because of her notorious past. But just when Mummy and Sir Hubert were giving each other long, meaningful glances she received a telegram from Max saying he couldn’t live without her and to heck with his mother. And off she had rushed, straight back to his arms. I hadn’t heard from her for ages. My mother, being completely self-absorbed, only communicated when she needed something.