Kitty blushed to the very roots of her hair but then she began to look around and was astounded at the room in which she found herself. It was absolutely enormous. Various cameras stood about on tripods, and there was a selection of different backdrops pinned all around the walls. On one wall was what appeared to be a Roman temple with marble pillars that reached up to the ceiling, and another wall made her feel as if she was back at Treetops in the bluebell wood. She had a sudden yearning to be there and quickly looked away from it. If she was going to be a star it wouldn’t do to burst into tears at the drop of a hat.

The third wall was covered in photographs and she moved closer to examine them. Many of them were what she would have expected to find in a photographer’s studio, such as family portraits, but these were nothing like the stiff formal poses she had seen many times before: these were of happy relaxed family groups, and others of children in natural laughing poses. Another series showed London’s famous landmarks. There was a beautiful one of the sun setting above Westminster Abbey, another of the River Thames at sunset that she could barely drag her eyes away from. And then the breath caught in her throat. She had spotted framed photographs of young women draped in voile, in various stages of undress, and she quickly averted her eyes.

Two large glass doors took up most of the fourth wall and through them she glimpsed a garden, which again reminded her of Treetops. The wide-open spaces she had been surrounded by as she was growing up were yet another thing that she missed about home.

‘Now why don’t you go behind that screen there and get changed while Max and I have a whisky and a little chat. I assume you have brought a more suitable gown to be photographed in?’ Richard’s voice brought her thoughts sharply back to the present and she nodded numbly.

‘I’ll come and help you,’ Ruby volunteered. When Kitty was in her new gown, her mother said: ‘We shall have to leave your hair loose about your shoulders for today, but on the night of your performance I think we might pile it on top of your head and tease it into gentle curls.’ Then she changed her mind. ‘Though saying that, wearing it loose makes you look young and vulnerable, which is what the public likes so we’ll have to decide.’

When Kitty was ready, Ruby arranged her hair and hitched the low neckline of the dress down a fraction, revealing yet more cleavage, which made Kitty feel very uncomfortable. But then her mother clearly knew what she was doing so she didn’t dare to protest.

When she stepped from behind the screen in the beautiful new gown, Richard said, ‘I say!’ and began to look excited. ‘Beautiful!’ He quickly took his place behind a camera and waved Kitty over to the backdrop of the bluebell wood. ‘A nice natural setting for you, I think,’ he said, his voice preoccupied. ‘Now turn slightly away from me and glance back across your shoulder, and be sure to stand still until I tell you to move.’