“But people don’t sell houses like that. I wouldn’t.”

“Most don’t. Some may have to.”

“But why, Grandfather?”

“The money runs out, they can’t afford to maintain it. The heir makes millions in the City and has no interest in his heritage. Or the heir may be killed in a war. The landed class have a propensity for getting themselves killed in wars. Or the house is lost through folly—women, gambling, drink, drugs, speculation, extravagance. You never know.”

And in the end it had been the owner’s misfortune that had gained George the house. Sir Nicholas Cressett was ruined in the 1990s Lloyd’s disaster. George only knew that the house was coming on the market by alighting upon an article in a financial broadsheet about the Lloyd’s Names who had suffered the most, and Cressett was prominent among them. He couldn’t remember now who had written it—some woman with a name for investigative journalism. It had not been a kind article, focusing more on folly and greed than on ill luck. He had moved quickly and acquired the Manor, driving a hard bargain, knowing exactly what possessions he wanted included in the sale. The best pictures had been reserved for auction, but he wasn’t greedy for those. It was the contents, which had caught his eye as a boy on that first visit, that he was determined to collect, among them a Queen Anne armchair. He had been moving a little ahead of his grandfather into the dining room and had seen the chair. He was sitting on it when a girl, a plain, serious child who looked no more than six years old, wearing jodhpurs and an open-necked shirt, came up and said aggressively, “You’re not allowed to sit on that chair.”

“Then you ought to have a cord round it.”

“There should be a cord. There usually is.”

“Well, there isn’t now.” After five seconds of silent glaring, George stood up.

Without speaking, she lugged the chair with surprising ease over the white cord separating the dining room from the narrow strip available for visitors to walk and sat firmly down, her legs dangling, then stared fixedly at him as if challenging him to object. She said, “What’s your name?”

“George. What’s yours?”

“Helena. I live here. You’re not supposed to cross over the white cords.”

“I didn’t. The chair was on this side.”

The encounter was too boring to be lengthened, the child too young and too plain to excite interest. He had shrugged his shoulders and moved away.