‘You think that too, do you, my lord?’ Mr Felbridge enquired tentatively. ‘There is this picture of some ancestor in a ruff, halfway along the passage to my bedchamber at home, and I would swear he watches me as I pass by and is unimpressed by me.’

‘What utter rubbish,’ declared Lady Elstead bracingly. ‘Shall we go, or are we to linger here all morning?’

The British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom was a private society of connoisseurs, but they put on two exhibitions each year which were open to the public, with new works on show from February until May, just after the Royal Academy exhibition opened its doors. It stood in Pall Mall, so the journey from South Audley Street was delayed only by the amount of traffic along Piccadilly. Lady Elstead discovered that in including Lord Henfield she had worked things to her advantage, since that gentleman had very little knowledge of those artists whose work was, or was not, in vogue, and she could chatter away about Messrs Brokedon, Hilton and Shaw, whose names she scattered within her monologue. Lord Henfield listened, and nodded, but found her logic somewhat arbitrary and difficult to follow. He cast Henrietta several appealing looks, but she would not rescue him.

‘You might have helped,’ he whispered, as he alighted from the carriage.

‘Why? Observing your discomfiture was far more fun.’

‘Minx.’

‘La, sir. I am “Miss Gaydon”, remember, and you must be polite to me.’ She cast him a sidelong glance under her lashes, and for one heart-stopping moment of surprise was sure that in his eyes was the look she had come to recognise in her beaux, but it was so transitory that she was forced to tell herself it was pure imagination.

The party dutifully each paid their shilling, Lady Elstead paying more attention to who else was present than what art might be displayed upon the walls. Unlike Lord Henfield, to her ladyship the landscapes and historical pictures, which were the more promoted by the Institution, were of less interest than the portraits of people she recognised. It gave her a certainty, since whether a likeness was indeed ‘like’ was far easier than recognising expert composition or delicate brushwork, and she did not need to surreptitiously consult the list from her reticule. Caroline simply enjoyed pretty pictures, but this caused minor embarrassment when she began to comment favourably upon a picture her mama was preparing to disparage. Lady Elstead found herself in a quandary, neither wanting to make her daughter look foolish, nor be heard by others to be praising a work declared inferior. She tried to make noncommittal comments, which ended up contradictory and muddled.

‘And why, one asks, would anyone want to have a picture on their walls illustrating “Washing Sheep”? If the sheep were in pretty fields, with a vista … Mr Wilkie’s previous work is better.’