When Kit finally sloped in, I felt a certain sympathy with his father’s impatience. He greeted Pa with a casual and rather cursory handshake, before slumping into the chair next to me with his long legs stretched out, brushing back that lock of dark hair, a slightly grumpy expression on his face. ‘What’s for tea, Ma?’

‘Sit up straight, for heaven’s sake, Christopher,’ his father snapped.

Kit glared at him as Mrs Waddington chattered on about the weather and other inconsequential matters, trying to ease the frosty atmosphere.

A maid in crisply starched black and white uniform arrived with the tea trolley and there was much fussing over passing cups and saucers, sugar and tongs, plates and napkins, along with a plate of elegant white-bread sandwiches cut into tiny triangles and containing either cucumber or fish-paste. There was cake to follow, with a choice of chocolate or lemon – clearly they suffered from no scarcity of eggs and butter in this house.

As Pa and Mr Waddington started a conversation about St Martin-in-the-Fields, Kit turned to me. ‘And how are you this fine day, Miss Molly Goddard?’ That old-fashioned way of talking disarmed me, along with his manner: cheeky and a little insolent, but at the same time luring you in, as though he might be about to tell you the most delicious secret. He had a languorous kind of confidence about him that was both intriguing and disconcerting in equal measure.

‘I am well, thank you.’ My head whirled, trying to find another topic of conversation, but I could come up with nothing. ‘I suppose you are back from school for the holidays now?’

He sighed. ‘Afraid so. There’s not a lot to do here in Wormley, is there? Don’t you find it rather dull?’

What should I say? Should I admit that it was lonely and boring, and I longed to go back to the city? ‘I’m growing used to it. It felt odd at first, being in the country after London.’

‘I’ve always wanted to live in London. My father has a flat near Hyde Park, where he stays during the week and some of the weekends. I’d prefer to be there, to be honest, even though we don’t really get on too well most of the time. But they won’t let me, cos he’s out all day and they think I’ll get up to mischief. Which, of course, I most certainly would, given half a chance. What about you?’ Blue eyes met mine, searching and challenging.

‘I suppose so . . .’ I was stumped. It had never really crossed my mind to ‘get up to mischief’ in London; I’d been too young, I supposed, and anyway was never given the chance. Meeting school friends in a coffee bar in Colchester was the current extent of my excitements.

‘You go to the Girls’ High, I suppose?’

‘Yup.’