My hand was shaken by a man so tall he had to stoop considerably to reach it. His face and forehead, and those parts of his head on which his fair hair had ceased to grow, were tanned and freckled. The grip that engaged my hand left it tingling afterwards.

‘Welcome to Carriglas,’ Colonel Rolleston said.

I wished I had been given a chance to tidy myself. I could feel grime on my palms and between my fingers. The sea wind had disturbed my hair, which I had done my best with on the train. I always have to be careful about my hair.

‘Hugh,’ Colonel Rolleston said. ‘Is Hugh well? And your father, Sarah? Your mother?’

I said they were all well. Colonel Rolleston poured himself a drink from a decanter next to the one that contained sherry. He raised his glass, welcoming me to Carriglas again. Villana had taken a chair by one of the French windows and was swinging her legs.

‘D’you remember Miss Delafinaghy?’ Colonel Rolleston remarked to his mother and then he turned to me and said that Miss Delafinaghy had been a governess at Carriglas who had refused to consume fish in any shape or form, or eggs, or certain vegetables, a difficult customer all round.

‘It is the privilege of governesses and nursemaids to be fussy,’ Mrs Rolleston suggested. ‘So you must be if you wish, Sarah. Now, I think it would be nice if you showed Sarah to her room, Villana.’

Obediently, Villana set off, crossing the drawing-room at so rapid a pace that her father told her to slow down. We passed through the inner hall, pausing only once. ‘This is my father’s study,’ Villana said, directing me into a tiny room with fishing-rods huddled in a corner, and fish in glass cases decorating its dark walls, and a shotgun hanging on its own. A stained velvet cloth, a shade of ochre, covered an oval table and in turn was covered with a bric-à-brac of broken ornaments and teacups, two tubes of Seccotine, cartridge cases, shoelaces, a tarnished silver plate, clothes-pegs and safety-pins, two paraffin lamps. ‘He sits here,’ Villana said, ‘reading the Irish Times. ’