‘The perils of being a “national treasure”, I suppose.’ Isobel flashed her a teasing smile, as she quoted that damn magazine article from last month back at her. For a moment it could have been forty years ago, with them in their trailer on the set of The Lady Detective, Rosalind dressed in her best Dahlia Lively wide-legged trousers, tailored shirt and ropes of pearls, and Isobel decked out as her trusty maid and sidekick, Bess.

The film that had made them friends. That had introduced them both to Hugh. That had set up Rosalind’s career – and Isobel’s marriage.

But it wasn’t the early eighties any longer – or even the 1930s, whatever the set-up at Aldermere seemed to suggest. They were firmly in the twenty-first century now, and her life and Isobel’s had split onto their own paths a long time ago.

‘And anyway, I’d rather Juliette be gossiping with you than on the phone to that awful boyfriend of hers.’ Isobel shuddered. ‘Not the right sort, I’m afraid.’

‘Do you think he had something to do with her leaving university?’ Rosalind asked.

‘Probably. She says she left because it wasn’t going to teach her anything useful, and she’d rather be back here at Aldermere working in the family business. She’s been on at Hugh for months to let her do more work on Letty’s estate – compiling her old notebooks, that sort of thing. There’s a publisher who’s interested, but the notes are so scattered … Anyway, I rather suspect that’s just the excuse, and she’s back here for that boy, even though she claims they’re not really together. But what can I do? She thinks she’s too adult to listen to her grandmother, and her mother—’

The silence after Isobel broke off hung in the air.

‘How is Serena?’ A delicate subject, always. But Rosalind was one of the few who could get away with addressing it. Not just as Serena’s godmother, but as the friend who had seen Isobel through the morning sickness on set, had helped her hide the growing bump as filming drew to a close, and the flatmate who’d helped with the middle of the night feeds and a cot and all the other baby stuff in the too small two-bed they shared, before Hugh and Isobel met and fell in love, marrying when Serena was two.

Isobel’s heavy sigh said more than her answer could. ‘She’s in the right place, at least.’

Rehab again then, Rosalind assumed. Maybe this time it would stick.

‘You and Hugh have done all you can for her.’ Rosalind wasn’t sure that was true, but it felt like the sort of thing a friend would say. ‘You’ve got her help. Now she just needs to accept it.’