This I could not ignore. Vincent and me were in harmony once more after the postponement of our trip to Richmond but we hadn’t settled on a new date yet. I wondered if it had anything to do with this Alexander woman.

‘If I was you, I would have to ask him about her, Zillah.’

It was all I could do not to laugh out loud. Crillick could and did do whatever he wanted and Ellen would not make a peep. There had even been a rumour that he’d slept with one of the chorus girls and still Ellen would not have a word said against him.

‘I trust him, Ellen.’

‘Do you? There comes a time when all men need to settle down. Maybe now he’s had you, his wild oats have been sown.’

Back at 25 Northumberland Avenue, the conversation played on my mind while I watched Vincent get ready for the evening.

‘I wish we were going together,’ he said.

‘Going where? The party is downstairs. It is not as if it’s a big affair.’

‘Everything’s a big affair with Crillick. The fellow can’t help himself,’ Vincent said. ‘You can’t imagine what he’s laying on.’

I’d seen it all a few days before: flour, spices and sugar to make pies, puddings and jellies, and there’d probably been other deliveries since.

‘Tell me who the guests will be tonight?’

‘I’m glad you ask, Zillah. Stop fussing with that and sit down, will you? There’s something I want to say.’

His voice was so serious I put down the cravat that I toyed with and perched beside him on the bed.

‘Henrietta Alexander will be here tonight, and I saw her when I went to Alexander’s for dinner the other evening.’

He didn’t have to say anything about her to me. It must be a good sign that at last he’d volunteered it.

‘Your friend’s sister?’

‘That’s right. Alexander was with me at Oxford. It’s not just Henrietta, though. It’s her mother.’

I swallowed down the anxious feeling in my throat and tried to put a brave face on it.

‘The old lady has designs on you? Let her try and come between us.’

‘Be serious, Zillah. She wants me for her daughter, and she is a most determined woman. Alexander himself has warned me.’

Vincent stroked back a stray curl that bobbed on my forehead. ‘I tell you this, Zillah, because I’ll be spending most of the evening with them. Alexander is good fun and his sister, too, is lively and vivacious. If you see me acting the gallant with her, you must not set too much store by it.’

He hadn’t needed to explain himself, but I was glad that he had. Surely this was proof of how much he cared for me. I just wished he’d described Henrietta Alexander with less admiration.