Charles would smile fondly at her. ‘I think six months is a little early to grasp the rudiments of the alphabet,’ he’d say affectionately, ‘even if he does have an IQ to rival Mozart’s.’

Grace knew it was silly really. All mothers believed their children to hold special talents – it was only natural. But still, there was no reason why she might not actually be right.

By Hector’s first birthday, the bloom of new fatherhood seemed to have faded somewhat for Charles. He was less interested than he had once been in the day-by-day account of what the boy had eaten, when he had slept, how his new teeth were developing. As Grace delivered her nightly report on their son’s progress, he would often be reading the paper or casting an eye over a musical score. He listened to Grace’s words and understood their meaning, but he was very far from engaged.

This lack of interest disappointed rather than surprised Grace. Her own father had been little more than a shadowy presence in her life as she was growing up. Her mother coped well and seemed almost relieved when her father went down to London and failed to return for days and sometimes weeks on end. It was a pattern that she had hoped would not repeat itself now that she was the mistress of Hartsford Hall, but maybe there just wasn’t enough about small children to hold the interest of their fathers. Perhaps when Hector was big enough to kick a football or even hold a violin his father’s enthusiasm for him would be rekindled.

It appeared, however, that Charles had a new interest to occupy him.

‘How would you feel,’ he asked her as she lay on a mat with Hector, helping him post coloured blocks into a wooden box that had once been her sister Charlotte’s, ‘if I had a go at racing one of the cars?’

Grace picked up a little wooden cylinder, its colour faded with age from pillar-box red to a warm raspberry. She handed it to Hector, who grasped it in his plump little fist and then tried to jam it into a square hole. He really hadn’t got the idea of this. Maybe, as Charles had suggested, their child wasn’t a genius after all?

‘Which car?’ she asked cautiously.

Charles’s enthusiasm for his new crazes generally had to be moderated somewhat before they were practical, and Grace was reluctant to let him have free rein over her father’s extensive collection of vintage models.

‘I was thinking the Mini,’ he said.