“Julia,” Jasper said, “and Bruno. My wife and my brother.”

Julia was beautiful. She greeted Ricky with great politeness and a ravishing smile, made inquiries about his accommodation, and then turned to her husband.

“Darling,” she said. “A surprise for you. A girl.”

“What do you mean, Julia? Where?”

“With the children in the garden. She’s going to have a baby.”

“Immediately?”

“Of course not." Julia began to laugh. Her whole face broke into laughter. She made a noise like a soda-water syphon and spluttered indistinguishable words. Her husband watched her apprehensively. The boy, Bruno, began to giggle.

“Who is this girl?” Jasper asked. And to Ricky: “You must excuse Julia. Her life is full of drama.”

Julia addressed herself warmly to Ricky. “It’s just that we do seem to get ourselves let in for rather peculiar situations. If Jasper stops interrupting I’ll explain.”

“I have stopped interrupting,” Jasper said.

“Bruno and the children and I,” Julia explained to Ricky, “drove to a place called Leathers to see about hiring horses from the stable people. Harness, they’re called.”

“Harkness,” said Jasper.

“Harkness. Mr. and Miss. Uncle and niece. So they weren’t in their office and they weren’t in their stables. We were going to look in the horse paddock when we heard someone howling. And I mean really howling. Bawling. And being roared back at. In the harness room, it transpired, with the door shut. Something about Mr. Harkness threatening to have somebody called Mungo shot because he’d kicked the sorrel mare. I think perhaps Mungo was a horse. But while we stood helpless it turned into Mr. H. calling Miss H. a Whore of Babylon. Too awkward. Well, what would you have done?”

Jasper said: “Gone away.”

“Out of tact or fear?”

“Fear.”

Julia turned enormous eyes on Ricky.

“So would I,” he said hurriedly.