“Why did the family leave Halberds?”

“My dear, because they were ruined. They put everything they had into the West Indies and were ruined, very properly I daresay, by the emancipation of slaves. The house was sold off but owing to its situation nobody really fancied it and as the Historic Trust was then in the womb of time, it suffered the ravages of desertion and fell into a sort of premature ruin.”

“You bought it back?”

“Two years ago.”

“And restored it?”

“And am in process of restoring it. Yes.”

“At enormous cost?”

“Indeed. But, I hope you agree, with judgment and style?”

“Certainly. I have,” said Troy Alleyn, “finished for the time being.”

Hilary got up and strolled round the easel to look at his portrait.

“It is, of course, extremely exciting. I’m glad you are still to some extent what I think is called a figurative painter. I wouldn’t care to be reduced to a schizoid arrangement of geometrical propositions however satisfying to the abstracted eye.”

“No?”

“No. The Royal Antiquarian Guild (the Rag as it is called) will no doubt think the portrait extremely avant-garde. Shall we have our drinks? It’s half-past twelve, I see.”

“May I clean up, first?”

“By all means. You may prefer to attend to your own tools but if not, Mervyn, who you may recollect was a sign-writer before he went to gaol, would, I’m sure, be delighted to clean your brushes.”

“Lovely. In that case I shall merely clean myself.”

“Join me here, when you’ve done so.”

Troy removed her smock and went upstairs and along a corridor to her deliciously warm room. She scrubbed her hands in the adjoining bathroom, and brushed her short hair, staring, as she did so, out of the window.