‘Trust me, Henry, I don’t need excuses to get out of doors. I love walking. I don’t even need the dog for an excuse.’

‘So ... wouldn’t it be an even richer experience if you knew what you were looking at?’

‘I know the trees and the wildflowers, clever clogs. Just not all the cultivated ones.’

He made a shallow bow. ‘I sit corrected. But it’s good that today you learned to love a gladiolus. The habit of loving is definitely one to be cultivated.’

Before she could respond, the General marched in. ‘Are you still here?’ he said. Happily for Cat, it was clear he was addressing his son.

Henry glanced at his watch. ‘I’m fine for time, thank you. My con isn’t till noon and I’ve gone through all the papers.’

‘Are you leaving?’ Cat asked, dismayed.

‘Afraid so. I have to go into chambers in Edinburgh for a meeting with a client. Then for the rest of the week I’ve got a case in Glasgow that’s been moved up the docket.’

‘Will you be using Woodston when you’re on your feet in Glasgow?’ the General asked.

‘I thought so. It makes for a long day if I commute from here or from Edinburgh.’

The General looked across at Cat. ‘We have a cottage on the banks of Loch Lomond, just outside Glasgow. Just a modest little place with four or five bedrooms, but we like it. And Henry finds it convenient to stay there when he has a case before the courts in Glasgow.’

‘It’s more appealing than my flat in Edinburgh.’

The General shuddered. ‘Indeed. Your arrival at the bar cannot come soon enough so you can find somewhere more appropriate for a Tilney to lodge than that hovel on the Lawnmarket. The last time I visited, you didn’t even have proper china.’

‘Father, everybody has mugs these days. It’s not a sign of debauchery and disrepute to drink tea from a mug.’ Henry’s smile had the uncertainty of a man who is not sure whether he’s tweaking the tail of a cat or a tiger.

The General harrumphed. ‘I’m sure Catherine has higher standards. Observe,’ he said, raising an empty porcelain cup to the light. ‘You see, Catherine, how the light makes this fine china seem to glow? You pour tea into a cup like this and the very liquid itself brightens. I freely admit, I’m something of a perfectionist when it comes to the vessel I choose to drink my tea from. It must be as fine as possible, yet strong and heat-retaining. It’s an endless quest, to find the perfect cup.’ He lowered the cup and gazed reverently at it.

Deciding this was quite the maddest conversation she’d ever had, Cat thought it wisest to humour him. ‘That must have made life hard for you when you were in the army.’

He stiffened. ‘I suppose it must seem trivial, when all around me men were sacrificing their lives.’

‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ Cat said desperately.

‘But you’re right. I suppose that, having endured those hardships, I decided that in future I would have only the best in the areas that matter to me. And so I seek out the finest porcelain money can buy. I imagine you are accustomed to beautiful things when you dine with the Allens?’

‘They don’t go in for porcelain; they have hand-painted Italian earthenware. It’s very pretty but it’s quite heavy. Not delicate like your beautiful china.’

He gave her an indulgent smile. ‘Alas, not everyone is blessed with an aesthetic instinct.’ He turned abruptly to Henry and said, ‘I really think it’s time you were away.’

Henry dipped his head in resignation and stood up. ‘I’ll be gone three days at the very most. See you soon, Cat.’

And he was gone, leaving her to the conversational delights of the General. ‘It’s a lovely little cottage, Woodston,’ he said. ‘When I bought it, the grounds were a wilderness, but I found a local chap who’s good with vegetables and now we have a delightful little walled kitchen garden. Whenever we’re going over there, I call him and he stocks the larder with game and fish, so we are virtually self-sufficient. In fact it would be a perfectly charming home for Henry if he chose not to work at the bar, and I can assure you there’s no need for him to have a job in order to live. Now, you might think it odd that in a family with as much profitable land as ours, I should send my sons out to work. But I think it is important for a young man to have some employment. It’s not about the money, it’s about gaining experience of the world. Money only matters insofar as it allows me to promote the happiness of my children. But there is more than one way to do that. And so even Freddie, who will inherit substantial property, is out in the world earning a living among ordinary men.’

It was an unanswerable argument. But Cat saw in it an opportunity. ‘And Ellie too? Girls need careers as well. I’m thinking of training as a nanny. Not least because it’s the only way to have money of my own that I can be proud of earning. Surely Ellie should go out into the world like her brothers? I know she’d love to go to art college.’

A flash of annoyance lit the General’s face. ‘I’m not sure I see the point of that. She has some money of her own, I give her an allowance. She will settle down in due course with a suitable young man. You don’t need training for that.’

Cat flourished what she thought was a convincing argument. ‘But she should gain experience of the world, surely? So that she doesn’t settle for the wrong bloke because she doesn’t know any better?’

‘Surely that is the job of a father? To make sure the man his daughter marries is up to the mark?’

Cat giggled. ‘That’s all very well, General. But you might not have the same taste in men as your daughter.’

His eyebrows rose alarmingly and for a moment she thought she had gone too far. But he gave a strained laugh and poured himself a fresh cup of tea. ‘I think you said yesterday that you wanted to see over the house and the grounds?’

‘Yes, I’d love that. Ellie said we could do that this morning.’

‘I shall take charge of the expedition myself,’ he said grandly. Her heart sank but she smiled bravely. He glanced out of the window, where thin streaks of cloud were spreading across the sky, erasing the earlier brightness. ‘The forecast is for it to be hot and sunny this afternoon, so I propose we take advantage of the cooler air and go outside now, this morning, before the sun beats down and makes walking uncomfortable.’

This seemed to Cat, who loved to be outside in sunny weather, to be the opposite of good sense. Unless of course one was a vampire. But vampire or not, there would be no changing the General’s mind once he was set upon something. ‘Lovely,’ she said.

‘Excellent,’ he said, rising from the table and marching to the door. ‘I’ll have Mrs Calman tell Eleanor to present herself at once.’

Cat sighed and helped herself to more toast. She’d been looking forward to a long, gossipy morning with Ellie, perhaps ending with a trip up the hill to the Calmans’ house, where they could sit on the windowsill and catch up with Facebook and Twitter. Or a walk with Henry where he could instruct her in the finer points of what she was looking at. Instead, there would doubtless be another one of the General’s bizarre lectures.

Just then, Ellie burst into the room, still tucking her blouse into her jeans. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said. ‘That bloody storm kept me awake half the night, then when I finally got off, I slept like the dead.’ She caught sight of the used cup and dirty crockery in her brother’s place. ‘Have I missed Henry?’

‘He’s gone to Edinburgh. Then he’s got a case in Glasgow,’ Cat said. ‘He’s going to stay at Woodston.’

‘Drat. Oh well, I’ll just have to phone him and get him to invite us over for dinner. You’ll love it, it has the most fabulous views over Loch Lomond. By yon bonnie banks, and all that.’ She grabbed a banana and gobbled it quickly. ‘Ten minutes, he wants us in the hall in ten minutes. If you need a jacket or anything, best run now and get it.’

Cat swallowed the final piece of toast and headed upstairs to clean her teeth and put on some more substantial shoes. She had no great expectations of the morning, but it would surely be far less pleasant if it started with a scolding for being late.

The three of them met in the hall and the General marched them off at a brisk pace from the front door. Cat formed an impression of paths intelligently laid out, weaving between well-tended shrubberies and surprising secret gardens tucked round corners. After about ten minutes of gentle climbing on a path of fine pink gravel, the General stopped and ordered them to turn round.

Cat gasped. From their vantage point, the abbey was visible in all its grandeur. She didn’t need any guide, not even Henry, to explain its splendour to her. The whole building enclosed a large central courtyard she hadn’t realised existed. Two sides of the quadrangle were clearly visible, their flying buttresses, lancet windows and circular towers with pointed roofs plugging directly into her fantasies of the sort of place the Hebridean Harpies would happily haunt. A stand of Scotch pines and rhododendrons obscured the other two sides, though the gentle breeze revealed occasional glimpses of red sandstone that hinted at what lay beyond. A couple of matching turrets could just be discerned. From one, the blue-and-white Scottish Saltire waved limp in the faint air. Nothing she had ever seen spoke to her deepest imaginings like this. The Morlands had visited all the local stately homes their National Trust membership granted them access to, but none had stirred her like Northanger Abbey.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ she exclaimed. ‘How lucky you are to live here. Oh, it’s just the most glorious house I’ve ever clapped eyes on.’

The General’s expression was smug. ‘We think so. Like all the Borders abbeys, it was built to the glory of God, but I do believe we’ve managed to improve on that.’