I thought the solarium delightful, with its windows facing south and its walls covered in tapestry, which had no doubt been sold to Ben Henniker by my family, and I pictured my mother pacing up and down here in the gallery while they discussed how they could possibly go on living here.

Finally we came down to the hall and passed through a vestibule to what Hannah called the Parlour.

“In the very old days,” she explained, ‘this was where guests were received. ” The walls were panelled, the windows leaded, and there was a suit of armour in a corner.

“Right at the other end are the kitchens with the buttery and pantry and that sort of thing. That’s the Screens end of the hall. You’ll want to see them. Some of them go right back to the days when the house was built and that was long enough ago, goodness knows. “

She led me back across the hall to what she called the Screens a door which shut off the servants’ quarters from the hall and I was in a vast kitchen. An enormous fireplace took up almost the whole of one side. In this were bread ovens, roasting spits and great cauldrons. There was a big table with two benches, one on either side; two armchairs-wide and ornate were placed at each end of the table, and I later learned that one of these was occupied by Mrs. Bucket and the other by the butler, Mr. Wilmot.

As I entered the kitchen I was aware of whispering voices. I knew that I was being watched from some vantage point.

A large woman came smiling into the kitchen followed by three maids.

Hannah said: This is Miss Clavering Mrs. Bucket. “

“How do you do. Mis Bucket,” I replied.

“I have heard of you.”

“Is that so?” she’ asked pleased.

“Maddy who is with us often mentions you.”

“Ah, Maddy, yes. Well, Miss Clavering, this a great day for us to have one of the Family here.”

“It is wonderful for me to be here.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Bucket, ‘perhaps this is going to be a beginning.”

I felt a little embarrassed because they were all assessing me. I wondered whether they were thinking that a Clavering who had been brought up in a Dower House was not quite a true one. After all, I had never known the grandeurs of a house like this.

“I’ll never forget the day the Family told us they were going. Lined up in the Hall we were … even the stable boys.”

Hannah was signalling to Mrs. Bucket, but I blessed the plump cook for I could see that she was one who could not stop herself talking and that the sight of me in the kitchen -a Clavering -had brought back such memories that she could not stop herself recalling them.

“Of course, we’d heard it before. Money, money, money … It was affecting people all over the place. There was talk of this income tax and how it was ruining everybody. They’d already cut down in the stables. The horses they had when I first came here! And the gardeners! That’s where the cuts always have to come first . the stables and the gardens. I’ said as much to Mr. Wilmot, which he will tell you is the truth if you will ask him. I said to him. “

“It’s a long time ago, Mrs. Bucket,” interrupted Hannah.

“It seems like yesterday. Why at that time you wasn’t born, Miss Clavering. When we heard that a gentleman coming from Australia had bought the place, we couldn’t believe it. You ask Mr. Wilmot. But it was so, and then it was all different and the Claverings went to the Dower House and we wasn’t on speaking terms. And now…”

“Miss Clavering has become acquainted with Mr. Henniker,” said Hannah firmly, ‘so he asked her to tea with him. “

Mrs. Bucket nodded.

“And did you enjoy the scones. Miss Clavering? I always remember Miss Jessica…”

Hannah was staring at Mrs. Bucket as though she were Medusa herself. I could see that she was imploring her to be discreet.

But I was not going to allow that. I said: “Miss Jessica? Who was she?”

“Mrs. Bucket meant Miss Miriam. She loved the scones. Don’t you remember, Mrs. Bucket, how she’d come down to the kitchen while you were baking them?”

“She said Miss Jessica,” I insisted.

“She gets muddled sometimes over names, don’t you, Mrs. Bucket? This is Miss Jessica. It was Miss Miriam and Mr. Xavier who used to love your scones. I reckon that Mrs. Cobb’s are not a patch on yours.”

“Nobody’s was a patch on mine,” said Mrs. Bucket emphatically.

“I thought they were delicious,” I said, but I was asking myself why she had said Miss Jessica.

Hannah asked quickly if I would like to see the stables. I said I thought I’d better not, for it had just occurred to me that though my visits were supposed to be secret, some of the servants would certainly talk, so the fewer I saw the better. I could imagine my family’s consternation if it was discovered that I had become friends with Ben Henniker. I was seventeen years old, still a minor and I had to obey orders to a certain extent, rebel that I was. It was therefore better for the time being to keep my visits as secret as possible and the fewer people I saw the better.

I said it had been very interesting and I told Mrs. Bucket that I was glad to have made her acquaintance, and when I had thanked Hannah for showing me the house I left.

I felt they were watching me as I walked down the drive and was glad when I reached the bend, although then I was exposed to the road and wondered what would happen if Miriam, Xavier or my parents came along at that moment. They did not, however, and I reached the Dower House unobserved.

I kept thinking of what Mrs. Bucket had said about Jessica and the scones and I went straight to the Waste Land and found the plaque which I had stuck back into the ground with the name showing: Jessica Clavering ju . 1880.

She must be the Jessica of whom Mrs. Bucket had spoken.

All through the hot month of August I went to Oakland Hall. It was not only on Wednesdays because Ben said he disliked regularities. He liked unexpected things to happen, so he would say: “Come on Monday” or “Come on Saturday.” And sometimes I would say: “Well, that’s the church fete day’-or some such engagement-‘and they’d miss me.” Then we would make another date.

He seemed to be showing progress and could walk about more easily with the aid of his crutch. He made jokes about his false leg and called himself Ben Pegleg and said he reckoned he’d do as well with wood as most people did with flesh and blood. He used to hold my arm and we would walk along the gallery together.

Once he said to me: There ought to be family pictures here. That’s what a gallery’s for, they say. My ugly face wouldn’t add much to it.”

“It's the most interesting face I have ever seen,” I told him.

The face in question twitched at that. Underneath his tough exterior he was a very sentimental man.

He always talked a great deal and I had vivid pictures of what his life had been. He made me see the streets of London clearly and I could picture him with his bright eyes darting everywhere, discovering the best way of selling his wares and always being one step ahead of the rest. He spoke often of his mother and he was very tender then. dearly he had loved her dearly. Once I said to him: “Ben, you should have had a wife.”

“I wasn’t the marrying sort,” he replied.

“Funny thing, there was never one who was there at the right moment. Timing plays a big part in life. The opportunity has to be there; when you’re in a position to seize it I’m not going to tell’ you there weren’t women. That would be a falsehood and we want truth between us two, don’t we? I’d be with Lucy for a year or so and then just when I’d be thinking it was time I made it legal, something would happen to change it all. Then there was Betty. A good woman, Betty, but I knew it wouldn’t have worked with her either. “

“You Could have had some sons and daughters to fill the gallery.”

“I’ve got the odd one or two,” he said with a grin.

“At least they claim me as father … or did when I began to grow rich.”

“Perhaps they would have claimed you if you were a poor man.”

“Who’s to say?”

And so we talked.

I was friendly with the servants too. Mrs. Bucket had taken me to her heart. She liked to discover how Mrs. Cobb did certain things and questioned me closely. She would sit nodding in a superior way with a smirk on her lips as I talked, and I was sure she was unfair to Mrs. Cobb.

“Old Jarman would have done better to stay,” she commented.

“Look what he got. A cottage and enough children to fill it to overflowing, if you ask me. He would have been better to stay and wait for another five years. He’d have had five less to feed then.”

Wilmot after a while accepted my visits to the servants’ hall. I was sure he worked it out that although I was a Clavering I was not really an Oakland Hall Clavering for I had not been born in the great vaulted chamber where other Claverings had first viewed the world, but in a foreign land. It had lowered my status in some way, and although he treated me with respect it was tempered with a certain condescension.

I was amused and Ben and I used to laugh a great deal over it, and I would wonder how I had endured the monotony of my life in pre-Ben days.

It was as we were approaching the end of August that Ben made me uneasy. We were taking our stroll along the gallery and he was now dearly able to walk quite easily with the aid of his crutch.

“If this goes on,” he said, “I’ll be off on my travels next year.” He was aware of my consternation and hastened to reassure me.

“It won’t be this side of Christmas. I’ve got a lot more practice to do yet.”

“It will be so dull here without you,” I stammered.