Aunt Lilian was aware – more than Aunt Kit was aware, anyway – of what might be thought a young girl’s natural preoccupations, and it was she who took me to buy clothes and lipsticks, asking the sales girls’ advice with a gentle humility that touches me now, because she was not humble by nature and thought an intense interest in personal adornment the mark of a trivial mind. But she respected what she did not know: when Richard came to visit she always made elaborate – and sometimes embarrassing – excuses to leave us alone together.

‘Richard is an absolute charmer,’ Aunt Kit said. ‘Of course, we both adore him.’

There was no reason why they should not. Richard has great charm, when he chooses to exert it. I had been touched by his kindness to my aunts, though later on it seemed more like arrogance than virtue. He bestowed his charm upon them like a beautiful and unexpected present: since they were old, the giving of it flattered him, not them.

‘It’s just that you’re so young,’ Aunt Lilian said gently, over the immeasurable gulf that stretched between her sixty years and mine.

‘Twenty isn’t young. Honestly … ’ I looked helplessly at their innocent, familiar faces: Aunt Kit’s so ravaged and white, Aunt Lilian’s so smooth, plumped out with age where Aunt Kit’s had fallen in.